immigration

The Singer’s Gun

payal — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Emily St. John Mandel’s book The Singer’s Gun sounds like a paperback thriller, but in a pleasant surprise, delights the reader with a still and quiet prose and a keen eye for the details that uncover the interconnectedness of all our lives. Beautiful images of ancient trees and Mediterranean utopias find a home with New York’s summer heat and the sticky lives of its characters. Mandel serves up superlative moral crises in this well-crafted novel, crises which could stretch the bounds of anyone’s convictions.

The story of an honest con man and illegal girl in New York City, The Singer’s Gun reminds us all that no situation is ever black and white. While both Anton, the illegal passport dealer turned honest desk jockey, and Elena, the Canadian alien struggling with both metaphysical meaning and anemia, have done several questionable things, their stories are so rich and so painfully real that the reader’s loyalties are constantly shifting.

Mandel treats her characters with a kindness, yet an almost parental and bittersweet layering of guilt. While both Anton and Elena have significant others, they find an intimacy together that trumps their steady domestic lives. This intimacy itself is a strained one, for unbeknown to Anton, Elena has been sent with a recorder in her purse to question him after an evening rendez-vous, in order that the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service can get a hold on his past activities. As a recipient of one of his passport/Social Security card packages, Elena is in a compromising place. This is chronically her issue.

Although Anton is the main character, I am more fascinated with Elena. Wispy thin and constantly anemic and hungry from lack of food, it would be easy to paint Elena as a neo-Victorian woman, whose relationship with Anton survives because of her dependence on him. However, I find more subtlety in Elena. Her quiet sensuality and moments of subversion keep her alive, and make her a more complete partner to Anton. She is twice compelled to model for a photographer for money. The second time, she finds that the photographer has taken a route into the territory of pornographic material. Caught, like many young women, in the position of having to participate in order to eat, Elena seems like another victim. However, she takes her experience, along with the mounting stress of her job and affectionless relationship and impulsively makes a brave decision to visit Anton on a small island off the coast of Italy, where (for reasons I won’t divulge) he is now living, risking deportation, debt, and uncertainty. The couple’s journeys across national lines, emotional lines, and ethical lines make one pause and reconsider preconceptions about morality and propriety.

This is Mandel’s second novel. Her first, Last Night in Montreal, received outstanding reviews, and after reading this accomplishment, there is no doubt I will read the first.

Written by: Cristin Colvin, November 18th 2010

Speaking in Tongues

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Marcia Jarmel, Ken Schneider

PatchWorks Films

The award-winning documentary Speaking in Tongues spells out an intriguing paradox of America’s identity: Although we’re a nation that prides itself on diversity, we also militantly cling to monolingual education at the expense of culture, communication, and even academic achievement.

Speaking in Tongues follows four San Francisco children, all of whom attend either a Spanish or Chinese immersion public school: a young African-American boy who lives in public housing but is gaining fluency at his Chinese school; a Chinese-American girl who is one of the only people in her family who can communicate with her grandmother; a Caucasian boy who tests out his Mandarin on a trip to China; and a Mexican-American boy who is the first in his family to learn to read and write Spanish, in addition to English.

The naysayers of immersion programs—at least the ones quoted in this film—warn about the United States becoming a Tower of Babel, or that learning other languages is a waste of tax dollars when children should be learning English. But what this film shows, mostly with statistics and interviews with experts, is that kids who continue academic learning of their mother tongue learn better English, perform better academically overall, and are much less likely to drop out of school. There’s also a huge distinction between speaking another language at home and learning that language academically. Students who have oral bilingual skills are doubling their proficiency if they learn their native language academically instead of just informally. And children whose mother tongue is English benefit academically from early bilingual education, too. They’ve acquired language skills early in life that will be sought-after when they enter the workforce.

