Revolutionary Love

Hello lovers, romantics, and dreamers,

Lately... well, whenever I have time to think to myself, I've been thinking a lot about love. I don't really care about what the meaning of love really is. I just want to resistance the meanings that I've learned through the media and consumerism. There so many different forms of love out there, but we tend to think that it can only be manifested between a man and a woman. I'm so caught up in the idea of needing a partner to make me happy and whole, I take myself for granted and don't realize that I should love myself for being able to be happy, well, and healthy without anyone. And for the past year, that has been my journey: alone. Most days, being alone is amazing. I can do my own thing without having to prioritize anyone else but myself. See, the problem with THAT is... I don't actually prioritize myself. I go to classes, meetings, and rehearsal to please everyone and to be accountable to everyone. This usually results in lack of recognition for my efforts. I'm spread so thin that the world doesn't even realize that I'm working so hard to be in many places at once. I'm surrounded by so many people, yet I am ALONE. And I don't actually feel alone until I'm sitting by myself at the end of the day, wondering why I have no one.

... to be continued. Because I have yet to understand revolutionary love, but I am in the process of it.

empowered and loved.

tonight at reach's meeting, i really felt the sense of empowerment and love. so many folks came out to learn about the budget cuts, share their personal stories about how they/their families were affected by the economic crisis. so many hearts shared and connected. the way we sat so closely to one another...although it was hot and cramped as hell, i loved it. it felt like a community there, and that we got each others' backs. i was also really glad to see older reach members come out to support. after the meeting ended, some folks stayed to chat and work on the banners for the walkout. we played music and just did art. that was so amazing! i felt the love that everyboday had.

i dont know if i actually got the message out there, but i really wanted folks to critically think about how the budget cuts here on campus are part of the larger shit that's going on in our communities back at home. i really wanted people to think personally about the budget crisis. i wanted folks to feel passion, anger, and hope. and i really hope that people will actually walk out on thursday.

questioning

just some thoughts about this rush period... i feel that this sorority makes people question who they are, as womyn and as empowered individuals. i think that even if some people can't pledge this semester, we have already exposed them to new perspectives and an experience where they critically think about their own identities...

im just happy because sometimes i seem to take this space for granted, and when different people come into the space, it reminds me the experience...

answer questions sisters?

1) are you an activist by circumstance or choice?
2) are you an activist only in campus issues? do you reach out to other issues beyond those that are convenient to you?
3) what do you mean when you say that you stand in solidarity with something?
4) what drives you to become invested in a campaign?

Something that inspired me today...

A good friend of mine wrote this as part of her commencement speech at UCLA. I read it today and liked the way she described Asian American Studies and its relevance to society...


"Graduates—as many of you may have experienced as advocates for your degree, it appears that Asian American Studies is one of the most contested majors on this campus. When asked, “What are you studying at UCLA?” I already know what the person is going to think when I respond, “Asian American Studies”. Sometimes I cringe in response because i can feel the oncoming skepticism ready to flood the conversation. “What are you going to do with THAT degree?” “But you’re already Asian American. Isn’t college about studying something you DON'T know?” These two questions challenge the value and relevance of Asian American Studies, two things I will now address in my speech.

What is the value of Asian American Studies? In modern day society, there is a general assumption that college is about spending thousands of dollars every year to invest in post-graduate opportunities for improved living and sustainability. This leads us to wonder: what kind of jobs will we land with a degree in Asian American Studies? Especially during a time like this, with the pending doom of our economy, a financial crisis questions the promise of anything ethnic studies related for the financially secure future. But if there is one positive thing the recession has done, it is make us realize that financial security is never guaranteed. With money evaporating before our eyes, we question the value of the dollar everyday, and return to a core set of values that lie within us—family, community, history. In understanding the history of marginalized people, decentralizing the master narrative and dismantling the power structures that create social hierarchies, Asian American Studies empowers students with the knowledge and critical thinking skills to lead our communities through any crisis to come. The value of Asian American Studies to empower generations of leaders transcends inflation rates.

What is the relevance of Asian American Studies? With Barack Obama as our first black president, are we not in a “post-racial” society? The answer is No, we are not. While we can recognize the great strides we’ve made in our country, race continues to be a reality in our lives, among many other factors, that contribute to social inequality. From the passing of Proposition 8 denying marriage equality to Repatriation Agreements with different Asian countries deporting immigrants and breaking apart families, we as a country still have a long way to go to uphold our creed as the land of equal opportunity. Admittedly, while some people deny race and choose to embrace the passive existence of pure assimilation, we cannot deny the projection of race upon us. We are reminded of this everyday through the media, billboards, television roles, romantic comedies, action films, political figureheads, etc. Let’s admit it, race is a strange thing, and terribly inconsistent; if you look “white”, you will pass with the privileges; if you look Asian, you are Asian. In order to fully realize our potential as individuals in the American system, we must understand ourselves in the context of this socialized, racialized, economy-sized, super-sized, everything-realized country. This is where Asian American Studies proves more relevant than ever. While the classroom serves as a place for personal self-discovery, it is also the intersection of sociology, psychology, political science, public policy, law, history, interracial dynamics and groundbreaking research to uplift entire communities. Let us recall that the birth of Asian American Studies grew out of the fire in students during the ‘60s who demanded an alternative form of truth and knowledge facilitated by the community for the community. Such a grassroots movement was met with much opposition from administrators and elite decision-makers; for even the folks up top recognize the power in personal agency and self-realization to threaten social hierarchies.

