And the dog ate my homework
September 21, 2009
Filed under academia, intercultural, interfaith, language, politics
Tags: teaching, intercultural, university, intercultural communication, international students, Libya
By FAR the best excuse for missing class I’ve seen so far in my professional career, received from a student in one of my grammar classes:
Yes, that’s Al Gaddafi. And on Eid-al Fitr! Think of the party!
(My life is so weird).
Reading…and more on the adoption
August 5, 2009
Filed under Colombia, children, christianity, faith, family, intercultural, mission, mixed marriage, motherhood
Tags: adoption, biracial, books, children, Colombia, Ethiopia, intercultural, multiracial, reading
We are, thanks everyone, going ahead with adoption plans. Like a good academe, I am researching my way through the whole thing. Maybe I’ll get a PhD out of it. HA.
R and I are set on Ethiopia or Colombia (since R is a native Colombiano). Why Ethiopia? Good question. It has a lot to do with HIV/AIDS in sub-saharan Africa, a little to do with the movie Hotel Rwanda, and nothing at all to do with the recent horror flick, Orphan.
Can I have more biological babies? Yes. My history has proven that I am emphatically fertile. But adoption is something that has been on our hearts and minds for some time, and we’ve both felt that strong, swift hand guiding us Ethiopia-wards.
Yes, we’d be raising a black baby. Or babies. More on that later.
Colombia is a way to be less obvious, of course. A Colombian baby would look like R’s. People would assume by default that he/she was mine, as well. We may go ahead with it, but the process is a lengthy average of 4 years. And since when have we been ruled by what others think of us? Life is too short. The only real concern for me is: can I be a good parent to a minority child? And, how is this done- well?
And so we read.
Melissa Fay Greene’s “There is No Me Without You” is a must-read, even if you’ve never thought about adoption. She’s brutal and moving and heartbreaking, and she’ll open your eyes to the reality of the AIDS crisis in Africa, all while keeping you riveted (dinner burning, kids running wild).
Does Anybody Else Look Like Me? A parent’s guide to raising multiracial children, by Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a treatise on biracial and multiracial children and the (sometimes bewildered and unprepared) parents who attempt to equip them to live in a highly race-conscious country. Not as entertaining as Greene, but highly useful and accessible.
Black Baby, White Hands: A View from the crib by Jaiya John is lyrical, like jazz or a great 20-minute Grateful Dead jam. Thoughful and honest, difficult and uncomfortable, he chronicles his adoption into a white family in a largely-white small town in Texas in the 70s.
Another helpful resource I finished this week was I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla: Raising Healthy Black and Biracial Children in a Race-conscious world by Marguerite A. Wright. Taking as her starting point that young children, in making what seem like racial statements, intend them in not at all the same manner as the history-bearing, race-conscious way that adults do, she gives parents a way to deal with common challenges when raising children in a race-infused society.
And the last, and one of my favorites so far, is Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches by Russell D. Moore. Moore, a pastor and adoptive father, makes a convincing (and convicting) case that Christian families, by virtue of their own adoption into the family of Christ, should be frontrunners in the journey to find families for children who need them. The story of his own two sons, adopted from Russia, is heartbreaking, and he balances good theology with good practical help (one chapter is entitled “Paperwork, Finances, and other Threats to Personal Sanctification”, which had me chuckling.
So yes. On our way. I’ll post soon about some of the issues that have been raised as we’ve entered the process, though I don’t want this to become an “adoption blog”. Don’t worry. I’ll still snark about Obama, as frequently as he is snarkable. 
Meanwhile…your thoughts?
Kowtow
May 19, 2009
Filed under intercultural, interfaith, language, mission
Tags: cross-cultural communication, gestures, intercultural, intercultural communication, language, language teaching, multiculturalism, university
As a language teacher to people of many, many countries (my latest acquisition is from Equatorial Guinea- the only country in Africa that speaks Spanish!), part of the wondrous world of intercultural communication are the mishaps. Like when I beckon to a student (the palm-up, curled finger “come here” gesture) and forget that in Asia it’s used to call dogs. Or like when I tell a Mexican that it’s OK (thumb and forefinger making an “O”, remaining fingers straight up), inadvertently calling him an a-hole.
But the greatest barrier isn’t the odd gestural mishap or the multiplicity of first languages in one class, it’s the bows.
And I’m not talking about used-for-the-hair, isn’t-she-cute bows.
To bow.
From Merriam-Webster: “to bend the head, body, or knee in reverence, submission, or shame; to cause to incline; especially in respect or submission”.
Synonyms: curtsy, genuflection, kowtow, nod, obeisance.
I get bowed to on a regular basis.
No, I’m not the queen of my universe, but perhaps of my classroom (it’s the small things that count).
