immigrants

The Cosmopolitans

gwen — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The Cosmopolitans by Nadia Kalman is the story of a family of Russian immigrants reconciling their illusions of America with the reality of life in Stamford, Connecticut. Osip and Stalina are the patriarchs of the Molochnik clan, holding sway over a house of three daughters—Milla, Yana, and Katya—and Pratik, an exchange student from Bangladesh. The novel works almost like a series of short stories, revolving around vignettes wherein each character is given his or her turn to be featured as the centerpiece of the marriage. The reader is guided through the years, watching as the family expands and contracts in a halting, non-linear manner, almost as in a time lapse movie: there are marriages, births, departures, and reunions as the Molochniks struggle individually and collectively to align their real-life trajectories with their American dreams. Throughout, Kalman conjures comic and tragic scenes that are authentic and universal in their emotion but are simultaneously particular and novel in their portrayal.

For instance, Milla’s well-meaning but resoundingly immature husband, Malcom, awakes the day after his wedding and “felt around for his doubts, which he’d discussed at such length with his family, professor, this Buddhist guy who hung around New Haven selling stemless carnations, his dentist, and this girl from high school he’d run into at the drugstore. Miraculously, they’d disappeared... His love for Milla was a stable, growing love, a love like moss.”

The story is also shot through with surrealist, or perhaps magic-realist, qualities. Stalina is in possession of an heirloom handkerchief that speaks to her as the Russian Soul, chastising her when she strays too far from the ideals of Mother Russia. There is also the fact that Katya, the youngest Molochnik daughter, tends to involuntary quote the decidedly masculine voice of Leonid Brezhnev, much to her dismay. The family members’ reactions to her channeling of the Communist leader reveal much about their characters: Osip believes it is a habit of Katya’s that reveals her good mood; Stalina is sure it is a curse she brought upon her daughter because of a long buried secret; Katya herself tries to escape the voice in any way possible. It’s amazing how believable these fantastical turns are in the capable hands of Kalman, who admits that, “as I wrote, I heard the voices of my immigrant family, who spin happy stories out of sad histories and create cautionary tales out of seeming triumphs, and who taught me not to take anything at face value.”

In fact, reading The Cosmopolitans feels a bit like meeting a rambunctious group of strangers for the first time. First impressions may inspire skepticism, as their quirks stand out as oddities that are jarring and unfamiliar. However, with time and proximity, these characters become beloved, their quirks endearing and indulged. Indeed, they come to feel like family.

Written by: Jo Ristow, March 21st 2011

Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community

mandy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Tamara Mose Brown

New York University Press

When Tamara Mose Brown had her first child in 2004, she began going to different Brooklyn, New York parks on sunny afternoons. In each, she found dozens of West Indian nannies caring for the babies and toddlers of the largely White middle- and upper-income denizens who lived nearby. Questions about both the nannies' work and the race, class, and gender dynamics of their lives prompted Brown—the Canadian-born daughter of Trinidadian immigrants—to begin spending time with these women. Their conversations were eye-opening. For one, Brown came to realize the centrality of paid childcare to U.S. economic life. For another, she was shocked to find that employers who labor at home often require nannies to work outdoors, or in libraries or community centers, for upwards of ten hours a day.

What’s more, Brown quickly recognized that childcare workers, many of them undocumented immigrants, are routinely exploited—underpaid, and required to do household chores far outside their job description, from picking up dry cleaning, to cooking, to going to the pharmacy or market. Nonetheless, she also discovered that domestic workers have found ways to create social networks to make their work lives easier and more enjoyable. Often predicated on a common ethnic heritage, these networks enable childcare workers to share everything from food to gossip. By pre-arranging meetings in public spaces, they can watch the kids in their care while also socializing and breaking the monotony of their jobs.

But, Brown writes in Raising Brooklyn, as wonderful as these networks can be, there’s a down side. To wit, nannies in public spaces are easily observed. Take the website I Saw Your Nanny. In one incident, Brown reports that people with limited information logged onto the site and reported that a toddler had been lured away by a suspicious man while his caretaker—who was eventually identified as the child’s mother and not a nanny—was obliviously chatting. Turns out that the man was the child’s father, but, of course, the notice was posted before this fact was ascertained.

That said, Brown chronicles the ways nannies support one another, whether meeting on a particular park bench at a particular time each day or gathering for story hour at the local library. Cell phones have been a tremendous boon, she continues, giving otherwise isolated workers a way to connect with one another, an easy way to share news from home or strategize about ways to deal with a difficult child or a demanding employer. They’ve also enabled them to organize, and many of the workers Brown interviews are active participants in Domestic Workers United, an organization that successfully pushed the New York state legislature to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010.

