I think I have begun to get the wrinkles
And my hair has started to fall too
And I live in denial of the years that are adding on
No, I don’t want to carry the extra adage
I am already suffering
Suffering with the crushed ego, the remains of a useless life
No, I don't have savings yet
Not do I have a house, nor a man or a woman
Not even a cat
And I need the years, need the revisions
Need the reversals and oh, I so need more time
Minus the years somehow
It makes me question, makes me feel old, too old
So old that I feel there’s only me and you
And no other
And you grow old too with me
You have the lines too
Around your mouth and the horizontal shafts dig into your forehead
When you laugh or frown
They cut through the lies, the layers and the years
They expose the brutal years, the useless years, the years we squandered away
Too drunk to care, too lazy to bother
And then suddenly I see the wrinkles forming
And I have aged
And you have aged too
And we fall victim to the wrinkles
I scan my face, I scan the old photos
Putting them under the brutal, cruel light
Yes, those are the years that show
Like ripples
But you can count them
There’s one, two, three
Oh, there’s more and I stop
No, I can’t
I have not even travelled yet
And my bones are already crackling
This can’t be
I want to climb the mountains, do the touristy things
And then get cute pictures taken
But I can’t have wrinkles showing in those
What would they think?
No, it would be so embarrassing
All the men, all the women
In the bars and the dimly-lit restaurants
Where they play the old rock songs and the new ones too
Oh, will they look at me again with interest
Will their stare linger and if it does
Will my wrinkles show?
What can i do? What can i do?
Can i reverse it
Get the botox
But do I have the money for the injections
And won’t the injections hurt
I shrink and shudder
When men look at me in the daylight
The wrinkles form like deep crevices then
Oh, don’t you joke with me
You see i can’t laugh
Or else, you will see the real me
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Islamic schools and terrorism
I wrote this piece in 2006. Back then, the stereotypes disturbed me. After 9/11 there were too many of them. I traveled to New England and talked with many people for the story and felt it was worth telling.
Islamic schools in United States
About a five-minute walk away from Mansfield station in Massachusetts lies an old structure. It is a church, at least on the outside. The cross on the top looks dismembered with just one beam pointing upwards, the horizontal shaft is missing. But the cross at the back is still intact. A small board on the wall identifies it as Al-Noor Academy. A tiny green-colored flag with Arabic letters on it peeps out of one of the windows on the side of the building. A crescent moon, which looks out of place and context, stands at the top of the entrance. There are no minarets, no pronounced external symbols. There is nothing that can tell a passerby that this is an Islamic school.
I came here, to this small town in New England, looking for terrorism. I stand outside, stare at the simple red-brick building, circle the structure, alert, looking for something, trying to hear something that will show me if terrorism is indeed being taught here. The idea itself is elusive. It is anything, a sound, a map where Israel does not exist, or a phrase in a textbook calling for Jihad. May be it is formless, just an idea that echoes within the school’s walls.
Inside the building it is different. On the cream-colored walls hang numerous posters, frames and drawings. There is a consistency in this variety, something that ties it all. One idea that casts its hue on the blue, green and red of the drawings, most of which have been done by students. All have Arabic letters on them. They are there on the blue sky with a silver moon, shining down on a navy river. They squeeze themselves in the concentric rings of a multi-colored chakra, a Buddhist symbol. The kaba or the black stone of Mecca in rich velvet hangs at the end of the corridor. It is difficult to not see it.
Girls hurry to their classes in their navy blue long-flowing gowns, the mandatory uniform. Their heads are covered. They chat, crack jokes, and discuss basketball. Boys are already in their classes. They wear trousers and sweaters and are clean-shaven. No mixing of students here.
This is far removed from the madrasa in Old Delhi, near Jama Masjid, where children wearing their pathani kurtas, skull caps and pyjamas, carrying the books under their arms, walk toward an old building where in one of the numerous alleys the old bearded teacher waits for them. Or in Patna, my hometown, where I saw teenage boys with beards, sitting against the crumbling walls of an old dome-shaped building, a madrasa, reflecting. These are places where a student learns religion only excluding all else that matters in the world. Religion is a responsibility of these madrasas in Asia and Middle East, to pass it on to children so that they live it, feel it, and promote it.
Madrasa is an Urdu term for school. These have existed since the 11th century when Nizamiyah, a learning center, was established in Baghdad. Mostly residential and providing free food and lodging to students, these essentially taught religion and prepared scholars to interpret the Shariat, the law, and Hadith, a secondary source of religious codes for Muslims. Students learned through recitation. Koran was memorized, which is a way of preserving the original text. Translations are not considered sacred, and if one has to pray, one has to do it in Arabic, the language of Muhammad.
There are more than 234 Islamic schools in United States and the numbers have increased post 9/11 because of negative stereotype of Muslims that they are terrorists and out if concern to practice and understand their religion, and so has the interest in them. Islam is the fastest growing religion in United States and it is estimated that there are more than 6 million Muslims in America.
The madrasas in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan have come under a lot of fire from the media for promoting terrorism. Mullah Mohammed Omar, a student of a Pakistani madrasa called Darul Uloom Haqqania led the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1960s. Since then terrorism, fanaticism and madarasas have been linked and so have been identities.
Once inside the school, I pull my head scarf lower to cover any strands of hair on my face. As I sit outside the office of the principal, Robert Mond, I flip through the pages of Islamic Horizons. I come across Hadia Mubarak’s piece. She writes in ‘Living as a Muslim American’ how being American and a Muslim at the same time is an oxymoron, like the idea of the moon and the sun appearing in the sky at the same time. How the faith and nationality have come to mean parallel lines that never meet, casting a doubt on Muslim-American’s loyalties. She wonders how their identity has come to mean fanatics through books like American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, a book by Steven Emerson that says militants are living in America, or films like Dateline showing honor killings of seven women.
The first female president of the group, Muslim Students Association, Mubarak is born to immigrants. Her mother is from Jordan, while her father from Syria. She writes, “I am a child of two cultures with a tongue of two languages and a belief that is universal. My roots belong somewhere in the vast Atlantic Ocean, linking a world my parents left behind with the world into which I arrive…I am neither Jordanian nor Syrian, for tradition rules that you belong to the soil that testifies to your birth and childhood.”
The connections or the desire thereof to keep the links intact have given rise to many Islamic schools in the west. And though some of such madrasas have been promoting extremist attitudes, the branding of all such institutions is unjustified and ignores the cause, the need for preservation of identity.
When Mond comes in, he asks if I want to attend a class. The social science class is just starting. The 10th grade girls in this class seem curious about me. I open my notebook and fidget with the recorder.
They are doing presentations on Japan today. One girl starts the presentation and after the lights are dimmed, I look around. The word ‘Geisha’ catches everyone's attention. The girls stop talking and stare at the pretty Japanese woman on the screen. I try to look at the map on the wall, trying to see if Israel is part of their world. The cover of Gossip Girl, a novel by Cecily Von Ziegesar, on a girl’s lap distracts me. The cover has a scantily clad woman’s bust on it. I look at the teacher. She looks away.
The girls are American. They talk about fashion, dating and proms. It is only the hijab that sets them apart from others.
The girls want to talk to me too. So, after class we go to sit in an empty classroom. They sit around me, three of them. There are hardcover Arabic books on the desks. Perhaps this is where they have their Arabic class.
The girls are skipping their class because they have the principal’s permission or so it seems. Sono Ghori, Zainab Mehtar and Fatimah Mahdee are all too eager to talk, sometimes cutting the other one off. They love their hijab, their religion and America too. This is where they were born. Ghori took up the hijab when she was very young. Her mother doesn’t wear it. But she does not stop her daughter from wearing it.
Ghori, 14, has big eyes, which light up when she speaks. Covered from head to toe in a blue gown with a matching hijab, she is born to Pakistani immigrants. She tells me how she wants to be a lawyer and change the politics of America, her country. She is upset when she sees Iraqi children orphaned by the war, she is disturbed about the Israel-Palestine conflict. And yes she knows Israel exists.
“I love America but there are certain things…,” she says, her voice fading off.
Zainab Mehtar, 14, wants to be a journalist, to write the truth, she says. Unlike Ghori, Mehtar is reserved. Both her parents are from Burma. Mehtar tells me how Sunday schools at the mosque are not enough to learn or connect with their faith. Her father taught them at home too. But in schools like these, she has come to learn more and freely practice her faith. She says she is shocked when I mention about the reports and how Islamic schools promoting terrorism.
But she has an idea. Everyone must come to these schools to see what exactly is going on. When the bell rings, she rushes out to perform afternoon prayers, her blue gown trailing behind her.
The third girl, Mahdee, is less talkative. Her parents converted to Islam before she was born. Though she was born into the faith, some of her siblings were not. They still live different lives. They party, go out and do other things that she would never do. But she says she understands. It is America and life is like this here.
Mahdee, 15, wants to be a cardiologist and work for the black community, her community.
None of them wants to be terrorists. And nothing seems unusual except the hijab and the Arabic letters on posters on the walls.
All the girls were born here or have been here for the major part of their lives. America is their home. Even though fitting in is difficult. Ghori has been called names at times. “Are you Osama’s daughter or wife?...they say,” she says.
They go on. Ghori thinks if she had gone to a public school, she would have been influenced, had gone out partying with guys, if she had been surrounded by non-Muslims, she would have done things that are against the religion and would have offended her parents, which is a sin in Islam. They say the paradise is at your mother’s feet.
What about the war? War is Haram for us. When The Koran says kill them, it does not mean kill them physically, but kill the faith in their hearts, kill the influence in their hearts, they explain. Islam is peace for them, literally and otherwise.
Normal conversations, normal choices, normal girls.
I first came across the dilemma of Muslim parents at the Sunday school at the local mosque here. The parents, who came and settled, are worried about the moral corruption of their children. And perhaps the fear has led them to enforce religion in their lives in a way that the west views as isolation and extremist. A Muslim child is expected to start praying from the age of seven. So, he is expected to learn the basic suras or prayers by heart. And then learn the language, Arabic, itself to understand the Koran, Mir Hussaini, the secretary of Islamic Society of Central New York says. In South Asia or Islamic countries in the Middle East, parents teach their children the basic tenets of Islam. But in America both parents are working and have very little time so the mosques have started these schools to pass on the religion to the children, Hussaini explains.
“They are necessary for the same reason that Catholic schools are. We want to teach them our religion,” says Karen Keyworth, director of League of Islamic Schools of America.
But many others do not think these schools are just trying to offer a protective environment or teach their values and religion.
Stephen Schwartz writes in his ‘What are they teaching in these Saudi-financed Schools’ that most of these Islamic academies are teaching the Muslim children to hate Christians and Jews. He uses Islamic Saudi Academy as an example. Keyworth says, “That (Islamic Saudi Academy) is the embassy school, it is for the embassy officials,” she says over the phone.
Many such schools run on donations or tuition money. Sometimes, they have fund-raising events in order to keep running. Al-Noor is also a non-profit organization. “My school does not get even $1 from outside the country,” says Dr. Saeed Shahzad, who is also one of the founders of the school and on the board of the Islamic Society of New England.
I also attended the Sunday school at the local mosque at Islamic Society of Central New York, which has around 120 students. Because the mosque is small, classes are now held in the basement. Earlier, the classes were held at Levy Middle School and the mosque used to pay the school $200 a day for the use of its classrooms on Sundays. When the new school superintendent came, the school raised the fee to $1,600, which the mosque could not afford.
It is definitely small. There are too many people. During the break at 11:15 a.m., the children ran around, chatted and ate their lunch. While the younger ones played, the slightly older ones like Anika Azad, 13, sat quietly on the stone steps and waited for the class to resume.
I sat with a group of girls in the Musallah, the first floor, marked for women, while Samina Masood, a volunteer, tried to teach them the Five Pillars of Islam. The girls, who are in hijab, did not seem convinced of Allah’s benevolence and one asks Masood why her wish was not granted, even after praying.
Masood, who is from Pakistan, tells me how difficult it is to preserve the religion in United States and Sunday schools at the mosques are trying to instill the values of Islam in children, who go to public schools and live in a world that is different from where their parents come from. “We can only try,” she tells me.
For one, the hijab, the modest dressing, doesn’t stick out at these schools. Little girls at Sunday school told me how they did not wear the hijab in their schools because they look different. The child is often living two lives in two different worlds. The weekdays are spent in public schools, in a secular world. The Sundays are spent trying to connect with their faith. The girls wear the hijab on Sundays.
“I wore it to my regular school one day and everybody stared at me. I felt weird,” said Samila Alemic, a student at the Sunday school.
Islam requires its followers to follow a code of conduct. That knowledge and practice is essential to being a Muslim. In India and Pakistan or Iran, Islam has been a religion for many centuries. The culture itself, the sound of the muezzin five times a day, the commonness of hijab and burqa and community prayers on Fridays on the roadside or wherever the Muslims can spread a carpet and others will understand, is defined by it. Talk about any town or city in India, a mention of an Islamic monument or food will come up. Personal laws exist for religious groups in terms of marriage, divorce and inheritance laws.
But it is different here in America. Though immigration of Muslims began in 1600s, it was not until the 1960s when immigration rules changed and many people from Asian countries starting coming in that the community really grew in terms of establishing their institutions. A mosque is the first to be established. A religious school next. Most mosques have the Sunday schools that impart the basic religious education. But these schools can’t fill in for culture or environment that is missing here.
All her life, Salma Kazmi, assistant director of Islamic Society of Boston, went to a public school. One of her friends forced her to eat when she was fasting during Ramadan. “You have to explain…you always feel different. I was asked what I got for Christmas. I felt left out,” she says. She had to go to school during Ramadan. The Islamic schools are closed during the month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays.
The experiences are numerous. Keyworth tells me at a community college in one of the towns in Michigan where she teaches, students ask her if she has cancer because she covers her head. “These girls attended public schools. The public school material is biased…incorrect and missing diversity. Why would every one of my students think I have cancer?,” she asks.
These stories, plenty of them, of isolation and insecurity, made parents and educators feel the need for Islamic schools that provide Islamic environment, where children see others like themselves and hijab is not outwardly. This seemed the best way to keep the faith, while living as an American.
But absorption and acceptance in America is still to come. Dr. Saeed Shahzad, one of the founders of Al-Noor Academy, was at a hospital in New Jersey helping patients when the two planes struck the two towers of the world trade center. “Islam was introduced to the world that day as never before,” he says.
The Muslim community has been a victim of negative stereotyping since then. Ameen Sheaffer, who converted to Islam in May 1994, says after he converted, he started facing prejudices.
“My managers said- ‘what do you guys do at the mosque? Build bombs in the basement’? I have heard people referring to solution of the Muslim problem, saying that Yemen should be bombed and made into a parking lot,” he says.
Though, the Muslims condemned the act or did not agree with it, they were isolated, branded and misunderstood and so were there institutions. So, Muslim parents feel insecure and want to protect their children from stinging comments, of which there are many, and teach them Islam.
That’s why Al-Noor was established. It is an American-style religious school. It can well be called Al-Noor Madrasa, says one of the founders, Dr. Saeed Shahzad. The tuition is higher than public schools, around $3,800 per year. In that, these are different from the madrasas in Islamic countries.
Everyone asks me why I chose this school. May be because they let me in. Why am I doing this story? Because I am curious to know what terrorism is, how it is taught in Islamic schools and whether it is part of the curriculum. I am intrigued with the rhetoric that almost always puts Islam and terrorism together. I have been warned too. “They are dangerous people, take care,” I have been told. Don’t they all hate us Hindus? Isn’t the Jihad against us too?
All through January, February, and half of March, I had been calling schools to see if I could visit them. Many declined; some put me on hold. Perhaps they do not trust me enough. Then finally, I get an e mail from Robert Mond, the principle of Al-Noor Academy High School. He asks me to visit the school. So, I travel to Boston, take the commuter rail to Mansfield, lose my way a couple of times, but finally make it to the school on 20 Church St.
Al-Noor means truth in Arabic. It is the only Islamic high school in Massachusetts. Founded in September 2000, it has around 75 full time students. Students come from as far as Rhode Island and Dorchester, traveling for more than an hour to attend school. It was an outcome of parents’ desire to have a high school where their children, who were already attending religious school in lower grades at Islamic Academy of New England at Sharon, could go. So, St. Mary’s Church was bought in Mansfield and the school shifted form Quincy, where it was first established, to the more spacious property. The building, which was a Catholic church, dates back to at least 1920s. It had been abandoned for around 30 years before the school bought it, says Mond. They bought it, renovated it, put an elevator, added the third floor to serve as a mosque for the students and the locals to pray, put in ceramic tiles, and fixed the outside windows that were broken. Mond says limited funds restricted too much of change in the building, inside or outside. Was it done deliberately?