The film makes great arguments—illustrated by lovable kids and their earnest families—for why bilingual education should be a priority in the United States as it is in other countries. The film uses interesting quotes about immigration, English-only legislation, and education against eye-catching graphics. A segment of educators talking about the languages spoken in their school systems, animated onto a map of the United States, was an especially interesting visual.

From a feminist viewpoint, it’s impossible to know why the filmmakers chose to follow three boys and only one girl. Surely they had their reasons, but it would have been nice to see the experience of a Latina or African American girl, especially since the education achievement gap is currently skewed for both ethnic groups, on top of the achievement gap between girls and boys.

Regardless, Speaking in Tongues is a great film that focuses on the benefits of being bilingual without delving into other, potentially more sensitive political issues like immigration, racism and xenophobia, all of which intersect with English-only politics.

Written by: Hannah Moulton Belec, August 5th 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

Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Ellen Lewin

University of Chicago Press

In this well-written ethnography, Gay Fatherhood, Ellen Lewin examines the choices and the decisions of gay fathers in America, focusing particularly on men who choose to become fathers as gay men, rather than coming out after having had children in a different-sex marriage. Lewin, also the author of the 1993 ethnography Lesbian Mothers, works centrally from Chicago but has found research participants of impressive diversity with respect to race, religion, socioeconomic background, profession, number of children, and relationship to community. All of these elements make for a fascinating read.

The central question in Lewin’s book is one that has become increasingly pertinent and visible, particularly in queer communities, as the gay marriage debate advances in the United States. Does “being gay” simply mean being a man who loves and is sexually attracted to men, or does it imply another separateness, an inherent incompatibility, with a world that is and will always be predominantly straight? And does asserting the latter negate the identity of gay fathers, assuming "father," even "parent," to be the province of the straight world alone? Or does a gay man who chooses to be a father give up his right to identify as "gay?" Or does "parent" come to overshadow, to render irrelevant, the identity “gay”? And if none of the above are true, are there factors beyond the sexual orientation and gender of the parents that would specifically identify a family as a "gay family?"

As is often the case in anthropological research, Lewin explores these questions without ever fully answering them. Given the scope and depth of Lewin’s writing, however, no answer seems to be demanded. By simply displaying the complexity of the lives and relationships of gay fathers—relationships with partners, relationships with children, relationships with other parents, extended families, communities of friends, religious communities, communities of residence—she demonstrates that this is not an issue to be bullet-pointed or oversimplified. Lewin uses her ethnography to delve into the lives of gay families, and to show the complex nexus of identity at which they reside, and at which they must, in contemporary America, continue to reside. A true writer and a true anthropologist, she leaves the prescription of actions to her readers; there is no doubt that engagement with her writing will lead to more considered, and therefore better, action.

Written by: Gemma Cooper-Novack, March 1st 2010

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:58:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Viking

Since I am apparently one of the only women between the ages of twenty-five and seventy-five who hasn’t read Eat, Pray, Love, I was delightfully surprised by Elizabeth Gilbert's latest work, Committed.

Gilbert's engaging prose and witty, self-deprecating style are intriguing, thought provoking, moving, and hilarious. Committed picks up where the first book leaves off. Gilbert and Felipe have been living together happily on several continents, but their domestic bliss is brought to an end when U.S. Immigration detain Felipe at the airport in Dallas and then deport him. The couple is advised that the only way Felipe will be able to enter and live in the U.S. again is if they get married.

Gilbert describes their situation in confessional detail: they want to be together and Felipe needs to travel to America for his business to survive. On the other hand, both have gone through gut wrenching divorces and have sworn never to remarry. Gilbert leaves the country to be by Felipe’s side during the immigration process. As they travel together, she decides to do her own investigation of marriage to try to embrace it fully. Committed is the chronicle of that time.

The pleasure of Committed, for me, was Gilbert’s interweaving of her own story with research on the history of marriage, and the informal interviews she conducted with women from all over the world. In her writing, Gilbert shows the various, often contradictory effects of marriage on women, and she does it in a complex fashion. The chapter “Marriage and Women” begins with anecdotes about Gilbert’s time in Laos, but it could have been subtitled “Mixed Emotions” or “A Cost-Benefit Analysis.”

