Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

This month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israelfoundthat the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine is the root cause of the decades-long conflict in the region. But as the probe gets underway, the Israel lobbys flagship organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is actively attempting to extinguish it.

In response to the inquiry led by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), members of Congress have initiated legislation to abolish the investigation in both the House and the Senate. On June 14, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen introduced the COI Elimination ActS.4389. The bill is similar but not identical toH.R.7223, also called the COI Elimination Act, introduced by Representatives Gregory Steube, Vincente Gonzalez, and Joe Wilson in March.

Both bills seek to abolish the UN inquiry as well as other UN groups in order to combat systemic anti-Israel bias at the United Nations Human Rights Council and other international fora. The legislation also calls for restricting US funding to the UNHRC by 25 percent of the amount budgeted. While the Senate bill only has three co-sponsors currently, the House version has nearly 70 signatories made up of mostly Republican representatives.

TheUN inquirycame as a result of the Israeli attacks on Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021, with the purpose of investigating human rights abuses that occurred during that period. TheUS, Israel, and 19 other countrieshave sharply condemned the inquiry following the release of its first report.

In response to the inquiry led by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), members of Congress have initiated legislation to abolish the investigation in both the House and the Senate.

We believe the nature of the COI established last May is further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the Council and must stop, US Ambassador to the UNHRC Michle Taylor said during the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as the UN inquirys first report was being debated.

The State Department has also rebuked the UN inquiry, its spokesperson Ned Priceremarking,

[W]e firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of the UN Human Rights Councils Commission of Inquiry on the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, which represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace.

The UNHCR did not respond to press queries on the congressional bills, instead reiterating the COIs goals and that all member states must abide by its actions. However, a UNHCR spokesperson did tellMintPress Newsthat,

The mandate of the Commission of Inquiry was supported by a majority of member states of the Council and the allocation of a budget was then approved by the General Assembly. All members of the Human Rights Council are expected to fully cooperate with its decisions, as reaffirmed in General Assembly resolution 50/251 of 2005.

According toJewish Insider, AIPAC has spent this month lobbying on Capitol Hill for more members of Congress to support the COI Elimination Act as part of its first in-person National Council meeting in Washington, DC, since the start of the pandemic.

Their efforts appear to have succeeded as nearly 40 House Representatives signed onto the bill over the last two weeks.

Its simply another AIPAC-driven effort to demonize the UN in order to obfuscate the cruel and inhumane realities on the ground in Israel-Palestine and to deny the apartheid nature of the state, historian Walter L. Hixson toldMintPress News.

AIPAC has also pressured Congress on other issues during their recent Capitol Hill tour, such as continuing military aid to Israel, supporting the Stop Iranian Drones Act, and rejecting a Senate letter urging the US government to investigate the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

The author of Israels Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict, Hixon explained that AIPAC activists dont have a secret lobbying tactic but rather pressure members of Congress through their financial clout.

Its what they always do, he said. They let them know that people who support them can get support from AIPAC and people who oppose them can expect their next campaign opponents to be funded by AIPAC.

Its pretty ruthless lobbying that exerts its influence, and unfortunately there are a lot of members of Congress who are very easily swayed, unprincipled, fearful and tow the AIPAC line, Hixson added.

In addition to lobbying members of Congress directly, AIPAC is alsoencouragingAmericans to urge their representatives to support the legislation.

Yet they are not the only Israel lobby organization tackling the COI. Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Israel lobby group Foundation for Defense of Democracies, published an op-ed in theNew York Postrailing against the COI. Pro-IsraelgroupsBnai Brith International, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and theNational Jewish Advocacy Centerhave also come out against the COI.

AIPAC has also pressured Congress on other issues during their recent Capitol Hill tour, such as continuing military aid to Israel, supporting the Stop Iranian Drones Act, and rejecting a Senate letter urging the US government to investigate the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Sent last week, a letter signed by nearly half of the Democrats serving in the Senate calls on President Joe Biden to directly involve the US in probing Aklehs killing.

AIPAC talking points sent to lawmakers ahead of the letters publication and seen by Israeli newspaperHaaretzsaid the circumstances surrounding the death of Ms. Abu Akleh remain unclear despite the hasty conclusions of various media outlets, whereas the letter implies both Israeli culpability and inability to conduct an objective, thorough investigation of the incident.

While the COI Elimination Act has received significant backing, the bills stated purpose is far-fetched. The US cannotwith a stroke of a penunilaterally eradicate a world agency investigation.

However, according to Hixson, the country does have considerable control over the UN and by withholding a quarter of funding (as promised within the bill) can prove detrimental to the UNs efforts.

The UN has always beenfrom its inception in 1945heavily influenced by the United States, Hixson said, noting how its headquarters are in New York and the US has been a longtime funder of the entity. They cant dictate to the UN to change a policy, but they can certainly hurt it financially and influence decision-making, he added.

Whether the bill comes to fruition remains to be seen. But Hixson believes it has a chance, especially given that Democrats are signing onto it as well. Currently, nine Democrats have sponsored the House version and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal has signed on to the Senate act.

AIPAC is very determined. Theyve increased their funding. Theyve increased their office space. Theyve increased their number of personnel Its as powerful as any lobby really in Washington, and probably more powerful than the gun lobby.

Israel lobby experts havesuggestedthat AIPACs influence on Capitol Hill is waning as more Democratic politicians and American Jews become increasingly critical of the Israeli governments actions. For example, experts have speculated that AIPAC establishing political action committees last year is just a desperate attempt to cement its authority over Washington politics.

While Hixson agrees, he also asserts that AIPAC still remains quite influential. And with in-person lobbying again a feature of AIPACs work as pandemic restrictions dissipate, the organization may continue to see its influence balloon.

AIPAC is very determined. Theyve increased their funding. Theyve increased their office space. Theyve increased their number of personnel, he said. It remains a very powerful lobby, not just for a foreign policy for a foreign country, but period. Its as powerful as any lobby really in Washington, and probably more powerful than the gun lobby.

Nevertheless, public support for Israel has waned substantially in the last decade, mirrored by an increasing sympathy for the Palestinian cause, especially among Democrats. According to aFebruary Gallup poll, sympathy for Israelis has declined from 64% to 55% from 2013 to 2022 and climbed from 12% to 26% for Palestinians.

While Israel might be losing the battle for public opinion, in the realm of political influence in Washington, it is still winning the war.

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AIPAC is leading efforts to dismantle UN inquiry on Palestine - The Real News Network

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Tamam Abou Hamidan is one of the millions of Palestinians whose lives illustrate the fact that Palestinian refugees that have been forced to live in exile for more than seven decades have extraordinary patience.

The bitterness of life while in the Gaza Strip did not break the spirit of this Palestinian woman, in fact, she was able to achieve success after having managed to leave suffering in Palestine.