He disagrees, “That it looks like a church…that’s fine.” I ask about the cross at the back. He says it does not exist. I have a photograph of it. I don’t push.
Born a Catholic, Mond converted to Islam, traveled the Middle East, Oman and Syria. Islam, he says, aroused his curiosity. When he was looking for a job, he consciously chose to join an Islamic school. The money was far less compared to what he would have earned as a technician. But faith beckoned.
So Mond applied and got accepted. He explains the mission as providing an education that is rooted in Islamic faith.
“It is trying to develop a sense that they are in front of God, they would fear God and would be up to any bad things,” he says to me, later on the phone.
“Who is an American Muslim?” I ask him. Did the want the students to be one? This is important to me. This is the conflict, it is in the identity. “I remember that time John F. Kennedy said I am an American who is a Catholic. I tell them they are Americans first and then Muslims,” he says.
Identity is the key to understanding terrorism. Because terrorism is important for what it does to an identity. At times it defines individuals, even countries and sometimes it defines religion.
I was not able to meet with Dr. Saeed Shahzad, a neurologist and one of the founders of the school, but we talk on the phone later when I am in Syracuse.
Shahzad is from Pakistan. His daughter went to a private school until 4th grade. In 1994, when the Islamic Academy of New England was established, he transferred his daughter here. They started with just 26 students in a rented building in Quincy. It aimed to serve the Muslim population that he estimates to be around 30,000 in and around Boston. They, later, extended the school to 8th grade because the parents did not want their children to go to public schools or non-Muslim schools.
“We might lose our Islamic values, the way and the morals,” he says. He considers himself American now and is married to a Christian.
“In this country they have separation of Church and State. A Muslim child does pray. We start our assembly from the holy Koran. This was not available in public schools,” he says. “A Muslim prays five times a day…If you go to public schools you have to give up your religion for that period of time…Why God has been thrown out...I don’t know?”
I met Raja Abou-Samra at Al-Noor. She wanted her two children to learn the Islamic way of living. So, she put them in Al-Noor Academy. Her two older children, who she put in Christian private schools, were getting confused. Her husband was one of the community members, who were active in establishing the school so that the children could study in an Islamic environment. “My son was getting confused in the Catholic school. The values at schools were different and at home he was seeing different things,” she says.
Samra’s husband then decided to put their other two children in the Islamic school. The daughter, who is elder, just completed her high school.
“Her personality is stronger. My son…he becomes weaker. In his school, he is different from others, he avoids others. My daughter is one of them. She is open and confident,” she says.
Samra teaches Arabic and Koranic memorization to children at Al-Noor. She is from Syria. She tells me how religion was never a problem because Arabic being their first language, she could always pick up the Koran and read. She thinks children lack values and respect here. That’s missing.
At the Friday prayer meeting at Harvard University that I am invited to attend, I also meet Habeh Ismail, who is the vice-president of the university’s Muslim Students Association. She went to an Islamic school in New Jersey. “We were taught the same books. But the biggest emphasis was on values…you got into trouble for cheating,” she says.
After getting back from Boston, I wonder if I have searched enough. So, I called Abdeelah Ahmed of Al-Ihsan Academy, an Islamic school in Syracuse, and asked him if I could come to his school again.
I have been there once. The school is in an old building on West Onondaga Street. When I got there in the afternoon, I saw Ahmed, who is from Egypt, teaching children how to add and subtract.
I sat there for a while, peeped into the classrooms and chatted with the receptionist. It is just like any school- children looked bored in their classroom, teachers tried to get the calculation correct, parents waited outside for their children. It was around 3:30 p.m. and school was over.
I had borrowed their textbooks, pored over them, searching for terrorism, finding nothing.
But I want to go again and check. So, I walk to the school after work one day. At the corner of West Onondaga Street, I think if I will ever find the little terrorists in these schools. I call the school and tell them I am not coming. They have lined up a few children who could talk to me. But I am done. Maybe some other day, I tell them.
Islamic schools in United States
About a five-minute walk away from Mansfield station in Massachusetts lies an old structure. It is a church, at least on the outside. The cross on the top looks dismembered with just one beam pointing upwards, the horizontal shaft is missing. But the cross at the back is still intact. A small board on the wall identifies it as Al-Noor Academy. A tiny green-colored flag with Arabic letters on it peeps out of one of the windows on the side of the building. A crescent moon, which looks out of place and context, stands at the top of the entrance. There are no minarets, no pronounced external symbols. There is nothing that can tell a passerby that this is an Islamic school.
I came here, to this small town in New England, looking for terrorism. I stand outside, stare at the simple red-brick building, circle the structure, alert, looking for something, trying to hear something that will show me if terrorism is indeed being taught here. The idea itself is elusive. It is anything, a sound, a map where Israel does not exist, or a phrase in a textbook calling for Jihad. May be it is formless, just an idea that echoes within the school’s walls.
Inside the building it is different. On the cream-colored walls hang numerous posters, frames and drawings. There is a consistency in this variety, something that ties it all. One idea that casts its hue on the blue, green and red of the drawings, most of which have been done by students. All have Arabic letters on them. They are there on the blue sky with a silver moon, shining down on a navy river. They squeeze themselves in the concentric rings of a multi-colored chakra, a Buddhist symbol. The kaba or the black stone of Mecca in rich velvet hangs at the end of the corridor. It is difficult to not see it.
Girls hurry to their classes in their navy blue long-flowing gowns, the mandatory uniform. Their heads are covered. They chat, crack jokes, and discuss basketball. Boys are already in their classes. They wear trousers and sweaters and are clean-shaven. No mixing of students here.
This is far removed from the madrasa in Old Delhi, near Jama Masjid, where children wearing their pathani kurtas, skull caps and pyjamas, carrying the books under their arms, walk toward an old building where in one of the numerous alleys the old bearded teacher waits for them. Or in Patna, my hometown, where I saw teenage boys with beards, sitting against the crumbling walls of an old dome-shaped building, a madrasa, reflecting. These are places where a student learns religion only excluding all else that matters in the world. Religion is a responsibility of these madrasas in Asia and Middle East, to pass it on to children so that they live it, feel it, and promote it.
Madrasa is an Urdu term for school. These have existed since the 11th century when Nizamiyah, a learning center, was established in Baghdad. Mostly residential and providing free food and lodging to students, these essentially taught religion and prepared scholars to interpret the Shariat, the law, and Hadith, a secondary source of religious codes for Muslims. Students learned through recitation. Koran was memorized, which is a way of preserving the original text. Translations are not considered sacred, and if one has to pray, one has to do it in Arabic, the language of Muhammad.
There are more than 234 Islamic schools in United States and the numbers have increased post 9/11 because of negative stereotype of Muslims that they are terrorists and out if concern to practice and understand their religion, and so has the interest in them. Islam is the fastest growing religion in United States and it is estimated that there are more than 6 million Muslims in America.
The madrasas in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan have come under a lot of fire from the media for promoting terrorism. Mullah Mohammed Omar, a student of a Pakistani madrasa called Darul Uloom Haqqania led the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1960s. Since then terrorism, fanaticism and madarasas have been linked and so have been identities.
Once inside the school, I pull my head scarf lower to cover any strands of hair on my face. As I sit outside the office of the principal, Robert Mond, I flip through the pages of Islamic Horizons. I come across Hadia Mubarak’s piece. She writes in ‘Living as a Muslim American’ how being American and a Muslim at the same time is an oxymoron, like the idea of the moon and the sun appearing in the sky at the same time. How the faith and nationality have come to mean parallel lines that never meet, casting a doubt on Muslim-American’s loyalties. She wonders how their identity has come to mean fanatics through books like American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, a book by Steven Emerson that says militants are living in America, or films like Dateline showing honor killings of seven women.
The first female president of the group, Muslim Students Association, Mubarak is born to immigrants. Her mother is from Jordan, while her father from Syria. She writes, “I am a child of two cultures with a tongue of two languages and a belief that is universal. My roots belong somewhere in the vast Atlantic Ocean, linking a world my parents left behind with the world into which I arrive…I am neither Jordanian nor Syrian, for tradition rules that you belong to the soil that testifies to your birth and childhood.”
The connections or the desire thereof to keep the links intact have given rise to many Islamic schools in the west. And though some of such madrasas have been promoting extremist attitudes, the branding of all such institutions is unjustified and ignores the cause, the need for preservation of identity.
When Mond comes in, he asks if I want to attend a class. The social science class is just starting. The 10th grade girls in this class seem curious about me. I open my notebook and fidget with the recorder.
They are doing presentations on Japan today. One girl starts the presentation and after the lights are dimmed, I look around. The word ‘Geisha’ catches everyone's attention. The girls stop talking and stare at the pretty Japanese woman on the screen. I try to look at the map on the wall, trying to see if Israel is part of their world. The cover of Gossip Girl, a novel by Cecily Von Ziegesar, on a girl’s lap distracts me. The cover has a scantily clad woman’s bust on it. I look at the teacher. She looks away.
The girls are American. They talk about fashion, dating and proms. It is only the hijab that sets them apart from others.
The girls want to talk to me too. So, after class we go to sit in an empty classroom. They sit around me, three of them. There are hardcover Arabic books on the desks. Perhaps this is where they have their Arabic class.
The girls are skipping their class because they have the principal’s permission or so it seems. Sono Ghori, Zainab Mehtar and Fatimah Mahdee are all too eager to talk, sometimes cutting the other one off. They love their hijab, their religion and America too. This is where they were born. Ghori took up the hijab when she was very young. Her mother doesn’t wear it. But she does not stop her daughter from wearing it.
Ghori, 14, has big eyes, which light up when she speaks. Covered from head to toe in a blue gown with a matching hijab, she is born to Pakistani immigrants. She tells me how she wants to be a lawyer and change the politics of America, her country. She is upset when she sees Iraqi children orphaned by the war, she is disturbed about the Israel-Palestine conflict. And yes she knows Israel exists.
“I love America but there are certain things…,” she says, her voice fading off.
Zainab Mehtar, 14, wants to be a journalist, to write the truth, she says. Unlike Ghori, Mehtar is reserved. Both her parents are from Burma. Mehtar tells me how Sunday schools at the mosque are not enough to learn or connect with their faith. Her father taught them at home too. But in schools like these, she has come to learn more and freely practice her faith. She says she is shocked when I mention about the reports and how Islamic schools promoting terrorism.
But she has an idea. Everyone must come to these schools to see what exactly is going on. When the bell rings, she rushes out to perform afternoon prayers, her blue gown trailing behind her.
The third girl, Mahdee, is less talkative. Her parents converted to Islam before she was born. Though she was born into the faith, some of her siblings were not. They still live different lives. They party, go out and do other things that she would never do. But she says she understands. It is America and life is like this here.
Mahdee, 15, wants to be a cardiologist and work for the black community, her community.
None of them wants to be terrorists. And nothing seems unusual except the hijab and the Arabic letters on posters on the walls.
All the girls were born here or have been here for the major part of their lives. America is their home. Even though fitting in is difficult. Ghori has been called names at times. “Are you Osama’s daughter or wife?...they say,” she says.
They go on. Ghori thinks if she had gone to a public school, she would have been influenced, had gone out partying with guys, if she had been surrounded by non-Muslims, she would have done things that are against the religion and would have offended her parents, which is a sin in Islam. They say the paradise is at your mother’s feet.
What about the war? War is Haram for us. When The Koran says kill them, it does not mean kill them physically, but kill the faith in their hearts, kill the influence in their hearts, they explain. Islam is peace for them, literally and otherwise.
Normal conversations, normal choices, normal girls.
I first came across the dilemma of Muslim parents at the Sunday school at the local mosque here. The parents, who came and settled, are worried about the moral corruption of their children. And perhaps the fear has led them to enforce religion in their lives in a way that the west views as isolation and extremist. A Muslim child is expected to start praying from the age of seven. So, he is expected to learn the basic suras or prayers by heart. And then learn the language, Arabic, itself to understand the Koran, Mir Hussaini, the secretary of Islamic Society of Central New York says. In South Asia or Islamic countries in the Middle East, parents teach their children the basic tenets of Islam. But in America both parents are working and have very little time so the mosques have started these schools to pass on the religion to the children, Hussaini explains.
“They are necessary for the same reason that Catholic schools are. We want to teach them our religion,” says Karen Keyworth, director of League of Islamic Schools of America.
But many others do not think these schools are just trying to offer a protective environment or teach their values and religion.
Stephen Schwartz writes in his ‘What are they teaching in these Saudi-financed Schools’ that most of these Islamic academies are teaching the Muslim children to hate Christians and Jews. He uses Islamic Saudi Academy as an example. Keyworth says, “That (Islamic Saudi Academy) is the embassy school, it is for the embassy officials,” she says over the phone.
Many such schools run on donations or tuition money. Sometimes, they have fund-raising events in order to keep running. Al-Noor is also a non-profit organization. “My school does not get even $1 from outside the country,” says Dr. Saeed Shahzad, who is also one of the founders of the school and on the board of the Islamic Society of New England.
I also attended the Sunday school at the local mosque at Islamic Society of Central New York, which has around 120 students. Because the mosque is small, classes are now held in the basement. Earlier, the classes were held at Levy Middle School and the mosque used to pay the school $200 a day for the use of its classrooms on Sundays. When the new school superintendent came, the school raised the fee to $1,600, which the mosque could not afford.
It is definitely small. There are too many people. During the break at 11:15 a.m., the children ran around, chatted and ate their lunch. While the younger ones played, the slightly older ones like Anika Azad, 13, sat quietly on the stone steps and waited for the class to resume.
I sat with a group of girls in the Musallah, the first floor, marked for women, while Samina Masood, a volunteer, tried to teach them the Five Pillars of Islam. The girls, who are in hijab, did not seem convinced of Allah’s benevolence and one asks Masood why her wish was not granted, even after praying.
Masood, who is from Pakistan, tells me how difficult it is to preserve the religion in United States and Sunday schools at the mosques are trying to instill the values of Islam in children, who go to public schools and live in a world that is different from where their parents come from. “We can only try,” she tells me.
For one, the hijab, the modest dressing, doesn’t stick out at these schools. Little girls at Sunday school told me how they did not wear the hijab in their schools because they look different. The child is often living two lives in two different worlds. The weekdays are spent in public schools, in a secular world. The Sundays are spent trying to connect with their faith. The girls wear the hijab on Sundays.
“I wore it to my regular school one day and everybody stared at me. I felt weird,” said Samila Alemic, a student at the Sunday school.
Islam requires its followers to follow a code of conduct. That knowledge and practice is essential to being a Muslim. In India and Pakistan or Iran, Islam has been a religion for many centuries. The culture itself, the sound of the muezzin five times a day, the commonness of hijab and burqa and community prayers on Fridays on the roadside or wherever the Muslims can spread a carpet and others will understand, is defined by it. Talk about any town or city in India, a mention of an Islamic monument or food will come up. Personal laws exist for religious groups in terms of marriage, divorce and inheritance laws.
But it is different here in America. Though immigration of Muslims began in 1600s, it was not until the 1960s when immigration rules changed and many people from Asian countries starting coming in that the community really grew in terms of establishing their institutions. A mosque is the first to be established. A religious school next. Most mosques have the Sunday schools that impart the basic religious education. But these schools can’t fill in for culture or environment that is missing here.
All her life, Salma Kazmi, assistant director of Islamic Society of Boston, went to a public school. One of her friends forced her to eat when she was fasting during Ramadan. “You have to explain…you always feel different. I was asked what I got for Christmas. I felt left out,” she says. She had to go to school during Ramadan. The Islamic schools are closed during the month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays.
The experiences are numerous. Keyworth tells me at a community college in one of the towns in Michigan where she teaches, students ask her if she has cancer because she covers her head. “These girls attended public schools. The public school material is biased…incorrect and missing diversity. Why would every one of my students think I have cancer?,” she asks.
These stories, plenty of them, of isolation and insecurity, made parents and educators feel the need for Islamic schools that provide Islamic environment, where children see others like themselves and hijab is not outwardly. This seemed the best way to keep the faith, while living as an American.
But absorption and acceptance in America is still to come. Dr. Saeed Shahzad, one of the founders of Al-Noor Academy, was at a hospital in New Jersey helping patients when the two planes struck the two towers of the world trade center. “Islam was introduced to the world that day as never before,” he says.
The Muslim community has been a victim of negative stereotyping since then. Ameen Sheaffer, who converted to Islam in May 1994, says after he converted, he started facing prejudices.
“My managers said- ‘what do you guys do at the mosque? Build bombs in the basement’? I have heard people referring to solution of the Muslim problem, saying that Yemen should be bombed and made into a parking lot,” he says.
