Two years ago, my mother lured me to a dinner party hosted by one of her friends from KC Jewish Singles with vague promises of free food and good company. At the time, Borat had just been released and my mother's friends, who don't exactly follow real current events, soon found themselves in a heated debate about all of the supposed anti-Semitism contained in the movie.
This, of course, is a problem that all good satirists eventually encounter. Satire can only capture our imagination and temporarily fool our sense of reason by quietly bypassing our mental checkpoints and masquerading as "the real thing" while planting seeds of doubt along the way. Minutes or even hours after the movie has been seen and the article has been read, it is up to us, the reader and the viewer, to have an "aha" moment and discover the real message under all the slapstick vulgarity. Good satire, then, is a shared experience created as much by the reader/viewer as by the artist/comedian.
The nature of the relationship between the reader/viewer and the artist makes satire a far more intellectual experience than any other form of comedy. For this reason, satire acts like a slow-release capsule that may not deliver an immediate punch but that certainly leaves a lasting impression. Margarte Cho's stand-up routines, for example, help me think through the Korean-American experience but often leave me as fleetingly as they came when the routine ends. Articles or clips from The Onion, on the other hand, stay with me for years. This article about Hamas supposedly convening a major summit with all Israelis, for example, brilliantly intertwines the current situation in the Middle East with the historical legacy of the Holocaust (a difficult feat, no doubt). After reading the "Hamas" article, I found myself thinking about the role of collective guilt in American foreign policy and Iran's complicated stance toward the state of Israel for hours.
However, when I tried to explain that Borat was Cohen's attempt to critique deep-seated anti-Semetism in a way that would provoke thought and discussion, my mother's acquantance threw an aggitated glare my way. Clearly, the only "shared experience" this woman wanted to create involved the dinner table petitioning me to shut up.
Much to my surprise, however, this woman turned out to be right. Borat was an offensive film, but certainly not in the way that she had invisioned. In the course of carefully planning and executing scenes that brilliantly provoked and prodded our most base assumptions about Jews, Cohen may have inadvertantly (although probably advertantly) exploited another group: the Roma.
The grand irony in all of this is that Borat was supposed to make us think and learn about anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Long committed to the equality of all people and religions on paper, the Soviet Union turned out to be one of the most anti-Semitic empires of the 20th century (if Bruno is in fact the second greatest Austrian of the 20th century, than the Soviet Union is perhaps the second most anti-Semitic state during that same time period). When the Soviet Union dissolved, Jews believed that they were being scapegoated by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, and seventy years of pent-up anti-Semitism sent millions of Jewish regufees fleeing to Israel and the United States.
As one of the many Jewish transplants from Ukraine, I find myself particularly interested in minority relations throughout the former USSR. Last summer, I travelled to Ukraine and interviewed impoverished members of the Romani community in order to gain a better sense of why the Roma, persecuted during the Holocaust like the Jews, have failed thrive in a post-World War II environment that sympathizes with (and pehraps pities) those targeted by the Third Reich (though certainly less so now than in the 1950's). I left Ukraine with no real answers, and no real clues.
I was, however, struck by the hostility that many Roma harbor towards the Jewish people. One activist, for example, believes that Jews siphoned Holocaust reparation money intended for Roma victims. Others insist that the Jews are degenerate and have infiltrated the Verkhovna Rada's hardline nationalist faction. Any initial assumptions that I had about mutual solidarity between these two groups of people were quickly shattered by bitter racism on both sides.
Nearly two years after watching Borat and laughing at allegedly uneducated "Kazakh" villagers, I watched the mockumentary once more last Octorber and realized, much to my horror, that the Kazakh villagers (who, by the way, are technically a Turkic people) were in fact Roma ("gypsies"). Like Ukrainian Roma, these individuals live on the margins of society. While their shamshackle houses may be amusing to a Western audience, inside those homes Romani women suffer severe domestic abuse at the hands of their husbands, and almost every Romani community is faced with rampant tuberculosis, severe water sanitation problems, hunger, environmental injustice and a littany of other hardships.
Why Cohen would exploit the Roma in this manner is beyond me, particularly because the Roma were never identified as such. Anti-Semitism in the movie is only "funny" because it serves a purpose in the plotline; the exploitation of the Roma, on the other hand, is far more sinister. Instead of fbeing incorporated into the storyline, the Roma are shoved under the table and hidden from view.
