Friday, June 26, 2020

Isolation is the New Norm


The sun is rising, the rugosas are in full bloom and the raspberries need picking. So begins this beautiful summer day. 
The Ex-Mexican Wives Club is a memoir exploring my years working as an undocumented teacher in Mexico City in the early 1980s and reconnecting with the women I knew during that turbulent time It was released late last year. The holidays passed, and I did two wonderful readings in February, one at Third Place Books Ravenna and other at the Issaquah Library. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of all other planned events.

My events calendar is now empty but for two memoir writing workshops scheduled for September and October. Will those events meet the same end? Some libraries are beginning to reopen for limited loans and returns. If they move forward with events, will I feel ready to teach face-to-face, to be in public?

Seattle, like other cities around the country, is beginning to reopen, but I have yet to get a haircut since winter break. I find wearing a mask annoying, even in the grocery store, so I limit contact with others as much as possible. After all, I have a new grandson to protect.

I stare at my flowers, think about picking raspberries, and sip my morning coffee. I scratch items from my summer calendar, plug in earbuds to listen to The New Jim Crow, and embrace my isolation.

How are you filling your summer hours? If you’re looking for a unique read, you might enjoy The Ex-Mexican Wives Club. If you like it, please tell your friends, and as always,  I'm grateful for your reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. 

Monday, June 22, 2020

Does She Know What She’s Saying?


Two blond pre-teens cycle up the long incline of my West Seattle street. Doors and windows open to the late spring sun, I hear their laughter and chatter from the dining table where I work. I see them through my large front window.

“I can’t breathe” one hollers to the other. Laughter cascades down the street.

Does she know what she is saying? Do they understand the agony of those words, the pain they cause others as they waft through open windows?

I want to scream at them. I want to race after them, stop them, sit them down for a 400-year history lesson on systematic racism. But they are gone before I wipe my tears.

I have not been writing. The past four months have been a time of stress and struggle and surreal joy. I am a grandmother; my baby is a mother.

My daughter and her husband adhere to strict COVID-19 protocols and remain closed into their hospital room on Capitol Hill for the two-night hospital stay. They watch as protesters march to the East Precinct and chants of “Black Lives Matter” float from the street five floors below.

During the worst world-wide pandemic since the Spanish Flu and the most significant social upheaval in our nation since the Civil War, my grandson is born. This tiny innocent enters the world as a privileged white boy by no choice of his own.
I begin adding antiracist children’s books to my summer reading list. The list grows as I collect titles to educate myself in a struggle to convert a lifetime of white guilt and empathy into antiracist understanding and action.

Perhaps I could find antiracist books for pre-teens, books to put in the Free Neighborhood Libraries that seem to dot every other block of my middle-class neighborhood. Would the girls on the bicycles read them? Would their parents?

As the academic year closes, as my first quarter of online teaching comes to an end, I embrace the freedom to read and think. I look forward to long walks, long bike rides, and long hours watching my grandson grow. And yes, maybe I’ll squeeze in some writing, too.

This is a long summer reading list, and it's likely I won't get through all of it, but I intend to do my best. In no particular order, here goes:

So You Want to Talk About Race – Ijeoma Oluo
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness – Michelle Alexander
Heavy – Kiese Laymon
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
 - Ibram X. Kendi
How to be an Anti-Racist – Ibram X. Kendi
They Can’t Kill Us All – Wesley Lowery
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies – Resimaa Menakem
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood – Dani McClain
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism – Robin Deangelo
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America – Jennifer Harvey
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
Me & White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor - Layla F. Saad
The Truth About White People - Lola E. Peters

Just Mercy: A True Story of the Fight for Justice (adapted for young adults) - Bryan Stevenson
Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness – Anastasia Higginbotham
Let’s Talk About Race – Julius Lester
A is for Activist – Innosanto Nagara

For help compiling this list, my thanks to PegasusBook Exchange, “13 Books You Should Read About Black Lives” as well as the recommendations of colleagues and friends.

If you have other titles to suggest, please share either in the comment box or email me at aw@arleenwilliams.com. Thank you!