For example, Gilbert tells us about Joy and Ting. Ting is from a tiny Laotian village and is extremely proud of her daughter Joy, who has received an education and is a skilled weaver. However, Joy’s ability to support her family is a source of both happiness and frustration. The young men in the village are neither as educated as Joy nor are they able to provide an equally large income. Joy’s material betterment effectively ended her marriage prospects within the village.

Gilbert goes on to relate the story of her grandmother, who gave up a fashionable life and successful career to raise seven children in one room of a drafty old farmhouse during the Great Depression. Gilbert’s grandmother claims this was the happiest time of her life, but also hopes Gilbert will not give up writing books to raise a family. The contradictions inherent in how Gilbert’s grandmother feels about her life and her granddaughter’s life embody the experience of many modern women.

Gilbert captures the complicated emotions surrounding marriage perfectly, and her intelligent analysis, combined with her obvious heart and likability, make Committed a thoughtful and gratifying read. I’ve already ordered Eat, Pray, Love.

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, February 23rd 2010

The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Marilyn Chin

Milkweed Editions

I have always been fascinated by the immigrant experience, especially within America. Being fifth generation American myself, it is safe to say I am quite removed from it. Yet I often do research and write about my ancestors, thinking about what they went through when they entered Ellis Island in New York and tried to make a place for themselves in a strange land. One hundred years ago, Europeans flooded our shores, and today, immigrants from many different countries make their way here. Their experiences are completely different from previous immigrant generations, right? Yes and no. I honestly believe that there are quite a few similarities.

Marilyn Chin's The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty is a powerful account of what the immigrant faces in coming to the United States – the good, the bad and the ugly. She writes lines about Mongolians on horseback and the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, as well as buying groceries at the Safeway in San Diego. She juxtaposes images that are so different, startling to the reader, but this is only a representation of what immigrants truly experience. From one country to another, so completely different in every way: it is startling. While the poet was born in Hong Kong, she was raised in Portland, Oregon, illustrating the fact that being raised in America from childhood does not necessarily negate the confusion and complexity of the migration experience.

One of my favorite excerpts is the following, from the poem entitled, "How I Got That Name: an essay on assimilation":

I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin. Oh, how I love the resoluteness of that first person singular followed by that stalwart indicative of "be," without the uncertain i-n-g of "becoming." Of course, the name had been changed somewhere between Angel Island and the sea, when my father the paperson in the late 1950s  obsessed with a bombshell blonde transliterated "Mei Ling" to "Marilyn." And nobody dared question his initial impulse - for we all know lust drove men to greatness, not goodness, not decency. And there I was, a wayward pink baby, named after some tragic white woman _swollen with gin and Nembutal.” _

Later in the poem she draws the two worlds together, showing the reader how intertwined they can be. In fact, one might say that these lines sum up the message of the entire collection: “The further west we go, we'll hit east;/the deeper down we dig, we'll find China.” The old world is never far, regardless of how remote it can seem. Traditions, perceptions, feelings, and thousands of years of history are always with Chin and others like her, even if they must scratch the surface to see them more clearly.

Written by: April D. Boland, January 16th 2010

Amreeka

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Cherien Dabis

National Geographic Entertainment

There are a plethora of films which recount the arrival of distinct ethnic groups to America, ranging from the Eddie Murphy’s pathetic Coming to America to the Charlie Chaplin’s classic The Immigrant to the Patricia Riggen’s subtle Under The Same Moon or Jim Sheridan’s In America. However, no situation seems as tense as the arrival of visible minority immigrants to the United States post-9/11, where tense circumstances await them.