Brown has done a masterful job—as a participant observer—of reflecting the everyday world of female domestic laborers. While she, herself, straddles two worlds—belonging to an Afro Caribbean community that is victimized by racism while simultaneously having the financial resources to hire a part-time nanny to care for her two children—her ethnic identity allowed her access to an insular community. The result is both fascinating and compelling. Although Brown occasionally lapses into sociological jargon, Raising Brooklyn is generally accessible and insightful. Her own insider-outsider status is clearly presented; at the same time, her compassion for the twenty-five nannies she interviewed makes Raising Brooklyn a wonderful testament to the valuable contribution working class women of color make to life in the U.S. of A.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, March 7th 2011

Living on the Edge in Suburbia: From Welfare to Workfare

mandy — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Terese Lawinski

Vanderbilt University Press

Living on the Edge in Suburbia is Terese Lawinski’s comprehensive examination of welfare in the United States using ethnographic research on suburban families in Westchester County, New York. Lawinski leaves no stone in the welfare debate unturned, from the infamous myth of the “Welfare Queen” (introduced to America’s vocabulary by a Reagan campaign speech in 1976) to the fallacy of “illegal immigrants” coming to the U.S. in droves looking for easy money.

With the recession weighing on almost everyone’s mind, Lawinski’s book is timely and relevant. Many suburban Americans like the ones profiled here are losing the economic security they took for granted and are being forced to turn to government programs to get by. But misconceptions about how the system works and who benefits from it (and how much they benefit) shape the general public’s view of welfare as a cushy, well-funded government trust fund for lazy people.

The vitriol aimed at immigrants and people of color is growing as working class and middle class Americans draw an ever deeper line in the sand between “deserving” and “undeserving” aid recipients, as well as “acceptable aid,” like unemployment, versus “unacceptable” programs like Medicaid, TANF, and food stamps. Lawinski addresses this phenomenon adeptly and swiftly.

The word welfare is often associated with so-called urban problems (i.e., people of color, most often women). Instead of yet another examination of the stereotypical recipient of public assistance (young, poor, black, female), which often only serves to further reinforce welfare fallacies, Lawinski focuses on a variety of families, many of whom slipped into the vicious cycle of public assistance after relatively minor circumstances propelled them into major financial crises. Lawinski makes it a point to emphasize the fact that once a family (or individual) is stuck in the system, a myriad of confusing and conflicting rules make it nearly impossible to get back out without an additional support network.

Lawinski does a thorough job of putting the current welfare system in an historical context. She draws connections between society’s disdain for “welfare mothers” and the beginnings of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC), part of 1935’s New Deal. At the time, mothers had to show government workers that they "deserved" assistance, which was usually limited to white widows who met “suitable home” requirements. Racist overtones took over the welfare debate when programs were opened to women of color.

Lawinski points out that one of the biggest offenses of President Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is that states began to claim the new law a success based on the number of people collecting benefits rather than the number of people living in poverty. As Lawinski explains, welfare rolls were cut by fifty percent, or even more, due to new regulations, but that didn’t mean people had found gainful employment (or any at all).

Where AFDC had once allowed people to survive (however meagerly), the 1996 welfare reform program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), left families without even that ability. After AFDC changed to TANF under PRWORA, lifetime limits (five years maximum by federal law, although individual states can further restrict time limits, and many do) meant that recipients were being cut off from public assistance without the means to support themselves. Additionally, TANF work requirements prevent the job training or education opportunities that are necessary for true self-sufficiency, and in a Catch-22, also reduce benefits. For those who can meet work requirements or attend education programs, the next hurdle is inadequate or nonexistent childcare subsidies.

In the epilogue, Lawinski offers solutions and guidelines with the Obama Administration in mind, but in the current political climate, it is doubtful that public aid will get the national attention and restructuring it needs.

Written by: Stephanie Sylverne, September 30th 2010

Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:31:00 +0000

By Roberta Villalón

NYU Press

I generally do not start reviews with blanket statements, but I simply cannot say enough positive comments about this book. As a student of Gender & Sexuality studies, as well as community activism and Hispanic studies, I was greatly interested and inspired by this thoughtful, critical, theory-meets-activism approach to the difficult and devastating reality of violence against Latina immigrants.

The author, Roberta Villalón, is a professor of Sociology at St. John’s University in New York City, where she is active with both the Committee for Latin American and Caribbean studies and the Women and Gender Studies Program. According to her author biography, Villalón was inspired by the corrupt, and often deadly, political regime of her childhood in Argentina, and has since dedicated her professional career to studying the harms and realities of inequality on multiple levels from institutionalized corruption to domestic abuse. With her academic grounding in political science, international relations, and sociology, as well as her Latin American/Latina focus and affiliation with various immigrants and women’s rights organizations, Villalón brings a fresh, critical perspective to the discussions of resistance in social movements, particularly activist feminist grassroots discourse and efforts.

In Violence Against Latina Immigrants: Citizenship, Inequality, and Community, Villalón’s writing/research process was mainly based on her work on the ground as an activist researcher with a legal nonprofit organization that offers free services to individuals who have suffered from domestic abuse. The clients were typically female, undocumented immigrants, a population she notes as particularly vulnerable to violence: domestic, structural, cultural, and symbolic. In her book Violence Against Latina Immigrants, Villalón combines her observations and struggles with individual clients and their processes with the complicated bureaucracy of our national immigration system, with personal interviews with staff. Even though well intentioned, the staff and general organization were often limited by funding and legal restrictions. They were therefore, as Villalón claims, forced to work within and, unfortunately often perpetuated, the oppressive cycles and systems of structural inequality, specifically in their construction of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ clients. Although the organization started from a radical, revolutionary grassroots project, many of the employees seem to be jaded, and accepted the limitations, an unfortunate although (arguably) sometimes necessary common ideological shift for non-profits when the practical issues such as funding, staff, and helping people in the immediate present are realistically addressed.