Today, we must continue to preserve the existing legacies of our predecessors while creating new ones of our own. However, as the fight continues, new times call for new tools. We are able to take on so many more fronts with advancements in technology as well as the creativity and innovation of our own communities..."

The "American Experience" -WTF?! Creepy taxi driver.

So at Kuala Lumpur, this taxi driver took me and this other person so we could split the car. He was already trying to persuade me to go to Kuala Lumpur and check out the city center. I said no, just drop me off at the airport. That was normal. Taxi drivers get commission for bringing people to hotels. Then after he dropped her off, he started asking me stuff about America being open. "I heard America is really open. Is it true that people can have babies without being married?" I was like "yea, doesn't that happen everywhere?" He said it couldn't happen in Malaysia. A child of unwed parents won't be able to register and receive the benefits of a citizen. Then he asked me about the average age of the first time people start having sex in America. Then he asked me if I wanted to come over to his place, just shower off, and he'll drive me back in the morning. Are you f'n crazy? He said he wanted the "American experience." I'm sure the mother of his 4 kids would appreciate that. Then we were pretty close to the airport terminal and he was asking me if I was scared. Of course, I'm f'n scared. You could have driven me anywhere! I said no, and I just wanna get to the airport. I initially was gonna bargain with him for 15 ringets, but F that...you can have my 20 ringets...I just wanna get the hell outta your car. The perks of traveling alone as a woman. I have come to the conclusion that people around the world assume American women are easy sluts. I still remember when I went to Vietnam and we had a white woman on our program and they treated her like she was gonna sleep with them or something, but we, looking Asian and all, never got that treatment. Anyway...my final reaction is WTF?!

Post Secret for Asian Americans

I saw this featured on a friend's page from facebook.

http://postmimi.blogspot.com/

J.Pham Travels

I'm in Penang, Malaysia right now and will be in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam soon. Ive been updating on http://jphamtravels.blogspot.com. Check it out. :)

Human Trafficking

Two years ago, I helped out with a panel put on by an anti-sex-trafficking organization called Stop the Traffick at UC Berkeley. Through this event, I was exposed to the atrocities of the sex trafficking industry in the US and the many myths that came with it.

This pushed me to research sex trafficking specifically in Vietnam for a class project, and I learned how at risk of trafficking many Vietnamese women are, especially poor women in rural areas. In a situation with such little resources, women are forced to use their most precious commodity, themselves, to sell for a high price in order to change the course of their futures as well as piously take care of their parents. I think about women in those desperate types of situations, and I shamefully think about the times when I thought my life sucked because I had two finals and a paper due in the same week. My friend once said that if that’s all I have to worry about, then my life is really good. He’s right.

I am about to head to Vietnam for three months on a program called the Vietnamese Advanced Summer Institute to learn Vietnamese starting mid-June. Since I had a close friend working in Malaysia at the Penang Office of the Coalition to Abolish Modern Day Slavery (CAMSA), an anti-human-trafficking organization, I wanted to stop by to visit him and volunteer at the organization.

I got to Penang, Malaysia a few days ago. Yesterday, I was introduced to the office and the staff. Here in Malaysia, there are a significant number of Malaysian locals, Chinese (who helped expand the economy here), Vietnamese (who are usually laborers), and South Asians. I learned that the goal of this CAMSA office is human trafficking, yet practically all of their cases have been labor-related cases because it's easier for laborers to contact the office, and because sex trafficking is organized crime and it gets complicated. Labor trafficking was not what I was familiar with, but I was definitely excited to learn about it.

I’ve been working on a powerpoint to train people about human trafficking and CAMSA. I found out that the majority of human trafficking cases are labor trafficking cases, but sex trafficking definitely gets more media attention. Just talking to people, I have heard that the majority of Vietnamese people in Malaysia are laborers. Vietnam, the source country, exports workers to Malaysia, the destination country. Continuing research for the powerpoint, I found out that Vietnam’s policy, Eradicate Hunger and Reduce Poverty Program, strongly encouraged workers to work abroad and send money home. When problems arise with Vietnamese workers abroad, Vietnamese officials will even come over to the destination country and solve the problem in order to guarantee the quality of their product (their workers). This can mean threatening the workers or even physically abusing them into submission so that they will return to work. It saddens me that Vietnamese citizens are treated by their own people as dispensable tools to build up Vietnam’s economy rather than dignified human beings.

