but I am just reminded that I am married to THE most amazing person.
He’s made this experience complete with the most amazing homecoming.
Ramblings of a Jetlagged Feminist: Loving and Resisting US Citizenship
The first time I left the United States was January 24, 2000. I lived in Nicaragua for three months and worked in a refugee camp for displaced families of Hurricane Mitch. Nicaraguans lived in plastic tents with a USAID stamp on it and had no running water or electricity. I’ve gone back two more times since then and have witnessed minimum progress of improving the quality of life for the poor. The Nicaraguan pride is as rich as their coffee beans; their love for their country as evident as the heat. Similarly, I spent some time in El Salvador and attended the Youth march, celebrating the life of Archbishop Oscar Romero who denounced the suffering of the poor and the militarization of the country. Mentally tagged as one of the greatest days in my life, I remember El Salvador’s spirit of resistance and their live of their country.
I am jetlagged from my return to the USA from my two month trip to the Philippines. I’ve slept about 5 hours in three days and feel like it’s time for dinner and need to eat something substantial. It’s 5:30am. Instead, I thought I’d blog about my latest mental wrestling matches.
In my years as a social justice and human rights advocate, I have never uttered the phrase out loud: “I love my country.” There are too many things I’ve seen to be able to say that phrase out aloud without qualifying what exactly it is that I love when there are so many things I can’t stand. But, inside, I have a deep love for my country despite all the tragedy, sin, mistakes, and horrible history of slavery, war, and cowboy politics.
So many people I’ve met from other nations are able to say it without shame, “I love my country.” As a US citizen, those words are alien to me. While I harbor the sentiment, I can’t utter that phrase without being reminded of all the atrocities we’ve inflicted on other parts of the world. Is it possible to love the freedoms of a country but detest our actions? Is that hypocritical? Naive? Simple-minded?
In my work with other social justice advocates, they remain hostile to their citizenship and the stars and stripes. They balk at the soaring bald eagle and roll their eyes at the fireworks on the 4th of July. I remain silent, wondering how to both love and resist your citizenship.
Jennifer, a Filipina who works in a non-profit in the Philippines, shared many stories of friends who are missing, stories of students and scholars who have been murdered for their work and voice. So many of my sisters in southeast asia are fighting their government while simultaneously loving their country. Is it possible to separate the two for the United States? Admitting love for the US on non-US soil is a weighted act. The US makes its global name for itself through our political decisions and military forces. Our government makes it so difficult to be proud and in love with our citizenship.
Coming back to this country is complicated. How does one negotiate loving the freedoms and abilities as a citizen and continuing the work to raise awareness of our responsibilities to the rest of the planet?
Perhaps it is HOW I love this country that makes this duality possible. It’s a deep, quiet river full of freedom, challenge, and commitment to the poor. The US is not the greatest nation in the world because that statement would require some arbitrary barometer of measuring greatness. Power, bullying, and bombs never equate to greatness.
The US is not the greatest nation, but it is the home of so many great movements that have inspired me to believe we are capable of so much more than just spitting, “I can’t stand this country,” and walking away from this complex and oxymoron of a land we call the United States of America. And while the US is home to some of the most brilliant writers and feminists, some of the most driven activists and humble educators I have ever encountered, I am fully aware of my limitations. I am aware that other lands are home to poetry, breathtaking art, inspiring movements of their own, and unheard and unsong heroes. The riches of other nations are rarely celebrated in the US. We’re often too busy celebrating ourselves.
How do you love and resist your citizenship? How do you hold the two equal, or do you?
Memories of the Philippines
I’m leaving for the airport in about 16 hours and packing is a small hurricane of suitcases, strewn clothing, and random wooden crafts that I believe will all fit in 2 suitcases.
A part from the million memories I have of this transformative experience, I will always remember opening the door in the province of Legazpi and seeing this in front of me.
The Philippines has always been a country of disarming surprises.
A Gem in the Fem-osphere
First time I’ve ever linked to Feministe.
It’s a special occasion with a post like this.
Seriously….
BIDEN?
Calling for Help: How to Organize a Photo Exhibit
I am open to any and all advice, direction, and need to hear from experienced folks who know what needs to happen to organize and plan a photo exhibit from scratch.
I have been shooting with my SLR for roughly 2 months and would really like to have a photo exhibit of my experience in the Philippines and donate the proceeds to womyn’s orgs who fight violence against womyn.
Any and all help is appreciated!
In gratitude,
-Sudy
Two Days and then…
I board Japan airlines.
Switch to American airlines.
And hope to the good Lord that all the ridiculous amount of pottery and handicrafts I bought aren’t damaged as I try to transport everything across the oceans and into Cleveland, Ohio.
I leave Monday, August 25 and travel for 24 hours and arrive on Monday, August 25 – gaining back the day that I lost on June 19th.
9 weeks ago…how they go by in a blink…
Nick – gas up the car, I’m coming home!
My Nina
She’s my blood and she speaks three different languages already.
I just met her 72 hours ago, the daughter of a cousin who I just embraced for the first time.
Her eyes were the color of charcoal and her smile bit my heart.
She had a dimple in her left cheek only, just like me.
Sweats more than any other 7 year old I’ve known,
and demands rice at every meal.
I want her world to be better and her options to be as bright as her glowing cheeks. I thought that she would be the perfect filter for my feminism. If it doesn’t contribute to bettering her world, I’m passing.
I want to always see her jumping.
Ramblings of a Traveling Feminist
This has been an unexpected hiatus from blogging.
I can’t tell if it’s the hiatus from blogging, or thrilling adventures, or the extreme alternative learning experiences that has yielded a cleansing in my life and soul.