Villalón notes these frustrating contradictions and dilemmas that further the cycle and reproduction of inequality, and calls for more advocacy, networking between community organizations and policy changes that would aid this particularly vulnerable population. She calls for people, especially those with the desire and power to change policy, to “focus on the ways in which (these women) experience exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence” in order to make the “invisible, visible," while also avoiding the equally oppressive victimization narrative that would further deny their agency.

Overall, the text proves to be a critical study into the complex intersection between immigration, citizenship and violence, particularly in regards to race, gender, heterosexuality, and nationality, and I would recommend to all interested in women’s, immigrant, Hispanic, or general sociopolitical studies.

Written by: Abigail Chance, August 6th 2010

Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Evelyn Nakano Glenn

Harvard University Press

Evelyn Nakano Glenn is a professor of Women’s and Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley and author of Forced to Care. Perhaps because of her vocation, the book has a bit of a textbook flavor to it, but as it progresses, she lets go and begins to fill it out with a more humanistic view.

Forced to Care begins with a look at those who are responsible for the lion’s share of caregiving in America. Glenn’s findings basically confirm what most of us know already: in most cases, women of color, women at the low end of the socioeconomic scale, and illegal immigrants are the ones caring for our nation’s young, disabled, and elderly.

The author then takes her inquiries one step further by tracing the roots of caregiving back to colonial America in an effort to discover why such a disproportionate amount of paid and unpaid caretaking falls to these individuals. Glenn does a terrific job of leading the reader through the individual events that occurred politically, socially, industrially, and economically to reinforce the notion that it is a woman’s duty to take care of needy family members. Following the shift from an agricultural, self-sustaining, family-based society to a market economy, Glenn shows just why gender divisions still remain with respect to these types of jobs. She illustrates, through the use of an amazing amount of research, just exactly how American women with very few other choices have been coerced into providing care for others to the detriment of their own needs for centuries. Our society’s continued devaluation of these kinds of “homemaking” services serves to perpetuate the problem.

It is clear that the author encourages a sea change with respect to both paid and unpaid caregiving, but she refrains from demonizing any particular groups or individuals, instead offering a clear, concise look at how we got ourselves here, and why we need to get out of this mess while we still can.

Glenn advocates for both care providers and those receiving care and uses her vast knowledge of the history and foundation of the problems to offer concrete solutions to the difficulties both face as our aging society pushes us closer to a crisis in the fastest growing segment of healthcare in America.

Before picking up this book, I was nearly certain that I would be called upon to care for elderly family members at some point in my life, although hopefully not until my children are grown and gone. Despite my fears of being able to do so with grace and love versus resentment and frustration, it was nonetheless something I didn’t see a way out of. I can’t say that Forced to Care allayed my fears in any way, but I gained a tremendous amount of insight as to how and why I might be called upon to provide such care and how, if I am so inclined, I might join in efforts to increase the availability of resources and respect for caregivers as a whole.

While the book is not an easy read—I didn't settle down with it in my lounge chair next to the pool—it is an absolutely eye-opening look at something many of us take for granted; that we as women will eventually be called upon to care for those family members who cannot do it for themselves.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, July 10th 2010

Voces Zine (Summer 2010, Issue 3)

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Noemi Martinez

The Voices Against Violence Project

Unapologetic. Raw. Honest.

The third issue of Voces Zine is a collection of poetry by artists from different communities—indigenous, people of color, trans, and queer—sharing their experiences as survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Originally inspired by a small community of Latino immigrants, this issue represents a first-time inclusion of contributors from outside of its original roots.

The eclectic air of the compilation reflects this shift. During an interview I asked editor Noemi Martinez about the strengths and weaknesses of such a model; she discussed how the stories could be competing or compatible, but that each needed to be told. I appreciated her insight and find this invites a greater audience, while also revealing the individual ways we experience violence against women. Some stories might resonate with one reader more than others, but each exposes the important variance of dynamics in surviving violence: blaming, loving, mistrusting, self-hating, empowering, forgiving, healing, hiding, ignoring, being vulnerable, being strong, being uncertain, being alone, being supported.

At times I felt I could sympathize with each word (“unwrap your bandages/let them wounds breathe/let them scab and itch/and fall/away”), with the uncertainty (“am i better?”), and with the paradox of anger and barren strength (“i aint no fucking weak, limp, helpless, shaking, hiding, trembling, dying, lonely, battered girl. i’m a woman with a black eye.”). Other writings left me unattached or distant, to which I cite Martinez’s foreword, “There is no guarantee how one will react to a particular writing when you are a survivor…as a reader, you might find these writings triggering, not helpful, judgemental [sic], totally off, fucked up, questionable, right on, brutally honest, truthful inspiring.” The point: take from Voces Zine what you can relate to, learn from what you might not, and leave the rest behind.