Tonight, I joined two staff members to interview Vietnamese laborers. With my Vietnamese-American Vietnamese skills (not the best), I caught only about 65% of what she was saying, especially with her different accent. However, I could see her frustration at her work place. Racial tensions and language barriers prevent her from speaking up. All she wants to do is make money to send her children to school in Vietnam yet she gets jipped left and right as others blame her constantly for problems within the factory. She takes it because that’s all she can do and with her Vietnamese, she cannot communicate to the people who run the show. She accepts it as fate and just tries to work a little harder to earn enough money.

“Lives that flash in sunshine, and lives that are born in tears, receive their hue from circumstances.” -Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs

My SEAGrad speech

Born and raised in the United States, I have always idolized the perfect “American family” on TV, a contrast to my own family. Growing up, my mother worked everyday leaving at 7am and coming home at 10pm at night, while my grandma took care of my siblings and me during the day. My ideal vision of two parents coming home from work early to spend time with their children was not my childhood reality.

It was not until college that I realized that this was not just the story of my life, but the lives of many others as a result of the war. Through joining organizations like REACH, the Asian and Pacific Islander Recruitment Retention Center, and the Southeast Asian Student Coalition (SASC), I finally understood my Vietnamese-American identity. These organizations helped me mature as a person and share with others what I had learned: we are the aftermath of a war that had nothing to do with us but everything to do with us, a war that was not our fault, a war that placed Southeast Asian faces on a continent far from its origin. We are our own community, a diaspora of Southeast Asians in the U.S. searching for a better life and struggling together in the process.

As a result of the War in Southeast Asia, also commonly known as the Vietnam War, our grandparents, our parents, our aunts, our uncles, our siblings are looked down upon on a daily basis for talking with an accent. They are the minorities that are discriminated and stereotyped in a country in which they don’t look like the majority. They are the laborers that we, their children, blamed and resented for not spending more time with us because they, not wanted to but needed to work long hours to raise us.

But let’s not forget that these people are the few who daringly risked everything to leave the country with only faith and hope in their pockets. They are also the courageous activists who chose to take a stand, who refused to succumb to the chains of unspoken injustices, unexplained imprisonments, and unjustified killings. They are the sacrificing solders, the courageous fighters, the daring heroes, the resilient survivors that have crossed oceans, skies, fields, and war zones to get us on this stage.

SEAGrad is a unique graduation that does more than celebrate the graduating individual. It commemorates the Southeast Asian community’s struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs and passes the spotlight to our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, our brothers, our aunts, our uncles, our grandparents, our friends, our community members who have sacrificed for us and are just as deserving of the achievement that we, as graduates, are standing on stage and taking credit for today.

This black gown I am wearing is stitched together by the sweat and tear drops of my family’s sacrifices and this cap I wear on my head is the crown of hopes and dreams they have endowed on me to be something great.

Our parents are living proof that freedom and higher education are privileges that not everyone is granted. College is one of the few ways to learn about our history and culture and change the course of our futures. As graduates of UC Berkeley, we are in a place of privilege. We have received the precious opportunity to encounter passion all around us, to mold our talents through community organizing, and to be empowered through dialogue. We, as graduates of the #1 public university in the nation, are expected to be great.

However, great does not necessarily mean making the most money or obtaining the highest position of power. Great is like the Southeast Asian refugees in this room who have proven to us everyday that it’s not what happens to you but how you deal with it that makes you great. Great is passion, is sacrifice, is serving, is living for something bigger than you. My friend once said, “You don’t just find passion. You create it. It’s trying your best and believing that your actions matter to someone, even if you don’t know who yet.” As the resilient survivors of war have done before us, let us, the class of 2009, rise above the gruesome shadows of history and commit our lives to moving forward and making positive change for the future.

How I'd like to live life

1. Continuously write—to share, to inspire, to transform, to heal.
2. See mistakes not as regrets but as learning experiences.
3. Do things out of love. Love is selfless, serving, sacrificing. “Love makes the world go round.” Love for and from others makes life worth living.
4. Serve others. All great leaders first and foremost sacrifice in service of others.
5. Invest my time in relationships. When I am on my deathbed, I don’t want to be holding onto bank statements or report cards. I want to be bathing in the care of my friends and family. Give people roses when they can still smell them.
6. Appreciate every day. “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.” Some people would give anything for just one more day to live, to walk, to breathe, to learn, to love.
7. Travel the world. The world is my playground. Why limit myself only to what I’ve seen when there’s a whole world waiting for me to discover it? Different cultures, peoples, and stories eagerly wait to crush my misconceptions, dissolve my stereotypes, and astound my mind.
8. Never stop learning. I am never too old or too wise to learn. My college professors introduce me to a limited field of knowledge but urge me to aim for the unending horizon of research.
9. Never be ashamed of my circumstances but instead take pride in how I respond to them. Life is like a poker game. We play the cards we are dealt. I hope to have the “strength to accept the things that I can't change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
10. Never forget to put myself in the shoes of others. "Lives that flash in sunshine, and lives that are born in tears, receive their hue from circumstances." I want to remember that people are not just people and their actions, but a consequence of years of social circumstances as well. Everyone carries at least one secret that would break hearts and if we all remembered that, this place would be a better place.
11. Have the strength to let go. Sometimes attachments are so deeply rooted that it hurts to let go, but the truth has to be accepted and put behind us.
12. Forgive. “If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to when you open your heart.”