Though, the Muslims condemned the act or did not agree with it, they were isolated, branded and misunderstood and so were there institutions. So, Muslim parents feel insecure and want to protect their children from stinging comments, of which there are many, and teach them Islam.
That’s why Al-Noor was established. It is an American-style religious school. It can well be called Al-Noor Madrasa, says one of the founders, Dr. Saeed Shahzad. The tuition is higher than public schools, around $3,800 per year. In that, these are different from the madrasas in Islamic countries.
Everyone asks me why I chose this school. May be because they let me in. Why am I doing this story? Because I am curious to know what terrorism is, how it is taught in Islamic schools and whether it is part of the curriculum. I am intrigued with the rhetoric that almost always puts Islam and terrorism together. I have been warned too. “They are dangerous people, take care,” I have been told. Don’t they all hate us Hindus? Isn’t the Jihad against us too?
All through January, February, and half of March, I had been calling schools to see if I could visit them. Many declined; some put me on hold. Perhaps they do not trust me enough. Then finally, I get an e mail from Robert Mond, the principle of Al-Noor Academy High School. He asks me to visit the school. So, I travel to Boston, take the commuter rail to Mansfield, lose my way a couple of times, but finally make it to the school on 20 Church St.
Al-Noor means truth in Arabic. It is the only Islamic high school in Massachusetts. Founded in September 2000, it has around 75 full time students. Students come from as far as Rhode Island and Dorchester, traveling for more than an hour to attend school. It was an outcome of parents’ desire to have a high school where their children, who were already attending religious school in lower grades at Islamic Academy of New England at Sharon, could go. So, St. Mary’s Church was bought in Mansfield and the school shifted form Quincy, where it was first established, to the more spacious property. The building, which was a Catholic church, dates back to at least 1920s. It had been abandoned for around 30 years before the school bought it, says Mond. They bought it, renovated it, put an elevator, added the third floor to serve as a mosque for the students and the locals to pray, put in ceramic tiles, and fixed the outside windows that were broken. Mond says limited funds restricted too much of change in the building, inside or outside. Was it done deliberately?
He disagrees, “That it looks like a church…that’s fine.” I ask about the cross at the back. He says it does not exist. I have a photograph of it. I don’t push.
Born a Catholic, Mond converted to Islam, traveled the Middle East, Oman and Syria. Islam, he says, aroused his curiosity. When he was looking for a job, he consciously chose to join an Islamic school. The money was far less compared to what he would have earned as a technician. But faith beckoned.
So Mond applied and got accepted. He explains the mission as providing an education that is rooted in Islamic faith.
“It is trying to develop a sense that they are in front of God, they would fear God and would be up to any bad things,” he says to me, later on the phone.
“Who is an American Muslim?” I ask him. Did the want the students to be one? This is important to me. This is the conflict, it is in the identity. “I remember that time John F. Kennedy said I am an American who is a Catholic. I tell them they are Americans first and then Muslims,” he says.
Identity is the key to understanding terrorism. Because terrorism is important for what it does to an identity. At times it defines individuals, even countries and sometimes it defines religion.
I was not able to meet with Dr. Saeed Shahzad, a neurologist and one of the founders of the school, but we talk on the phone later when I am in Syracuse.
Shahzad is from Pakistan. His daughter went to a private school until 4th grade. In 1994, when the Islamic Academy of New England was established, he transferred his daughter here. They started with just 26 students in a rented building in Quincy. It aimed to serve the Muslim population that he estimates to be around 30,000 in and around Boston. They, later, extended the school to 8th grade because the parents did not want their children to go to public schools or non-Muslim schools.
“We might lose our Islamic values, the way and the morals,” he says. He considers himself American now and is married to a Christian.
“In this country they have separation of Church and State. A Muslim child does pray. We start our assembly from the holy Koran. This was not available in public schools,” he says. “A Muslim prays five times a day…If you go to public schools you have to give up your religion for that period of time…Why God has been thrown out...I don’t know?”
I met Raja Abou-Samra at Al-Noor. She wanted her two children to learn the Islamic way of living. So, she put them in Al-Noor Academy. Her two older children, who she put in Christian private schools, were getting confused. Her husband was one of the community members, who were active in establishing the school so that the children could study in an Islamic environment. “My son was getting confused in the Catholic school. The values at schools were different and at home he was seeing different things,” she says.
Samra’s husband then decided to put their other two children in the Islamic school. The daughter, who is elder, just completed her high school.
“Her personality is stronger. My son…he becomes weaker. In his school, he is different from others, he avoids others. My daughter is one of them. She is open and confident,” she says.
Samra teaches Arabic and Koranic memorization to children at Al-Noor. She is from Syria. She tells me how religion was never a problem because Arabic being their first language, she could always pick up the Koran and read. She thinks children lack values and respect here. That’s missing.
At the Friday prayer meeting at Harvard University that I am invited to attend, I also meet Habeh Ismail, who is the vice-president of the university’s Muslim Students Association. She went to an Islamic school in New Jersey. “We were taught the same books. But the biggest emphasis was on values…you got into trouble for cheating,” she says.
After getting back from Boston, I wonder if I have searched enough. So, I called Abdeelah Ahmed of Al-Ihsan Academy, an Islamic school in Syracuse, and asked him if I could come to his school again.
I have been there once. The school is in an old building on West Onondaga Street. When I got there in the afternoon, I saw Ahmed, who is from Egypt, teaching children how to add and subtract.
I sat there for a while, peeped into the classrooms and chatted with the receptionist. It is just like any school- children looked bored in their classroom, teachers tried to get the calculation correct, parents waited outside for their children. It was around 3:30 p.m. and school was over.
I had borrowed their textbooks, pored over them, searching for terrorism, finding nothing.
But I want to go again and check. So, I walk to the school after work one day. At the corner of West Onondaga Street, I think if I will ever find the little terrorists in these schools. I call the school and tell them I am not coming. They have lined up a few children who could talk to me. But I am done. Maybe some other day, I tell them.
Friday, August 22, 2008
leftovers from Utica - the first Karen Church in United States, the changing religious landscape of the city
While in Utica, I had been working on a story on the changing religious landscape of Utica. I did the reporting in my own time on the weekends becaise I thought the story was important. Much of the story (still incomplete) was written over cups on coffee in parking lots and in the confines of my apartment. I am posting it here because it reminds me of Utica ...
The day before I left, I went to the site of the mosque and saw Avlim Tricic, the president of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica, putting the cresecent moon on top of the former church. To me that was symbolic ....
The story ...
Every Monday, Julius Wandover walks into the former St. Mary's Church chapel and scrubs the floors clean, polishes the windows and makes sure everything is fine. He has been the caretaker for 18 years and was a member once, too. But when the church closed about two years ago, he started attending St. John's. Now he doesn't. But he hasn't given up on St. Mary's. When he pushes the doors open and walks into the familiar chapel, you can tell Wandover is experiencing a mix of emotions.
There's excitement, but there's also a sense of loss much like when you have to sell your ancestral house to a new neighbor because you can't keep it anymore for whatever reason.
In this case, the reason was the church's dwindling population. Almost nobody came to the church anymore. Maybe a few elderly women and some old-time members, Wandover recalled.
Now with the new Karen congregation, a lot has changed. While he is happy the church is not one of those abandoned buildings, he misses the worship services when fellow Catholics were around. It used to be lot quieter then and faith was much stronger unlike these days, Wandover said.
Now the church is packed to capacity, and in way it is reminiscent of old times. But the worship service is different. It is longer and there's too much singing. The Karen refugees have a different culture, he said.
The two confessional cabins are no longer used. The Karens admit to their sins in front of the whole congregation and ask for forgiveness, he said.
"It must be so embarrassing," he said.
But then, with so many other things, Utica is changing and so is its religious landscape. Gone are the days when you would see churches, mostly Catholic, full of people on Sundays. They would be dressed in their fine clothes and come to the church for some serious praying, Wandover said.
He is one of that generation, he said, wiping off his thick glasses.
And while the church is a leftover from the past that Wandover must stick to and preserve even though it has a new character, for many of the ethnic Karen, the church is the symbol of a new era.
Wandover is very proud of the stained glass windows that members had paid for in the old days. And then there are stations of Christ on the wall, a Catholic thing, he said.
So the church itself is suspended between two identities, its former self still prsent in the architecture, in the stations of the cross, in the stained glass, Wandover said.
But for Saw Kler, it doesn't matter. It is the house of God, he said.
But on Sundays, the Karen enter the church dressed n their traditional woven shirts, and talk in their ethnic language. To them, having their own church is the first step toward calling the new country home, Kler said.
The Utica Karen Church, the first of its kind in United States, is sort of a statement - We are here. This is us, And its ours and for our children.
For many years, the Karen worshipped at the Tabernacle Baptist Church.
But it wasn't their own place. Yes, the church welcomed them, and helped them but the church's traditions were different, Saw Kler said.
So, about 80 members left the church and for almost two years carried worship services at each other's houses. Then they bought the church on South Street with a loan of $125,000 from the Wesleyn Diocese in Syracuse. Two weeks ago, the church held its dedication ceremony. The loan carries no interest for the first five years and the 250-member church hopes to pay it off soon, Kler said.
Over the years, Utica has seen many changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, population halved. Many of the manufacturing units shut shop, and moved elsewhere. The city's landscape with its boarded-up brick buildings is still a reminder of the days when it was a booming factory town with a working class citizenry. Then with the refugees
who came to the city to rebuild their lives, Utica saw a revival of some sort.
As they moved into old houses that the city had given up on, some of them also filled the empty pews in area's churches. They became the new congregations.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church that has a large Karen population started offering worship services in Karen and has a Karen pastor, the Rev. Daniel Htoo.
As the refugees started to adapt to a new country, taking on its customs and values and practices, they also wanted to preserve their own tradition. They didn't want their children to forget who they were.
And religion was the first on the list.
It first began with the Cambodians who built the first temple on Steuben Street and Monk Chamreun Khorl left Cambodia to serve the community here. Buddhism, he said, is a way of life for them and they need to practice it.
Then the Burmese Buddhists established their own temple in small apartment building. But then as the community grew, they began looking for a bigger place. Finally, they bought 1005 Miller Street earlier this year to serve as a monastery and a community center.
But the biggest transformation was when the Bosnians bought a former Central Methodist Church on Court Street next to the City Hall to convert into a mosque. The Bosnians, like Somali Bantus and Burmese muslims, worshipped at the Kemble Street mosque for years before breaking away from it to form their own mosque in a one-room building at the corner of Mary and Albany streets last year to serve as a place
of worship until they found a bigger place.
The church that was listed on the Urban Renewal Agency's Web site was perfect. It was large enough for the congregation's needs and could house a community center and a religious school, too.
In June, after taking possession of the church building, the community members started to repair the structure and make necessary changes to it like taking off the cross, putting up velvet hangings that depicted Mecca, and inscriptions in Arabic.
In the future, they would like to have minarets, too, members of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica said.
For experts, this is the coming of age for immigrant groups. Mosques or other religious places of worship with a particular cultural flavor isn't uncommon, they said.
But it isn't just that newcomers are changing America's religous landscape. Their own practices have changed, too.
In Myanmar, a monk has no material possession. He is a spiritual leader, the "son of Buddha" who must rely on alms to survive.
But here, Pyinnyar Nanda drives an old Toyota Camry, buys and sells property and organizes fundraisers. He has to. Who else will do it if not him, Nanda said.
The Bosnians build their own mosque
From the outside, the old brick building on Court Street is still a church. The cross is still intact. There are no pronounced external symbols - no crescent-shaped moons, no splash of green, nothing yet - that can tell a passerby that the this is the site of Utica's first big mosque.
But the transformation has begun. In the mornings, and through afternoons and evenings, Bosnians park their station wagons or trucks in the parking lot that still says 'Church Parking" and disappear into a tiny door that leads to a damp basement. It's there you can hear them at work.
In the big hall where once a congregation sang hymns from the Bible, the change slowly begins to unfold. The cross on the wall behind the pulpit has been taken down. On the shafts, carefully carved crecsent moons and stars, the symbols of Islam, are hard to miss.
Some Bosnian Muslim men sat on the long benches, chatting and smoking, while a man in the corner relentlessly worked on fixing a door. They have all been volunteering their time to help repair the structure and convert it into a house of worship similar to what they had known in their lives before the war when they left the familiar to come to America to start all over again. This is their mosque where they can follow their customs and the Bosnian ways.
But in the midst of all this, the church itself remains in a limbo. The cross is gone but the other symbols of its former self remain.
Burmese Buddhist monks work on a new monastery
A few blocks away, on Miller Street, a 62-year-old monk is busy drilling holes into logs. For years the Burmese Buddhist monks worshipped in a small building on Kemble Street, where the community members jostled for space in the tiny living room where the deity was housed.
In March, the community members, through donations and small personal loans, raised enough money to buy 1005 Miller Street. And in July, the monks moved to the new place. The windows are broken, the floors creak, and the paint is coming off but they hope to fix everything on their own.
They have big dreams. They want to build a monastery, a school where the monk can teach the children their language and religion, and a community center, too.
"We are going to keep trying," Soe Htut, a Burmese refugee said.
Without a temple, it was difficult connecting with their new country. The temple is the anchor. They needed the temple, he said.
The day before I left, I went to the site of the mosque and saw Avlim Tricic, the president of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica, putting the cresecent moon on top of the former church. To me that was symbolic ....
The story ...
Every Monday, Julius Wandover walks into the former St. Mary's Church chapel and scrubs the floors clean, polishes the windows and makes sure everything is fine. He has been the caretaker for 18 years and was a member once, too. But when the church closed about two years ago, he started attending St. John's. Now he doesn't. But he hasn't given up on St. Mary's. When he pushes the doors open and walks into the familiar chapel, you can tell Wandover is experiencing a mix of emotions.
There's excitement, but there's also a sense of loss much like when you have to sell your ancestral house to a new neighbor because you can't keep it anymore for whatever reason.
In this case, the reason was the church's dwindling population. Almost nobody came to the church anymore. Maybe a few elderly women and some old-time members, Wandover recalled.
Now with the new Karen congregation, a lot has changed. While he is happy the church is not one of those abandoned buildings, he misses the worship services when fellow Catholics were around. It used to be lot quieter then and faith was much stronger unlike these days, Wandover said.
Now the church is packed to capacity, and in way it is reminiscent of old times. But the worship service is different. It is longer and there's too much singing. The Karen refugees have a different culture, he said.
The two confessional cabins are no longer used. The Karens admit to their sins in front of the whole congregation and ask for forgiveness, he said.
"It must be so embarrassing," he said.
But then, with so many other things, Utica is changing and so is its religious landscape. Gone are the days when you would see churches, mostly Catholic, full of people on Sundays. They would be dressed in their fine clothes and come to the church for some serious praying, Wandover said.
He is one of that generation, he said, wiping off his thick glasses.
And while the church is a leftover from the past that Wandover must stick to and preserve even though it has a new character, for many of the ethnic Karen, the church is the symbol of a new era.
Wandover is very proud of the stained glass windows that members had paid for in the old days. And then there are stations of Christ on the wall, a Catholic thing, he said.
So the church itself is suspended between two identities, its former self still prsent in the architecture, in the stations of the cross, in the stained glass, Wandover said.
But for Saw Kler, it doesn't matter. It is the house of God, he said.
But on Sundays, the Karen enter the church dressed n their traditional woven shirts, and talk in their ethnic language. To them, having their own church is the first step toward calling the new country home, Kler said.
The Utica Karen Church, the first of its kind in United States, is sort of a statement - We are here. This is us, And its ours and for our children.
For many years, the Karen worshipped at the Tabernacle Baptist Church.
But it wasn't their own place. Yes, the church welcomed them, and helped them but the church's traditions were different, Saw Kler said.
So, about 80 members left the church and for almost two years carried worship services at each other's houses. Then they bought the church on South Street with a loan of $125,000 from the Wesleyn Diocese in Syracuse. Two weeks ago, the church held its dedication ceremony. The loan carries no interest for the first five years and the 250-member church hopes to pay it off soon, Kler said.
Over the years, Utica has seen many changes. In the 1970s and 1980s, population halved. Many of the manufacturing units shut shop, and moved elsewhere. The city's landscape with its boarded-up brick buildings is still a reminder of the days when it was a booming factory town with a working class citizenry. Then with the refugees
who came to the city to rebuild their lives, Utica saw a revival of some sort.
As they moved into old houses that the city had given up on, some of them also filled the empty pews in area's churches. They became the new congregations.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church that has a large Karen population started offering worship services in Karen and has a Karen pastor, the Rev. Daniel Htoo.