Voces Zine was created to support survivors and to provide a teaching tool for discussion and understanding of what violence against women means. While the variety of themes provide this type of catalyst, at times the compilation seemed to be more of a therapeutic outlet for each contributor. To this end, I do not fault the project, but commend it for its ability to provide a space in which “victim, survivor, thriver” can share, question, and grow.

I admire each of the contributors for finding the strength to speak up and write out and urge any person questioning, challenged by, or curious about violence against women to take a look through Voces Zine. In the interview, Martinez explained, “I’m not an editor. I’m not professional.” Although I believe she has proven her worth of both titles with this endeavour, the humility of her statement is yet another reflection of the DIY compassion and grassroots foundation of this project. Voces Zine is more than words on paper; it’s a resource of hope, inspiration, and healing.

Written by: Ani Colekessian, July 7th 2010

Entre Nos

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Gloria La Morte, Paola Mendoza

IndiePix Studios

Mariana and her children, Gabriel and Andrea, are stranded in New York City. Two weeks after her husband Antonio asked them to leave their native Colombia and join him in Queens after a lengthy separation, he left $50 in an envelope, headed for Miami, and stopped answering his phone. A family friend tells Mariana that he isn’t coming home.

Undocumented and completely broke, Mariana tries to sell homemade empanadas on the streets while also accepting random jobs as they come. On one occasion, she’s forced to leave the kids home alone while she goes out for a few hours to take day work as a dishwasher. Kids being kids, they lay around teaching each other curse words in English until a friend comes by with a better offer, and they all sneak out to take an illicit dip in an elderly neighbor’s pool. Racing home after they’re discovered and chased away by an angry old man, they’re only seconds ahead of their mother on the subway platform, who witnesses them out alone in public. Clearly terrified for her children’s safety and of the U.S. authorities, she barges into their tiny apartment moments after her children, shouting at Gabi that in this country, they take children away from their parents.

Though their circumstances are often dire, the bond depicted between Mariana, Andrea, and Gabriel is remarkable. Overcoming a seemingly endless stream of difficulties along the way, Gabi pitches in to help the family survive, collecting cans when Mariana is too sick or exhausted to do it herself. And while the ways in which Mariana sacrifices for her children are clear, there are also lovely examples like when she pays for the kids to see a movie together. The $21 entrance fee for three is a bit steep, but she can shell out enough for the two of them and makes them swear to meet her out front the moment the film is over. They shriek in agreement as they race into the air-conditioned building as she calls after them, "Te quiero!"

Co-director Paola Mendoza is largely responsible for honoring the depictions of the struggling immigrant mother and her young children; the story is based on her own family’s struggle, a tribute to her mother. Entre Nos is very visually pleasing, expertly edited and strikingly beautiful despite the pain it depicts. Scenes of quintessential American poverty loom throughout, like neighbor women sharing at-home abortion tips on the sly or when the small family stands timidly outside the emergency room after Gabi hurt his leg until Mariana offers to “wash it at home” before they retreat back into the night. Whether they’re afraid of being deported or because they simply can’t afford the medical bills, the scene is an important reminder of how poverty and immigration are often deeply intertwined.

The film weaves themes of homelessness and the camaraderie of the streets with universal depictions of the strength and resilience of single mothers and their innocent, precocious children. It also reminds you that even if life as an undocumented immigrant seems unbearable, even if you want to go home, you may not be able to afford to turn around.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, June 20th 2010

Entangling Alliances: Foreign War Brides and American Soldiers in the Twentieth Century

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Susan Zeiger

New York University Press

When men are shipped out to foreign locations to engage in wartime activities, it seems inevitable that they will become romantically and sexually involved with foreign women. In Entangling Alliances, Susan Zeiger explores this phenomenon, examining governmental, military, and societal responses to American soldiers’ desires for sex, companionship, and marriage while engaged in combat overseas. She argues that the changing ways Americans treated war brides over the course of the twentieth century demonstrates shifting American sensibilities regarding foreign policy, race, and gender. More than anything, because war brides involved an exchange of women across cultural and national boundaries, American discourse about war brides was ultimately about what constituted American manhood, men’s relationships with women, and the role of the nation in its relationship to other countries.

During World War I, the military preached sexual abstinence while devising methods to keep American soldiers and local women apart, in particular African-American soldiers and white European women. The army’s response to marriage requests vacillated until an official policy was handed down that marriage was a personal, not military, question. Meanwhile, domestic policy concerns in the U.S. triumphed over an internationally-oriented political outlook; xenophobia for newcomers was inevitable and Americans wondered if these foreign women could become good American wives. Though many predicted the demise of these marriages, evidence reveals that the majority made it.

In World War II, military policy differed depending on location. It encouraged marriage in Great Britain and Australia, both Allied countries with similar cultural backgrounds to white middle-class America. Likewise, American society welcomed these brides, suggesting that American women should emulate their domesticity and loyalty to husbands. Alternatively, the military encouraged prostitution, rather than marriage, in both Italy and the Philippines, while American society viewed these war brides as less desirable immigrants. Zeiger argues that both policies—encouraging prostitution or marriage—“shared... the intention to preserve and extend male control over women.” She also points out that though many of these local women showed independence and an assertion of personal freedom by going out with American men, sometimes against their family’s wishes, their stories “end with marriage and dependence.”