Abou Hamidan was born and spent her childhood in Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip in Palestine, then studied at local schools before finally earning a journalism degree from Al-Aqsa University. Worried about the impact of the ongoing blockade on Gaza, exacerbated by the deteriorating economic situation, and to get a better future for her daughter, she and her parents decided to move to Blekinge County in southern Sweden in 2014.

Arriving in Sweden, Abous life did not improve immediately as she was faced with many challenges such as language differences and cultural habits that made it difficult to get a job and adjust to a new society.

But luckily, she managed to get a job in a Pizza restaurant which allowed her to get a residence permit. Then in 2016, her fluency in Swedish and her other skills help her to work in the employment office in Blekinge Country as an advisor helping new immigrants enter the labor market.

Abou revealed that her work gives her motivation and enthusiasm to keep working hard to achieve more goals. Abou who later earned a Masters degree in Leadership and Organization from the University of Malmo decided to join the Social Democratic Party in the Small Town of Olofstrom in Blekinge County in 2015.

Her political career slowly started to climb, starting with Abous nomination to the Blekinge County Council, holds the position of Vice-Chair of the Municipal Councils Education Committee, as well as a member of the provincial council.

Through her efforts and hard work, Abou managed to prove herself to be Mayor after she was nominated by her party to head the council in Olofstrom in 2020.

Not only has she succeeded in conquering the challenges of being a woman in politics, Abou has also succeeded in fulfilling her role as a Palestinian woman from Gaza, a Mayor and a mother very well, even now she is trying to run for the Swedish parliament in the elections next September.

Abou Hamidan said she was very happy and proud of what she had achieved in Sweden. She stressed that the fact that a Palestinian woman from Gaza was able to achieve such a position in Sweden is evidence of the Palestinian cause.

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Palestinian Woman Tamam Abou Hamidan from Gaza Becomes Mayor in Sweden - The Islamic Information

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Reviw of Daniel Mann, Occupying Habits. Everyday Media as Warfare in Israel-Palestine. London: I.B. Tauris

( Middle East Monitor) Sovereignty is made out of a patchwork, weaved together from institutions, private companies, and most significantly technology itself, which dictates certain behaviour and habits. Israels security narrative has become heavily reliant on media technology, as Daniel Manns book Occupying Habits: Everyday Media as Warfare in Israel-Palestine (I.B.Tauris, 2022) shows. Drawing upon the Israeli Defence Forcess archives, the author discovers that the expansion of media technology has actually created a form of impunity for the military and the state, while desensitising Israeli soldiers and the settler population in the process.

The desensitisation which Mann writes about is intertwined with the perception of home and violence, which in Israel are synonymous and which Hagar Kotef discussed in her book, The Colonising Self Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine and which the author refers to in his treatise to show how the colonial experience is attached to violence, while also detached from the consequences which the Palestinian victims suffer. The home is also the place where Israelis can view through media technology and in a detached manner, the IDFs violence against Palestinian civilians. Building upon Kotefs research, Mann writes how the home rooted in colonial violence sanctifies life for the colonisers and vilifies, as well as constructs a site of violence, the homes of Palestinians.

Mann writes, the more media technologies were incorporated into the very fabric of the occupation, the less evidence I could find of its application by the IDF. The increasing use of social media has expanded Israels control and as a result, the way Israels military occupation is portrayed, or promoted, depending on who is behind the lens, has also altered. With such alterations, Israel and the IDF have been able to increase their oppression and colonial violence against Palestinian civilians, and create alternative options when it comes to deciding or declining accountability and responsibility.

While media technology can record the states abusive power, it can also be incorporated into the states apparatus, as Israel and the IDF did, creating a new form of warfare that is manipulative and also strengthens the states narrative of security threats.#

Spacing Debt. Obligations, Violence, and Endurance in Ramallah, Palestine

The author notes that the IDFs film unit traces its roots back to 1948, its role changing through decades from accompanying combatants to taking the role of journalists in recent decades, when the military started reassessing the role of media technology and media coverage. Mann writes of how phone companies play a role in structuring the IDFs media technology, noting that Motorola had signed a $100 million contract with the IDF. The central role of cellular companies strengthened the know between private communication companies and surveillance, Mann writes. As media technology use increased in Israel by 2006, the IDF had to content with the singular use of social media by its soldiers as well, thus opening a possibility of liability for both state and institution. Individuating soldieries through the exposure of their faces, therefore, constitute an inherent threat to this collective authority.

On one hand, the author notes, such liability could, possibly, contribute to evidence of Israeli military violence against Palestinian civilians as a result of the soldiers individual use of social media and posting. However, the IDF has also emphasised the singular use of media technology to differentiate between the soldier posting acts of violence and the institution itself. The IDF can afford the admission of a singular violent act in order to spare the system itself. Additionally, instances where individual soldiers violence was recorded and disseminated on social media rarely sparked the majoritys outrage within Israel, as happened in the case of Elor Azaria, where only 30 per cent of the Israeli public condemned the extrajudicial killing of a Palestinian civilian.

The defensive stance which the Israeli colonial state has so successfully disseminated is also entrenched within Israeli society, as Mann notes: The model of the defence self that kills the other.

Being There, Being Here: Palestinian Writings in the World

Other forms of impunity which exist within Israel include the use of sniper teams, as well as public lynching of Palestinian civilians by Israeli settler-colonists. When violence takes place out in the open, in front of the cameras, it hides in plain sight, Mann writes. Even if the culprits are identified, the crowd is still protected through the same impunity which the IDF generates for itself when a soldier is identified and his action described as a singular violent act with allegedly no links to the IDF or the Israeli state itself.

In his introduction, Mann notes that Israel has constantly blurred the lines between the military and civil society. The widespread use of media technology has enabled the IDF to make use of the ambiguity which enables the state the strengthen its survival by transferring responsibility solely upon the individual, the states institutions are permanently safeguarded. It is the obfuscation which the book seeks to delve into, which in turn also exposes the limited understanding we can have of media technology in Israel, unless its use is analysed from within the colonial framework.

CategoriesIsraelMiddle EastPalestineReview BooksReviewsCreative Commons License This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons License

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Occupying Habits. Everyday Media as Warfare in Israel-Palestine - Informed Comment

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid has approved the closure of the regimes embassy in Eritreaas authorities in the Northeast African country have not been allowing the arrival of a diplomat from the occupied territories in the past two years.

Lapid, who is still serving as Israeli foreign minister, took the decision on Saturday to shutter the diplomatic mission in the Eritrean capital city of Asmara, after the local government had been delaying Ishmael Khaldito take up the post despite his appointment.

According to Israeli media outlets, the embassy has remained empty in the aftermath of the Eritrean government's decision, and many of its staffers are currently in their homes without doing any particular tasks.

