youth

The Young Lords: A Reader

andrea — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Before reading The Young Lords: A Reader, I had never heard of the Young Lords Party. The original Young Lords were a loosely organized group that emerged from a street gang fighting the gentrification of Puerto Rican neighborhoods in Chicago. The New York chapter quickly dissociated themselves from their Chicago cousins, renaming themselves the “Young Lords Party” rather than the “Young Lords Organization.” The Young Lords Party, or YLP, are perhaps most famous for their takeover of a Methodist Church in East Harlem (“The People’s Church”) or their Garbage Offensive in the summer of 1969. Sanitation was nowhere near routine in the Barrio (East Harlem), so YLP officers pushed the garbage into the streets, forcing the city to clean it up if they wanted traffic to continue as normal. These types of actions, along with free tuberculosis and lead poisoning screenings, adult education classes, worker organizing, and a celebration of the many cultures of Puerto Ricans in New York were the backbone of the YLP.

As editor Darrel Enck-Wanzer states at the beginning of The Young Lords: A Reader: “This book offers a comprehensive collection of primary texts so that... you, the reader, can decide for yourself what the Young Lords might mean to us today.” True to his word, Enck-Wanzer presents many Young Lords’ original texts organized for the first time in one compilation. Although he clearly sympathizes with the original mission of the Young Lords Party, he presents the texts warts and all, including typos and dated language that a modern reader may not quite grasp.

Almost entirely youth-led, the Young Lords Party organized their friends, grandmothers, and neighbors to fight for rights that no one else was fighting for. Young organizers would do well to study this text, specifically Latino youth who may not identify with commonly lauded civil rights leaders. In one section on education, students describe the first-ever meeting of the Puerto Rican student union at Columbia University: “Workshops were held dealing with... the role of women in the revolution; high school students, college students, Latin American and Latin unity; the military... political prisoners; Third World unity; education, and the media...” This article was published in 1970 but easily could have described a conference held this year. If we are still battling the same demons, we would do well to learn from the mistakes of those who came before us.

We should also give credit where credit is due. The YLP, more so than many similar groups, made an effort to recognize the intersectionality of different oppressions, an idea that is much more acceptable now than it was decades ago. They placed a special emphasis on the inclusion of women and the destruction of misogyny within their movement. This should be the norm by now, even though sadly it’s not. This anthology is a learning tool because most texts are presented honestly, with leaders candidly discussing their struggles, goals, progress, and failures. I cringe when older activists speak of the lack of passion nowadays, because I don’t think it’s any less prevalent today than it was in the sixties. The Young Lords: A Reader helps demonstrate part of that passion/frustration/ dedication, and helps guide young activists today with the same drive towards long-term change.

Written by: Colleen Hodgetts, March 4th 2011

Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China

tina — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Shao-hua Liu

Stanford University Press

Heroin. AIDS. Migration. Development programs. Gender roles. In Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China, Shao-hua Liu examines each of these issues and how they relate to Nuoso youth. An anthropological researcher, the author delves into how China’s evolution from the traditional to the modern intersects with drug use, disease, and development. The book focuses on the Nuoso, a poor and marginalized group in southwest China that has been disproportionately affected by the drug trade and HIV/AIDS.

The author does a commendable job of stressing the interconnected nature of migration, gender, drug use, and political economies. While these issues are naturally linked, too many authors focus on one of these aspects while ignoring the myriad forces that shape cultures and communities. Passage to Manhood features a fresh approach to understanding why heroin use and HIV took over the Nuoso to such a great extent. The author presents an answer that relies on the intersection of marginalization, stigmatization, modernization, and power dynamics within communities.

The author’s honest approach to gender stood out in the book. Instead of making sweeping generalizations about gender politics among the Nuoso, the author explains how she approached the subject and details the difficulties she had using male translators to interview women.

Acknowledging that her access to information was limited, the author conveys the basic framework of what she found. While drug use and HIV/AIDS shaped the entire community in some way, it affected men and women differently. The author explains that young men were first drawn to heroin because it was fashionable and demonstrated a particular social status. Drug use overlapped with the definition of masculinity among the Nuoso, which was based on a desire for adventure and mobility. The gender hierarchy, which placed women subordinate to men, played out in heroin politics: Women encountered the drug trade through small dealings and followed their husbands or partners, who were responsible for the larger trades.

