On this Memorial Day when we poignantly remember the loss of so many lives from all forms of violence including war, hate, insecurity, and rage, it is important to make self-awareness a part of our daily practice so we can command our emotions and not feed into the destructive mood that swirls around us.
Here is a small inspirational e-book – Osun: Whispering of Wisdom from the Waters – dedicated to the medicines of the waters to offer a focal point to pause and get in tune with yourself and how you are showing up today.
A cast of my birth breasts made before surgery and transformed into new armour.
On September 20, 2021, I received a call from Kaiser stating that a recent breast biopsy confirmed a malignancy in my right breast – invasive lobular carcinoma. The left had an atypical lobular hyperplasia – a form of pre-cancer that also needed to be removed. I was in my new office, having just posted a photo on IG filled with pride that my consulting firm had earned enough over the past year to pay for an office outside of my living room. I was also just beginning to integrate who I was after completing an 8-year journey to finish my PhD this past February. I was shocked, but not surprised.
Today the world ended. Tomorrow it begins again. Each sunrise is a beginning and an end. Today, yesterday, tomorrow. (Mom’s poem – date unknown)
Breast cancer dis-ease has impacted three generations of women from my maternal lineage. My grandmother, uncle, and mother all succumbed to this disease. Another aunt survived, and I am now the third first-cousin to also survive. Was this an inter-generational curse? A recessive gene? A common denial of an aspect of our voice and femininity?
Someday, you’ll know me. Perhaps long after our lives have drifted apart, either because of life or death. Someday, maybe you’ll understand, after satisfying your own search for you. Maybe you’ll find me. Maybe you’ll find love. Maybe you’ll find peace. (Mom’s poem circa 1966).
And if I am honest, since my Mother’s passing in 2002 until the moment of the diagnosis, I had been carrying this fear of breast cancer. It was like the actor of Death in the Brazilian film Black Orpheus – lurking in the shadows of joy, vigilantly preparing for an attack with annual mammograms, ultrasounds, and biopsies. It was as if I were born with this black pearl nestled in my breasts – a ticking timeclock- waiting to erupt.
I love to live; I live to love. I plan to live. I don’t plan to die. Death comes, we don’t have to plan for it to happen. Live goes on. (Mom’s poem – circa 1998)
Having internalized the rawness of this disease after witnessing its attack against my Mom as her primary caretaker, its presence guided most life decisions for the past 20 years. In some cases, it gave me courage – ‘I might as well do it now as I don’t know about the future’ and in other cases it was an inner voice that denied myself certain pleasures – including close, intimate relationships for fear that I may disappoint a beloved through the burden of a cancer care journey. I actually married by late-ex-husband out of a sense that he would be a caretaker in my last days, rather than waiting for someone I truly was attracted to and perhaps would have loved, as well as being there for each other as we aged. I worried about who would hold my hand on this future journey.
I dreamed about you last night. Well, it wasn’t really a dream. I heard you call me like you do when you come to the bedroom door, ‘Mom!’ I woke up and answered “what?” – then I realized I had to have dreamt that you called. (Letter from Mom – NCCJ Camp, June 1986)
So, when the diagnosis came, there was a sense of relief. Early advanced- HERS negative – estrogen and progestogen-positive- breast cancer – a non-aggressive slow-moving cancer (although it had metastasized to my lymph node raising the staging from 1 to stage 2). I finally had a chance to face this fear and pull every internal and community source of strength to transform it into a life-affirming awakening of sorts.
After consulting with a close friend who is one of the top breast cancer specialists in the country, I opted for a double mastectomy as an aggressive treatment for the current cancer. An exact month from the diagnosis, I had breast removal surgery on October 20th – a full moon and perfect time of release.
I hope that you didn’t think I was taking your stress lightly. I understand how you feel but I probably have more confidence in you than you have in yourself. You have landed on your feet- ready to go into every situation you faced and not only have made the best of it, but rose to the top. God has given you special talents and has us in making the right decisions. (Letter from Mom – Grad School, Circa 1994)
Circles of women – and some men – from various aspects of my life came together in prayer, warm thoughts, meals, social visits, sending flowers, and offering more personal supplies when constipated and could not shower for 3 weeks. I was held in such a gracious way that not only defrosted my fear but shifted the energy of my relationship to cancer. It wasn’t evil, nor a curse, nor something to fight. It was more of an awakening call from my maternal Ancestors asking me how was I integrating the lessons from the first half of life to have the strength, courage, and joy to fully BE as I approached the next and final half?
You won’t realize the significance of the words ‘Happy Birthday’ until you past through a few more years and recognize that the greetings are meant to wish you happiness in accepting each stage of life as it comes and encourage the continued seeking of good things that life brings. This came to me on one of the late thirty-something birthdays when I woke up and realized I was celebrating the last of the ‘young’ and moving toward ‘middle’. . . I realized that I had to make it happen on that day and every day. (Letter from Mom on my 25th birthday – June 15, 1997)
Nearly 2 months to the day of the diagnosis call, another full moon and partial eclipse – I received good news that I would not need chemo, only hormone therapy for the next five years. And, even more good news, based on the oncotype risk analysis, there was only a 13% chance of the cancer returning in the next 10 years. 13 – the number of facing death and rebirthing to spirit, the number of the Divine Feminine, a confirmation that this experience was indeed an initiation of sorts that marked the transition from the stage of Motherhood (although I am not a Mom) to what one of my godmothers calls ‘Baby Eldership’ – an early stage of being a Crone. Ase!
Do you think you are different from who you are? I see a mosaic and as life progresses all the colors and shapes have their place and depending on the focus, certain parts will shine. You have added new dimensions. Later. Love ya, Mom (Email, April 13, 1992)
Awareness, early detection, and advancement in medical technology and understanding of the various forms of breast cancer became tools to survive and cancel cancer as an auto death sentence. For far too many women though – we wait. Putting everyone else’s needs above our own – waiting for disease to advance before screening. For others we put off due to fear. Trust me, there were years in between that I did not want to be bothered – did not want another poke, smush, or scar. And for many of us, when we are diagnosed, we hold the information inside – not wanting to burden family and loved ones with our news. And finally, as professional women, we may not want to appear weak, vulnerable, or unreliable among work colleagues so we try to ‘push-through’ instead of taking the time to heal and nourish not just our bodies but our souls.