Sense of Physical Empowerment

This past week, I have been thinking about picking up lion dance and wushu again. Honestly, I stopped doing it because the longer and the more I practiced, the more it seemed too competitive and stressful. Also, lion dancing didn't seem to be fun anymore without the folks from high school. I wish I knew back then that it was the only time we would ever get to do that crazy shit together. Now I really regret the time wasted.

So the reason why I started thinking about it again is because recently I have been watching a series of kung fu and wushu fighting Chinese movies. haha. When I was watching it, I was reminiscing the times when Jared (my instructor) used to yell at us all the time for not taking the shit seriously. He was so strict and mean at times; but he was also like a big brother to us. I feel really bad because I think I disappointed him when I refused to help him with the lion dance performances. I really want to try it again and learn more about the Chinese culture.

Besides the reminiscing, the movies made me think about the sense of empowerment. The only reason why I even joined lion dance was because I wanted to prove that girls could do what boys could. And after learning it, I realized that it gave me a sense of power - not power over people, but power to protect myself and others. Not that I could really kick some ass or anything, but during those hardcore practices at Jared's backyard, I felt really strong and independent. Something I want to bring up is that I kept having nightmares last week about getting sexually harassed at school. That reminds me of the time that peeping tom was trying to take pictures of me while I was showering at the dorms last year. I swear that was incredibly traumatizing. And still today, I get nightmares and worry when I use public restrooms. I am very angry over the fact that men think they have that kind of power to do that shit to womyn. It makes me sick to hell that it happened to me and I couldn't do a single damn thing. I really felt powerless that time. I guess I just wish that I have the ability to protect myself... which is why I'm starting to see lion dance and wushu as a form of resistance and empowerment for me.

Question for you.....

why is it so surprising that there are womyn drummers out there? April and I were at a SHB and were approached by this very nice lady who complimented us on our playing. I was stoked and then she added "its so surprising to see female's playing drums." Although her kudos was well liked, it sorta bummed me out at the same thing.

I remember someone else finding it surprising that I played drums. He said he had never seen a female drummer before in a marching band. Wait....WHAT? Are you serious?

Why is it so surprising there are womyn who play drums? I didn't know there was a gender requirement for a musical instrument.

I look back at my time on the snareline at Cal where my gender was never an issue and wonder why these people are so shocked.

Then I remember my high school years.....and how I was fine with the boys (yes boys) on the line until I went from bass drum (lowest on our line auditionwise) to snare (highest audition wise). I was told girls should never be allowed to play anything higher on the line than a bass drum. I slip up at all while playing....and I would get verbally ripped apart. I remember also even trying to play around on a free day on our drum set and I got chased away saying since I was a girl I wasn't allowed to play it.

They tried their best to run me off the line.....I stayed throughout my high school years and ended up being a part of a line my senior year that loved each other regardless. Once the two sexist pigs were gone, everything was golden.

So.....I leave the readers with the original question....why is seeing a female drummer so surprising?

Why on earth would a boy feel so threatened by a womyn on the line that they feel the need to purge it to be male only?

In general......WTF???

9 Steps to Flirting Success

Since we are all womyn and we cant be part of society without a man I thought I would help us all out with how to be the perfect womyn and score the perfect man. This is what womyn are being told to do and I didn't want us to be left out of the game. :)

STEP 1: Learn the Art of Eye Contact

Don't shy away from staring him down, but do it the right way. Ease into it by practicing triangular gazing, where you look at one eye, then the other, then at their mouth. Strauss says practicing this for just a day will get you ready to start learning to interact with guys you’re attracted to.
Once you've locked eyes, keep looking: one study showed that it takes about thirteen glances before the average guy approaches a woman.
That's ok there's nothing wrong with a little eye contact, make sure you keep count of how many times some pervert stares you down before you throw yourself at him.

STEP 2: Practice Small Talk
Before you approach a guy you're into, make sure you've got the basics of small talk down. "Challenge yourself to go out and make small talk with five strangers today," advises Strauss. "Don’t worry about whether they’re people you want to date. Approach grandfathers, other women, someone who’s not your type, whomever you come across. It’ll help you adjust to stepping out of your comfort zone."
Don't bother trying to have meaningful conversations, men don't like a womyn who is smarter than them or can think.
Don't get too comfortable chatting away. There are some things to keep to yourself. Anything that shows you aren't perfect, such as your childhood or that you have had sexual relationships before.

