Systems

Something happened this week. There was a conversation about this cupcake protest and someone mentioned to me that if we all would just stop paying attention to race, racism wouldn't even be an issue. That the way to fight the system is to prove to people that we are more than our skin color. Fight the stereotypes, be successful, and then "they'll" like and accept us.
I didn't respond. I'd already told the person we'd just agree to disagree, but that comment? It's been bugging me since because people are still looking at my skin and my name and my sex as if they're bad things, as if they're the opposite of privilege. The thing is that if it's true that ignoring it and doing the "right thing" will prevent this treatment, I'm not sure where I've failed.

I've spent a lot of my life proving people wrong:

Third grade rolls around and they ask me to take a test to show that I speak English. Yeah, I'll do it. Let's ignore the fact that last year I took a test that put me in my elementary school's gifted and talented program; I'll go ahead and prove to you that I have mastered your language.

In middle school, I was in a special program for gifted and talented students and my English teacher told me that I was the smartest minority girl she'd ever taught. Um, what?

High school teachers and counselors steered me away from advanced classes - not in my HS in Germany, just the one in VA. I didn't listen, and took the classes anyway. I was in NHS and German Honor Society. Oh, and I studied German in high school, because my parents weren't going to let me study a language I already knew and spoke and it just made sense.
In my spare time, I get harassed by cops for walking around with my (Latino) friends at a football game and / or attending my (Latino) church youth group.

College. I came in with something like eighteen credits approved. I was part of my school's Honors program. I made dean's list almost every semester after my freshman year and graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.7 or something like that. No "C's get degrees" for me. Oh, and my freshman year a girl flat out tells me, "I don't like you because you're Puerto Rican." Mmmkay... Thanks?
I graduated in five years, but only because I took a year and a half off in the middle: one year to volunteer and a semester to earn some money while working for the federal government.

I worked for three years as a Spanish teacher at a public school. I replied tactfully or shut up when my colleagues and / or superiors made comments about our immigrant students, or the "barrio" by the ESL classrooms (I wish I weren't quoting), or when people told me Puerto Ricans didn't know how to speak. Meanwhile, my Latino students were discouraged from taking advanced courses, being guided, instead to Auto Mechanics and Child Care. Security barged in to accuse one of my kids of vandalizing a bathroom when he'd been in my room the whole time. I saw two of my students being roughed up by cops for walking around in the evening. Oh, and this happened.

I went to grad school, and did really well, surprisingly enough. I cried my way through a Cross Cultural Skills class. I fell in love with a white man. I got stared at - not in a friendly way - when I went to the grocery store in my very white neighborhood. I was pulled over because a cop didn't think I should've been in my neighborhood at night.

I taught in Philly. I was told that "some students" shouldn't be held to the same standards, because, really, when were they ever going to use the information I was teaching them? Seriously?

So what I'm saying is that there's a flaw in this type of logic. I've done the right things. I'm well educated, well traveled, well read. I'm intelligent, middle-class, decently attractive. If I'm following the logic that being successful will make people ignore my skin and my heritage, then I should not be dealing with racism at all. Not ever. Not in my life, not in the lives of the people around me.
And yet, I've been yelled at to leave my own country, I've been told that my language isn't worth learning, I've dealt with the reality of being in a relationship with a white man, and I've been utterly exhausted by the dynamics of oppression.

What I'm saying is, I've played by the rules. I've done it even though it's hurt me and I sometimes wonder why I've had to give in and shut up and go along in order to be successful. Does it sometimes make me feel like I've sold out? Yeah, sometimes. But do I also think that I'm subverting the system in some way? Yeah. Put me in your stereotype box, sucker: I listen to country, salsa, and hip hop on the same playlist. But those rules? Those rules did NOT undo the system. It's going to take a lot more than that for me to, oh, I don't know, be paid the same amount as a white man in the same field.
What I'm saying is that I'm not going to feel guilty for believing that there's a system at play here and that said system goes beyond individual actions and beliefs. It's about the fact that people will react to my last name before they react to my educational background. It's about the fact that even though I have zero plans to have children, possible employers are worried about how soon I'm going to want to be on maternity leave. And I've done what I can, I've fought for myself and I've fought for others and I'll keep fighting.

It still matters. It's still important to note our privileges because we all have them. And you know what else is important? Finding ways to shed those privileges, or to subvert them, at least. And it's important that in the areas where we're at a disadvantage that we push and push and fight. And there will be tears and exhaustion and pain, but it's important. Because the sooner we recognize that there's a deeply flawed system at work, the sooner we can begin to live in opposition to it.

Remembering Ayer

I feel like I've been a different person since we moved to Costa Rica. I feel like I don't really know myself, like I can't trust myself. That's a hard thing. Part of it - most of it - is my self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder; the cold and rain are really getting to me.
Another part is just missing. Missing family and friends, missing hot water, missing the little things....
The rest?
Well, let's just say that I keep a lot of things inside. I keep going. Al mal tiempo, buena cara. Lift your chin, throw your shoulders back, and walk with a confidence you don't feel. It's hard; it's supposed to be hard. Get over it and get on with it.
So this is what I do, day after day, month after month.
This isn't about me. The work isn't for me. So I push this aside and keep going. And today talking to B about this, he makes me wonder if this is the right way to go about it or not. I don't know.
I don't know.

