T H E F E M T E A M

FUCK BANKS

2011-04-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

so my family used to travel to mexico about every other year for as long as i can remember, to visit family in monterrey & just to be in the motherland & sip jamaica. my mother was born in tiny little town near the border. she had a small house there that her parents left her after they passed. about three years ago narcos took over her hometown, her ENTIRE HOMETOWN, and she had to board up the little house & hope for the best. oh also, narcos MURDERED THE MAYOR.

some people (a-holes) might just write this off as "border violence". whatever.

i also have family in monterrey, a city that totally looks like Dallas or Houston, only prettier (more sculptures + flowering vegetation everywhere) & probably has more Audi dealerships than either combined. so all in all, a pretty large affluent modernized city, my family lives in a middle class neighborhood. someone called their home phone threatening that they kidnapped their son & would kill him if they didnt put up ransom money (it ended up being an idle threat). also, gun fights erupting in the street during rush hour between rival drug syndicates. imagine running into that shit on your way home from work. only to come home & be led to believe your loved one has been kidnapped and might die.

so needless to say i haven't been to mexico or seen my family there in 3 years. i can't put into words how pissed off i am that i can't visit my homeland because of this narco bullshit.

yeah mexico has always been a dangerous, but in the vein of "don't act like an entitled American Asshole, use common sense & you'll be fine". but this is different. mexico is TEARING ITSELF APART, and the U.S. is just letting it happen.

oh, and here is why:

BANKS FINANCING MEXICO GANGS ADMITTED IN WELLS FARGO DEAL

GOOD READS

2011-04-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

so this is a fairly new blog that does some really great posts on gender issues in texas & specifically around the dfdub area:
hay ladies

this is a really fascinating blog that's equal parts sex, science, psychology, human relationships all from an open, totally non-academic feminist perspective. one of my top 3 favorite blogs ever:
emily nagoski: sex nerd

i visit this blog on the regular, it's a sociology blog that deconstructs images in pop culture:
sociological images
local cats with progressive posts, the url to their blog is texasisshit.blogspot.com so obvs they know what's up:
being alive is a crock of shit

2011-04-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

this blog is so old & so neglected. i feel almost like i'm a different person than when i started it. i'm gonna try and post on here more tho. & the tone is gonna get more irreverent. i'm gonna make some posts that have nothing to do with feminism, sociology or other SERIOUS THINGS but there will be plenty of those too.

but for now i just want to introduce you to one of the great art theorists of our times:

dates & planning a feminist music fest

2010-07-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

ok first of all i am happily in a monogmous relationship

also i am pretty shitfaced as i am typing this

the thing i dont get about white boys: AKA my night out

i was at this place that sells overpriced shit to hipsters, while a friend of mine was exhibiting art work with his graffiti crew. at the same time, i was enrolled in a photography class where i could not afford a digital SLR camera so bougt a 35 mm one from craigslist that only ended up working intermittenly so i asked this particalurly well kept up boy, with a 35mm to help me figure out what was wrong with it. i came back 15 min later with my camera and a load of film and he announced, i don't know what's wrong, your camera is loaded correctly." so after that i thanked him and left. I was supposed to meet a girlfriend at the afterparty of this artshow but my phone died, so i attended anyway in hopes of seeing her. I didn't find her, but I saw our mutual friend and danced with him. I then, left for the back of the dance club in search of her but couldn't find her. out of the corner of my eye, i saw the photo guy who couldn't help me, but i continued on my way to hang out w my friend dancing at the front of the club. After dancing a while with him, i ordered a beer, then plopped down on a sofa to cool off and just sip. As I looked up, i saw that same photo guy, but as i saw him he walked away....I don't get it! was i having too much fun for him?? This whole post is so silly.

THE FEMME FEST
I don't know how to account for this, but 5 of our bands cancelled THE DAY OF the festival. the co-creator theorizes that the guy (who was the person to come up with the idea for the whole festival) didn't follow up and confirm all the bands we agreed on, i would not be surprised. either way, it was just a day that showed me how little confidence women have in their own creative projects when given a good opportunity, and how little confidence (some) men have in supporting such creative projects that women may have. it was also strange in the way a male person of the left can let their pseudo-inspirational-drug-addled-visions substitute for personal enlightenment & then project those worldviews onto everyone else, rendering those that do not agree as "fascists" even though we're just trying to help. more thoughts to follow later...

UPROOTED or how the militant & the radical got drained from Chican@ movements Part 1

2010-01-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

After reading this post on Racialicious and seeing the amazing play Crystal City 1969, I began thinking, what happened to these radical militant student movements? The kids in Crystal City were 15 and were able to impact national politics PLUS directly change their community for the better (their main goal in the first place). People my age and younger, talking about Aztlan, teaching eachother alternative histories, sharing how its not worth it to play by the rules because hegemonic (white) culture changes the rules in order to maintain a status quo, and then organizing across generations, in order to protest their racist, classist school system, & not giving in or getting duped by bargains BUT ACTUALLY GETTING WHAT THEY WANTED. Through CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE no less. IN FCKING 1969!

And pretty much most of what they fought for has been eroded into a hollow husk (hoja). My mom was a student activist in the early 1980's, she was a member of AMAS, Association of Mexican-American Students, they held statewide conferences over immigration rights, and got legislation passed to give Worker's Compensation rights to Migrant Workers. I joined the same organization at the same college in 2004 & it consisted of:
Volunteering - Habitat for Humanity
Culture - Decorating a table, practicing some Salsa dances for a cheesy multicultural day on campus
Social - Lots of clubbing
Zero politics of any kind, much less radical or militant. What happened??

I was raised by activists but as a child, I hated my ethnicity until my "click" moment at 18. Currently, I tutor high school kids in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. I only ever hear them articulate their Brown-ness as the butt of jokes. While I was watching Consuming Kids, on the commercialization of childhood, it made me realize that if you're the target of the best minds in marketing working 24/7 to manipulate your tween fears into buying the next big bullshiz, what time is left for raising conciousness about the power of recognizing your Chicano@ identity?? This is just a partial answer, but I think with the deregulation of media during George W. Bush, the rising commercialization & influence of the media in the past ten years has only exacerbated the fears of being "othered" in the youngest generations of latin@s.

