We have a blog together!

Y un email tambien... pero bueno... that's another story :)! jiji...

Here is the blog... todo sobre la boda... para ke lo checken, okas? Quijote put it up and we both "designed" it together, and we'll be updating it for fun. hehe..

Nos Vamos a Casar!


And don't forget to vote! La encuesta es: Shall We Elope? (Nos escapamos juntos?)

False models of dichotomous identity

Met up with Cemelli de Aztlán today. She introduced me to the man who owns the house. Nice guy.

She and I went to lunch afterwards. Had one of those remarkable, stirring conversations that leave you… well, I’ll get my thoughts on that organized later on. But what started as a conversation about the politics of relationships ended up as a theological- political- cultural- sociological verbal examination of the Juarez girls controversy. Did it originate in the culture? Does the culture justify, maintain and prolong the problem? Or do the rapes have their origins, as the FBI/ Mexican police explain(s), in the initial crime of American citizens and their impunity?

I am more concerned with the prolongation and justification of the crimes than I am with their origin. Quite admittedly, I am starting my research on this issue with the (arguable) insider’s perspective that culture does contribute to the problem and that something should be done about it.

To give an example of culture’s role in prolonging a problem, I am concerned that we need to use the politics of storytelling as a false bridge between identities and actions: we, as a society (Mexican and American!), have continuously felt the need to tell ourselves that the girls raped in Cd. Juarez were “decent” hard-working, maquiladora employees –morally righteous women, good mothers and daughters-- and not licentious party-girls who were “looking for it” or quite simply “had it coming.” [As a footnote, only 128 of the girls are thought or have been proven to be maquiladora workers. But that is not what worries me.] What concerns me is that in order to defend the cause of raped and murdered girls, we incongruously necessitate a redemptive myth! The effect of this situation is more than just a high level of cultural absurdity. It endangers the few, already inefficient actions taken to solve the crime problem.

Redemptive myths such as these, as dangerous as they might be, are mechanisms of healing. Prof. Jackson, I’m sure, would agree. But I believe they are an obvious reaction to a basic problem: the false models of dichotomous identity we have built. The academic world has already reacted to these dichotomies by theorizing alternate models of identity: intersubjectivity, transnationality, diasporic and borderland identities, etc., but how can the academia help translate these theories into action? The act of storytelling, as I’ve already argued, is flawed in that it derives from the very problem and can prolong it. This specific redemptive myth, for example, comes hand in hand with another (also erroneously dichotomous) myth of justification: if the woman is a “whore,” the rapist is justified. Because the woman is a “saint” according to this myth, then the rapist is far from justified. But what of the many victims in Juarez that do not in reality have this socio-political and moral identity?

To expand on the notion of false models of dichotomous identity:

I’ve been struggling intellectually with the black and white mentality of our society for some time now. More specifically, with the mentality that classifies identity within the scheme of dichotomies. The basic idea is that we’ve constructed models of identity that have only one alternate other –an often absolute converse option. I’m talking about bipolar, dichotomous modes of identity. False structural models that dictate that a woman is either a whore or a saint; a person is either one nationality or the other; a citizen belongs to one culture or the other –and these cultures are surely absolute opposites, etc.

The result, I argued, is a mentality that promotes a socio-political problematic that can only be solved if we somehow build bridges of identity. Bridges that might have been built through the already growing academia of trans-identity. How, then, can we build on it towards action? Did the original moral dichotomy arise from the religious notions of good and evil? What can we do to correct our dichotomies without compromising our religious beliefs? And most importantly, what can the academy do that will directly, positively affect the situation of the women of Cd. Juarez?

taking ... it... s..l...o...w

I don't know where my head is lately.
Forgot my phone at one of my jobs. Left a document by the copy machine at the library. Almost sent a letter with no stamp on it... missed a bus on the way to church...

I really needed a slow day.

And I got a weekend.

Happy Columbus Day to me. I thought I wasn't going to get it, since my professors and PA's all seemed pretty adamant about not getting behind, so I told myself I didn’t need it. But when my two Monday classes re-scheduled, I was ecstatic. I got the weekend. I got the weekend! And I had all of my reading for next week done by Thursday.

So, I've taken it slow. And it's made for an amazing, long weekend. I've done laundry, cleaned and organized my closets, given that kitchen some much needed care… The fridge needed to be cleaned, and so did the stove and both the small and the big oven. That oven doesn't get cleaned unless I do it…

But I like cleaning though. I like doing it because it's so completely inconsequential and fruitless. Well, not completely. There’s always the rewarding cleanliness. But it holds no relevant truth, no important tie to my relationships, no theological argument, no historical accuracy or lack thereof... It’s just cleaning. And I can do it with a spotless mind, uncontaminated by the reality of the world. The things I can’t change have suddenly been reduced to 3 year old oven stains or an ugly uncooperative wood floor. The shortcomings of people, including my own, go only as far as the kitchen windows will allow me to see.

I realized how contagious the environment’s effect is on me. I’ve heard it so much, that we are a product of our society. But I’d never realized how thoroughly and habitually I respond to the world that surrounds me. How a document becomes important only because of school and despite it being just a paper to me. How missing a class becomes a reason for sleeplessness. How my walking becomes three times as fast only so the fat guy behind me won’t pass me. I’m surely as busy as he is!

I protest. If I will respond to this environment, then I will do so at my own will –according to my standards. At the very least, according to my own environment. And where I come from, being permanently busy does not make you an important person. Stress is a sign of hardship. One doesn’t submit to stress unless no other choice is available. And I happen to have an alternative. I can be my industrious self AND be engaged with my life. With my friends. With my family. With God.

So I will take it slow. I'll enjoy. And I will not need the last traces of Columbus’ unrequested and unannounced visit to finally take a deep breath.

I will enjoy school. I will enjoy the blessing that cleaning my landlord’s kitchen is :)!

So.. by now everybody knows...

...But in case you don't, the tentative date is March 15th, 2009. Yup, 2009. Still (sorta.. not really) looking for a place, so it's (definitely) not official yet. But hopefully we can stick to it... So yeah! Save the date! Or the weekend... hehe... and send us your addresses! We're getting married :-D !!!

Twice in a Row!!

I missed the second class meeting of Religion in Multicultural America last Wednesday.

The reason? I initially did not get in the class. The professor emailed me at 12 at night the day before class to say I'd gotten in after all, and by then I had a job waiting for me that conflicted with it. She understood, though, of course. Late notice.

But I missed class again today.
The reason? I wrote the darn wrong meeting time on my agenda and thought the class met from 3 to 5pm. The class meets only once a week -I was right about that. But it meets from 1-3pm.

The irony? While "waiting" for class, I read a psychology paper on the "Flexibility of Memory," by van der Kolk.

Well, if I didn't have an "intrusive past" before, then I do now. And I am furious about it.