STEP 3: Perfect Your Body Language
Want to get under his skin? "Get just a centimeter into a guy’s comfort zone, and look up at him with big eyes," says Strauss. The no-fail move? "Put your chest out, chin down, eyes high in the socket, head slightly tilted, and your weight on one foot. That’s important. If your feet are planted, they feel the resistance, just as much as they would if you had your arms crossed." Practice makes perfect--you might look like a cross-eyed chicken at first, but get it down right and it’ll make him crazy.
This is key in flirting, you can't be a strong independent womyn so make sure you stand off balanced and look helpless. Men go crazy for submissive sultress who doesn't blink. And if you aren't sure what having your eyes high in the socket means just think chihuahua. A good way to tell if you aren't trying hard enough is if he has his arms crossed or is standing sideways this probably means he can sense your empowerement and you might need to turn it down a notch or two.

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Flirting 101

STEP 4: Don't Think Before You Speak
Don’t think too long before you open your mouth--it'll come off unnatural and awkward. "People sense it when something sounds too pre-meditated; that makes them uncomfortable," Strauss says.

And remember: Guys aren’t necessarily attracted to beauty, they are attracted to sexual possibility—although you never want to give off the impression that you’re easy.

STEP 5: Helplessness is hoT
When it comes to conversation starts, asking for his help or opinion is a sure thing, says Strauss. "Maybe it’s some article from a women’s magazine that offers some kind of advice and you want to know if he agrees with it or not. Or maybe it’s: "It’s my cousin’s birthday and I want to buy him a CD—but his taste hasn’t evolved since the 80's. Any suggestions?" Or maybe your friend just got a three-legged cat and you need a name for it."
You can even try mixing them all up together, for example you might say "Its my 8oth birthday and my 3 legged cat's taste in music is name evolved and I was wondering if you had any cousins?"

STEP 6: Lie
Within the first 60 seconds of your conversation, Strauss says, immediately mention that you have some kind of time constraint, whether or not you do.
Honesty is soooo last season. If you are free and cant think of anything to say just go with the old "I have an enema scheduled that day."

STEP 7: Neg Him
The trick when you’re flirting, Strauss says, is "figuring how to keep a balance between being engaging enough to retain someone’s attention and not seeming overly available." Tease him a little and call him out by saying something like, "Oh sure you do..."
Remember honesty doesn't get you a date-mind games ladies, mind games.

STEP 8: Lower Your Expectations
Flirt for the sake of flirting. "If you meet a really high-quality guy and you’re really attached to the idea of him being your boyfriend, that pressure—that neediness—is something he’ll sense," Strauss warns.
We all know womyn are the superior sex so set the bar way lower because no one likes high achievers anyway. If you're having a hard time with this just replace the word slacker with sexgod. Like "My new boyfriend is a TOTAL sexgod."

And finally...

STEP 9: Make It Fun—For You
Make it about you, not about him. "If it seems like you're trying too hard, whatever you're doing will come across as desperate," Strauss says. His advice? "Think: "I'm fun. I'm cool. I radiate charisma, I am free to do whatever the hell I want." The most important thing to remember while you’re doing all this flirting is to make it fun for yourself—because then it will be fun for the other person."
Don't feel weird about needing to reaffirm yourself in the mirror everyday before talking to people, low self-esteem can be masked.
Now you are all on your way to be a lean mean flirting machine. So go out there and get a man.

run sisters run

after graduation, i left with my family to yellowstone. cherrie moraga's words from graduation stayed with me. i spent my family vacation crying. when i cry a lot, i usually grab hold of one of my radical womyn of color writings and hug it. following an in-depth cuddling session with the text, i then open it, read it, and start to cry all over again. all the while, i'm listening to some cheesy song that is completely undeserving of such a moment.

there's something about hearing moraga speak that is familiar, affirming, yet so painful. i think of a pablo neruda poem (english translated):

"so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache."

i know this is meant for a love interest, but i wait for you, the movement, the radical revolution, the critical dissent. i wait so anxiously for all of her words. when she finally begins to speak, i feel completely alone. every part of me aches with moraga's words. i know every word before her tongue gently lifts to the top of her mouth to articulate such, yet the words hit me over and over again. her speech, desperate and demanding, resonates like a final plea. sitting there, i feel her utter disappointment echoing back and forth from the end of the stadium seating to the stage.

all three times i have heard her speak this semester have reminded me of how easily folks will overlook the words of our elders. she speaks to every part of our community, yet people don't really hear her. i see students on our campus disregarding her words. students squash critical dissent and questioning in our communities and organizations, rendering her words meaningless. she is much more than irrelevant rambling.

sitting in the second row on stage, i see her words flying over the audience, floating atop the people we love. moraga is getting older, and the process of realizing that positions me in a state of depressed insomnia. our muxeres are dying, have died already (june jordan, gloria anzaldua), or have been displaced (assata shakur), and we can no longer wait to make our move.

during my first year of community college, one of my mentors told me: "we are tired. we have been running this race for so long. we are coming in, batons in hand, with our arms out towards you. it is now your time. you must grab the baton and run."

so sisters, we must run.