The outlets added that the Tel Aviv regime spends tens of thousands of dollars per month on rent and other fees for the employees.

The last Israeli ambassador left Asmara in September 2018. Since then, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent a temporary administrator for the embassy from time to time.

Until April 2020, the head of the embassy's security was the only Israeli representative in Eritrea, and his wife was responsible for the administrative work.

The Israeli foreign ministry then decided to evacuate the embassy in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The embassy has been abandoned ever since.

On July 5, 2020, the regime's foreign ministrys appointments committee appointed Ishmael Khaldi to serve as ambassador to Eritrea. The approval of his appointment was, however, delayed by Eritrean authorities.

Palestine's official Wafa news agency, quoting the London-based online newspaper Rai al-Youm and other sourcesreportedon August 1, 2021, that at least 14 countries including South Africa, Tunisia, Eritrea, Senegal, Tanzania, Niger, the archipelago of Qamar, Gabon, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Liberia, and the Seychelles had agreed to expel Israel from the 55-member African Union.

On July 22 that year, Israel attained observer status at the AU after nearly 20 years of lobbying.

Making the move official, Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia, Burundi and Chad Aleli Admasu presented his credentials to Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairman of the African Union Commission, at the blocs headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Experts say Israels observer status is largely seen as part of Tel Aviv's continued campaign to normalize ties in Africa.

Pro-Palestine language is typically featured in statements delivered at the AUs annual summits.Palestine already has observer status at the African Union.

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PM Lapid approves closure of Israeli embassy in Eritrea after ambassador blocked - Press TV

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

The Armenian Diaspora was essentially created as a result of oppression. The early communities in the United States formed prior to the Genocide were a result of a lack of economic opportunity in the Ottoman-occupied areas or as a reaction to the massacres under the Sultan Abdul Hamid and the early years of the Young Turks (Ittihad ve Teraki). There were communities in the US prior to the Genocide, but the explosion of infrastructure and population took place after World War I with the forced expulsion of the survivors of the Genocide. Many found their way to the shores of a welcoming America.

My own paternal grandfather was typical of the pre-genocide immigration. He came to Massachusetts as a single man (18 years old) in 1913. His parents sent him here to escape the anticipated induction into the Ottoman army. He worked in Indian Orchard and lived in what amounted to rooming houses with other single Armenian men, many of whom were from his village of Koch Hisar in Sepastia. They all intended to return to the homeland once the risks passed. Armenians were used to weathering these storms created by evil forces bent on their destruction or world events. He returned along with over 5,000 others to fight in the Armenian Legion. His future wife (my Adanatzi grandmother) was forced to live in Egypt for two years at the age of nine to escape the Adana massacres. She returned with siblings to brave the challenges of surviving the horrors of 1915. After the conclusion of the war and the final betrayal of the allies in Cilicia, they did not return. This time it was different. They had been removed from their homeland of centuries and forced to bring what remained of their families and their culture to a new land. Their priority was the survival of their families and the retention of their heritage. For some, the transition was reasonable as family units arrived and went about the tasks of establishing roots. For others, separated by the atrocities, it would be years before their families would be reunited. My wifes aunt was separated from her mother for several years before they could reunite in Chicago. They persevered and played by the rules with gratitude for the opportunity to live in freedom.

These individuals built families which in turn became communities and collectively became the diaspora of the United States. We have often referenced 1965 as an important reflection point in the history of the diaspora. It was the 50th anniversary of the Genocide and has become known as the re-awakening of political and advocacy activism in our communities. The year 1991 also changed the direction of the diaspora in terms of responsibility and focus. The actual transformation occurred from 1988 to 1991. With the tragic earthquake, the diaspora responded with unprecedented support for the still Soviet state of Armenia. In parallel with a growing political movement seeking the independence of Armenia and Artsakh, the diaspora engaged with the homeland on levels unheard of just a few years earlier. Prior to this timeframe, the diaspora in the US had been primarily focused on building its own infrastructure of churches, centers, schools and youth programs. There had been, however. several major efforts to support our brethren in the Middle East, the most noteworthy being the relationship with the Antelias See of Cilicia in Lebanon. With the emergence of the independent states of Armenia and Artsakh, the diaspora took on an additional responsibilitythe homeland. While it was not constitutionally mandated and at times the pull beyond financial resources was limited, the diaspora has been all in with private and public partnerships to advance all aspects of society in the twin states. Worldwide advocacy has promoted Genocide justice and support for Armenia and Artsakh. It is an almost overwhelming responsibility for the diaspora to see their romantic visions of a free Armenia blurred with a 30-percent unemployment rate, corruption and political isolation. How is this possible from a people scattered to all edges of the world a few generations ago only to blossom with a credible respected presence in virtually every corner of this earth? These are the cards we have been dealt. The balance between investing in the diaspora and the homeland has been the challenge for over 30 years. While the process remains the same with communities in the diaspora and the homeland now an integral part of that equation, the dynamics of that community have evolved significantly.

It is interesting to note how certain words have widely varied meanings in our hyphenated life in the diaspora. Take the word assimilation. It generally refers to the absorption of one culture into anothera merger of sorts when usually one culture dominates. Assimilation is a key component of American culture. Cultures from all over the world come to the US and engage in something new. It suggests that you will lose some of what you came with as you become a functioning part of American society. It begins usually by periods of isolation and discrimination while the assimilation process reaches some level of critical mass. The Irish were subjected to this for many decades. The Armenians didnt look like western Europeans and were subjected to disrespect. The Black community and Native Americans have long been victimized. The extent of the struggle seems to relate to how quickly cultures assimilate, but the question remains to what extent are they assimilating?

The level of integration into American society, for example economically and linguistically, enables what we have come to call the hyphenated American. When we retain our heritage and embrace this society, we are known as Polish-Americans, Black-Americans and Armenian-Americans. Where is the balance? How is it managed and how does it relate to the dual responsibility of the Armenian community here in America? The term assimilation strikes some level of fear in the Armenian community. Although the core definition remains the same, the application and implication are quite different. Armenians in America seem to believe that we are defying sociological norms with the strength of our presence in this country. It is true we have advanced to a level of credibility through talent, financial prowess and education that impact many segments of our society here in America. We are builders and contributors. As a result, we are respected and gain a level of influence.