Race played a huge role in war bride stories post-WWII and throughout the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Congressional policy actively limited brides from Asian countries, outright barring Japanese spouses for several years, while all interracial couples faced social discrimination and, occasionally, found that their marriages were not legal when they moved from one state to another.

Zeiger argues that the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam saw the “demise” of the war bride as a phenomenon considered and debated by the American public. The military did not provide transport to war brides the way they did in WWI and WWII, and it actively encouraged prostitution rather than marriage, extending its WWII policy of creating red-light districts where prostitutes were regularly examined by medical officials and given “safe” ratings to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Korean and Vietnamese wives were not written about widely in the American press and they have not written about their post-war experiences in America, the way war brides from earlier eras have done. They have been, Zeiger writes, “all but invisible in American culture.”

Demographic information suggests that these Asian war brides tend to be isolated, even in comparison to other Asian immigrants though they have sponsored family members to come to the U.S., unlike earlier war brides. Though Asian war brides were an untold story, there was a lot of media attention paid to the mixed-race children left behind in Vietnam and, sometimes airlifted out and brought to the U.S. Zeiger argues that the story of Amerasian children, and the efforts to bring them to the U.S. allowed Americans to re-conceptualize the war, seeing both Amerasian children and American soldiers as victims in the story. “The American nation becomes father and, also, paradoxically, child. Vietnam, the mother, the war bride, is not part of this reconciliation.”

Entangling Alliances is a compelling read, illuminating twentieth century social struggles encountered by men and women on both domestic and foreign soil over questions of gender, race, and nationality. Though Zeiger argues that the war bride phenomenon died out with the Korean and Vietnam wars, clearly, soldiers still took wives and fathered children with Korean and Vietnamese women. More recently, stories of male American soldiers marrying Iraqi women have been exploited in the media. Because Zeiger only covers the period from WWI up through the Vietnam War, she leaves a perplexing question unexplored: What has happened with female soldiers and local men in the conflicts that the U.S. has engaged in the last twenty years? Have female soldiers, like male soldiers, engaged in romantic and sexual conquests with non-U.S. citizens? I suspect their experience has been radically different than their male counterparts.

Written by: Jessica Powers, June 5th 2010

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity and Faith in New Immigrant Communities

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Lois Ann Larentzen, Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Kevin M. Chun, Hien Duc Do

Duke University Press

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana, a collection of essays on the religious activities and identity formation of immigrants to the United States, is the fruit of a four-year study conducted by researchers from the Religion and Immigration Project (TRIP) at the University of San Francisco. Very ambitious in their scope, the essays explore the multiple and complex ways that religion plays both in integration and resistance to it in the second-generation immigrant youth and adults from Mexico, China, Vietnam, El Salvador, and Taiwan.

Two of the essays reflect on marginalized groups in their own countries: amongst them gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador keep in touch with their communities across the border, frequently visiting their family and friends to maintain trans-national connections. Researchers focused on social justice by giving voice to immigrants’ concerns, especially on matters of gender and sexuality.

Transgender sex workers from Mexico often bring their religious icons and pendants (for example, the Virgen de Guadalupe) to San Francisco. Some of them also bring their prayer booklet for the Holy Death. These relics signify their own culture, origins and religion left behind in Mexico.

There are many low working class immigrants from Latin America who attend a mass conducted in Spanish in the Pentecostal churches. They are encouraged to be exemplary citizens in their new country, to ask questions, to give testimonials and to pray for surviving their daily life struggles. Even though the church music is similar to cumbia, merengue and samba the members believe that this ‘culture’ is secondary to the culture of Christianity. Through social movements, the Pentecostal churches help immigrants to adopt a more tolerant and progressive attitude towards gender roles or childbearing duty.

Filipinos are mostly Christians, following the rituals and dogmas of the Catholic church, brought to their country by Spanish friars or religious orders such as the Order of Saint Augustine in 1564, the Jesuits in 1581 and the Dominicans in 1587. With the American occupation of 1898 the Protestant church was founded in the Philippines. Yet the faithful there created their own Global Church of Christ where reading the Gospels was of main importance. In San Francisco, Filipinos are mostly associated with the Catholic churches in the area known as “Happy Valley.”

Bi-national same-sex couples, illustrated by the case of two men from China and Singapore, can easily find the gay church in San Francisco. It is much more than the centre of a religious community; it advocates human rights for new lesbian, gay, and transgender immigrants.

The Presbyterian Mission Program targeted low-income, first generation Chinese youth residing in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Bay Area suburbs whose families originate in Taiwan and mainland China. There is also a Buddhist temple that serves as a network for the monasteries, schools and Buddhist book publications. Vietnamese American migrants have a Buddhist temple in San José, California, home to the second-largest concentration of immigrants from Vietnam in the United States.