"Remember the time when you ran free in the wild. In order to find liberation, you must liberate yourselves, because you don't liberate others. You come to this consciousness and you say, 'Fuck.' That's how you reach freedom." - richard aoki

MISO PRETTY.....really?

On saturday, i went to fentons with a few friends. we checked out a store nearby and i found some really whack shit that they were selling. take a look at the picture above. MISO PRETTY? A western girl wearing a Chinese dress? im sooo effin offended by their use of "exotic" and they even translated it! wtf? im sorry but i don't think we ever use exotic on ourselves, muthafuggers.

im just so mad about this whole exotification and commodification shit. and the way they designed the bottle reminds me of this sense of "Asianness" that they're trying to force on the product. "MISO PRETTY"....doesn't it sound like a someone trying to say "me so pretty" with an accent?

hmmmm. this stuff is dumb and i wonder who would ever buy it.

tulip in memory of last meeting

thanks jess, for the pretty tulip! <3

Naïveté

I wrote this three years ago, and I want to share it.

The background story is I was dating this guy for a year, and in my naïveté, I thought he loved me, was good to me and all that... anyway, we went our separate ways eventually. Three years after we dated, he told me that while we were together, he cheated on me three times with two different girls. It's irrational, but all men were suddenly the bad guy in my eyes, even the guy I had then been dating for two years. This is what I wrote.

July 20, 2006
What is most uncomfortable is the giant wedge that was forced into place within my history's path. What never was now is, and I am forced to rearrange my future.

No, I did not kill him. He killed me. I felt his knife, now shy of three years, in my hastened "I love you" to my sweeterheart. I murmured these words in hopes that this past that never was that now is would turn into never again.

Three nights, two targets, one goal. His hand no longer touches me, but his blade extends in its reach; dost this black knight travel alone, or is it more likely that they are all the same?

I watch him gallop away into the night, lonely, but victorious. I am left bleeding, without anger, spite, or speech and left alone with shame.

This dreadful wedge, this stitch in time that pains my side, offers itself as a pitiful building block for my trust which has fallen and I am forced to make do as women do as I watch the coward that broke away break away and break away.

high school immigrant youth

hey yall,
for the last 7 months, i volunteered at a non-profit in oakland that organized with Chinese immigrant youth, and i wrote this poem a few months ago because i was really inspired by the youth. i really learned a lot about their immigrant experiences and struggles. it was really cool working with the youth because they are hella smart and passionate about their community. so, here is a short poem to share.

[no title]

from east
to the west
for a better life and education
these words hang at the edge of our mouths
cross the common minds when we think of immigration
but how does it feel
to be in a country that's not of the native land
to walk and appear strange to the majority
to speak in a tongue that's unfamiliar?


it is like
trying to communicate the thoughts and ideas we have
but in the end
translates into something inaccurate
wrong
inferior
as if we lack the knowledge to see
the smirks on their faces
the degrading immitation of our voices
our voices
that connects the culture
history and identities that are deeply rooted in our homeland
from feeling embarassed to speak in public
to being silenced in the group
as if we are anti-social
as if we have our own cliques
when our cliques are the those who understand our experiences
our fear of discrimination
the hardships we swallow as strangers from a difference shore
yet, even if we lack the confidence
we fight for what our ancestors believed in
we defend our dreams
in what we envision as equality and justice
and try our best
not to navigate through system of oppressions
but to transform and redefine
by challenging the misconceptions
dominant worldviews
language oppression
and bring hope to the community
a community of diaspora and migration
that is the backbone
of the American
so-called dream

Quotes for a Sunday Afternoon

"I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad." -Thoreau

What do you ladies think of this quote? This reminded me of you, VCoe, for your latest post. I'm sure that as feminists and activitists, we all get tired. We start questioning why we choose stress over sleep and protest over play. Right now, we're in our 20's. The prime of our life. Where will we be in 20 years? What will we be doing? Still working, still fighting? Where will the world be? Still fighting, still struggling?

Also, at church during the petitions this morning, one 70-something-year-old white man said in a slow but strong voice to the entire congregation:

"...this Mother's Day, let us pray for the women... for if women are strong enough to give care and even give birth to Jesus, then certainly they are able to be priests and bishops in the church -- for this, we pray to the Lord."

As a born-and-raised Catholic, that statement really means a lot to me. Feminists sure do come in many different forms. I wanted to throw up snaps in church, but I wasn't sure if that was appropriate.

