I think I would have become an academic if I didn’t drop out of college at age 19 to have my daughter. But if I didn’t drop out of my very white New England Liberal Arts college I wouldn’t have been exposed to, get close to and have the divine ancestral privilege of working with scholars who really exemplify community-radical-real - activist ( I will not allow fascism to make that into a dirty word) Black and Latinx scholars. If I hadn’t dropped out and felt so damn lonely as a single NYRican mama I wouldn’t have turned to the digital sphere that was having a moment and that allowed me to have many moments. In reading and interacting with scholars and practitioners who know theory and praxis HAVE TO coexist , I have hope that I too can still be a scholar and that we will survive this moment.
I was on a panel last week at the Luskin Summit at UCLA talking about immigrant workers and the January 2025 fires - the actual fires that burned across historically Black neighborhoods and wealthy enclaves . Inevitably there was a question I have been asked often at the various round tables and interviews I have participated in since January - the political fires.
I reference two books- they are like a codex to me right now as a diasporic Caribbean woman : Aftershocks of Disaster and Hell Under Gods Orders. I “knew” Marisol LeBrón through the blogosphere back in the day and I was introduced to Gloria Joseph through Alexis Pauline Gumbs. These books are critical reminders of how connected climate accelerated disaster response is to colonialism.
I also remind whomever will listen - myself included - that we know how to fight, we know how to survive - that our presence /my presence is proof of that. For example, the United States literally and actually tried to make sure that my ancestors wouldn’t have any more babies - my mother could not have been born, forced to migrate with her Titis to New York and I wouldn’t be here. And we can keep going back and should keep going back to remind ourselves of that.
I write this with tears in my eyes. My younger child just committed to the university she will be going to and I’m scared about what I am sending her off into. I am going through all the motions that my own single mother did with me - the paperwork, the checklists. I am not scared about her leaving the nest in terms of her being able to handle herself. I raised two very capable women from infancy - of that I am certain - but have you seen it out there?
This back and forth between genetically driven survival and the daily , no, nearly hour by hour grinding away of rights is taking its toll on me mentally and physically. I have had a grueling month or so of travel and meetings and conferences and panels and chasing ICE and police and Home Depot security guards who wanna play ICE agent/police. I think thats why I am writing this with tears in my eyes as well. I am genuinely worried for my mind and body. In the last two months I have contracted COVID and Norovirus and my psychiatrist, when I met with her for annual check to keep the Zoloft flowing said I was showing signs of depression and wondered aloud why. I laughed a little and reminded her of my life/work. She prescribed self-care including mindfulness. I didn’t laugh.
But I am balancing that while worrying about our collective minds and bodies which are being disappeared daily through a number of extrajudicial means - extra as in beyond the scope of written and interpreted law but also extra as in the ultimate practice/targeting of the original intentions of laws within a USAian context.
But today is also the start of Taurus season - my sun, my mother’s sun, my sister’s sun (yes it was a household full of fights over who was right). So I have lit candles, prayed that today I can keep toast and white rice down, and returned here because honestly what other choice is there.
Thank you for continuing to read.