Chinese-American venerated a goddess from the vast Chinese folk pantheon. She is known by her imperial title of Tianhou although her more familiar name is Mazu/Mazupo. The cult of Tianhou is based on the worship of a maiden named Lin Moniang who is said to have lived from 960 to 987. She had magical powers and was transformed from a mortal girl to the Empress of Heaven. In 1986 Taiwanese-Chinese immigrants established a temple to Tianhoe/Mazu that symbolically marks the collective identity of Asian immigrants.

The current study is very well researched and employs up to date theoretical frameworks. The immigrant acculturation theory explores the multiple religions, cultural and national identities in a language accessible to both academics and non-academics.

In spite of its tremendous and ambitious goal, Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana is not difficult to follow its daunting 372 pages. The writers did a fantastic job by reflecting on the different religious practices of the wide variety of immigrants in San Francisco. I was pleasantly surprised that such a difficult and complex theme kept me absorbed at all times.

Written by: Anna Hamling, March 14th 2010

Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:54:00 +0000

By Marilyn Chin

W.W. Norton

Forget fairytales and fables that threaten rape and violence to women who go off the beaten path, deny their parents, or refuse to marry. Marilyn Chin's novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, doesn't lock away its female protagonists into a tower so a prince can climb up their hair and doesn't ask the women to honor and obey their parents. Instead, Chin's twin protagonists are riot grrrls of the immigrant set: they take on everything from gender and sexuality to Chinese mythology and the immigrant experience.

Duality is a central component to the book: the sisters at the heart of the stories are like night and day. It's no coincidence that the sisters – Moonie and Mei Ling – are known as "double happiness." There is the hypersexualized sister, and there is the asexual sister: each is as wild as they are rebellious. Mei Lin throws herself into fling after fling as she makes deliveries for her family’s restaurant while her sister rips her away from too-willing American men again and again. Here, the contradictions of stereotypes are thrown into the face of the reader. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy was never so smartly articulated.

Chin is not unaware of what is at stake for her protagonists. Their boldness is spoken of when Chin writes of Mei Lin's reckless promiscuity: "It could ultimately mean the death of your tribe and your people." The children of immigrants often have high expectations to fulfill. They must honor their cultures and succeed in a new world. The tongue-in-cheek statement certainly has some levity behind it: Failure is not an option for the first generation child.

Chin drives the stake through the heart of the matter when describing the twins' reaction to a fellow first generation immigrant, Donny Romero: "Now he's on the East Coast studying art at Yale. How spoiled is that? First-generation immigrant and he gets to study art." While the girls rage and rebel against this expectation, they do indeed fall into it. They become the Ivy League successes predicted by their family and by the world around them.

The collection's only misstep is that the narrators, and consequently Chin, sometimes seem too pleased with themselves. Chin knows what she's doing, and like the adventurous Mei Ling, she seemingly has so much pushing the envelope that the message of the pieces is sometimes drowned out by the volume of the sexual escapades and wink-wink criticism of assimilation. For example, "Wiping One's ass with the Sutras" would be more than fine, but when coupled again and again with sexually explicit language, the rebellion at the heart of the collection is dulled because the nail is hit one too many times. The profanity is meant to jolt the reader, but without some relief from the jolting, the risk is desensitization.

The growing pains of the Chinese immigrant experience are bursting at the seams. These twins do not reject their heritage; they simply poke holes through its hypocrisies. These sisters do not blindly accept American culture, and mock its excesses. These are the new stories of the immigrant nation. It's no accident that the restaurant owned by the twins' family is called Double Happiness. Here, making one's way means working hard, sacrificing, and forging a path to the Ivy League schools, something the twins expect as much as the mooncakes they deliver. These vixens rebel and buck and crow against expectations: this "double happiness" of living in a new land with old world expectations. The twins make their own path without rejecting the history, expectations, and hopes of their family.

Chin does not offer a happily-ever-after-type ending nor does she offer a tragedy. Instead, the twins play in murky water and shed new light on old struggles.

Written by: Lisa Bower, January 17th 2010

Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:33:00 +0000

By Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

Rutgers University Press

Writing a book and having it published is not the accomplishment it used to be. While academic presses are not known for being as competitive as popular presses, they appear to be on the precipice of absurdity. Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture is an additional finger’s width of movement toward the edge.

Translating Childhoods is an ethnography. Its research was conducted through observation and collecting data from diaries and interviews. The author studied children of immigrants (and at times immigrants themselves) who fulfill the function of translator for their family, and this is the subject of the book.

Faulstich Orellana, while able to avoid participation, chooses to wade into the ongoing debate in the social sciences about whether, as such, the social scientist should act as a physical scientist. Should they aim for aloofness and attempt detachment, or acknowledge their biases and preferences and address them in their writing? She subscribes to the latter position. Married to an immigrant, much of her motivation and mindset in writing this book are acknowledged by her as being the result of her personal relationships.

Child translators form a stratum of unrewarded workers in society, particularly important in a globalizing world. The children acting as translators are unrewarded in monetary terms while being relied upon for financial matters, and precariously teeter on the edge of adulthood while remaining children. Faulstich Orellana would like to focus on the often ignored economic implications of this work, an emphasis which forms a basis of feminist theories in political economies. Ultimately, subordinates in society often work the hardest while earning the least both financially and socially.