As the refugees started to adapt to a new country, taking on its customs and values and practices, they also wanted to preserve their own tradition. They didn't want their children to forget who they were.
And religion was the first on the list.
It first began with the Cambodians who built the first temple on Steuben Street and Monk Chamreun Khorl left Cambodia to serve the community here. Buddhism, he said, is a way of life for them and they need to practice it.
Then the Burmese Buddhists established their own temple in small apartment building. But then as the community grew, they began looking for a bigger place. Finally, they bought 1005 Miller Street earlier this year to serve as a monastery and a community center.
But the biggest transformation was when the Bosnians bought a former Central Methodist Church on Court Street next to the City Hall to convert into a mosque. The Bosnians, like Somali Bantus and Burmese muslims, worshipped at the Kemble Street mosque for years before breaking away from it to form their own mosque in a one-room building at the corner of Mary and Albany streets last year to serve as a place
of worship until they found a bigger place.
The church that was listed on the Urban Renewal Agency's Web site was perfect. It was large enough for the congregation's needs and could house a community center and a religious school, too.
In June, after taking possession of the church building, the community members started to repair the structure and make necessary changes to it like taking off the cross, putting up velvet hangings that depicted Mecca, and inscriptions in Arabic.
In the future, they would like to have minarets, too, members of the Bosnian Islamic Association of Utica said.
For experts, this is the coming of age for immigrant groups. Mosques or other religious places of worship with a particular cultural flavor isn't uncommon, they said.
But it isn't just that newcomers are changing America's religous landscape. Their own practices have changed, too.
In Myanmar, a monk has no material possession. He is a spiritual leader, the "son of Buddha" who must rely on alms to survive.
But here, Pyinnyar Nanda drives an old Toyota Camry, buys and sells property and organizes fundraisers. He has to. Who else will do it if not him, Nanda said.
The Bosnians build their own mosque
From the outside, the old brick building on Court Street is still a church. The cross is still intact. There are no pronounced external symbols - no crescent-shaped moons, no splash of green, nothing yet - that can tell a passerby that the this is the site of Utica's first big mosque.
But the transformation has begun. In the mornings, and through afternoons and evenings, Bosnians park their station wagons or trucks in the parking lot that still says 'Church Parking" and disappear into a tiny door that leads to a damp basement. It's there you can hear them at work.
In the big hall where once a congregation sang hymns from the Bible, the change slowly begins to unfold. The cross on the wall behind the pulpit has been taken down. On the shafts, carefully carved crecsent moons and stars, the symbols of Islam, are hard to miss.
Some Bosnian Muslim men sat on the long benches, chatting and smoking, while a man in the corner relentlessly worked on fixing a door. They have all been volunteering their time to help repair the structure and convert it into a house of worship similar to what they had known in their lives before the war when they left the familiar to come to America to start all over again. This is their mosque where they can follow their customs and the Bosnian ways.
But in the midst of all this, the church itself remains in a limbo. The cross is gone but the other symbols of its former self remain.
Burmese Buddhist monks work on a new monastery
A few blocks away, on Miller Street, a 62-year-old monk is busy drilling holes into logs. For years the Burmese Buddhist monks worshipped in a small building on Kemble Street, where the community members jostled for space in the tiny living room where the deity was housed.
In March, the community members, through donations and small personal loans, raised enough money to buy 1005 Miller Street. And in July, the monks moved to the new place. The windows are broken, the floors creak, and the paint is coming off but they hope to fix everything on their own.
They have big dreams. They want to build a monastery, a school where the monk can teach the children their language and religion, and a community center, too.
"We are going to keep trying," Soe Htut, a Burmese refugee said.
Without a temple, it was difficult connecting with their new country. The temple is the anchor. They needed the temple, he said.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Delhi - lost dreams
In the creased cracks of his face
you can see the years
the years full of dreams, pulsating with the drive
but he was powerless
the might of the city claimed him
he now slogs, carts stones
his eyes look into the space
they don't see beyond the daily wages
too caught up in their crumbling lives to care even
it's getting beyond the present
the future is too distant and the smog too thick
when he left the village nine years ago
it was the lure of the city, the temptation of opportunity
but he was lost
in his rickshaw, he still dares to dream
every now and then
he talks about the plans
he wants to buy his own rickshaw
then maybe he will save more
maybe then he can walk into stores
buy a nice cell phone and eat in restaurants
he isn't asking for too much
he askes me if that's a lot
I don't know
who knows
but he is optimistic
nine years of driving the auto
nine years of handing over most his wages towards the rental
nine years of waiting for better times
have not embittered him
he shows me the development
the ugly development that is haphazard
it is crawling into little spaces, eating up personal lives
it is spilling on to the narrow streets
it is taking on the skies too
the high rises are competing with the horizon
the eyes tire and finally give up
they can't see beyond the 50th floor or maybe the 70th floor
something is happening to the city, to the people
but the auto-wallah is happy
afterall, now a farmer's son can get to Delhi
and maybe find a peon's job and maybe through generations
and over the years, join the ranks of the middle class
isn't that something?
he asks me
I don't know
I can only look at the man on the margins
into the deep creases of his face and I am lost for words
you can see the years
the years full of dreams, pulsating with the drive
but he was powerless
the might of the city claimed him
he now slogs, carts stones
his eyes look into the space
they don't see beyond the daily wages
too caught up in their crumbling lives to care even
it's getting beyond the present
the future is too distant and the smog too thick
when he left the village nine years ago
it was the lure of the city, the temptation of opportunity
but he was lost
in his rickshaw, he still dares to dream
every now and then
he talks about the plans
he wants to buy his own rickshaw
then maybe he will save more
maybe then he can walk into stores
buy a nice cell phone and eat in restaurants
he isn't asking for too much
he askes me if that's a lot
I don't know
who knows
but he is optimistic
nine years of driving the auto
nine years of handing over most his wages towards the rental
nine years of waiting for better times
have not embittered him
he shows me the development
the ugly development that is haphazard
it is crawling into little spaces, eating up personal lives
it is spilling on to the narrow streets
it is taking on the skies too
the high rises are competing with the horizon
the eyes tire and finally give up
they can't see beyond the 50th floor or maybe the 70th floor
something is happening to the city, to the people
but the auto-wallah is happy
afterall, now a farmer's son can get to Delhi
and maybe find a peon's job and maybe through generations
and over the years, join the ranks of the middle class
isn't that something?
he asks me
I don't know
I can only look at the man on the margins
into the deep creases of his face and I am lost for words
Dilli
It's only when you start to look beyond the dust and the might and potential of Delhi, that you begin to see the lives trapped in the debris of failed dreams and unending struggles.
On the margins of the wide roads, the daily laborers sweat profusely. Their emaciated hands shaking, they pull the cart loaded with stones. The pain is too evident in one man's gait. The creases on his face are deep, almost as if each has its own share of woes tucked in carefully. He was limping but he continued to pull the cart.
On the wide roads, cars whisk by you. You glance at the women in the back seat, and the men in the front seat. They are the rising middle class of India. They are ones who the city will accomodate. The poor will be pushed to the margins on the outskirts and in the urban villages where four or five share a small room and wait eternally for small things like a small loan so that the rickshaw puller I met today. It's hard negotiating. You sympathise, even try to empathise.
The slums rear their head and in all their ugliness, they overpower the city's elitist hubs, the choice neighborhoods and the designer boutiques. The city has changed so much.
I decided to come back to Delhi after six years because the city intrigued me. Bombay is ruthless, conniving and yet enchanting. People flock to it only to realize later the city will utlimately consume them. But like a long lost lover who keeps coming back to understand why the lover shunned him, denied him and belittled him, people remain. Then they die. And the city moves on, sharpens its claws for yet another bunch of dreamers and lovers.
But Delhi is different. Delhi makes you believe. Delhi doesn't crush your dreams. But Delhi is tough, too. The heat is oppressive, the dust blinding, and the people rude. They don't care. They have their won worries.
On the margins of the wide roads, the daily laborers sweat profusely. Their emaciated hands shaking, they pull the cart loaded with stones. The pain is too evident in one man's gait. The creases on his face are deep, almost as if each has its own share of woes tucked in carefully. He was limping but he continued to pull the cart.
On the wide roads, cars whisk by you. You glance at the women in the back seat, and the men in the front seat. They are the rising middle class of India. They are ones who the city will accomodate. The poor will be pushed to the margins on the outskirts and in the urban villages where four or five share a small room and wait eternally for small things like a small loan so that the rickshaw puller I met today. It's hard negotiating. You sympathise, even try to empathise.
The slums rear their head and in all their ugliness, they overpower the city's elitist hubs, the choice neighborhoods and the designer boutiques. The city has changed so much.
I decided to come back to Delhi after six years because the city intrigued me. Bombay is ruthless, conniving and yet enchanting. People flock to it only to realize later the city will utlimately consume them. But like a long lost lover who keeps coming back to understand why the lover shunned him, denied him and belittled him, people remain. Then they die. And the city moves on, sharpens its claws for yet another bunch of dreamers and lovers.
But Delhi is different. Delhi makes you believe. Delhi doesn't crush your dreams. But Delhi is tough, too. The heat is oppressive, the dust blinding, and the people rude. They don't care. They have their won worries.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Meeting with a transgender woman - the cost of identity
I wrote the two stories about a transgender woman and her struggle with her identity while I was a journalism student at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. I met Frances a few times and everytime I talked with her, it was a fascinating experience. She seemed like a strong person, someone who wasn't intimidated, someone who was not doubting about who she was. But then, something in her eyes gave it away. Yes, she was hurt and she questioned why she was in the middle of the two sexes ...
I meet frances again...and i write a final piece
For 53 years Frances Mary Fischer wore the wrong shoe in her feet. That’s what she refers to as being a man for almost five decades. It was like living in agony.
“When you wear the wrong shoe, you get blisters. It pains. It has been like that for me. Every morning I would look in the mirror and it would make me want to cry. You don’t like the skin you are in, you hate the image that you see,” she said. “Nobody understands.”
For Fischer, a transgender woman, taking a decision to transition was tough. She waited for her two children to grow up. “I waited till my kids were out. Now is the time for me to blossom,” she said. “The pain of remaining in the bud is more than the pain of blossoming. I feel better now. I don’t hate what I see in the mirror.”
For years Fischer had her own wardrobe, hidden away. She would dress as a woman once in a while and go out. But except for those stolen moments, she lived in the disguise of a father, a husband and a man.
But expression came at a cost. Fischer started her official transition from male to female in August, 2001, when she applied for a name change at the Supreme Court for the County of Onondaga, according to the affidavit filed by her in June, 2003. It took her two-and-a-half years to change her name from Frank Mark Fischer to Frances Mary Fischer. When the judge refused, she approached Lambda Legal for help and then sued New York State. She finally won the case but the victory is just a beginning of many battles, legal and otherwise that she has to wage every moment in her life. She lost her job at Alliance Relocation Services in Oct. 2004. She blames it on discrimination against transgender people. She cleaned tables, ate onion soup for days but did not give up. Nor did she ever lose her faith.
“It is good that I have not shot myself in the head. May be this is because of my background as a priest. It is so difficult. It just pushes you to the extreme,” she said when I met her last year. At the time she had no job and no money to pay her rent.
Born into a Catholic family in Iowa Falls in 1952, Fischer was the fourth child of Esther Mae Polles. Polles had seven children. Fischer was right in the middle, the fourth child. And so was his sex. It lied somewhere between the male and the female. “I always had a nurturing instinct. It was like having a maternal instinct,” she said.
Even as a child, then known as Francis Mark Fischer, she loved to play with dolls and once traded her bicycle for a neighbor’s doll. But her family never suspected anything except for perhaps her mother, who she said, pushed her toward priesthood because she thought it was the best way out.
“Maybe my mother knew. Maybe she pushed me toward priesthood because she knew I did not feel like a man,” she said. “My birth was fraught with little miracles. The umbilical chord was around my neck. I could have died. At 3 I had been run over by a car. It literally crushed my mid-section. It made me a eunuch. My mother considered it a sign,” she said.
By 1955 she had been indoctrinated that she was chosen to be a priest. Fischer and her younger brother Jerry both became altar boys when they were young. Their father, a military personnel, imposed religion on the family. All children were to attend services at the church, volunteer for any help that the church needed and religiously pray.
As a young child Francis was deeply attracted to religion. As an altar boy, he loved wearing cassocks. She said it was because it resembled woman’s clothing. “I did not identify with the soldier, the football player and wrestler…not with the man in charge,” she said.
Little Francis did not know what being transgender meant. But he wondered why he did not have a vagina or why he was not like his sisters. “I was desperately seeking why I am not like my sisters. I wanted to play with the girls,” she said. After the accident, young Fischer asked the doctor why he did not have a vagina. “I was questioning my very nature since I first came into my being,” she said.
At home, he was tormented. The siblings used to sing ‘Franky’s going crazy…’. Franky, as they called him, stomped, kicked and cried but they would not stop.
Franky did get crazy after all, as her brother Jerry Fischer called it. She became the woman she had always wanted to be. Years after Fischer’s family came to know about her being transgender, her brother is still struggling with the idea of his big brother becoming a woman. Jerry still falters between ‘he’ and ‘she’, while referring to his brother, who is now a woman. He has to remind himself that the brother who was an altar boy like him and who gave him his first condom is no longer a man. He instantly corrects himself if he calls Frances a he. But he does it again.
“To me it is very strange. I did not see Frank as being transgender,” he said. “He was a brother, a wrestler, the guy who had helmets and grenades…”
When Jerry met Fischer at his father’s funeral last year, he said he did not feel any difference. But the change in the physical appearance was difficult to take in.
“I am trying to figure out what the heck. She is my brother. I just ask why,” he said.
In 1993 Fischer’s mother died. At her funeral, he did not give any indication. But later on everyone started noticing things about Fischer. At family reunions relatives noticed Fischer had painted nails or no hair on her arms. Some even suspected she wore a bra inside her shirt. But no one ever thought Fischer would transition so completely.
Her brother finally realized he had one more sister when Fischer’s ex-wife Diane Fischer sent the newspaper cutting of an article that was published in Syracuse Post-Standard about Fischer’s struggle as a transgender woman.
“He used to have a big Afro in those days. But everyone had. My big question is why,” said Jerry, who lives in Iowa Falls. “Probably he hung around with the wrong crowd. We don’t have anything that flaming here.”
All the rejection and the shock in people’s eyes have only strengthened Fischer’s faith in god. A Born Again Christian, Fischer gave up her brotherhood vows when she thought the Roman Catholic Church was exclusive in its vision.
“I have had a communication early on in life. I was born again early,” she said.
Doubts about the Roman Catholic Church began to disturb Fischer just before she became a priest. She read the scriptures, generic parchments and compared the teachings of the Church and God. At the time she had been following the church’s teachings blindly, she said.
“Christ is the high priest between men and God, not the priests,” she said. “At the point when I realized this I said I can no longer be a Roman Catholic priest because this is not what God said,” she said.
Fischer became disenchanted. With a doctorate in religion, Fischer’s questioning of the Roman Catholic belief also made her write her thesis on fallacies of the Catholic Church. “Here people put a checklist. If I go to the church once a week, I will be a good person,” she said. “The dichotomy was there. A man with man was banned. Deuteronomy 23 of the Bible says a man should not put on what pertains to a woman.”
She went to the archbishop of Dubuque and asked him what to do. “I didn’t know what I wanted,” she said. That’s the time Fischer met Diane. She used to sing in the choir. She proposed and they got married. When their first child David died, both moved to Syracuse to be with Diane’s family. They got divorced in 2001 and now Fischer lives with Franky, a cross-dresser.
The cross hung from a gold chain in her neck. It was difficult to miss. Except for her voice that is still deep and sounds like that of a male’s voice, Fischer looked like a woman. Dressed in a light pink shirt and beige pants she did not attract much attention at the Onondaga Library compared to the time last fall when I met her at the Carousel Center. People stared at her confused by her voice and her persona.
Fischer’s eyes had a dreamy look when she spoke about religion. The voice was distant. But the cross remained intact in her hands. She kept touching it as if in reassurance, while she talked about herself. “I believe I am the product of Satanic influence. God would not want to put somebody in this torment,” she said. “God allowed Satan to mess with me. But that made me strong. I would not have become the person I am. All the evil is in the world. It is allowed by God. My adapting my body from male to female to match my identity is my change. I am evil.”
She attends Believers’ Chapel in Cicero that welcomes members of LGBT community but not without condition. Frank Porter, assistant pastor, said these people are welcome only if they are willing to give up their lifestyle. He did not know Fischer personally but said that Christ did not approve of LGBT lifestyles.