And for all the genuine respect and reverence (?) that I’m sure I elicit (snort), I am genuinely shamed every time it happens. It’s probably an Americanism- this freedom for all, none better than another, caste-less society we’ve formed is like few on earth (for better or worse). My reaction, even with an advanced degree in linguistics and cross-cultural communication, is one of great embarrassment. Invariably I either make an abortive gesture to stop the person or attempt to control the primitive yawlp of “DON’T” that surges from my insides.
How to deal with this? I usually incline my head in return, but then I feel like a beneficent monarch or self-satisfied bishop.
At least there’s no kow-towing going on. That would break me.
Should I stay or should I go?
April 13, 2009
Filed under children, family, immigration, intercultural, politics
Tags: deportation, Easter, hispanic, illegal immigrants, immigration, immigration reform, intercultural, latino
Ahhhh….Easter. Chocolate hangovers, sugar letdowns, and people carrying crosses.
I hope you got a little glimpse of at least one penitent staggering down the street in dramatic Christological support of their issue-du-jour. In the Phillippines, they really get into it, actually nailing themselves and scourging their flesh. Mother Church turns a blind eye.
Hey, whatever. I’ll take a basket of Peeps and some chianti.
Interesting, though, is this CNN story about a girl in Japan whose parents are being deported. Her parents entered Japan illegally from the Phillippines, and she’s been asked to choose between her parents and her homeland. I’m not sure why it’s garnered the attention of CNN except for its applicability to US immigration law, protested this weekend by many immigrants with crosses.
Then there’s this story from the NY Times about something similar, where a girl’s father is deported and she’s left to live with her citizen granny (in this case, the estranged girl interestingly quips “I think I love him…”). In this case, the judge famously noted that the welfare of the children must be taken into account when deporting illegal immigrants. Which could be huge- have a kid, stay in the US. Can you say anchor babies?
I’m wondering where to stand on this one. I saw a soundbite from a lady on Univision (blegh), marching against deportation, whose son is a citizen. “He wants to come back to his country!” she wails. But isn’t it…her fault that he’s not with his countrymen? And, as immigration reform writers often ask, what does it say that illegals’ first action in this country is to break the law?
But the kids.
I know, the kids.
Thoughts?
Communidad
March 16, 2009
Filed under Catholic, Colombia, children, christianity, ecumenism, faith, family, intercultural, interfaith, language, mission, mixed marriage
Tags: bilingual, bilingual church, Catholic, Christian, church, community, hispanic, intercultural, latino, mixed marriage
We’re not pew-jumpers. I promise.
One of the more egregious sins hurled over in the Protestant direction by Roman Catholics is the “parishioners-gone-wild” nature of our propensity to change churches. Take a dislike to the organist? Bolt. What was that craziness about serving in VBS? Vamoose. No labeled parking place for “visitors” (even though we’ve been attending four years)? Checking out.
And I have to admit- there may be people like this. I just haven’t met them.
Living biracially, biculturally, and bi-religiously has been a challenge, one only complicated by both R’s and my religious education. We actually do care about things like election and sacramentalism. We get fired up and fling names about the living room like Pascal, Bonhoeffer, and Kierkegaard. We’ll spend an entire evening debating total depravity and transubstantiation. I know. You can’t wait for the video.
But what won us over were the brownies.
We heard about a bilingual church in the area, a church plant from a larger one with which we were familiar. As a linguist I was intrigued, with a million questions about codeswitching and turn-taking. As an armchair sociologist I was interested in the social dynamics of hispanic/white, legal/illegal, English/Spanish. And as a believer, I wondered what the theology was.
They meet in a local high school’s band room, and it’s cozy and familiar. The people are Cuban, Mexican, American, and from a number of South American countries (even Colombia, from R’s hometown nonetheless!). At the front of the room, where I usually stand in class, they have their instruments for the singing. To the left is a long table, filled with platters of food from numerous countries to be shared in communion, which forms an integral part of each service.
The kids run wild- very Hispanic. People stand and sit at the appropriate times- very “Anglo”. The pastor’s walking us through Genesis, verse by verse, nuance by nuance (good theology, BTW). And I’m intrigued- not by the place or the food or the novelty, but by the people.
From the minute we walked into the band room, we knew we were “en familia”. Here were people like us, with values like us- diversity, family, solid teaching. The chairs were filled with people rambling in Spanish, or English, or a combination of the two. There were parents from the old countries, kids who looked like our daughter, and young couples dangling with children. People talked and ate, picked up our kids, gave me hugs though they had just met me, and addressed R in tones that sounded remarkably like his own.
And we knew we were en nuestra casa- not our own, of course, but that unique place where His casa is Our casa. En comunidad.