Amreeka is a the debut feature-length film by Cherien Dabis, named by Variety magazine as one of its “Ten Directors to Watch” this year, and we can indeed look forward to her next feature length film if her first is any measure of her talent. Dabis has worked in television, writing for Showtime’s The L Word and has also written and directed several award-winning short films. In Amreeka, Dabis’ writing underscores the subtleties of one who has bridged many cultures at once, a personal insight that she most likely gained during her childhood and adolescence in both the U.S. and Jordan, and as the daughter of Palestinian parents.

Dabis’ film questions the differences between the uneasy racial situation as it exists in the United States and the situation lived by the Palestinians in the Occupied territories. Nisreen Faour, a talented Palestinian theatre and television actress, is exceptional as the mother in this film; it is she who negotiates the departure for the United States with her son, the very promising young Melkar Muallem in his first movie role. Hiam Abbass, a famous international actress whom readers might recognize from such Hollywood blockbusters as Munich and Babel, is ever-talented in the role of the sister who has been living in the United States with her doctor husband and raising three girls.

Part of the film’s brilliance is that it is meant to unsettle viewers at various levels—Dabis often uses humour as her weapon. Whether it is in the encounters (at Israeli checkpoints, at the U.S. customs, during a job interview with a racist or in the visual of the Mom in her fast food uniform), in the stereotypes (the mom’s naivety, the fresh-off-the boat clothing debate, the terrorists) or in the general melodrama, there are many cringe-worthy moments. One circumstance that personally made me cower was the weight of gender in the mother-son relationship, especially in the film which has been touted as the story of an “indomitable” single mom who makes it on her own. There are a few condescending moments when the son patronizingly pats his mother’s shoulder during her hopelessness, saves the day by lending her money, and makes her believe in a paternalistic way that everything will be alright.

Sadly, the film does not seem to imply that the general condition of immigrants in the U.S. will evolve for the better. There are brief flashes of “openness” in the mom’s male friend, her dropout co-worker from the fast-food joint, and the lady at the bank who finally gets her a credit card (the American dream!). However, in the final scene, the family unit folds back into itself (with the male friend) and drives from the fast-food drive through to a Palestinian restaurant in Chicago to enjoy a blissful “traditional” meal, complete with hookah and dancing. In this turn of events, Dabis’ symbol is not lost; the errant Palestinians make their own mini-homelands wherever they may be, no matter how hostile their environment.

_Review by Sophie M. Lavoie_

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, December 26th 2009

All That Work and Still No Boys

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:00:00 +0000

By Kathryn Ma

University of Iowa Press

In All That Work and Still No Boys, Kathryn Ma writes short stories with one thing in common: the Chinese American experience in California. This book is not for those who like conventional storytelling. Each chapter is the story of a person or family, sometimes related to another person or family in the book and sometimes not at all. The stories jump through time and space—sometimes told in first person and sometimes in third—but each chapter brings a refreshing and unique look at the way different people deal with immigration, culture, and family.

It’s hard to write about what I enjoyed most in this book without going into detail about specific stories. I’ll briefly mention that I loved the grandmother, who is so dedicated to helping her aspiring actress of a granddaughter, and the overachieving student with a school prank gone wrong. With the grandmother, you see pride and dedication almost to a fault. The student, meanwhile, provides an unexpected spin on the stereotype of overachieving Asian student. These are a couple of my favorites because Ma breathed life into each character, no matter how short the story. I found myself connecting to some part of almost every story, seeing the weaknesses of the protagonists and sympathizing with the antagonists.

This is normally the point in a review where I would elaborate on what I didn’t like about the book, but there isn’t really much I didn’t like. If I had to offer a criticism, it would be that I find the characters a little underdeveloped and wish I could read more about all of them. I’d like to know how their stories continue and where they end up.

Admittedly, even though I love reading narratives that jump around and don’t always match up the way these stories do, it was sometimes hard to figure out what stories were actually connected and which were not. I look forward to reading the book again—not just to connect the dots, but simply because it was a very enjoyable read.