Knowing all of this, and having spoken to dozens of Roma, I felt guilty for going into a movie theater last week and gleefully watching Bruno. My moral qualms not only involved the knowledge that I was financially supporting a man who had played an awful trick on the Roma but also hinged on the fear that he might exploit someone else in a manner that served no larger purpose. With reports surfacing that the alleged terrorist in the Bruno film is actually a former terrorist who now promots nonviolence, these fears may be coming to fruition.
With a reformed Palestinian terrorist and a village full of Roma humiliated on film, Cohen walks a fine line when it comes to groups who traditionally have shaky relations with Jews. And, in the end, this might be part of Cohen's larger plan. For the time being, however, it seems that Cohen's message on film and his behavior in "real life" conflict in ways that promote negative stereotypes of Jews. This is, unfortunately, something that we have become accustomed to. Now, as always, the joke is on us.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
My First Russian Bathhouse
While my cousin and I were in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of New York, we decided to visit his temperamental alcoholic of an uncle, Dadya Tsalik. Although we weighed the pros of free vodka against the cons of near-certain racist rantings, the pros ultimately seemed to outweigh the cons (by a slim margin).
Eugene had made arrangements for Tsalick to pick us up, and when Tsalik's red van came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street we quickly scrambled into the car. Eugene's uncle, like most Eastern Europeans, was vehemently opposed to the very idea of a seat belt. The entire back seat had some sort of a covering on it that made it impossible to reach the belt buckle, almost as if to dare someone to follow the law and buckle up. Just like most things that are in any way beneficial to one's health or safety, the seat belt is universally reviled in the former Soviet-Union.
As we drove through Brighton Beach, Tsalik broke out into a rant about minorities not working very hard but receiving government money, food stamps and welfare. In typical Soviet fashion, Tsalik seemed to miss the grand irony that most Soviet citizens, including himself, spent their lives doing just that - living off of the government and pretending to work.
After the customary rant, Tsalik pulled into the parking lost of something called the "Mermaid Spa" and we got down to business.
"We're going to a Russian bathhouse (banya)," Tsalik announced. "Here," he threw a bag my way, "Eugene told me you didn't bring a bathing suit, so I brought you my wife's."
Alarm bells went off in my head, and I threw Genya a panicked glance. When I peaked into the bag, I realized that the cup size of the bikini top was at least a Double D. Worse yet, I couldn't know what kind of a women this was. The only thing I wanted to share with Tsalik and his wife was our heritage, not STD's.
This, of course, was a miracle in disguise. The obvious difference in size had given me a convenient excuse, and all I needed to do now was inform this angry Russian that his ederly wife's bathing suit didn't fit.
As I hopped out of the van, I noticed Tsalik waddling toward me and was momentarily speechless. This guy had to be less than 5 feet tall, and, better yet, he was wearing a gold chain with a dangling א around his neck. Stunned, I clutched Tsalik's-wife's terrifyingly large bathing suit and followed my angry little uncle into the Russian bathhouse.
Once inside, I ducked into the ladies room and waited until I heard my uncle and cousin disappear into the men's room. As soon as they were gone, I went into the lobby and begged the kindly bathhouse attendant to loan me a smaller bathing suit.
"Look at this!" I gawked at the bikini top. "I could wear this as a hat!"
"We used to have a bathing suit that someone left but we threw it away," the attendant told me sympathetically. "Perhaps you could paritsa (sweat in the sauna) with your clothes on?"
Great, I thought, as I looked down at my Sonic Youth t-shirt and other hipster attire. Kim Gordon and I at the mafioso Russian bathhouse.
When I walked into the common pool area, I was the only person still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"What's wrong - why aren't you in your bathing suit?" Tsalik asked, as he waddled toward me in a small brown speedo, a pointy brown hat, and his gold chain.
"Well, the bathing suit doesn't really fit..." I began.
"Huh?" He stumbled. "Well...is it too big or too small?"
Was he senile or just stupid? I wondered.
"It's too large, but thank you again for trying to get me a bathing suit," I answered.
"Well, that's no problem!" He quacked. "We can just tie it up in the back with a rubber band!"
Neither senile nor stupid, I realized, but certainly a pervert.
"I'll just sit here in the pool area and relax," I told Tsalik.