But Fischer is unshaken. Fischer considers herself asexual. Her transition has nothing to do with sex or the desire for it. “It has to do with identification. Christ healed- that’s my nature too. It is an awkward feeling to not fit. Even after 1,000 surgeries, I will still not fit in. God is pro-choice. He wants you to live.”
Her faith is also what strikes her friends. Faye Brooks, Fischer’s friend, met Fischer at the Expressing Our Nature, a support group’s meeting. He has known her for around 3 years. “She is very religious…now more than ever. Her state is more of an amplifier for her,” he said.
He said her faith also makes her trust people easily. “She is very honest. A giving and caring person…almost to the point of putting herself at risk.”
Brooks related how once when Fischer had gone overseas, she had let one of the tenants live in her house. The tenant had been having some problem with finances and nowhere to live. “She stole her things and even damaged the house,” he said.
Friends have kept her company and have provided her with shelter when she needed it. Her boyfriend Franky took over the lease of her apartment at 110 2nd North St. in April because Fischer was not in a position to pay her rent. Also, Franky underwent an operation and had difficulty in climbing the stairs to his third floor apartment. Franky is on permanent disability security and gets around $7,000 a year from the government. The money is not enough for both but they manage. Sometimes they get food from Rescue Mission or Peace Corps, at other times friends bring over food to share.
The one-bedroom apartment had boxes and clothes lying everywhere. The small kitchen table had been pushed against the wall to make space for Franky’s stuff. He recently moved all his things here. Both had been cooking a dinner of split pea soup and patties when I arrived.
Fischer and Franky met last year at EON’s meeting. “We have a strong relationship. Our faith in the lord is a big thing.”
Fischer had been waiting for a bus when Franky first talked to her. “I asked her if she could teach me computers,” he said. It was around August last year that Franky brought her computer over to Fischer’s house and stayed on.
“She did not know if I stayed for the computer or her,” she said. “We just stuck together after we met. It developed over the months.”
Franky underwent surgeries for back and neck and these rendered him helpless. This is when Fischer took over. She nursed him. “After Thanksgiving he literally became a cripple. He had trouble,” she said.
“She has been a tremendous help in getting my body back together. I think the lord brought together to take care of each other. It is not a legal connection but a familiar connection,” he said. He called Fischer to ask what she thought their relationship was. Words like co-dependence, couple and friendship were thrown in.
“We just have fun. If we both had jobs, we would do more stuff,” he said.
In a denim skirt and a powder blue top, Fischer looked the woman she aspired all her life to be. Franky’s lip stretched into a smile when he described Fischer. “I think she is pretty. I don’t think of her as any other way than a woman. I give her that respect,” he said. “I don’t know what to do without her. If I had stayed there I would have been dead.”
Besides Franky, Julia Dunn is a friend Fischer knows understands her. Dunn and Fischer grew up together in Iowa Falls, where Dunn still lives. Fischer had been preparing for priesthood and Dunn saw nothing that indicated Fischer felt like a woman.
“She wrestled in high school. She was no macho guy, just a regular guy. She would have made a good priest,” she said.
For 34 years they had not met. But when Dunn received a voice mail from her brother that Fischer was coming for her father’s funeral, she decided to go. She had been looking for her childhood friend.
“We were buddies. I could say anything to her. Franky was a real good person,” she said.
When Dunn saw her, she said found the same friend I could laugh with. “The only thing that had changed was her sex,” she said. “I found my friend.” When Fischer went to Iowa Falls last year, she stayed with Dunn. And then the conversations flowed and the obvious questions followed.
“I asked her why she did it,” she said. “I have no problem with it. I wish people could give these people a break. Franky is a beautiful woman. I love my Franky.”
Such people have made life a little easier for Fischer, who is still trying to get a job. She has sent out at least 1,100 applications so far, she said.
“My voice gives me away. They don’t want me to use the same restroom,” she said talking about the difficulties in getting a job.
For now both Franky and Fischer are surviving on food stamps and security money. They pray together before every meal.
“We would get where we want to. The lord will carry us through this,” said Franky, while Fischer put another tray of patties in the oven.
The first piece was written for a reporting class. I don't remember exactly how I met Frances. But I recall the day I went to the mall to meet her. She was sitting in a corner. I think I was hoping or expecting her to be dressed in loud clothes, rather skimpy, with a ton of grease on her face and ultra pink lipstick and loads of mascara. I guess I was going by the stereotypes. But then she came over to me and introduced herself. She didn't look any different from any other woman who happened to be in the mall at that hour.
Then we started talking ...
Over the few months, we developed a unique friendship. I attended a basement meeting once where many transgender woman came. I brought her a lenhenga from India and we always kept in touch. Last I met Frances was when I was leaving for India for a long break. I went to her apartment and she showed me Victoria Secret underwear she had bought with her savings and coupons combined. She seemed happy but worried about the future. She still didn't have a job. All I could do was carry some food. And all she could say was "anything helps".
The first draft. Frances was so interesting I went back to her to write my final assignment, which I have copied above.
It took Frances Mary Fischer 53 years to express herself and it cost her job, family and money. And it is still not complete. A transgender woman, Fischer now does odd jobs and lives on public assistance. But she has not lost hope.
“It has always been a struggle. It is a continuing fight,” she said as she opened the letter from New York State Human Rights Commission. And even as she sliced the envelope open, she said she knew it was not in her favor.
Fischer lost her job at Alliance Relocation Services in Oct. 2004. She complained to the HRC against the company for discriminating against her on the basis of her gender identity.
The letter, dated Oct. 26 and signed by Julia Day, Interim Regional Director, state division of human rights, dismissed her complaint and closed the case as they found no evidence against the respondent that it discriminated against her. According to the letter, Fischer has 60 days to appeal against the decision to the New York State Supreme Court, but in case of an adverse decision there, the complainant may lose his right to proceed subsequently in a federal court.
“They have cited Kremer vs. Chemical Construction Co. (1982). I am going to appeal against it,” she said. “It is good that I have not shot myself in the head. May be this is because of my background as a priest. Many transgender people do that. It is so difficult. It just pushes you to the extreme.”
Fischer’s parents prepared her for the church when they suspected he was not like other boys. But she gave up priesthood when she started questioning the Catholic beliefs.
She said he always felt like a woman, even as a child.
“I was scolded for playing with dolls. Once I traded my bicycle for a neighbor’s Barbie doll,” said Fischer, adding that in those days it was difficult to express one’s gender identity because the society was not very receptive.
“Gender identity refers to a person’s internal, deeply felt sense of being either male or female. Because it is internal and personally defined, it is not visible to others,” wrote Jaminson Green in Introduction to Transgender Issues in Gay Pride directory of 2005-2006.
Fischer was born in Iowa Falls, Iowa in 1952. She said she always felt she should express herself as a woman and wanted to wear a dress to her high school prom but ended up wearing a female tuxedo. She said she has been undergoing counseling since 1983 and has been on feminizing hormones since then.
“When I was 3 years old I had an accident and I asked my doctor why I did not have a vagina,” she said.
But coming out has not been easy for her. She has faced discrimination.
“The work environment became hostile when I started my transition. People would call me Fran and FM,” she said. Most people associate transgender people with drag queens, gays, lesbians and cross dressers.
“They think we are prostitutes and have diseases,” she said.
Besides discrimination, it also costs money to look like a woman. Surgeries are not covered by insurance and Fischer has already spent $18,000 on various treatments including augmentation mammaplasty. She said she went to Bangkok to get her surgery because it is cheaper there.
“It costs so much here,” she said. Fischer is transitioning in stages. “It is coming out well. I am excited. I would like to get a tummy tuck and other small things like that. I will keep doing them. It will take years,” she said pointing to her teeth that have just been shaped.
“They are working on the lower set. And when I can afford it, I would like to go for electrolysis. There is stubble,” she said feeling her chin with her hands that appear well-groomed with neutral polish to make her nails shine.
“My gynecologist said I could have boyfriends now,” she said. “It gets so lonely at times. It is depressing. Sometimes, I want to cuddle with someone on the couch and just watch television.”
Fischer’s voice is deep and she still sounds like a male. “It got messed up. But I will get it right,” she said.
Dressed in a powder blue turtle neck sweater and black pants, Fischer said she loves the woman’s body and regrets that she did not transition before. “It was for my children. My wife and I decided to keep it under cover till our children had grown up,” she said.
For Fischer it was like wearing the wrong shoe in the feet all these years. “When you wear the wrong shoe, you get blisters. It pains. It has been like that for me. Every morning I would look in the mirror and it would make me want to cry. You don’t like the skin you are in, you hate the image that you see,” she said. “Nobody understands.”
Fischer who has a son and a daughter, both married, is divorced now. She said she is very fond of her grand children but seldom gets to meet them. A picture showed her holding both her grandchildren in her arms.
“It felt so good. I always wanted to be a mother,” she said. “But it is difficult to explain how they have two grandmothers.”
Fischer was employed at Alliance Relocation Services in 2000. She said she was the MIS director at the company and in charge of billing and drafting job descriptions. Fischer started her official transition from male to female in August, 2001, when she applied for a name change at the Supreme Court for the County of Onondaga, according to the affidavit filed by her in June, 2003. It took her two-and-a-half years to change her name from Frank Mark Fischer to Frances Mary Fischer. When the judge refused, she approached Lambda Legal for help and then sued New York State. She finally won the case but the victory is just a beginning of many battles, legal and otherwise that she has to wage every moment in her life.
The latest in her trials is the loss of her job.
Erin Keenan, an employee in the accounts and the billing section in her company, said Fischer is very capable but the company did not have work for him.
“He was removed because there was lack of job. He never had a formal title and we have also removed the position that he had,” said Keenan.
She said the employees are very friendly and respected Fischer but when she got graphic about her transition, it became uncomfortable for people in the office. She said there were no bathroom issues at all. And everybody is shocked to see that Fischer decided to complain against the company.
“He started explaining the process. We were not very comfortable with it. His removal had nothing to do with his sex-change. People here are very open,” she said.
An article on Fischer in the Post-Standard on March 25, 2004, quoted her employer, Jim Walsh, saying that Fischer is a star employee, that she “carried the company single-handedly”. He also said he would not forget what Fischer has done for the company.
Under Title VII, it is forbidden to discriminate against an employee for failure to conform to gender stereotypes. (www.transgenderlaw.org)
The New York law provides a cause of action for gender identity-motivated discrimination, although there is no explicit mention of gender identity under the New York human rights law. (Maffei v. Kolaeton, 626 N.Y.S.2d 391 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. 1995) and Rentos v. OCE-Office Systems, 1996 U.S. Dist.)
Professor Janice McDonald, College of Law, Syracuse University, said, “She has a better chance in a federal court.” Fischer has already appealed in the state court and can’t go to federal court (Kremer V. Chemical Construction Co.).
Fischer said she told her employer about her transition and though he allowed earrings and rings, he did not allow dresses.
“He said what I was I trying to do. Win a beauty contest? And I said I was trying to be myself,” she said.
Now Fischer is without a job. She said she has sent around 1,100 applications for various jobs but has failed to get one.
The New York State Human Rights Law under Section 291 says right to “obtain employment without discrimination based on age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex or marital status is hereby recognized as and declared to be a civil right.”
“A couple of interviewers said though I was qualified, other employees might have problems like bathroom issues or religious beliefs and so I could not get the job. I can’t get a job because I am transgender and I am open about it,” said Fischer who has two doctorates and has been an adjunct professor at Onondaga Community College.
“Your qualifications go away in snap. They would not even give me a job of greeting people or cleaning tables. It is a hard life,” she said.
Fischer said she was suffering from gender dysphoria, and transition and use of drugs have led to anxiety and insomnia and therefore she is disabled, in her complaint to the HRC. She is blind in her left eye and wears lens in the right eye, she said.
The New York State Human Rights law says any diagnosable condition or impairment demonstrable by medically accepted techniques, is a disability. But Fischer’s claim to medical coverage has been denied by Social Security Administration.
She gets $170 every two weeks toward her expenses and food stamps in lieu of community service for 18 hours a week in addition to six hours that she has to devote to job-hunting. But that’s far from enough, she said.
Her rent is $400 for a small two-bedroom apartment on North Street.
“I have to look for a job everyday to pay my rent. I clean other people’s homes, and jobs like those,” she said.
“It has not got to the stage where I have to sell my body for money,” she said.
Green in his article on transgender issues said that often transgender people are driven to do things that are not socially acceptable.
“Antitrans discrimination forces many trans people into a deadly cycle of poverty and unemployment. It…often forces them into illegal activities in order to survive,” he said.
Fischer has around $4,000 in hospital bills from St’ Joseph’s Hospital Health Care Centre for food poisoning this August which her Medicaid has refused to cover. It is many battles on many fronts for Fischer, but she said she would continue.
“I may have to go to a shelter next year when I can’t pay my rent anymore or government may throw me in prison for unpaid bills and taxes. I have no money. But I will continue to fight”
I meet frances again...and i write a final piece
For 53 years Frances Mary Fischer wore the wrong shoe in her feet. That’s what she refers to as being a man for almost five decades. It was like living in agony.
“When you wear the wrong shoe, you get blisters. It pains. It has been like that for me. Every morning I would look in the mirror and it would make me want to cry. You don’t like the skin you are in, you hate the image that you see,” she said. “Nobody understands.”
For Fischer, a transgender woman, taking a decision to transition was tough. She waited for her two children to grow up. “I waited till my kids were out. Now is the time for me to blossom,” she said. “The pain of remaining in the bud is more than the pain of blossoming. I feel better now. I don’t hate what I see in the mirror.”
For years Fischer had her own wardrobe, hidden away. She would dress as a woman once in a while and go out. But except for those stolen moments, she lived in the disguise of a father, a husband and a man.
But expression came at a cost. Fischer started her official transition from male to female in August, 2001, when she applied for a name change at the Supreme Court for the County of Onondaga, according to the affidavit filed by her in June, 2003. It took her two-and-a-half years to change her name from Frank Mark Fischer to Frances Mary Fischer. When the judge refused, she approached Lambda Legal for help and then sued New York State. She finally won the case but the victory is just a beginning of many battles, legal and otherwise that she has to wage every moment in her life. She lost her job at Alliance Relocation Services in Oct. 2004. She blames it on discrimination against transgender people. She cleaned tables, ate onion soup for days but did not give up. Nor did she ever lose her faith.
“It is good that I have not shot myself in the head. May be this is because of my background as a priest. It is so difficult. It just pushes you to the extreme,” she said when I met her last year. At the time she had no job and no money to pay her rent.
Born into a Catholic family in Iowa Falls in 1952, Fischer was the fourth child of Esther Mae Polles. Polles had seven children. Fischer was right in the middle, the fourth child. And so was his sex. It lied somewhere between the male and the female. “I always had a nurturing instinct. It was like having a maternal instinct,” she said.
Even as a child, then known as Francis Mark Fischer, she loved to play with dolls and once traded her bicycle for a neighbor’s doll. But her family never suspected anything except for perhaps her mother, who she said, pushed her toward priesthood because she thought it was the best way out.
“Maybe my mother knew. Maybe she pushed me toward priesthood because she knew I did not feel like a man,” she said. “My birth was fraught with little miracles. The umbilical chord was around my neck. I could have died. At 3 I had been run over by a car. It literally crushed my mid-section. It made me a eunuch. My mother considered it a sign,” she said.
By 1955 she had been indoctrinated that she was chosen to be a priest. Fischer and her younger brother Jerry both became altar boys when they were young. Their father, a military personnel, imposed religion on the family. All children were to attend services at the church, volunteer for any help that the church needed and religiously pray.
As a young child Francis was deeply attracted to religion. As an altar boy, he loved wearing cassocks. She said it was because it resembled woman’s clothing. “I did not identify with the soldier, the football player and wrestler…not with the man in charge,” she said.
Little Francis did not know what being transgender meant. But he wondered why he did not have a vagina or why he was not like his sisters. “I was desperately seeking why I am not like my sisters. I wanted to play with the girls,” she said. After the accident, young Fischer asked the doctor why he did not have a vagina. “I was questioning my very nature since I first came into my being,” she said.
At home, he was tormented. The siblings used to sing ‘Franky’s going crazy…’. Franky, as they called him, stomped, kicked and cried but they would not stop.
Franky did get crazy after all, as her brother Jerry Fischer called it. She became the woman she had always wanted to be. Years after Fischer’s family came to know about her being transgender, her brother is still struggling with the idea of his big brother becoming a woman. Jerry still falters between ‘he’ and ‘she’, while referring to his brother, who is now a woman. He has to remind himself that the brother who was an altar boy like him and who gave him his first condom is no longer a man. He instantly corrects himself if he calls Frances a he. But he does it again.