Written by: frau sally benz, December 2nd 2009

Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation, and Youth Violence Are Changing America

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:32:00 +0000

By Sarah Garland

Nation Books

As sprawl becomes less environmentally acceptable, foreclosures soar, and media trumpet the end of the suburban dream, the suburbs or at least some of them, have emerged as a problem, rather than as a solution. Although the house prices in the true islands of affluence have fallen, crime, drugs, and gangs are emerging in suburban neighborhoods abandoned to working-class and immigrant people. Sarah Garland provides an in-depth analysis of how the Long Island suburb of Hempstead decayed in her book, Gangs in Garden City. She also explores how interconnected the decay of Hempstead and other such communities is to other critical issues such as foreign policy, the war on drugs, immigration, and No Child Left Behind.

However, front and center are the stories of individuals, from gang members to police to educators. We meet Julio, the child soldier of the U.S.-funded Salvadoran army, who braves the perilous border crossing to join his mother in the United States. His attempts to ameliorate the gang problem in Hempstead are rebuffed by authorities and he ends up detained by immigration authorities and eventually agrees to be deported back to El Salvador, where his gang associations still haunt his life. Jessica will especially engage feminist readers. A tough tomboy, who still wants a frilly dress for her fifteenth birthday celebration, she faces fatal retribution when she runs afoul of gang politics.

Garland tracks the gangs of the title from Central America and back, but avoids the facile explanation that views the source of the problem as coming from elsewhere. She traces the ideology of suburbia back to the garden city of the book title, a concept that grew out of the distaste for the slums created by industrialization and urbanization, a flawed ideal of a contained community safe from the outside world. Once a rural village, Hempstead transformed into a suburb in the 1940s and, because of its mix of older single-family housing and apartments, was one of the first suburbs to be racially integrated. She explores the implications of retail flight, a declining tax base, and drug traffic in Hempstead from the point of view of the police chief, the school principal, and county politicians. Add a misguided foreign and immigration policies to this toxic mix, and the result is the sad story of Hempstead. She also explores the uses made of gang activity in stoking the public’s fear of crime for political advantage.

The benefits of meeting the human beings affected by the unfolding sociological disaster are somewhat undercut by the sometimes confused narrative. The intentional intertwining of their stories and the decision to intersperse their stories in necessary exposition about changes in legislation, city planning ideas, and juvenile justice theories make the story difficult to follow at times. Then again, Garland never ignores the complexities attending this issue. For, that she deserves our gratitude.

Written by: Frances Chapman, September 24th 2009

La Americana

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:34:00 +0000

Directed by Nicholas Bruckman

People's Television

This review will probably be a bit dated, as Nicholas Bruckman’s 2008 documentary appealing for more welcoming U.S. immigration policy has been superseded by our new president’s openly liberal views on the issue. However, La Americana still manages to be refreshing, ambitious, and important, particularly for those who are still skeptical of Obama’s stance or who simply don’t know much about the immigrant experience.

Bruckman makes a valiant effort to de-generalize the issue or, rather, the people it affects most, by focusing on one woman’s journey to the U.S. as an illegal immigrant from Bolivia. Her story is not the one to which we are accustomed: Maria does not come to New York in pursuit of some variation on “The American Dream;” she is only there in the hopes of making enough money to cover medical expenses for her daughter Carla, who was left paralyzed by a bus accident as a young girl. Ironically, Maria’s need to take care of her daughter ends up being somewhat of a detriment to their relationship, as it keeps them apart for several years.

For a film that’s bookended with two liberal quotes on immigration—the first by JFK and the second by Obama himself—La Americana is surprisingly unbiased in its presentation. Though Maria is a special case and certainly doesn’t represent all the illegal immigrants in New York City, let alone this country, her story is told in such an unadulterated manner that I wasn’t left feeling manipulated or like I was being pitched a political ideal.