Image Source: Spirit of Democracy

Just a matter of fairness

I wrote this on 4/22, but this is something I'm passionate about and I wanted to share it with you ladies. I volunteer as an interpreter at clinics that provide free HepB screenings and in the labor and delivery room, and language access was my research topic in the decal I facilitate (AAPI Community Health Perspectives Decal).

Today, I got on a bus, and then there was a person in a wheelchair who also wanted to get on, but the bus driver said "the bus is full, unless you all wanna get off." However, people could have easily moved over to make space. It was definitely not "full." I assume the bus driver just didn't want to deal with it.

I'm a personal attendant for a disabled college student, and I've heard her tell me stories of people not picking up disabled passengers, but I had never seen it. I've only seen bus drivers be very helpful and respectful to disabled passengers, so I thought this was just F'd up. It was super HOT today, and I'm sure that man had been waiting for a while, and he just wanted to take the bus, but because he's in a wheelchair, he doesn't get to get on. He doesn't get the same treatment able-bodied people get.

This is similar to providers and limited English speaking patients. It's a huge hassle to find or pay for an interpreter or try to say what you need to say in way that the patient might understand. BUT, if providers don't provide them with intepreters, then they've denied them quality care of treatment that English speakers get. It's just a matter of fairness. Why doesn't that man get to go on the bus? Merely because it takes more time to lower a ramp and put on his seatbelt? Why doesn't a limited English patient get an interpreter just so that he/she can UNDERSTAND the MERE BASICS of what is going on. Patients' misunderstanding or misinterpreting of what a provider is saying can easily make the situation even worse.

Check out this article called "Growing immigrant population spurs demand for medical interpreters": http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/21apr09.cfm

Update: If you want to know how to access interpreter services, go here: http://calendow.org/Collection_Publications.aspx?coll_id=24&ItemID=314#

Male Patriarchy IS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay, I am going to HURT someone....I am sooo angry....

So, a facebook friend's facebook status said "fuck you fuck you." Someone I am NOT friends with commented on his status "you're a bitch." This all came up on my news feed. I decided to say something about the word 'bitch.' And this is the debate that ensued.....

Jessy Lynn Sigler at 23:54 on 08 May

"bitch is a negatively gendered bad word used to oppress womyn for centuries....hmmmmm"

Ilya Rakoshes "bitch is a negatively gendered bad word used to oppress womyn for centuries...

bitch is a unisex word used to express some form of negative sentiment towards all kinds ofl people in the modern day. stop living in the past, silly woMAN"

Jessy Lynn Sigler: "Wow Ilya. I don't know you but I am highly offended. Way to be an ally to womyn David....

Just thought I would let you know that your comment on David's status really offended me and it was highly inappropriate and degrading. You might want to think about what you say before you say it. And think about the historical connotations of your wording and the centuries of oppression placed upon womyn, with the use of that word. Additionally, I am personally very upset because I have serious issues with male patriarchy, which you so obviously exhibited. I have a long history of sexual assault and battery and I hope you know that you have just reinforced the oppression I have already felt as a womyn. I dont' know you, but I feel the need to tell you about your insensitivity and unfortunate actions.

Thank you for your time,

Jessica

Ilya Rakoshes

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Today at 22:26

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I haven't assaulted you, and I sure as hell haven't even called you a bitch. Can you even name one thing I've done to oppress you besides emphasizing the proper spelling of the word woman? Feel free to read my response to David's status for the rest of what I think.

Woman.

Ilya Rakoshes at 22:24 on 09 May

Why on earth are you even bringing David into this? Is he my handler all of a sudden?

Just like you militant feminists. The moment somebody disagrees with you, you try to make the entire male sex feel responsible for your "problems". Here's something to think about: Maybe if you want to be treated as an equal, you should work towards that instead of inventing stupid words like "womyn" in order to alienate half the population of the world.

It's people like you that create misogynists.

Jessy Lynn Sigler

Today at 22:31

By using the term "bitch" you have reinforced centuries of oppression womyn have been facing. Similar to the "n" word. And I can spell womyn with a 'y' whenever I damn well please, it is a form of resistance, you should look it up. And of course you wouldn't think you have done anything to me, you have your fucking male privilege and you are content with that shit. By calling me a 'woman' again, after I have discussed this matter with you in a polite and respectful way, you have gone and disrespecting me AGAIN. Could you show some fucking respect and just back off? I get it, you think I'm a 'militant feminist." I'm sorry I have a voice and assert it when I feel MALE PATRIARCHY is being exerted on me by some fucking douche bag. Fuck you.

Ilya Rakoshes

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Today at 22:35

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So when I call David - a male, let me remind you, though he may be effeminate at times - a bitch, I'm somehow reinforcing female oppression? Please. Get with the times: everybody and their grandmother is using bitch in a completely casual way. Did I even imply that I was calling David a bitch in anything but a playful way? Did I put my big patriarchal foot down on him and stamp out his rights? Not at all. You're welcome to continue getting worked up over nothing, but don't expect me to apologize for something I said to my best friend just because you didn't like how it sounded.

