working class

Last Train Home

mandy — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

Zeitgeist Films, Canada Council for the Arts

The establishing longshot of this documentary tilts down to show a few policemen in an open, paved space. Slowly the camera pans left, and the entire frame fills with thousands of people standing in a drizzle. Many hold bright, pastel-coloured umbrellas. It’s a beautiful image. The following shot, from ground level, shows that huge crowd rushing in pandemonium past the camera into a train station. These two shots are emblematic of the film: beauty and chaos inextricably interwoven.

Earth’s largest human migration occurs in China at their New Year. One hundred and thirty million people who work in cities scuffle for prized train tickets to return to villages where they were raised. Last Train Home fuses a macro view of this migration as a social and cultural phenomenon with a micro view of one family that makes this annual trek. In so doing, it underscores the high price in domestic turmoil many Chinese families pay for the country’s so-called economic miracle. It also vividly contrasts the lovely countryside with the polluted, teeming, ugliness of urban China.

Changhua Zang and Sugin Chen, husband and wife, work as sewing-machine operators in a factory in Guangzhou. They have two kids—Qin, a girl in her teens, and a boy, Yang, about ten—who live with their grandmother in Huilong Village where the parents were born. The film was shot over a couple of years, so we watch the kids grow up a bit. The parents labour at their dreary work to give their children a chance at prosperity. “You shouldn’t be like us,” they say. To this end, they constantly remind Qin and Yang to stay in school and get good grades. The parents also reveal decidedly mixed feelings about being wage slaves 2,000 kilometres away from their kids. They insist their destiny (etched in their faces) will be worth it if the kids acquire a higher education.

However, Qin, angry and bitter with her parents for their protracted absence, quits school and moves to a city, thus frustrating Changhua and Sugin’s hopes. She goes to work in a strobe-lit dance bar where the music is industrial technopop and employees’ training includes chanting capitalist slogans: “Customers are always right!” and “The boss is always right!” (Mao is turning over in his grave.) Yang, the son, stays in school and remains the light of his parents’ lives. If he quits, their sixteen-year devotion will have been for naught.

A great thing about Last Train Home is how it makes family a common human denominator: the daughter angry with her mother; the likable, hard-working, worried, exhausted, guilty, self-sacrificing parents; the wise grandmother; the young boy who is academically inclined and is his parents’ last, best hope. We know these people. They are us. When Changua finally breaks from his impossibly stoic reserve and slaps his daughter for disrespecting him by using fuck in his presence, we deeply empathize with them both.

A word about the production of this film. Lixin Fan, the director, is Chinese-Canadian. The film was produced mostly by government funds from Canada. It’s a tribute to the country and its art organizations that they have the acuity to fund a film that may seem at first to have nothing to do with Canada. But troubled families, Chinese, Canadian, or anywhere else are legion. And China itself is omnipresent. One need only look at the planet’s retail shelves to see that. This superb documentary allows us inside a Chinese phenomenon to see how similar and connected we all are now.

Finally: Be sure to stick around to hear the plaintive, chilling, gorgeous, acapella aria sung over the end credits.

Written by: Neil Flowers, April 15th 2011

The Book Bindery

gwen — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Sarah Royal

Microcosm Publishing

I just read a wonderful interview with the great poet Martin Espada, in which he talks about the beauty found in writing on all kinds of subjects. Espada himself has worked as a bouncer, a gas station attendant, and everything in between. His words immediately rang in my mind as I sat and devoured Sarah Royal's anecdotes on working in an actual book bindery in an industrial section of Chicago. Her descriptions about the place itself are fascinating—full of dust, ink, large copiers, and smells reeking from all areas of the work environment. I could immediately imagine what it was like to work there, based on Royal’s vivid details. Royal also describes the surrounding areas of the book bindery—where the piles of detritus can create a sweet altar of art on the book bindery's windowsill, where a naked man parks in the back lot and lives for a few days, and where the neighbors run an auto shop that never seems to fix any cars. The stories range from hilarious to a quirky kind of sad and feature fascinating characters—the large dysfunctional family that works at the book bindery and everyone Royal meets through her lengthy commute to her job—as well as a location that seems like a character in and of itself. There's the boss in drag and his brother, who are former alcoholics; a mix of folks who have hooked up with each other, used to be married, have kids together, or are somehow related; and the infamous crazy girl that sits on the bus with Royal as often as she can and tries to break down the mysteries of life with her.

