writeswrongs: gooeylucy replied to your post: I hear this all the time, about how latinos who… idk i mean my situation is complicated bc me and my sister have different dads and hers doesnt speak spanish hes jamaican and i lived with him when i was a kid and growing up my parents were scared i wouldnt be able to speak english if i spoke spanish like they thought it…

writeswrongs: 

That’s fine - you are definitely still latin@ and no one can take that away from you.  What gets me is people who complain ~other latinos~ aren’t loving on them enough because they don’t speak Spanish, or blame Spanish speakers for their exclusion from the community.  Almost everywhere in the United States, is it considered BAD for your child to speak only Spanish or to have an accent and GOOD for them to speak English and have no Spanish accent.  It’s a privilege in the US to speak English accent free, and “not speaking Spanish” as a Latino doesn’t really create the large harm that not speaking English does for Latinos.  Ain’t aimed at you - but I wish more perfect-English-accent-free Latinos would complain less about how much ~they don’t fit in~ with people who face deportation, joblessness, and constant ridicule because they only speak Spanish.  And I say this as someone who used to have an accent, learned English as a second language, and has done everything in the fucking world to not have one out of shame the white American world gave me.

That sucks that people are like that. I’m first-gen Mexican American/Chicana and I feel like shit because sometimes I’m alienated from my heritage and community, but I blame colonialism and not my fellow Latin@ people. And I certainly recognize that the flipside of my alienation is reflected in factors that result in me gaining unearned privilege, like being born with US citizenship, speaking unaccented English and having a non-Latino surname. It sucks that rather than embracing our differences and working together the community ends up getting divided and the least privileged pay for it the most.

(Source: writeswrongs)

We don’t need no othering: some thoughts on Lena Dunham and racism

curiousfancy:

(The kind of photo any white person would take in Calcutta) 

So the infamous racist Lena Dunham has been to India and made some incredibly callous remarks about us. I am not even remotely surprised. White people over generations have been coming to India for naive and unformed notions of spiritual redemption/ discovery and making equally uninformed remarks about us. What it did though, was put me in mind of something I read last year. 

Last year I read this book called The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, who, on the strength of his earlier novel, Middlesex was one of my favourite authors. But The Marriage Plot changed all that. Not only did it contain an incredibly othering description of mental illness (bipolar, same as me) but one of the protagonists also went to India. Specifically to Calcutta, my city. The description of Calcutta and it’s people and especially the white attitudes to it made me feel sick. And not because it was described as a filthy, diseased armpit of the world -  I am used to a bit of filth, I grew up there during the time the novel is set - but at how it was fetishised. Like these was this frenzied description of dirt and filth and germs, it felt like the author was revelling in making it as alien and disgusting as possible. It sounded only marginally like Calcutta, not because it’s my hometown and a place I love but because the Calcutta Eugenides describes is a fantasy and a phantasm in the his mind. I wanted to cry. Is THIS how white people who see Calcutta for the first time see it? As this disease and poverty ridden wasteland? Like it is a place that humans can’t inhabit? The storyline was about a young University student who runs away to India to “find himself” (quelle surprise) and then ends up running back to the good old States where the people are bright, shining WHITE examples of humanity. It was a plotline set in India, but none of the characters were Indian. The only Indians you got to see are the diseased and dying Indians in the home for the sick the protagonist volunteers in. They are utterly dehumanised, treated no better than diseased animals by the author.

Reading it, I remembered something I had come across on the internet the year before. I think I was looking for something on Calcutta to show my (white) boyfriend and came across this one site. Some white guy who was with the American consulate had lived in Calcutta for a while in the early 90s and written a host of (really bad, execrable) poems about it. And I read them and I thought, is this all Calcutta is supposed to be? Is our only function to act as creative (and spiritual) inspiration to white people, so they can write really bad poems (and really bad novels) about how we are the Other? Why don’t we have a voice of our own? Why, growing up, was I given books written for little English boys and girls to read and not books about my own culture, my own country/city? Colonization is not just about taking away wealth and agency, it is about erasing voices, erasing histories. There is no voice in the larger literary sphere that speaks about India in a non fetishised, othering tone, all the voices that do are drowned out by white voices because the world is largely West-centric. I wish there was an alternate voice, one that would describe my country and my city with rationality, with love. But voices like that are drowned out. 

To conclude, India does not need your naive unformed ideas/ideals projected onto it. We are perfectly capable of conducting our lives on our own. We don’t need your  ”compassion”, we don’t need your pity and we certainly don’t need you to fix our lives. We have been living happy, fulfilling lives in our own country since time immemorial, strange as it may sound to your white ears. We don’t need to be  ”brought up” to your standards, we have our own, thankyouverymuch. Now, get the FUCK out of our country; we turned you out once in 1947, don’t make us do it again.

Beauty AND Business for Latina Transwoman in New Orleans

glitterlion:

Beauty AND Business for Latina Transwoman in New Orleans

Several years ago, Alana, a Latina transgender woman in New Orleans and a BreakOUT! volunteer, chose transitioning over employment, believing she would forever be unemployable as a transgender woman.  BreakOUT! is helping get Alana back on her feet and needs *your* help to tell employers that transgender women can be about both beauty *and* business!

Who is Alana*?

Alana is a Latina transgender woman in New Orleans and a BreakOUT! volunteer. Alana came to the United States in February 1978 when she was three years old and has been a legal Permanent Resident of this country all of her life. She worked and lived as a successful man until a few years ago when she gave everything up in order to be her true self.

Alana says, “Ever since my transition, I have lost the courage to utilize my skills that I have honed for over a decade because of discrimination and fear.  But speaking to [BreakOUT!] gave me a renewed outlook on my life and career goals.”

Why does she need our support?

Unfortunately, during a difficult time in her life, Alana lost her federal identification card (also known as a Permanent Resident Card) and it has since expired.  Although she’s ready to look for a full-time job, Alana is unemployable and can’t even get a social security card because she needs to have physical proof of residency to obtain one, without which she can’t find a job anywhere. 

Alana says, “I have been barely scraping by on very little income and just cannot seem to come up with anything real to put toward the fees.”  And while she is still here legally, she says, “I have to be extra careful not to get deported or be deprived on my rights.”

Where will my money go? 

The Congress of Day Laborers and the Worker’s Center for Racial Justice helped us identify our fundraising goals.  We’ll need:

• $365 to cover the filing fee for an I-90
• $85 to cover the biometrics services
• $10 to cover the cost of a passport photo = $460 

Help us get Alana back on her feet and show employers that transgender women can be about both beauty and business!

Alana adds:

“I come to you humbly and respectfully for assistance to move on in several areas of my life.  Thank you very much for your consideration in this matter!”

Photo courtesy of Alana. 

*Name changed to respect privacy.

I don’t have the financial ability to support all of the worthy online campaigns or requests for support that I’d like. But in honor of International Woman’s Day I felt that the very least I should sacrifice the cost of a Starbucks treat to try and help this young woman in need, and I would give more if I could. If anybody can spare some money to support this or even just signal boost the indiegogo campaign I’d appreciate it <3

(don’t boost my pathetic little $3 donation receipt though that’s just embarrassing but even if you can’t spare that much please still consider donating)

Discovered via a hero’s FB post that the FAFSA was due today for my circumstances

Had to file my tax return and then the FAFSA itself, which I just finished. Fortunately I’ve spent the last few weeks getting all the paperwork together so I was ready to go. What a stress relieved!