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playing favorites 2020
memoirs, memory, and millennia
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how i interact with the world
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the stars belong to us
notes on who belongs
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seeing myself on tv
Even before the pandemic, television has always been my favorite form of visual media. I worked three jobs through college and was well known for falling asleep during movies. I enjoyed the theater and acted in a few small plays. I had a favorite improv troupe (it was the early
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like a hammer
Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition Like a Hammer was on display at the Seattle Art Museum in the spring of 2019. It’s one of the rare exhibits I’ve gone to see more than once. Another exhibit with repeat viewings was Gordon Parks’ Segregation Story at the High Museum. The
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the unbearable being of whiteness
In an earlier post, I shared a resource I use by Tema Okun. People suspicious of phrases like “white supremacist culture” will dismiss it immediately. But even for someone who believes we live in an anti-Black racist society, I struggle with it sometimes. “Really??” I ask myself. “Being on time
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intersectionality in the diaspora
I recently listened to a podcast called Intersectionality in the Diaspora. It’s co-hosted by my friend Clara. The podcast feels like listening in on a conversation between two friends. Clara and her co-host Melo have been friends for several years. They describe themselves as Centro Americanxs raised in Los
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writing my name in lower case started with y’all
Whenever I can help it, I write my name using only lowercase letters. I’ve done this since college at least. I’ve always signed my emails that way. “Proper” nouns in general feel snooty. Sentence case is fine. I guess. I remember starting to use y’all around the
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the cultural legacies of our elders
My achchi passed away last weekend at 87 years old. She and I were 50 years and a couple weeks apart. Mourning a loved one in the age of coronavirus gives me a sense of how it must have felt before planes or trains existed. That said, I was lucky
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the R in SARS
I started my career in public health. In school I wanted to be a doctor, but I hated memorization and preferred working to studying. My first public health job was in disease intervention. I spent my days tracking down people exposed to HIV and syphilis. At the health department, I
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boom times
“Everyone thinks they live in a boom time,” I turned the words over and over in my mind like I was polishing them for something. I was looking for hope within them and kept finding none, but I couldn’t stop. I’m standing in one of the three different
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radical innovations
radical innovations is a place where i can envision and refine new ways for people to work in systems together. devil’s advocacy is not welcome here. we must work together to take radical approaches out of theory and into practice. we want to do more than envision a new
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