I relate to her mindless drinking of the sludge they call coffee at the bindery and bitching about the bosses in everyday banter with the other employees. I relate to using arts and crafts projects and other creative pursuits to break up the monotony of a job. I used to work at Wawa (for anyone that doesn't live in the northeast U.S., it's a big chain convenience store) and would create all kinds of songs and beats while slicing huge slabs of pink meat behind the deli. I would entertain all the other Wawa employees with imaginary stories and daydreams while filling the walk-in cooler. I think a good deal of folks can relate to this kind of behavior while working the drudgery of their daily job. And that's why these little stories are so satisfying. They're real slices of life, and as poet Espada says, "It's easy to write about the working class in the abstract, but that impulse tends to produce bad poetry. It's very different to write about working class people in terms of the work they do."

Written by: Maleka Fruean, March 30th 2011

Why Girls Fight: Female Youth Violence in the Inner City

alicia — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Cindy D. Ness

New York University Press

Ness holds doctorate degrees in Human Development, Psychology, and Anthropology and in Why Girls Fight she blends the theories and research methods from these three fields to discuss female youth violence. Ness argues that the majority of studies tend to examine either individual factors in explaining and understanding youth violence or emphasize sociological, macro-level factors. Ness’ interdisciplinary approach allows her to address how individual girls respond to and navigate the racial and class constraints as well as the limited economic opportunities within their communities.

Ness problematizes previous research on female youth violence. She addresses the racist and classist underpinnings of the term “violent girl” used in studies, noting that much of this research has relied on a framework in which girlhood is viewed through the lens of white, middle-class femininity. Within this framework girlhood is mostly associated with passivity and relational aggression (mean-girl behavior) if any aggression at all. Moreover, within this framework girls are almost always constructed as victims of violence rather than as agents of violence. Failing to address issues of race and class in relation to youth violence, Ness argues that much of the research depicts girls as delinquents or sociopaths and focuses on faults within the individual.

In acknowledging the social realities girls face in two working-class Philadelphia neighborhoods, Ness is able to sidestep this type of moralizing and pathologizing that taints much of the research on female youth violence. Ness offers a brief history on the economic decline of working-class neighborhoods in Philadelphia, noting how once major industries folded and left the city, entire households and even neighborhoods suddenly found themselves without jobs leading to rundown neighborhoods and schools without adequate funding.

Ness also conducts an ethnographic study, interviewing girls from these two respective neighborhoods on why they fight. In providing a space for the girls’ own words, Ness uncovers a complex set of reasons for female youth violence within the two neighborhoods, reasons ranging from a lack of upward mobility within their communities to issues of physical abuse at home. Furthermore, almost all the girls Ness interviews recognize that street fighting is considered a necessary survival skill within their homes and their communities.

Ness’ book is groundbreaking in addressing how mother-daughter relationships relate to female youth violence. Sidestepping the typical mother-blaming that occurs in studies on this subject, Ness examines how the girls’ mothers’ own views on street-fighting affect how they raise their daughters and she sheds light on the unreported incidents of mothers stepping into fights in order to protect their daughters and at times fighting alongside their daughters.