“To me it is very strange. I did not see Frank as being transgender,” he said. “He was a brother, a wrestler, the guy who had helmets and grenades…”
When Jerry met Fischer at his father’s funeral last year, he said he did not feel any difference. But the change in the physical appearance was difficult to take in.
“I am trying to figure out what the heck. She is my brother. I just ask why,” he said.
In 1993 Fischer’s mother died. At her funeral, he did not give any indication. But later on everyone started noticing things about Fischer. At family reunions relatives noticed Fischer had painted nails or no hair on her arms. Some even suspected she wore a bra inside her shirt. But no one ever thought Fischer would transition so completely.
Her brother finally realized he had one more sister when Fischer’s ex-wife Diane Fischer sent the newspaper cutting of an article that was published in Syracuse Post-Standard about Fischer’s struggle as a transgender woman.
“He used to have a big Afro in those days. But everyone had. My big question is why,” said Jerry, who lives in Iowa Falls. “Probably he hung around with the wrong crowd. We don’t have anything that flaming here.”
All the rejection and the shock in people’s eyes have only strengthened Fischer’s faith in god. A Born Again Christian, Fischer gave up her brotherhood vows when she thought the Roman Catholic Church was exclusive in its vision.
“I have had a communication early on in life. I was born again early,” she said.
Doubts about the Roman Catholic Church began to disturb Fischer just before she became a priest. She read the scriptures, generic parchments and compared the teachings of the Church and God. At the time she had been following the church’s teachings blindly, she said.
“Christ is the high priest between men and God, not the priests,” she said. “At the point when I realized this I said I can no longer be a Roman Catholic priest because this is not what God said,” she said.
Fischer became disenchanted. With a doctorate in religion, Fischer’s questioning of the Roman Catholic belief also made her write her thesis on fallacies of the Catholic Church. “Here people put a checklist. If I go to the church once a week, I will be a good person,” she said. “The dichotomy was there. A man with man was banned. Deuteronomy 23 of the Bible says a man should not put on what pertains to a woman.”
She went to the archbishop of Dubuque and asked him what to do. “I didn’t know what I wanted,” she said. That’s the time Fischer met Diane. She used to sing in the choir. She proposed and they got married. When their first child David died, both moved to Syracuse to be with Diane’s family. They got divorced in 2001 and now Fischer lives with Franky, a cross-dresser.
The cross hung from a gold chain in her neck. It was difficult to miss. Except for her voice that is still deep and sounds like that of a male’s voice, Fischer looked like a woman. Dressed in a light pink shirt and beige pants she did not attract much attention at the Onondaga Library compared to the time last fall when I met her at the Carousel Center. People stared at her confused by her voice and her persona.
Fischer’s eyes had a dreamy look when she spoke about religion. The voice was distant. But the cross remained intact in her hands. She kept touching it as if in reassurance, while she talked about herself. “I believe I am the product of Satanic influence. God would not want to put somebody in this torment,” she said. “God allowed Satan to mess with me. But that made me strong. I would not have become the person I am. All the evil is in the world. It is allowed by God. My adapting my body from male to female to match my identity is my change. I am evil.”
She attends Believers’ Chapel in Cicero that welcomes members of LGBT community but not without condition. Frank Porter, assistant pastor, said these people are welcome only if they are willing to give up their lifestyle. He did not know Fischer personally but said that Christ did not approve of LGBT lifestyles.
But Fischer is unshaken. Fischer considers herself asexual. Her transition has nothing to do with sex or the desire for it. “It has to do with identification. Christ healed- that’s my nature too. It is an awkward feeling to not fit. Even after 1,000 surgeries, I will still not fit in. God is pro-choice. He wants you to live.”
Her faith is also what strikes her friends. Faye Brooks, Fischer’s friend, met Fischer at the Expressing Our Nature, a support group’s meeting. He has known her for around 3 years. “She is very religious…now more than ever. Her state is more of an amplifier for her,” he said.
He said her faith also makes her trust people easily. “She is very honest. A giving and caring person…almost to the point of putting herself at risk.”
Brooks related how once when Fischer had gone overseas, she had let one of the tenants live in her house. The tenant had been having some problem with finances and nowhere to live. “She stole her things and even damaged the house,” he said.
Friends have kept her company and have provided her with shelter when she needed it. Her boyfriend Franky took over the lease of her apartment at 110 2nd North St. in April because Fischer was not in a position to pay her rent. Also, Franky underwent an operation and had difficulty in climbing the stairs to his third floor apartment. Franky is on permanent disability security and gets around $7,000 a year from the government. The money is not enough for both but they manage. Sometimes they get food from Rescue Mission or Peace Corps, at other times friends bring over food to share.
The one-bedroom apartment had boxes and clothes lying everywhere. The small kitchen table had been pushed against the wall to make space for Franky’s stuff. He recently moved all his things here. Both had been cooking a dinner of split pea soup and patties when I arrived.
Fischer and Franky met last year at EON’s meeting. “We have a strong relationship. Our faith in the lord is a big thing.”
Fischer had been waiting for a bus when Franky first talked to her. “I asked her if she could teach me computers,” he said. It was around August last year that Franky brought her computer over to Fischer’s house and stayed on.
“She did not know if I stayed for the computer or her,” she said. “We just stuck together after we met. It developed over the months.”
Franky underwent surgeries for back and neck and these rendered him helpless. This is when Fischer took over. She nursed him. “After Thanksgiving he literally became a cripple. He had trouble,” she said.
“She has been a tremendous help in getting my body back together. I think the lord brought together to take care of each other. It is not a legal connection but a familiar connection,” he said. He called Fischer to ask what she thought their relationship was. Words like co-dependence, couple and friendship were thrown in.
“We just have fun. If we both had jobs, we would do more stuff,” he said.
In a denim skirt and a powder blue top, Fischer looked the woman she aspired all her life to be. Franky’s lip stretched into a smile when he described Fischer. “I think she is pretty. I don’t think of her as any other way than a woman. I give her that respect,” he said. “I don’t know what to do without her. If I had stayed there I would have been dead.”
Besides Franky, Julia Dunn is a friend Fischer knows understands her. Dunn and Fischer grew up together in Iowa Falls, where Dunn still lives. Fischer had been preparing for priesthood and Dunn saw nothing that indicated Fischer felt like a woman.
“She wrestled in high school. She was no macho guy, just a regular guy. She would have made a good priest,” she said.
For 34 years they had not met. But when Dunn received a voice mail from her brother that Fischer was coming for her father’s funeral, she decided to go. She had been looking for her childhood friend.
“We were buddies. I could say anything to her. Franky was a real good person,” she said.
When Dunn saw her, she said found the same friend I could laugh with. “The only thing that had changed was her sex,” she said. “I found my friend.” When Fischer went to Iowa Falls last year, she stayed with Dunn. And then the conversations flowed and the obvious questions followed.
“I asked her why she did it,” she said. “I have no problem with it. I wish people could give these people a break. Franky is a beautiful woman. I love my Franky.”
Such people have made life a little easier for Fischer, who is still trying to get a job. She has sent out at least 1,100 applications so far, she said.
“My voice gives me away. They don’t want me to use the same restroom,” she said talking about the difficulties in getting a job.
For now both Franky and Fischer are surviving on food stamps and security money. They pray together before every meal.
“We would get where we want to. The lord will carry us through this,” said Franky, while Fischer put another tray of patties in the oven.
The first piece was written for a reporting class. I don't remember exactly how I met Frances. But I recall the day I went to the mall to meet her. She was sitting in a corner. I think I was hoping or expecting her to be dressed in loud clothes, rather skimpy, with a ton of grease on her face and ultra pink lipstick and loads of mascara. I guess I was going by the stereotypes. But then she came over to me and introduced herself. She didn't look any different from any other woman who happened to be in the mall at that hour.
Then we started talking ...
Over the few months, we developed a unique friendship. I attended a basement meeting once where many transgender woman came. I brought her a lenhenga from India and we always kept in touch. Last I met Frances was when I was leaving for India for a long break. I went to her apartment and she showed me Victoria Secret underwear she had bought with her savings and coupons combined. She seemed happy but worried about the future. She still didn't have a job. All I could do was carry some food. And all she could say was "anything helps".
The first draft. Frances was so interesting I went back to her to write my final assignment, which I have copied above.
It took Frances Mary Fischer 53 years to express herself and it cost her job, family and money. And it is still not complete. A transgender woman, Fischer now does odd jobs and lives on public assistance. But she has not lost hope.
“It has always been a struggle. It is a continuing fight,” she said as she opened the letter from New York State Human Rights Commission. And even as she sliced the envelope open, she said she knew it was not in her favor.
Fischer lost her job at Alliance Relocation Services in Oct. 2004. She complained to the HRC against the company for discriminating against her on the basis of her gender identity.
The letter, dated Oct. 26 and signed by Julia Day, Interim Regional Director, state division of human rights, dismissed her complaint and closed the case as they found no evidence against the respondent that it discriminated against her. According to the letter, Fischer has 60 days to appeal against the decision to the New York State Supreme Court, but in case of an adverse decision there, the complainant may lose his right to proceed subsequently in a federal court.
“They have cited Kremer vs. Chemical Construction Co. (1982). I am going to appeal against it,” she said. “It is good that I have not shot myself in the head. May be this is because of my background as a priest. Many transgender people do that. It is so difficult. It just pushes you to the extreme.”
Fischer’s parents prepared her for the church when they suspected he was not like other boys. But she gave up priesthood when she started questioning the Catholic beliefs.
She said he always felt like a woman, even as a child.
“I was scolded for playing with dolls. Once I traded my bicycle for a neighbor’s Barbie doll,” said Fischer, adding that in those days it was difficult to express one’s gender identity because the society was not very receptive.
“Gender identity refers to a person’s internal, deeply felt sense of being either male or female. Because it is internal and personally defined, it is not visible to others,” wrote Jaminson Green in Introduction to Transgender Issues in Gay Pride directory of 2005-2006.
Fischer was born in Iowa Falls, Iowa in 1952. She said she always felt she should express herself as a woman and wanted to wear a dress to her high school prom but ended up wearing a female tuxedo. She said she has been undergoing counseling since 1983 and has been on feminizing hormones since then.
“When I was 3 years old I had an accident and I asked my doctor why I did not have a vagina,” she said.
But coming out has not been easy for her. She has faced discrimination.
“The work environment became hostile when I started my transition. People would call me Fran and FM,” she said. Most people associate transgender people with drag queens, gays, lesbians and cross dressers.
“They think we are prostitutes and have diseases,” she said.
Besides discrimination, it also costs money to look like a woman. Surgeries are not covered by insurance and Fischer has already spent $18,000 on various treatments including augmentation mammaplasty. She said she went to Bangkok to get her surgery because it is cheaper there.
“It costs so much here,” she said. Fischer is transitioning in stages. “It is coming out well. I am excited. I would like to get a tummy tuck and other small things like that. I will keep doing them. It will take years,” she said pointing to her teeth that have just been shaped.
“They are working on the lower set. And when I can afford it, I would like to go for electrolysis. There is stubble,” she said feeling her chin with her hands that appear well-groomed with neutral polish to make her nails shine.
“My gynecologist said I could have boyfriends now,” she said. “It gets so lonely at times. It is depressing. Sometimes, I want to cuddle with someone on the couch and just watch television.”
Fischer’s voice is deep and she still sounds like a male. “It got messed up. But I will get it right,” she said.
Dressed in a powder blue turtle neck sweater and black pants, Fischer said she loves the woman’s body and regrets that she did not transition before. “It was for my children. My wife and I decided to keep it under cover till our children had grown up,” she said.
For Fischer it was like wearing the wrong shoe in the feet all these years. “When you wear the wrong shoe, you get blisters. It pains. It has been like that for me. Every morning I would look in the mirror and it would make me want to cry. You don’t like the skin you are in, you hate the image that you see,” she said. “Nobody understands.”
Fischer who has a son and a daughter, both married, is divorced now. She said she is very fond of her grand children but seldom gets to meet them. A picture showed her holding both her grandchildren in her arms.
“It felt so good. I always wanted to be a mother,” she said. “But it is difficult to explain how they have two grandmothers.”
Fischer was employed at Alliance Relocation Services in 2000. She said she was the MIS director at the company and in charge of billing and drafting job descriptions. Fischer started her official transition from male to female in August, 2001, when she applied for a name change at the Supreme Court for the County of Onondaga, according to the affidavit filed by her in June, 2003. It took her two-and-a-half years to change her name from Frank Mark Fischer to Frances Mary Fischer. When the judge refused, she approached Lambda Legal for help and then sued New York State. She finally won the case but the victory is just a beginning of many battles, legal and otherwise that she has to wage every moment in her life.
The latest in her trials is the loss of her job.
Erin Keenan, an employee in the accounts and the billing section in her company, said Fischer is very capable but the company did not have work for him.
“He was removed because there was lack of job. He never had a formal title and we have also removed the position that he had,” said Keenan.
She said the employees are very friendly and respected Fischer but when she got graphic about her transition, it became uncomfortable for people in the office. She said there were no bathroom issues at all. And everybody is shocked to see that Fischer decided to complain against the company.
“He started explaining the process. We were not very comfortable with it. His removal had nothing to do with his sex-change. People here are very open,” she said.
An article on Fischer in the Post-Standard on March 25, 2004, quoted her employer, Jim Walsh, saying that Fischer is a star employee, that she “carried the company single-handedly”. He also said he would not forget what Fischer has done for the company.
Under Title VII, it is forbidden to discriminate against an employee for failure to conform to gender stereotypes. (www.transgenderlaw.org)
The New York law provides a cause of action for gender identity-motivated discrimination, although there is no explicit mention of gender identity under the New York human rights law. (Maffei v. Kolaeton, 626 N.Y.S.2d 391 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. 1995) and Rentos v. OCE-Office Systems, 1996 U.S. Dist.)
Professor Janice McDonald, College of Law, Syracuse University, said, “She has a better chance in a federal court.” Fischer has already appealed in the state court and can’t go to federal court (Kremer V. Chemical Construction Co.).
Fischer said she told her employer about her transition and though he allowed earrings and rings, he did not allow dresses.
“He said what I was I trying to do. Win a beauty contest? And I said I was trying to be myself,” she said.
Now Fischer is without a job. She said she has sent around 1,100 applications for various jobs but has failed to get one.
The New York State Human Rights Law under Section 291 says right to “obtain employment without discrimination based on age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex or marital status is hereby recognized as and declared to be a civil right.”
“A couple of interviewers said though I was qualified, other employees might have problems like bathroom issues or religious beliefs and so I could not get the job. I can’t get a job because I am transgender and I am open about it,” said Fischer who has two doctorates and has been an adjunct professor at Onondaga Community College.
“Your qualifications go away in snap. They would not even give me a job of greeting people or cleaning tables. It is a hard life,” she said.
Fischer said she was suffering from gender dysphoria, and transition and use of drugs have led to anxiety and insomnia and therefore she is disabled, in her complaint to the HRC. She is blind in her left eye and wears lens in the right eye, she said.
The New York State Human Rights law says any diagnosable condition or impairment demonstrable by medically accepted techniques, is a disability. But Fischer’s claim to medical coverage has been denied by Social Security Administration.
She gets $170 every two weeks toward her expenses and food stamps in lieu of community service for 18 hours a week in addition to six hours that she has to devote to job-hunting. But that’s far from enough, she said.
Her rent is $400 for a small two-bedroom apartment on North Street.
“I have to look for a job everyday to pay my rent. I clean other people’s homes, and jobs like those,” she said.
“It has not got to the stage where I have to sell my body for money,” she said.
Green in his article on transgender issues said that often transgender people are driven to do things that are not socially acceptable.
“Antitrans discrimination forces many trans people into a deadly cycle of poverty and unemployment. It…often forces them into illegal activities in order to survive,” he said.
Fischer has around $4,000 in hospital bills from St’ Joseph’s Hospital Health Care Centre for food poisoning this August which her Medicaid has refused to cover. It is many battles on many fronts for Fischer, but she said she would continue.
“I may have to go to a shelter next year when I can’t pay my rent anymore or government may throw me in prison for unpaid bills and taxes. I have no money. But I will continue to fight”
Monday, June 16, 2008
A refugee's story
For Khaing Ray Lin Aung, adjustment to a new way of life is not just a lifetime thing.
Even in his death, he will have to make compromises. For the 70-year-old refugee who very proudly refers to his Arkanis heritage, it's the thought of dying in a strange land that's most unnerving. And he isn't sure if he will be cremeted as his Buddhist religion demands.