THAT'S THE END OF THAT.....DOUCHE BAG....

bridges

i wrote this during last night's bridges staff deliberations

This is my last bridges meeting. I’m struggling to find a point of departure. I keep asking myself the same question. How can I leave Berkeley feeling empowered by my experiences here? It is at these moments, in deliberations, when I see with complete 20/20 the ways in which I have failed the coalition. I didn’t invest enough of my time into developing other folks, though I tried in many different ways to do this. I guess, I just didn’t believe deeply enough that I had the capacity to do that work. I always talk about this quote about how it doesn’t matter if I die, that all that matters is that someone picks up the gun and continues shooting. I think a lot about that, how insignificant I am and how the importance of my work is just that it continues to live on in my absence.

For those folks who are stepping up as I step back and away from our bridges space, I feel empowered with their energy and spirit, yet saddened by the road ahead of them. The work will never be easy, but I don't want pieces of them to die for this work. I wish for them that they are able to embed their life stories into this work, to be able to present themselves completely and honestly to the coalition, and to organize in a way that is meaningful.

I know that not all my questions will ever be answered, but with time, I hope to resolve and reconcile some of the questions and struggles I have had over the last year.

Poem About My Rights by June Jordan

this touched me when salma posted it on facebook, and I wanted to share it on here too!!

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
my head about this poem about why I can't
go out without changing my clothes my shoes
my body posture my gender identity my age
my status as a woman alone in the evening/
alone on the streets/alone not being the point/
the point being that I can't do what I want
to do with my own body because I am the wrong
sex the wrong age the wrong skin and
suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/
or far into the woods and I wanted to go
there by myself thinking about God/or thinking
about children or thinking about the world/all of it
disclosed by the stars and the silence:
I could not go and I could not think and I could not
stay there
alone
as I need to be
alone because I can't do what I want to do with my own
body and
who in the hell set things up
like this
and in France they say if the guy penetrates
but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
and if after stabbing him after screams if
after begging the bastard and if even after smashing
a hammer to his head if even after that if he
and his buddies fuck me after that
then I consented and there was
no rape because finally you understand finally
they fucked me over because I was wrong I was
wrong again to be me being me where I was/wrong
to be who I am
which is exactly like South Africa
penetrating into Namibia penetrating into
Angola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
Pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
and if
after Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
self-immolation of the villages and if after that
we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
claim my consent:
Do You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
in the hell is everybody being reasonable about
and according to the Times this week
back in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
and the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
killed him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
and before that it was my father on the campus
of my Ivy League school and my father afraid
to walk into the cafeteria because he said he
was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
gender identity and he was paying my tuition and
before that
it was my father saying I was wrong saying that
I should have been a boy because he wanted one/a
boy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
that I should have had straighter hair and that
I should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
just be one/a boy and before that
it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
to let the books loose to let them loose in other
words
I am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
and the problems of South Africa and the problems
of Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
America in general and the problems of the teachers
and the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
workers and my particular Mom and Dad/I am very
familiar with the problems because the problems
turn out to be
me
I am the history of rape
I am the history of the rejection of who I am
I am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
my self
I am the history of battery assault and limitless
armies against whatever I want to do with my mind
and my body and my soul and
whether it's about walking out at night
or whether it's about the love that I feel or
whether it's about the sanctity of my vagina or
the sanctity of my national boundaries
or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
of each and every desire
that I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
and disputably single and singular heart
I have been raped
be-
cause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
the wrong sartorial I
I have been the meaning of rape
I have been the problem everyone seeks to
eliminate by forced
penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/
but let this be unmistakable this poem
is not consent I do not consent
to my mother to my father to the teachers to
the F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
to Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
cars
I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
My name is my own my own my own
and I can't tell you who the hell set things up like this
but I can tell you that from now on my resistance
my simple and daily and nightly self-determination
may very well cost you your life

- june jordan

Heck yea! I've been thinking about this idea for a long time, but then someone also told me this could go really wrong. I'm glad you did it though, and I think it'll be tight.

hey sisters!

critical resistance and consciousness could take different forms. it could be reflecting on an experience, something you heard in your class, something you saw on the streets, a picture, a painting, a poem, etc, etc. let's encourage everyone to have a voice and foster that consciousness in our every day lives. and let's have some community agreements, yeah? cause i don't wanna see this go crazy. <3 Please add more agreements if you want...

- be respectful and open-minded
- encourage others through affirmation
- dialogue through comments or follow-up posts
- be creative and have fun!


in terms of logistics like adding contributing writers vs. followers... someone should help out with that cause it's confusing to me. haha.

can't wait to see posts!

- jphung <3