In neighborhoods that value the ability to handle oneself over passivity, Ness’ work clearly demonstrates that a white, middle-class framework of girlhood cannot begin to explain female youth violence and with Why Girls Fight Ness provides a more adequate model for future studies.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, February 14th 2011

Jack Goes Boating

mandy — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Overture Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment

I had no idea that Phillip Seymour Hoffman had such a devoted fan base. Yeah, he won Oscars for his work in Capote and Doubt and he did liven up overrated stinkers like The Talented Mr. Ripley and Magnolia. Still, I was shocked by how many people streamed into the theatre to see his directorial debut, Jack Goes Boating. Nearly all the chairs in the 600-seat space were filled.

Adapted from Bob Glaudini’s play of the same name, Jack Goes Boating revolves around the doings (or, more accurately, not-doings and undoings) of a group of forty-somethings in New York City. The movie opens with limo drivers Clyde (John Ortiz) and Jack (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) discussing Jack’s upcoming blind date with Connie (Amy Ryan), the co-worker of Clyde’s wife, Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega).

Connie and Jack are sad sacks, having only their jobs and their relationships with their co-workers cum friends to give their lives any type of purpose. Although Connie and Jack are anxious about romance, the two feel an attraction to each other and embark on a snail’s pace courtship. Jack decides to learn how to swim so he can take Connie on a boat ride the coming summer. (The film begins at the cusp of winter.)

Clyde and Lucy’s long-term marriage is slowly disintegrating under the pressures of sexual betrayal, resentment, and boredom. Lucy is quietly ambitious, railing against her husband’s inertia. Clyde attempts to please her by half-heartedly attending business school. Clyde and Lucy distract themselves from their own unhappiness by coaching Jack and Connie's newly forming relationship.

The four inhabit an urban landscape that is strangely devoid of noise, excitement, or other people. This could have been intentional, a subtle way of depicting the isolation of its characters, but it is an iffy creative choice, forcing the audience to focus exclusively on characters who aren’t fully developed.

The film has other flaws as well. While many of the sly jokes in Jack Goes Boating hit the mark, its glacial pace undercuts the film's overall effectiveness. It takes too long to reap the meager payoff and, like many movies that are based on plays, has entirely too much dialogue.

Jack Goes Boating grated on me for political reasons, too. A woman who is willing to ask for more, Lucy is depicted in a quasi-villainous manner, as she’s the one who breaks the tenuous bond of the foursome. The scene where Connie requests to be “overpowered” by Jack before they have sex wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I hadn’t seen the bloody aftermath of her victimization by a subway pervert earlier in the film… or watched her boss touch her in a highly questionable manner. (Is Glaudini suggesting that some women invite victimization?) And the fact that Lucy and Clyde re-enact the workplace sexual harassment in an impromptu sex game left a bad taste in my mouth.

I did enjoy Jack’s visualization and cooking sequences, though. Exquisitely scored, they have a haunting beauty to them. I also appreciated the defiantly downbeat depiction of a fortyish single woman. Connie is anything but Carrie Bradshaw, and Jack Goes Boating avoids being even remotely similar to a rom-com cliché.

All told, Jack Goes Boating is a grown-folks movie. It doesn’t have a feel good vibe, despite its relatively happy ending, and anyone in search of light fare should skip this thinking person’s romantic comedy.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, September 18th 2010

Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Alexandra Pelosi

HBO Films

Orange County, California is known for both wealth and political conservatism. In fact, the most recent American Community Survey reports that the largely Caucasian locale boasts a median household income of $81,260.

But as filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi’s latest documentary, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County, demonstrates, more than ten percent of OC residents live below the poverty line. Some sleep on the streets while others find shelter in rundown hotels, where single rooms rent for between $800 and $900 a month. Ironically, Disneyland is a short distance from the county’s seediest areas, but for impoverished motel residents, Disney is no more accessible than Saturn.

Pelosi’s camera gives viewers an inside peak into the desperation of those living in cramped and often bedbug-infested quarters, places rife with drug dealing, prostitution, and police surveillance. That kids grow up in this environment—sharing one tiny room with siblings, parents, and pets—is sobering and should be an indictment of U.S. housing policies. Sadly, it falls short.