The author is careful to note that gender dynamics not only shaped the details of the drug trade among the Nuoso, but also determined the effectiveness of state-managed intervention programs to combat drug use and HIV/AIDS. In a careful dissection of the failures of these intervention programs, the author examines how the program administrators viewed cultural taboos about sex as barriers to their work. Instead of acknowledging the fluidity of cultural norms, state-managed interventions overlooked honest sex education and contributed to misinformation about HIV/AIDS. By ignoring the unique cultural context of the Nuoso and using global AIDS messages from elsewhere, the architects of these programs inadvertently instilled a stigma about AIDS where one previously did not exist. This case study presents a sobering lesson for those working on global AIDS prevention programs; such interventions must be designed as a cooperative exercise between local groups and the program implementers, not cookie-cutter programs delivered from above.

It is difficult to pluck one nugget of information from the author’s interconnected web, but perhaps the greatest take away from the book is that AIDS and drug use do not exist in a vacuum. Gender politics, economics, migration, and urbanization each exact pressure on people’s actions and perceptions. A thorough understanding of drug use and HIV/AIDS within a community must begin with an expansive interpretation of how individuals, families, and societies grapple with these ever-changing forces.

Written by: Andrea Gittleman, February 25th 2011

Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas

tina — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Jessica Taft

New York University Press

Of the many things I accomplished in high school, “leading a political uprising” was suspiciously absent. Yet around the world, teenage girls are organizing their own social revolutions, a trend largely undocumented and unanalyzed before Jessica Taft’s Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across the Americas.

Taft’s interviews with teenage women engaged in progressive social justice work in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Mexico City, the San Francisco Bay area, and Vancouver reveals scores of young women active in sophisticated community organizing and creative political protests. These are girls shutting down their school systems to combat harassment; hosting workshops on challenging white supremacy; and railing against toxic waste facilities poisoning their communities.

Rebel Girls isn’t a critique of the culture of girlhood—a blossoming field dedicated to analyzing the psychosocial experiences of teenage women as they develop. Instead, Taft investigates young women engaged in social activism (either through community organizations or through their own initiatives) – a group whose power and accomplishments have been relatively ignored by the broader social justice movement. Taft not only recognizes this, but seeks to rectify it by placing the voices of the girls front and center in her research, creating a book that is simultaneously captivating and insightful.

It would be easy to stereotype the girls’ work based on their identities as teenagers or as young women. Taft astutely resists the temptation. For example, an interview with two Buenos Aires women building a community center examines how gender influences the women’s political work, but does not stray into potentially counterproductive stereotypes about girls. Observations that many of the girls featured strove to make politics “fun” does not smack of derision; rather, Taft places the girls’ “pleasurable politics” in the context of social justice movements throughout history.

The fact that teenagers are largely excluded from the standard markers of political engagement—being able to vote and run for office—colors their engagement as well as their political philosophies. The girls Taft interviews have largely circumvented these political avenues in favor of more direct and in many instances, more transformative social work. While Taft notes that ignoring the macro-level influences at the root of injustice may hinder lasting social change, her reluctance to investigate this further is one of very few weak points in Rebel Girls.

Through her meticulous interviews interwoven with historical background, Taft presents a work that is both a rigorous academic analysis and a thoughtful portrait of the intimate details of these women’s work.

Written by: Gwen Emmons, February 24th 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

Please Don’t Bomb The Suburbs: A Midterm Report on My Generation and the Future of Our Super Movement

payal — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By William Upski Wimsatt

Akashic

Depending on your age and your social/political circle, you may not know the name William Upski Wimsatt. In his youth, Wimsatt was the youngest Utne Reader “Visionary” award winner. In the last two decades, he’s written several books about the suburbs, the prison industrial complex, white urban subculture, hip-hop, and graffiti. These days, he’s mostly known for political organizing and working with and supporting groups like Generational Alliance and Resource Generation.

Following up his 1994 book Bomb the Suburbs, which garnered him a bit of a cultish progressive following, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs is Wimsatt’s older (if not much wiser) take on adulthood, organizing, and personal politics. The book’s basic premise is this: Get power, get corporate power, use it for good. If you don’t agree with that message from the jump—or you’re not already a fan of Wimsatt’s grandstanding and youth minister-esque appeal—you may not get a whole hell of a lot out of Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs.