I can only speak from the experience of a 3rd generation latina, my race shame came from a mix of a generational divide from my parents & acculturation to mass culture. My super-Catholic parents represented outmoded traditional beliefs & attitudes that I resented, and I felt more of a belonging in a mainstream U.S. culture that gave no value to my ethnicity. What I lacked was a context. The only awareness I had of my culture came directly through my parents, and at the time I was a pissed-off latina not willing to listen. This is an experience I've heard other 2nd & 3rd generation latin@s speak of, of being uprooted, only to discover the true meaning of their identities in adulthood. and that's fucking sad. & I look at latin@s like Jessica-don't-call-me-Latina-Alba & it's obvious that some never even have that click moment. and that's even more fucking sad.

Right now, there is a committee in Austin composed of ultra-Christian conservative Republicans on whether or not Cesar Chavez should be in Texas' School textbooks since he “lacks the stature…and contributions” and should not “be held up to our children as someone worthy of emulation.” (Words of Creatonist & committee Chair Gail Lowe). This is everything the kids in Crystal City fought for & it's about to be reversed. I feel like if we don't even own our identities, how can we see ourselves in each other enough to organize against the system that keeps us uprooted? I don't know, my thoughts are only half answers.

Let's start using this blog again.

2009-12-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is Aubrey. I've always been a part of this blog, but not really because I never post. So here's my introduction.

I'm unsettled. It's been a few years, but it's something that's hard to get use to. Feeling like you don't have a place where you fit. New York's been good for me though. Been here over a year now and I'm still into it. When I talked about working on projects before, now I am actually working. I'm doing things. And in that sense finding a place for myself.

It's kinda funny though. New York. It feels like a big first-year of college, which for me was everyone not knowing anyone and almost hanging out with all these different types of folks out of necessity not interest, everyone excited about starting new projects and rich kids slummin' it for fun.

And I hang out with these kids. To get back to not having a place. Kids who almost unknowingly have a fetish-like interest in my lifestyle. Who are slummin' it. What does that mean? That they have a choice of lifestyle and I don't. Maybe I don't really know. And what's my lifestyle? Not really having a job, not really having a place to live, not really owning a lot of things, no rent, no bills really, self-sufficiency in an abstract sense. Riding bikes everywhere, somehow knowing how to fix em up and Food Stamps. Knowing a lot of people and doing a lot of different things. But it's like. I don't have a choice. So how fun is that really?

This is maybe why I didn't finish college. Feeling like I don't fit in. That my place isn't there. But now I'm doing it. Hanging out with these bourgie punks. Almost fitting in. It almost being OK. Because I almost couldn't handle it when I was 18. Learning that people could be so different from eachother. It's like I have a new confidence that allows me to do this. Not being bound to a predetermine role in life. Not thinking these kids are better than me. And maybe I am better for it. More active. More involved in the things that I want to be.

So I wanna talk about the things I am doing. How growing up outside of Dallas in some hick-ass, highly segregated, gaping hole of a town doesn't have to mean my future involves unplanned pregnancies and a job working at some corporate chain, even though I'm still where dirty clothes and I don't own any property, which was expected of me.

One thing my friends and I are doing right now is creating a ladies and queers bike polo league as an alternative to the "bro" dominated nycpolo.com "scene" in New York. It's super fun. More later. but here are some photos for now.

abuelos

2009-07-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I spent time visiting at a friend's grandma's house. She is 80, able to breathe & walk & drive on her own & is completely lucid and full of stories.

Both sets of my grandparents have passed years ago. My paternal grandparents both had diabetes, my grandpa had to lose part of his foot. All of my childhood is filled with memories of visiting family members in the hospital suffering from various cancers.

I say all this because can you guess the race of my friend's grandma? Can you guess her class? It hurts me to know that with mis abuelos went their language, their nopales y mole, their mambo music, their stories of living in Mexico & Texas in the 1930's. With them went the strongest ties to my culture.

People of color receive less quality healthcare, because that is how our medical system is set up. One effect of lower quality medical care is lower general health and shorter life expectancy. Another is keeping tradition and culture from being passed on to future generations. This is just another way the system intersects with race and class to deny people of color from asserting an identity that differs from the mainstream culture.

THIS POST IS ENTIRELY TOTALLY PERSONAL

2009-05-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

THINGS TO DO TO STOP ME FROM BEING BUMMED, IN SLUMPS, RUTS, BLOCKS, & FROM PROJECTING THIS NEGATIVITY ONTO MYSELF:

- get angry
read feminist blogs
read well written social commentary

- expand my mind
read contemporary philosophy
read any philosophy

- listen to death metal
listen to hardcore

- believe in myself & in everything i do
before i begin an art piece always think "this is going to be AWESOME"

- silence the inner critic b/c
it is the voice of the establishment, of inactivity, of the status quo
its a function of capitalism & patriarchy
fear of failure IS failure

Bonding @ el Rio Bravo

2009-02-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

though i am a latina, a woman of color, i've grown up with a lot of privilege. so i'm using it to tell the story of someone i met who grew up differently.

so this is lalo's* story:

his parents were illegal, he grew up in a small town near Wichita Falls, TX speaking Spanish as his first language. he told me "i had 3 friends in elementary school, it was me, and my friend who was mexican too but he was more whitewashed than me, and my other friend who was half white half-mexican and my friend chris who was white. we used to have one principal mrs. martinez. but she she left then we got another principal who was also named mrs. martinez and she hated Mexicans. whenever me and my friends got in trouble i would get the most paddles, my other friend would get less, my half mexican friend would get two and chris wouldn't get any paddles just a slap on the hand. and i'd say hey all of us were doing bad! but it didnt matter."

in 5th grade he told his teacher he liked cars and wanted to grow up and do something with design. then teacher told him "oh you'll be a mechanic or you'll clean cars."

his father gave him a truck and he lowered it and fixed it up in high school. one of his teachers told him he'd go nowhere with his love of cars. & he asked her "how is your car? its leaking right because you wrecked it two times" and she did and he told her "my dad gave me a truck and he worked hard for it because that's what he's got to show for coming to this country. so i take good care of it and i take pride in it. i take pride in what i have. and you don't" and she said "well it's just a piece of crap jetta".