As Tsalik waddled off grumbling something about how he had already paid for me, I sat down in a pool chair and looked around the bathhouse. The common area was filled with stern-faced Russian men and their attractive young wives. Several men appeared to be negotiating "business deals."
Since Tsalik had already paid for me, however, Eastern European and Jewish custom ultimately dictated that I was obliged to paritsa, bathing suit or no bathing suit, life or death. Wasting money was the cardinal sin of our people - I might as well have killed his first-born on the spot.
As I entered the sauna room in my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers, Tsalik waived some sort of a broom at me. I found out later that the broom was made of oak and that a Russian's idea spa relaxation involved being beaten and whipped with such a broom. Like so many other forms of Rssian "relaxation" and "recreation," this certainly helped to explain how a people endured 70 years of totalitarian rule.
Tsalik's friend Azod laid himself down on the third tier of the sauna room and received a series of harsh blows from the oak-leaf broom. As Tsalik beat Azod's back with the broom, Azod emitted a series of happy groans. I closed my eyes and absorbed the smell of (was it mint?) as the groans continued.
"It opens up your pores properly!" I heard Tsalik exclaim.
After sitting in the sauna for an ungodly five minutes (Russian sauna rooms are calibrated to operate at higher temperatures), we exited the sauna and I watched as Azod happily threw himself into a pool of icy water (there was a special tube that fed ice cubes into the water every few minutes). Then we all went outside, then back into the sauna, then to the icy pool, and repeated the ritual a grueling six or seven times.
During one of our breaks outside, Tsalik began bragging about the many vacations he took.
"Have you ever been to the Dominican Republic?" He asked.
Why no, but I do vacation next to failing states all the time! The "spend some time in a country bordering a failed state" industry has really skyrocketed in the past few years! (in all seriousness, this might be true for Russia and Eastern Europe since most Western European countries are reluctant to grant Eastern Europeans travel visas).
"No," I replied, "I didn't realize tourists were allowed in-"
"Ah you're missing out," the old man squealed with delight. "You can have whatever you want! A table of food stretching the whole length of the beach - whatever you want! Bread, meat, all sorts of fruits!"
Wow.
"Aren't you the least bit frightened to vacation there, given the situation in the neighboring country?" I asked.
"What, Cuba?" he asked.
"No...Haiti..." I answered incredulously.
"Oh I don't talk about these things - Azod is our expert, ask Azod."
I turned to Azod.
"Aren't you scared of the situation in Haiti?"
"What situation?" he asked skeptically.
"The entire country is just a mess. There was a war of sorts there for a long time."
Azod frowned and ignored my question. "Everything's fine in Cuba."
Uh....
------
After the sauna, Tsalik drove myself and Eugene to his house for spirits and food.
"100 grams a day - it's medicine!" Tsalik had squealed several times throughout the evening.
When we pulled up to Tsalik's house in the (gated) Seagate community, I was greeted by a surprisingly sweet women named Sofia - his wife, and the owner of the now-famous bathing suit. After taking my shoes off, I was quickly herded upstairs and told to take a shower. The bathroom was a typical Nouveau Russian monstrosity with a pink color scheme and a shelf displaying various mismatched souvenirs from around the world. Three track jackets, no doubt belonging to Tsalik, hung on the door.
The living room was similarly Nouveau Russian. Richly colored wallpaper, leather couches, carpets made to look like Siberian tiger furs and a plasma TV perpetually tuned in to RTVN revealed just how little Tsalik and Sofia had assimilated American culture during their 30 years in New York. Genya and I waited as Tsalik set the table and prepared vareniki.
"Marina, come here," Tsalik ordered. "You don't have anything like this, do you?" A bag of frozen vareniki was thrust up to my face. "Actually we do - at the local Russian market..."
"But your frozen vareniki aren't THIS good, are they?"
Slavs have a strange habit of welcoming visitors and then verifying that the visitors don't have this or that in their hometown. Apparently accustomed to entertaining Ukrainians from Odessa, Tsalik expected me to be impressed by the size of his house (my house in Kansas City is four times bigger), his van's keyless ignition (oooooohhhhhhhh American technoogy oooooohhhh) as well as frozen vareniki (which can be found in both Odessa and Kansas City). Lacking the strength to argue, I gave in and pretended to admire his frozen vareniki.
"Prekol'na (very cool)," I remarked dryly.
As we sat down to eat, Sofia asked me where I was from.