From the jump, Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs is a bit confusing for folks new to the activist’s work. Written as one man’s account of what has been important in the last thirty years of American progressive organizing, it’s anything but comprehensive or objective. Mixing storytelling and action plans in a somewhat haphazard fashion and at times reading like a who’s who of modern progressive activism, Wimsatt shamelessly name-drops seemingly everyone he’s ever known or worked with, from Van Jones to Adrienne Marie Brown. While that’s not inherently bad, it’s terribly insular and not very interesting—especially to the outsider, non-activists Wimsatt claims to want to reach.

Wimsatt writes that his audience for the book is two groups: seasoned forty-two-year-old businesspeople and curious seventeen-year-olds just learning about progressive movements. That said, he also wants desperately to identify with people across this entire spectrum of age and experience. By Wimsatt’s definition, he and I share a generation—he claims both Gen X and Gen Y as “his”—even though he’s more than ten years older than me, and I’m one of the oldest in the Millennial club. This sort of confusing, broad, and aimless reaching to include people is the ultimate weakness of the book, when it was no doubt intended to be its strength.

Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs isn’t an analytical dissection of movements and organizing. If anything, it’s one man’s self-congratulatory journey through youthful transgressions to his late thirties, when he realized, as he writes in the book, “Adulthood hits you like whoa.” That same tone, carried throughout, makes the book feel more like a blog than an actual literary accomplishment. I’m sadly not post-print enough to think that turning blog-like ramblings into a bound publication is a good idea; nevermind whether I agree that adulthood “hits you like whoa.”

Wimsatt covers a lot of topics without nuance. He praises the work of non-profits without addressing the non-profit industrial complex. He warns of how overpopulation is pushing humanity to the brink of disaster, and on the same page, questions whether or not he’ll have children. Wimsatt blindly embraces new media, excited about the potential for change using online tools, without considering the drawbacks and legitimate reasons why Facebook is not part of a truly progressive revolution.

It’s incredibly difficult to write a book that appeals to a thirty-eight-year-old suburban homeowner with nephews and a sixteen-year-old urban blogger who’s just learning about environmentalism. It’s also difficult to explore nuance and history when you believe your own experiences and your own self-selected version of history takes precedent. As much as I’d like to believe in the collectivism of a movement necessary for the generation- and experience-breaking organizing that Wimsatt tries to hawk in Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs, this conversational plea to remain relevant didn’t sell me on anything.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, December 22nd 2010

Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules

priyanka — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Anastasia Powell

Cambridge University Press

I have been always interested in the problems, points of view, and so much more in the lives of young people; I also decided at the ripe age of twenty that at some point in my life I was going to be a lecturer!

Despite educating teenagers (and being taught by them) for the last twenty years and more, I have not lost my enthusiasm for knowing and guiding them from the perspective of what youngsters of eighteen to twenty consider an ‘old’ wise woman!

How do young people live their lives these days? Do they have the same problems that I had when I was eighteen? So much has changed in the last twenty to thirty years. We are bombarded by a sex-crazed culture, sex-everywhere phenomena. When we switch the TV on, we are faced with sex or violence in movies, shows, talks etc. In the words of Anastasia Powell, the author of Sex, Power and Consent: “contemporary Western Culture has been described as the age of raunch, generation sex, and generation SLUT (Sexually Liberated Urban Teens)."

Being part of such a cultural make-up, what are the views of young people on sex and love these days? Do they have more sex, more sexual relationships than my so-called liberated generation of the late 1970s? Do the youth talk openly about sex? Do they equate sex with love? How long do their relationships last when they are still teenagers? What is it that they want from relationships at the tender age of eighteen to twenty?

Powell’s indisputably needed and thorough book provides most answers to my questions. Her research and interviews with 117 teens and young adults of diverse sexualities in Victoria, Australia, provides readers with a wealth of knowledge about young people of today. She limited her research to one country but unquestionably, it is the representative study of Western youth.