The book reads as many other academic books do: as a formulaic, un-inventive, well-stated thesis in a poorly written publication. While the subject is interesting, it is insufficient. Faulstich Orellana creates additional suspense by emphasizing the dichotomies of the children’s familial positions—child and authority figure, dependent and depended upon—however, these are inadequate in holding the book up, and 125 pages (not including appendices) felt more like the reverse, 521 pages. Faulstich Orellana’s fastidiousness in defining her terms and explaining her methodology contributes to the uninitiated reader’s understanding; however, her circular references, not very cryptic foreshadowing, and academic namedropping make this brand of scholarly writing particularly unreadable.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, October 16th 2009

Pygmy

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:07:00 +0000

By Chuck Palahniuk

Doubleday

Chuck Palahniuk has a following online; it’s even called The Cult. The fandom is well deserved. When a book evokes such emotion in the reader that you might just faint from graphic truth (such as in his novel Haunted), you have got to love it! Upon opening his latest novel, Pygmy, I felt as if I were taking a dip into the sexiest sea of twisted delights. I often had to stop reading mid-page to burst into a flurry of laughter brought on by his text. This man makes me feel alive, and I need more! The book left me questioning what is wrong with human nature, and what are we products of, exactly?

The story takes you through the inner tinkering of Pygmy, a pubescent terrorist foreign exchange student implant living in suburban America. The sexual explicitness throughout the story was humorously uncomfortable, yet strangely stimulating. Palahniuk’s satirical prowess is yet again screaming victory in the land of fictitious works.

Pygmy reflects on the various activities of everyday American life as truly absurd actions in a perverse and awkward society. He parades us through big-box stores, the town’s “religion propaganda distribution outlet,” and ponders scholastic shortcomings, all while conniving his way into various illegal actions to work up to his and his fellow terrorists’ “Operation Havoc.”

Cacophonic explosions within Pygmy’s head lead to many devilish deeds. However, a sugary sweet reinvention occurs, suggesting that even programmed human beings can reconfigure themselves. This serves as a surefire reminder that the mind is a powerful weapon that just might also provide peace, possibly. Pygmy often draws on quotes that were drilled into himself and his cohorts from an early age that seem to fuel them in every situation. Most often these quotes were of fascist, communist, and all around extreme iconic thinkers. These shocking tidbits of actual recollections of figureheads past greatly impact the novel’s outcome. Most of the quotes Palahniuk includes are stunning in their impact, and made me want to fight a little, such as Benito Mussolini's assertion that, “War is to man what maternity is to a woman.”

You have to stop and rearrange your thought process every time you pick up the book. This style is a departure from his previous novels—more of a structured, militant mind process of events recounted by the main character. Many times after putting the story down, I would find myself thinking similarly to the character. Each process or action noted, each bizarre human encounter was now a new experience.

My only disappointment with this offering from Palahniuk is that I wasn’t disturbed as greatly as I have been whilst reading some of his other novels. Don’t get me wrong, more than likely I’ll read Pygmy again. It’s a country of it’s own, a ride into a mindset that is foreign and convoluted. Cheers to a man who seems to be unafraid to push his limits in challenging the public and making people think differently after reading. This is entertainment.

Written by: A. Mariel Westermeyer, July 28th 2009

Repeat After Me

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Rachel DeWoskin

Overlook Press

Rachel DeWoskin’s debut novel, Repeat After Me, is a cultural love story between two people whose lives briefly intertwine. Afterwards, they are never the same again. The story follows the relationship between a young neurotic ESL teacher in Manhattan, Aysha Silvermintz, and her student, Da Ge, a mysterious, silent, Chinese national who comes to the U.S. just after the Tienanmen Square uprisings.

Whatever they may lack in communication skills, they compensate for in emotional understanding. Both come from difficult families and have personal baggage to deal with. The day Da Ge walks into Aysha's classroom, Aysha begins to fall in love with him. After they spend time together, Da Ge abruptly asks Aysha to marry him so he can obtain his U.S. citizenship. When Aysha becomes pregnant, she does not tell Da Ge right away because she is not sure how he will react. Sometimes, he is distant from her, while other times, he is emotionally close. He also spends days away from the apartment without telling her where has been and she does not question him. He only says he has ‘business.’

Da Ge married her for citizenship. But, Aysha married him for more. She married for love and his ideals. The tension of what this arrangement entailed constantly lingered in their interactions. Then, one day Da Ge takes off again and after a few days, Aysha finally goes looking for him. She finds that he has committed suicide. To make sense of his life and death, she moves to China to deliver and raise her child.

