More than 700 unmarked graves found at a former residential school in Canada A headline that is horrifying, but not entirely surprising if you know much about the history of the residential boarding school program. Designed to “civilize” indigenous people through education, the residential schools were a way of killing a culture rather than continuing … Continue reading
I wrote this book review on January 4th. I like to work a week ahead when I can. I did not know that on January 6th there would be a violent, white supremacist insurrection at the Capitol. So, I want to leave intact my thoughts from before, but add something as well. America is not … Continue reading
When I saw The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World by Tim Marshall lurking in my paused holds at the library, I thought it couldn’t be more timely and snapped it up. In the book, foreign affairs expert Tim Marshall examines border walls (a term he uses broadly to also include fences … Continue reading
Timeline of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Law I’m going to skip over about 100 years. Before 1868, there were a few changes made, but for the most part to be a citizen you had to be a white man. Women were citizens too, but their citizenship was coupled to their husband’s and they couldn’t vote. … Continue reading
American cultural citizenship is a big part of my rationale. Huge. I have two clusters of theory on my reading list dealing with defining nation and citizenship. Not all are covered in these notes, but most are. I’m delaying a couple because one fits nicely with my transnational feminism list and the other is hard … Continue reading
Here she is, Miss America! So last night, Miss America was crowned, the first of Indian descent–Nina Davuluri. Unless we’re talking Little Miss Sunshine, pageants aren’t really my thing. I had a moment of “Yay!” and didn’t give it a second thought until I saw that the idiot mob that is the internet expressed its … Continue reading
Last night was the much anticipated (for me, at least) premiere of The Bridge, the new FX drama about homicide detectives on the border between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. As I wrote earlier, I was curious and nervous about the prospect of a TV show dealing with the staggering number of murders committed … Continue reading
This week my brilliant friend Megan and I submitted a draft of our essay on Veronica Mars and feminism to our editors. (Yay!) As we were brainstorming and planning our paper, I kept coming back to the relationship between fictional Neptune, California and the U.S.-Mexico border. Clearly, I had the border on my mind after … Continue reading
Tomorrow, bright and early, I’m headed to Cleveland for the Latina Feminisms Roundtable with my classmate Rachel and our professor Julie. It is going to be an intense, informative, and exciting experience. Each paper is given 40 minutes, 25 for reading and 15 for questions, so it’s a longer format and more focused attention on … Continue reading
“Our daughters’ daughters will adore us, and they’ll sing in grateful chorus, ‘Well done, Sister Suffragette!’” So, tomorrow marks an election in which women’s issues are at the forefront (lets’ not forget that they are also economic issues, and issues about the voice and the safety of half of our democracy). No matter who you … Continue reading
Ph.D.s and Pigtails 