And yet a world continues to spin outside of Hampshire

I guess with Thanksgiving coming up I have been thinking a lot about traveling home; the ties and strains between me and my home, my community, my values. As a Jew I believe that I life in Diaspora, both at my home in Philadelphia and here. On a much smaller scale living away from my culture at home I believe that I live in somewhat of a cultural diaspora/disparity. My home is like the everyday, anti-climactic. Here in this environment (hampshire/academia) it is a narrative of destruction, of imminent danger. Just as Hampshire college radicalizes everything else, we radicalize the everyday, we create danger and urgency out of the experiences that we have experienced our entire lives and will continue to experience after we graduate. And this environment of the academic and excitement is fun, challenging, and easy to get caught up in, but it is not my home. It is not what I come from. I would try to make the case that institutions such as this are a vehicle for academic imperialism and yet I choose to come here. But then again, how much of a choice do I have?

In this society what value am I without a college degree? The only way that I can prove my validity as an intelligent person is by participating in this institution. I realize that which college I go to is (for the most part) my decision; however, I cannot get past the disparity in values and urgency between here and my home. I suppose what it comes down to is my struggle in my purpose for being here. There are many facets to this. For one, coming from my family the only question around college was which one I would attend, it was not so much an option as a requirement. However, I wonder, if I were not attending Hampshire if I would have made it this far. I am constantly frustrated living in this valley so far away from home because I feel like it is a disservice to my home, there is so much I could be doing, and want to be doing, and yet, here I am for another year and a half. And its lonely up here, without other people who come from where I come from. I don't see grad school in my future, or at least my near future, there is very little that the continuance in academia would qualify me to do. At the same time I am learning to embrace the opportunity that I have here, to soak it in for everything I can, because this is an experience I will never be able to replicate. The environment and energy is incredible and I am pushed past my limits on a regular basis.

So perhaps what I can take from this strange, possibly fabricated urgency, is the energy and knowledge. The endless realm of possibility and places where we can go. However, I also believe it is crucial for me to remember that I will leave from this place, and return to my home, to a place that doesn't see things the way that we have been transformed by this school to see things. A place outside the bubble.
My ultimate departure from here is what prompted my name change, I see my name as a way to identify and mark myself in the world away from Hampshire. A world in which I will likely always be perceived and gendered as female. And in many ways I am OK with that. I don't need the markers and the fight for my identity, I would rather speak with my actions and presence then fight for words with limited meaning in any other setting.

And so, in about 2 weeks I will leave for home, to see my family that doesn't always understand or respect my identity. And yet, I love them and love the part of me that exists with them, and will never exist here. Just as I take the best parts of every kind of Judaism I have learned and turn it into something that I support and embrace, I must take the best parts of what academia has taught me and combine those parts with all of the knowledge that I receive in the rest of my life and only when I can put all these parts together will I be able to move forward in my life and my thinking. And perhaps then I can begin to reconcile the disparity.

What does a Colonizer Look Like?

There are 4 elements at play in the definition of a country as a colonial power over another:

(1) the economic: appropriation of land, exploitation of labor, and control of finance; (2) the political: control of authority;
(3) the civic: control of gender and sexuality;
(4) the epistemic and the subjective personal: control of knowledge and subjectivity.

With regards to the US and Latin America the United States has some hand, if not a full fist, in all of these areas. I have started reading the book The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi. The first section of the book attempts to define and depict the colonizer.

"Today, leaving for a colony is not a choice sought because of its uncertain dangers, nor is it a desire of one tempted by adventure. It is simply a voyage towards an easier life." Memmi goes on to describe the colonizer as one who leaves their country not simply for adventure, because if that was the case why would they not go somewhere among their own country men? "Our traveler will come up with the best possible definition of a colony: a place where one earns more and spends less". As he goes on it descibes the difficulty for a colonizer to leave the colony. After a few years returning to the "slow progress" of home, and more expensive lifestyle is no longer appealing. Additionally the colonizer has laid roots in their new home, and lost roots in their old one. Why should the colonizer then leave the colony, especially when their privilege makes life in the colony easier then it would have been in the home country.

This perspective on the colonizer brings me back to the expatriate community that I saw when I was in Guatemala last January. For the most part the people I met were white US citizens who for one reason or another (primarily political) had decided to leave the United States. While I understand the desire to leave the United States out of frustration, I also feel the need to stay out of loyalty and obligation to my people. One of the fellow students at the Spanish school where I was taking classes mentioned to me that all the expatriates there seemed to be lost. To me the idea of leaving the US in political protest seems to be in vein. First off, no change can come from a few individuals, that were likely to radical for the government anyway, leaving. Secondly, their efforts to escape the US government may as well be void because they have moved to a place that is, in many crucial ways, a colony of the US, or at the very least a place that the US holds colonial power over.