Having not had a serious illness, I never knew what an uplifting feeling it is to receive a card in the mail, a phone call or flowers as a reminder that someone is thinking of me. But more than that, your payers made me feel that I was in God’s hands. When I received the diagnosis, I felt that it was not the time for panic or pity, but prayer for the strength to withstand whatever may come. Going into surgery I thought about individuals and church groups that had prayed for me. I relaxed and went to sleep thinking, ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow, I know He watches over me.’ (Holiday Greeting letter from Mom, December 1997)
Working my way to the other side of this disease in a moment of global awakening as we continue to try to advance to a recovery stage from the Coronavirus pandemic, I believe that we must change the narrative guiding our lives.
There will be many more rivers to cross. Let the spirit of those who have made the crossing guide you and give you the courage to keep going. Mom-me (December 1998)
Here are two lessons that I therefore want to share as seeds of hope for anyone facing cancer, supporting someone with cancer, and even grieving the loss of someone close from this disease:
1) Cancer can be a muse – inspiring us to pause our auto-pilot norm; take time to come back to our bodies; re-member the stories stored in the body from when it has kept score of every life-event; decision; and emotion to date, and rewrite our own end of life story; and
2) Don’t go it alone – Most women I know who have been diagnosed with breast cancer are caretakers and in some cases have imprisoned their own femininity and dreams as a sacrifice to support those around them. Changing who we are and how we show up in the world can be difficult, but I am convinced that positive outcomes are possible when we don’t face this disease alone. Tell people. As an Elder told me – let people help. Don’t be ashamed – don’t feel it is a burden. In telling people – the universe will bring forth people to care for you and pour back into you all that you have given to the world – even those small acts of giving that you thought no one saw. God saw and will redress your wounds in golden light brought forth by angels to renourish your soul and motivate you through a vision of your inner-desires as a pathway to healing.
I don’t know what the future holds, and for the first time don’t really care. Right before my last biopsy, I was at a retreat in the mountains and standing with friends, we saw a shooting star. It was so close that I felt as if it shot through me, touching my heart and mind like a tap on the shoulder from the Divine. I remember thinking – it isn’t about ‘what’ I can or need to do in the future, not even about ‘seeing’ a future. It was only about the present. Taking time to see what was right before my eyes and what the collective soul wants me to see.
Happy Valentine’s Day to my Princess who is getting it together so her reign will be peaceful yet forceful. Love you, Mom! (Circa 1992)
When a wide-eyed woman cuts off her breasts; discarding the source of nourishment for her womb’s creation as sacrifice for her own libidoty- what does this signal to the world?
Mino, Aje, Amazonia, Califa, Iyaami.
Deep into the dark forest web of interlocking branches erecting on her path, she enters- seeing from the courage of her heart; rememoring and entangleling with the mysteries of her own womanhood; ripping apart the veneer of the Anima painted on by society to liberate her wild-woman soul from the concretized prison of her expected role and stepping out of tired cloth narratives written by expectations- not her truth.
She thrust herself against the jagged edges of the wandering tree branches, grinding down the calluses of old wounds so new skin can grow.
When the raven harkens she . . . stops . . . still . . . in . . . the . . . silence . . . of . . . the forest.
A humming emerges within and she sees the reflection of the inner glow arising inside of her from the wellspring of her being.
In the darkness, naked, breastless, scrubbed clean, she sees herself as a mature, graying, radiant woman for the first time.
Dry river beds are more potent than flowing rivers for one has to pause and notice the flourishing fauna surrounding them to know water loves to hide when unappreciated.
Dry river beds call upon an unimaginable faith to see through the unseen to see the nourishment in the sediment of the river’s floor and power up the imagination to see abundant currents flowing once again.
Dry river beds make you face the possibility of death without life; an Esu juncture of what story will you spin by the sensing you take in.
If I only had 24 hours to live I would stretch those hours into 72 and travel to Morocco to dance to house music in Fez, shop in the Marrakech marketplace, and sleep like a Bedouin on the Sahara floor; I would charter a boat with friends and take sage to the Santa Cruz islands; I would learn to grow the powerful and healing yet finicky lavender plant; I would find my soul mate and do tantric yoga until ecstasy; and then I would take the sweetest hot-honey bath and put on the finest golden threaded gown that stuck to my honey-wet body and lay down on a sunflower bed surrounded by jokes and laughter and cussing by love ones until I fell asleep to rest before coming back again.
See dry river beds that create the circulatory system of California cause all here to dream, to reimagine, to endure the most hostile of climates with the sweetness of the Golden poppy and sting of the honey bee.
Full Moon Musing in Osun’s lap who pets me with unconditional love and hope.
Originally posted on author’s Instagram account on September 20, 2021
Go into the storm daughter. Go into the winds. Find your safe house – the tower of your dreams, the cabinet filled with your medicine.
Don’t fret the storms daughter. The winds and rains and lightening across the night sky are necessary to keep movement; to stir the stagnate, to toil the earth and pollinate the seeds of life, of future.
Dance into the storms daughter. Feel the roots beneath your feet. Touch the earth skin and move across the spot where the Mothers have outlined your sacred space for you and you alone. Do not be moved. You are protected. Do not be shaken, you are loved. You are anointed with your own unique crown.
Smiths Grove, Kentucky
Embrace the storms daughter. You are not alone. Your Grandmothers are dancing with you throughout the circle of life.
Clarksville, Tennessee, the afternoon after the storm
Finding solace and resonation in the words of Frank Wilderson III’s Afropessimism, I awoke this morning trying to recapture my twilight thoughts on the difference of White Northern (Western, Progressive, Liberal, Radical Leftist, Socialist) and Southern (Moderate, Conservative, AltRight) cultures that I was too tired to write last night as I drifted off to sleep.
I am in Clarksville, Tennessee. A town of goddesses that I met attending an annual Memorial Day Retreat called Sacred Waters. Clarksville is north of where my maternal Tennessee roots are located, but a place where I am seriously thinking of relocating. There is peace, and the NAACP, and a Delta Alumni Chapter. I am at that point in life where I have less years ahead than behind, and as I age I realize the importance of being in close proximity (no more than an hour plane ride) to close friends and extended family.
I often hide behind my mid-western roots – Omaha/Chicago- the places where my parents were born and spent many of summers growing up. But truth-be told, it is only a rouse, a safe zone, one-degree north or so of the Mason Dixon line and a badge of courage that my family “escaped” the grasp of Dixie Culture that legalized their ‘Being’ as the perpetual property of others for eternity.
Now, I feel the gentle wind of the ancestors calling me back to the land that they poured their prayers into for over 200+ years.
My ancestral roots are planted in tobacco, wheat, corn, and cotton on the plantations of triangle south – Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Although most of my ancestral bones have been plowed over in the fields, it is this blood that runs through me. It is even in my inherited freckled, wrinkled, large hands that have toiled the lands I write from, and the DNA memories that generated the backbone of this nation’s agricultural economy positioning its dominance in the world (at least up into the end of the last century).