I always like to look closer at the communities themselves that fuel the emergence of such capability. If we, for the sake of this discussion, count the survivor generation as the first generation in the American Diaspora, then we are currently in the fifth main generation with four born in this country. Our communities and organizations should be filled with American-born Armenians who are at least third generation (my childrens peers), but they are not. The reality is that our communities have been replenished by the immigrant groups of Armenians. The primary influx point was the draining of our Middle East communities; the nationalization impact in Egypt in the late 50s and 60s; the strife in Iraq and Syria in the 60s; the Lebanese Civil War of the 70s; the revolution in Iran in the late 70s, early 80s; the Baku pogroms in the late 80s, early 90s; and finally the instability and economic issues in Armenia. Each of these difficult events has brought with it the silver lining of talent from these well-establishedArmenian anchor communities. Our schools, churches and other institutions have been constantly replenished with dedicated people who filled the void. Is there another immigration wave? Many of those born here have become silent victims of assimilation. They are fine people who live productive lives, but that life does not include a functioning Armenian identity. This has been happening for generations. I remember my father telling me of a survivor generation individual who wanted to live only an American life. It is a very personal and emotional issue, but we need to look at this purely from a social and communal perspective.

The job in the diaspora has always been to sustain itself which means focusing on identity building mechanisms. Only through strength can it assist Armenia and Artsakh. It is a very difficult balance to maintain. When our communities were densely built, a church and center worked. With an increasing secular world and Armenian families subject to the same stresses as others, we need new methods to reach the home of Armenians where the family to community to diaspora equation begins. Many of these suggestions have been discussed in previous columns. The idea of a young Armenian kid identifying with his or her heritage is a choice in the diaspora. Our entire family and communal structure should be designed to make that an easy choice, but no matter how many years they go to an Armenian camp or church, they will make that decision one day. An additional tool is available to this generation. Help your children develop a relationship with Armenia. That does not mean simply take a family trip. Building an identity relates to their needs being found in Armenia. Once that emotional bond is made, the balance we seek in assimilation will be assured. This is happening today in our communities, but it must be significantly expanded. If the Armenian family is challenged by the dynamics of American society, then you still have an opportunity to make that connection and recapture what was not available here. The Armenian community is not significantly at risk in the immediate short term, but we do not want to evolve into a shell of our former selves that stays afloat with foundation grants and people attending bazaars to satisfy their Armenian craving. Fundraising is not an indicator of communal health. As people drift to the outer periphery, donations in lieu of participation become easier and a value taught to their children. There is no substitute for presence. If the methods dont work, demand change in an appropriate manner. Dont walk away. The stakes are too high. The chain of sustainability starts with you.

Stepan was raised in the Armenian community of Indian Orchard, MA at the St. Gregory Parish. A former member of the AYF Central Executive and the Eastern Prelacy Executive Council, he also served many years as a delegate to the Eastern Diocesan Assembly. Currently , he serves as a member of the board and executive committee of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). He also serves on the board of the Armenian Heritage Foundation. Stepan is a retired executive in the computer storage industry and resides in the Boston area with his wife Susan. He has spent many years as a volunteer teacher of Armenian history and contemporary issues to the young generation and adults at schools, camps and churches. His interests include the Armenian diaspora, Armenia, sports and reading.

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The Diaspora starts with individuals - Armenian Weekly

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

The exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories is the most comprehensive look at the interplay of art between Africa and the Americas ever displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Curator Kanitra Fletcher, who helped organize the show, said the exhibit features an array of artists from across the Atlantic from Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean and Europe from the 17th through 21st centuries.

It shows how integral Black cultures are to the development of western civilization, of the modern world, Fletcher told correspondent Rita Braver.

CBS News

The exhibit, which started in So Paolo, Brazil, is considered so significant that Vice President Kamala Harris stopped by for a viewing in April. This is world history, Harris said, and it is American history, and for many of us, it is also family history.

The first works in the show focus on some of the cruelest aspects of slavery, like a photo of the scars of a runaway slave from 1863, or a 2009 etching by United States artist Kara Walker depicting a slave wearing a brutal restraining apparatus.

Kara Walker

There are portraits of important figures, like Joseph Cinque, who led the 1839 revolt on the Spanish slave ship Amistad, and abolitionist Harriet Tubman.

A 1936 work by Aaron Douglas, a leading painter of the Harlem Renaissance, illustrates both the agony of Africans being marched into slavery and the everlasting dream of freedom. Fletcher said, You have this Black man in the center, this central figure whos looking upwards towards the red star, which is ostensibly the North Star.

National Gallery of Art, Corcoran Collection. 2021 Heirs of Aaron Douglas/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), N.Y.

There are also works that celebrate the joys of everyday life, including paintings by Brazilian artist Maria Auxiliadora, and Horace Pippin of the U.S. Fletcher said, Its showing us that the African diaspora is not just a story about slavery, that there is more to the Black experience.

In 1975 Dindga McCannon painted a picture of one of her friends, which she titled Empress Akweke. Braver asked, Was her name really Empress, or did you paint her as an empress?

Her name was Akweke Singho, McCannon said, and she gave herself the title Empress. She had opinions, and she had no shame of letting people understand where she was coming from, and she carried herself as an empress.

CBS News

For McCannon, there is special significance in having a work in the same show as one of her teachers, noted American painter Jacob Lawrence.

Braver asked, Whats that like for you?

Incredible! she replied. I wish he were still alive so I could give him a big hug.

The exhibit looks forward as well as back, with images that celebrate exuberance and beauty, but also reflect continuing struggle and activism. One of the most dramatic works is this photographic self-portrait by non-binary South African artist Zanele Muholi, who used steel wool pads to form a crown.

CBS News

When asked if the photo was meant to reflect the Statue of Liberty, Fletcher said yes: They were thinking about the symbols of nationhood and who gets to occupy them.

And why so big? To have the impact that you see.

And for McCannon, there is meaning in the very fact that this exhibit is on view at the museum that was designed to be the nations showcase for art: Its something thats been a long time coming. Finally were here, and its great, because now our audiences can expand, so theyll see a beautiful story of African Americans in America.

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Story produced by Robyn McFadden. Editor: Lauren Barnello.

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Art of the African diaspora - Sand Hills Express

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

I am one of those Indians who are the subject of Sana Aiyars book. My association with Kenya coincides roughly with the period she covers, my grandfather arriving in the 1890s, while I left Kenya for all intents and purposes when I went to study in the United Kingdom in 1966. Reading Aiyars book, its scholarly tone notwithstanding, was for me an emotional journey.

Before I came to my senses, I felt a surge of incredulous anger at Shiva Naipauls comment, quoted in the first paragraph of the introduction, that Indians were a shadowy presence just there. Naipauls comment, as I soon realised, was made in 1976, over a decade after Uhuru, when Indians had left Kenya in large numbers 28% of the entire Indian population between 1962 and 1968, according to Aiyars figures, forming what she calls a voluntary exodus.

A Kenyan Asian (a term Aiyar eschews for reasons she explains) might well take issue with both the voluntary and the grouping of the years (Asians did not leave Kenya in numbers, as did Europeans, with the declaration of Uhuru in 1963). These are minor issues, however, although they bear on the nature of the commitment of Indians to Kenya.