I think I’ve stayed away from my site because I am afraid of the inevitable fragmentation that will happen when I try and write about my experiences here in the Philippines over the past two months. My life in the US is hanging in a balance; a pendulum held between forefinger and thumb, waiting for release. I return in two weeks and both tears and joy will burst from me when August 25 arrives.
This trip was unrealistic from the start. My research plans were to investigate the contemporary women’s movement in the Philippines. My life plans were to meet family I have never met and grow to understand the land from where my parents were born and raised. I came here to expand the proverbial perspective of the mind.
That’s all shit now. Shit, I tell you.
Life is never as smooth as we plan. It’s so very American for me to have arrived in a foreign country with objectives, maps, and timelines with no consideration that perhaps the most critical component for me is not research but to allow myself a natural progression of self-transformation through cultural immersion. How noble but foolish for me to project my work into a country with no thoughts of physical ailments and fatigue or mental strength.
I am humbled by the gift of opportunity. Each day here has been an adventure through heaven and hell, paradise and cave, devastation and euphoria.
I do not know when I will blog again. I hope tomorrow, but while I am in this land, I want to be in this land. Blogging takes me back to America too soon. The words, the fighting, the disrespect thrown around in the femblogland holds no interest to me right now. This adventure has led me somewhere else. I see, hear, taste, and feel differently here. Those most oppressed ask me to tell their stories on my blog, to get their stories out.
It’s not my blog that’s the problem, I say, it’s how it is received and interpreted that can be problematic.
Blogging is not just a privilege, it’s another passage of classism that I am struggling with. I began blogging to have a space for myself, but don’t I already take up enough space in this world? Have I not received the privileges associated with citizenship and education that less than 1% of the world are given?
This is not a problem of reconciling privilege. For me, this is an issue of media justice. Who I am to tell these stories of rape, torture, political killings, and poverty so severe I’m wondering how the earth isn’t already shaking?
The biggest problem of feminists, in my humble opinion, is not that US feminists don’t have the right to ask questions, it’s that US feminists ask the wrong ones. It’s equal pay and panties and book covers in femblogland. I can’t stand it and for that anymore. What the shit does that have to do with ANYTHING that I am passionate about? I am passionate about singing political prisoners who go on hunger strikes during marshal law. I am passionate about the surviving comfort women of WWII – The Lolas – who I danced with for 30 minutes to old kareoake music. I am passionate about garbage eating families who are being displaced by foreign investors and children who are being forced to learn and speak English. I am passionate about asking what in the hell George W. Bush is doing on a Philippine stamp.
These are my passions and, yes, I am a feminist. I do not want to be told “that’s not a feminist issue,” and have no space anymore to pretend I care about 80% of the shit that is written by contemporary “feminists” who blast womyn of color on the left and preach about intersectionality on the right. I’m sick of anonymous cowards who have nothing better to do than leave their unchecked baggage at my station and expect me to deliver their goods because they forgot how to unpack their own shit.
I have 13 days left. These precious days are gifts and I hope to return to you soon with more than just ramblings.
Baguio City, City of God
There’s no real way to describe the place from where I am blogging.
First, I am in Baguio City [BAH-gee-yoh], Philippines. About 5 hours (oftentimes more, depending on weather) North of Manila, and the hometown of my mom. I traveled Thursday and will depart tomorrow, Monday afternoon. Baguio is, by far, THE most breathtaking place I have ever been. When I came up on a bus, I saw a sign that said, “Welcome to the City of God.”
City of God, indeed.
This is what you need to know about why I have labeled this place the most spectacular place on earth:
1) It’s a city IN the mountains, which means you have
a. cooler temps (think San Francisco)
b. air that, literally, smells sweet
c. slower pace of life
d. less expensive living
e. smaller city feel, everything’s 15 minutes away
2) It’s my mother’s hometown, which means I have
a. met my mother’s side of the family who I had never seen face to face
b. visited my Lolo’s (Tagalog for “grandfather”) burial spot where I have never been; a grandfather I never met
c. visited the houses where my mother grew up
d. bawled like a big baby at places mentioned in a-c
My cousin Renzie has won in the Cousin Olympics, my fictitious race to determine who is the greatest cousin to me, including both the Factora and the Fernandez sides of my family. Here is why Lorenzo Fernandez wins:
1) He picked me up from the bus terminal (huge points when you’re the first person you relieves you from a bus terminal)
2) He’s an opthamologist who specializes in Awesomeness and does more generous and near free eye surgeries for the poor than is humanly possible
3) He drove me all around this grand city and kept bringing me to places he knew I would love (aka art galleries and craft stores)
4) He and I just met roughly 48 hours ago and I feel like he is my long lost twin brother who knew I would love Bulalo with vegetables (hot soup)
5) He showed me ancient pictures of my mother when she was still single and sporting short skirts and boots. He threw his arm around me, “You probably didn’t know this, but your mom was a hottie.” I can’t believe that I’m writing this, but when I saw her photos…dear Lord, it’s true: MY MOTHER WAS HOT.
6) He’s got a sense of humor like mine: harmless but dry, teasing without malice, often without overkill
…..
and last but not least
7) He freaking gave me an eye exam to fit me for new freaking glasses that are freaking red (something I’ve always wanted) and I freaking hugged him till he nearly turned blue
When we parted today, I hugged him and my arms seemed to lock together. I couldn’t let him go. Meeting and loving family is a blessing, but is difficult when you know that they are, literally, halfway across the world. I am so proud of all of my cousins and am so proud to have the blood of these amazing folks who are doing such incredible work and refuse to be anything but humble about their accomplishments.
Baguio brought me home. I feel more at home here than any place in the Philippines. I got it all wrong before: I should have come here for weeks and visited other places for four days. I could spend lifetimes in this city. It’s that beautiful.
The City of God. The City of my mother.
My cup runneth over.