Her book would be of interest to young and not-so-young readers as the author answers many questions that trouble Generation Y (born in or after 1982). It explores issues surrounding youth sex within popular culture, sexuality education and sexual violence prevention. It also clearly presents unwritten rules and the gendered power relationships which have not changed as drastically as I had always thought it had over the last twenty to thirty years. I was surprised to read that despite the apparent sexual freedom, the rates of sexual assault continue to rise with ninety-nine percent of offenders being male and ninety-two percent of sexual assault victims being women (according to Victoria Police data from 2008-2009).

The book also provides practical strategies for young people and for those who work with them towards the prevention of sexual violence. This very well-researched and written study would also be a useful reading for young women who feel pressured into unwanted sex. It might help them to be more aware of their choices, which is always welcome.

Written by: Anna Hamling, December 14th 2010

Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists

farhana — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Courtney E. Martin

Beacon Press

Though editor Courtney E. Martin’s new book means to school baby boomer types who mock the millennial generation for their perceived apathy, Do it Anyway: The New Generation of Activists is a balm for burned out justice advocates of any age. Even its title acknowledges the enormous gap that lies between the fervent desires for “that hopey-changey thing” (as Sarah Palin joked) and the hard work needed to make it happen.

Do it Anyway shares the stories of eight young American activists, beginning with Rachel Corrie, the twenty-year-old crushed to death in 2003 by Israeli tanks when she attempted to defend Palestinian homes on the Gaza Strip. While Martin sympathizes with Corrie's idealism, she is blunt in her appraisal: “I am reminded,” Martin writes, “of how irresistible and yet how deeply false the romance of young death really is.” Corrie's death ought to be seen as a waste of unrealized talent, not as a paragon of youthful heroism. Martin implores her readers to consider, as she puts it, “'live people' for our inspiration.”

And what “live people” they are. The rose-colored outlook of a middle-class white girl like Corrie contrasts sharply with that of Maricela Guzman, a daughter of illegal immigrants who joined the military to climb out of poverty. Instead, her brutal rape at the hands of a superior officer sparked a new mission: advocating for survivors of sexual violence as co-founder of the Service Women's Action Network. Philanthropist Tyrone Boucher and filmmaker Emily Abt both renounce material privilege in their justice work; actress Rosario Dawson leverages her celebrity to draw attention to little-served causes.

All seven “live people” in the book open their mouths, hearts, and lives to Martin, granting her access to public schools in the Bronx and gang-riddled streets in Los Angeles (Martin, as learned as any Third Waver on the messiness of identity politics, is careful to balance her subjects’ races, genders, social classes, and areas of activist expertise).

Martin's concluding chapter is her masterstroke: called “Good Failure,” it offers practical lessons learned in the field and on the ground that, while not claiming to be lifesaving (Martin is uncertain that Rachel Corrie was interested in anyone's advice), will go a long way towards avoiding the burnout that can derail any activist's career. “I was repeatedly shattered,” Martin writes, “at how much emotional pain all of these people have had to endure in order to do their work.” Ultimately, a greater truth was revealed: “our charge is not to 'save the world' after all; it is to live in it, flawed and fierce, loving and humble.”

For anyone already committed to or just beginning to enter the world of social justice, Do it Anyway is a must-read.

Written by: Shannon Drury, November 29th 2010

Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Vivian Diller, Jill Muir-Sukenick

Hay House

As the authors of Face It explain in the preface to their book, women who came of age during and after feminism's second wave were brought up to believe our looks don’t have to define who we are or determine our possibilities. What mattered more in this 'enlightened' new age were our brains, our talents, our degrees, our abilities, and our ambition. The paradox is that women continue to receive conflicting messages from the media and our culture about the role appearance plays in our lives. Because many of us have never attempted to unravel our ambivalent feelings about our appearance, the way it impacts our self-esteem, and how we relate to our family and friends, we deny these feelings when we see the first signs of aging—or react with a vengeance to try to arrest the aging process.

Face It is all about guiding women through this potentially treacherous time, during which many of us feel the very ground shifting beneath us. Like many adolescent girls, aging women cling to what the authors describe as “masks” that take the form of "workaholism," addiction to cosmetic surgery, excessive exercise, and dieting to protect ourselves from the sadness and loss we feel at the change in our appearance. In this thoughtful and engaging book, the authors, both psychotherapists and former models, present the stories of how different women approached the aging process. Runway models, nurses, homemakers, and businesswomen, who range in age from early thirties to mid-sixties, tell us their stories.