The Kenya of my youth was overwhelmingly Indian. We were the people who poured out of offices and places of business at closing time. Our names were on all the big shops on Government Road in Nairobi and all down the length of the Indian Bazaar and into the main municipal market. River Road was infested with us. We were the shopkeepers, the artisans, the clerks, the contractors, the mechanics, the bankers, businessmen, accountants, lawyers, doctors, teachers and civil servants.

I went to an almost exclusively Indian (Goan) school in Eastleigh, where many poor Indians lived. The teachers were almost all Goan but the school was run by two Irish nuns, who retired daily to the more salubrious surrounds of their convent, where their order of nuns ran another school which, until self-government broke down the barriers of segregation, was closed to non-Europeans.

Before I too went to this school, Europeans were a marginal presence in my life. Africans were a vast subterranean sea, there to serve and not be seen, and to be feared for their numbers and latent might.

Quoting Marjorie Ruth Dilley, my father comments in his political biography Brown Man, Black Country a book of which Aiyar makes extensive and intelligent use that the Kenya into which he was born (in 1908) had already been infected by the virus of racial prejudice and had already become the scene of racial conflict.

The Kenya in which I was born, four decades later, was deeply divided along racial lines. The Indian political discourse of this time, in which my father was much involved and where Africans and Indians found a common enemy if not always common issues, was that of equal representation, civil liberties and non-racism.

Steeped in these doctrines as well as what Aiyar describes as the civilisational discourse in which Indians retained their attachment to India and perceived themselves as bearers of great benefits in the development of Kenya, my father dedicated his book (written in the 1970s) to the Indians of Kenya owed so much, repaid so ill.

I approached Aiyars book with a great deal of prejudice, thinking there was not much more to be said on the tired subject of Indians or Asians in Kenya and that she was simply making academic capital by forcing an old horse into new shoes, namely diaspora and diasporic consciousness.

I was wrong.

Aiyar gave me a new language and a more secure understanding in which long-standing emotional and intellectual issues could be resolved. She quotes (among many beautifully selected quotes in her imaginatively and wellresearched material) the poem with which my father prefaces his book.

It is entitled To the African: No Guest am I. It is easy to see that this fits well into Aiyars analysis of identity and homeland. With this analysis in mind, I could understand for the first time that my father had two homelands India and Kenya whereas I had only one, if any.

Aiyars avowed purpose in her book is to bring Indians in Kenya out of the shadows and to correct the imbalance in studies of colonial and postcolonial Kenya that are concerned primarily with black and white politics. She claims that [w]orks that do consider the history of Indians in Kenya have focused almost exclusively on Indian business, substantiating this with a note that lists 12 books and studies published between 1983 and 2005.

Further, she describes scholarship that renders diasporic politics as belonging to a single homeland, India, with little attention to their engagement within the Indian Ocean littoral. She continues:

Building on this scholarship, this book [Indians in Kenya] moves our narrative focus beyond Indians extraterritorial connections that looked east to India to include a second homeland [Kenya] to which Indians made territorial and generational claims.

My endogamous and separate life in Kenya was the thin surface that overlay the entanglements of Indian and African political and economic engagement in Kenya that Sana Aiyar traces with consummate skill, building up and exploding the myth of Indo-African solidarity with repeated reminders of the material inequality that separated Indians and Africans and of conflicting interests that undermined cooperation in the political sphere.

In his review of my fathers book, the well-known Indian journalist MV Kamath drew attention to the abortive coup in Nairobi in 1982, when the first target of the people was the Kenyan of Indian origin.

Kamath asks the question we might all ask: why was this so in a country like Kenya, in view of the struggle for racial equality articulated by the East African Indian Congress over the years, the notable instances of Indian assistance for and advocacy of African causes, the multi-racialism of the trade union movement led by Makhan Singh and, not least, the debt owed to Indians for the political activism of the 1920s that led to the articulation of the doctrine of native paramountcy, saving Kenya from official acceptance of white supremacy as enacted further south.

One response to the question is that of Pierre van den Berghe (in the second edition of A Portrait of a Minority, edited by Dharam Ghai and Yash Ghai and published in 1970): To be Asian in Africa is to be always wrong. Hopes that this state of affairs might change after independence in East Africa have not materialised. In politics, when Asians collaborated with the Europeans they were blocking African aspirations; when they sided with Africans, as they frequently did, they were being opportunists in anticipation of independence

Van den Berge further comments on the powerless Asians whose worst crimes were a bit of cultural snobbery and some sharp business practices such as are inherent in any system of private enterprise.

In her more complex analysis of the powerless Asian, specifically in her second chapter, Civilization in Kenya, Aiyar describes the attempt by the Colonial Office in 1930 to break the trading monopoly of the ubiquitous dukkawallah in order to advance the interests of African petty traders.

The attempt in this context to limit Indian immigration failed (because of the intervention of the imperial government of India) as did efforts to break up the relationship between Indian retailers and Indian wholesalers / exporters. This tight Indian trading network included a system of credit to which aspirant African traders did not have equal access.

Dukkawallahs in Kenya served not only as suppliers of goods to African consumers in small and affordable amounts but as purchasers of African produce such as maize and beans. In both respects, they were the most visible target of the discontent of African consumers and suppliers if also their immediate benefactors. (Aiyar quotes more than once the Swahili proverb to the effect that the Indian trader is evil but his shoes are medicine.)

The removal of the dukakawalla, as Aiyar demonstrates, was not the solution to securing African advancement in 1930, which lay, rather, in increasing African agricultural productivity by alleviating land scarcity and improving methods of production and by a more just system of taxation which would not impose such heavy constraints on the purchasing power of the ordinary African.

The duality ever-present in Aiyars narrative emerges again in this context:

In emphasising the extent to which Indian traders stimulated rather than stunted African economic development, Indians within the Congress and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry made developmental claims on the colony in demanding political and economic rights. They pointed to the aspirational status of Indians, arguing that their material wealth was within the reach of Africans. In so doing they marked Indians as civilizationally different and superior, even as they sought racial solidarity with their fellow non-Europeans.

In Negotiating Nationhood, the penultimate chapter of the book, Aiyar describes the River Road race riot of 1959, on the eve of the Lancaster House Conference, which escalated from an incident on December 20, 1959 when an Indian motorist knocked down an allegedly intoxicated African man on the busy intersection of Duke Street and River Road.

Various strands in Aiyars narrative come together in this incident, including accumulated African resentment of Indians, the legacy of violence and savagery associated with Africans after Mau Mau, and the political divisions arising between Indians and Africans on the verge of nationhood. What I found striking, meanwhile, was her description of the Indian sense of victimhood.

She wrote: Outside the Legislative Council, in letters to the editor, Indian residents of Nairobi made it clear that they considered the River Road skirmishes a race riot in which Indians were the only victims. They too politicised the incident, using it to criticise the KFPs [the non-racial Kenya Freedom Party, which merged with the Kenya African National Union when the latter finally opened its doors to non-Africans] political stand of undiluted democracy.

