Most famous Latina mom

Sylvia Guerrero, the mother of slain transgender teen Gwen Araujo, will be played by Mercedes Ruehl in the Lifetime movie The Gwen Araujo Story

I am not sure how I expected to feel at this point. When my daughter Gwen, a transgender teenager, was brutally murdered on Oct. 4, 2002, I was sure that I would never feel whole again. Looking back, I didn't yet know exactly what "transgender" meant or how to fully embrace my child's identity. But I knew one thing: I wanted justice for my child.

More on Sylvia Guerrero here

OK, so for the past few days I've been drafting a letter to Lifetime (and a post to y'all) about how dare they cast a non-Latina in the role of the most fabulous Latina mother ever. Then, of course I start checking the info on Mercedes Reuhl and find that she is described as being "of Irish and Cuban extraction."

From Latinos Icognitos:

Merecedes Ruehl can trace her roots back through her Cuban grandfather who immigrated from Zalto, Spain. She also has German and Irish heritage.

...But that doesn't make him her Spanish grandfather? Now I'm confused...
(Maybe they're erasing her Cuban grandmother in this narrative?)

And what did you do...

I feel like historically we are in an amazing time. The Immigrants Rights rallies. And yet, here I am writing about television...

Wow

Nubian has the most amazing post on why HR 4437 is a queer issue

for many folks, seeking asylum is seen as a last resort since it has its consequences. gaining political asylum, does not automatically gaurantee that you will become a u.s. citizen; you are not allowed to travel back to your home country for five years, which means leaving behind relatives and friends for that extended period of time; and because there are little public services that help with the financial aspects of starting a new life here in amerikkka, political asylum is unimaginably hard to receieve--even moreso for people who seek it on the basis of their sexual identity.

in order to prohibit asylum seekers from refuge here in the u.s., our lovely government has propositioned to enact hr 4437 (The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005) under the guise of fighting terrorism and protecting our country.

[...]

hr 4437 is not only anti-immigrant, it is anti-queer and criminalizes homosexuals from other oppressive societies abroad which persecute gays and lesbians.

some of the provisions that will directly affect queer immigrants:
"Unlawful presence" would now be considered a crime and a felony, meaning that undocumented immigrants may have to serve jail time and would be barred from future legal status and from re-entry into the country.

More from Nubian

Top Chef

Have you seen this show? It’s like Project Runway meets the Food network! Fun! Engrossing. Way too much personal drama (Bravo likes to go there: witness BlowOut) but some priceless moments.

The challenges are really imaginative and fun. Some of the contestants are just too stuck up to have fun with it. You want me to what? They did one cocktail party at Mr. S (a leather fetish shop in SoMa).

It was kind of sweet seeing some people looking at the toys saying “what do they do with that?”, and oh mi god, crazy miguel wearing this tam-o-shanter with a shaggy red wig?!

At the other end of the spectrum, they did a lunch for the boys and girls clubs of san francisco. And suddenly the queer white woman who had no trouble feeding the cocktail party guests cookies on her neck was suddenly all “this is so beneath me! I’m not going to pander to their low tastes!”

There are some fabulous people here! Miguel is one of my favorites, as is Dave. Stupid Harold should be slapped for saying he wanted to “educate” the people in the Mission by serving them seared tuna. Stupid Stephen should be slapped just because it would give me so much pleasure . (What is a sommalier doing in this competition?)

It’s as messy as most other reality shows: i.e. all the Black people have already been eliminated, with the guy being framed by the narrative of uncontrollable heterosexuality. In fact on the show where Lisa, the African American woman was eliminated, it was a choice between her and the white guy, which of course was no choice at all.

I hope granola girl gets booted out again.

Las Chamacas

So at GirlStart today the girls received letters from their penpals (who are adult volunteers in the area). Esperanza (not her real name) had forgotten that she had a penpal, and was wary about having received so chummy a letter from a stranger.

Her reply read something like this

Dear Aimee,

I don’t know you. You are not my friend. I don’t know you.

--Espy

Picture GirlStart volunteers falling over themselves with laughter. Our group leader, Guadalupe (not her real name) helped Esperanza to remember that she had previously written a letter to her penpal Aimee. Esperanza was thus persuaded to write a different letter on a more positive note.

But I liked the first one best. (doubtless for the same reason that in my favorite foto of myself I am four years old, wearing pigtails and a big scowl.)

In between gasps of laughter I gave a GirlStart affirmation: Wow, Espy, you really express yourself well in writing!

B-ware the Birds

Fabulosa Mujer wrote about flamingo and territorial geese in Lincoln Heights.

I was walking around Lake Merritt on Saturday, and saw these two white girls trying to pet a goose. I hurried away, in case un fracaso was to follow. My friend bendypalm is famous for a brawl she got into with a swan, where she ended up with a black eye.

"That wasn't a brawl" bendypalm insists. Yeah, more like an ass-whupping. B-ware the Birds.

The Girls at GirlStart

The funny thing is I went to GirlStart right after the conference. Usually I go on Tuesdays, which is a day I don’t teach. So I wear jeans, tennis shoes, sweaters or sweatshirts. Sometimes I don’t even wear makeup. I couldn’t go this Tuesday because I had a meeting, so I made arrangements to go on Thursday instead. So I get there directly from the conference, in makeup, tights, fierce boots, a skirt and blouse, and the chalchihute necklace that I wear when I need a little extra spiritual protection.

The girls were very polite, in that they didn’t say “wow, ktrion, you look like a whole 'nother person when you clean up!” But they were fascinated by the clothes, the tights, et cetera.

They were making posters for the program that day, which featured 1) a self portrait, 2) “Me gusta…” and 3) a list of the activities they like.

At first, they were all focused on the self-portrait, and a bunch of them weren’t really of themselves but of some kind of archetypal girl, looking like Arthur’s sister. (but without the animal ears) Light brown hair in a flip.



Then there were a bunch of girls who seemed inspired by BRATZ dolls, but also with a kind of artistic eye. So, instead of drawing a flip hairdo, they would just draw two long curly hairs coming out of the top of the head.

They’re really little perfectionists, too, and so sometimes they’re hesitant to do their work for fear it won’t be as good as the next girls. But they also trade off, so if Xochitl likes the way Diamante draws feet on her picture, she’ll ask Diamante to draw in the feet on hers. (not their real names)

One girl in particular, her self portrait was all about the eyes, which took up more than 1/4 of the face. Detailed eyelids, irises, etc.

But no one was putting in the activities they liked! They were too into the drawing and coloring. So I started counting when someone wrote an activity. “Mira, Libradrita tiene dos actividades!” The next thing you know, the numbers are surging, seis, siete, doce, diesiseis!“

It was a great success!

Performance: "La Karla"

La Karla
See Production Notes, Copyright, and Notice (below)

[KARLA is a tall Chicana in her twenties, dressed in Wrangler jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved cowboy shirt. Her hair is long and worn in a single braid. Deep down, she's just a girl from the ranch. Her manner is humorous; she's amused (sometimes a little embarrassed) both at being the "dyke on parade" and at having gotten herself into that position. She should definitely not be played as pleading the case for lesbianism.]


KARLA
The first time I fell in love, I was twelve years old. When I was twelve, I was five feet, five inches tall. And you know, in Northern New Mexico, being five-five makes you taller than like two-thirds of the population. And so I fell for the only person in my grade taller 'n me, who just happened to be my best friend, Marisela. Me, her, and three guys from the Valley were taller than the whole school. And we did everything together. We shared books an' we shared eyeliner. She used to do my hair, and I'd do her nails, and we did each other's makeup. Eeee, we were all glamorous--or so we thought! Now I think of it, we useta put the lipstick on real red and wet like in the magazines, so you know we musta looked like a couple of real putas.

Well, by the time we were in high school, Mari's problems always seemed to involve boys. I wasn't so much interested in guys, you know? pero, I figured I was only fifteen--a year younger than everybody--so prob'ly I just hadn't grown into it yet.

Except that Mari was even younger than me, and !Ay Dios! did that girl have boyfriends!

For the life of me, I couldn't understand it. I mean, what was all the fuss about? why would you cancel a date with your best friend to be with some guy? Pero, what the hell, I give it my best shot. I figured, if everyone and her dog was ready to change her whole life because of some guy, well then, I just wasn't trying hard enough. So I tried. I did. I changed my plans for guys, I changed my styles for guys. And the whole time I was thinking that really, everybody else felt the same as me, deep down. I mean, we changed boyfriends every couple of months, but your best friends were always your best friends. Because we really cared for women, you know?

I had sex with guys, too, of course. I mean, in the winter there's only one theater in town: it's not like there was a whole lot else to do. It was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but the earth didn't exactly move, if you know what I mean.

(Beat)
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Anyway, with Mari, it finally hit me one day, clear out of the blue.

(Con gusto)
The girl was he-te-ro-sex-u-al. Well, it had me thinking a while, I can tell you. It sure explained a lot of things. I mean, the way she felt about guys, was, well, the way I felt about her!