One of the problems is that Pelosi interviews too many people, and it’s hard to remember who’s who. In addition, she never moves beyond the personal, and fails to inject needed political analysis into the discussion. For example, why is housing so expensive? Do motel residents have access to social service programs, job training, or counseling? And most importantly, why has the government refused to build new public housing for those unable to pay market rates?

Despite these flaws, the film is not without its poignant moments. One woman, a married mom of two, proudly touts her family’s survival. Although she admits that she hated living on the streets, she champions the things she learned there. “We know how to bathe in eight ounces of water,” she begins. “We know how to do pooh-pooh in a bag.”

Like all of the “motel kids,” her daughters attend Perfect Hope School, a public program exclusively for those without permanent housing. The sixty-seven pupils stay at Hope as long as they remain in the OC, meaning their education is not interrupted if they leave the motel. Teacher Judy explains one of the school’s advantages: “No one makes fun of you if you wear the same clothes for thirty days.” Plus, she continues, two meals a day—albeit heavy on sugar and fat—are provided.

Predictably, many of the kids have deep problems. One boy, eleven-year-old Zack, is already on probation for robbery. “Some of us kids want what other people have,” he says, “so we just take it.” He later expresses surprising self-awareness. “Sometimes I do it for attention,” he admits. “My mom is too busy.”

Profiling Zack’s family in greater depth would have made the film more insightful and would have given viewers a better understanding of how easily life can fray for the working poor. After all, Zack’s mother and twenty-one-year-old sister both work full-time, but simply don’t earn enough to save the thousands of dollars they’d need to get into an apartment.

Despite these faults, Pelosi deserves recognition for bringing attention to a population that too-often falls through the cracks. What’s more, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County prods lawmakers to do something about the country’s worsening affordable housing crisis. Since approximately two percent of U.S. children are presently undomiciled, the film is a stark, if understated, wake-up call. Let’s hope Pelosi’s mom—yes, Alexandra is Nancy’s daughter—and her colleagues will watch it and once-and-for-all do something about this shameful reality.

Premieres on HBO tonight at 9p.m. EST

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, July 26th 2010

Babies

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Thomas Balmès

Focus Features

I just got back from seeing the documentary Babies. I have to say that it was great! Director Thomas Balmès followed four babies from four countries for a little over a year each. The movie is mostly without dialogue, except for the little bit of the parents' talking. It is mostly shot from the baby's level, and is organized by the developmental stages of babies' lives. This choice was a great way to highlight each culture and keep the movie flowing.

I really enjoyed seeing the differences in parenting and lifestyles. I found Ponijao, the baby from Namibia, to be the most interesting. The parenting style there was extremely community oriented, though men seemed to have no place in parenting there. This collective parenting made it hard to tell who the baby's mother was through much of the movie.

Bayar, from Mongolia, lives on a family farm. It's amazing to see how closely he grows up with the animals and how he is given a lot of freedom. It's also interesting that his parents seem to take a very removed roll. Although the mother is an active parent at times, Bayar tends to be left to his own devices or with a slightly older sibling.

Japanese Mari was raised in a very Western manner, with her mother taking her to prearranged play dates and having her interact with toys produced by the baby industry. In California, Hattie grows up with a ton of toys and books. She goes to organized baby-centered activities, but otherwise is very solitary. Out of all the babies' fathers, Hattie's seems to be the most involved in his child's life.

Babies does a great job of staying silent; there is no voice-over commentary or focus on the parents apart from when they are interacting with their child. That said, I think the filmmaker intended to create a discussion about parenting, but Babies could easily act as a way to create an Other by creating a divide between Western and non-Western worlds. Although it shows how babies are similar overall, cultural and economic divisions and not providing context and commentary makes it too easy to view those from non-Western cultures as outsiders.

