Un Tipo Diferente De Mujer (A Different Kind of Woman)
was a feminist before the word existed in my vocabulary. I was a strong-willed child, and a tomboy, insistent that I was just as strong and capable as the boys in my neighborhood. My family moved every few years from one midwestern town to another. I was an outgoing child, if a bit awkward, and never had trouble making friends. It never occurred to me that my mother was the only brown woman in the homogeny of white suburbia. While the other children brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches …Read More.
Juneteenth: An Overdue Acknowledgment, But Not Enough
Juneteenth. The day commemorating the moment in 1865 when news of emancipation reached the people who were enslaved in Galveston, Texas. This week, Juneteenth National Independence Day became an official federal holiday. Can you remember the first time you heard of Juneteenth? I can. I was 20-years-old. For nearly two decades, I, a Millennial Black woman, had never heard of this momentous time of our history.Read More.
Existing in the In-Between
Most of my friends have a small Midwest town they’re connected to. There’s usually a Main Street, where buildings don’t go over two stories tall, and yourlast name says a lot about you. I have one of these towns—Lake Mills, Iowa—home of Gordon and Joyce Kilen, my grandparents. But when I walk into my grandpa’s favorite diner, I don’t feel like one of the beloved Kilen’s granddaughters. Foremost, I feel like the first Asian most of the people staring at me have ever seen in rea…Read More.