Already it is difficult making ends meet. The family survives on food stamps and meagre public assistance that helps pay part of the rent in a two-bedroom apartment in a crumbling house that he shares with his married daughter's family.
And then, in this country you have to prepare for your death, you have to make arrangments and that costs money, he said.
Being displaced is not easy. Aung is a lonely man here. All day he listens to the radio, jotting down notes about Myanmar and the struggle for an independent Arakan state, or any other international events.
Sometimes, he stares intently into the computer screen at large letters in his native Burmese language. He is writing a history of Arkanis culture and their struggle for their identity. He doesn't want it to be lost, he said.
Even in his death, he will have to make compromises. For the 70-year-old refugee who very proudly refers to his Arkanis heritage, it's the thought of dying in a strange land that's most unnerving. And he isn't sure if he will be cremeted as his Buddhist religion demands.
Already it is difficult making ends meet. The family survives on food stamps and meagre public assistance that helps pay part of the rent in a two-bedroom apartment in a crumbling house that he shares with his married daughter's family.
And then, in this country you have to prepare for your death, you have to make arrangments and that costs money, he said.
Being displaced is not easy. Aung is a lonely man here. All day he listens to the radio, jotting down notes about Myanmar and the struggle for an independent Arakan state, or any other international events.
Sometimes, he stares intently into the computer screen at large letters in his native Burmese language. He is writing a history of Arkanis culture and their struggle for their identity. He doesn't want it to be lost, he said.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The state of our media
"A lot of media has forgotten that journalism is for people, not shareholders. A few publications would like to entirely drop some sections or readers becase it spoils their purchasing power profile. There are no labour correspondents, no agriculture correspondents ... But most papers have 12 business correspondents, even if it's a general interest paper. They've decided that 70 per cent of people don't make news, and this is a gigantic reflection of the character of the industry."
"Plus, diversity has a way of evening things up a little. I think kindly of the Indian press whenever i am in the US. These two countries - India and America - are the most diverse societies in the world. There are apparently 115 languages spoken in Queens, in New York, a fifth of them might be Indian, even! But look at your American newspaper, and it's essentially a white Anglo-Saxon thing. Diversity is tokenist. In India, thanks to language and culture, there's a much broader sweep of the culture being taken in by the media.
But 'people diversity' is still a problem in India, the Americans have a lot more of this kind of representation. There's not one dalit editor in a major newspaper, and media remains the most exclusionist institution in the country. Our political spectrum is much wider than what you'd think, from looking at the media."
"The other thing is to remember that I can't be speaking in the voice of the masses, the people have their own voice. What I can do is talk to peasants and workers and let you know what those conversations are like, and ask if you want to listen. I'm looking at the human condition in this society and telling it the way I see it. I don't want o characterise readers by class or other homogeneity. I think we can all try to touch the differences."
Excerpts from an interview for India Together P. Sainath talks to Ashwin Mahesh about his work and his views on trade, politics, society, and the media.
The comment is so reflective of our times where ratings dictate any coverage. Because crime sells, it's on the front page. And because poor people are not in the "right" target audience, there stories don't make it to the newspapers.And diversity, both in viewpoint and in representaion is fast becoming extinct.
A professor once said to me that media can't just give readers what it wants, referring to the fluff stuff.
A child will always ask for chocolates and fast food, which is not healthy. You can't give in to the demand. You need to feed them vegetables, too. Because that's healthy and maybe in time, they will like it. We only feed the readers nonsense and they don't know what we are capable of. That's why many readers don't take us seriously.
He didn't necessarily mean to say readers are ignorant but implied that we only go by statistics and not by the desire to serve the public.
Of course the people have a voice but we fail them by not hearing it or making it heard.
"Plus, diversity has a way of evening things up a little. I think kindly of the Indian press whenever i am in the US. These two countries - India and America - are the most diverse societies in the world. There are apparently 115 languages spoken in Queens, in New York, a fifth of them might be Indian, even! But look at your American newspaper, and it's essentially a white Anglo-Saxon thing. Diversity is tokenist. In India, thanks to language and culture, there's a much broader sweep of the culture being taken in by the media.
But 'people diversity' is still a problem in India, the Americans have a lot more of this kind of representation. There's not one dalit editor in a major newspaper, and media remains the most exclusionist institution in the country. Our political spectrum is much wider than what you'd think, from looking at the media."
"The other thing is to remember that I can't be speaking in the voice of the masses, the people have their own voice. What I can do is talk to peasants and workers and let you know what those conversations are like, and ask if you want to listen. I'm looking at the human condition in this society and telling it the way I see it. I don't want o characterise readers by class or other homogeneity. I think we can all try to touch the differences."
Excerpts from an interview for India Together P. Sainath talks to Ashwin Mahesh about his work and his views on trade, politics, society, and the media.
The comment is so reflective of our times where ratings dictate any coverage. Because crime sells, it's on the front page. And because poor people are not in the "right" target audience, there stories don't make it to the newspapers.And diversity, both in viewpoint and in representaion is fast becoming extinct.
A professor once said to me that media can't just give readers what it wants, referring to the fluff stuff.
A child will always ask for chocolates and fast food, which is not healthy. You can't give in to the demand. You need to feed them vegetables, too. Because that's healthy and maybe in time, they will like it. We only feed the readers nonsense and they don't know what we are capable of. That's why many readers don't take us seriously.
He didn't necessarily mean to say readers are ignorant but implied that we only go by statistics and not by the desire to serve the public.
Of course the people have a voice but we fail them by not hearing it or making it heard.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A refugee life
It's in the little closet that she hides
a whole lifetime of memories and abandoned dreams
In it she keeps it safe, uncorrupted
In between the skirts, the shirts and the scarves
The story unfolds
A rare one of who she was, who she could have been
Yes, she was in love
But that was long ago
Before the war, before the destruction, and before the soldiers came marching in
She had a childhood then
And a father
But they came marching in one night
She crawled under the bed, holding her breath
The thud of their heavy boots trampling her spirit, crushing her soul
They shot her father
She could only watch
Then the soldiers went marching out to crush yet another soul
While she remained in the shadows
But that was years ago
When she was in love
yes, in love
But one day he was gone, too
No, the soldiers didn't come marching this time
He left her
Then, picking together the pieces of her life
she too left
In the camps she became yet another refugee
With a number and card
and with rationed food
No, it wasn't a good life
Yes, she had escaped
yes, she was alive
But had nothing to wait for, to strive for
She sat in her corner, looking at the horizon
seeking reasons, justifications, anything
But nothing came forth
Many years went by
Then one day when it rained so hard it blurred the skies
She walked to the little office
She would go to America
Yes, she would start afresh
Yes, she would love again
America.
A place where everyone wanted to go
Where they would all get a second chance
Where nothing would hold you back
Where you can make it
That's what everyone said
In the long line outside the little office
They talked about America
And she listened
And she hoped
Then one day, she got on the plane
On its large wings it would carry her to the distant land
where she can begin to live again
Or so she thought
But how could she let go of it all
In a little bag, she carried her all her years
A little bag she clutched tightly
After all that was what she was
Some old pictures, a few pieces of broken, twisted jewelry
An old shawl, its colors still bright
And a Koran, carefully wrapped in layers
Yes, she still believed in Allah
Finally, she was here
A refugee seeking to rebuild her life
But without language she was lost
Her color made it worse
Refugees weren't welcome here
Go back, return to where you came from
It was everywhere
She could see it
No, she wanted to tell them
I am not here to take away your jobs
I am here to find myself, to work the jobs you don't want
And to live and love
Don't hate me
a whole lifetime of memories and abandoned dreams
In it she keeps it safe, uncorrupted
In between the skirts, the shirts and the scarves
The story unfolds
A rare one of who she was, who she could have been
Yes, she was in love
But that was long ago
Before the war, before the destruction, and before the soldiers came marching in
She had a childhood then
And a father
But they came marching in one night
She crawled under the bed, holding her breath
The thud of their heavy boots trampling her spirit, crushing her soul
They shot her father
She could only watch
Then the soldiers went marching out to crush yet another soul
While she remained in the shadows
But that was years ago
When she was in love
yes, in love
But one day he was gone, too
No, the soldiers didn't come marching this time
He left her
Then, picking together the pieces of her life
she too left
In the camps she became yet another refugee
With a number and card
and with rationed food
No, it wasn't a good life
Yes, she had escaped
yes, she was alive
But had nothing to wait for, to strive for
She sat in her corner, looking at the horizon
seeking reasons, justifications, anything
But nothing came forth
Many years went by
Then one day when it rained so hard it blurred the skies
She walked to the little office
She would go to America
Yes, she would start afresh
Yes, she would love again
America.
A place where everyone wanted to go
Where they would all get a second chance
Where nothing would hold you back
Where you can make it
That's what everyone said
In the long line outside the little office
They talked about America
And she listened
And she hoped
Then one day, she got on the plane
On its large wings it would carry her to the distant land
where she can begin to live again
Or so she thought
But how could she let go of it all
In a little bag, she carried her all her years
A little bag she clutched tightly
After all that was what she was
Some old pictures, a few pieces of broken, twisted jewelry
An old shawl, its colors still bright
And a Koran, carefully wrapped in layers
Yes, she still believed in Allah
Finally, she was here
A refugee seeking to rebuild her life
But without language she was lost
Her color made it worse
Refugees weren't welcome here
Go back, return to where you came from
It was everywhere
She could see it
No, she wanted to tell them
I am not here to take away your jobs
I am here to find myself, to work the jobs you don't want
And to live and love
Don't hate me
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Song for the refugees
This is for the refugees
the ones without a home
a boat out on the ocean
city street alone
are they not some dear mother's child
are they not you and I
are we the ones to bear this shame
are they this sacrifice.
Or are they just like falling leaves
who give themselves away
from dust to dust from seed to shear
and to another day
if I could have one wish on earth
of all I can conceive
t'would be to see another spring
and bless the falling leaves.
From John Denver's "Fallen Leaves"
the ones without a home
a boat out on the ocean
city street alone
are they not some dear mother's child
are they not you and I
are we the ones to bear this shame
are they this sacrifice.
Or are they just like falling leaves
who give themselves away
from dust to dust from seed to shear
and to another day
if I could have one wish on earth
of all I can conceive
t'would be to see another spring
and bless the falling leaves.
From John Denver's "Fallen Leaves"
On journalism
"I try to connect with readers rather than governments, people rather than power. I believe that top-level policies of government are more apt to change when democratic pressures build from below. This becomes terribly complex, however, when the world is run not by elected officials but by the markets -- unaccountable, non-representative institutions controlled by unelected bureaucrats representing the interests of huge corporations that are often more powerful than some nation states."
P. Sainath, India's leading development journalist in an interview
6 November 2001
P. Sainath, India's leading development journalist in an interview
6 November 2001
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The Dalai Lama at Colgate talks about inner happiness amid protests
The Dalai Lama no doubt draws crowd like a rock star.
The celebrity monk, during his 75-minute lecture avoided any discussions on the recent crackdown on the Tibetan monks in Lhasa by the Chinese government. Instead, he talked about peace and love, giggled quite often and called out to the people to look inwards in a not-so-perfect English. For most westerners, he was also quite "accented"
Over 5,000 people gathered to hear the monk tell them how to be happy. Funny though considering America is one of the wealthiest nations in the world and many would think if you can buy a house or a car and have a ranch or a holiday home, you would find happiness.
But seems the chase never ends. And American dream is busted for many. And then they turn to the east for spiritual guidance on how to be happy because the obvious did not work so well.
So they came, drawn by the promise of happiness at last, expecting a tiny monk whose country has been robbed him and can lay no claim to any material possessions, to help them find contentment, resolve their inner conflict and turn toward simplicity.
The Dalai Lama did not say anything different from what we, as Hindus, have been familiar with from the very begining. He did not offer any keys. Just a simple logical answer that has eluded the west for long. Capitalism and free market only breeds more desire, the never-ending desire to own, to add and to consume. It makes humans compete with each other, taking away the simplicity of relationships.
The long-standing argument against socialism is it kills the motivation, the incentive to strive for more. But it's not true.
Socialism is more human, more nurturing and more personal. The gap between the rich and the poor is appalling and is unfair because the resources of the world belong to all and not just to those with muscle power.
The Dalai Lama has often called himself a Marxist monk and has favored an ethical distribution of wealth.
On Tuesday, he repeated the same message that Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism stand for. To attain inner peace, shun the external delights because greed brings suffering.
He also talked about Indian Constitution's interpretation of secularism, which does not separate religion from state but promotes equality for all religions and faiths and calls for no discrimination on the part of the state. That's unlike the west where state and religion are separate. To me, religion is at the root of all political beliefs and as such you can't separate the two. To understand and to make for an state where all have equality, one has to look at the two that have always been intertwined, entangled and will always remain so.
As usual, he avoided speaking directly on Tibet but he alluded to the issues though like the importance of culture, of allowing for equality of all religions and traditions.
When he was asked about the future of Tibet after he is dead, he said he will watch from heaven. Because, he is a reincarnation, maybe he believes another Dalai Lama will carry on the struggle for Tibetan people.
Many feel the struggle for Tibet will end after his death and it is a only a matter of time.
He clarified yet again he did not want separation for Tibet but only autonomy as outlined in the constitution so that Tibetans can practice their culture and religious beliefs.
"Whle world knows we don't want separation," he said.
For many Dalai Lama is a spiritual guru who can lead them to contentment, but he is also a political figure and as such courts controversy. There were protests outside the university. While one group addressed the political side of him, the other called him a hyocrite asking him to allow for religious freedom. The Dalai Lama banned the worship of Dorje Shugden years ago.
To me, as a politcal leader and spiritual leader of the Tibetans, he needs to consolidate his position. Another sect that worships a protective deity, may undermine his own stature.
About the protests, one more thing. At least the Chinese students are organizing. They did it through phone and emails and facebook but maybe in the future they will unite to protest the regime that has been blamed for many human rights violations.
This time, they were patriotic and were against the media distortion of China.
The future will bring about many changes though. I am hopeful.
The celebrity monk, during his 75-minute lecture avoided any discussions on the recent crackdown on the Tibetan monks in Lhasa by the Chinese government. Instead, he talked about peace and love, giggled quite often and called out to the people to look inwards in a not-so-perfect English. For most westerners, he was also quite "accented"
Over 5,000 people gathered to hear the monk tell them how to be happy. Funny though considering America is one of the wealthiest nations in the world and many would think if you can buy a house or a car and have a ranch or a holiday home, you would find happiness.
But seems the chase never ends. And American dream is busted for many. And then they turn to the east for spiritual guidance on how to be happy because the obvious did not work so well.
So they came, drawn by the promise of happiness at last, expecting a tiny monk whose country has been robbed him and can lay no claim to any material possessions, to help them find contentment, resolve their inner conflict and turn toward simplicity.
The Dalai Lama did not say anything different from what we, as Hindus, have been familiar with from the very begining. He did not offer any keys. Just a simple logical answer that has eluded the west for long. Capitalism and free market only breeds more desire, the never-ending desire to own, to add and to consume. It makes humans compete with each other, taking away the simplicity of relationships.
The long-standing argument against socialism is it kills the motivation, the incentive to strive for more. But it's not true.
Socialism is more human, more nurturing and more personal. The gap between the rich and the poor is appalling and is unfair because the resources of the world belong to all and not just to those with muscle power.
The Dalai Lama has often called himself a Marxist monk and has favored an ethical distribution of wealth.
On Tuesday, he repeated the same message that Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism stand for. To attain inner peace, shun the external delights because greed brings suffering.
He also talked about Indian Constitution's interpretation of secularism, which does not separate religion from state but promotes equality for all religions and faiths and calls for no discrimination on the part of the state. That's unlike the west where state and religion are separate. To me, religion is at the root of all political beliefs and as such you can't separate the two. To understand and to make for an state where all have equality, one has to look at the two that have always been intertwined, entangled and will always remain so.
As usual, he avoided speaking directly on Tibet but he alluded to the issues though like the importance of culture, of allowing for equality of all religions and traditions.
When he was asked about the future of Tibet after he is dead, he said he will watch from heaven. Because, he is a reincarnation, maybe he believes another Dalai Lama will carry on the struggle for Tibetan people.
Many feel the struggle for Tibet will end after his death and it is a only a matter of time.
He clarified yet again he did not want separation for Tibet but only autonomy as outlined in the constitution so that Tibetans can practice their culture and religious beliefs.
"Whle world knows we don't want separation," he said.
For many Dalai Lama is a spiritual guru who can lead them to contentment, but he is also a political figure and as such courts controversy. There were protests outside the university. While one group addressed the political side of him, the other called him a hyocrite asking him to allow for religious freedom. The Dalai Lama banned the worship of Dorje Shugden years ago.