(Earnestly)
You know?--I'd do anything for her; I'd be wrecked if I thought she was mad at me; I'd get jealous if she didn't call me--

(with humor)
and that's the way she felt about guys!

Now, see, the way I'm telling it, it all sounds real simple. At the time, though, it was pretty much of a mess. Because, after I figured out that she was a heterosexual, it was like another year before I realized that the only reason I noticed that she was was because I wasn't. Heterosexual, I mean. And then maybe another two years before I thought, "you know, that prob'ly makes me a dyke."

(Aside)
No, prob'ly longer than that, 'cause I always thought being a lesbian meant you were a middle-aged Anglo. With a bad haircut.

(Defensive but laughing)
Well, I mean, the only women I ever knew were lesbians generally fit that description.

Now, when I'm talking about time here, I'm not counting all the different guys I went through, thinking, maybe I just hadn't met the right one. So, then add a couple more years to get out of northern New Mexico, because, much as I love la tierra encantada, it's not exactly la tierra prometida para las jotas, you know? And when you're just coming out, you need lots of folks telling you it's okay to be, you know, queer. What you don't need is the familia freaking out, or telling you it's just a phase, or even that it's a sin. I mean, you've already gone through that shit; you don't need somebody else throwing it at you all over again.

(Realizing she's forgotten an important point)
And, of course, you wanna be around a lot of other dykes.

I prob'ly could've moved to Albuquerque instead of to Denver, but girl! everybody in small town New Mexico moves to 'Burque. So it wouldn't really be like getting away, you know? More like living with your madrina instead of with your ma: Everybody still knows your business. So for me, Denver's a lot better. And the first time I walked into a lesbian bar, there weren't any of those middle-aged Anglo women with bad haircuts.

(Beat)
Well, hardly any. Of course, there weren't so many big-haired Chicanas, either, but it depends on the bar. One time, I walked into the Metro and there was this little drag queen--and girl! his hair was big! I mean, it was huge! I mean, it was up to here!

(Indicates an impossible height)
And the makeup! !Ay Dios! if I wore that much eyeliner when I was seventeen--Eeee! you know, I prob'ly did!--it's a wonder mi gramita could keep a straight face.

(Returning to her earlier point)
Anyway, being around those other dykes is really important. Because it was one thing for me to say, hey, I really like being around women more than around men--that's actually no big deal. Everybody feels that way--But it's something else when you feel your body tingling all over from just being around somebody. Because, you know, hanging out with your friends is really great. Pero, sometimes, you get that empty feeling in your arms, and you just need to hold a woman close. And feel the shape of her body.

(She closes her eyes)
And put your face against her neck. And smell her skin. And smell her hair. And you just want to kiss her till she can't breathe no more.

[Long pause. KARLA opens her eyes and comes back, obviously embarrassed at having gotten carried away]

I haveta say, though, I'm glad to be alive today. In this day and age, I mean. I keep thinking of what it was like twenty-thirty years ago. I mean, my tio Eloy says he had a prima who was a lesbian: a real macha who worked in construction and supported her wife. But that was back in L.A. What if you were in someplace like Anton Chico, or Trujillo, or Espanola? And what if you actually did manage to find the only other lesbian in town and you two did not hit it off? Can you imagine? I mean, unless you move away to Los Angeles or someplace, you'd either have to make the best of it or take your chances on straight women. And me, personally? I'd rather take a bath in chile colorado than take my chances on straight women.

Which is pretty funny, when you think about it. Because then there are these women like my damn cousin Josie. Every time we see each other at a family party or something, she looks at me like, !Ay! that nasty jota Karla is going to put the moves on me! And I wonder, What is she thinking? Next time, I'm just gonna tell her,

(With attitude)
Josie, if you were the last woman on earth, I'd be celibate.

[Black out]

Production Notes, Copyright, and Notice

Production Notes--"La Karla" was first performed on March 24, 1992, at the Eulipions Theater in Denver as part of Amor Picante Pero Sabroso by the Latina Lab of Su Teatro. The role of Karla was played by Susana Cordova.

Copyright © 1992 by Catrióna Rueda Esquibel

Previously published in Voces: A Journal of Chicana/Latina Studies, Volume 2, Number 1. April 1998, 128-32.

Contact Ktrion if you're interested in performing "La Karla" and/or all her cousins in the full-length play, Familia Is a Story We Make Up.

Look for "Entre Dos Luces," another excerpt from Familia Is a Story We Make Up in the Summer 2006 issue of the zine JOTA.

Whew!

OK, I have officially made it to the the 3/4 point in my first academic year at SF State.
(my third job. my sixth year since I filed my diss)

Today is César Chávez Day, and next week is spring break.

I get to catch up on my sleep. I get to clean my room, do laundry, dry clean my clothes, help my baby with yard work, do grocery shopping, file our taxes, plan my autumn classes, pull my cats’ tails, go to a movie or go dancing, read something just for fun, write that book review that’s overdue, and not think about any faculty drama for ten days.

Foto from Watsonville

A Woman of Color, a Person of Faith...

No, I’m not here to testify.

I’m urging you to write to your senators to express your opposition to HR 4437, to tell them that you’re NOT, actually, asking their opinion on the issue but telling them that the bill is MORALLY WRONG.

(So many times the responses I get to such letters--patronizing in the extreme--tell me why they have taken the opposite position of what I am suggesting and why. So I feel compelled to point out that I already know their professed stance and am actually taking issue with it, not asking for a justification.)

Below I have a sample letter to a senator from Sojourners, which is a progressive Christian evangelical group. I myself am not a Christian but back when I lived in Ohio, I regularly used the sample letters from Sojourner because I thought that they would be more likely to be taken seriously by my conservative representatives in Congress. And also that the term “as person of faith” while effectively describing my religious views would be incorrectly interpreted to mean, “as a God-fearing Christian.”

So the operative phrase in this letter is:

As a person of faith, I urge you to...

When I was feeling feisty, I would often change that phrase to:

As a woman of color, I urge you to...

But as I did so, I usually acknowledged that the reader would thus consign the letter to the “not my constituents” trashpile.

Part of me wonders why “woman of color” is seen as a less legitimate position from which to speak than “person of faith,” especially given that “Freedom of Religion” is one of the alleged cornerstones of our democracy.

• Q:For how long in this country have non-Christian people of color had the right to practice their faith without government interference?
  
• A: Less than thirty years, since the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.

Foto courtesy of YoMo

A slap in the face..

Is it just me or is the rhetoric all beginning to sound the same?

• A)Amnesty for undocumented immigrants would be a slap in the face for all those who entered this country legally.
  
  
• B) Allowing same sex couples to marry is an attack on the institution of marriage.
  
  

As stupid as we know B to be, it is uniquely effective in firing up the homofobic base of the Republican party.

Notice that no one is asking recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America if they feel this alleged slap in the face.

Rather, what they’re doing, is playing upon the fact the the US system of (health, education, welfare, justice, etc) already excludes majority-minority populations of ITS OWN CITIZENS, and that therefore these disenfranchised citizens will lose even more 1) if undocumented immigrants are added to their number while at the same time implying 2) undocumented immigrants will be given MORE rights than they.

But what I think the politicians are really saying--in both cases--is that extending rights to disenfranchised groups is “a slap in the face” to those who’ve always regarded those rights as part of their own privilege.

• Q:For how long in this country have heterosexual people of color had the right to marry any person of the opposite sex whom they loved?
  
• A: Less than forty years, since Loving v. Virginia, 1967.

I’ve been teaching Beloved and reading Mosquito—in which Gayl Jones argues that assisting refugees from Mexico and Central America is the work of the New Underground Railroad--and I can’t help seeing the similarities between HR 4437 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.

Part of me feels like that’s a messy comparison to make. But another part of me feels like NOT making it is buying into this whole “slap in the face” ideology.

L*, the human Richter scale

So, Tuesday while both L* and I were home there was what I always refer to as a “house-creaking” and L* called out promptly “Earthquake!”

How big do you think that was?

L*: 3.2 at least
K: No way. Somewhere in the twos.

L: I’ll bet you! What do you want to bet?

The upshot of this is that if the magnitude was less than 3.2, L* would make fish tacos within the next seven days. And if it were 3.2 or greater, K would make smothered New Mexico burritos (green).

It was 3.7 (initially reported as a 3.8).

So you know what I’m cooking this weekend.

On a good-sport note, L* made fish tacos for dinner last night.
Yummy!

The Senator from California says...

No, not the real Senator from California. I'm still stuck in TV-land.


I’m trying to track down Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda)’s description of California as the micro/macrocosm that is America from Sunday’s West Wing.

Amended: March 27

Vinick: The one state that has everything: big cities, small towns, mountains, deserts, farms, factories, fishermen, surfers, all races, all religions, gay, straight, everything this country has. There's more real America in California than anywhere else. If I can win California I can win the country.

Bruno: That's a nice speech just don't say it into any microphones. Because everyone else in the 49 other states thinks that California is a giant psycho ward.