lalo is studying art in college. his drawing concepts teacher dismissed a drawing he spent 6 hours on and turned in because it was of him and his car. she told him "my son races cars and thats dangerous so you have to turn in a different drawing". his drawing professor was a white lady.

i didnt grow up speaking spanish in small racist town but i did grow up with art guilt & this is what me & lalo bonded over. his parents sacrificed a lot to send him to school, because they wanted him to do better than they did. my parents did the same. my mom came to the u.s. from mexico and was the first in her family to go to college, against her parents wishes. and she did this all in the hopes that the next generation of her family wouldnt grow up in poverty. & so that's me. i don't know how to explain the guilt of knowing how much your parents & your grandparents have sacrificed for you to have a better chance at life & at the same time knowing that all you want to do is paint. its like saying "fuck you mom & dad, i'm getting an art degree! in today's economy! despite what generations before me have given up in order to give me this option!" for the longest time i wouldn't even let myself consider studying art because of this, because it seemed like a slap in the face to my parents. and so i didnt. and i hated it. and it took me forever to realize that i would never be happy doing anything else. & this is what me and lalo bonded over, a shared guilt in having illegal moms & studying art.

*not his real name
*Lalo is as super-pale as me

cross-posted at LatinoClash

I WAS ON TV TONIGHT

2009-02-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

so a couple of hours after i get home from work i get a voicemail out of the blue from a reporter wanting to interview me about feminism for the ten o'clock news that night. he got my number from the feminist facebook group i started. there is a group called the dallas feminists, and the first meeting i went to was last month, and that was going to be their last if no one stepped in to lead so i decided to take it on. that's the only meeting i've been to. & then bam i'm the go-to person for feminist commentary? so strange!
this is about southwest airlines plastering a sports illustrated swimsuit model on the side of a plane.
disclaimer: i had 30 minutes to prepare & there was only one take & i'm terribly camera shy!

TRANSCRIPT & VIDEO
(i'm at 1:43)

SO HOW DID I DO?

Privileged Kids Don't Get It

2009-01-30T16:39:00.000-08:00

(image via Guanabee)

This is a picture of Tulane Law Students at a "Border Party" organized by the president of the student bar association, Melissa Swabacker.

I get themed parties, I've been to my share (beard party, hot pants party, ugly sweater party), but beards, hot pants, and ugly sweaters are not cartoonish representations of cultural groups that real people belong to. I don't live on the border, but it's where my mother was born, and its something that my family has been crossing back and forth (and that has been crossing them back and forth) for 200 years.

Here are some excerpts from Wikipedia's entry on Cultural Appropriation:

The term cultural appropriation can have a negative connotation. It generally is applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to the appropriating culture; or, when there are other issues involved, such as a history of ethnic or racial conflict between the two groups.
It can include the introduction of forms of dress or personal adornment, music and art, religion, language, or social behavior. These elements, once removed from their indigenous cultural contexts, may take on meanings that are significantly divergent from, or merely less nuanced than, those they originally held.

& this isn't the first time college students have decided to reduce the border into stereotypes.

A Republican student club at NYU organized a game on campus called "Find the Illegal Immigrant"

College Republicans at Boise State University promoted a speech with a “food stamp drawing” that requires climbing through a hole in a fence and offering fake identification for a shot at wining a dinner at a Mexican restaurant.

Tulane Law Students Harsh Our Hope Buzz With Mexican Stereotype Party

This Post is About Birth Control & Periods

2008-12-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

so i decided to switch to the birth control pill that gives only 4 periods a year ( a generic version) instead of the regular 12 periods a year pill. i waited to make my decision until i read some studies about the effects of this kind of pill & apparently there is no benefit in monthly blood loss for women, so why not?
before, a month supply of birth control cost me about 20-24 dollars + a box of tampons. now, a 3 month supply costs 41 dollars. that's half as much as the 12 periods a year pill. & 8 less boxes of tampons to buy. so this simple switch in prescription is saving me close to $200 a year. i didnt expect to save that much. my reasons for switching were based on the unpleasantness of periods & on reducing waste. if i had known it would cost half as much i would have switched much sooner. i know prices on prescription drugs vary greatly depending on whether you have insurance or not & on what kind, but if anyone was thinking about trying out seasonale or one of its generics, one factor to consider might be how much you save in a year. because it sucks that it costs $376 a year to not have a baby & if it costs $180 to not have a baby, that sucks a little less.

Calling out Privilege = Racism/Sexism??

2008-11-23T16:38:00.000-08:00

This was posted on the facebook group of my local FMLA chapter:

My recent experience with sexism.

One of my friends, Katherine, recently posted a picture of a t-shirt that says, "I had an abortion." I expressed my concern that these sorts of shirts are likely to be counter-productive by provoking the opposition to mobilize. She responded by saying, "Thank you for your straight white man's opinion on how women should ask for their rights. I do not care to engage with you when you continually speak from a position of unrelenting privilege."

I regard this as being extremely sexist and racist. Is it wrong of me to comment on the strategy involved in maintaining equal treatment under the law or do you think it's none of my business because I'm a white male?

I'm concerned that there are a lot of people who share Katherine's attitude.

My two cents:
I think what she was questioning is "who gets to decide what is counter-productive and what isn't? and especially to an issue that affects my body?" whether or not she was a jerk about it, wev, that's a diff debate. & if you are going to write "I had an abortion" on the front a t-shirt, I'm pretty sure provocation is what she was going for anyway. Maybe instead of "expressing his concern" this guy could have asked her why she wants to bring up this issue in a provocative manner & maybe understand where she's coming from before he decides if its counter-productive.

What do you think?

Chicha - Hybrid Music

2008-11-12T16:04:00.000-08:00

What happens to 1970's Amazonian Amer-indians, suddenly thrust into urban settings due to a Peruvian oil boom, exposed to western surf rock & psychdelic guitars, who decide they want to party? Chicha music! This genre at its base has a cumbia beat (which originated in Colombia) and uses traditional latin instruments like timbales & blends them with electric guitars and farfisa organs. The sound is uniquely pan-latin & is a symbol of hybridity. It exists at the intersection of modernization & indigenous identity. It originated in Peru pero es para toda America.

Here some songs on the player at the Barbes Records site.

Teens Stab Man for Looking Latino

2008-11-12T15:34:00.000-08:00

Community leaders and residents of Patchogue, New York gathered together this morning to speak out against the recent stabbing death of 38-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant Marcello Lucero, who came to the United States 16 years ago. [Ed. note: Query - At what point does one stop being considered an “immigrant?” When does “immigrant man Marcello Lucero” simply become “Marcello Lucero?]

This is from a really great post about a recent hate crime posted at Guanabee. It delves into the "othering" of immigrants and latinos as a whole. Totally worth the read.

madonna tour 08

2008-10-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

It feels like I am never above ground when I am in Manhattan. Just a couple nights ago however I was riding the Greyhound back from visiting Sister in Providence. We had to drive through the Times Square area and I caught this on one of those digital billboards - while I was reading Fertility Awareness for Non-Invasive Birth Control actually

There are 3 ways to tell if you are fertile: By logging and observing daily changes in yr bodies tempature, checking the position of yr cervix & analysizing/examining yr cervical fluid.

"Sticky" isn't the most fertile type of cervical fluid, but it is fertile & Madonna is getting old.

I just think the ad is funny really. I don't know what kinda messae she is trying to send besides "sex". Wut do y'all think?

Subtle Sexism

2008-10-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

I called an apartment complex and I heard this on a recorded message while I was put on hold (picture this spoken by middle aged man/movie preview guy's voice):

"Itsy bitsy teeny weeny might be OK for a bikini, but it's the last thing you want in storage space...."

yeah because its so normal for women to wear as little fabric as possible. because its so normal for women to expose their bodies. because its so normal for women look pleasing to men.

IDK this just stuck out to me because being put on hold on the phone of an apt complex was the last place i thought i'd hear something reminding me that my body is consummable. and the way the man's voice said "bikini", the whole load of it sounded so condescending.

Alto el Femicidio

2008-09-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

in honor of Mexican Independence Day:
The text reads:

Brisia Nevares De Los Santos
20 years old.
Mother of two sons.
Maquiladora worker.
Viciously murdered on January 26, 2001

Femicide Facts:

Women Murdered - 470
Women Missing - 400
Suspected Serial Killings - 80-90
Arrests - 18
Convictions - 0
*Small advances in the struggle for justice are due to the perseverance of victims' families who cannot be silenced despite the efforts of state and federal authorities to keep them quite.

Maquiladora Facts:

Average Salary per day - $4.80
Hours per work day - 10-12
Average commute - 1-2 hrs
Purchase 2 lbs of beans - 4 hrs work
Purchase a box of diapers - 12 hrs work
Purchase 1 gallon of milk - 4 hrs work
*A female worker must submit to mandatory pregnancy tests

Ya basta de violencia en contra de las mujeres! Ni Una Mas!
Enough with violence against women! Not one more!

pictures taken at burning man by my friend Liz

The U.S. Fights Terrorism by Deporting 90,000 Children

2008-08-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

According to a report by the Population, Border and Migrant Affairs Commission of Mexico City, over 90,000 children have been deported without a parent or guardian in the first 7 months of this year and for every three adults deported, one child is left behind.

This is fucked up.

Marisa from LatinaLista writes:

The U.S. government has elected to disregard the safety and welfare of these children in the name of immigration enforcement

Yes, it has. I don't see how any policy justifies separating thousands of families.

read more LatinaLista

I Am Back

2008-08-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

I can't afford to take a prep course for the LSAT right now (nor do I have the time), so I am waiting until Feb to save up and take it.

I Will Be Back in 3 Months

2008-07-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

I can't update this blog anymore because I am studying for the LSAT. I want to become an immigration lawyer.

Guatemala: Killers Paradise

2008-07-07T10:51:00.001-07:00

This is an excerpt from a documentary I saw called Killer's Paradise. In Guatemala, over 2000 women have been murdered since 1999. Just in 2005, 640 women were killed, nearly 2 a day. The majority of these cases remain unsolved, so that's 2000 murders unconvicted. The documentary brings up how macho culture plays a role in the failure to fully investigate these murder cases. Like the body they are burying at the beginning of the clip, investigators found traces of red nail polish and decided that the woman was a prostitute and buried her in an unmarked grave, case closed. (guys, I am wearing red nail polish right now!) It's really crazy and you can totally see how el machismo runs all the way to the top by the way the president of Guatemala tells the reporter she's being "too pessimistic" when she quotes facts.

Body Activism

2008-06-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

from The-F-Word.org, a group of University of Texas psychologists started a unique program to help curb eating disorders in teen girls:

The program, which started in 2001 and involves more than 1,000 high school and college students, works by getting girls to understand how they’ve bought into and been sold on the thin ideal. The teens write essays and role-play with their peers and are encouraged to come up with and execute small, nonviolent acts challenging the thin quo like slipping notes saying “Love your body the way it is” into dieting books at local bookstores and writing letters to Mattel, makers of the impossibly proportioned Barbie doll. They also write and post notes in their school bathrooms with messages like “You are beautiful” and “Be yourself.”

I am going to totally start doing this, stealing a pack of post-its from work tomorrow.

Summer Reading

2008-06-15T15:27:00.001-07:00

I am half-way through reading this. Here is what I've learned so far:

Diets are like internalized corsets

Before WWII many women made their own undergarments by hand. When bras became mass produced, arbitrary and standardized sizes became a de facto "norm" so if your body didnt instantaneously fit into them the subliminal message was that your body was not normal.

The idea that adolocents girls should worry about their figure came into its own in the 1950's, this coincided with the largest number of American teenagers due to the babyboom

This book is totally badass, I cannot reccommend it enough. And according to TheBodyProject.com a movie is in the works!

Sick of Glossies?? DIY Media is the Antidote

2008-06-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

I like fashion. But there aren't too many places to look for inspiration that aren't kind of off. Take typical women's glossy magazines:

every fashion spread is through the male gaze.
The women in them aren't representative of what I look like, or what most women look like.
The make-up and hairstyles are done by professionals in the industry, something I don't have access to.
The clothing they're wearing is unaffordable to everyone I know.
AND their images are retouched with digital imaging.

SO, looking at fashion mags was always kind of a bummer for me. But then I found a photostream on Flickr called Wardrobe Remix created by Trisha Royal, here's part of the mission statement:

wardrobe_remix is a DO IT YOURSELF street fashion community.i believe the best stylists walk the streets, not the photo sets, nor the backstage of the runways. the real style innovators are you and me: real, fashionable people, men and women alike...show us how you CREATIVELY put your everyday duds together! post your photograph in wardrobe_remix, and tell us about what you are wearing and why.

and i totally agree. here are some examples:

lokello

the little stn

ameliawearsclothes

katia+vintage

These women aren't trying to look sexy for anyone but themselves. Also, I like how the idea that users upload pictures of themselves in outfits they like means that there is confidence in each image, confidence WITHOUT photoshop,make-up artists, designer labels, and eating disorders. And you get to see people of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities looking good. Its really cool. We don't need the fashion industry, we have our own style.

Juan Crow: Same Intolerance, Diff Ethnic Group

2008-06-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Must read article from Alternet - Juan Crow, The Deep South's New Second Class Citizens

As more than twenty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded the trailer, said Mancha, agents inside interrogated her. They asked her where her mother was; they wanted to know if her mother was "Mexican" and whether she had "papers" or a green card. They told her they were looking for "illegals."

After about five minutes of interrogation, the agents -- who, according to the women's lawyer, Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, showed no warrants and had neither probable cause nor consent to enter the home -- simply left. They left in all likelihood because Mancha and her mother didn't fit the profile of the workers at the nearby Crider poultry plant, who had been targeted by the raid in nearby Stilwell. They were the wrong kind of "Mexicans"; they were US citizens.

via Racialicious

Texas Democratic Convention

2008-06-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

inside exhibit hall

en route to convention ballroom

inside district convention

voting on things took forever, mostly i think, because the rules on voting were made without ever thinking over 12 thousand people would participate. but still, lots of time was wasted on listening to candidates' promises and not enough on actually passing or dropping resolutions; like whether or not to continue with the caucus process, i.e. no, its impractical and not represenative of the popular vote. friday night, some districts did not finish voting until 3:30 in the morning.

in the MASSIVE exhibit hall there were rows of booths representing different organizations or with people selling things. that's where i found some badass feminist buttons. but one thing i realized was that out of the rows and rows of booths, and out of the multiple of political views and special interests espoused on all the different buttons people were selling, there was nothing about immigrant rights or anything from a person of color's point of view. not even L.U.L.A.C. was represented. weird. but these buttons are still badass.

Sorry

2008-06-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

for the dearth of posts, it was for PERSONAL REASONS but now i am back with a vengeance like die hard

Town Project

2008-05-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

This man wants to help create a citizens committee to come up with ideas for driving out illegal immigrants from his town.

Just another insular whacko, right? except he's THE MAYOR.

He's even made this his new town project.

Yes, the U.S. Immigration system need work. Yes, some immigrants don't have all the right papers (see previous sentence). But how does that make it ok to run a specific group of people out of town (and to turn it into a city gov. project?) And is it any coincidence that this group of people is brown, already marginalized, and has a different culture than this mayor and those who voted for him?

Marisa writes:

There's nothing American about opening up a Democratic process to decide how best to drive men, women and children from communities they attend church, school, shop and live in.

(via LatinaLista)

Retail Rant

2008-05-05T16:00:00.001-07:00

I work part time at a chain bookstore and of course we have to wear name tags. There is a certain scenario that keeps playing out that totally bugs me.

Customer: "Do you have X cd by Bette Midler?"
Me: "Let me look it up and see"
Customer: (Stares at me)
Me: (checking computer)
Customer: (reads name tag) "Are you Hispanic?"
Me: (wondering what this has to do with finding Bette Midler cd) "...yes?"

Everytime this has happened the customer has been White and male. I guess this happens because my features don't look stereotypically Hispanic to White men, so when they read my name tag it kind of blows their mind. But I still can't understand how asking a complete stranger what race they are isn't percieved of as rude (or at least totally impolite). And given the whole Customer-Service Always Make the Customer Happy layer to it, I feel like I can't call them out on it for fear of getting written up or some bullshit. So yes, Random White Dudes, I'm Hispanic. Is there anything else personal you want to know, like my cup size? or my legalization status?

Being Undocumented in the U.S. is Not a Crime

2008-05-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

I first heard this on yesterday's broadcast of LatinoUSA on NPR, you can listen here. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie lays it out:

DOVER, N.J. — New Jersey's top federal prosecutor told a Latino group it's a civil offense - not a crime - for immigrants to live in the country without proper documentation...

In a statement clarifying the remarks, Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said that although lacking documents is not necessarily a crime in itself, it is a federal misdemeanor to enter the country without going through the proper immigration channels, or to enter by using fraudulent documents.(NY Daily News)

Dear Minutmen:
All that time, effort, money, and technology you spend is preventing misdemeanors. Why not use that energy to stop felons instead?

The Job

2008-05-02T18:01:00.001-07:00

What if businessmen were jornaleros?

Race v. Feminism

2008-05-02T17:00:00.000-07:00

Lately, there have been several posts about the incompatibility of Feminism and Women of Color like the one here from VivirLatino and here on Racialicious and here on Feministing.

Maybe this is because I'm younger, not inside academia, and coming from the third wave, but I don't see a problem with being a Latina and being a feminist. That's intersectionality, right? we can't talk about gender without talking about race, class, post colonialism etc.

In Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands, she argued for a hybrid culture, for moving away from disempowering aspects of our culture and using feminism to empower aspects of our culture; preserving it in that way (this goes for any culture). There is a tradition of patriarchy in Mexican culture, but there is also a tradition of strong women in Mexican culture, like the corrido of La Adelita, dedicated to all the soldierwomen who fought in the Mexican Revolution. This is an aspect of my culture that I identify with.

I practice my feminism individually, so I have not had enough experience within activist spheres or with mainstream feminism to say whether or not there is a conflict. When I have, I will let you know. Believe it.

SPOILER ALERT for Baby Mama

2008-05-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hey this is Aubrey. I went to the movies with Evita & Sister yesterday to see Baby Mama. Mean Girls was great, but it was Tina Fey's baby. Baby Mama was OK. We went to the $3 show so it was totally worth it. We were discussing our favorite parts of the movies in the car, but I couldn't think of mine until later.

My favorite part of Baby Mama was when Tina Fey was on a date and her date says "Would you like to go to my ah-" "Yes" Tina interrupts. And he explains so there is no confusion he meant his apartment. Joking, but serious and confident, "I'm 37. I know what that means."

I just like that part because it promotes sexual confidence. There is a sense that she knows who she is and she knows what she wants and there is nothing wrong with that. It was funny too.

Oh but on the same fringe my least favorite part of the movie was when Tina Fey found out she was pregnant. They made it clear in the movie that her partner didn't know she was (supposedly) infertile. And so of course she was excited because she wanted a baby, but if the confident sexual encounter was actually meant to promote the ideas I took from it, what is this suppose to suggest? Unprotected sex is OK? She should have found out she had the Clap not a baby. That shits common get tested.

Anyway I know I've been a bad blogger. I'll try to improve-a3w

Borderless

2008-04-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

The May Day marches are coming again. Let me explain just exactly how I view this issue of immigration in the U.S.

Immigration in the US is a symptom of globalization. It is just one example of a global phenomenonof people migrating from poorer countries to richer ones. Mexico is particularly affected because of NAFTA policies.

So what is Globalization? It has a myriad of definitions but the one I go by is: a global economy and its effects on the world. The Internet and jet engines have increased its effects. Companies can hire from a global job market pool. Business transactions happen through the ether of the Internet. Communication bounces across the world from satellites. Thousands of corporations are transnational. This is the end of the nation-state. Globalization and unrestrained capitalism are rendering borders meaningless, or it is reorganizing global communities in ways not relating to pre-existing borders. That said, I find all the nativist reaction against recent immigration in the U.S. as pangs of the nation-state trying to defend itself from an economic force it helped create. This is more or less what economists were saying 14 years ago, neo-prophets.

What is NAFTA? It is a trade agreement between Canada, America, and Mexico eliminating tariffs on companies that wanted to operate in any of the three countries. It's effects? American companies shutting down U.S. factories to build them just across the border in Mexico, pulling the Mexican workforce away from local economies to get paid less than an American doing the same job and without a union. Many of these factories (maquiladoras) are on the U.S.-Mexico border. Just north of that border these same workers could get paid up to 10 times what they make in a day. NAFTA has destroyed local economies in both the U.S. and in Mexico. Unemployment in Mexico has risen steadily since NAFTA. So did anyone benefit from this trade deal? Yes, but only people who were already really wealthy.

Today, when the wait for the INS to look at a petition for naturalization is up to 13 years; when young people who've grown up their entire lives, gone to school and graduated in this country are deported because as a baby, they were not born in the U.S.; when people are forced to live in shadows because of an economic situation they did not create; then yes I am for comprehensive immigration reform. Put the people already here on a path to citizenship and overhaul the INS.

Here are the official Points of Unity for the marches:

1. No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities.
2. No to militarization of the border.
3. No to the immigrant detention and deportation.
4. No to the guest worker program.
5. No to employer sanction and “no match” letters.
6. Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
7. Yes to speedy family reunification.
8. Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law.
9. Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers.
10. Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation. (via VivirLatino)

I am for open borders because soon they'll be meaningless anyway.

Feminist Art Project

2008-04-10T14:05:00.001-07:00

I like Nylon because I identify with the fashion. I like reading women's magazines in Spanish because the people in their magazines look more like me and my family. So I thought, why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? So I'm going through page by page and replacing the face of every white model with the face of a Hispanic model or celebrity from Spanish language fashion magazines, remaking it more in my own image I guess. This is in reponse to posts like these:

A man was sentenced to two years in jail for driving his wife to suicide by calling her "black." This was in India, where, as previously reported, fair skin is highly deisired, and where being called dark is "worse than physical torture," according to the court. In the case, Syed Fathima was so distressed after two months of marriage to Farook Batcha (two months of constant fighting, and of him calling her too dark) that she put an end to the marriage — and her life — by pouring kerosene over her head and setting herself on fire. Just a note to the people who don't think it's a big deal when fashion designers refuse to use black models: It's all related, and it's global. (Jezebel)

And like this one: Whose Fault Is It That The Ethnic Women In Magazines Are Whitewashed?

Misogynist Media

2008-04-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

No matter who you support, this year's election coverage has been misogynist. Fact. This video is really moving, and yeah it made me cry. (stick around til the end, it gets better)

say hello to A T W

2008-04-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Aubrey Third Wave will now be posting at this blog. She's awesome. She was at the very first feminist meeting I ever went to and explained to me what second wave meant. Now we can double-team feminist issues, hence the name.

Coincidences

2008-04-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

This is one of the books I'm reading. So far, what I've learned is that the first time dieting became widespread in America was in the 1920's, after a french designer came up with the new slender flapper silhouette to replace the voluptuous Victorian hourglass figure. Then I saw this from The-F-Word:

My graduate thesis focuses on the evolution of beauty and aesthetic standards for women as they evolve in tandem with the women’s rights movement. As I shared in a snippet of a recent paper, weight control and standards act as a form of social control, filling women’s time and attention, keeping them busy and hence distracted from activities that risk disrupting an established gender order. “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty,” writes Naomi Wolf. It is “an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”

What else happened around the 1920's? Oh yeah, women gained the right to vote.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Will Raid Your Party

2008-03-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Dallas P.D. and ICE (among other agencies) raided 26 Latino bars, night clubs, and pool halls looking to arrest undocumented security guards.

Authorities recovered four pistols. Federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing firearms. Four of those arrested were from El Salvador, and the others were Mexican, authorities said.

One of the Salvadorans was in the U.S. legally, immigration officials said. It's unclear what charges he faces.

"Hopefully, this operation will help us send a message that we will not tolerate the falsification of documents for undocumented aliens under the guise of providing security," said Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins in a statement Sunday. (DMN)

As Marisa points out, the Dallas County D.A. is broadcasting another message.

the crackdown by ICE at such public places sends a message to the undocumented immigrant community that no place is safe. Yet, the same message is being received by immigrants who are also legally in the United States and know that in the government's haste to apprehend anyone who "appears" to be undocumented, everyone is presumed undocumented until proven otherwise.

Found via LatinaLista

I Found My Wedding Dress

2008-03-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

I am addicted to watching any reality show about weddings. I sit and watch hours of "Who's Wedding is it Anyway?" "Rich Bride, Poor Bride" "Wedding Central" and "Bridezillas" yet I'm not even sure if I want to get married.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed about going to Tanzania to study apes just like Jane Goodall, not about getting married. But recently, if there's a bridal magazine in front of me, I'm all over it, which is how I found this gem. It's called Madeira by Spanish designer La Sposa. I didn't think it was possible to capture how I would want to express myself on my wedding day through a gown but there it is.

Now, thanks to these shows I also know my wedding theme, how to cut cost on the cake and flowers and where the reception venue will be. But I still have a lot of reservations about the idea of marriage itself.

Is it weird that I can picture myself as a mother more easily than as a wife?
I want to have a wedding but I don't want to get married.

Racial Profiling Wears a Badge

2008-03-27T00:34:00.000-07:00

photo from AZ Central
Some business owners in an Eastern Phoenix neighborhood complained about day laborers so Sheriff Joe Arpaio responded by bringing a 200 member civilian posse to "saturate" the area on Good Friday. He pulled over drivers suspected of being undocumented.
I wonder what a "suspiciously undocumented" person looks like to him.

At a press conference on Friday before the saturation effort began, the Sheriff's Office brought out two area business owners who raised the issue to Arpaio.

Both mentioned crimes like loitering, trespassing and littering as among their biggest concerns with day laborers in the area.

By 7:30 p.m., the efforts had netted 13 arrests, including nine people suspected of being in the country illegally and four U.S. residents with outstanding warrants or other legal issues.

To Sharon Zapata, a Phoenix resident who has observed a dozen similar patrols, the effort amounts to a waste of time and resources. (AZCentral)

found via LatinaLista

Trading Rape for Green Cards

2008-03-26T23:28:00.000-07:00

This is really sad, and disgusting. And another reason why the Violence Against Women Act should not be narrowed to exclude some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Found via Feministing

From the Comments

2008-03-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Another perspective on The T. Don Hutto Detention Center

I work for a separate agency as a social worker providing for the mental health/counseling needs of the detainees of this facility since it started getting the immigrant population. So I've been inside there with full access for almost two years now...There's not a single locked door in that building, as a matter of fact they could walk right out the front door if they want. That silly mention of a laser system on the doors is less sophisicated than the laser system on the door of a 7 11. In the 7 11, at least it dings when you walk in, at that facility, it just makes a light change colors on the control board. The caption under the 3 year old picture back when that was still a prison and there was barbed wire, that's the loading dock where the garbage trucks come in. Of course that's not a good place to raise a child, you can't even see the building in that picture. Families stay there a month or a month and a half, most of us had at least that much of a crappy time period in our childhood.
And the comment form Cynthia Long at the bottom of the article? The part that's left out is that Cyntia Long lived for years in the same central american countries that these immigrants came here from, trying to improve the lives and opportunities of poor people and she has toured the facility more than once. I'd say that she's more than in a good position to make a judgement call about the conditions in that facility compared to the conditions in the countries that they came from."

Has anyone else been inside Hutto?

Roseanne Meets a Riot Grrl

2008-03-14T17:47:00.001-07:00

What with all the bummer news recently, I'd thought I'd post this clip. If you get past the fact that it's Jenna Elfman, it's actually really interesting. I love how it shows this subtle shift in thinking for Roseanne and Jackie after hearing Bikini Kill lyrics.

The Government is Impractical

2008-03-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

On February 28, 2008, Representative Sam Johnson (R-Texas) introduced "The New Employee Verification Act" (H.R. 5115), ...The bill will replace the current I-9 process used to verify whether employees are work-authorized in the United States with a mandatory electronic employment verification system that is "adequately funded and vigorously enforced," said Johnson...The legislation would also strengthen enforcement through tougher employer penalties. Separately, the proposed bill would also create a voluntary Secure Electronic Employee Verification System (SEEVS), which...would include a standard background check and the collection of a biometric technology—such as a fingerprint or eye scan—to secure an employee's identity, work authorization and prevent future fraudulent use of a Social Security number for the purposes of illegal employment.

...Harper (Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute) predicts that creating an accurate and mandatory EEV would require a national identification system with substantial costs incurred by American taxpayers—an estimated $20 billion to create and hundreds of millions more per year to operate. Moreover, he contends, a nationwide EEV system "would send a substantial number of workers—native-born and legal immigrant alike—into labyrinthine bureaucratic processes, preventing them from working until the federal government deemed their papers to be in order."

....Harper notes that things necessary to make a system impervious to forgery and fraud could "convert it from an identity system into a cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system—a national ID and surveillance system."

Is this the only solution to illegal immigration? Spending 20 billion dollars to create a government run database on its own citizens? (p.s. I thought the Republicans were about less government interference in our lives). What about using a fraction of that 20 billion to reform the INS system so that a person petitioning for naturalization won't have to wait 13 years for a response?

From Shakesville

Read Harper's Policy Analysis here

Woman Accidentally Left in Cell with No Food or Water for Four Days

2008-03-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

The woman, Adriana Torres-Flores, 38, a longtime illegal immigrant from Mexico, slept on the floor with only a shoe for a pillow, and with nothing to drink except her own urine, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. There was no bathroom in the cell.

A bailiff had apparently forgotten that he placed Ms. Torres-Flores, a mother of three, in the cell last Thursday, and simply left her in the empty courthouse, in Fayetteville, over the weekend

...“He just flat forgot about her,” Mr. Cantrell said, adding that the bailiff, Jarrod Hankins, had been placed on administrative leave, having been on the job a few months. “It was just a horrible mistake,” Mr. Cantrell said. (NYT)

Is it just a coincidence that bailiff Jarrod Hankins so easily forgot about the existence of an undocumented woman or is it a metaphor for a whole class of people?

Found via Shakesville and Citizen Orange

T. Don Hutto Residential Center

2008-03-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

Does this look like a place to raise a family?

Starting in 2006, Homeland Security and ICE thought it was a good idea to put asylum seeking, non-criminal immigrant families in a facility that was formerly a prison, and use a private prison company to run it. According to a recent New York Times article:

Doors were to remain open during the day, but they were wired with laser-detection alarms that were triggered when anyone came or went at night. A 2007 report by two advocacy groups noted that if a child sleeping in a separate cell woke up at night and went looking for his parents the alarm would sound, and only C.C.A. staff members were allowed to respond.

Children were regularly woken up at night by guards shining lights into their cells. Kids were not allowed to have stuffed animals, crayons, pencils, or pens in their cells. And they were not allowed to take the pictures they had made back to their cells and hang them up. When Hutto opened as an immigration-detention center, children attended school there only one hour a day. Detainees, including children, wore green or blue prison-issue scrubs.

This is really bad

The guards at Hutto conducted as many as seven head counts a day, during which all detainees, even toddlers, were supposed to remain in place, usually by their beds, for as long as it took to complete the count. In practice, this meant that detainees might be in their cells twelve hours a day. Last March, an immigration lawyer named Griselda Ponce testified before the U.S. District Court in Austin about conditions at Hutto, and told of an occasion when the five- or six-year-old daughter of a woman she was interviewing had to go to the rest room. The captain on duty told the girl that she could not do so during a head count. Ponce said that the girl made “six or seven requests,” and was rebuffed each time; after about fifteen minutes, the girl “smelled of urine.”

The staff at this facility primarily don't have a background in child welfare, they have a background in corrections. The facility is in Taylor, Texas and in the fall of last year the state of Texas decided to renew the contract on this privately run immigrant detention center. Apparently there is video from the hearing on this contract at the Williamson County Commissioner's Court where Commisioner Cynthia Long explains "The conditions in this facility are lightyears better than where many of these people have come from" and "The thing that we forget is that their parents have broken the law and unfortunately as children we have to suffer with the sins of our parents"

photos and video from Hutto Journal

found via Feministe and Female Impersonator

Homeland Security Hates Undocumented Women

2008-03-11T16:48:00.000-07:00

Monica Bejar came to the U.S. from Mexico illegally in 1989, and shortly thereafter married a permanent resident who turned violent and started drinking heavily during their first year of marriage. Over the years, her husband would offer to set her immigration papers straight, only to rip up the forms during bouts of rage.

Finally in 2004, Bejar began petitioning for lawful immigration status under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and was approved.

But in the future, women with Bejar's experience might not be able to seek the same relief under VAWA ... the Department of Homeland Security is currently reconsidering how VAWA applies to certain undocumented immigrants. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is pushing for a narrower reading of the act, which would have draconian consequences for some in one of the most vulnerable groups within the undocumented immigrant population: women abused by husbands who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

Right, because it's the abused undocumented women that are destroying the economy and harboring terrorism.

read the rest of the article here.

found via Jezebel

The Border

2008-03-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

MTV's True Life series did an episode of three young people who live on the border. The picture is of Tony, who has lived in the united states for 22 years, and gets accepted to college but cannot recieve financial aid or a student loan because of his status. You can watch the episode here.

What bothers me most are the comments:

"...yes not all immigrants are dangerous but MANY are and
regardless, they are ILLEGAL"

"...I know that not ever illegal immigrant is a drug dealer or user,
but a lot of them are"

These are opinions projected onto "the other", and it pains me that even after viewing this documentary, people paint Tony as an exception.

Some Facts:

Since NAFTA passed, there has been a flood of business bankruptcies and takeovers in Mexico as predatory U.S. chains have moved in. U.S. corporations now control 40 percent of the country's formal jobs, with Wal-Mart reigning as the No. 1 employer
Unemployment has jumped, and unskilled workers are paid only $5 a day
Nineteen million more Mexicans live in poverty today than when NAFTA was passed

*from http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/?page=entire

America's No.1 Export

2008-02-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

I was reading this excerpt on body image from the "Our Bodies Ourselves" website, it basically talks about how American culture is one of the most media saturated in the world, and how these thousands of media images are filtered through the lens of the white male eye. The effect of this lens is negative body image and self-objectification in women. This related article The Globalization of Eating Disorders illustrates the effects of exposure to American media on women in non-western countries (if you can look past the cursive and butterflies.)

Because of their remote location, the Fiji islands did not have access to television until 1995, when a single station was introduced. It broadcasts programs from the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Until that time, Fiji had no reported cases of eating disorders, and a study conducted by anthropologist Anne Becker showed that most Fijian girls and women, no matter how large, were comfortable with their bodies. In 1998, just three years after the station began broadcasting, 11 percent of girls reported vomiting to control weight, and 62 percent of the girls surveyed reported dieting during the previous months.

This sucks because non-western views of beauty, like the Fijian women's acceptance of voluptuous bodies, were one of the ways we can combat the narrow beauty standards set by the White male media. Instead, we are exporting our insecurities overseas.

Who I am

2008-02-14T16:45:00.000-08:00

My name is Evita. I am 23. My parents were Chicano activists. I am a third wave feminist.

I work as a Teacher Assistant in a new educational program for a large school district. Studies show that if no one in a family has attended college, then the trend continues. This program seeks to break that cycle by introducing people with college experience to college bound students. The highschool I work at is in a predominantly Hispanic area, and nearly all of the students are Mexican-American.

I'm starting this blog because someone gave me a journal to write in. I didn't fill my journal with pictures or my feelings, I wrote about globalization, the effect of NAFTA on women, on post-modernism and philosophy, and now I'm putting it online.

tómame o déjame