Elenamary

Día de la Resistencia Indígena  o también Día de la Raza, fue celebrado ayer el doce de Octubre.  Pero hoy en Ohio es día de festivo en mi universidad y en las oficinas del Gobierno, el dia que ellos celebran el Cristóbal Colon.  Mientras los jueces y legisladores descansan y piensan en Cristóbal Colon, ni siquiera tomaran en cuento mi raza.  Quienes por ejemplo todavía no tienen el derecho de votar pero afuerzas están gobernados por los leyes hecha por la misma gente que ni siquiera han escuchado del Día de la Resistencia Indígena.

Yesterday, October 12th was the Day of Indigenous Resistance or also known as the Day olf the United People.  But today is celebrated as Christopher Columbus day at my university and government offices.  And while Judges and legislatures rest and think about Christopher Columbus, they won’t be taking a moment to think about my united people.  Who for example still do not have the right to vote even though they are forced to be governed by the laws created by the same people who have never heard of the Day of Indigenous Resistance.
I have a very close friend who is an American Citizen, governed by American Laws, who is prohibited, disenfranchised by “his government” from participating in the federal election.  He wrote about it here.

I was working at a women’s health clinic doing medical interpretation.  The doctor and I had just seen a patient, a young woman from Oaxaca, Mexico whose Spanish had an indigenous language accent, I would guess Zapoteco but I have had Mixteco speaking patients as well. When we left the room, the Anglo doctor who had lived in the Dominican Republic and spoke Spanish fluently (I would assume as a Mormon missionary) said, “When she gets referred to an ObGyn we need to make sure they test her for Turner Syndrome”.

I hadn’t ever heard of Turner Syndrome and so I asked the doctor what it was.  He explained it as a chromosomal disorder in females.  Inquisitively I asked how he could tell she had a chromosomal disorder as he’d only been in the room a few minutes.  He described Turner Syndrome as characterized by short, stocky women, with thick necks and a non-proportionate torso to body.  To which I replied “I don’t think it is Turner Syndrome.  I think we call that Mexican, particularly those of Oaxaca, where she is from.”

Cultural difference?

Part of the reason I feel a need to be a doctor is because my community needs people of their own practicing medicine. And this leads to Miles Curtiss and I doing a podcast on a pressure to excel as POC because we have had privilege and opportunity and if we don’t give to our own communities then who? Podcast should be posted on Monday.

My mother immigrated to this country shortly before I was born. She has told me many times that she feels an immediate connection with immigrants. That there is a common bond.

I think that my mother being an immigrant has greatly affected the way I interact with others and view the world.

I love learning about languages, cultures, and foreign events. I like meeting immigrants and asking them how to correctly pronounce their names, what languages they speak, knowing about their religious practices.

When people ask how Barack Obama will do with foreign policy, I wonder why it is even a question. I believe in his foreign policy abilities the same way I believed in Bill Richardson’s. Obama, Richardson and I have something in common. We all have one parent who was a white American and one who was not. All of us have lived outside of the United States and all of us have a non-white, non-USian parent. We learned to fit into different cultures, to grow up within them and make them ours. We come to the table with a perspective that is unique in that we know we have to listen and be open in order to understand the ethos of a foreign language, culture, and perspective.

The world wants to connect with us, the United States. They want to admire us and it is hard to admire us if we come in with an arrogance and without a desire to understand.

I told my friend recently who has been grappeling with the idea of himself as a foreigner or Gringo “…you’ll never fit in and yet you’ll belong to all…colonization does that to us.”

Barack Obama grew-up as all POC in the US do, never quite fitting in and yet he belongs and makes room for himself in all groups. He is a product of colonization as many of us are and because of that he can connect with foreign policy in a way no past US president could have.

I am ill with the flu so for now I share with you the most amazing thing I’ve read in a very long time.  Thank El Pocho Abogado who let me know about the link; below are a few excerpts:

This is Your Nation on White Privilege

…White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug…

…White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action…

…White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden…

I was driving down Fourth Avenue today.  Fourth is a speedy one way, five lane street.  Many of the streets that deposit into and exit out of Fourth Avenue are also one way.  I was on the phone talking to a friend, as I started to make a left turn and was getting ready to make joke with my friend that on the corner of the street was an Asian police officer…something I’d never seen before in Columbus.  It was then I realized that I couldn’t continue with my turn because the street was one way in the wrong direction.

The officer saw me and told me not to back up and continue with traffic (I was not blocking traffic) but to go ahead and continue down and then turn around…so I did.  I drove a few hundred feet and turned into an abandoned lot in order to turn around.  During all of this there was porch with about seven or eight black men on it, and they kept screaming something at me which I couldn’t make out.  I figured they were telling me I was going the wrong way and decided to ignore it at first but then realized they were saying things like “Ohh they are gonna get you”.  Almost at the same time I saw a police car pull up behind me blocking my exit.  In the car were two white officers.  I turned my car off and then heard the people on the porch loudly arguing that nothing was going to happen to me because I was white.

One of the officers got out of the car and came up to my window.  “Do you know this is a one-way street?” Trying not to sound nervous I said “Yes, but  the officer standing on the corner told me to go ahead and come down this street to turn around, rather than back up into traffic.” He smiled and answered “Well next time try to pay more attention.  Have a nice day.”  I said thank you and turned my car back on as the men on the porch began to holler that they were right that the police weren’t going to do anything.  As I drove past the men a few yelled that I was only being let off because I was white.

Odds are really good that I wasn’t hassled because I was a woman, and because in the eyes of everyone involved, I was white.   But what was I going to say?