When watching the film it's hard to remember that these are sample sizes of one, which makes it easy to critique the parenting style of, say, the Japanese parents because there are more than a few scenes of Mari being crabby. But she could easily have colic or be teething or it could just be a result of her parents' individual style, not a reflection of Japanese society as a whole. Similarly, Babies makes it seem as though this Mongolian family is completely removed from parenting, when it could be the economic pressures they face that creates a need for both of Bayar's parents to work.

I noticed some negative reactions in the theater. The film shows breastfeeding, which elicited a small gasp from another patron, and there were also some inappropriate reactions to the children in two of the cultures who were regularly without pants. I think these reactions tell a lot about Americans biases, and how these negative views make natural choices difficult for many mothers.

Other than these few things, Babies was amazing. I'd definitely suggest it to anyone who has an interest in children or parenting. I would just make sure the person understands that these are glimpses into the lives of individuals, and while the people featured may represent a part of their culture, they are not necessarily representative of the culture as a whole.

Cross-posted at Squirrely Mama

Written by: Cheryl Friedman, May 17th 2010

An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working-Class Roots

admin — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Edited by Lorraine M. López

University of Michigan Press

In An Angle of Vision, we are presented with a series of extraordinarily well-written essays centered upon one of the most taboo topics in U.S. culture: class. More specifically, we are presented with first-person, female-centered examinations of two groups who are steadily disappearing from both the public discourse and the popular culture of the United States: the poor and working class. As the myths of meritocracy and the “middle class nation” take up ever more space in the public discussions that the United States has about itself, the space assigned to these two groups shrinks. When the poor and working class do garner some attention, their stories are generally told from and distorted by a perspective completely alien from their own. They are spoken of or for, but do not truly get to speak for themselves.

This anthology is then both welcome and needed, especially since it grants us the perspective of a group far more diverse that can usually be expected. We hear the voices of Dorothy Allison, Bich Minh Nguyen, Angela Threatt, Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, Mary Childers, and others in the dialects born of distinct cultures and subcultures from around the United States and throughout the world. Having only their gender and class background in common, these women writers represent a variety of races, ethnicities, sexualities, generations, and geographies and do so in a way that makes the foreign familiar and approachable.

However, their stories, written in the intersections between multiple identities, share common themes that emerge explicitly and implicitly throughout the book. Perhaps the most compelling is the lingering doubts of “authenticity” that plague those who find themselves moving into a world where discussions of the class in which they were born is deemed taboo and one is expected to achieve (or at least fake) fluency in the dialect of the privileged. Despite the cult of social mobility immortalized in the American Dream, one is often supposed to pretend not to have moved at all since such an admission may embarrass those who were born into their social status.

Having grown up in desperate poverty in the Deep South and finding myself suddenly part of the shrinking middle class, I found these essays in general riveting and deeply authentic. It is, perhaps, difficult for me to overcome my class bias enough to truly understand how they would be taken by someone who does not share the writers’ experiences with class. However, I hope that the appeal of truly great writing, filled with pathos and humor, might overcome any discomfort readers may have with the topic.

Written by: Melinda Barton, January 21st 2010

Mississippi Damned

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Tina Mabry

Morgan's Mark

Mississippi Damned opens with a display of rural setting, piano music, and kids playing. Based on a true story, the film is shown through the eyes of Kari Peterson, a young black girl, who lives in a poor, violent, neglectful family. Even though she is a little girl, nothing is hidden from her view-the adults are too busy drinking, gambling, and beating people to notice her during the intense moments. The gritty nature of the film is held together by the weave of the strong female characters.

Her mother and sisters struggle to cope with poverty, anger, addictions, and the men (who are often irresponsible) that they live with. Kari’s cousin, Sammy, lives with her parents who party all night, leaving the fridge empty and the home littered with bottles and cigarette butts. His father beats him when he steals money to buy the family groceries. A basketball hopeful, Sammy turns tricks to pay for team travel fees, which changes him for the worse.