So here I am. A daughter returned, to seek understanding of the past, heal a broken link, pay the karmic debt so future generations can be spiritually and psychologically free from the race burden. At this crossroads moment, I imagine standing on the Indian mounds seeing in all directions, waiting for the tornado winds of Oya to bring sudden change; creating chaos out of calm, and prepared to see whatever is unearthed that was hidden in the fields in the name of progress. There are missing pieces of my story of being and I am determined to find them, to feel whole.
With feet back on the floor, as I prepared the Keurig (I miss my old skool coffee pot) for my morning cup of coffee I look out the kitchen window of my airBNB and stare through the cracks of light of the white mini-blinds into the rich tapestries of greens composing a small docile forest in the back yard for inspiration.
I am still halfway processing my trip to Kentucky a few days earlier, where I went to witness the community my great, great, great grandmother Mary, my great grandmother Bessie’s Mother, lived enslaved, the land she toiled, the place where she met her husband and had 12 children, and disappointingly searched for the place where she died (could not find her grave). My guide that day was a local, a White historian who knew so much about my family because he understood the culture as his family had owned slaves. It was a day of contradictions – of learning, of disgust, or heartfelt connection to distant relatives whose spirits still walked the land.
In search of her story, I pierced a veil into the greater culture she lived through outside of the safe confines of her home and family. The boards that constructed the framing of Whiteness in the stream of consciousness of the Mid-Southerner’s imagination provided new understanding of the greater shared beliefs of this mytho-narrative that so many call the culture of white supremacy.
First, I heard in the storytelling of family roots, genealogy begins at the moment of contact on this land, a rebirthed of identity and sudden amnesia of any ties to any place other than here.
Next, the pedestal of their ontological narrative base social status and hierarchy based on property ownership (land, animals, slaved –social death non-humans), including only allowing fellow property owners to participate in the rule-making.
Finally, American culture is composed of 1 race – Blackness. Whiteness is universal, divine. Blackness is the mirror that allows Whiteness to exist; the Black flesh the pedestal of which the White micro-world stands.
In the midst of this experience, I formally graduated from Pacifica Graduate Institute with my PhD. Dr. Bayo Akomolafe was our graduation keynote speaker. Dr. Bayo asked, “what does it mean to graduate at the end of the world when what it means to be human is not understood?” He then referenced the book Afropessimism by Wilderson. While killing time before I could check into the AirBnB, I visited a local bookstore where I found Wilderson’s book. For the past two nights, I have not been able to put it down, with his personal narrative style and critical theorist approach appealing to all of my senses.
Wilderson’s work and Bayo’s questions helped frame the emotions I was processing from my visit South way to begin to reconcile them with this deep longing to “return” here to establish a home as a base to live out the second act of life (I will be 50 next year).
So in my own way of processing live events and in integrating the learning from these two scholars, I pondered questions around finding a place for Blackness amidst the conversations of whites as the sudden attention on racial equity and justice seems to be focusing on. Is there such a space? Or are we delaying, diverting, and distracting from the work of forging our own path of liberation by participating in promises of transformative change? Am I too an Afropessimist?
To test it out, I reflected on my experiences of Northern and Southern White cultures.
In my experience in Northern cities as diverse as Boston, D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena . . . liberal white culture is constructed based on an imagined society that performs certain stated values and principals like equity, tolerance, social justice, but is wedded to illuminating them through the colored lens that spotlights them and their good deeds. Many liberal careers (writers, arts, nonprofits, academics) are made off of the suffering and continued subjugation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color suffering. Exceptional Blacks are allowed to speak-back in structured spaces like a fundraiser dinner or before a policy body in advocacy of legislation that will help or hurt the White middle class.
Like 1950’s tin soldier figurines, the non-White others AND Blacks, are strategically placed like landscape ornaments to appear as if they have achieved utopian success – an imagined micro-world that makes them feel good, righteous, safe, and in control.
Concurrently, I surmise that Southern conservative white culture lives off the harvest planted in the realized dream of the American Revolution, and outlined in the expansive image of Manifest Destiny painted across the Western landscape (that being west of the Appalachian mountain range).
The place of the “Other” is understood in the social hierarchy of their world – “the way things are”- without any critical moral assessment on if the concept of freedom exists for non-Whites. Instead, the Black others is an eternal servant and mirror to the Southern White of his perceived social position.
The Other Non-Black is a perpetual foreigner amongst the Brotherhood of Whiteness. It doesn’t matter if his lineage in the US is older than the date his place became a state; the intensity of his service to the building of the nation (like mining or placement of railway lines); the amount of blood spilled in honor of American ideas in world wars; nor even if at some point of entry, he was allowed to claim “white” on his port-of-entry documents. He is an unknown in this micro-world and held at the margins with a promise, but always just out-of-reach of full acceptance.
These rigid social classes are not the White Southerner’s fault. He simply is fulfilling the operational plan of the Constitution that the God-like fathers designed in the founding of this experimental micro-world. As descendants, they simply are valiantly defending the ideas of their ancestor.
I guess I am an Afropessimist. I have no faith that Black liberation will come out of debates between Northerners and Southerners whose dialogue is rooted in a shared agreement of Whiteness. From those who cashed in memory of European ancestry for perpetual positioning at the top of the American social hierarchy in exchange for a lifetime commitment to the protection of its privileges.
Like a Charley Brown movie, arising out of the speeches for racial justice in capitol chambers everywhere, I hear womp, womp, as cousins code switch words seeking to still answer Jefferson’s question in Notes on the State of Virginia, “what to do with the Negro” especially when they continue to claim a right to be?
I now can return South, Mid-South, Midwest with clear conscious. I do not need to be burden by the politics of Whites, just understand enough for safety and protection. Just as Whiteness is a construct of a micro-world, with true knowledge of self, ancestral roots, and deep spirituality, I too can construct the world I choose to live in no matter where it is. I can be cautious, but not live in fear. I can know the stories of history and still meet people on their own merit just as I want to be met. I can be, I can be, I can be.
I admit that I am a little anxious about this calling back home after being gone for two generations. But being the woman standing on the open plain – perhaps in a hip-high field of golden wheat – I stand with eyes and heart open – ready to surrender to the rainbow winds of sudden change that the goddess Oya is whispering; I just ask with grace and ease.
My advice to those on their own path of Black liberation: Learn your history from your family; Explore the places where you have roots and listen in to the stories they tell; Discern; Open your heart. Seek your life purpose and resist the comfort in the role others have positioned you in for their self-gain.