My father, as Aiyar points out, was among those who opposed undiluted democracy. Here I must object to Aiyars simplistic rendering of my fathers position as a reversal of his earlier stand and an embrace of a communal, as opposed to common, voters roll.

My fathers professed intention was to delay not to dilute democracy, to allow for the growth of multi-racial political parties that would fairly represent the interests of all Kenyans. That nationhood would not develop in tandem with freedom in an independent Kenya was a reality that was becoming apparent not only to Indians.

Indians in Kenya is a book that everyone who was and is an Asian in Kenya should read. All the more so if the Kenyan Asian is now becoming, at last, a Kenyan, as the introductory chapter to Indians in Kenya posits in the wake of the 2013 Westgate Mall incident, when Indian and African men and women embracing in empathy formed a moving picture of the triumph of humanity over inhumane acts and Kenyans came together, irrespective of their colour or citizenship. The 2009 census recorded no fewer than 71,891 Indians resident in Kenya. Of these, half were citizens.

The issue of citizenship (and the consequent issuance of work permits) became one of critical importance after Uhuru, with the government creating a climate of mistrust and fear by repeatedly delaying the processing of thousands of applications for citizenship by Asians (something that Aiyar neglects to mention).

As it transpired, citizenship, or the denial of it, was less a statement of identification with the country than a clever ploy by the Kenyatta government to create immediate employment and trading opportunities for Africans and to distract attention from a commitment to a capitalist agenda that failed to address the real issues of poverty and inequality and was being increasingly opposed by socialist elements. There are echoes here of the 1930 attempts to oust the Indians as a quick-fire solution without engaging with the real issues.

In this fairly brief review, I feel have not done justice to what Ayesha Jamal (quoted on the back cover of Indians in Kenya) describes as Aiyars intrepid research in multiple archives. Isabel Hofmeyer describes the book as elegantly written [] in a stylish narrative with a compelling cast of characters a comment that is amply substantiated by the book and is not something one normally expects of a scholarly text. In Aiyars own words, the book emerged from over a decade of learning and unlearning, curiosity and intransigence, verbosity and reticence.

It is not surprising to discover that Aiyar, who hails from Delhi, has herself joined the great Indian diaspora. She now lives and learns in the United States of America and, presumably, is finding a home there. Her book is an important addition to scholarship and is a compelling narrative for the many Indians who have found and failed to find a home in Kenya and for other diasporans entangled in global crossings.

This article first appeared on AwaaZ.

Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora, Sana Aiyar, Harvard University Press.

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Sana Aiyars Indians in Kenya brings the politics affecting Indian diasporas out of the shadows - Scroll.in

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Opening number...

.While it's common practice for Paper Kraine's co-producer and host Lizzy Ana Lincoln to offer warnings regarding subject matter, sexual content and other possibly triggering elements before performance pieces presented in their monthly shows, at their June showcase, titled Do You Queer What I Queer, she took a moment to do something I don't think I've ever seen done at a performance. She assured audience members that it's okay to step into the lobby and not watch a performance that may be upsetting you.

We often think of walking out in the middle of a show as a sign of contempt, but at Paper Kraine, their mission to nurture artists and give them the freedom to create apparently includes compassion for those who decide that a certain piece may not be for them.

To quote Lincoln, "You're a part of this process and we're all learning."

Back in January, I wrote about my first visit to one of Paper Kraine's monthly shows...

...a curated evening where stage time is offered to a variety of artists to create something based on a pre-determined theme, and after my second helping I'm convinced it is one of the most enjoyable theatre bargains in town. Admission is a suggested donation of $10 with proceeds for every show donated to a different social service non-profit. (The Ali Forney Center, protecting LGBTQ homeless youths, was the recipient this time and extra cash was raised when an abandoned comforter found backstage was auctioned off.)

June's program included excerpts from playwright Reuven Glezer's Off We Go, about a cosmonaut and a homeless youth in a Soviet psychiatric institution for the politically radical, Catie Chan's Peasant, presenting a dystopian view of New York as one big Amazon warehouse, and drag king Hugh Mann Race's Bird Watching, a funny, lip-synched bit of conservation-minded silliness.

While I very much admired Adin Lenahan's Disney Adult at my previous Paper Kraine visit, I wasn't quite sure how to write about his The Bottom's Bible, which followed Lincoln's words about triggers. I'll say the least controversial part of it is that it begins with Lenahan presenting themself as a monk who was kicked out of a monastery for being a bottom. The author/performer describes it as "a comic blasphemy exploring bottom and femme erasure, and a two-thousand year old book that still controls our narrative" and while I support Lenahan's position as a marginalized person expressing justifiable anger, there was one moment that, I'll just say, wasn't for me.

But maybe it, and the rest of The Bottom's Bible, is for you. You can find out when Lenahan performs it at Dixon Place on July 23rd.

With a name lending new urgency to a rhyming couplet from the African-American spiritual "Mary, Don't You Weep" ("God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time")...

...the annual Fire This Time Festival has produced dozens of ten-minutes plays in its mission to "provide a platform for early-career playwrights from the African diaspora to explore new directions for 21st century theater".Denise Manning (Photo: Garlia Jones)

This afternoon at 3:00 is the closing performance of the festival's 13th edition (tickets $20 or what you can afford, in-person or streamed), a lively and conversation-stimulating collection of pieces co-directed by Zhailon Levingston and Tracey Conyer Lee, featuring an excellent ensemble of actors.

Not being of the African diaspora, myself, I naturally wasn't familiar with all of the issues presented, which is always an exciting aspect of live theatre, but at least a couple of times I was struck by the way a subject I was familiar with came at me from an unfamiliar viewpoint.

In Fedna Jacquet's Girlfriend, Denise Manning and the playwright get the program started with a burst of comedic energy, even though the story involves how one of them has split with her boyfriend because of his insistence that Black men have it harder than Black women and the other is dealing with a claim that her lineage doesn't qualify her to be called African-American.

In Marcus Scott's Wookies in the Wilderness, two best pals (Anthony Goss and Ricardy Fabre) battle with lightsabers while prepping for one's Eagle Scout Wilderness Survival Test, but the weapons in their hands eventual become less fictional. Phillip Christian Smith's Mt. Sinai has two women (Marjorie Johnson and Patricia R. Floyd) forming a bond though being chemo friends and in Lisa Rosetta Strum's By The Way, a straight woman (Jacquet) has her doubts when her closest friend, a man who has always identified as gay (Fabre) announces that he's bisexual and wants a romantic relationship with her.

Rachel Herron's Red Red Wine takes an twist reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe when an aspiring sommelier (Manning) asks her mentor (Floyd) about her past and in Agyeiwaa Asante's Wildest Dreams, two ghosts (Johnson and Goss) inhabiting a former plantation turned tourist attraction wait for their time to cross to the other side.

