catholic

You Have Given Me a Country

caitlin — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

At the beginning of You Have Given Me a Country, author Neela Vaswani writes, “What follows is real, and imagined.” Thus begins Vaswani's memoir, a dreamy collection of reflections on her family's multiracial, multinational history.

Ashok Vaswani, Neela's father, was born in Sindh (now a province of Pakistan) before the cataclysm of Partition. As a toddler, Ashok fled with his family to the new state of India, where his father found a job as a traveling railroad physician. Later, Ashok traveled to the US to practice medicine and to leave behind a tense postwar economy and a family that had fractured under the pressure of exile. “To my father, nationality was fickle, unreliable,” writes Neela. “My father said, 'Homeland is in the body,' and 'Land is in the blood.'”

Neela's mother, Sheila Vaswani (nee Kent), was born an Irish Catholic American to a family that could beat up and then forgive an uncle who had molested another relative, but that could never accept a gay cousin. Sheila remained a lifelong Catholic, sitting stone-faced at church with her mixed-race daughter, forevermore denied the privilege of communion for having married outside her faith. It was Sheila who castigated Neela's father's colleagues for calling him Frank: “It's not hard. Ashok. Rhymes with Coke.”

The book is told in a loosely chronological series of vignettes and family stories. On the whole, You Have Given Me a Country is told through Neela's eyes, but it is not Neela's story. Although we learn the journeys, prides, and sorrows of Ashok and Sheila, we catch only glimpses of Neela: a nosebleed here, a day in preschool there, and then, at the end, the preparations for her wedding, to a man whom we never really meet. What we do learn about Neela, though, is that she has consistently watched and loved each of her parents, seeing the complexity, the isolation, the miracle of their lives together, creating one tiny space where, as Neela writes, “difference was a way of life. A constant negotiation of respect, ignorance, new understanding... What was not accepted by society was real and lived by me and mine. Love, the great border crosser. No passport required.”

By deliberately framing her story as a “mixed-genre memoir” (which is to say a lived history, but one that refuses to claim perfect allegiance to fact), Vaswani makes a contribution to the contemporary debate about trauma, memory, and narrative. By refusing to promise truth, Vaswani protects her story against anyone, be it relative or critic, who would wish to discredit its accuracy. At the same time, she carves out space to tell as much truth as she wants while still protecting her family's privacy; readers are bound to remember that each story she tells could be a fabrication, after all. (It should be noted that Vaswani is not the first author to take this approach: Audre Lorde's “biomythography” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name comes to mind.)

Critics sometimes have a point when they complain about the accuracy or objectivity of memoirs. However, sometimes these complaints are merely cleverly—and perhaps unconsciously—disguised ruses to silence marginalized stories that are, at best, uncomfortable, and at worst, incriminating. By sidestepping the demand to portray herself as an objective witness, Vaswani shrewdly protects her own story against such attempts to discredit it. Simultaneously, she subtly makes the point that when it comes to narrative, validity and significance stem from something more complicated than mere literal truth.

Vaswani's prose is spare and vivid and her characters richly human. In this series of carefully chosen, effortlessly linked memories, she tells the histories, the romances, and the tragedies of her own family's dance with diaspora, exile, homeland, immigration, identity, and dignity.

Written by: Ri J. Turner, October 20th 2010

Whom Not to Marry: Time-Tested Advice from a Higher Authority

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Father Pat Connor

Hyperion

After reading Whom Not to Marry by Father Pat Connor, a Catholic priest, I contemplated the different ways to approach this review. I could discuss the practical aspects of this book, but Maureen Dowd already addressed this in a July 6, 2008 op-ed in the New York Times. I could parody Whom Not to Marry, but Father Connor seems so earnest and well-meaning I couldn’t mock him in good conscience (and I’m not even Catholic). I could take a liberal stance and point out that this book is heteronormative, patriarchal, and antiquated. However, I’m much less offended by this instruction manual than I am by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider’s The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. Connor at least encourages women to find someone who treats them with respect and kindness, rather than giving lessons on how to seduce men by playing hard to get.

Whom Not to Marry is based on Connor’s lecture that he shares with audiences of young women. He structures the book around 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, from the Bible: “Love is patient, love is kind...” If you’ve ever attended an American or Christian wedding, you’ve certainly heard this read, usually by a relative. I don’t want to be dismissive and say this is cliched, but Connor is certainly not introducing a new idea. Not to mention the fact that as a Catholic priest Connor has never been married himself, but gleans his experience from premarital counseling and presiding over ceremonies.

Full disclosure: I’m married and believe everyone should have the right to marry. At the same time, I respect that there are many people opposed to the institution of marriage. To enter into marriage should be an individual choice. This is the fundamental weakness of Whom Not to Marry. It assumes every woman wants to marry a man.

Another weakness of the book is that Connor does not criticize the institution of marriage, or at least the wedding industry in the U.S. I would never expect him to violate the tenets of his religion, but the book doesn’t account for social context. In many ways this book is ahistorical, and attributes failed marriages to women’s bad judgment, rather than considering the social pressure to marry quickly, traditionally, and with spectacle.

I don’t think I would actually recommend Father Connor’s Whom Not to Marry to anyone that I know. It’s very reminiscent of Good Housekeeping relationship advice columns that my grandmother may have clipped. Sweet and with the best intentions, but predictable and naïve.

Written by: Claire Burrows, June 27th 2010

Ready? Ok!

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:25:00 +0000

Directed by James Vasquez

Wolfe Video

The blurb on the back of the sleeve for Ready? Ok! called it a "family comedy," so naturally I expected to watch something funny. Aside from a scene where Josh’s mother loses control over him and Alex, her brother, during a live television taping, there really wasn’t too much to laugh about.

Maybe it was the array of serious issues that the movie covered that cast a blanket of sadness over it. Josh is the perky wannabe cheerleader son of jaded single parent Andrea. She’s so busy worrying about her job and money that she makes up for it by controlling everyone in her family.

The lack of understanding for her situation as sole bread winner is compounded by her own mother, who purposely does things like smoke cigarettes around her while knowing that she hates it. Alex, a perpetual bum, comes and goes, adding instability and uncertainty to Josh’s life.

To top it off, Josh attends a Catholic school, where priests and nuns make sure little boys and girls follow strict gender norms. The fact that Josh has a little trouble keeping to the rules bothers his mother. The fear that Josh may very well not be heterosexual keeps her fretting.

Despite the pressures of rigid conformity, Josh carries on in his own way. He stays true to himself and gains help from Charlie, his gay neighbor. There are many tense scenes as his mother continues to fight Josh’s nature.

Unlike his mother and the school, Josh accepts things as they are. Instead of giving up on his dreams, he works like a busy bee to succeed. Charlie also stands firm, despite the friction Andrea causes with her fears.

In the end, it’s all about perseverance and acceptance. Each character learns and changes. While the movie wraps up in triumph, I hardly agree that it can be considered a comedy. It is too much to expect Josh’s optimism to brighten a film that harbors so much sadness.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, April 5th 2009