"I'm from Kansas City," I replied, pronouncing my hometown slowly and enunciating every syllable.
She looked confused. "Where is that?"
"In the center of the country - right in the center," I replied.
She thought hard for a moment.
"So it's somewhere near Odessa?"
Eugene had made arrangements for Tsalick to pick us up, and when Tsalik's red van came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street we quickly scrambled into the car. Eugene's uncle, like most Eastern Europeans, was vehemently opposed to the very idea of a seat belt. The entire back seat had some sort of a covering on it that made it impossible to reach the belt buckle, almost as if to dare someone to follow the law and buckle up. Just like most things that are in any way beneficial to one's health or safety, the seat belt is universally reviled in the former Soviet-Union.
As we drove through Brighton Beach, Tsalik broke out into a rant about minorities not working very hard but receiving government money, food stamps and welfare. In typical Soviet fashion, Tsalik seemed to miss the grand irony that most Soviet citizens, including himself, spent their lives doing just that - living off of the government and pretending to work.
After the customary rant, Tsalik pulled into the parking lost of something called the "Mermaid Spa" and we got down to business.
"We're going to a Russian bathhouse (banya)," Tsalik announced. "Here," he threw a bag my way, "Eugene told me you didn't bring a bathing suit, so I brought you my wife's."
Alarm bells went off in my head, and I threw Genya a panicked glance. When I peaked into the bag, I realized that the cup size of the bikini top was at least a Double D. Worse yet, I couldn't know what kind of a women this was. The only thing I wanted to share with Tsalik and his wife was our heritage, not STD's.
This, of course, was a miracle in disguise. The obvious difference in size had given me a convenient excuse, and all I needed to do now was inform this angry Russian that his ederly wife's bathing suit didn't fit.
As I hopped out of the van, I noticed Tsalik waddling toward me and was momentarily speechless. This guy had to be less than 5 feet tall, and, better yet, he was wearing a gold chain with a dangling א around his neck. Stunned, I clutched Tsalik's-wife's terrifyingly large bathing suit and followed my angry little uncle into the Russian bathhouse.
Once inside, I ducked into the ladies room and waited until I heard my uncle and cousin disappear into the men's room. As soon as they were gone, I went into the lobby and begged the kindly bathhouse attendant to loan me a smaller bathing suit.
"Look at this!" I gawked at the bikini top. "I could wear this as a hat!"
"We used to have a bathing suit that someone left but we threw it away," the attendant told me sympathetically. "Perhaps you could paritsa (sweat in the sauna) with your clothes on?"
Great, I thought, as I looked down at my Sonic Youth t-shirt and other hipster attire. Kim Gordon and I at the mafioso Russian bathhouse.
When I walked into the common pool area, I was the only person still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
"What's wrong - why aren't you in your bathing suit?" Tsalik asked, as he waddled toward me in a small brown speedo, a pointy brown hat, and his gold chain.
"Well, the bathing suit doesn't really fit..." I began.
"Huh?" He stumbled. "Well...is it too big or too small?"
Was he senile or just stupid? I wondered.
"It's too large, but thank you again for trying to get me a bathing suit," I answered.
"Well, that's no problem!" He quacked. "We can just tie it up in the back with a rubber band!"
Neither senile nor stupid, I realized, but certainly a pervert.
"I'll just sit here in the pool area and relax," I told Tsalik.
As Tsalik waddled off grumbling something about how he had already paid for me, I sat down in a pool chair and looked around the bathhouse. The common area was filled with stern-faced Russian men and their attractive young wives. Several men appeared to be negotiating "business deals."
Since Tsalik had already paid for me, however, Eastern European and Jewish custom ultimately dictated that I was obliged to paritsa, bathing suit or no bathing suit, life or death. Wasting money was the cardinal sin of our people - I might as well have killed his first-born on the spot.
As I entered the sauna room in my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers, Tsalik waived some sort of a broom at me. I found out later that the broom was made of oak and that a Russian's idea spa relaxation involved being beaten and whipped with such a broom. Like so many other forms of Rssian "relaxation" and "recreation," this certainly helped to explain how a people endured 70 years of totalitarian rule.
Tsalik's friend Azod laid himself down on the third tier of the sauna room and received a series of harsh blows from the oak-leaf broom. As Tsalik beat Azod's back with the broom, Azod emitted a series of happy groans. I closed my eyes and absorbed the smell of (was it mint?) as the groans continued.