“If we wish to serve God and love our neighbor well, we must manifest our joy in the service we render to Him and them” St. Katherine Drexel
On Monday, the nation celebrated Indigenous People’s Day to honor the original caretakers of this land, and acknowledge our continued occupancy in their home. This is also a celebratory day as I am reminded that even with all the historical tragedy, many Native American communities are still here, just as I, a descendent of enslaved Americans, am still here and so are you. It is learning from our history of resiliency that we must focus on to guide our pursuit of human liberation.
Since graduating from Xavier in 1994, I have pursued a vocation in the field of homelessness services and policy, rising from frontline staff to senior advisor to elected officials in major cities including Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California, my hometown. Through this tenure, I have developed front-hand knowledge of the intersection of homelessness and systemic racism in the creation of the phenomenon of Black and Native American people experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness experienced by Black and Native American people today is a compounded effect of centuries of serial displacement, racial discrimination, and applications of social control including the use of law enforcement and criminalization of Blackness. Today in Los Angeles, for instance, 34% of the nearly 70,000 people experiencing homelessness are African American, yet Black people only make up 8% of our region’s total population. While American Indians represent only 1% of Los Angeles’ total homeless population, 91% experience homelessness unsheltered, living on the streets and in other places not meant for human habitation.
Yet, despite these grime statistics, I maintain hope. For one, we are finally talking about racism as a contributing factor of homelessness instead of just blaming individuals and judging personal choices.
Second, my experience at Xavier taught me that you never give up. You always strive for excellence in whatever you do. Our Founder, Saint Katherine Drexel is a great example. In her founding of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Mother Drexel embodied an unapologetic commitment to the upliftment and liberation of Black and Native American people. Perhaps it was a call by God who one night whispered this mission into her ear, for she stubbornly developed the conviction to illuminate her own path through the dark violence of Jim Crow in pursuit of justice. She used her racial privilege and platform to mitigate racial harm through the provision of safe spaces where Black and Native American children could not only learn and thrive, but where they had a place to belong, and where their lives mattered. Her efforts created opportunity for each of us, generations later.
The disruption of the global Coronavirus pandemic has brought our nation to the cusp of significant, transformational change. COVID-19 has not only surfaced systemic causes of underlying health conditions – including homelessness – that continue to place Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities at risk of severe infection and death, it has also unearthed deep racial divides that had been glossed over in the safeguard of a post-racial, colorblind nation. No more. The awakening of our racial consciousness has created an opportunity for social change and healing justice. It has created an opportunity to leave a legacy behind. Are we ready to take the baton of our ancestors and lead forward?
So Xavierites, why were you born when you were to be here now, as a witness to this moment? What purpose has God whispered into your ear, and are you pursuing it with the unwavering conviction of Mother Drexel? How will you apply your skills, gifts, and talents in crafting the rebirth of our nation to create a fairer, just, and sustainable world as our legacy for the generations to come?
The following is a copy of the ‘Introduction’ to a Master’s thesis (a program in Bilingual/Bicultural studies that I actually never completed) written in 2011 seeking understanding of anti-Black racism in Cuba society. This was written before I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba as part of a dance program to understand how Afro-Cuban culture was embodied in dance and other Afro-Cuban Folkloric cultures, so some ideas have since evolved. However, Trump support out of Florida in the recent election made me reflect on this study and wanted to offer it to others seeking understanding, particularly when African Americans and Latinx often talk about building cross-cultural political alliances.
“In the nation beloved by me I would like to see born the nation that can be without hate, and without color. In the generous game of limitless thought, I would like to see building the house, rich and poor, black and white” (qtd.in Kirk 130). In October 1889, José Martí, a leader of Cuba Libre, the insurgent movement to fight for independence from Spain, spoke these words to express a vision of a new patria built on equality where citizens would not be identified by race, heritage, class or religion, but by a common Cuban national identity. Motivated by his words and a promise of emancipation from slavery, thousands of Afro-Cubans took up arms in support of the Cuba Libre movement.
During this time black men such as Antonio Maceo, “the Bronze Titan,” were able to rise through the ranks of the military based on their skill and achievement and were not excluded based on the color of their skin. In this post-Haitian revolution era, European colonists were fearful of additional slave revolts and would not arm blacks under any circumstance; Cuba was a rare exception (Helg 4). Afro-Cubans participating in the liberation movement understood the significance of fighting alongside white mambises and began to believe that a free Cuba could meet Martí’s social promise of a new racially united nation (Helg 119). In the article “ ‘Race and the Cuban Revolution’ Review of Castro, the Blacks and Africa by Carlos Moore,” Lisa Brock and Otis Cunningham explain that “because the Cuban fight for independence and abolition from slavery shared the same historical stage, there developed an ideological congruity between the fighting for equality for blacks and against colonialism” (n.pag.). Sadly, Martí was killed on the battlefield in 1895. However the war with Spain continued under the passionate leadership of the Cuba Libre revolutionaries to create a Cuban society under a new social paradigm in alignment with his ideal nation.
After many years of fighting, United States intervention brought an end to the war and ushered in the political transition of Cuba as a new nation-state. Cautiously optimistic of the U.S. post-war on-the-ground presence, many Afro-Cubans still believed that their sacrifice and efforts in the fight for independence would be recognized and honored through executing the promise of Martí’s ideal nation (Peréz 160). In addition to their military sacrifice during the wars of independence, slavery had been abolished and blacks had begun a process of emancipation.
Metaphorically, the Cuban national narrative embraced an image that the new nation would be racially democratic and built on the principles of Martí’s vision of a “race-less nationality” (Ayorinde 33). In reality, during the first quarter of the 20th Century a social hierarchy based on preferences of ancestry, class, and race that mirrored colonial society was instituted.
Having undergone three significant national transitions during the first hundred years of nationhood; Independence, the 1959 Revolution, and the Special Period, and facing a fourth in the millennium with the transfer of power from Fidel to Raul Castro, there is a growing sense that the aforementioned social hierarchies will no longer be accepted. In his article “Recreating Racism: Race and Discrimination in Cuba’s ‘Special Period’ ” Alejandro de la Fuente states, “as in previous transitions, blacks will not quietly acquiesce to displacement or exclusion from a nation they helped create” (n.pag.).
Frustrated by the continued exclusion from the nation building process, blacks in Cuba have sought various strategies of resistance and adaptation to hold the republic accountable to promises made during the time leading up to its founding (Planas 89). In this thesis, I will examine strategies applied by Afro-Cubans in response to national leaders who during periods of political transitions, failed to deliver on the colonial promise of “one” nation; raceless and non- discriminatory.