Every Day is a Fiesta with Latinos!

(and other lessons learned from THE L-WORD)

Okay, let me just start by saying, in that bad queer-girl way, that I don’t always know where I end and my beloved partner-in-crime beings. I mean, I know, I know:

Two separate people
Two separate bodies

and lovers shouldn’t merge, outside the obvious.

But honestly, when laying in bed in the dark, discussing a movie you’ve just seen, who’s to say who said what first?

So, some of my L-Word ramblings come from L*s mouth, and really she should be blogging them, but she’s not so I am. Standard boilerplate disclaimer (i.e. credit her with the stuff that’s correct and fault me for whatever’s just plain wrong)

We’re about one episode behind on the L-word, but the last couple we watched both featured interactions between Carmen, Shane, and Carmen’s grandmother.

First, may I just say it’s a pleasure to see Latinas on the little screen. In my head I’ve been going through the permutations necessary to introduce to have a Chicana/o actor--they have the Chicana played by the Persian, which would be followed by the Haitian played by an African American, then an East Coast African American played by a Nuyorican, then a Persian played by a Chican@.

But look! See all those Spanish surnames in the opening credits? Is it possible we’re going to the oldest lesbian bar in the LA area, in the heart of Pico Rivera?

No, of course not. That would imply that there’s a whole world of Latina Lesbians who neither know nor care about Helena Peabody.

No, those Spanish surnames mean we’re going to the house of Carmen’s mama, where EVERY DAY IS A FIESTA. Because yes, according to Hollywood, if you’re going to show Latinos, you’re going to show a big crowd of them with a lot of food. Because Latinidad is ALL ABOUT FAMILIA. and COMIDA.

I confess to a passionate crush on the cigar-smoking grandma who tells her daughter, “orale, Mercedes, you’re daughter’s a dyke. so cute, those marimachas.” (well, she would if *I* were writing the dialogue).

So there’s the scene where Carmen’s grandma admires Shane’s tattoo and says Carmen’s is just like it, and se aparecen como anillos de matrimonio. Or, to translate for the English-only viewer“

Carmen’s grandmother says SOMETHING IN SPANISH, that leads to significant looks from the mother, which precipitates a scene of confrontation and homofobia.

See, part of me was actually foolish enough to believe that the Spanish-speaking viewer was actually being interpellated into the ”familia knows“ subtext, but that foolish expectation was brought up short by the one-two punch ”Mama’s gonna fix Shane up with a man because LATINOS HATE QUEERS!“

Mejor puta que lesbiana

Of course, mouthy child that I am, the responses that run through my head are ”Are you sure Ma? ‘Cause you already got a bunch of putas I thought you might like a little variation“--since the skinny bitch sisters in the familia SO don’t have Carmen’s back.

Then I was thinking about how every season they have to have the straight white male viewer watching. (Jenny’s boyfriend, then the roommate video cam guy, and now--Dylan’s husband, although Kit’s manwich is fitting in really nicely)

Not that I think they think ”straight white guy“ but rather ”straight guy,“ since they have to work really hard to remember that people of color ARE Los Angeles.

Or, wait, how about their attention to class issues? Because suddenly hairdresser and dj are top-dollar jobs, and then the only overtly ”working class“ character is a big ol’ MOOCHER. Mooching off her/his girlfriend and expecting the rich bitches to pay for his surgery.

But they were all cute in their prom outfits, weren’t they?

A model letter to your Senator

(This sample letter lifted wholesale from Sojourner’s Compassion, not Criminalization Campaign)

Dear Senator ____________:

I am writing to express my concern for immigrants in this country and the churches, community organizations, and civic institutions that help them. As you know, the House of Representatives passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) in December. This bill, if enacted into law, would expand the definition of smuggling so broadly that anyone who aids undocumented immigrants, even in providing basic services, could be legally prosecuted. This law penalizes many faith-based organizations that provide direct services to those in need.

As a person of faith, I urge you to pursue compassion instead of criminalization. I hope you will reject punitive measures that harm immigrants and those who help them. Over the coming days and weeks, the Senate Judiciary Committee - and possibly the full Senate - will consider immigration proposals.

I am concerned about the Senate Judiciary Committee bill, currently being debated, as well as legislation reportedly being introduced by Majority Leader Bill Frist. Either bill might ultimately include all or many of these provisions: deny refugees adequate protection if they have used false documentation to escape an oppressor, impose a guilty until proven innocent standard for immigrants, and limit judicial review. Both efforts also fail to provide a path to citizenship for hard-working undocumented immigrants; instead merely creating a permanent subclass of guest workers.

Please oppose any bill resembling HR 4437. Instead of approving legislation with any of these troubling provisions, I hope that you will urge your colleagues, especially Majority Leader Frist and those on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to support comprehensive immigration reform that works to unite families, reward work, and create opportunities for all. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing your response to this matter.

A little office music

The guy in the next office, I have unofficially nicknamed “the cougher.” He coughs in his office all the time. I’ve made a mental note to myself to

1. take the vacuum into the office if I ever start coughing, and
   
2. leave a packet of cough drops outside his door
   

I know I won’t do the latter because that seems mean. But anytime I settle into my office and he’s there, the cough distracts me. Like the dog barking next door. (not the dog at the office, XlB, who is a fluffy black chow who never barks, but will occasionaly “whuff” like a bear. more like the dog in my neighborhood who sort of bawls all day long. drives me nuts)

So I play a little office music. I have to pick the right something, since obviously, i don’t want the music to distract me in place of the coughing, but rather to provide a filter. My regular choices are the Virgin of Guadalupe albums from the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (indigenous-mestizo music from the early colonial period in Mexico, played with period instruments or a capella). When I was in NM, I copied a disk of my mom’s, Chopin and Champagne, which also works. Yo-Yo Ma is often too intense--I’m more likely to play that when I want to get my mind off something else.

But today I remembered a gift from my soon-to-be-sister *u*u, a 3-disk set of music of the Seven Stringed Harp (which is women’s instrument) by Ming Qn-Zhang Zqan. So I’m loading it onto my computer for protection from coughs. (or, at least I’m loading the first two disks. Number three is unaccountably being rejected.

BJR

[ave maria]


our lady who crushes serpents
our lady of lamentations
our lady full of grace whose weeping statues bleed,
our lady who makes the sun dance, pray for us

our lady of salt pilgrimage
our lady of building demolition
our lady of crack houses
santa maria, madre de dios, pray for us sinners

our lady of unbroken hymens
preteen vessel of god’s seed
your uterus is a blessed receptacle.

our lady of neon strip joints
our lady of blowjobs in kerouac alley
our lady of tricked out street kids, pray for us

blessed mother of cholo tattoos
you are the tightest homegirl

our lady of filas and lipliner
our lady of viernes santo procession
our lady of garbage-sifting toothless men
our lady of urban renewal’s blight

pray for us sinners        ipanalangin n’yo kamin makasalanan
now and at the hour        ngayon at kung
of our death               kami ay mamamatay

amen

Barbara Jane Reyes

You can also read her poem “Eve’s Aubade” online at Boxcar Poetry Review

She has a blog and two books and she rocks

Year of the Rabbit?

[Cool graphic from Enrique's Web Pages]

So in our household, we academic poch@s xican@s read in the SF Chronicle that in the Aztec Calendar, this weekend marked the new year, Tochtli, the Year of the Rabbit. We're kind of wondering "is this for real"-- i.e. is this an ongoing movement, or is this a contemporary re-claiming. Which is also our questions about danzantes, matachines, and Aztec Dancers, Do these all refer to the same thing. I'll have to ask the two people I know doing research on this, Elisa and Norma.

(I've always loved how tuff these rabbits look! My sister and I used to tease each other about killer rabbits, and that's what these tochtli look like, like they could kick some predator butt)

Sick and tired of being sick and tired?

Sonrisa posted about being tired of being tired. That got my brain running down channels, Isn’t it that a saying of Black Women’s Health? I know it’s the title of Susan Smith’s history of Black Women’s Health Activism, but for me the phrase invokes the Black Women’s Health Imperative.

I've been feeling rundown and tired, too, because I've been missing my weekend walks. Partly the weather--you know we had snow in the Bay Area this weekend?--and partly family commitments that take up weekend workout time. My mother-outlaw (M-O) and father-outlaw (F-O) just gave L* and I this beautiful calendar from the Native American Wellness Center--which highlights the importance of vegetables in Indian America.

So because of the rain, and because of this pressure I feel in my forehead--a symptom of the pressure I feel in my life--I’ve been thinking I need to find an exercise alternative to long walks. Long walks on a treadmill are sounding really good to me right now--with the right tunes or an audiobook, or even just my head.

I had made an appointment to check out a commercial gym near work, but I’m not really keen on it, and I especially don’t want to get a membership and then not use it. So my goals for this week are to check out the gym on campus, and at the Native American Wellness Center, which I walk past on my way to BART and work. The hours for the latter are a little bit limited (10am-5pm i think) but that would actually work well on my non-work days (Tuesday-Thursday this semester) and I could either walk there or catch the bus. Downside to the campus gym is hauling another bag (workout clothes, shoes, etc) to and from work every day.

