Remember Us in Tucson: The Battle Over Ethnic Studies in Arizona

I posted this at RE/VISIONIST today, please give it a read.

A close friend and comrade of mine is an educator in Tucson, Arizona. As the battle over multiethnic education wages on, she repeatedly demands, “Remember us in Tucson!” It is imperative that we keep Arizona on our minds; these efforts against ethnic studies are wrapped up in the other major struggle of the southwest: immigration. SB1070, the staunchly anti-immigrant bill, recently reached its one year anniversary; Huffington Post reporter Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto discusses its beginnings as a Tea Party stimulant and its recent defeat, due in part to the economic toll it has cost Arizonians already. DeFrancesco Soto also lists the anti-immigration bills that have been introduced to Arizona in 2011; she states, “The targeting of immigrants from 2010 grew into an assault on their sons and daughters.” To this end, the vehement effort to end ethnic studies comes as no surprise.

Read the full article here.

Also, my time at RE/VISIONIST is technically over. The founding staff members: myself, Roz Hunter, Victoria Sollecito, Nydia Swaby, and Thea Michailides, just handed R/V over to a new, three-person staff, all first year students of Sarah Lawrence's women's history program. We are thrilled to see the publication in new hands. Please check out our parting words in this month's issue.

Farewell, R/V! It's been fun.

Breaking Boundaries & A Night of Spoken Word

via RE/VISIONIST

This weekend the Sarah Lawrence community will be celebrating Women's History Month with our 13th Annual Women's History Month Conference, Breaking Boundaries: Body Politics & the Dynamics of Difference.  Friday, the conference opens with a plenary featuring Marilyn Wann (author of Fat! So?) then a Night of Spoken Word featuring Maria James-Thiaw and Lara Frater, plus other artists: Ms. MaDonna Awotwi a.k.a. Sankofa the Poet, Jennifer Bartlett, Andrea Baker, Sheila Black, Shaashawn Dial, & David Wolach.

flier by Kate Wadkins | illustration by Cristy Road

A full conference schedule can be found here.

I'll be helping with the conference this weekend (along with fellow R/V staffer Thea Michailides) so I really hope to see you there! Excited about it all.

RE/VISIONIST HAPPENINGS

We just launched the December issue of RE/VISIONIST, featuring a review of Made in Dagenham by Roz and I. Over the holiday weekend, Elevate Difference posted an interview we did with Lizzy Shramko this summer. If you ever had a question for us R/V-ers, it's probably answered here.

JHOPPS HEARTSTOPS

"Not to floss," but one of my fav feminist music writers just gave my conference review a legit shout-out on her blog, which I am an avid follower of. Psyched.

BIG TIME

RE/VISIONIST got a shout-out on Feministing yesterday, which made us feel pretty big time.

OLD NEWS IS NEW AGAIN

I HAVE A FEATURE UP AT RE/VISIONIST this month. An updated edit of my review of the plenary panel at "The Message is in the Music: Hip Hop Feminism, Riot Grrrl, Latina Music & More" conference, including Mimi Thi Nguyen and Fiona Ngo, and an illustration by the lovely Cristy C. Road!

In sync with Sarah Lawrence’s recent call for papers for 2011’s Women’s History Conference, I am syndicating my review of the plenary panel from this year’s The Message is in the Music: Hip Hop Feminism, Riot Grrrl, Latina Music & More with RE/VISIONIST (it is also currently published in this year’s Women’s History newsletter). Specifically Ngo and Nguyen’s papers, in the context of the Conference at large, really inspired me to pursue my thesis work on masculinities in punk rock. Watching other scholars dare to take on pop culture subjects like music gave me hope and certainty that cultural production is worthy of an historical treatment.


This article is also timely as it preempts the publication of International Girl Gang Underground, a compilation zine about the way riot grrrl has influenced punk feminist cultural production over the past twenty years. Nguyen’s early iteration of her paper, “Aesthetics, Access, Intimacy” or “Race, Riot Grrrl, Bad Feelings” will be included in the zine, nestled in among scene reports and personal stories from all over the world.

Read the full article here.

FALL UPDATES

Unsurprising, but it turned fall just about over night. I think it was over 80 degrees on the fall solstice, but October has been totally 60 degrees, grey and rainy style.

I recently made inserts for both Cheeky and Aye Nako as part of the 11"x11" full color (!!!) booklet to be included in Are you with the band?, a women-fronted pop-punk compilation by my cohort and friend, Lauren Measure. Yep, that means there will be a Cheeky track on there too.

On deck, I just submitted a review of the Critical Intersections: Reproductive and Economic Justice conference at Barnard to be published at Elevate Difference. Also, ED recently republished my Marnie Stern review (as they switched identities from Feminist Review). Check that out here.

Racialicious linked to RE/VISIONIST again, so we are excited about that.

Hopefully my next fall update will have something to do with apple/pumpkin picking, hanging out in the woods, and making pie and cider.

SUMMER UPDATES

July issue of RE/VISIONIST launched and we're all really proud of it, super strong pieces. It might be my favorite issue yet! We were linked by Racialicious (a favorite blog of ours) in April which I didn't pick up on until last month. As always, remember that we are looking for fresh new writing from feminist (with a lowercase "f") perspectives, and we'd love to hear from you.

For the Birds also announced our 5th Annual Big She-Bang celebration coming up quickly this August. We too are looking for submissions, and fast! So please get in touch. This year's theme is feminist communication.

In terms of other eggs that have hatched: I am the new Gallery Manager at Storefront and an intern for Le Tigre on their new film, Le Tigre: On Tour.

Friend Orlando Perez has provided the goods as usual, so here are some more photos of my work at the Pen15 show:







I don't have detail shots of my book yet, but will work on it. I might even have some exciting news, like another group show coming up this summer! We'll see. Hope you are all not sweltering in the NYC heat, and have roomies like mine that are stoked on pumping some AC.

INTERVIEW WITH DANIELA CAPISTRANO OF POC ZINE PROJECT

RE/VISIONIST launched its April issue today. My first feature is an interview with inspiring freelancer, teacher, activist, and founder of POC Zine Project, Daniela Capistrano.

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH NEWS

Crossposted with katewadkins.com

Myself and four other women from the Sarah Lawrence Women's History Graduate Studies Program have been working on an online publication since last semester. We are officially launching tomorrow, in concurrence with Women's History Month and in time for the 12th Annual Women's History Conference at Sarah Lawrence this weekend. My title is officially "Web Editor". That means a lot of different things, some important ones being that I designed the website and the header too.

The publication is called RE/VISIONIST. Here's a little bit about us:

RE/VISIONIST is an online publication created by students of the Sarah Lawrence College Women’s History Graduate Program. In the interest of fostering dialogue, RE/VISIONIST aims to promote a critical analysis of history and contemporary issues through the lens of multiple feminisms. We focus on the intersections of lived realities and histories, such as the experiences related to race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. We strive to keep the question, “who gets to write history?” on the table.

I will also take this moment to gently remind you that the Women's History conference, The Music is in the Message: Hip-Hop Feminism, Riot Grrrl, Latina Music & More, starts on Friday. The panel I am moderating on Riot Grrrl is on Saturday, March 6th, at 1:00PM.