DeWoskin writes her novel in a multicultural narrative which immediately captivates a reader’s attention. Her writing is emotional, graceful, and provocative filled with beautiful, sometimes painful images. But her story is always focused on the human spirit. The characters she portrays are seekers trying to find answers in the world, trying to follow a path, and find peace. The torment in Da Ge was too great. He was a child of Tiananmen Square. His continuous teachings to Aysha of China, both of its past and present, illustrate his internal struggle of wanting a democracy in China. The physical bruises and scars are manifestations of his fight with the powers that be. His willingness to learn English and his inability to survive in new culture surface a wounded soul. Aysha needed to go to China to discover a peace for herself. She had to now practice Da Ge’s teachings. After years of living alone, she now would become a nurturer to her child. She wanted to be as close as possible to Da Ge’s spirit as possible with all the tastes, smells, culture, and reminders. This would be her salvation.

DeWoskin’s novel is character-driven and sophisticated, but does not lack in plot. She vividly describes her characters' moods, expressions, habits, and desires without giving too much away. Readers will not get bored. She gives her readers enough information so they will care about her characters. She engages them to read on. This is a rare talent. The story is also one which is bittersweet, and is told with raw honesty.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, July 17th 2009

Laughing without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American at Home and Abroad

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:57:00 +0000

By Firoozeh Dumas

Villard

Laughing without an Accent is Firoozeh Dumas’s second book, after her debut memoir Funny in Farsi. Dumas is an Iranian-American who writes about the similarities and differences in Iranian cultures through her own experiences growing up in Iran and America. The book is a compilation of twenty-eight vignettes which span her life in both countries. The vignettes portray her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood in the most memorable ways, usually leaving the reader with a smile or laugh before eagerly turning to read the next story.

These days, Iranians are fighting for free, fair, and democratic elections and for their personal rights and freedom. Humor is not the first thing that may come to mind for Americans when thinking about Iranians right now. However, Dumas, who is married to a Frenchman, writes her stories with such ease that humor is exactly what readers find in each story, along with kindness, compassion, love, and sometimes chaos. Almost all of her stories are about her family, and how Persian culture really defines itself in society—or... well... doesn’t (hence, the humor).

One example of calamity is the cultural clash that occurs over a holiday feast her husband cooks for her parents. This is a hysterical but good-hearted read along with her other story of the amazingly bright red comforter that Firoozeh’s mother brought for them that just wouldn’t disappear. Her stories are meaningful because readers, regardless of origin, can relate to the humanity behind her writing.

Dumas’ descriptive skill gives her the leeway to explore her characters more freely, and set a peaceful tone for her readers. She challenges us to look beyond the dissimilarities and focus on the similarities which bring us together. She cleverly uses humor, grace, and respect for the written word as her instruments in one unique symphony. The music that she creates is our laughter—some with accents, some without.

Written by: Mona Lisa Safai, July 16th 2009

Gold Dust on His Shirt: The True Story of an Immigrant Mining Family

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:32:00 +0000

By Irene Howard

Between The Lines

When you think about migrant memoirs of North America, stories of moving north from Latin America often come to mind more than those detailing moves east and west. Flipping around that common assumption, Gold Dust on His Shirt tells the story of Irene Howard’s Swedish-Norwegian immigrant family’s tumultuous life in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century.

After the death of her first husband in Norway, Howard’s mother Ingeborg immigrated to Canada. She left her young daughter Inga behind with the child’s grandparents, promising to send for Inga as soon as she was settled. Instead, once she arrived in Prince Rupert (in current day British Colombia), she met and married a Swede, Nils Alfred in 1913. Only seven years after Norway had gained its independence from Sweden, the couple felt—and was—thousands of miles from the political controversies of their homeland. Six months later, Ingeborg gave birth to their first son, Swedish-Norwegian-Canadian Arthur Ingemar. Over the years, Ingeborg and Alfred had several more children—Verner Erik, Nels Edwin, Irene—and were uprooted from their home several times. Alfred’s job working on the railroad demanded that the family relocate as work became available. As Alfred became involved with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and began mobilizing other immigrant workers, his job prospects were often limited due to his radical organizing.

Reading about language barriers, death by tuberculosis or mine collapse, police raids, and workers’ struggles against mining companies is a sobering experience. Living a reverse tale of sorts—an American in Denmark, mostly unable to speak Danish—I have a lot of empathy for the characters in this story. I also suspect that my own Norwegian background and my adopted Danish family made this a more interesting tale for me. I didn’t mind reading about characters named Sigurd Ullstreng, Olav Trygvasson, and Elling Erikssen Aarvig. For me, it was a bit comforting and homey—or “hygge,” as we say in Danish.

Howard’s history is fascinating, though her presentation is a bit dry. At times, the book reads like a genealogy scrapbook instead of a memoir, listing people and events in a factual if uninspiring way. For history buffs, this is no doubt enjoyable. I will admit to struggling at times to wade through the details of a time and place with which I have no real familiarity. Yet Howard’s story is valuable and often untold, and her objective storytelling—in which she often removes herself entirely from the narrative, even though she lived through the same events—is a refreshing departure from the self-centered account most memoirs provide. I suspect I will revisit this book for years to come, perhaps as my roots deepen and spread among the Nordic states and North America.

Howard was born in 1922 amidst her father’s career change from mining to fishing. That she has survived the last eighty-seven years—three less than my own still-living Norwegian grandmother—with her story intact, now fully documented and published, is no small feat. In Norwegian, we say, “gratulerer”—congratulations.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 11th 2009