The Love Song of R. Anica Dewdrop

badassmexicans: Breaking through by Jiménez, Francisco Having...

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:53:01 -0700

Breaking through by Jiménez, Francisco

Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.

Parrot in the oven : mi vida by Martinez, Victor

Manny relates his coming of age experiences as a member of a poor Mexican American family in which the alcoholic father only adds to everyone´s struggle.

Esperanza rising by Ryan, Pam Muñoz

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Jesse by Soto, Gary.

Two Mexican American brothers hope that junior college will help them excape their heritage of tedious physical labor.

Juanita fights the school board by Velásquez, Gloria

Johnny, the eldest daughter of Mexican farm workers, is expelled from high school, but with the help of a Latina psychologist and a civil rights attorney, she fights the discriminatory treatment and returns determined to finish school.

BAM

Victor Martinez is Number 2 on my list of fave writers, ever. I’m constantly in awe of this Parrot In The Oven book.

Some more stuff about scarves! Scarf it down. Then, scarf it up!

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:15:32 -0700

Some more stuff about scarves! Scarf it down. Then, scarf it up!

Scarves! Bury me in scarves, okay? OKAY GUYS? I have lots of...

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:46:00 -0700

Scarves! Bury me in scarves, okay? OKAY GUYS? I have lots of them.

A Text Blog Post on the Tumblr About "Girls"

Wed, 23 May 2012 05:56:00 -0700

This is to go on record that I’m extremely grateful for a person like Lena Dunham. I refuse to...

Photo

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:40:00 -0700

All right, well. My capacity for thoroughly and...

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:13:39 -0700

All right, well. My capacity for thoroughly and unabashedly entertaining myself is boundless.

"George Lucas’ rich neighbors don’t want him building a movie studio in their backyard. His response..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:24:35 -0700

“George Lucas’ rich neighbors don’t want him building a movie studio in their backyard. His...

Photo

Fri, 11 May 2012 20:39:11 -0700

"[A] person convicted of a crime today might lose his right to vote as well as the right to serve on..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:43:02 -0700

“[A] person convicted of a crime today might lose his right to vote as well as the right to...

thesoapboxschtick: The Real Costs of War: In 2010, the number...

Fri, 04 May 2012 21:03:50 -0700

thesoapboxschtick:

The Real Costs of War: In 2010, the number of US soldiers who took their own lives exceeded the number of soldiers that died in battle.

The burden of war makes me think that there should be a word for the opposite of “priceless”. Let’s do “pricefugly”. A quantity of debt that simply cannot be measured accurately. Ever.

bestrooftalkever: david: The squares marked A and B are the...

Thu, 03 May 2012 18:48:51 -0700

bestrooftalkever:

david:

The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray

Neuroscience in the blog.

Does not compute Does not commmmppp—

No more suck!

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:36:00 -0700

No more suck!: 1) Lindy West’s work is the reason I stopped hate-reading Jezebel and started...

GEOY (Gratuitous Essay of Yourself)

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:42:23 -0700

GEOY (Gratuitous Essay of Yourself): This essay by Lois Payne on Daria, feminism, and people of...

Hi, everybody! I’m just going to leave these right here....

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:13:00 -0700

Hi, everybody! I’m just going to leave these right here. Or should I put them over here. Anyway, this is some of the stuff that has been occupying my mind lately. I’m sorry if everything feels over-saturated by it; I, too, was trying very hard to look the other way. In fact, lately I’ve been feeling so strongly about so many things that I’ve been trying even harder to stop feeling anything about them. The only problem is that being quiet and still and repressive about things that matter very dearly to you is a very bad idea. In fact, you may have noticed that I keep posting stuff to this blog, then immediately am deleting them. On one hand I want to share and comment and point to things, like, “Look, you guys! Lookit, let’s care, let’s share, let’s do!” and another side is like, “STFU, nobody cares, in fact, you look crazy and angry.” Well, guess what. Trying to not look crazy and trying not to look angry is driving me crazy. So I’m going to stop worrying and just be the only way I know how: me.