Kari also has a sister, Leigh, who is lesbian, and as a result, must deal with the violent and lonely consequences of her reality. While Sammy has a shot at the NBA and Kari aspires to study music in New York, Leigh is left longing for her ex-girlfriend, Paula, who has chosen to give into her parents’ pressure and marry a man.

After Ellen's Danielle Riendeau referred to all the intertwined events as “enough drama to fill about six seasons” of a soap opera, but I see the searing anger, partying, molestations, neglect, and murder as very real elements of living in impoverished neighbourhoods. It’s a way of life for many people who live in fractured communities around the world.

The rawness of the film also speaks to the spirit of people who struggle on a daily basis to survive with the bare minimum. Kari witnesses so much trauma and experiences tragedies, yet she doesn’t shut down, she keeps going. The hardships presented in Mississippi Damned, because of the stellar cast, do not sink it into a depressing quicksand. It is a realistic portrayal of these families and how they relate make it soar.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, January 6th 2010

Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York City

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Jane Latour

Palgrave MacMillan

The concept for Jane Latour’s book, Sisters in the Brotherhoods: Working Women Organizing for Equality in New York, was initially a brochure. While serving as the director of the Women’s Project of the Brooklyn-based Association for Union Democracy (AUD), Latour had the opportunity to interview women who were working in non-traditional blue-collar trades. Watching women who were contesting the inequalities in the workplace, organizing, and supporting each other, the author seized the chance to record their voices and experiences. The idea to comprise the oral histories into a book evolved following the favorable response her paper received at a labor history conference held in Detroit. Latour, a labor activist, not only chronicled this facet of the feminist movement in the last quarter of the twentieth century, she worked on the assembly lines in Philadelphia and Newark and later as a sorter on the night shift at United Parcel Service.

The format of this literary work includes quotes from the interviewees and documentation of the labor situation in the United States during the last thirty years. These women were pioneers on the frontier of the skilled, blue-collar employment. Early in the book, Latour refers to Rosie the Riveter and the encouragement women received to enter the workforce during World War II and fill the vacated positions in blue-collar industries. That climate changed after the war ended. Sisters in the Brotherhoods draws attention to the link between the feminist fight for equality in employment and the similar battle which was being fought by minority males and the double burden which minority women faced. As Latour writes, “The further out one was from that norm, the more resistance it generated.”

The women are diverse in their levels of education, racial background, and choices of occupation but they shared the common threats of sexual harassment, unfair hiring practices, and the corruption of the trade unions. Latour’s documentation of the experiences of these forerunners in notational, blue-collar jobs is a testament to their legacy to the young women of the next and future generations.

The feminist movement of the 1970s was the backdrop of my adolescence. Personally, I knew women who occupied traditional female roles and I chose a traditionally female occupation, nursing. So I found this book enlightening and empowering. Battles have been fought but the war has not yet been won.

Written by: Maryann Gromisch, November 30th 2009

"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China

admin — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:57:00 +0000

By Lijia Zhang

Anchor Books

"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China is an account by journalist Lijia Zhang, who came of age in China during the ‘80s. Documenting her life from ages sixteen to twenty-six, Socialism Is Great! follows a revolutionary spirit through the dreary politics of factory work, her insatiable pursuits for education, and last but not least, a dramatic and taboo love life. This page-turner has a great storyline involving the democracy movement leading up to contemporary China.

Zhang’s memoir has an incredible sense of place, and without any background in Chinese history or culture, I found myself easily absorbed into the world she creates. In one respect, the dehumanizing environments and relationships she navigates hardly seem foreign. Yet she simultaneously portrays communism as a distinctly oppressive system exercising extreme control over her everyday life. Ultimately, Zhang succeeds in writing a sharp critique of communism China without catering to a capitalist readership.

The plot starts unfolding when the precocious teenager is pulled out of school by her mother and put to work in a government factory. From her family’s perspective, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, as the government has given workers a limited window of time to retire and offer relatives their enviable position. To Zhang, who excels in school and has her hopes set on becoming a journalist, it is devastating. While she has no choice but to accept the job, she does anything but resign herself to her situation. In fact, Zhang goes on to eventually lead the largest demonstration by workers in Nanjing, China during the entire democracy movement.