Marylouise Burke was in her 60s the first time I saw her on stage...

...nearly twenty years ago when she originated the title role in David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo, the straight play that has been adapted by the author and Jeanine Tesori into a Broadway-bound musical.

Playing a teenager born with a condition that made her body age four times the normal rate, Burke seemed perfectly natural exuding unbounded energy while dressed in bright colorful fashions and chatting millennial lingo with the much younger actors playing her friends. It wasn't until the plot required her character to dress conservatively and tone down her youthful glow in order to pass as an elderly woman that her presence seem unnatural.

I remember a disappointed gasp from the audience when, late in the play, she shyly made her first entrance in her elderly garb, the character seeming embarrassed and on the verge of tears as both she and the audience were reminded of how little time the endearing free spirit likely had left.Carmen Zilles, C.J. Wilson, Colby Minifie, Marylouise Burke,Omar Metwally and David Ryan Smith(Photo: Jeremy Daniel)

In the two decades since, I've been frequently charmed by the endearing, free-spirited presence Marylouise Burke has given to her stage portrayals, and her current assignment in Brian Watkins' Epiphany is a perfect showcase.

In a production that looks like a gothic horror story (John Lee Beatty's gloomy mansion on a snowy night), sounds like a drawing room comedy (educated people bantering about on a variety of complex subjects) and even lifts a bit from James Joyce's The Dead, Burke is the oddball ethereal presence in director Tyne Rafaeli's production, nearly floating in the loose-fitting ensemble supplied by designer Montana Levi Blanco.

The plot has Burke's character, Markan, throwing a dinner party for a group of friends, either in celebration of the Epiphany, or to celebrate that the intended guest of honor, a writer who has been suffering deep depression, has had an epiphany. Either way, she intends to have the event run like clockwork in accordance with an emailed agenda that nobody seems to have read; thus everyone is shocked and distrustful when Markan points out that one of the conditions of the party is that everyone must surrender their cellphone to a lockbox.

Remarkably, Brian Watkins' comedy/drama/mystery/allegory/I-don't-know goes on for two intermissionless hours with little resembling a dramatic arc, and a lot of threads remaining loose, yet it's quite enjoyable.

"I'm sorry none of it made sense," Markan tells her guests at the end of the evening. But maybe if it did make sense, it wouldn't have been as much fun.

Curtain Line...

In the summer of 1965, in Dallas, Texas, Raul Julia played Conrad Birdie. Now, that's a reason for inventing a time travel machine.

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Sunday Morning Michael Dale: The Fire This Time Festival's 13th Year of Spotlighting Early-Career Playwrights From The African Diaspora - Broadway...

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

On May 26, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood sat down to discuss Rosewoods new novel Constellations of Eve. The books release also inaugurates a new publishing partnership between the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network and Texas Tech University Press. In addition to talking about the new novel, their places in the Vietnamese diaspora, and the writing life, Nguyen and Rosewood also discuss their experiences in the publishing world and how the new partnership hopes to foreground new voices in Asian-American literature. You can read more about the DVAN/TTUP partnership here.

The following interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

*

Viet Thanh Nguyen: You came as an immigrant, not a refugee, to the United States at age 12. Can you tell us what that experience was like?

Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood: It was an interesting experience. I came from Vietnam to Singapore and then to Texas. Perhaps it was a shock, but thankfully, being a teenager, youre kind of used to shock. So I think my transition to the United States was a welcome one.

VTN:A welcome onewhy is that?

ANR: Thats a difficult question. Truly, it was personal. I had been separated from my mother for several years before that, and going to the United States was sort of the only possibility that could reunite us. So it was a safe haven in that sense. And I havent lived with her for I think about five years prior to landing in Texas. It was like having a family again, essentially.

VTN: Unfortunately, stories of separation are simply way too common in the Vietnamese diaspora. I came when I was four years old, so I basically grew up as an American. But coming at 12, I think you must have carried with you a lot of memories of Vietnam and what life was like there. Im wondering, how do you relate to these different kinds of identities, labels, and categories that are here in the United Statesracial, ethnic, or otherwise?

ANR:Recently Ive been thinking of myself as having three identities. One is a Vietnamese one. One is a Vietnamese American one. And one is an American one. And I think that I balance all three of these identities, and there are so many nuances between them. How do I often think about exhibiting identity, for example? And to what extent am I performing myself? To what extent am I performing my Vietnamese identity or my American one?

VTN: So give me an example of performing your Vietnamese identity.

ANR:When Im in the US I have to keep up a certain part of myself to not completely lose touch with my lineage. For example, its more important for me here to have a statue of Buddha and have a place to pray to my father. Whereas if I were in Vietnam, I dont think I would be so deliberate with those actions. I would have a temple to go to. But in the United States, I surround myself with objects, and so objects become a replacement for identities.

VTN:What about the American identity? When do you perform that?

ANR:Ive thought a lot about what does it mean to be an Eastern and a Western writer. I am trained in the US as a writer, but I have my influences also from the East. Even though Vietnamese people are very outspoken, I think Vietnamese literature is actually very quiet and very subtle. Everything is a micro-expression. A text, a novel is an act of micro-expressions that you have to decipher. Whereas in American contemporary literature, I think theres more outward passion and rage. And I love both of those things. So I am in between the quiet rage and the expressive, loud one.

VTN:I think of myself as a Vietnamese American writer, Asian American writer, American writer, or just writer. But I know that you have said that you are a Vietnamese writer and an American writer. I would never call myself a Vietnamese writer because I cant write in Vietnamese. So Im interested in that. What does that mean for you to say that you are a Vietnamese writer if youre writing in English?

ANR:I think its such a part of my DNA and my voice as a writer. When I say that Im a Vietnamese writer, its that my inspiration and my sensibility are rooted in my upbringing. I cannot write in Vietnamese, but I do hope that I could one day. I know Jhumpa Lahiri just recently came out with her first Italian novel, which she wrote entirely in Italian after having lived there for about a decade. Thats what I hope that I will be able to do as well, but in Vietnamese. I look forward to simplifying language because when youre learning to express yourself in a language, it boils down to the essence.

VTN:Most of Vietnamese American literature until recently has been shaped by war and by the refugee experience, which is not what characterizes Constellations of Eve. And well get to that novel specifically. But do you see yourself as a part of Vietnamese American literature? You can say no!

ANR:I absolutely do. And strongly. I think that I am a part of a new wave of Vietnamese American literature that isnt necessarily about the war. I feel especially grateful to you and Isabelle and DVAN [Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network] for this initiative because it is the kind of gift that keeps on giving. Like you, when you were awarded the Pulitzer, it didnt just end there. It put out so many other branches. And so for that, Im really grateful. And I think Vietnamese American literature has many, many branches. Im happy to be one of those tiny shoots.