I know it’ll be a long while before I can sort out the gender, race and class thing for myself—as a Chicana who forgets that she’s a Chicana ALL THE TIME, ya know, shit’s confusing—but hopefully I’ll be able to make some sense of it all, and then put that sense down into some good words.

(On a very personal note: luckily, even if I don’t ever figure it out, at least I have a lovely boyfriend who encourages and cares about my intellectual, political and spiritual journey, because otherwise I’d go crazygonuts — not even kidding. Hi, 1234lander! Thanks for picking up the laundry today!)

“When a rich woman wants to stay home with her kids, she’s lauded, and parenting is called one of the hardest jobs you can do. When a poor woman wants to stay home with her kids, she needs to learn the “dignity of work.” A rich, white woman who stays at home is a good mother. A poor, black woman who stays at home is a welfare queen.“

— Romney Flashback: “Dignity of Work” | Washington Post (text above and link via sandandglass)

And then this one:

“To be female and poor in itself attracts a unique stigma. The 1980s saw the remarkable rise of the ‘welfare queen’ as popular bogey (wo)man of choice in the USA. This was fuelled by Reagan’s ideological crusade against an ‘excessive’ ‘soft’ welfare system and driven by racist and sexist stereotypes of ‘lazy’ African-American women, often single mothers. Indeed, the single mother is a recurring motif in the rhetoric surrounding welfare and benefits across the Western world. The idea that single women ‘churn out’ babies in order to generate more income or obtain free housing is commonplace in the UK and was a core part of the vivid American ‘welfare queen’ stereotype. Attacks on the integrity of single mothers are common; they are portrayed as less capable parents - despite evidence to the contrary - and are improbably blamed for a host of social ills, including, predictably, the riots that took place in the UK in the summer of 2011. The prevalent stigma borne by poor females in many societies is viscerally illustrated by British newspaper columnist James Delingpole who described several of the “great scourges” of contemporary Britain: “aggressive all-female gangs of embittered, hormonal, drunken teenagers; gym-slip mums who choose to get pregnant as a career option; pasty-faced, lard-gutted slappers who’ll drop their knickers in the blink of an eye” (The Times newspaper, April 13, 2006 ). Disturbingly, the stigma of female poverty and single motherhood has become embedded in public policy in many different countries: women are all too often the ‘accidental’ victims of supposedly gender neutral measures, such as budget cuts and welfare reform.”

—The feminisation of poverty and the myth of the ‘welfare queen’ | openDemocracy (via sociolab)

firstbook: We are on day 3 of our quest to distribute 1 million...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:39:42 -0700

firstbook:

We are on day 3 of our quest to distribute 1 million books to kids in need throughout the country in 10 days. But we need your help…

Get books for the kids in need that you serve by clicking HERE.

Help us get more books to kids in need by clicking HERE.

First Book wants to give away 1 MILLION BOOKS TO KIDS IN NEED OVER THE NEXT 10 DAYS. Here’s the catch: We want the world to know about the issue of illiteracy and how they can help us fight it. In support of our effort, we will give away a book for every “re-blog”, “retweet”, and “share” we get of this message on twitter, tumblr and facebook. Get to sharing.

Hillary Clinton is Chicken Soup for My Feminist Soul, Duh.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:33:00 -0700

Hillary Clinton is Chicken Soup for My Feminist Soul, Duh.: Two years ago when Tina Brown and...

I’m just going to lay down right here. I’m just...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:40:25 -0700

I’m just going to lay down right here. I’m just going to sleep now. No, don’t wake me up until I’m dead.

Houstory [n. haus- stohr-ee] I want a house. I wantahouseIwantahouse. I want it like some people...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:15:00 -0700

Houstory [n. haus- stohr-ee] I want a house. I wantahouseIwantahouse. I want it like some people...

ICU. Venice, CA. April 3, 2012.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:51:53 -0700

ICU. Venice, CA. April 3, 2012.

I Shouldn't Be Posting This! Yes, I should! Oh, god, my head is in my hands between my knees.

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:25:00 -0700

I Shouldn't Be Posting This! Yes, I should! Oh, god, my head is in my hands between my knees.: 11....