"Socialism Is Great!"'s strength lies in part in its genuine complexity. This is not a perfectly PC memoir: we learn about faulted characters and their relationships to one another in the midst of a dictatorship. What makes the book both gripping and empowering is that Zhang is always stretching herself to move closer towards her aspirations. Each love affair is a unique experience and life lesson, as the obstacles she faces are simply changed routes in the path to her inevitable success. That this autobiographical work is about a suppressed intellectual living through intense political turbulence makes this an important historical perspective in addition to an excellent memoir.

Written by: Kathryn Berg, September 13th 2009

Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class

admin — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth Oldfield, Richard Greggory Johnson III

SUNY Press

This anthology of writings from a variety of queer professors and administrators from the working class aims to shed light on the myriad of ways that gender, sexuality, and class intersect and come into play in the academy. Each author offers his or her unique story, producing testimony to the salience of multiple identities in understanding power within the university and more broadly.

The strength of this anthology is the dialogue between authors of multiple generations and geographic regions. The reader begins to build connections between a young Black man from the Bronx and an older White woman from the rural south. These differences keep the book from falling back on tropes of individualism that often come from 'inspiring' individual stories. One of the strongest pieces was Felice Yeskel's "My First Closet Was the Class Closet." It highlights how she came to focus on queer and working class issues of social justice, and through collective action found strength in her identities and politics. The narrative became more than just her own story; it also offered historical lessons in social movements and the challenges of developing an intersectional praxis of radical politics.

One of the advantages of an anthology is that every reader finds different pieces insightful and valuable. The editors explain in the introduction that they hope the book will educate people who possess class and heterosexual privilege on the reality of oppression faced by queer, working class professors, and that these qualitative accounts of lived experience will enrich scholarly work around class and sexuality. Resilience certainly provides the material for success.

Written by: Katrina Forman, February 8th 2009

Rise & Shine

admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:24:00 +0000

By Fanny Grace

Paul Reeves Entertainment

Rise & Shine, the sophomore album by country duo Fanny Grace, is pleasant, well-produced, up tempo, contemporary country-rock with a postfeminist sensibility. Writer/producer/guitarist Paul Reeves and co-writer/lead singer Carmen Meja have turned out a collection of sassy-yet-vulnerable-women-in-pickups songs in the best Dixie Chicks tradition. John Carter Cash (son of the late country legends June Carter and Johnny Cash) produced the album, giving it an extra helping of country-roots cred. (In a nod to Cash’s heritage, the record includes the Johnny Cash-penned “My Cowboy’s Last Ride” and closes with the Carter family classic “The Storms are on the Ocean”)

Nearly all of the songs on the record are written from a female point of view, and the album is most interesting when it explores the thoughts and lives of modern working class women. “Soon Be Home,” the second track, starts off sounding like a standard post-breakup song, but with the mention of the “yellow ribbon on the trunk of my car” it becomes clear that we’re listening to the thoughts of a woman waiting for her man to return from an overseas deployment. In the rocker “Don’t Want it All,” which is maybe the most interesting song on the record, we enter the life of a cash-strapped woman who has to choose between buying a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk (a situation more and more of us have come to relate to in the past few months). The most interesting part of this song is that the flat broke narrator isn’t dreaming of a Stetson-wearing, truck driving Prince Charming to rescue her from counting change to buy groceries; she’s just doing her best to make it through.

None of the songs on this album are groundbreaking, musically or lyrically, and if Reeves and Meja haven’t been directly influenced by the Dixie Chicks (Meja doesn’t quite have Natalie Maines’s earthy sass or vocal range), they sure seem to be following them down the same dirt road, blasting the radio in their own rusty pickup. Still, it’s a pretty fun ride.

Written by: Rochelle Mabry, June 20th 2008