Chapter one entitled “Cuba Libre,” will examine the construction of the conditional promise of freedom in exchange for Afro-Cuban participation in the Wars of Independence. Cuba had been fighting for independence from Spain since the 1830’s. In 1868, Manuel Céspedes, a wealthy Creole sugar mill owner, organized a massive rebel movement that included his slaves who he freed to help with the insurrection. This led to the Ten Years War. The rebels were defeated, however, the spirit of independence continued along with growing international pressure to end the slave trade in Cuba and to emancipate all slaves. Approximately 500,000 slaves were imported to Cuba between 1812 and 1865. In the 1850’s, the combination of Afro- Cuban freemen and slaves made the black population over fifty-six percent (Benson 26-27). Due to Haiti’s recent independence caused by a slave rebellion, many plantation owners were fearful of slaves overtaking the island if freed and therefore; were reluctant to emancipate their slaves (Jiménez 37-38). Through an agreement with the British, Spain abolished slavery in 1886, at a time when sugar profits had begun to decline and the nation was experiencing an economic depression.
During the time period of 1878 to1895, José Martí, a young writer, journalist and activist travelled to the United States to leverage support for the independence movement within the Cuban exile community (Kirk 48-49). While traveling around the United States, disgusted by the discriminatory treatment of blacks, Native Americans and Chinese, Martí was inspired to design a new social paradigm in his patria that would support social equality without regard to skin color or national heritage (107). Upon his return to Cuba, Martí gained support for his vision of a free, united Cuba and was elected party leader of El Partido Revolucionario Cubano (the Cuban Revolutionary Party). Martí was killed in 1895 before his vision was realized. In 1898, the United States joined in the Cuban Independence War after it was believed that one of its naval ships, the USS Maine, was attacked by the Spanish, although later it was discovered that a boiler on the ship had exploded. In three months, the eager, young, U.S. navy had defeated the Spanish and gained ownership of Cuba, as well as Puerto Rico and the Philippines (Thomas 369). Cuba had traded one colonial master for another, as the U.S. did not formally grant sovereignty to Cuba until 1902 after integrating the Platt Agreement into the new nation’s constitution. This act allowed the U.S. military to occupy the island according to certain terms and conditions, one of which was the exclusion of Afro-Cubans in decision making capacities.
In response to their exclusion from the nation-building process by the new Cuban government, Afro-Cubans, especially veteran leaders from the independence wars, formed their own political party, the Partido Independiente de Color (PIC), in 1908 (Andrews 129). In 1910, Senator Martin Morúa Delgado, a mulatto, sponsored an amendment in the Cuban Congress to outlaw political parties composed of a single race. The general consensus in the literature regarding Morúa Delgado’s motivation is that he believed racial distinction in the new nation-state would only continue to fragment the social structure and impede “up-ward mobility” among Afro-Cubans (Helg 122). Others in the government simply viewed the organizing of a black political party as a potential threat to national security (Thomas 227). Consequently, over two hundred PIC party members were arrested and imprisoned (Andrews 129). In protest, remaining members of the PIC party planned an armed demonstration in Oriente Province in 1912 to overturn the Morúa Amendment. Militia of the Cuban government met them with a “campaign of extermination” and several thousand Afro-Cubans were killed, including most of the PIC leadership and rank and file, as well as bystanders, around 3,000 in total (Andrews 130). This event influenced social integration strategies later pursued by Afro-Cubans that ranged from public school integration campaigns to subversive expressions of African heritage through religion, dance, and music.
Chapter two, “Race and Revolution,” will focus on Fidel Castro’s rise to power on a wave of anti-Batista sentiment and his leveraging of Afro-Cuban loyalty in support of his “new society” (Strug 14). Ruben Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar seized military power of the Cuban nation on September 4, 1933 through the Revolt of Sergeants where he overthrew the government of Gerardo Machado (Sierra, “Batista” n.pag.). A mulatto from Oriente province, Batista offered an initial glimmer of hope for Afro-Cubans. However, even as President he faced racial discrimination, as he was not allowed to enter certain public and private facilities. The fact that even the President of Cuba encountered racial discrimination dampened the hopes for the realization of Martí’s dream of a Cuba based on the equality of all it’s citizens.
During his presidency, Batista was known for using brutal force against his opponents. In David Strug’s article, “Why Older Cubans Continue to Identify with the Ideals of the Revolution”, Alicia, a seventy-eight year old Afro-Cuban who participated in his interview, lived near a police station during the Batista era and recalls the “cries of jailed political prisoners”(n.pag.). She stated that “one felt the pain of these people being tortured. It was horrible”(n.pag.). It is no surprise then that she and her neighbors were fearful of going out at night, especially if Batista was traveling through, “If you were caught on the block, they [the police] would round you up” (n.pag.). Living conditions among Afro-Cubans and others were also poor prior to the 1959 revolution. “Forty-five percent of Cubans had never been to school and half of them were malnourished to some degree. Most dwellings lacked running water, and most homes had dirt floors” (Strug n.pag.). The island’s elite were also frustrated with Batista for his on-going governmental control, brutal force against anyone who spoke out against him, the shutting down of the University of Havana after many student protests, and his preference for U.S. investors and members of the U.S. mob in opening large-scale gambling enterprises. Instead of re-investing revenue back into the economy and the nation’s general fund, Batista pocketed many corporate kick-backs for himself and members of his inner circle, enriching the quality of life for very few Cubans (Sierra, “Batista” n.pag.).
Fidel, the son of a wealthy Spanish sugar planter and the former maid of his father’s first wife, became interested in social justice issues while pursuing a law degree at the University of Havana (A&E T.V. Network 1). Later a follower of former senator Eduardo Chibás who fought against government corruption within the Cuban political system, Castro began to shape his ideas about Cuban nationalism, anti-imperialism, and socialism (1-2). In 1953, Castro “attacked the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago on July 26” in his first attempt to overthrow Batista (Sierra, “Batista” n.pag.). Having failed, Fidel and several of his accomplishes were sent to prison while others were killed. Freed in 1955, Fidel and his brother Raúl went into exile in Mexico where he met Che Guevara and organized an insurgent plan. After a second failed attempt in 1956, Fidel and Che escaped to the Sierra Maestra Mountains to further organize. Finally on January 1, 1959, they triumphantly entered the streets of Havana. With some skepticism, most Cuban people were ecstatic that Batista was no longer in power.