I’ll keep you posted on my fitness developments.

Speaking of books I’ve been afraid to read...

I bought Fledgling--Octavia Butler’s vampire novel--right when it came out. Read the first chapter and put it away. (I had classes to prep for, etc.).

so after hearing of Butler’s death, one of the first things I had to do was read Fledgling. Because it went from being her latest novel to her last novel. And you know how authors hate it when they’ve just come out with a new book and you only want to talk about the one they wrote twenty years ago!

Now, first off, let me just say that I want to slug all the reviewers who think that Butler is the first to write an African American woman vampire. Hello! Jewelle Gomez: The Gilda Stories, 1991. Just because you ain’t read it doesn’t mean it ain’t been done.

But Butler’s Fledgling--I mean, obviously you can see the patterns of her other writings in this book. For me, anyway, the construct ooloi comes most forcibly to mind. But the Patternmaster novels too, and of course the re-ocurring themes of community and (most explicitly here) symbiotic relationships.

But I really didn’t want this novel to end. Partly because it has the potential for a whole series of books. And partly--again--because it’s the last one.

Free Enterprise

I read Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise yesterday. The whole book. I’ve had it for prob’ly a year, and I know I’ve read the first chapter before this but for some reason stopped there. As I was reading it yesterday, I realized that a dream I wrote about last July,--the Black Bonnet Dream, the House scene, anyway--is totally from this book. La Vieja Ines in the coal scuttle bonnet is prob’ly MEP in the attic where Annie lay upon the slave-pieced coverlet.

Yesterday I picked it up to read on the commute home, and I was just delighted at how smart--brilliant--and welcoming this book is to me. The funny thing is I’m feeling now that Aurora Levins Morales must have read this book as she was writing Remedios. (Free Enterprise was first published in 1993, Remedios was published in 1999, though I remember Levins Morales doing a reading from the manuscript [dissertation] in Santa Cruz in 1997.) They’re doing a lot of the same things--weaving together stories of different women of color, or rather showing how they’re already interwoven.

There’s real rich history texturing this novel. You can see the tremendous poet that Cliff is, but it doesn’t take away from the brilliant crafting of this novel.

Why am I sometimes afraid of reading books? I could have been enriched by this book for 13 years (if I’d known about it), or at least six, since the first time I heard about it was when the author of Granny Midwives was telling me about her next project.

The first book I admitted to being afraid of reading was Felicia Luna Lemus’ Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. I was just finishing my book at the time, and L* suggested that I should read Lemus because, she said, “I think this is the next thing.” (i.e. what comes after the late 20th-century construction of Chicana lesbian that I look at in my book). And that was just too intimidating for me, like the novel would potentially make everything I said in my book already-obsolete.

Guest Post: A bird looking for her song

I read your blog and since I am not a blogger I couldn't respond on the blog.

I had problems with anger since it was not the lady like thing to do or not acceptable for girl children to have a voice in my family or in the Catholic school system in the 1950s.

When I confessed my sins--like I was being molested by a adult--the priest called me a sinner and stared me down next day at mass. So at 10 years young I kept my mouth shut, since then I had many sore throats from eating my sins. My relief was my best friend Yogi, my dog. He was a good listener and still loved me.

As a young woman I was kidnapped and raped, luckily I was kept alive and I think it was because I didn't say a word. I ate my fear and became immobile.
What was anger? What was happiness? What was joy?

I was the perfect lady. My family was proud of me.

Who was I?

Time passed quietly.......

Then a friend came along and shared her pain with me , I opened my wound and she allowed me to cry and to be angry. My friend was me and since then I have been talking till I had no need because I had me and some good listeners. I try to surround myself with friends now instead of isolation and depression. I am thankful for birds, pets, L*, Yo, Yo2 Bec, and countless listeners.

I am not the perfect lady and my family is proud of me.

The priest can go to hell !!!!

This has been a guest post by YoMo

Why don't you tell me these things?

Okay, when I write things like this why doesn't anyone tell me that Dolly Parton wrote and sings the themesong to Transamerica so that I don't go on making a fool of myself. Oh well!

The maddest I've ever been

The maddest I've ever been was prob'ly eleven or twelve years ago, when I had moved in with my friends after the cheating ex had done the cheating ex thing. And she had the nerve to call me there and tell me she was coming over.

And I hurled myself in my truck and drove all of about three blocks to the Pacific Super--which is a most fabulous asian supermarket at Alemany @San Jose--you can see it from the BART--and where you can buy coconut ice cream and balikbayan boxes, and tremendous produce, and pan de leche, but no tortillas--and I get out in the parking lot and proceed to grab shopping carts and smash them into one another. SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH. a great feeling of destruction without actually destroying anything. i mean, shopping carts are pretty sturdy little vehicles, and part of their design is for them to smash into one another. SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH.

I was that mad today. I had visions of shopping carts. and my brain was sending me one message: call L*. She was there and it made all the difference

and it was 5 minutes before I had to teach a class, and i had visions of smashing those desks into one another. But L* had given me me a lifeline, and guess what, class isn't all about me. Plus I looked into their little (20-year-old) faces and remembered how last class they were saying how I'm not a scary profe

if they only knew how much work it is to keep the scary well-hid! that the scary demon inside of me could turn their hair white with words alone...

It's hard to get the pimp outta your head

If, like me, you’ve had 3-6 mafia’s song running through your head since Sunday night, may I suggest the following remedies:

• Ru Freeman on Oscar Night
  
  
• Elizabeth Sy, What I didn’t learn in Women’s Studies Class (Thanks to BFP for front-paging this!)
  
  
• Nubian’s post it’s hard out here for a blogger
  
  

I also spent some time listening to Me’Shell NdegeOcello, and pondering the ”need to redefine what it means to be free.“

The best part about taking public transportation

The best part of taking public transportation is not the virtuous glow i feel, knowing that there’s one less car on the road. Nor is it the jazzed feeling i get walking to BART from my house in the morning--even though that’s an essential part of my day. Nor is it the fact that I’m almost always early to where I’m going. I’ve only been late once this academic year and it took several bad decisions in a row for that to happen.

I drove in one Friday last month and the hardest thing about the whole long and stressful experience was trying to stay awake the 1 1/2 hour drive home in stop-and-go traffic.

No, the best part of taking public transportation--BART in particular--is that at the end of a really long day, you can sleep all the way home. And I did.



ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

Don't Arrest Me!

I saw one of my students wearing the fabulous t-shirts that say


and on the back

Don't Arrest Me!
End Racial Profiling at the University

Setting the record straight on Dianne, or, HR 4437--not to be confused with H5N1

In my earlier post about the Manifestacion Pro-Inmigrante, I inadvertently confused two separate messages from my dear Pen Pal.

Dear Ms. Ktrion:

Thank you for writing to me about the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" (H.R. 4437). I appreciate hearing your views on this bill and the issue of immigration, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

The House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437 on December 16th and the bill was then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration. The Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member, may consider immigration reform legislation this year. Chairman Specter has already expressed an interest in crafting a comprehensive immigration reform bill based on pending Senate bills.

I do not support H.R. 4437, the House passed bill. Although this bill is not presently scheduled for hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, I do not anticipate that the Senate will pass it in its present form. Know that I will keep your comments in mind as the Senate moves forward on immigration reform.

Again, thank you for writing. I hope that you will continue to write to me on issues of importance to you.

Best regards.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

and so you see that Dianne does not support HR 4437, and that at least is a good thing. the other message with which I confused it was regarding amnesty for undocumented workers:

Dear M. Ktrion:

Thank you for writing me about a possible blanket amnesty. I appreciate hearing from you.

I do not support blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. As the daughter of a Russian immigrant, I understand the hope and the optimism with which countless others view our country. I believe America is rooted in a tradition of newcomers working hard and building a better life for themselves and their families. We must balance this tradition, however, with our ability to integrate new immigrants into the American society that follow the proper channels to legal immigration. Our ability to accept immigrants and our immigration policy must support and strengthen families, create economic opportunities, increase scientific and cultural resources, and fulfill humanitarian commitments.

Again, thank you for writing to me. If you have any further questions or comments on this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to call my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

As the daughter of Russian immigrants and as the Senator from California, Dianne ought to be aware of the pro-European, anti-American [meaning Latin/Indigenous America] bias to US immigration policies. We in the College of Ethnic Studies would be more than happy to arrange a lesson. Right after the SFPD has its lesson on racial profiling.

Consumption (no, not the fatal lung disease)

According to All Consuming, I’ve now been reading Almanac of the Dead for 23 weeks. I’m really into it right now. Of course I’m reading it in the evenings in the tub, and it’s pretty hard to drag me out of there. The Marxist was just hung for crimes against indigenous people’s history.