"It opens up your pores properly!" I heard Tsalik exclaim.
After sitting in the sauna for an ungodly five minutes (Russian sauna rooms are calibrated to operate at higher temperatures), we exited the sauna and I watched as Azod happily threw himself into a pool of icy water (there was a special tube that fed ice cubes into the water every few minutes). Then we all went outside, then back into the sauna, then to the icy pool, and repeated the ritual a grueling six or seven times.
During one of our breaks outside, Tsalik began bragging about the many vacations he took.
"Have you ever been to the Dominican Republic?" He asked.
Why no, but I do vacation next to failing states all the time! The "spend some time in a country bordering a failed state" industry has really skyrocketed in the past few years! (in all seriousness, this might be true for Russia and Eastern Europe since most Western European countries are reluctant to grant Eastern Europeans travel visas).
"No," I replied, "I didn't realize tourists were allowed in-"
"Ah you're missing out," the old man squealed with delight. "You can have whatever you want! A table of food stretching the whole length of the beach - whatever you want! Bread, meat, all sorts of fruits!"
Wow.
"Aren't you the least bit frightened to vacation there, given the situation in the neighboring country?" I asked.
"What, Cuba?" he asked.
"No...Haiti..." I answered incredulously.
"Oh I don't talk about these things - Azod is our expert, ask Azod."
I turned to Azod.
"Aren't you scared of the situation in Haiti?"
"What situation?" he asked skeptically.
"The entire country is just a mess. There was a war of sorts there for a long time."
Azod frowned and ignored my question. "Everything's fine in Cuba."
Uh....
------
After the sauna, Tsalik drove myself and Eugene to his house for spirits and food.
"100 grams a day - it's medicine!" Tsalik had squealed several times throughout the evening.
When we pulled up to Tsalik's house in the (gated) Seagate community, I was greeted by a surprisingly sweet women named Sofia - his wife, and the owner of the now-famous bathing suit. After taking my shoes off, I was quickly herded upstairs and told to take a shower. The bathroom was a typical Nouveau Russian monstrosity with a pink color scheme and a shelf displaying various mismatched souvenirs from around the world. Three track jackets, no doubt belonging to Tsalik, hung on the door.
The living room was similarly Nouveau Russian. Richly colored wallpaper, leather couches, carpets made to look like Siberian tiger furs and a plasma TV perpetually tuned in to RTVN revealed just how little Tsalik and Sofia had assimilated American culture during their 30 years in New York. Genya and I waited as Tsalik set the table and prepared vareniki.
"Marina, come here," Tsalik ordered. "You don't have anything like this, do you?" A bag of frozen vareniki was thrust up to my face. "Actually we do - at the local Russian market..."
"But your frozen vareniki aren't THIS good, are they?"
Slavs have a strange habit of welcoming visitors and then verifying that the visitors don't have this or that in their hometown. Apparently accustomed to entertaining Ukrainians from Odessa, Tsalik expected me to be impressed by the size of his house (my house in Kansas City is four times bigger), his van's keyless ignition (oooooohhhhhhhh American technoogy oooooohhhh) as well as frozen vareniki (which can be found in both Odessa and Kansas City). Lacking the strength to argue, I gave in and pretended to admire his frozen vareniki.
"Prekol'na (very cool)," I remarked dryly.
As we sat down to eat, Sofia asked me where I was from.
"I'm from Kansas City," I replied, pronouncing my hometown slowly and enunciating every syllable.
She looked confused. "Where is that?"
"In the center of the country - right in the center," I replied.
She thought hard for a moment.
"So it's somewhere near Odessa?"
Russians and Accents
During a recent trip to New York, I ventured over to Brighton Beach with my cousin Eugene in order to explore what I believe is the largest Russian community in the United States. Long hours spent at my grandparents' house watching Russian TV on full blast had convinced me that Brighton Beach was more Russian than Russia itself. Plus, I wanted a bulatchka s makam.
Near the King Ave stop, Eugene warned me that we would soon be surrounded by Slavs. Sure enough, sour-faced Soviet women began to appear in their knock-off D and G sunglasses at around the same time that young men sporting the "Slavic rat tail" began to get on the train. I've always been able to spot a fellow ex-Soviet on the spot (even non-Slavic Central Asians), but these Russians were unbelievable. Most of them looked as though they had just flown in from Boryspol.