It only helps that Maria herself is quite relatable and likable; she speaks candidly and without a speck of naïveté, so much so that even in spite of her situation, we never pity her. When she moves back to Bolivia on Carla’s quinceañera, we are finally able to see the awful living conditions her family endures there, but Maria never breathes a word of despair. She says nothing of how poor the available health care is there—we see it for ourselves, as she is forced to carry Carla up flights of stairs to the doctor’s office.

Unfortunately, the money Maria saved up in the States cannot sustain her and Carla for more than several months, and it is with a world of regret that she must move back to the U.S. It is at this point, at the end of the film, that we are reminded of Bruckman’s agenda, but not by Bruckman himself; it is Maria who pushes for change, eloquently expounding on what the term “American” means and what it should mean.

As I watched Maria tearfully explain that all Americans came from immigrants, I was surprised to realize that I’d never been allowed such emotional access to an illegal immigrant before. Bruckman has done something truly revolutionary by concentrating on this woman’s story: he’s personalized a group of people that has typically been pluralized and portrayed as a single mass, a collective “issue.” With the help of his film, perhaps those who still have trouble breaking that convention will at least begin to see illegal immigrants as people rather than a problem.

Written by: Caitlin Graham, August 27th 2009

Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering

admin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:34:00 +0000

By Suzanne Kamata

Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing

Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering is a collection of essays by twenty different women who are all raising children in a multicultural environment. The children in this book mainly fall into three categories: they are of mixed racial heritage, they are being raised in a country to which their parents have immigrated, or they have been adopted by parents from another culture. Being multiracial myself and having been raised in an army town where interracial relationships, foreign mothers, and multiracial children are fairly common, I was interested to see what Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering had to say.

Overall, I found the stories in the book to be very hit or miss. Some were moving and touched on issues that multicultural families sometimes face. One stand out is “Fade to Brown,” the story of a woman of mixed race who worries how her daughters’ differing skin colors (one is light, the other dark) will affect their relationship with each other and their cultural identity. It’s an insightful story, dealing with real concerns and specific problems that many people of mixed race can relate to.

Other stories in the collection are less on target. For instance, “Dr. Bucket in Bishkek” has nothing to do with raising children in a foreign country or culture. Instead, it is an amusing tale about an English woman’s experiences while being pregnant in Kyrgyzstan. While it makes for a good fish-out-of-water story, the essay has little to do with the central theme of the collection. Many of the stories were also centered more on how the mother was reacting to the family’s environment or circumstance instead of focusing on the children. These stories were more about bad marriages and personal prejudices than about mothers coping with unusual situations.

My main problem with many of these stories is that due to the way they were written, they just did not feel real. Don’t get me wrong—the writing is good, but it’s all very fanciful and poetic, making the work seem more like fiction than a relating of real life events. Instead of flowery prose, I would have preferred straightforward accounts of the obstacles and triumphs these mothers have encountered. In the end, Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering is worth a look for the better stories, but be prepared to have to wade through the bad ones as well.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, April 28th 2009

Chinese American Women: A History of Resilience and Resistance

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:38:00 +0000

The National Women's History Museum

The National Women's History Museum will make you say, "Wow!" or "Zounds!" or "Holy s**t, I had no idea." Whether you're an über-educated feminist or a newbie dabbler, this site will inspire your "Women rock!" soul... or rock your "Women inspire!" soul. Either way, you'll love it.

Amongst many astounding cyber exhibits lies Chinese American Women: A History of Resilience and Resistance. Fresh off the heels of reading Lisa See's Snowflower and the Secret Fan (which was set in nineteenth century China), I had to dive into this exhibit to see if escape from China was truly a way out of hierarchical obedience, or yet another road leading to torment for Chinese women. Try to guess which is true: once these immigrant women arrived in America (at a 19:1 male to female ratio), they were treated like queens and enjoyed beautiful lives—just like the immigrants who arrive in America today—or they were treated like criminals, sold into prostitution, and held in detention centers for up to two years.

Because China had a long history in mining, the gold rush in California was an inevitable draw to those who were able to escape the Guangdong Province famine and China's long string of Opium Wars. Many women suffered from disease, depression, isolation, physical disability (those "lily feet"), and severe displacement anxiety. Yet as wives, they had little choice about their journey.