You know what drives me crazy? When I’m reading a book and totally loving it and thinking “no way could I ever teach this in a class.”

Awaiting L*s return from a late meeting, I finally got all caught up on Project Runway! It was a little disappointing, though, because as i was watching the episodes with the final five and the final four, the ads for the big weekend finale listed the names of the final three. oh well. Lost one who i really liked. Kept one just to keep the drama, I'm sure.

Today I turned the compost heap. It stinks. It’s not degrading. I mean, it’s not breaking down into rich stuff for garden soil. I’m this close to throwing the whole thing in the Yard Waste bin and starting from scratch.

Did you get your cenizas on?

I did not get my cenizas on. I might have L* do them for me when she gets home. We do this some years, because I like the significance and the ritual, but no longer necessarily feel the need for a priest.

Still, I shoulda gone to Sta Elizabeths, just to be around the people.

On the walk to BART this morning I saw many happy people who had just come from there and were now enjoying tamales or champurrado or pupusas or elotes from the street vendors. The funny thing is, I think the priest there must have little thumbs or something because most of the cruces de ceniza looked like little tattoos.

My day was hell and included tears in public. Oh well, at least it shows I’m human. (apparently something people are in danger of forgetting. it must be all those superhuman skills I have, like running up the escalator in high-heeled boots. although today I didn’t even have my lipstick with me, so i was practically already kryptonited even before the meeting)

a famous quote by another junior colleague:

There’s a fine line between productivity and alcoholism.

OK, I guess I’ll wait till L* gets home before I have that glass of wine, just so I don’t feel like I’m on the wrong side of that line.

Isn’t machafemme a cool mami?

Throwing Up for My Daughter Raeden

Throwing up, for my daughter Raeden, was not such an unusual occurrence that it would frighten her (or me) if it happened to happen at McDonald’s on a Saturday afternoon in La Jolla, CA. In fact, throwing up, for my daughter Raeden, was such a usual occurrence – and had been for all 15 months of her beautiful life – that when it did happen at McDonald’s on a Saturday afternoon in La Jolla, CA, no one was frightened except for everyone but us. Partially masticated, thoroughly processed pieces of hamburger and french fries made wet with the water used to wash them down and the wonderful mystery-fluids of Raeden’s baby insides, for some reason, were just too much to bear for the folks at McDonald’s that Saturday afternoon in La Jolla, CA. I like thinking about that day because it re-members for me, the right that Raeden and I have, that I forget (and that she hasn’t been made to forget, yet) to be where we are as we are, whether throwing up or swallowing the shit we get at McDonald’s on Saturday afternoons in La Jolla, CA.

One bite into my quarter-pounder with not-exactly-cheese, I look up to her eyes starting to water and that cough that’s almost a warning, and ask, “Do you need to throw up, honey?” And she answers with the first splat of it. No fear. No tears. She keeps eye contact with me, reads my reaction that tells her it’s all o.k. It’s all o.k. Let your body do what it does. You don’t have to be afraid.” I say, “Go ahead, honey.” “Do you have some more?” She does. She has more and more and more. Enough to soak herself and the pictures of Ronald McDonald and Hamburglar on her high chair with. Enough to flood and spill out over my cupped palms, which I hold out to her. She retches into them. But still no fear. No tears. No shame, despite the woman at the next table wishing it on us. I hear a shameless “Isn’t she going to do something?” And I answer by holding Raeden’s vomit, lovingly. I say, “It’s o.k. It’s all o.k.” And it is. It is despite the snap I feel in me. And it is, even as the familiar disgust of all eyes on me with my brown baby tinges my calm with rage. Raeden is now done. But I decide that I’m not.

I am grateful for the wheels on her high chair that make it easy for us to travel the long way around the restaurant, passing every table on the way, to the trash can. Gliding happily, we sing “twinkle, twinkle little star,” a little louder than usual. I help Raeden out of her clothes, free her from their sogginess, announce her peanut-butter skin while she giggles with the pleasure of it. I am grateful for this moment we are making, for our harmony at show time. Because they are still watching us. I toss Raeden’s shirt in the trash can and enjoy the gasps. How can we afford to throw clothes away? They wonder. When are we going to leave? “Ooops. We forgot to order Daddy’s food. Have to stand in line.” We do. I pull her from her high chair and decide I’ll take care of the drying liquid on her face when we get home. I’ll wipe my hands then, too. In the meantime, we’ll stand in front of this 60-something white man hating us and take our time figuring out how it was that Daddy said he wanted his hamburger and what it was he wanted to drink. “Wave to the nice man, Raeden.” She does, giving him a triumphant smile. He wants to spit.

This has been a guest post by machafemme on the occasion of the second Radical Women of Color Blog Carnavál.

Submitted to the Radical Women of Color Carnival : RadicalWoC2

CNN from New Orleans

If you’re writing down stupid racist remarks in your commonplace book, CNN will provide much fodder today. As the post-Katrina Disneyfication of New Orleans continues you will find CNN interviewing such important cultural critics as the editor of Vogue who said “you can’t help but notice the absence of African Americans” and in the same breath describe the event as “a kindler, gentler Mardi Gras” Several of the reporters talk about the new “family friendly” atmosphere.

So far the most shocking thing I’ve seen has been the Zulu Crew float, full of white men in blackface, being described as a “really integrated crew.”

Octavia Butler has died...

I just found out that Octavia Butler has died.

I thank you,
for coming into our lives
for painting women of color in the future
for God as Change, Chaos, Clay
for Dana and showing us how we're always-already compromised
for Lilith who looks her man in the face and says "of course I know why I was chosen"
for your so seductive first construct ooloi
for your women who never look like starlets
for giving us the universe (and that one over there, too)
for driving me to pack a bag for under the bed

near-poem written after running for the bus, realizing i forgot eyeliner (again), and thinking of my beautiful cousins

my branch has never produced a beauty queen
not that we haven't any beauty,
with our dark eyes
dark hair
cheekbones out to there

we brush our hair
we put on makeup
with one eye on the clock
looking over our shoulder
at the work to be done

Painting a smile over a mouth
firm and determined

who has
hours to labor
over just the right combination
of pearl and glitter
light and shadow

our eyes weaken
from the monitors, the tiny print
our lines embed
from problem-solving
negotiating

when each day means more than what to wear
how we look
is part of the journey
not the destination

Rally for Immigrant Rights

On December 16th, the US House of Representatives passed HR 4437, one of the most anti-immigrant legislative proposals in recent memory. The proposed legislation would make it a felony to be in the US without proper documents.

The proposal now goes before the Senate.

Joins us for a rally to defeat HR 4437

That’s what we’re up to in Fruitvale today. I’ve written to the Senators about this bill and of course my good friend Dianne Feinstein always writes back that as the granddaughter of Russian immigrants she appreciates the struggle immigrants face but believes that we must have strong rules for those who enter the country illegally. Cabrona.

Now I have to go for my walk early, because my back has been a disaster this week (I didn’t walk last weekend) and my nerves were in tatters. Exercise, my daughter. Be strong, smart, and bold! Stand tall!

Shout out to Big Brown Girl

Hey, BBG, I saw
this article and immediately thought of your co-worker!

Credible research exists that strongly suggests that adopted children raised in Republican households, though significantly wealthier than their Democrat-raised counterparts, are more at risk for developing emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, an alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves, and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.

For those unfamiliar with the story of BBG's co-worker, see here and here.

Have you seen my marbles?

L* said:

Sometimes I think I’m losing my marbles. And other times, it turns out that you’ve moved them.

So I know I read on a woman of color blog somewhere about how offensive it was on Desperate Housewives, the Alfre Woodard character talks about “putting down” her child, in the same episode where Eva Longoria buys the affection of a Chinese immigrant woman with a silver bracelet. (And, by the way, could THE MYTH OF THE BLACK RAPIST be any more in play in this show? )

Can I find said post anywhere now that I’m looking for it?

No, of course not.

do any women of color blogs come up when i try to google for it?

No, of course not.

And I’m really looking for it. Because, I don’t know. Stupid shows do and say racist things all the time. And is it a waste of time and energy to discuss them?

I don’t know.

But I do know that on American Idol, judge Simon Cowell described Filipino performer Jose “Sway” Penala as being “too pimp-y”. Oh, that’s right, when white boys sing Earth, Wind, and Fire and wear velvet or a sharp chapeau, they are “the bomb” and when a Black, or Latino, or FIlipino does it that “pimp-y.” Because people of color are only cool when appropriated by whitepeople or when appearing in white face.

PS the vote on Paula Abdul

Do you think Paula Abdul's face doesn't move when she talks because a) Botox is paralyzing her facial muscles or b) she's on major drugs?

appears to be C) all of the above.

And other people must be saying it too, because you could really see her smiling more last night, in spite of the paralysis.

GRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr!

Bad time at the DMV today. Don’t ask.

Anaesthesiologists

Will anesthesiologists bring an end to capital punishment in California? We can only hope.