The fact that Brighton Beach residents have managed to maintain their Russian identity so stringently is unique among Russian communities throughout the United States. I've noticed that even second-generation Russians who were BORN in New York still speak English with a Russian accent. In Kansas, on the other hand, first-generation immigrants who came to the US as children (such as myself) speak English with no hint of a Russian accent. The disparity in levels of assimilation is staggering (well, to me, at least).
Before, I used to think that all first-generation children lost their mother tongue and that this inevitability gave way to an adulthood filled with erroneous declensions and half-rolled R's. In fact, it seems that those who grew up in Brighton Beach have not only retained their ability to speak the Russian language at a highly literate level but also consider it their Mother tongue. They speak English with a mild Russian accent and a heavy New York accent.
Oh, za horra!
Near the King Ave stop, Eugene warned me that we would soon be surrounded by Slavs. Sure enough, sour-faced Soviet women began to appear in their knock-off D and G sunglasses at around the same time that young men sporting the "Slavic rat tail" began to get on the train. I've always been able to spot a fellow ex-Soviet on the spot (even non-Slavic Central Asians), but these Russians were unbelievable. Most of them looked as though they had just flown in from Boryspol.
The fact that Brighton Beach residents have managed to maintain their Russian identity so stringently is unique among Russian communities throughout the United States. I've noticed that even second-generation Russians who were BORN in New York still speak English with a Russian accent. In Kansas, on the other hand, first-generation immigrants who came to the US as children (such as myself) speak English with no hint of a Russian accent. The disparity in levels of assimilation is staggering (well, to me, at least).
Before, I used to think that all first-generation children lost their mother tongue and that this inevitability gave way to an adulthood filled with erroneous declensions and half-rolled R's. In fact, it seems that those who grew up in Brighton Beach have not only retained their ability to speak the Russian language at a highly literate level but also consider it their Mother tongue. They speak English with a mild Russian accent and a heavy New York accent.
Oh, za horra!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
New Cities, New Injuries
As is customary with any trip or vacation, I recently came back from New York with a mysterious injury! The resulting limp has me racing about town at the pace of a developmentally-challenged snail.
Today, I was limping from the Federal Building to a decrepit parking lot (where my car patiently awaits burglary every afternoon) when a gentleman who was sitting in front of the Jackson County courthouse noticed my sad little gait.
"Hey baby how you doin?"
"Uh, pretty good," I replied.
"Well if you doin good why you walkin like that?"
"Oh, just some kind of a knee injury," I replied.
"Baby," he intoned, flashing a gold tooth amidst a sea of pearly whites, "I can help you out with that."
Visions of impending doom, aka my medical insurance running out July 31st, flashed before my eyes.
"Oh.....?" I trailed off.
"It's goin' involve some coughin!"
Today, I was limping from the Federal Building to a decrepit parking lot (where my car patiently awaits burglary every afternoon) when a gentleman who was sitting in front of the Jackson County courthouse noticed my sad little gait.
"Hey baby how you doin?"
"Uh, pretty good," I replied.
"Well if you doin good why you walkin like that?"
"Oh, just some kind of a knee injury," I replied.
"Baby," he intoned, flashing a gold tooth amidst a sea of pearly whites, "I can help you out with that."
Visions of impending doom, aka my medical insurance running out July 31st, flashed before my eyes.
"Oh.....?" I trailed off.
"It's goin' involve some coughin!"
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Job Offers Start Pouring In
Well, perhaps not "job" offers per se, but AmeriCorps offers!
Yesterday, I found out that I got the position I've wanted the most. However, I had an interview with one in Minneapolis today and I just loved the staff! And the work will be engaging, I think.
Choices, choices, choices.
Minneapolis or Washington state?
I'll hopefully write something more substantive soon.
Yesterday, I found out that I got the position I've wanted the most. However, I had an interview with one in Minneapolis today and I just loved the staff! And the work will be engaging, I think.
Choices, choices, choices.
Minneapolis or Washington state?
I'll hopefully write something more substantive soon.
Friday, May 29, 2009
A quick hello from the Sunflower state
If there's one thing that absolutely terrifies me about graduating, it's the possibility of somehow turning mushy - intellectually, that is. I miss writing my column in the TD (I have for months), and I feel a general sense of loneliness when I don't write incessantly. Ergo, this blog.