Some women never felt their appearance played much of a role in their lives, and were taken by surprise when they felt a sense of loss, or even panic, about their changing looks. In contrast, the models interviewed for the book were aware of aging, given that it pushes them out of their profession at the youthful age of twenty-five, and experienced a range of feelings and emotions similar to what many women face when they enter midlife. For women who believed that their intelligence and ambition were their ticket to success, it was often embarrassing to admit to friends and family how their changing looks were impacting them, because it seemed frivolous or superficial.

The authors use the experiences of these different women successfully navigating this challenging time with the use of an innovative six-step program that forms a pathway to a new acceptance and understanding of the aging process. This program involves taking an honest inventory of one's experiences with beauty and acknowledging how family and culture shapes one's identity as a woman. While the authors stress that they aren’t against using plastic surgery to enhance one's appearance, they want to give women the tools to make decisions about it from a place of strength and appreciation for their unique attributes, not out of a panic to "stay in the game."

As a forty-something woman, I found this book intriguing and was pleased to discover that it lived up to its billing of helping women navigate such a challenging time in our lives. Face It helps women of any age to gain an understanding of how to fully own the aging process and not react out of fear to our changing looks and bodies, but to, instead, appreciate and learn from the journey.

Written by: Gita Tewari, April 23rd 2010

Heart of the Old Country

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Tim McLoughlin

Akashic Books

Mike’s life isn’t going anywhere quickly. A townie car service driver who lives with his widower father, he barely tolerates his girlfriend of four years, Gina, and spends most of his time contemplating an escape from his South Brooklyn stomping grounds. After a friend is brutally murdered with Mike driving the assailants’ getaway car, Mike doesn’t flee. Instead, he accepts a coveted job working for one of the local mob bosses running packages—contents unknown—between an Ethiopian hustler and a house full of Hasidic Jews.

His tough guise doesn’t last long, though. While some of the guys on the block take his avoidance and silence for stoicism and strength, Mike has never been so unsure of himself. But if there’s a feminist lesson hidden in this novel about macho neighborhood alliances and the strains of father-son relationships, it is that being uncomfortably pushed to understand the essence of your place in this messy world can yield a breakthrough in personal consciousness—and maybe a bit of happiness in the end.

Writer Tim McLoughlin, a Brooklyn native, has a keen eye for detail and balances romanticizing class stasis, mid-20s existential dilemmas of upward mobility, and being true to one's past. His writing is engaging without extraneous detail, and his fiction is so wholly believable that it almost reads as memoir.

Heart of the Old Country is a thoroughly enjoyable novel that kept me up reading into the night on several occasions. It’s easy for a writer to slack off at the end of a book—after all, your audience is either still with you or long gone. But a final plot twist mere pages from the story’s end was such a perfect, genuine surprise that I nearly clapped my hands in glee. Rather than being depressed by the novel’s potentially disheartening themes, I could barely put this book down and was genuinely disappointed when it ended. I highly recommend this page-turner to anyone looking for a tale of youthful angst, unfulfilling work, and complicated relationships.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, February 24th 2010

To Kill a Tiger: A Memoir of Korea

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Jid Lee

Overlook Press

Spanning five generations, this memoir explores the author’s upbringing and the sociopolitical climate of Korea during the last century through the anecdotes and interpretations of her family. The tales come mainly from her father as told to her mother. (Fathers, we learn, would only discuss such matters with their sons and sometimes their wives, but never with their "unworthy" daughters).

Historical lessons such as these are strewn throughout the text, interspersed with details from Lee’s day-to-day life as a child and teenager and anecdotes told to her by her family members (although most are the author’s own). These are all enhanced by the inclusion of black and white photographs of her family and community placed in nearly every chapter.

Lee presents us with analyses and divergent points of view regarding the Korean War, the Japanese-American-Korean triangle, and what’s gone on in South and North Korea for the last century. Lee also presents us with a brief history of the Korean Feminist movement, which was a joy to read about.

To Kill a Tiger is heavy on Confucian family structure and dynamics. We learn that Lee always came last after her brothers: her Big Brother and Less Big Brother, along with her Father, always got the best foods and the biggest portions, whereas Big Sister, the author, Little Sister, Mother, and Grandmother got the least nourishing foods and the smallest portions—especially Mother and Grandmother. Lee's upbringing is a stifling way of life, so oppressive and palpably rendered by the author that it floated off the page and painted my experience of the memoir, sometimes making me shake with disdain. This is particularly true in the passages told from the viewpoint of the author, a vehemently feminist child who argued and fought for her equality in repeated bursts of frustration and anger, way before she ever knew what feminism was or that anyone might agree with her.

