MODERN IFIGENIA

This month is Immigrant Heritage Month in the United States. We are in the middle of a pandemic under an administration that loves corrupted institutions, and living with the most brazen police impunity I have ever seen in my life. As someone who is generally opinionated, I have been speechless. feeling trapped by my two worlds-its not that I don't have opinions or words, its that my two worlds collided so seamlessly that I am ALL, AT ONCE. There is no language I command I can use to articulate how I feel and what I think. It is the first time in the United States I simultaneously feel completely FOREIGN and completely AMERICAN; completely IGNORANT and INCOMPETENT, and completely EXPERT and CAPABLE. I feel so foreign because this moment is not about me; it is about the people who physically built this country still not having a seat at the table. I feel so American because it is about how my separation from "whiteness" brings me closer to their very American plight...

I have been hesitant to share this thought. In some ways it reveals my naivete about past relationships, fears I have of future ones and weakness in relationships all around, However, I have had so many similar conversations with women of all ages, that I thought I would just publicize the idea however underdeveloped, because there is a young woman out there making a life decision right now and may be making the same mistake women have been making for millenia.  The idea first came when I told my aunt that I felt weird not being angry at my ex-husband. Everyone wanted me to hate him, but to me he was a "good man" and I couldn't hate him, to which she quickly replied that was the problem. I asked her to explain further. She said something to the effect of: "Look around, we are surrounded by bad men, now I know you love your uncles and cousins, but would you want to date any of them?" I briefly thought about it-the uncle who chased his wife with a machete for...

Many years ago I was teaching an Introduction to Women's Studies course and the class was stuck on the concept of objectification. After trying unsuccessfully to explain and getting ready to call it quits, a Chicano student raised his hand to help and very clearly and concisely defined the term, providing clarity to his classmates. At the end of the class I congratulated him on doing a good job and asked him how he understood it so well. He responded with something to the effect of "I am Texan, in Texas people like me are referred to as 'hands'; we are either 'good hands' or 'bad hands', but just 'hands'. If we are not 'hands', we either don't exist or are a threat to growers. We are never fully people." It was my first time hearing the term "hands" to refer to agricultural workers. I would later hear it when a grower was upset that one of his "good hands" was participating in a lawsuit for unpaid wages. ...

For the first 40 years of my life I hated you. As a young child I hated that you were neither fast nor strong, as a teenager I blamed you for not having the flexibility that could get me into Julliard, as I lifted weights, I was angry you were not strong enough and as I became a lawyer I hated you for being the kind of body that helped me be a good lawyer.  I didn't just hate you for my reasons; I also brought in people into my life that dumped their own self hate onto you and I agreed with them. You were blamed for their alcoholism, their inability to have an erection, and for holding erections for far too long, for their sex addictions, for their premature ejaculations and for their general unhappiness, what is worse; my hate for you was so strong, I could never fully trust anyone who loved you. But then last year I was in an accident. It would have killed anyone who had a different body than you. The insurance assessor assumed the owner of my car had died and my chiropr...

Historic marker and courthouse where the Scottsboro Trials were conducted I came to the United States as an overachieving teenager. I spent my first summer trying to catch up on all that was American History. I knew I would get along in Math and Sciences, but social studies and history would be what would take me from teacher's pet to just meh. I read voraciously. My concerns over history are obvious; I would be behind my classmates by years. Social Studies was a different beast. My country was known for its corruption, and the U.S. was known for the integrity of its institutions. American institutions were so strong and incorruptible, it gave the entire country free reign to advise and intervene in the governance of other countries, whether or not by invitation. I was excited to learn about this way, maybe I could figure out how to take it home one day. I read every word on every page in every textbook;  I thought books in the U.S were laid out the way ours were. In th...

Over the last few months I have seen several viral racist incidents where self-proclaimed white progressive liberals seemed to hijack a moment to engage with their fellow white progressive liberal peers in a form of enlightenment pissing contest, but where they did nothing to elevate people of color or address the racism. Furthermore, they seem to use these moments to generate some amount of goodwill so that they can turn to tear down a person or community of color. This plays out often enough that I am starting to see a pattern. 1. White person does something racist (which anyone with a brain knows is racist and doesn't even need some in depth analysis-let's use racist lawyer , for example) 2. Self-proclaimed white progressive liberal spends all energy spreading that video and going on about the racism of the racist actor, implying heightened understanding of racial injustices in society 3. This incident is so far removed from the outraged progressive liberal that there is n...

In reference to the Aziz Ansari situation THEM: "They are angry at her for not being the kind of woman we are, the women who own our sexuality, the women who are assertive in our boundaries, the women who enjoy sex so we communicate our needs, pleasures and distastes very clearly; but we are the bad girls, the women men don't marry, the women who teach men how to be good lovers to their wives and "good girl" partners, the women who accepted the second choice of womanhood: Choice 1. Be Madonna, motherly nurturer and free of sexuality and in exchange you will have someone obligated to care for you for the rest of your life or Choice 2: Be the Whore, own your sexuality and all the life it brings with it, but forgo respectability and life partners" ME: This is the best semester to teach the chapter on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy.