Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice

This week has been the Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice blog carnival. The focus this year is on scapegoating immigrant women and asks: What's the REAL problem? Here is my response.

Immigrant women, what’s the real issue?

I think the real issue is that folks don’t listen to immigrant women. Folks rarely listen to many women as it is (you know what I’m talking about and whose voice gets heard and shared the most). What would happen if we really heard immigrant women speak? What are we afraid of? That we would need an interpreter? That their English may be better than our own? That they really aren’t taking “our” jobs? That they are not criminals? That we may discover we have no clue what the needs are of a population we claim to be an ally to?

I think about my own immigrant family. What stories and testimonies the women in my family share. I’ve written before about what they have shared with me regarding their reproductive health, choices, access to contraception, and that their testimonios were laced with fear of the oral birth control pill because of what they experienced living in their homelands before migrating. And guess what, a lot of folks don’t like to hear those testimonios. Many folks think those narratives are not worthy or important, when really they have impacted me! And don’t I matter? Don’t the women with similar testimonios and experiences matter?

I’ve learned that I only really matter to certain people at certain times when it is convenient for them. Yet these folks forget I’m top priority in my community and my life! Loving ourselves in a world that doesn’t love us back is a daily act of subversion in the US.

The immigrant women in my family also talk about the men in their lives. Their fathers, partners, brothers, friends, and how they too matter. How they immigrated to the US with their men. That together they created spaces for one another to survive together, to cope together, to struggle junto. Maybe folks don’t really want to hear how immigrant women love their men in ways that challenge some ideologies about liberation and oppression because they basically squash those ideals. Or maybe it’s some old school thought process that including men means ignoring women? No, that’s now how it works. If we start from a place that centers women that does not mean men are excluded, that men cannot be important or have meaning. It means we also include all genders and not just work from within a binary.

When I was homesick on my first year at grad school in NYC, away from my immediate family and crying every night on the telephone to my father, he would tell me that he and my mother know how I feel because they would cry every night together when they arrived in Washington, DC. Scared. Frustrated. Broke, Overwhelmed. Together.

Together.

And it is together that they have come to learn what it means to be US citizens, immigrants, and raise a family safely within these borders. Maybe immigrant women are used as scapegoats because US folks are fearful of knowing/learning/hearing about themselves. It's easier to make the lives of others uncomfortable versus engaging with our own discomfort.

You may take action today and ask Sec. Napolitano to halt Secure Communities and 287(g).

Rememory & My Testimonio - For the Latina Week of Action for Reproductive Justice

cross posted from my Media Justice column.

I have never written about my youth and adolescence and when I chose to begin having sex with my partners. Part of me knows I rarely share these stories because I will be judged and who needs that type of virtual and 3D negativity in their life? But today, I think there are important ways I can learn to heal and learn to see how I’ve evolved in sharing my testimonio.

When I was 14 years old I chose to have sex. I partnered with someone in my high school who was five years older than me. Since then, I’ve often been in intergenerational relationships with people who are 5-10 years older. You see when I was 14 I looked the way I do right now: tall, full figured, and I took that opportunity to lie about my age to some of my partners.

One of the things that is missing in sexuality education, and in many curriculums people are attempting to create and implement with youth, especially young working class and youth of Color, is a discussion of power. I knew I had a lot of power when I was 14 simply based on my appearance. My racially White and ethnically Puerto Rican parents had no idea how to raise a woman of Color, one who racially identifies as Black and whose body is not valued or protected in the same way theirs may have been in the US at that time. Nobody ever told me that I would experience a jolt in the power I have when it comes to obtaining certain things: attention, material goods, transportation, food, affection, and the like. For some people this list of things may not be impressive, but for me at 14 in the early 1990s, a bushy haired fat brown girl living in the south, it was everything to me.

I tasted power and I didn’t want to give that power up because it was the first time I had ever had something like it before. I didn’t have teachers who thought I was intelligent and chose to mentor me, I didn’t find value in my work, identity, or existence until I was almost 17 years old and began to mentor young people myself. In those 3 years I had already chose to have several partners and one pregnancy scare.

My experience is mine and I do not see myself as a victim or survivor. I do not believe I was abused or raped by adult men who I chose to be intimate with, because I knew what I was doing. My parents had The Joy Of Sex and Our Bodies, Ourselves. But here’s where texts like these don’t work: I didn’t see myself in those texts. In The Joy Of Sex, I thought the images looked too much like my racially White parents and only looked through the text a handful of times. Our Bodies, Ourselves, was far too middle-class and White. There were too many words and not enough resources for poor Brown girls living in the south. Plus, the reading level was far too high for me to even engage with all that text without having my parents become suspicious. Too much text did not work for me as an adolescent and I have learned it does not reach young people from similar backgrounds (and yes if your organization or website has too many words at a reading level over 8th grade then I’m talking about ya’ll).

So what were the birth control options for a 14 year-old bushy Brown fat girl living in the south? Here’s what some of you may not know about me or this dynamic: I went to public school, both my parents worked, but it was my mother who had a full-time job and my father who worked side hustles, I was a latch-key kid, only got $2 for lunch and walked over 10 blocks to and from high school. If I wanted to go somewhere I had to save my lunch money for bus fare. Usually for lunch I would eat tatar tots and a chocolate chip cookie and save the fifty cents so that by the end of the week I could take the bus one way and come back home from there (back then a roundtrip bus ticket was less than $1.50). If I really wanted to go somewhere earlier in the week I would just eat a chocolate chip cookie and have $1.50 saved in one day.

There were no cell phones and I did not have access to a beeper or some other form of communication, such as email because I didn’t have a computer or Internet access. There was also no Planned Parenthood near me, or any other youth clinic that I knew about in my area. I didn’t even know too much about such health centers until I got to college. Even if I did know of them, I wonder today how I would have even been able to access them without skipping school, which had some of its own consequences, but also without any money to use public transportation. There was no access to any type of information that was age appropriate and so I had to make the best decision for me at that time which was using condoms when my partners had them.

Although by 17 I had a handful of partners I was always using condoms with them because they had them. When I was 17 and knew a lot more about myself and some of my options (and before you ask me about the birth control pill, that was not an option for me), I met a partner who I chose to have unprotected sex with and use the withdrawal method. Sometimes we used condoms, but we talked about our options and that relationship really influenced the person I am today. This partner was the first one I had been with who actually asked me “do you enjoy this” and who told me that I should want and enjoy whatever we do and if I don’t then we should not be doing it together or at all. This partner taught me about consent, pleasure, and communication. I stayed with this partner for 5 years.

It was difficult to learn about access from examining my own history, which is something that I really didn’t get a chance to do in undergrad, but that I had to find time to do on my own. Who knew my testimonio would never be desired in undergrad and that I would have to find my own space to affirm my own histories? Who knew that when I got to graduate school there would be huge stereotypes of young Brown girls, young Latinas, young working class people and our sexual decision-making but no real discussion about our lived reality, no discussion with us, only about us? Who knew these would still be where a majority of the literature, research, and focus remains today?

I’ve learned that when it comes to birth control options I am not the person who needs to judge a patient or client. If their method was jumping up and down after sex, or using condoms, or herbal remedies, or using a hormonal method, I was not to judge them. I was to help them. Today, I am so disheartened by how different narratives and choices are still being judged and criticized. There is this illusion that because we live in the US, were born in the US, that we automatically have access to birth control, education, safety, and love. But the reality that I think we all know, this is not true for everyone. Access to all of those things, some may consider a “human right” while others may consider them privileges.

When a young person approaches me or comes to my office, or asks for help I have to remember where I was as a young person and what I needed. I was nothing close to what half the young people who I interact with are at today, what decisions they must make and how much information they have. I remind myself that my job is not to get a young person on birth control, but to help them make the best decision for them at that time by giving them all of their options without my personal opinion. This is difficult to do, but it is not my job to take away their self-determination, it is my job to affirm their existence because I know all too well what it feels like to be invisible and for people to not find you valuable or important members of a community.

I believe in rememory. I do think that our past is alive in the present and that impacts us in various ways. What I am working towards, especially when it comes to birth control and working with my communities, is how to communally heal so that my past is not something I choose to ignore, forget, or find guilt in. Rather, I choose to see it as an important living part of who I am, a part of my constant evolution. And this, like my birth control option, like my partner selection, and like my writing, is my choice.

I’ll be writing more about birth control for the Latina Week Of Action for Reproductive Justice at VivirLatino and RH Reality Check.

Representing Ourselves

cross posted from my media justice column

I have several friends who have taken this summer to decide that they will begin writing blogs. Many of them are amazing writers and I’m excited to share their work with you when they get themselves and their blogs together! One of the reasons I’m so excited about this is because they are creating media on their own and representing themselves. They will learn so much about their own thought process, evolve in their writing, and learn all they need to about moderating comments!

Representing ourselves in the media is a huge part of why I love the Internets and I promise, I promise, I promise a post on net neutrality is coming! Although the Internet is available, self publishing on the rise, and zines still extremely popular, there are people who do not have the opportunity to create media that represents themselves. There is still a huge lack of resources and access, millions of stories that are not told, thousands of people who want to share, and no outlet to support or give them that opportunity.

I began to think about this when I read the book Lady Q: The Rise And Fall Of A Latin Queen, written by Reymundo Sanchez and Sonia Rodriguez. The story is the testimony of Sonia, who while in the Latin Kings/Queens went by the name Lady Q. As Lady Q, Sonia became the Queen of all Kings, one of the highest ranking Latin Queens. She shared her story with Reymundo, who is the author of “My Bloody Life” and “Once A King Always A King,” where he shares his life stories and experiences as a Latin King who left the life.

Reymundo reached out to Sonia because he wanted to share a women’s perspective on leadership and gang involvement. I reviewed the book and you may read my full review here. One of my many critiques and issues of the book is that Sonia’s voice seems forced and not always centered in the text. In addition, Reymundo is extremely critical of Sonia and her choices to live her life, survive abuse, neglect, drug abuse and sexual violence. This made the text extremely problematic for me. I shared in my review:

Yet, I can’t get past the idea of a man writing a woman’s testimony. This bothers me and I have yet to find the exact language that can help contextualize this perspective but I will try.

Men writing our stories is nothing new. In fact it is so tired I knew before reading the book that I would have an issue with this aspect of the text. There is something so innately paternalistic about this that it is enraging. I’m not clear why there is a desire to write our stories for us, versus creating a space where we have the opportunity to write our own stories without having a man claim some level of that ability or accomplishment. I should rephrase: I understand why there is a desire, because there is a level of stature, a “look a the wonderful gift I gave her,” the adoration and odd respect given to such men who do this work. What level of input did she have in the creation of the actual text? Was she a part of the creation or did she just get a final draft?

First, I am concerned that Reymundo gets the first author credit and this bothers me. This is something that happens often in the publishing industry and even in academic and formal writing spaces: the author who did the “most work” gets their name first on a publication. Yet, if all Reymundo did was transcribe Sonia’s story, why does he get first author’s credit? It is her story to tell and share yet for some reason he has taken her story and claimed it as his own in a sense.

If there was ever an example of patriarchy and how men of Color have benefited from it and continue to use their male privilege in our patriarchal US society to oppress women of Color and very clearly/overtly take away our voices this is one of them. I shared:

Then there was the ending, when we hear Reymundo’s voice again in first person, providing an update on Sonia and her situation. I found this part of the book most troubling and condescending. Not only is Reymundo discussing how Sonia’s living environment has not changed and she has not decided to leave her hometown, but he also judges her choices to stay near her daughter and grandchildren. He argues that the only way to get out of the life completely is to remove oneself from the community entirely. This means relocate to another state altogether.

My concern with this discussion and perspective is that it takes away Sonia’s self-determination by judging her choices. Hasn’t Sonia been judged her entire life? Why continue this under the guise of helping her? How is this any different from the abuse and neglect she endured and survived as a child? There are ways to be firm and honest with people without belittling them and harm reductionists have been working to master such approaches for decades.

Part of me is super frustrated with the idea that Sonia may be extremely grateful to Reymundo for taking her story, judging her, and now seeking to create possible films from her story. Another part of me is glad that she has found someone who, even with constraints, has listened to her. I know all too well what it feels like to have and need someone listen to you, to witness your life and your memories. That is a gift we can give people each day.

It is this gift that I wish to give to my friends who have begun to write blogs this summer. The gift of reading and commenting on their blogs and on the writing they produce. As we write and post comments here at Amplify let’s be mindful and remember that there are so many brilliant and amazing stories that are not being told, stories and narratives that are being taken and claimed by others as theirs, and that there is still a lot of work to do to have the media represent us as individuals, but also us as collective communities of practice. What’s in our agenda to make sure others can represent themselves?

LatiNegr@s Project: My Testimonio

I did not always identify as a LatiNegra. As many of my long-time readers know, my parents who are Puerto Rican immigrants, racially identify as White while they ethnically identify as Puerto Rican. I’ve always literally and figuratively been the Black sheep of my family. I’ve written about what that means to me in various capacities before. Today I want to share how I came to evolve into my LatiNegra identity.

Picture it: Beltsville, MD 2003. I’d just left my first ever full-time job with benefits when George Bush the second was re-elected President of the US. I realized that there would be no pay increase for me at my job where I provided training and did research on sexual health among adolescents and teen parents. What better way to stick out the next 4 years than in a PhD program in Women’s Studies? (I know there are many other ways, stay with me here).

I had earned a 2 year fellowship to study and part of the research I was doing with faculty of Color was creating an Intersectional Research Database (which was also used to help publish a book). As part of that research I came across an article by Dr. Lillian Comas-Díaz called "Mental Health Issues of African Latinas" which she wrote in the early 1990s. You can read my short Annotation in the Intersectional Research Database here. That was followed by an article by Marta I. Cruz-Janzen called Latinegras: Desired Women-Undesirable Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives where she writes:

Latinegras are Latinas of obvious black ancestry and undeniable ties to Africa, women whose ancestral mothers were abducted from the rich lands that cradled them to become and bear slaves, endure the lust of their masters, and nurture other women's children. They are the mothers of generations stripped of their identity and rich heritage that should have been their legacy. Latinegras are women who cannot escape the many layers of racism, sexism, and inhumanity that have marked their existence. Painters, poets, singers, and writers have exalted their beauty, loyalty, and strength, but centuries of open assaults and rapes have also turned them into concubines, prostitutes, and undesirable mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives.

Latinegras are marked by a cruel, racialized history because of the shades of their skin, the colors and shapes of their eyes, and the textures and hues of their hair. They are the darkest negras, morenas, and prietas, the brown and golden cholas and mulatas, and the wheat-colored triguenas. They are the light-skinned jabas with black features and the grifas with white looks but whose hair defiantly announces their ancestry. They are the Spanish-looking criollas, and the pardas and zambas who carry indigenous blood.

Latinegras represent the mirrors that most Latinos would like to shatter because they reflect the blackness Latinos don't want to see in themselves. (1) I am a Latinegra, born to a world that denies my humanity as a black person, a woman, and a Latina; born to a world where other Latinos reject me and deny my existence even though I share their heritage. As Lillian Comas-Diaz writes, the combination of race, ethnicity, and gender makes Latinegras a "minority within a minority." (2) Racism and sexism have been with me all my life. I was raised in Puerto Rico during the 19505 and 1960s, and lived on and off in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. Today, I still live in both worlds, and most of the gender and race themes I grew up with remain. This essay is my personal and historical narrative of the intersection of racism and sexism that has defined my life and that of other Latinegras.

It was like I had found home.

Prior to finding that article I had chosen to make a political statement and racially identify as either Other or Black. I was identifying as Black more so than Other. I had made this decision the last time I filled out the US Census on my own and chose Other and wrote “African, Taino, Spanish/European colonizer.” I thought I was a rebel. I still think I am.

There were several similarities I experienced with Black women that I did not with other Latinas and then there were other similarities I shared exclusively with Latinas and not with Black women. There was always that “in between space.” That “hyphen.” But what happens to that space between the hyphen. Look at it this way:

Afro-Latino or Afro-Caribbean.

Last year when I was reading the last book by Elizabeth Nunez called Anna In Between, she asked that question as she joined our book club reading: what about the space between the hyphens? That hyphen doesn’t connect the words because there are spaces between the words and the hyphen. They do not every join. It is a bridge. A connector. It is not an explanation.

I started to joke with one of my homegirls, a Black woman living in the US, Keeley, that we would be the LatiNegras of the crew (capitalizing the L and the N to see them BOTH as proper nouns). Since then it has stuck. It is who I am. There is no hyphen to join two different identities, it is one identity all the time. It is me. I celebrate it. Will you join in the celebration?

Visit the LatiNegr@s Project Tumblr page and consider submitting something!

Share Your Testimonios

Please consider sharing your testimonios with the StoryCorps Historias project. There are mobile and storybooth locations all over the US. Please spread the word.

Visit the StoryCorps Historias project page. Read en espanol.