Despite many entertaining sections, the book becomes very tiresome to read after one realizes that the drawn-out conversations between Lee and her family members (her mother in particular) do not appear in just a chapter or two, but consistently throughout. We continually receive a one-sided view of decades of Korean history and politics, often unofficial because the facts have ostensibly been covered up by the government. These portions discuss Korea’s strained relationships with Japan and the United States, the torture of political prisoners and women systematically raped in wars, and other tremendously delicate matters. Not only are these dialogues interminable, but they are also unreliable.

We also read redundant arguments between the author and her misogynist father regarding her worth as a female. I understand that Lee wants to make clear the derisive and poisonous attitude of her male family members towards her and women in general, but it quickly becomes like a broken record.

I had to skip entire pages in order to get through this memoir, which I lament because the premise of this book is promising and intriguing. Alas, it sorely disappoints.

What I applaud is this: It is a story of a tough, feminist kid who goes through hell and emerges victorious against everyone’s expectations. Lee triumphantly gives patriarchy the finger and fulfills her dreams, giving women everywhere—and especially those languishing in a sexist society more oppressive than that of Western culture—hope for everything they wish to accomplish.

Written by: Natalia Real, February 13th 2010

East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Mwenda Ntarangwi

University of Illinois Press

Ntarangwi’s book on hip hop culture in East Africa could be used as an academic treatise for music and cultural classes in any university in America. Generally speaking, when we create something, very rarely are we aware of the far-reaching implications that creation may have outside of our immediate scope. Hip hop has been one such creation. Similar to jazz, hip hop was, in part, created out of the need to communicate what did not want to be heard, at first. Put in this matter of fact way, it was only natural that this phenomenon spread across cultures with very similar communication glitches.

East African Hip Hop succinctly details the impact hip hop has had on the East African population, as well as the impact East African hip hop artists are having on youth in their respective communities. Ntarangwi opens with the effects of globalization and youth culture in East Africa. Globalization has often resulted in an entire continent being left out of a process of ideas and decisions that factor in the value of their resources, while devaluing the people that could benefit the most. The remnants of colonialism and neocolonialism are embedded into the psyches of those that profit, as well as those that are taken advantage of in this profitization. Indirect rule, which is often synonymous with “puppet,” makes it difficult to tell which leaders desire to act in the best interests of their constituents, especially when they are all of the same color. This tactic was a major part of colonialism and is one distinctive aspect that affects what is communicated across cultures. However, in the U.S., the assumption of who the perpetrators are rarely ventures outside of historical context. With Ntarangwi’s use of Malcolm X as an example, what is seen as a struggle against White supremacy in American hip hop is seen as a struggle for land ownership and access in East African hip hop. The indoctrination of Western values and its bootstrap mentality are also what have colored communication.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has given rise to an increase in the number of songs about its concern by East African hip hop artists, as well as societal issues concerning gender and tradition. Even with this increase, the tradition of chastity, or the appearance of it by women, has typically made the topic of sexuality a silent one, for fear of the repercussions of challenging cultural mores. East African hip hop is changing this perception as well.

Ntarangwi touches on so many important issues that have propagated the spread of hip hop into a portion of the world that has, up until recently, been kept silent. A portion of the world that has been silent both forcibly and because only now is the medium of hip hop one of the most powerful ways with which to get a message across. Ntarangwi has effectively expounded upon a subject matter that can no longer be silenced.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, February 4th 2010

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:27:00 +0000

Directed by Rebecca Miller

Elevation Filmworks

It's always a relief when the author of a novel decides to take its film adaptation into her own hands, especially if the author also happens to be a fairly seasoned writer-director for the screen. In The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller recreates her original character study in her own image, bringing the story of a misguided youth-turned-Stepford Wife to brilliant, riveting life.

