[Rozena and I along with 3 other WOC professors and grad students proposed a panel on the Movement for Black Lives in girls’ studies but withdrew it for the reasons she outlines below. The images have since been removed.]
[New Abolitionist scholar Dylan Rodriguez notes that racial apartheid and genocide are the continual condition of the academy; nevertheless he writes: radical intellectuals’ inhabitation of existing institutional sites opposes structures of domination — even if, for most colonized peoples, “the academy is never home.”]
how do we make ourselves a/t home
in a place where
we were never wanted
a place that never imagined us inhabiting its lily white spaces
where we are meant to be the subject, never the agent
where our exclusion was/is a given
where we are merely the flavor of the month,
the spicy sidedish
never…
hay(na)ku: stolen
1.
stolen
rosaries, totems
of white power
stolen
children weep
in cages, bereft
broken
spirits, families
generations scattered, lost
amerikkka’s
past unfolding
in real time
afrikan
lenape californio
hawaiian filipino boricua
endless
list of
colonized, broken people
is
this what
makes amerikka great?
2.
“Morning star,
Health of the sick,
Refuge of sinners,
Comforter of the afflicted…
Pray for us, O holy Mother of God…”
On the debut of Ruby Ibarra’s “Nothing On Us: Pinays Rising Behind the Scenes”
May 20, 2018
Yesterday, I sat in the Roxie Theater, weeping, almost unable to breathe, desperately seeking tissues, both of my kids asking, “Mom, are you okay?!”
And I thought to myself: why is this so weirdly familiar? …
25 years ago (!) I sat in movie theater in Santa Cruz, CA weeping, unable to breathe. For almost two hours. In a good way. Accompanied by other Asian American women from my graduate program crying just as hard as I was. We were watching Wayne Wang’s…
“I’m sorry, but they…actually made me feel…sick.”
Racist mom of CSU prospective student on college tour, 5/2018
Hey lady
Do I make you nervous
Does my brown skin, my surname signal other?
Do I make you sick?
Even with “Associate Professor” in front of my name
my PhD, MA, BA, grants, fellowships, publications
“do not signify,” as Jane would say
You’d demand my passport
my driver’s license
And still you’d insist I don’t belong.
What are your credentials, white lady?
What gives you, a visitor, the right to call campus police,
Say you’re nervous
and just like that
Native boys…
a poem for the 2018 Diversity Studies Faculty Exhibition
1.
the smell of fried rice for breakfast
my parents at the kitchen table
drinking coffee, laughing
and talking smack
2.
your warm hand in mine
the kids asleep next to me
the t.v. flickering
and a cat barfs
on the dining room floor
3.
black and brown, all around —
where my voice is heard
where my work matters
where i don’t have to explain
where there’s solidarity in struggle
and solace in support
where difference is valued
where community and social justice
aren’t just buzzwords
where ideas come thick and fast
where folks have your back
where students get the Word
where ancestors celebrate our communion