VTN:I want to make sure we talk about Constellations of Eve, this new novel, which I enjoyed reading so much. First of all, I want to ask you to tell us in your own words what Constellations of Eve is about.

ANR:Constellations of Eve follows these three main characters throughout three different incarnations of their life, and in each iteration they have a chance to try again. With each reality, theres echoes of former ones.

VTN:Its partly built on repetitions and variations. Without giving too much away, it makes a very dramatic opening and then sends us into alternate parallel histories of these main characters. And for me, it brought up this idea that there are so many ways our lives could have branched in different directions based on choices we made or choices that other people made. As a refugee, I often think about what would have happened if the US had made this decision or my parents had made that decision and I had stayed in Vietnam and so on. And your novel explores that territory, obviously, in a very different vein. I know that Buddhist beliefs play some role in your novel, this idea of these different possibilities and realities that our lives could take.

ANR:Yeah. I think the Buddhist belief in reincarnation is a very compassionate one because it allows us to believe that we that we have a second chance and a third chance and a fourth chance, because it seems to me that life is so fickle. People miss each other all the time. And despite our best effort to communicate and despite how much we do love each other and yet we dont quite manage to love each other in the right way. So I think thats why I am drawn to that.

VTN:The novel does not have anything to do, as far as I can tell, with Vietnam or Vietnamese people. Is that correct?

ANR:The characters are free of ethnic markers. Everything I write is going to have a Vietnamese backbone, but I dont feel like I need to prescribe it to the characters or to signal it in any way. When Im in Vietnam, the characters are not described as Vietnamese. I just know they are. So in that sense, its still a Vietnamese book, but its not signaled as such.

VTN:I think thats a really interesting response. It raises a lot of provocative issues around what the possibilities are for writers who are marked in different ways. Obviously, in Vietnam, when were reading Vietnamese literature, characters are not going around saying, hey, Im Vietnamese or, hey, this is a Vietnamese cultural custom in the same ways that white writers in this country are not saying the same things about whatever theyre doing.

ANR:When I published my first book, I deliberately left my middle name Nguyen as an initial, because I didnt want them to exoticize me or signal in any way. But with DVAN and TTUP [Texas Tech University Press], I know Im in a safe space and I know that I have people who advocate for me. I am not suspicious about the intention.

VTN:What was the inspiration for coming up with this story?

ANR:I started writing this book around a time when my relationship with my husband, who was then my fianc, was at a crossroad. And I think this book was a labor of love in many ways, because it was my way of trying to figure out our relationship. How did we miss each other? How did we not communicate? How did we begin to take each other for granted?

VTN:And its your second novel. Was it easier than the first one?

ANR: I dont think any writing is easy. I think its weightlifting, and probably I would rather lift weights. It was very difficult for me to write. And I wrote many, many drafts before the one you read.

VTN:Writing is always difficult. With the second or the third book, you would think, if you keep on lifting weights, it should get easier because you get stronger. But the problem is the hurdles get higher because I think we try to do more. I mean, it just basically sucks to be a writer. And if you cant do anything else, then you know youre a writer.

One way that your novel is different than a lot of Vietnamese literature is that theres a lot of sex in Constellations of Eve. In Vietnamese American literature, you get a lot of trauma, typically around the refugee experience, war, combat, death, violence. Not so much sex, and if sex appears, its something traumatic. Im curious about why you made that choice as a writer.

ANR:This book came to me very sensually. Those scenes are, for lack of a better word, a pleasure to write. I was interested in sex after motherhood, after pregnancy. And so theres a scene thats not necessarily sex, but of Liam and Eve exploring that after her body is in a different state of trauma. So theres pain there interwoven. Those are kind of the phases that Im interested in as a writer, where it teeters between beauty and ugliness, when beauty is pushed to the point where it falls over into something horrendous. Sex can be that for me.

VTN: Death is also a disturbing theme in this novel. Was it hard for you to write on this very dark theme?

ANR: My mom always repeated to me growing up that you came to life the same time that your father passed away. It was so interwoven. This was my mythology, that life and death were the opposite of the same coin. I think there were instances where I felt guilt for being born, because I tied with my fathers death. And, you know, of course, thats not the case.

VTN:As a Catholic, I agree. Our whole Catholic mythology is built on death and resurrection and terrible violence and sacrifice and rebirth. So I think thats all in there as well. You know, you mentioned something interesting to me, which is that with your previous novel and your first publisher, you had decided to not use your Vietnamese name in your authorial name because of your fears of being exoticized. It encapsulates the dilemma that so many Asian American writers have. Ive known plenty of writers who struggled with the same issue. Should they use only their non-Asian names or should they use the Asian names that they had somewhere in the past?

Both answers are situated in this fraught terrain of what Americans consider to be race and the different ways that people have come here to the United States. Did you experience that with the first novel, when you decided against using your Vietnamese name? Did you encounter some of your fears of exoticism?

ANR:My first novel had the face of an Asian woman on it. I wrote a really long email to my publisher about that. And they have precedents for using faces, so Im not blaming them for making that decision. But for me, it was still uncomfortable because I felt like it was just signaling my race for no particular reason. Even before getting a book accepted, I knew that I didnt want that treatment. I knew that I didnt want to be pigeonholed. I tried to convey that as best as I could. And everyone at DVAN and TTUP understood it so quickly. As you can see with the cover, its about the story and not about me.

Viet Thanh Nguyen: I empathize deeply, and Im glad that we have not gone down that road. So potential authors, we will not exoticize you!

________________________________

Constellations of Eve by Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood is available from Texas Tech University Press

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Posted By admin on July 10, 2022

Galkins said that the service offered by AM is a new social contract between the State and society, which means that every citizen must be involved in the protection of the State. This involvement is one of the most important guarantees for Latvia not to experience Russian military aggression, so the service will also apply to citizens living abroad who correspond to the age of recruitment.

"The Latvian society needs to change its thinking and accept that the service in the state army is a matter of honor and duty, as it is, for example, in Finland, not a punishment,"said Galkins.

In addition, experience has shown that citizens living abroadwho have joined the National Guardare returning from their country of residence to train and participate regularly.

Although currently, AM has offered the compulsory service only for men, it could be made mandatory for everyone.The proposed recruitment of men only is based on financial considerations. The Ministry stands for gender equality and if the government and the Saeima are prepared to grant additional funding, it would be possible to change this setting.

At the moment, it is also unknown what sanctions AM will encourage for deliberate avoidance of service and whether it will be an administrative or criminal responsibility.

"We are currently continuing to study Finland's experience in determining responsibility for deliberately avoiding the national defense service. However, as has already been mentioned, first of all, the Ministry of Defense calls for a principled change of attitude. The service is in the interest of every resident of Latvia, said Galkins.

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