This summer, I was fortunate to find an amazing internship with the Region VII DHHS Office of Minority Health. My boss is phenomenal, and I think I'll learn quite a bit. The other intern has a unique take on some of the social justice issues we deal with at OMH, and I'm already learning a great deal from her. This intern, whom I'll describe in anonymity, comes from a turbulent family, was on the streets at age 13 and has had a myriad of health problems thrown her way (which I personally suspect were the result of prenatal narcotic or alcohol use) . Lately I've been oscillating between crushing depression (over the Fulbright) and a strange sense of post-graduation euphoria (I have a BA!). Speaking to this other intern helps to put things into perspective - I have an amazing family, close friends back home, no student loans, and the growing ability to think critically about issues affecting the world. For all of my frustration and sadness with the post-graduation job hunt, I am, at the end of the day, so very very very fortunate.
On Wednesday, my boss took myself and the other intern (I'll just refer to my boss as Suzy and the other intern as Molly - not their real names) to a meeting on the topic of cultural competency in healthcare. We spent a long time discussing what it means to have cultural competence, and whether or not it's productive to even use the term "competence." Does that imply that I'm open-minded and have reached an "end point" once I learn to recognize and minimize racism and discrimination? Or might it be more productive to frame competence in terms of an ongoing process?
The discussion reminds me of the UN's gender mainstreaming initiative. Since mainstreaming was viewed as a journey with a start and an end, it has now become "sidestreaming" (as one smart woman who's name eludes me so eloquently put it). Despite the UN's best efforts to integrate gender concerns into the heart of the UN's mission, those efforts are now used to argue that gender mainstreaming has been accomplished. Quite the opposite.
In order to avoid the UN's mistake, I think it's important to view cultural competence and the battle against discrimination as ongoing and perhaps unattainable. Some things are always and will always be out of reach, but we should still strive to achieve them.
In other news, the AmeriCorps process is proceeding...haltingly. I'm looking at positions in Washington State, the Twin Cities, and Oregon. I'm not exactly sure how I'll live on 800/month in a place like Washington, but at least the work is meaningful and gives me a chance to research/think. I suppose I would rather be poor than bored.
Off to get a good night's sleep for the mosque tomorrow morning!
This summer, I was fortunate to find an amazing internship with the Region VII DHHS Office of Minority Health. My boss is phenomenal, and I think I'll learn quite a bit. The other intern has a unique take on some of the social justice issues we deal with at OMH, and I'm already learning a great deal from her. This intern, whom I'll describe in anonymity, comes from a turbulent family, was on the streets at age 13 and has had a myriad of health problems thrown her way (which I personally suspect were the result of prenatal narcotic or alcohol use) . Lately I've been oscillating between crushing depression (over the Fulbright) and a strange sense of post-graduation euphoria (I have a BA!). Speaking to this other intern helps to put things into perspective - I have an amazing family, close friends back home, no student loans, and the growing ability to think critically about issues affecting the world. For all of my frustration and sadness with the post-graduation job hunt, I am, at the end of the day, so very very very fortunate.
On Wednesday, my boss took myself and the other intern (I'll just refer to my boss as Suzy and the other intern as Molly - not their real names) to a meeting on the topic of cultural competency in healthcare. We spent a long time discussing what it means to have cultural competence, and whether or not it's productive to even use the term "competence." Does that imply that I'm open-minded and have reached an "end point" once I learn to recognize and minimize racism and discrimination? Or might it be more productive to frame competence in terms of an ongoing process?
The discussion reminds me of the UN's gender mainstreaming initiative. Since mainstreaming was viewed as a journey with a start and an end, it has now become "sidestreaming" (as one smart woman who's name eludes me so eloquently put it). Despite the UN's best efforts to integrate gender concerns into the heart of the UN's mission, those efforts are now used to argue that gender mainstreaming has been accomplished. Quite the opposite.
In order to avoid the UN's mistake, I think it's important to view cultural competence and the battle against discrimination as ongoing and perhaps unattainable. Some things are always and will always be out of reach, but we should still strive to achieve them.
In other news, the AmeriCorps process is proceeding...haltingly. I'm looking at positions in Washington State, the Twin Cities, and Oregon. I'm not exactly sure how I'll live on 800/month in a place like Washington, but at least the work is meaningful and gives me a chance to research/think. I suppose I would rather be poor than bored.
Off to get a good night's sleep for the mosque tomorrow morning!
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