Playing with the “logic” of capital punishment, L* wonders why they don’t just use morphine as the painkiller. As they do with assisted-suicided. Do you think they they don’t want “capital punishment” to be used in the same sentence as “assisted-suicide”?

Canciones

Mariposa Atomica just related the funniest story about looking for a song. When I was in Mexico, I heard a song on the bus that I really liked, and I tried Mariposa Atomica’s solution with the proprietors of El Barecito Cafe, but of course I didn’t know either the words or the tune (!) so I was much less successful.

Too much American Idol!

Two hours is way too long. Don't know that I'll have the energy to sit through the boys tonight. (Although I still have to finish the fringe on the prayer shawl I'm crocheting, so who knows?) Why do you think all the Anglo girls were styled and dressed alike?

Hurray for Paris singing Midnight Train to Georgia.

Do you think Paula Abdul's face doesn't move when she talks because a) Botox is paralyzing her facial muscles or b) she's on major drugs?

Screened three awful videos on American Indians in the 19th Century yesterday. Going with the lesser of the evils and going to direct my students in how it constructs authority and knowledge before they view it.

And then, in the science fiction class, ST:TNG, Birthright, Pt. Klingon nationalism. It's no coincidence that Worf is wearing a black turtleneck through the whole episode. And contrast Picard's assertion that Data is "a culture of one, no less valid than a culture of one billion" and Ba'El, the mixed-race woman of color who must remain in the prison colony because her very existence troubles all existing paradigms.

Almanac of the Dead

Yes, it's time for my bi-monthly report on Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead. Page 422. I've reached another part where I just want to be reading it aloud to L*. Vietnam Vets, conspiracy theories, biomatter. That silko: she's a genius! Not only does she write the million-page novel by writing half-a-million two-page stories, she's callin' out the orishas and the corn mothers, and all the stops. I had to drag myself out of the bath tonight (where I do all my pleasure reading). Especially 'cause it's deep in New Orleans and Black Indians right now, and Black Studies classes at UNM. Lovin' this book. Oh, come on, it's not that long. When I was an MA student I took a Victorian lit class, now those were some long-ass no-fun novels. Me, I was cackling in the tub at Silko.

It's funny that I read Gardens in the Dunes before this one. Because she plays some of the same cards, but like for a whole different audience. Gardens would work very well with the Oprah crowd. The Oprah-Martha crowd, that is. I love Gardens in the Dunes. Still haven't taught it effectively, but I could if I had a graduate ethnic lit class. (witness the masochism of the victorian lit!)

So today I was imagining how podcasts could/could not work if me and my billion-dollar budget and my queer friends were to make a blockbuster film from this novel. Tropic of Orange too! Even if I don't think Guillermo Gomez-Peña is strong enough to hold up the end of a novel, the more I think about Tropic of Orange the more I like it. L* taught it this quarter in her class. I was too chicken. Coulda shoulda woulda.

Cowboys...

Okay, on Wednesday, February 1, Lorca Loca posted this picture of him at age six (?) in a cowboy shirt and with saddles embroidered on the yoke.

My comments:

Ay, qué cute.

All the hullabaloo over Brokeback mountain has me wondering if Annie Proulx ever heard the Pansy Division Song...

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other--
What did you think those saddles and boots was about?
There’s many a cowboy who don’t understand the way that he feels towards his brother
Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out.
More...

Okay, fast forward 2 weeks. On Thursday, Wily Filipino posted that Willie Nelson has recorded this song, for REAL.

I'm having a full-circle moment. Now maybe, like L* you heard Pansy Division perform the song fifteen years ago at Club Fuck. Or maybe, like me, you only found that music six months ago. "Cowboys..." is one of my favorite songs, and since December, I've been listening to it on my iPod as I walk around the lake.

But this is a whole 'nother critter.

When Willie Nelson sings it, you can hear the smile in his voice. And you know why what sells country music is not the words but who's singing them and how. Because, face it, we've all listened to country music and thought "I could write that" or even "I could write better than that," but country music isn't successful because it's the world greatest poetry, but because someone with a gui-tar is crooning it out with leather or velvet or whiskey, or tears. So while Pansy Division sings ALL the lyrics (Willie don't), they manage to make the meter sound torturous and the rhyme gets lost, but that's okay, that's their aesthetic, they're HARD, dammit. But Willie, man, well, go to iTunes and see what people are saying. Let's just say, there's a few more young men in West Texas who are gaining hope from Willie's words.

Plus you can two-step to it.

Dare I hope that Dolly Parton will cover Two Nice Girls' "I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer?"

Valentine thoughts

The other day L* tells me "catch me" and comes running up and jumps into my arms. And I caught her! It was hilarious!

I told this story to my sister, who said:

It's...pretty much a summary of how you two live your lives... you're always there to catch each other. Isn't it great knowing you have someone there for you that you can trust that completely??

It is great. And although I don't run and leap into L*s arms ('cause I'm a hunka-hunka-burnin-love, and we would go crashing through the next wall and to the floor, like some kinda Brokeback barroom brawl) I know I can stand on her back.

In the System

Today Miz Ktrion was fingerprinted, as a pre-requisite to her volunteer work, and thus her prints are now on file with the DOJ. I'm trying to black that out of my mind, since there's no way to put a positive spin on it (short of imagining my own death, which rather takes away the "positive" aspect, don't you think?)

But downtown Oakland was beautiful this morning, and I got my walk on.

Back in Action?

The acronym would be BIA and that is soooooo wrong. But ArtichokeHheart, on her blog roll menu, puts designations like "Raw" (since we're all sushi to her). And I've been wondering if I should start putting MIA when a sista's blog goes down. Sonrisa Morena is back in business. Even Miz Cherry Galette has made a reappearance. But La Malinchista, man, her hard drive started screeching back in November, and not a peep since.

Which has me planning ahead, because L*'s hard drive is also a little chitty-chitty-bang-bang.

Do I only have so many words?

I've been catching up on emails to family and friends lately, and as a result my blogging is way down.

I've always written long narrative emails, and I haven't kept a journal. Since I've been blogging regularly (last fall), my emails have gotten shorter and infrequent. Sometimes I'll start writing an email to a friend and then, instead, cut it all out and paste it all in my blog.

Makes me wonder if a) my email communication has always been "all about me" and b) whether I only have so many words in me.

La Terminacha

If you can imagine what Arnold Schwarzennegger would look like as a short, stocky marimacha mexicana, then you were prob'ly on public transportation the same time as I was this morning.

I have a Dark Angel in my Bag

Up early to go in early to work in my office before class.

I've been in a funk lately, not getting much work done at my office at home. In particular, my poetry books are split between the two offices, and it always seems like the book I want is in the other place.

Today we're writing poems in my lit class. Elegies. I know: I'm so funny. I seem obsessed with mourning. So the students are supposed to come in today with concrete descriptions someone. And we're going to use the June Jordan guidelines. I'm very very nervous about all this, but I also really need to start pushing myself out of my comfort zone. And so, writing poetry along with the students. That means I need a list.

In my office, the "order" is breaking down. I signify on "order" because the office itself is not in such great shape. it's more than half full of boxes of books and papers (not mine). I'm also guilty in this, and though all my books are on the shelves, the two boxes of papers I haven't figured out what to do with are now--in the immortal words of julien--covered with Colorful Throws!

They would have fit under my desk, but then where would I crawl during an earthquake?

Oh, so back to "the order." I'm talking bookshelves of course. I periodically change my classification system. And since my job move was both disciplinary as well as transcontinental, the old order changeth. Do I put all the books of poetry together? Or do I keep the Chicana poets with the Chicana novelists? (some of them are the same people, after all). Is it better to put Cherríe Moraga's Hungry Woman next to the Reza Abdoh's The Law of Remains? or next to Alma Luz Villanueva's La Llorona and Other Stories? I'm always afraid of appearing like the "certain aphasiacs" described by Foucault in The Order of Things:

It appears that certain aphasiacs, when shown various differently coloured skeins of wool on a table top, are consistently unable to arrange them into any coherent pattern....In one corner, they will place the lightest-coloured skeins, in another the red ones, somewhere else those that are softest in texture, in yet another the longest, or...those that have been wound up into a ball. But no sooner have they been adumbrated than all these groupings dissolve again, for the field of identity that sustains them, however limited it may be, is still too wide not to be unstable; and so the sick mind continues to infinity...

maybe i should knit instead...?

for the sci-fi class, I'm keeping an episode of Dark Angel in reserve, so I can draw upon the brilliant theory of bendypalm and prepare the students for next week's discussion of Tuskegee.

En familia. En memoriam.

I set up a family website a couple of years (four?) to commemorate my grandma lupe. Last year, my sister asked me to update the information, so the site would send up little email reminders about when everyone's birthday comes around.

When we were all together for Thanksgiving, my dad was excited about it and wanted one for his side of the familia. I set it up, and he has been emailing the familia in Califas, Colorado, and Nuevo Mexico, either hooking them up or telling them "email Ktrion to get hooked up."