The film starts off quietly, with the kind of domestic dinner party scene we've come to expect from tales of unfulfilled suburban housewives such as these, but the event actually turns out to be in honor of Pippa's fiftieth birthday. I must admit it took me more than a few minutes to accept Robin Wright Penn (Forrest Gump, Nine Lives) as a fifty-year-old woman; even with the aging makeup, the forty-three-year-old actress' youthful glow still manages to emanate. However, there is a method to this casting choice; it quickly becomes apparent that Pippa's physical appeal is an integral part of her character, a beguiling mask that has always brought her just as much trouble as it has helped her to avoid.

Pippa is a doting wife to her much older husband (Alan Arkin) and a loving mother to her son and daughter, even in the face of their disapproval, but there is little life or substance to her. Penn's interpretation of the character is a remarkable transformation, as she uses a much higher vocal register and carries herself with almost no conviction or purpose. Her Pippa—at least for the first part of the film—is a bit of a ghost, a stark contrast to the independent, inaccessible roles the actress has often portrayed in the past. When Pippa makes the terrifying discovery that she is having a nervous breakdown, the character is inspired to reexamine all the traumas that have led her to her quiet suburban life, and she—and Penn—take an acute turn right before our eyes. Pippa gives up her mask, revealing a resilient woman who is both piteous and funny as she drives herself mad.

If you haven't read the book (which I haven't), the film is delightfully unpredictable. I was pleasantly surprised to be transported to Pippa's unorthodox childhood, to spend so much time on her carousel of questionable caretakers, from her speed addict mother (the wonderful Maria Bello) to her über-cool, über-liberal Aunt Kat (Julianne Moore). As a Gossip Girl skeptic, I gave a huge sigh when Blake Lively first appeared as teenage Pippa, but she turned out to be surprisingly effective, standing her ground in the formidable shadow of Penn. A scene between Lively and Bello in which Pippa takes her mother's drugs as an experiment in empathy is absolutely heart wrenching.

Winona Ryder is also a surprising highlight as Pippa's extremely neurotic, needy, and often hysterical friend. She provides a hilarious counterpoint to Penn, sweating the small stuff very publicly while Pippa suffers a lifetime of disaster in complete silence.

To reveal more about Pippa's past (and future) would detract from the joy of watching it unfold on screen—and it is an utter joy, even as upsetting as the protagonist's circumstances sometimes are. Though I have yet to read Miller's book, I would imagine that Pippa's tale of rediscovery could not have found a better interpretation.

Written by: Caitlin Graham, January 13th 2010

Whatever It Takes

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:47:00 +0000

Directed by Christopher Wong

Open Jaw Productions

At first, Whatever It Takes looks like the opening of a murder-mystery TV show, as a man gets ready for work. But it isn’t—it’s really Edward Tom, a new principal getting ready for the first day of school at a school in the South Bronx, New York. Named for the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, the high school is part of the state’s new education reforms: smaller schools to assist high risk students.

The principal and teachers alike pay attention to all 108 kids, hoping to encourage them to succeed. The film covers the 2005-2006 academic year. We get to see how students live at home, at school, and bits of the harsh reality on the street (although it doesn’t dip beyond the surface there). Many of the students are far below their grade level when they enter class in September. Staff, students, and parents struggle to deal with many obstacles, though some parents just don’t care. Until this school year, the students’ environment was often one of apathy; now they are expected to become assertive and take charge of their goals and future.

The most difficult challenge the students face is generational poverty. In order to combat it, Tom must convince students and their families that education is power, and that education means change. Previously, these students didn’t bother trying, and often, they were passed along to the next grade without doing the work. Realistically, it takes more than just one year to change a lifetime of bad habits, but Tom and his staff do not give up.

Students like Sharifea are inspirational; a bright student who is bogged down with helping her mother raise her siblings, she is overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed. Failing grades do not stop her from attempting to get beyond cyclical poverty and drug use. One student leaves school because of drug charges. Tom believes in the old saying that if one student fails, he fails. While it sounds cliché, it shows his determination.