The Chinese American Women exhibit is heavy on text, but includes inimitable images of early Chinese American settlers and trailblazers. It also covers the early Chinese feminist movement, beginning with the abolition of foot binding. It's important to remember that rebellious souls are not the afterthoughts of a few profound social movements. Said movements are, in fact, the result of rebellious souls, whether or not the names attached become psychological backdrops for the masses.

Take Alice Sue Fun, who traveled the world with actress Lola Fisher at a time when most Chinese American women dared not walk outside alone. America itself, though strangely persistent in its racism, wasn't entirely bad. The suffrage movement had a profound effect on the way China saw itself and its treatment of women.

The National Women's History Museum looks unflinchingly at segregation, and provides generous examples of civil disobedience, violent resistance, and as the title suggests, women's resilience. Of course, it does not ignore the degenerative effects of a patriarchal world culture. Confucius, for example, was a dick. Furthermore, his brain was no match for the twentieth century Chinese American women phone operators who knew, by ear, the names and numbers of 2,500 telephone subscribers. Just one of many juicy tidbits that await you at the online exhibit.

Beyond the amazing exhibit featured here, the National Women's History Museum has lots of other goodies to explore. Though it is currently an online-only museum, it is fighting for a physical space—double entendres abound. Sign the bill to make the National Women's History Museum a permanent fixture in the United States by going to their website. There, you'll find information, activism, cyber lesson plans for teachers, and even celebrity sightings.

Only one complaint: the Chinese American Women exhibit is quite a tome and there are no page numbers for reference. Don't let the length deter you, though. Almost every page offers motivating examples of wild women. The site is not ADHD-proofed for navigation, but be patient—the payoff is huge.

Oh, and that deep, welling feeling inside that makes you feel positively giddy as you stroll through the virtual exhibit? That's inspiration. If Yoke Leen can declare herself an independent woman, you can too.

Written by: Michelle C. Schaefer, February 17th 2009

Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration

admin — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:17:00 +0000

By Deepa Fernandes

Seven Stories Press

In Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration, Deepa Fernandes dispels the myths that immigration issues are primarily about post-9/11 homeland security by revealing their roots as economic, labor, environmental, and race issues.

Through historical analysis, interviews, and good old muckraking, Fernandes discusses how illegal immigrants do not often view themselves as lawbreakers coming to establish U.S. citizenship—though many falsely hope that hard work will result in the achievement of the American Dream—but are illegal workers crossing to serve as members of a legalized underclass of wage-earners who perform tasks critical to both the U.S. economy and the American way of life. To complicate matters, Fernandes also examines how legal immigrants to the U.S., including valid green card holders, students, contracted workers, asylum seekers, permanent residents, and military personnel are increasingly affected.

The parts of Fernandes’s book that stand out are the personal stories of various people trapped by a system the U.S. government and media claim is “protecting the homeland” and “securing the border” when the reality is quite different. For many immigrants finding work and establishing a life in the U.S. is an imperative only because of the destruction of their home-state economies by U.S. economic policy and legislation, such as NAFTA, which is inflicted upon other countries through globalization and global finance firms like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (both of which are U.S. based).

Fernandes’s rake does get bogged down in the muck towards the end, especially in her extensive and often repetitious chapter on the effect the white supremacy movement has on immigration reform. However, she does receive kudos for refusing to let the Democrats off the hook. Nor does she let individual Americans escape culpability, as it is the American lifestyle - dependent on cheap goods, foods, and services - that fuels government and corporate exploitation of immigrant wage-labor. For the individuals caught by an unjust and racist system whose tales form the core of the book, the treatment of immigrants is not just a frustrating dance with bureaucracy, but is inhumane, a reality Fernandes targets with solid investigative journalism and sensitivity.

Written by: Lacey Dunham, January 9th 2007