Within his first hundred days of office, Fidel immediately implemented a Proclamation Against Racism and amended the laws to abolish racism, specifically outlawing racial discrimination and segregation. According to Sara Lobman’s article, “How Revolutionary Gov’t Outlawed Racist Discrimination,” blacks were now allowed to go into public spaces such as beaches, parks, pool clubs, schools, and hotels alongside of whites (n.pag). In a speech delivered on March 22 1959, Castro addressed the nation:
…are we a small people who need each other, need the effort of all, and are now to be divided into white and black?… Are we to be weak and also divided by color?…We have to uproot the last colonial vestiges, conscious of making that phrase of Marti a reality: he said it before, we have to repeat it now, that a Cuban is more than white, more than black, and we are Cuban. (Robaina, “20th Century”102-103)
Clarence Luanes observes that the new law also minimized racial distinction by blacks, “any effort at expressed racial group consciousness for blacks as well as white Cubans, could and would be determined to be racist”(76). Fred Quintano states, “… for Cuban blacks, with their grievances declared addressed by Fidel Castro, this meant that their claims for distinction was a threat to the regime and repressed” (11). The consequences of the suppression of grievances expressed by Afro-Cubans would become evident throughout Castro’s reign, particularly through economic disparities. However, immediately following the revolution, many Afro-Cubans interpreted Castro’s new order as an opportunity for them to achieve the social mobility they had been denied historically. For example, Carlos Eire’s shares an exchange with his Afro-Cuban housekeeper a few days after Fidel came to power when she says to him, “pretty soon you’re going to lose all this. Pretty soon you’ll be sweeping my floor. Pretty soon I’ll be seeing you at your fancy beach club, and you’ll be cleaning out the trash cans while I swim” (4).
Fidel launched an island-wide social campaign funded by the government that included compulsory education, healthcare, food and nutrition, public housing, and full employment. In education alone, “black educational advancement was most impressive … Afro-Cubans capitalized on the opportunities created by the post-1959 revolutionary government to such a degree that racial disparity in education almost disappeared” (Andrews 163).
Castro’s swift actions to modify the law to reflect his vision of Cuba proved that he had the power and the commitment to fulfill his promises for creating a new nation built on the principles of José Martí. In response, the Afro-Cuban community joined the revolutionary movement taking full advantage of Fidel’s social programs, active engagement in military affairs, and participation in the various unions of the Confederation of Cuban Workers. Gonzalez and McCarthy frame this exchange as a “social compact” that “the state promised to deliver a better life to its citizens in return for their support and devotion to the Revolution” (7).
Chapter 3, the “Soviet Withdrawal and its Impact on Race Relations” will analyze the negative impact of the sudden withdrawal of Soviet financial resources on racial equality within the nation and the rising voice of dissatisfied Afro-Cuban youth. Castro’s infusion of state funds to subsidize critical social programs supported his elimination of discriminatory practices and helped to reduce social hierarchies. According to Dr. Johnetta B. Cole:
…the primary cause of the oppression of black people in Cuba was an inegalitarian economic system …socialism struck at the heart of that cause. When unemployment was totally eliminated, it was the single most important blow against racism as it eliminated competition between workers for what had been a limited number of jobs. (9)
Thirty years after the revolution the quality of life of Afro-Cubans had improved significantly. According to Alejandro de la Fuente in “Recreating Racism: Race and Discrimination in Cuba’s ‘Special Period;’” life expectancy among Cubans of all races (i.e. black, mulatto and white) was close to that of developed countries, illiteracy was eliminated, the proportion of blacks and mulattos who had graduated from high school was higher than whites, and blacks and mulattos were well represented in the professional labor force, including composing 31% of workers employed in the Cuban medical field (n.pag).
Social advancement for Afro-Cubans ended when the Soviet Union withdrew financial support to Cuba in 1987 and subsequently collapsed in 1991. These events led to great economic instability in Cuba, which in turn resulted in the return of racial hierarchies. Oil, consumer goods, agricultural products and other essentials needed for daily life and production disappeared almost overnight with very few available alternative suppliers (Pérez, “Cuba’s Special Period” n.pag.). Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson states, “the whole country, used to middle class living standards, suddenly had had to endure an awful poverty. There was no gasoline to fuel the trucks that brought food from the countryside to the cities, so people were hungry for the first time since the Revolution” (154).
To manage the nation’s rapid downward spiral, Fidel instituted an austerity program that limited the allocation of goods (Pérez, “Cuba’s Special Period” n.pag.). He also allowed the in-flow of U.S. dollars to help boost the economy through remittances and private joint-ventures between the state and non-U.S. nationals (Fuente, “Recreating Racism” n.pag.). This process created a severe class distinction as whites, with greater ties in the Cuban Diaspora in Miami and others cities, tended to be the recipients of remittances (E. Robinson 35). Fuente states that Afro-Cubans could not even benefit from paladares, restaurants inside of private homes, because many of them lived outside of the tourist routes in predominantly non-white housing projects that were deteriorating and had higher crime rates (“Recreating Racism”n.pag). Quintano concludes, “the bifurcation of the Cuban economy in the early 1990’s into dollar and peso currencies and the increasing supremacy of the dollar in the Cuban economy has effectively created the conditions for the marginalization of black Cubans” (15).
In addition to the a new system to create private wealth, the government also faced no choice but to defund many of the social programs that had given Afro-Cubans a fair opportunity to advance such as adequate healthcare, education, housing, and guaranteed employment. Fuente notes that the commitment to racial discrimination also ended in the workplace as in the fury to attract foreign investments, particularly in the tourism industry, the Cuban government turned a blind eye as foreign firms only hired whites and very fair skinned mulattoes in hotels and casinos (A Nation, 321). A 2002 study by Cuba’s Center for Anthropology states that “whites accounted for 80 percent of the personnel in the tourist industry, compared with 5 percent for blacks” (Gonzales and McCarthy 58).