I stumbled across this post - nearly four years old - and remembered how hard that time was. This time is also hard. Really hard. And the poem? It still speaks to me. So here it is again:

Ayer - historia de un vuelo 

Ayer lo vi.
Ayer, domingo, aunque él no lo sabía.
Lo vi con las alas estrechadas
flotando sobre las corrientes de aire que yo
jamás conoceré.
Lo vi y en ese momento,
con el viento fresco de otoño molestándome los ojos,
sentí una nostalgía tan profunda.
Nostalgía casi inapropiada
porque nunca he conocido lo que se siente
allá.
Arriba.
Lejos de todo, de todos, de la gravedad que me mantiene aquí
estancada.
Pero en ese momento, viéndolo flotando
sin mover esas alas enormes,
qué celos me han entrado.
Es lo único que anhelo.
Lo único que anhelé ayer, lo único que sigo anhelando:
flotar
sobre esas mismas corrientes de aire
sentir ese vientecito molestándome los ojos y llorar sin pena sabiendo
que allá nadie me verá.
Nadie me dirá que
sobreviviré.
Que saldré de ésta.
Que puedo encontrar algo - alguien - mejor.
A él nadie le dice eso.
Cuando viene ese viento
a agitarle las lágrimas, él las puede soltar
sin pena alguna.
Qué libertad plena.
Ayer lo vi
y mi alma se encogió, adolorida por el anhelo,
la nostalgía,
los celos.
Lo quise seguir hasta allá
hasta el cielo inmenso, azul y frío
en esta época (noviembre, el mes más solitario de todos),
y volar.
Volar, volar, volar hasta escaparme de su recuerdo,
hasta escaparme de mi debilidad tan obvia y vergonzosa,
hasta escaparme del dolor que me ahoga.
Y mientras volara, lloraría.
¿Lloraría?
¿Al frente de tal libertad?
¿Lloraría?
Quizás no.
No, no.
Solamente me quedaría volar para
poder aprender a respirar
nuevamente,
para aprender a querer nuevamente,
para aprender a ser
igualita a él.
Ayer lo vi.
Y hoy me sostiene ese recuerdo.
Estoy estrechando alas metafóricas,
flotando sobre corrientes que me suben y me bajan.
Sobreviviré.
Eso lo supe desde un principio.
Pero lo que quiero no es sobrevivir, sino
vivir.
Vivir en una libertad plena.
Respirando profundamente del aire que me sostiene
sin importarme lo que me digan.
Si me toma meses de supervivencia para
que llegue la vida, que así sea.
Días, meses, años
- ay, Diosito mío, que no sean años -
de supervivencia, esperaré.
Porque estas alas algún día me
llevarán lejos de aquí.
Flotaré.
Escaparé.
Viviré.
Como lo anhelé ayer.

Tired

I'm tired. I'm tired of not having my own space, of working the proverbial double shift, of having no way to go anywhere. I'm tired of the isolation. Tired of not having a tv. Tired of running things. Tired of the never ending to do list. Tired of translating. Tired of budgeting. Tired of planning every moment of every day. Tired of joint decision making. Tired, tired, tired.

And it sounds like I'm whining, and I am. But I've been fighting this for a long time, and today, today it all caught up with me, and it's just too much. I need a break. Desperately, urgently, hopelessly need a break. And the reason it's rubbing me raw right now, is because I just don't see that break coming any time soon.

I need a moment alone. A moment - or several - alone with my husband. A day or two or seven in the city or on the beach. I need a full weekend. I need some time to just sit and be lazy. I need to not cook twice a day for a little while. I need to breathe. I need space to just sit down and have a good cry just to let something out, not because I'm actually sad.

I am tired.

I'm not on vacation

It's been a while, yes? Yes. Things have been busy, life's been crazy.

We've moved. That's the first thing. We left Philly (happy dance for me!) and moved to Costa Rica. We're working with ADE in a really rural area of the Costa Rican mountainside, safely off the beaten tourist paths. Not that we don't have any tourists, just that we don't have many, not for a country whose economy revolves around tourism.

And therein lies my issue today. When people think of Costa Rica, they think of sun drenched beaches, frosty drinks, bright sun, and tourists. And they think I'm here on vacation, which, you know, I'm not. I'm working. I work anywhere from eight to thirteen hour days, six days a week. It's coldish where we live, getting down to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and up to 75 degrees on bright, sunny days. Oh, and this used to be rain forest, so it rains. A lot. Torrential downpours of Biblical proportions. And that's all well and good, because that's what I signed up for. But sometimes I miss things from home. Cheese, for one. Or dark chocolate. Or the convenience of having a steady income. Or even just the ability to find a variety of things at a grocery store or, luxury of luxuries, restaurants that serve food from all over the world.

It's the little things.

Yes, there's running water, electricity, hot water in the shower, but sometimes I miss a little luxury. And when I say I miss something, people are all like, "But don't you live in a tropical paradise where every day is a sunny vacation with umbrellas in your drink? Be grateful that you live in one of our most popular tourist destinations."

Right. I am grateful because this is an amazing experience and it's doing wonders for my faith. You don't realize how big God is until you start expecting Him to be that BIG.

But let's get one thing straight: I'm not on vacation. I don't live on the beach, no one puts umbrellas in my water glass, and even if I do live in a country that gets a ton of tourism, I can't afford to check most of it out. I am not here to be a tourist. I am here to get up at the crack of dawn, teach all morning, come home, make lunch, and do administrative, organizational work until late in the evening. And then, when y'all are lazing around on Saturdays, I'm working some more. Again, it's what I signed up for, and I'm gaining some great experience, so I'm not writing this to complain about my work. What I want people to know is that I have not been here relaxing. This is my job. My day-in-day-out job that just happens to have dramatic volcanic backdrops.

The reality is this: I'm living in an area that is in recovery. It's been two years since the earthquake and the roads are still a rutted mess, the local clinic will see only thirty people once a month, this is only the second year that the local high school has been in existence. There's a lot of work to do, good work, fun work, important work, but it's still work. Life is different here. And because things are different, I'm allowed to miss some of what I had in the States. A car, for example, or security. Or just plain convenience.

Because I'm not on vacation every day of my life here, and sometimes, I'd like to be.