In his book, Memmi describes 3 types of individuals in the colonizer/colonized relationship. They are the colonial, the colonizer and the colonist. The colonial is described as a European (or for our purposes one from the United States) living in the colony but having none of the privileges of their position. "a colonial is a benevolent European who does not have the colonizers attitude towards the colonized", in the next sentance Memmi goes on to say "a colonial so defined does not exist, for all Europeans in the colonies are privileged".

What I am attempting to begin to examine here is what is the role and power that one posses in moving to an expatriate community in Latin America. How can one move in an effort to escape the imperialistic policies of the US while simultaneously re-enforcing that colonialism.

Respect the Elders and Envision a Future

I wonder sometimes at night why I have never seen my future past the age of 40. Perhaps its my youth, incapable of imaging spending another 20 years on this earth, but at the same time I realize that I have almost no role models past the age of 40. I exist in a community with few visible elders, and I wonder, does 'queer' age well? There are aspects of queer society that do not in fact age well, through a combination of disease, substance use, depression and other issues that infect our community there are many who live on a different time-line of life events, much shorter than the hetero-normative standpoint.

Another factor that plays into that is that the concepts of queer and genderqueer as identifying terms is rather new and there are very few older queers who grew up around this language, and while some do identify with these terms many do not. However, that does not mean that sexualities and gender deviance that we think about today in connection to the queer and genderqueer community, are not represented in the older generation. Speaking with my aunt once she told me that had the terms 'transgender' or 'genderqueer' been available to her at my age she would have likely chosen to identify as such. However, despite not having these terms as definition I would say that my aunt still lived a very genderqueer life.

Within the "young/hip" queer community today we have created labels and identities that "fit" our needs. However, in the mess of this search for identity we often loose the people who could be of most value, the elderly. Queer chronology doesn't work in the same way as hetero chronology. While we all have families and connections to them, we also have a legacy of gay people who came before us a paved the way for us to be there. WE need to stop thinking about terms that only apply to modern subcultures as the end all be all of identity. Identity is molding and changing every second; within the ways that we perform for the camera and with the ways that we perform for others (/how others see us).

Regardless hopefully as the queers I know begin to age I will be able to envision a model for myself; although of course, there is always something relieving in the concept that I will die before age 50.

Who wears the strap-on?

I had gotten up to go to the bathroom before the movie started during a date with my high school girlfriend and when I returned to my seat I sat down and kissed her. As I settled into my seat we heard the 20/30 something (presumably) straight male behind us turn to the female that he was with and say "I wonder which one wears the strap-on?". Of course we turned and pointed at each other.

Binaries of gender are perpetually created by the queer community as often as they are projected on us my straight communities. Who wears the strap-on? How does that legitimize sex, specifically looking at couples where the dominant partner does is not the typical hetero-normative masculine figure. What does it mean for the femme to strap it on and fuck the butch? Does this act take some how diminish the masculinity of the butch, or better yet can a trans-man identify as a trans-man and still like to be fucked by a cock?

We use our roles in the bedroom to legitimize our identities, to examine ourselves and to define our selves. And yet if the concept of queer is about embracing fluidity then why must we divide ourselves into who wears the strap on?

Response to GenderKid

I have been reading the blog Genderkid (http://genderkid.wordpress.com/) for a while now and occasionally we comment on each others blogs, looking at my blog earlier I found this comment and as I wrote my response I found myself wanting to post it in a way that people would be more likely to see it-

Comment on the last blog post (Memories, 8/5/09):

"I really liked this poem. I haven't been in any situations like that, but I'm also afraid that, when I'm perceived as male, people will see me as menacing. They probably won't --I'm small--, but I still do my best not to look intimidating when I see a woman walking alone at night. Even if I'm just as scared as she is."
Genderkid (http://genderkid.wordpress.com/)

Response:
"yea, I definitely try to be aware of how my perceived masculinity can effect women in ways that I may not even notice, because in many of the negative experiences I have had with men were not overt, but rather there are subtle ways that masculinity is enacted that establish men as dominant over women.

Also, I totally hear what your saying about being as scared as she is though, it is strange because the violence that is enacted on me is enacted and felt by me because of my female body, and yet I also participate in systems of masculinity that perpetuate violence.

I wonder is it possible to operate masculinity without playing into misogynist gender roles and privilege? "


The concept of transmasculine misogyny as well as the delicate relationship among transmasculine folks, masculinity, misogyny, and straight men is something I hope to continue to touch on with more posts, but I wanted to keep the discussion going.

-helyx