With limited access to dollars to purchase basic goods such as fresh fruit, toilet paper, and appliances, Fuente states that Afro-Cubans fought the growing economic disparity through active participation in the emerging black market (A Nation, 326). Older Afro-Cubans like Alicia, “believe it is important for parents to teach their children about the energy and sacrifice on the part of her generation that went into building the revolution and sustaining it through difficult times, including the special period” (Strug n.pag.). However younger Afro-Cubans who were born after the revolution are waning in patience with the revolution’s motto of self-sacrifice while it ignores inequities. Eugene Robinson states:
Like it or not, the Cuban Revolution had produced, and now would have to deal with, a hip-hop generation- a cohort of young people who had no memory of life before the Special Period, who know all about the promises the Cuban Revolution had broken, and very little about the promises it had kept. (255)
Using the same social channels as the black market, Afro-Cuban youth in Alamar, one of the largest housing developments outside of Havana, began writing, performing, and recording hip-hop (E. Robinson106-107). Influenced by the African American sound that they heard over the airwaves from Miami, Afro-Cuban youth found a vehicle to express their frustration with failed government promises (E. Robinson 107). Raps like “¿Quién Tiró la Tiza?,” “Who threw the chalk,” by Clan 537 opened public dialogue about growing racial disparities as it asked the audience who would the teacher blame for throwing the chalk, the white son of a prominent doctor or the unknown black son of a sugar cane laborer (E. Robinson 205). Eugene Robinson further notes that, “Cuban hip-hop sounds as if it isn’t really about the music at all, but about the screwed-up present and the uncertain future of the nation” (107). The government eventually tried to control the hip-hop movement after an incident at the Eighth Annual Alamar Rap Festival through the Cuban Rap Agency, however according to an interview with Papa Humbertico in “Havana Times,” journalist Yusimi Rodriguez learns that a strong underground movement still exists through social media (i.e. You Tube, Facebook, blogs) and black market export channels (n.pag). The Hip-Hop movement is even recognized in the mainstream as during the 15th Annual Arturo Schomburg Symposium, Tomás Fernández Robaina, a researcher and professor in the National Library of Cuba credited the youth hip-hop movement with opening up new space for dialogue about race in Cuba (“The African”).
The transfer of power from Fidel to brother Raúl in 2008 symbolized yet another major transition in the continual development of the Cuban nation. More opened to private enterprise to stabilize the national economy, the government will be promoting self-employment or cuentapropistas to help keep people employed. However, without access to U.S. dollars to purchase supplies and secure necessary permits, Afro-Cubans will continue to be disadvantaged.
As one of the few remaining socialist countries in the world, Cuba is at a critical juncture as it strives to define how it will manage the transition from its “redistribution revolution that benefitted the lot of the Cuban people” and its archaic “powerful state apparatus” into a free enterprise system to sustain its economy (Gonzalez and McCarthy 5). Assumed to be complete loyalists to the revolution’s government for all of its advances, Afro-Cubans are a great topic of discussion among international diplomats and political scientists interested in the future of Cuba. According to the official Cuban 2002 census, 34.9 percent of the11.2 million population is black and of mixed race ancestry. Most Cuban academics however increase the estimation to between 60 and 70 percent black or mulatto (Grogg, Racism n.pag.). Gonzales and McCarthy state “that Afro-Cubans taken together make up close to half the island’s population should give black and mulatto representatives political clout with which to press for greater racial equality in business and government” (65). Currently however, “Afro-Cubans occupy 33 percent of the seats in the National Assembly of People’s Power, and nine of the 31 members of the Council of State” the most powerful political body (Gonzales and McCarthy 60). Furthermore, Afro-Cubans only make up two Ministers of the 40-memnber Council of Ministers, 2 out of 15 provincial First Secretaries of the Communist Party of Cuba, 0 of the 15 Presidents of the Provincial Assemblies of People’s Power, 0 of the 10 top generals or senior posts in the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and 5 of the 24- member Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba (61). What will be the place of Afro-Cubans in a new future state?
Many Americans are often perplexed by political support among Latinx and Hispanic-American voters for candidates who often demoralize and create anti-immigration policies, closing the same passage ways that they or their family members came through over the last few decades, with exception for those families for whom the Southwest United States has always been home.
The relationship between the US and Latin American countries geographically dispersed from Mexico to South American and the Caribbean, is long and complex. It follows the sails of a dream called Manifest Destiny, whereby White American property owners and presidents have looked South as if gazing down the rolling hills of the National Mall, toward these countries, not as sovereign nations, but as extended plantation fields for the extraction of natural resources and labor exploitation since the South’s loss of the Civil War.
Modern American politicians have an equally long history of coercing Latin American leaders through trade deals, military support including training by the School of Americas, and even funding intra-regional conflict including regime changes. Examples for further self-study include critical analysis of the creation of the Panama Canal; the 1980’s wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua; Iran-Contra Affair; NAFTA and the creation of the maquiladoras; the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment program; drug wars in Columbia; the 2009 regime change in Honduras; and of course the infamous Bay of Pigs off the coast of Cuba.
Like a mathematical quotient, these nations (and the Caribbean) have been unduly impacted by American foreign policy, creating winners and losers, and a driving force for members of both group seeking resettlement in the United States for a safer lifestyle. For some, they come in praise of a government that protected their upper-class status while in-country. For others, they come to escape the lack of economic opportunities created by monocrops, environmental degradation caused by years of over-harvesting by US companies like Dole, militarization of police and suppression of human rights, and/or to escape violence created by escalating drug wars and a rise in youth gangs as economic opportunities to make a sustainable-living continue to decrease.
In addition to arms and structured debt, American foreign policy in Latin America has also included the spread of American racism and the ideology of White Supremacy. Insecurity driven by rejection of creole generations by their European ancestral roots of origin (read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys), many nations pursued a path of Blanqueamiento – whitening- to erase their African and Indigenous peoples’ lineages. This included strategies to increase European immigration and attempted erasures of African and Indigenous languages and culture, domination of their lands, and genocide pogroms. Resettlement of Italian and German fascist regimes escaping prosecution after World War II also contribute to an anti-Black sentiment. Finally, Latin America’s historic Catholic roots, embedded in a process to de-Indigenize and be reborn ‘civilize’ – and continual spread of Evangelism- continue to fuel alignment with America’s conservative political philosophy.
This synopsis is an over simplification of course, but offered to shed light and understanding on why many (not all of course) Latinx and Hispanic cultures align with America’s right, even when contradicting their own day-to-day best interests. It is also my intention to highlight the critical need to address anti-Black racism embodied within these cultural groups before we can strive for a utopian dream of building authentic Brown-Black political alliances.
In my next blog post, I share an introduction to a thesis paper written in 2011 as a case study in the rise of anti-Black racism in Cuba as an example of struggles found in other Latin American countries today.
As we seek to heal our nation, regardless of who wins this current election, may we take the time to have authentic and honest conversations on our histories and seek a common understanding to build empathy, open-mindness, reconciliation, and opportunity for true community building of a pluralistic nation.
A running joke growing up was that nothing aged in Los Angeles because the landscape was always changing before it had a chance to age. A shadow side of this dynamic is that far too often, the stories of neighborhoods often disappear with the demolition of buildings and paving of new parking lots, or erection of new condos. It is this historical amnesia that makes the topics of gentrification and displacement lightening rod topics. In a recent housing policy seminar, the facilitators approached this topic through storytelling. In doing so, we were each able to contribute our story to create a greater narrative of the attributes of the real L.A., the one unspoken under the bright lights of Hollywood and the development boom.
