Colonize This!: Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism by Daisy Hernández, Bushra Rehman Read Free Book Online Page A

should charge them for my services. If it were not for him, I would not be committed to a life of activism. I see his true colors, and I am glad he is my father. I do not wish to change what I cannot, my father or the past. Yet, I choose not to speak to him. He is too sad and pathetic to know how to love. To him love is something to manipulate. And my love is far too precious to be treated in such a manner. I know that to continue speaking with him only hurts me. So I must keep severed ties with this man that I still call daddy. I have hope for my mother. After twenty-one years she has signed divorce papers. She was ready—her three children out of high school, her sacrifice complete. I, like her, have been waiting for her freedom for some time now. And at last it will soon be here.
     
    It was my father who instilled the basic principles of feminism in me, but it was feminism that taught me who I was as a womon. During my high-school years I felt isolated from my peers. They seemed shallow, spoiled and sheltered. I was uninterested in their idea of weekend fun, of football games, and catering to the needs of rich white boys. I found no relief in the alternateen scene; skipping school to do drugs and secretly wishing to be “popular” bored me. Instead, I opted to be the outcast. I wanted to analyze the culture that maintained my middle-class white neighborhood. I wanted to know why their system seemed to be so afraid of me. Of why when I questioned something, my new name became dyke or bitch. I made the decision to confront every homophobic, racist or sexist word I heard. Sometimes it seemed like I never got a chance to shut up. When I wasn’t challenging my peers and teachers, I spent my time reading. I read all the feminist literature I could get my hands on. They gave me the support I needed. They made me feel less alone. They made me proud to call myself a feminist and queer. Those books taught me more than my school ever could.
    I appreciate the outlet those books created for me. Although they gave me something to identify with, they never gave me anything to identify with as a Latina. I remember reading Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation and being angry that the book contained only one Latina contributor, who I was only able to tell was Latina, not by what she had written but by her Spanish surname. I felt the book had represented many other minority groups well, but I felt invisible. I find it frustrating that when most books mention womyn of color, that “color” and “gender” are presented as something separate. I am not just a womon or just a person of color—I am a womon of color.
    In the past year a new part of myself has awoken, my history. And I don’t know how to say it or what to do with it. I have lived my whole life until now away from reality. I am based on my father’s superiority complex. I stand here before you because of racism. I look into the mirror and wonder, who am I? What does being based on white superiority make me? This is a question that I will have to answer, and I know there is no easy answer. I am mixed. I am the colonizer and the colonized, the exploiter and the exploited. I am confused yet sure. I am a contradiction.
     
    This is for my beautiful mother

Organizing 101
     
    A Mixed-Race Feminist in Movements for Social Justice
     
    Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz
     
     
     
     
     
    I have vivid memories of celebrating the holidays with my maternal grandparents. My Jido and Sito (“grandfather” and “grandmother,” respectively in Arabic), who were raised as Muslim Arabs, celebrated Christmas rather than Ramadan. Every year, my Sito set up her Christmas tree in front of a huge bay window in their living room. It was important to her that the neighbors could see the tree from the street. Yet on Christmas day Arabic was spoken in the house, Arabic music was played, Arabic food was served and a hot and heavy poker game was always the main activity. Early on, I learned