It’s a stressful situation for all involved, but unlike the typical North American school, it isn’t the teachers pitted against the students. They are brought together to change things in a rough neighborhood. It may only be a start, but as long as one person cares, there’s hope for every student.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, July 6th 2009

Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture

admin — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:51:00 +0000

By Eileen Luhr

University of California Press

The short disclaimer is this: I grew up in a family filled with the Holy Spirit. My grandfathers were, respectively, a theology professor and a youth and music minister. One of my uncles, after making his name founding a Phoenix-area megachurch in the '90s, currently works as a professional church-grower, teaching other pastors how to rapidly expand their soon-to-be behemoth congregations of believers. I have attended international youth conventions and camp meetings, and on family vacations, we used to visit landmarks like Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral and the Christian DisneyLand, Knott’s Berry Farm. Now agnostic and estranged from most of my family, I nevertheless find that studying my roots is both personally enlightening and a crucial component of understanding modern cultural warfare in the United States.

In Witnessing Suburbia, Eileen Luhr traces the suburbanization of modern evangelism, exploring how evangelical Christians have become increasingly consumption-oriented and have expertly engaged in a “Christianization” of popular culture. With the 1980's Christian exoduses to the suburbs came a two-part evolution of identity. In addition to staking their exurb areas as heathen-free, family-centric zones, suburban Christians also became focused on the individualization of living space. Believing piety for the larger world must first be learned at home, evangelical Christians became some of the strongest defenders of “homeowner rights.” Many Christians were among the first to adopt doctrines of self-reliance and personal responsibility. Value of the physical home and the values that existed in those homes became inextricably linked.

As many suburban Christians staked their physical territory, large groups of those believers also became engaged in cultural activism to widely promote their home-grown ideals. In order to reclaim public space for sacred values, a number of Christian groups decided to take an anthropological missions-based approach: by investigating and becoming one with secular culture, it would be possible to infiltrate and influence. One aspect of this political campaigning took root in deconstructing rock and heavy metal music. Convinced of music’s duality—weapon of the devil or of Jesus, never neutral—a number of evangelical Christians believed they had found the ultimate battleground on which to wage war for the souls of the unsaved.

The most fascinating part of Luhr’s analysis—which is difficult to quantify, as there are many enthralling subsections within deeply researched chapters of multilayered histories—is the contradiction between how evangelical adults relate to their youthful counterparts. Seen both as needing protection and also as active leaders in religious reformation, an enormous spiritual burden has long been placed on young people. Perhaps this alone explains why religious teens have at times turned to heavy metal, albeit Christian in nature.

Throughout her deconstruction of religious heavy metal, Luhr details many Christian activist mainstream successes of the past three decades, including the rise of Focus on the Family and the anti-porn 7-Eleven boycotts of the mid-1980s. (Ever wonder why you can’t get Hustler at an American 7-Eleven? Thank an evangelical Christian.) Both positioning themselves as cultural saviors and persecuted martyrs, evangelicals were able to balance a number of contradictions in their public campaigns. Anything that served to set them further apart from the mainstream reinforced their outsider status; in reality, major Christian organizations and networks were growing rapidly and gaining immense cultural power. Yet within these larger contexts, alternative Christian culture warriors were also engaged in their own rebranding of their message. You can love Jesus and also love to rock.

From Christian zines of the '80s to the success of metal bands like Stryper, Luhr expertly explores this specific counterculture within the dominant Christian activism of the past twenty-five years. Academic in content and tone, Luhr’s writing is captivating in its intellectual scope and in the ways it ties together complex concepts. Particularly engaging for reformed believers, Witnessing Suburbia is a fascinating and informative page-turner.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, May 6th 2009

New York City Secrets / Secrets of Early U.S. History

admin — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:20:00 +0000

By MS 131

Working Playground

I would have appreciated a one sheet of sorts to go along with New York City Secrets, as I wasn't really sure what it was about. It appears to be a short film with young people singing a rap song about different kinds of facts, secrets and things to do in New York City. There were some interesting graphics and information, but I am left wondering who the intended audience for this is. It was strange because I wasn't quite sure why they made it. It seems to be part of an educational series, but I wondered where it would screen, how it was funded and what the young people creating it got out of it.

Secrets of Early U.S. History was in the same style as New York City Secrets. The music is good and the facts are interesting, but they are just snippets of information followed one after another. That concerned me because I don't know how much audiences will absorb from the messages about people and events in history. I think the best result this film could have with audiences is to incite interest in exploring history and to get people excited about learning more. The computer animated graphics were engaging and fun. The students who worked on this did an excellent job with the parameters they had in terms of length and format.

Written by: Katy Otto, May 12th 2007