The discussion invoked childhood memories of my first encounter outside of my community and how this early experience called me to the field of community development.
When I look around today, I often wonder if I was just imaging of the Black Los Angeles of my childhood. Things have changed so much, yet every now and then I find an old landmark or photo validating my memories.
I was born in Kaiser Hospital located in Harbor City in 1972. I grew up in a traditional Black family – traditional to us, yet not in the framework of America’s White Anglo-Saxon Puritan norms of a nuclear family structure. My parents were both from the Midwest- Chicago and Omaha – with entangled southern roots in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Before the age of 8, within the mosaic landscape of my childhood that extended from Inglewood to Pasadena, Watts, Jefferson Park, Crenshaw Manor, Baldwin Hills, and Angeles Vista, my kinship network was mostly Black and middle class. Just about everyone owned a home, even if there were multiple families living there. More than housing, family homes were the center of Black life; a place where people gathered, where a sick child could stay home with an elder, where people in transition could rest, where family history was shared around the kitchen table, where tradition was nurtured, and children validated as armor to step into the world beyond.
My parents worked in the public sector; my mom an educator and dad a public administrator who worked for an elected official for many years. I lived with my mom and through her, navigated through our community purchasing goods and services from our thriving Black business community. Everyone from the mechanic to the shoe repair store to my daycare center, piano instructor, and dentist, were all Black.
Back then, my grand-uncle who experienced homelessness after returning home from World War II was cared for by the community. Whenever we looked for him, we could stop in a local barber shop or bar and someone would know where he was and go get him for us.
Within this world, there were other races, the greatest of which were Japanese. Christy was my first best-friend and she was of Japanese descent. My kindergarten and first grade teachers were Japanese as well as the gardener. As were the owners of the drive- up grocery store on Crenshaw where playing in the car one day while my mom ran inside, I accidently knocked it out of gear and made the car roll down the driveway toward the boulevard, creating a great stir.
Although there was an older White woman who lived next door to us (my mom was the first cohort to integrate Inglewood in the early 1970’s), White people were only on the periphery of this world. Maybe the librarian at the local library, the swim instructors at the Westchester Y, and the emergency room doctors (when I was stung by stepping on a bee, and when I ran through my mom’s room and stepped on a sewing needle that broke in my foot J). Then of course there was Santa Claus. Santa Claus was always White back then. I think this may have been why the myth was really hard to believe; why did we need him when everything was already provided for within our community? Weren’t there starving children in the world that needed his help more?
My proximity to Whites however suddenly changed in 3rd grade. For the first time I had a White teacher. She had the most beautiful cursive writing and I stayed in her crosshairs for having the worst. I wasn’t a great speller so purposefully learned how to write to hide my letters. At the same time that I was adjusting to this new teacher, a group of White students suddenly appeared in our class. Literally, off of the bus, as they were bused in from Pacific Palisades for a semester as part of the school district’ integration experiment. They looked so fragile and out of place. I guess I was not the only one who felt this way, as like company visiting, the school dynamics changed.
Before long, I found myself standing on an unknown demarcation line. My inclination was to be polite and welcome the new students as my mother taught me to welcome all visitors. Yet at the same time, my allegiance to Blackness was increasingly challenged as some of my friends responded by separation. As my friend Queen Leia once stated, this moment was a new test into the initiation of Black girlhood: don’t eat lunch with them. Don’t start talking like them. Don’t invite them to play with us on the playground. This was stressful.
The next semester, we had to go to their school – Marquez in the Pacific Palisades. It was out of my comfort zone. My first impression were lines. You had to line-up to go into class. You had to line-up to go out of class for recess or lunch. You had to line-up to check-out and check-in a ball (I once had to stay after school for jumping the line to return the ball so I would not be late to the line to go back into the classroom).
I also remember Mr. Vaughn. To his credit and interactive teaching style, I learned the Greek gods and multiplication. But he hated us. He did not appreciate us intruding into his space and he was not shy about letting us know this. I was in his class the day President Regan was shot. He cried. I smiled. I wasn’t happy that our President had been shot, I was just relieved that something he cared about had been harmed so that he would know how we felt by his antagonism.
I made friends through clothes. At the time Jordache, Vidal Sassoon, and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans were in style. My curves would not fit into the first two brands but my mom was savvy enough to take me school shopping at the Alley in the Downtown Garment District. She made my day when she bought me a pair of cool iridescent purple Vanderbilt jeans and matching handbag. I was Palisades cool.
While we learned to play together on the yard, we did not socialize outside of school with few exceptions. One was the celebration of “the triplets” birthday at Will Rogers State Park showed in the photo above. The second memory is of a guy friend who was always very nice to me. Somehow we just clicked although we kind of knew that neither of our peer groups would approve of our friendship. One day he gave me a frog in a plastic juicy bottle. He had punched holes in it so the frog could breathe. It was so sweet. Our bus driver was mean though and I was so terrified of what she would do if she knew I had a frog on the bus that I think I accidently suffocated it trying to hide it, as it had departed by time I got home.
The summer after this year, my life significantly changed as my mother remarried and we moved to Pasadena. At the time she worked at a magnet school in the valley called West Valley Center for Enriched Studies. To make things easy, after passing the entrance exam, I started at the same school. It was more diverse than Marquez, but was a predominantly White space and very different than my home community. My time at West Valley CES was a further study into learning White culture. I learned of class divisions among Whites (Encino verse Canoga Park), Jewish culture, and even the meaning of “snobs” and “stuck-up”- aesthetics of mean girl culture that I later experienced in majority White spaces.
Looking back the memory of all of these experiences expanded my understanding of the multicultural Los Angeles that I lived in. I learned a deeper knowing beyond skin color to understand culture, and how it is operationalized into place through norms and behaviors. The more we are segregated, the more our norms are reified and while they provide a common way of being & sense of protection, they can also attribute to the creation or denial of a sense of belonging to the ‘other’.
My parents came to Los Angeles in search of new opportunities. Today, new generations of immigrants continue to resettle in Los Angeles in search of home; a place to reunite family, create a safe place free from violence, and manifest new opportunities previously denied.
Yet they are entering a story in motion, a movie replaying America’s unresolved systemic segregation and racialized landscape, projecting their experience of their previous situations adding new characters, making our evolution into a more equitable society more complexed and polarized.
The road ahead is steep, but through sharing stories we can bridge understanding and offer acknowledgement to facilitate healing and reconciliation of past injustices with an eye toward supporting an evolving America. Stories provide a great way to find common ground and center our efforts in humanity. What is your story?
Alisa's thoughts on Beloved Communities 