I let go of the family tree, posting it online and asking cousins to start filling in their branches. When I looked at it today, I could see sketches of my cousins lives, with marriages, divorces, kids, adoptions. I haven't seen any other same-sex couples besides me and L*, although I know that this tree's a lot more bent than it looks at first glance.

A week ago I posted the first foto to this site, of my tía and tío. Almost immediately, other family members started posting pictures. Of my tías and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Three days ago, my dad was emailing me fotos of the new bis-sobrino so I could put them up.

Two days ago, Yr*na, one of my cousins posted a message saying "pray for Tom" a cousin (whom my family still calls "Tommy") whom I haven't thought of for years.

I just read a new post from Yr*na, saying our cousin died last night. After a quick email exchange, she gave me the cellphone number for our cousin's daughter. I called my dad to share the information I had with him. He says this email is the best invention since pen and paper.

A few years back, I wrote a poem, which I guess I did not keep a copy of, called To:myfamilia@internet. I was a grumpy girl at the time, tired of receiving "jokes" from another cousin, whose social, political, and religious viewpoints are radically opposed to my own.

What a strange media the internet is. making you feel so connected and disconnected at the same time.

En memoriam, to my cousin Tommy

In the Box? Out of the Box?

I'm about to start volunteering for a program at Girls, Inc. (Inspiring all girls to be Strong, Smart, and Bold!) This organization is just SO FABULOUS. I am thrilled. In our volunteer training we had a lesson on "language" where we classified comments to girls based on whether the comments "keep them in the box" and empower them out of the box. (Now, mind you, I've been a professor of women's studies, but this was still such a great exercise!)

"Your dress is so pretty and it matches your shoes"

(In the Box. Although it's perfectly okay for me to write in my diary afterward,Dear Diary: Marisol is so cute! Today her dress matched her shoes!)

"Use your smart brain to figure it out"
(Out of the Box. Lots of "smart brain" talk. Girls need to be told they have smart brains)

"You're being so good and quiet."

(In the Box. Where no one can hear you scream.)

"I like it that you used your strong voice"

(OUT. You are strong. You are powerful. You are loud.)

Be careful.

(IN. Stay where you can be protected. Don't take any risks. Conform.)

Try it! I bet you can do it!

(OUT. Stretch beyond your comfort zone. It's not about being the best, it's about growing.)

You're a fast runner!

(OUT. Nobody's gonna catch you and stuff you in a box!)


See what I mean? try it for a little while. The kinds of praise girls are given. The kind of behaviors we find appropriate for girls. I gave a whole lecture on this last year, and yet it's suddenly all fresh and new. Do you think that's because it's not an idea, but actual girls?

Sa-Sa-Sa-Saturday Night

Thank L* for the fact that I finally put in pictures of the BART ads I was talking about. We took BART into the city last night to see Buchlalis de Panochtitan perform at Galería de la Raza. I pointed out one of the ads to her and she said "you couldn't find a picture?" and I realized, (duh!) given how obnoxious those things are, there's got to be lots of web coverage. (I had initially looked on the Oakland diocese's website, couldn't find pictures, and gave up).

We're still stewing in our pre-writing phase, before we start the piece we're writing together on BdP.

Saturday's performance was full of new material and new guests, and that was really exciting. Of course, I was less interested in the pieces that went the stand-up comedy route, and more interested in the performance art/spoken word/extraVaganza.

Lots of new video. Some really amazing footage from an oral history.

On BART

New anti-choice adz by catholic diocease. Theocrats tip their hand.

addenda:
I'd seen these ads in the trains on BART, always featuring a white woman and a white background.

The one I saw this morning featured an African American woman on a white background, but her face was like through a thick fog, mostly whited out.

here's a news release from the Catholic League, about how most of the ads have been defaced. (ha, the women of color were already "de-faced" by the ads themselves!)

OK, apparently I'm 2 weeks behind the times on this issue, because the ads appeared in mid-January (yes, before the Alito vote). But classes at SFSU just started on the 30th, so I just got back on BART last week. But here's Jon Carroll's chronicle editorial on the ads and the interesting things people wrote on them.

Welcome Zx!

Welcome Baby!

My nephew Stvn and wife Krtn had a baby boy yesterday! Zx! Welcome, little guy! (six pounds something--i wonder if he still got the big feet). He apparently looks a lot like his big sister Vxra.

So L* and I are once again great-aunts.

time to put those baby blankies I been crocheting into the mail.

Speechless

I woke up this morning to no internet! I was so stressed. First I ran through the whole process: turn off the Airport, turn of the cable modem. wait one minute. shutdown computer. Then turn them all back on again in a different order. finally called the cable company and it turns out they were having an outage.

but i couldn't check the weather, i couldn't look up the phone number to the cable company, i couldn't check my email.

on the other hand, i smiled a lot this morning, because it was so early and today is trash day, and someone was quietly making his way up the block, removing something from the recycling bins. I just love it when folks take from the recycling. i just think it's so cool. it's taking the recycling one step further.

Now the sun is coming up and my neighbors are on their way to school/work. When we first moved in we never saw them for precisely this reason. We wake up at nine (when the U's are not in session) and they're gone by seven-thirty.

Favorite TV shows...

Hey, so I was just reading Pomegranate Queen, and she got tagged so she was listing her tv shows and I though, hmmmm, how convenient that I totally forgot to list Law & Order,

Dun-DUNH, and all its offshoots.

and, um, American Idol, which is starting to convince me that everyone in this country is seriously emotionally disturbed. Both the people looking for their 15 seconds of fame, and the rest of us full of schadenfreude. Although, lately, I've started raving to L* about this constantly ("What did they think was gonna happen?" "Do you think they have delusions of grandeur like serial killers?") to the extent that I think I'm starting to worry her.

You are what you eat

Sonrisa's blog made me laugh, 'cause she's all eating healthy.

I don't believe in diets, but I guess I'm on one. Sort of.
My cholesterol was high. (My bad cholesterol. L's good cholesterol is high, which is a good thing.)

I'm a vegetarian, for pete's sake. cholesterol comes from animals! How is this possible? I mean, back when I used to sneak chorizo and sourdough bacon cheeseburgers, I coulda maybe seen it. But that was ten years ago!

Now, as you know, my favorite way of eating enchis is with an egg on top.

Do you think the natural food place has been sneaking raw eggs into my smoothies? Nothing else explains it.

I tried the "it's genetic" line on L* but she totally wasn't having it. And my mom Doña Leora also exercises a lot like L* and also has high good cholesterol, so forget about it.

So, less total fat for me (no more sinister macaroons, even if they're vegan!) And more walking.

3

This is from Sunny, who still owes me 4 more


Three books I can read over and over:
- Imago by Octavia Butler
- The Fire’s Stone by Tanya Huff (fantasy about a swordsman, a thief and a wizard. and, um gay male romance)
- Prietita and the Ghost Woman by Gloria Anzaldúa

Three places I've lived:
- on Cecilia Street (twice: once in Cudahay and once in Bell Gardens)
- in a trailer park (“She made me the queen of her double-wide trailer”)
- at 7000+ feet

Three TV shows I love:
- The West Wing
- Clean Sweep
- Dark Angel

Three highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of:
- The Sopranos
- Sex and the City
- Lost

Three places I've vacationed:
- New Mexico
- Mexico
- Spain

Three of my favorite dishes:
- savory bread pudding with spinach
- sweet potato hash (with an egg on top)
- L*s enchilada’s: red and rolled or mole verde!

Three sites I visit daily:
[hmm, this says “sites” rather than “blogs,“ so I’ll assume “not blogs”]
- http://www.logoonline.com/schedule/
- the Oakland Tribune
- Amnesty International (um, not in that order!)

Three places I would rather be right now:
- Nowhere, actually. I’m right where I want to be.

Three bloggers I am tagging:
- Sonrisa Morena, because she was out of town the last time I tagged somebody
- brownfemipower
- nubian

This Space Left Blank

Classes Start on Monday: I'm gearing up!

La Claudia

CindyLu correctly identified Claudia Rodriguez as the model in Chuparosa by Alma Lopez (pictured below). Claudia's a great writer, and you can read one of her stories online at Blithe House Quarterly

Somewhere Else

Today I finished reading a book of poetry. somewhere else by Matthew Shenoda. He's a colleague of mind. [that's a typo, or maybe a freudian slip, so i'll leave it there] Sonia Sanchez, in her introduction to his book, quotes José Martí to describe Shenoda: "When there are many men without honor, there are always others who bear in themselves the honor of many men."

It's amazing reading this poetry. There are two sections, that are pretty dramatically different. In a gross oversimplification of the complexity, i would say that one is "homeland" and one is "diaspora." That's not really true, (since these both appear in both sections of the book, not to mention in the same poem) but it gives you an idea about the shift.

Shenoda speaks truth to power, which is what i expected, but not how I expected it.

La Alma!

I've received many compliments on my book cover: I'm lucky to have an artistic genius like Alma Lopez as a friend and colega.

Chuparosa, a signed serigraph by Alma Lopez, is currently being auctioned off on ebay, as a fundraiser for the Latina lesbian Tongues Magazine.



See more of Lopez's artwork on her website www.almalopez.net. You can also find out more there about her fabulous video Boi Hair. She also has a new project on femmes!

We return now to our regularly scheduled Locura

In my otra persona, Tía Yona, I've been working on a collection of practical saints for xikan@s in the twenty-first century. Be warned that I read everything with a queer-centered lens, and have been inspired by other playful santeros, like Pat Mora, SaintsforSinners (who named San Sebastian the patron saint of body modification--all those piercings! and Saint Joan the patron of cross-dressers,...No, wait, maybe that was me), John Boswell, etc.

First, San Martín de Porres. Patron of hairdressers, mixed-race people, and vegetarians, and the homeless (human and animal). The image below is from the joint project by Anna Salinas and the Austin Latino Lesbian and Gay Organization, from their Lotería Jotería series. San Martin is often pictured with a broom, as his task at the monastery, was to sweep the doorways clean. I personally find you have to do a lot of reading against the grain with San Martín, since the Church's line has always been that he's an ideal role model: a Black man who knew his place. But Alex García Rivera has a cool book, St. Martín de Porres: The 'Little Stories' and the Semiotics of Culture, in which he shows how the little stories of humble San Martín offer a counter discourse to hierarchical church structure.



I wonder who would be the patron against the bird flu...

Oprah: I was really hoping you were gonna come on and say, it's past, it's all been blown out of proportion. That's not what you said. But I believe that knowledge is power.

-End-

Website for today's show

Oprah

Oprah: If anyone thinks you're overspeaking: Swine Flu and SARS never really came to happen

MO: I don't know if this is going to happen with Bird Flu. We're now really re-discovering the 1918 virus with modern medicine in a way we never have. We have recreated the virus, through labwork, through exhuming bodies in Alaska. We don't know it will happen, but we do know a pandemic will happen. This will be an effort we will never waste.

Oprah: that's the good news. that's the hopeful news.

Oprah: Opening it up to audience questions

??: What will this do to our blood supply

MO: Important question. Elective surgeries will disappear. right now we keep a lot of people on ventilators. We'll be forced to make decisions whether to make those ventilators available to young people.

Oprah: We never imagined people dying in the street

MO: After Katrina, government put out a call for truckers. A lot came in support for that. Literally within hours, that had an effect on the food supply for the rest of the nation.

??: I manage a busy retail pharmacy. Sometimes we run out. When we run out of prozac, we replace it with paxil. What will we do if we run out of Tamiflu? There are no other options. Plus, I've noticed a lot more of the tamiflu is being dispensed to doctor's (for personal use) and their families. Is this fair?

MO: Discussion of the two influenza drugs no longer effective for ordinary flu. We don't want that to happen with Tamiflu. So we don't want people taking it right now. If there is an epidemic, I would think I want the health care workers to receive Tamiflu so they can be there for the rest of us

[Applause]

Oprah: What should we be doing right now?

Oprah: Explain what Tamiflu is and will it work?

MO: It's very effective with the (normal) flu, but doesn't work as well with the bird flu
The Bird Flu will affect your lungs, your liver, your kidney, your intestinal tract.
You will need it within hours of becoming infected, and prob'ly at higher doses.

Oprah: How can we hold the government accountable

MO: I have to give a lot of credit to the president. We have trouble believing in this: We're in the age of modern medicine. We're assuming that we'll have full access

Oprah: I'm not assuming a thing after today

Oprah: What are the symptoms?

MO: immune system goes into overdrive. The [something] storm

Who will be hardest hit?

MO: I can't imagine a more important priority than the bird flu
It's something that's going to happen. How bad it's gonna be we don't know.

Oprah: And we're not prepared for it?

Oprah: Who is most at risk?

MO: traditional flu we think oldest and youngest.
Those under 20 were particularly hard hit in 1918
55% of all pregnant women died during that epidemic

Emphasizing how dependent we are on the global economy

Oprah: Is this like New Orleans not shoring up the levees?

MO: Yes, but it's more like saying Portland, Oregon needs to worry about storms in the Gulf Coast

Oprah: the media is giving it the same press as any other news story. The same coverage as Brad & Angelina

Oprah: This is not science fiction

MO: What is going to allow business continuity?

This is not science fiction.

Even if bird flu does not do it: something else will

By Special Request: Live Blogging Oprah

Oprah: do you feel sort of like Noah?

MO: Noah had a way of pulling everyone into the boat.
What I want is to know that everyone is building a boat


MO: President asked for 7 billion dollars to jump start our vaccine program. It was met with a resounding thud.

Today's Oprah: Bird Flu

I'm watching Oprah. A Very Dear One is far away from the tv and asked me to blog it.

It started with a ten-minute "be afraid, be very afraid"

So far, the whole thing has been Dr. Michael Osterholm
Parallels to the 1918 influenza epidemic


flu pandemic will have
9-18 months duration
"lessons of new orleans"

during a pandemic, all communities will be in it at the same time.
(no help from neighboring states)
you will be largely on your own.

Hi YoMo!

YoMo is trying to entice L* and I to join her and YoLo in Palm Springs for The Dinah Shore Weekend. How's that! She's sending us temptation for the new year.

All I know about The Dinah is what I saw on the L Word.

And that weekend is the same as a conference where I'm scheduled to present.

Now, I wonder what my new colleagues would think if I bagged on a conference to go to a tony lesbian bash?...That is tempting...Naughty, naughty YoMo!

Lessons you learn from watching the L-word

Don't expect the self-destructive one to have your back.

Keep the motor running in small towns. (duh!)

Motherhood makes you heterosexual. Especially femmes, 'cause they're already halfway there.

Bisexuals are crazy.

Latinas live for poufy dresses and big hair.

L-Word

Blac(k)ademic has a fierce read of the L-word.

L* and I have just watched the first two episodes of season 3 (we saved 'em up so we could watch them together).

When I saw the opening credits, I thought there were gonna be more jotas on the show, but no, those Spanish names signified Carmen's familia.

Trying to figure out how fierce hip-hop Carmen has now turned into super-bombshell, always with her familia, passing as straight. (L* says she's bound to come out, though).

So we're watching the depiction of Carmen's mother and saying things like "we are such a loving-welcoming people." Though, apparently we're not that savvy, since the familia is supposedly clueless about Carmen's sexuality. (Again, Carmen's new blazing-femme makeover adds to the dissonance). In our own Latino families, everyone and her brother would already know that we, Carmen, Shane, and prob'ly that Luis, are all queer.

I sez to L*, "do families really introduce their lesbian daughters to men? or is that a trope?"

A trope, says she.

Brainwashing or Style Gurus?

The TLC show What Not to Wear, is often entertaining and can open you up to whole new "looks."
And yet, it's also a form of brainwashing. (Not that I really believe in brainwashing).

Humiliation is central to the "re-making" of the subject: to see that others look upon her with disdain or mockery. A public screening of the "secret footage" that shows her blissfully unaware of how bad she looks.

Isolation is also important. The subject is taken away from her family and friends and from her familiar environment.

PanOpticon: To internalize the idea that she is always being looked at, always being judged, the subject is placed in a circular room with 360-degree mirrors.

Shopping Day One: The subject tries (and fails) to shop successfully for herself. She is demoralized by the process of picking clothes, trying them on in unflattering light, with little feedback. At the same time, she is again being filmed and judged by her "mentors."

Shopping Day Two: the "mentors" choose "appropriate" clothes for the subject, and convince her that she looks better now.

Again, I'm all in favor of people looking good and dressing well. And yes, I have learned about dressing in a style that is "age appropriate." (No more hello kitty for me! No mini-skirts after 35!)

But a couple of things continue to work me about this show.

1) If a woman is butch, they will make-her-over into a femme. It is possible to be butch and fashionable, and the gurus should be true to their "you, only better" mantra, instead of trying to make all women look like ladies. (there's often some internalized homofobia going on here, because obviously Clinton Kelly is a big skinny queen)

2) Everything about their process is skewed toward white people. Cutting black hair is an art and a craft, and it's not Nick Arrojo's specialty. I really hate it when they approach black hair as "problem" hair. (Yeah, it's a problem to you, mister, if you don't know how to cut/treat/style it!) Ditto with Carmody who does the white-girl makeup thing very well, but can't seem to move out of that comfort zone.

3) Mean spirit. It's all so mean-spirited. Like everything else about the current era.

[Aside: They put so much emphasis on fit, why don't they talk about how to get a bra that fits right, and or how to get a bra that does what you want it to do: provide voluptuousness, show a trim and sport front, go from workout to work environment)

All of this is in contrast to my favorite TLC show, CLEAN SWEEP, which is multicultural and queer-friendly. And provides a sort of counseling like environment, because, face it, sometimes people are verging on emotional disturbances when their homes are chaotic piles of stuff. They emphasize respect for the people with whom you share your life and your home, and commitment to them.