To me, as a politcal leader and spiritual leader of the Tibetans, he needs to consolidate his position. Another sect that worships a protective deity, may undermine his own stature.
About the protests, one more thing. At least the Chinese students are organizing. They did it through phone and emails and facebook but maybe in the future they will unite to protest the regime that has been blamed for many human rights violations.
This time, they were patriotic and were against the media distortion of China.
The future will bring about many changes though. I am hopeful.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
At Proctor's international night ...
Utica is a complex city. When I turn into Eagle Street and drive past Seymour Avenue, Taylor Avenue and into the inner city, it always looks familiar, almost inviting. Here's where I can identify with people, relate to what they have to say. Elsewhere, I feel uneasy, my accent and color taking over who I am.
But here, in the heart of the city that's been resusticated by refugees, almost salvaged from the ruin that it was headed to, I almost feel at home. It is a place where I can be. In a way, it's liberating.
Today, as I walked into Proctor's international night celebration, I saw cultures intermingling, but the mix, with all its influences, was strangely elemental, like it never let go of what was its own.
Burmese and Karen girls fused their ethnic tunics with western wear. To me, it made a statement almost. But it wasn't that pronounced. Maybe that's where the problem lies.
A Karen boy I met while I was walking to the gym, told me how proud he felt wearing his Karen shirt. On the way, an American friend asked him what was it that he was wearing. And he struggled to tell her ... looking for words that could define all that the blue tunic meant to him. He muttered "Karen shirt". The puzzled look on te girl's face wasn't encouraging and he looked confused as he searched his limited vocublary to fit the concept in.
It is our unifrom, he said to her. She still looked confused, not quite getting the "uniform".
Later, in the queue waiting to enter the gymnasium, he took off the shirt, folded it and put it in his pockets. Maybe he did not want to be bothered with too many questions.
When I asked him, he said he was feeling shy and just wanted to enjoy the evening.
Inside, it was quite the opposite. The assertion of cultural identity was strong.
There were booths set up that handed out ethnic food. Students who either came as immigrants, or were born into immigrant families such as the Polish or the German, and refugees, wore their traditional clothes and proudly displayed their culture, often through food, sometimes with dance.
Suddenly music took over. The nature of the music itself was indicative of the mix. At times, it sounded familiar. I was like Bollywood music. But then it took turns, with lots of beats. It then became techno.
A bunch of Somali Bantu girls took the center stage when they started to dance. Their long-flowing gowns were secured tightly at the waiset with a scarf. And they danced with abandon like they did not care. Afterall, it was their night. It was in celebration of diversity. They did not have to be demure then.
They danced a unique dance. It was part hip-hop but then it was also traditional. They pulled in the guys from the crowd, teased them, yet had their head scarves on. They shook their hips and did little twists.
For a woman standing next to me, it was almost a provocative dance. She whispered to me how her parents would have killed her if she danced like that.
What struck her was how the Somali Bantu community in Utica has remained true to their culture, she told me.
This is one group that always wears its own clothes, she said.
To the girls who danced, encouraged by the whistles and the cheers, nothing else mattered.
They were asserting their identity for all to see. Yes, they had arrived.
It was a touching moment when a Somlai Bantu boy danced, waving a Dominican Republic flag. For a momemt, it all seemed so perfect. This was a melting pot. Boundaries did not matter. Identities merged in.
But it is always an illusion. Integration does not come too easy.
But at least for a few moments, it was like living in a perfect world.
I saw familiar faces. They smiled at me. A young boy who had translated for me once when I had inteviewing Imam Ferhad Mujic who is not so proficient in English, came up to me to say hello.
I was just so happy to be there. At least nobody was noticing me. My own color was blending in with so many others that it did not matter. The Proctor gym that evening became the equivalent of a color-blind society.
But here, in the heart of the city that's been resusticated by refugees, almost salvaged from the ruin that it was headed to, I almost feel at home. It is a place where I can be. In a way, it's liberating.
Today, as I walked into Proctor's international night celebration, I saw cultures intermingling, but the mix, with all its influences, was strangely elemental, like it never let go of what was its own.
Burmese and Karen girls fused their ethnic tunics with western wear. To me, it made a statement almost. But it wasn't that pronounced. Maybe that's where the problem lies.
A Karen boy I met while I was walking to the gym, told me how proud he felt wearing his Karen shirt. On the way, an American friend asked him what was it that he was wearing. And he struggled to tell her ... looking for words that could define all that the blue tunic meant to him. He muttered "Karen shirt". The puzzled look on te girl's face wasn't encouraging and he looked confused as he searched his limited vocublary to fit the concept in.
It is our unifrom, he said to her. She still looked confused, not quite getting the "uniform".
Later, in the queue waiting to enter the gymnasium, he took off the shirt, folded it and put it in his pockets. Maybe he did not want to be bothered with too many questions.
When I asked him, he said he was feeling shy and just wanted to enjoy the evening.
Inside, it was quite the opposite. The assertion of cultural identity was strong.
There were booths set up that handed out ethnic food. Students who either came as immigrants, or were born into immigrant families such as the Polish or the German, and refugees, wore their traditional clothes and proudly displayed their culture, often through food, sometimes with dance.
Suddenly music took over. The nature of the music itself was indicative of the mix. At times, it sounded familiar. I was like Bollywood music. But then it took turns, with lots of beats. It then became techno.
A bunch of Somali Bantu girls took the center stage when they started to dance. Their long-flowing gowns were secured tightly at the waiset with a scarf. And they danced with abandon like they did not care. Afterall, it was their night. It was in celebration of diversity. They did not have to be demure then.
They danced a unique dance. It was part hip-hop but then it was also traditional. They pulled in the guys from the crowd, teased them, yet had their head scarves on. They shook their hips and did little twists.
For a woman standing next to me, it was almost a provocative dance. She whispered to me how her parents would have killed her if she danced like that.
What struck her was how the Somali Bantu community in Utica has remained true to their culture, she told me.
This is one group that always wears its own clothes, she said.
To the girls who danced, encouraged by the whistles and the cheers, nothing else mattered.
They were asserting their identity for all to see. Yes, they had arrived.
It was a touching moment when a Somlai Bantu boy danced, waving a Dominican Republic flag. For a momemt, it all seemed so perfect. This was a melting pot. Boundaries did not matter. Identities merged in.
But it is always an illusion. Integration does not come too easy.
But at least for a few moments, it was like living in a perfect world.
I saw familiar faces. They smiled at me. A young boy who had translated for me once when I had inteviewing Imam Ferhad Mujic who is not so proficient in English, came up to me to say hello.
I was just so happy to be there. At least nobody was noticing me. My own color was blending in with so many others that it did not matter. The Proctor gym that evening became the equivalent of a color-blind society.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
three years in America ...
Almost three years now
Three lost years of a lifetime in America
And I am yet to reclaim myself
I still have my accent
I still wear kohl in my eyes
Almost as if in denial
of a life that I am living
What brought me here
The promises, maybe
What else, I wonder
A piece of bread, a slice of memories
A cup of chai, brewed hard
just like at home
just like all my attempts of creating a homeland
I keep trying
But my one-room apartment is so American
the wallpapers, the wooden floors, the smoke alarms
I give up now and then
Of course it is a wretched life
But I continue on
Every now and then, I start to pack my bags
All the time, I put off buying new plates
The old ones are chipping off
I am going back, I tell myself
Just a few days more
And I wait
And I hope
And I continue
Three lost years of a lifetime in America
And I am yet to reclaim myself
I still have my accent
I still wear kohl in my eyes
Almost as if in denial
of a life that I am living
What brought me here
The promises, maybe
What else, I wonder
A piece of bread, a slice of memories
A cup of chai, brewed hard
just like at home
just like all my attempts of creating a homeland
I keep trying
But my one-room apartment is so American
the wallpapers, the wooden floors, the smoke alarms
I give up now and then
Of course it is a wretched life
But I continue on
Every now and then, I start to pack my bags
All the time, I put off buying new plates
The old ones are chipping off
I am going back, I tell myself
Just a few days more
And I wait
And I hope
And I continue
Jailed for protesting the Iraq war
Indeed dissent has died. And where students or others have tried to march or protest the five-year long war in Iraq, an experiment that cost many lives, they have been arrested, charged and isolated.
Even student associations have distanced themselves from those who marched to get their voiced heard. In Binghamton, on the fifth anniversary of the war, several marched to Vestal Pkwy. Nine were arrested. Police used force to disperse the crowd, silencing the voice in a typical "by the books" fashion.
America, always glorified in the books, the movies and tales, as the land of freedom where right to the freedom of expression is supreme. But when the police can charge you with disorderly conduct for being on the wrong side of the road and for being in a group that they feel is up to something, it is similar to a police state.
What bothers me is they want to spread democarcy all over the world and will spend trillions to fund unjust wars, but have seldom looked inwards to see where they are failing. Democracy is not when you think twice before expressing your doubts, your dispproval and when state institutions can lock you up on any pretext.
People have the right to assemble and speak out. Afterall, it is the freedom of expression. Then why humiliate them, arrets them and make them seem as a bunch of hooligans that were disrupting public life.
In this country, where lives are dictated by a series of numbers and everything is recorded, and when your life is ruined because of a bad credit score and if you have a criminal charge because maybe you marched once to protest an atrocity, you can't get a job, of course people will cave in, and seldom speak out.
Even student associations have distanced themselves from those who marched to get their voiced heard. In Binghamton, on the fifth anniversary of the war, several marched to Vestal Pkwy. Nine were arrested. Police used force to disperse the crowd, silencing the voice in a typical "by the books" fashion.
America, always glorified in the books, the movies and tales, as the land of freedom where right to the freedom of expression is supreme. But when the police can charge you with disorderly conduct for being on the wrong side of the road and for being in a group that they feel is up to something, it is similar to a police state.
What bothers me is they want to spread democarcy all over the world and will spend trillions to fund unjust wars, but have seldom looked inwards to see where they are failing. Democracy is not when you think twice before expressing your doubts, your dispproval and when state institutions can lock you up on any pretext.
People have the right to assemble and speak out. Afterall, it is the freedom of expression. Then why humiliate them, arrets them and make them seem as a bunch of hooligans that were disrupting public life.
In this country, where lives are dictated by a series of numbers and everything is recorded, and when your life is ruined because of a bad credit score and if you have a criminal charge because maybe you marched once to protest an atrocity, you can't get a job, of course people will cave in, and seldom speak out.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
On the fifth anniversary of Iraq war ...
On Marh 19, the United States entered into its sixth year of occupation of Iraq. President Bush hailed the war as a victory for the troops and essential for protecting American democracy. He called the surge successful. The war, it seems, will not end anytime soon.
And though they say there is a shift in the opinion about the war and people have spoken out against it, these have largely been on the internet. There have been peace protests and vigils but nothing like what the country witnessed during the Vietnam war era when thousands marched.
Taking to the streets is not how they do it here. And the voice of dissent is subdued now. American people are so burdened by the mundane worries of paying their bills and keeping numerous jobs, there's hardly room in their busy lives for dissent.
And though they say there is a shift in the opinion about the war and people have spoken out against it, these have largely been on the internet. There have been peace protests and vigils but nothing like what the country witnessed during the Vietnam war era when thousands marched.
Taking to the streets is not how they do it here. And the voice of dissent is subdued now. American people are so burdened by the mundane worries of paying their bills and keeping numerous jobs, there's hardly room in their busy lives for dissent.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Race is a reality
Most of us are in denial of what seems to be a pressing problem of our times. Racism is a powerful force, something deeply entrenched in institutions, mindsets and the culture. It is hard to not see it. Yet we choose to ignore it, shut our eyes and continue with our lives.
Something that is so blatant and out there is often overlooked. It is difficult to confront our own biases and our own prejudices towards others and so we consciously choose to ignore it. Nobody wants to be called a racist, even by themselves.
For the media, it is when the census releases some numbers, it is time to do a story and get done with it.
In one such case, I was assigned a story on diversity in the workforce. Simple enough. Call a few people, go out there interview "real" workers and then call experts. Get quotes. That's what journalism is limited to these days.
A tested formula for deadline writing. Because in shrinking newrooms where reporters are fast becoming an extinct species, you have a ton of other stuff to write. You can't chase one story. There is no "luxury" of working on one story as my editor once said to me. So real stories get buried in event coverage or usual town/school stuff.
But often one thing leads to another. In talking to people, in surfing the internet, in walking the streets, I stumbled upon the whys of the question of business ownership among minorities.
Of course, we had numbers. But nobody ever asked why these were so negligible in an area that claims to be so welcoming of diversity. There were only about 250 black-owned businesses in the region as the 2002 census data.
It wasn't difficult to understand why. This was a vicious cycle. With no start up capital, these individuals would have a tough time getting the loans. And then the discrimination is well too apparent.
Research has found that loan denial rates were high in such communities. Often, the members had encountered such racism in their interactions that it killed heir desire to be ambitious enough, discouraged them to open their own businesses.
This wasn't rocket science to figure out and I wonder why there wasn't anything on it earlier. Perhaps breaking news or town/city hall stuff took up most of the space in the newspapers along with advertisements.
Often it angers me ... this denial of such issues by those who can highlight it. But I guess journalism in today's world has come to mean breaking news and thousand stories related with one incident. Or maybe just looking for the usual scoops. In our bid to be the watchdog, we have shirked our responsibilty towards the larger community. Seems there are no takers for such stories because they make us feel ugly, tell us what a bad job we have done of making an equal society.
Something that is so blatant and out there is often overlooked. It is difficult to confront our own biases and our own prejudices towards others and so we consciously choose to ignore it. Nobody wants to be called a racist, even by themselves.
For the media, it is when the census releases some numbers, it is time to do a story and get done with it.
In one such case, I was assigned a story on diversity in the workforce. Simple enough. Call a few people, go out there interview "real" workers and then call experts. Get quotes. That's what journalism is limited to these days.
A tested formula for deadline writing. Because in shrinking newrooms where reporters are fast becoming an extinct species, you have a ton of other stuff to write. You can't chase one story. There is no "luxury" of working on one story as my editor once said to me. So real stories get buried in event coverage or usual town/school stuff.
But often one thing leads to another. In talking to people, in surfing the internet, in walking the streets, I stumbled upon the whys of the question of business ownership among minorities.
Of course, we had numbers. But nobody ever asked why these were so negligible in an area that claims to be so welcoming of diversity. There were only about 250 black-owned businesses in the region as the 2002 census data.
It wasn't difficult to understand why. This was a vicious cycle. With no start up capital, these individuals would have a tough time getting the loans. And then the discrimination is well too apparent.
Research has found that loan denial rates were high in such communities. Often, the members had encountered such racism in their interactions that it killed heir desire to be ambitious enough, discouraged them to open their own businesses.
This wasn't rocket science to figure out and I wonder why there wasn't anything on it earlier. Perhaps breaking news or town/city hall stuff took up most of the space in the newspapers along with advertisements.
Often it angers me ... this denial of such issues by those who can highlight it. But I guess journalism in today's world has come to mean breaking news and thousand stories related with one incident. Or maybe just looking for the usual scoops. In our bid to be the watchdog, we have shirked our responsibilty towards the larger community. Seems there are no takers for such stories because they make us feel ugly, tell us what a bad job we have done of making an equal society.
Monday, February 11, 2008
not a big deal - reality television
I would change a lot of things about my life if I could. But I can't so I'd rather make the best of it.
Living alone is not exactly a pleasant experience. You are stuck with the television for company in the lonely evenings when there is a winter advisory outisde and you would not want to risk your precious life for a trip to the coffee shop or the little neighborhood theatre.
Or with the internet because as they say it is the window to the world.
About reality televison, I must say it is good converstaion stuff. Like when I go to my hair stylist, I can endlessly discuss how Miss New York's breasts are not real because in the series that she first appeared in, she had much smaller assets than what she flaunts now and which could put Pamela Anderson's boob job to shame. And then there is Brett Michaels, the guy who lines his eyes with kohl and has a harem of strippers from all the world. Gosh ... if I had kids, I would throw the televison out of the window. Who would want the kids watching strippers fighting/striping for this rockstar of bygone eras ...
But then it is addictive I must admit. Because I want to know who is going home next and if Miss New York. And TLC's What Not to Wear team has pushed up my credit card bills because I now order clothes online that I think are age-appropriate and whatever else London and Kelley feel. And my wardrobe looks as if needs a $5,000 makeover.
They make the most out of single and ready to mingle sor of themes that probably resonates with a lot of the audience. Like Tila Tequila who did not know if she wanted a boy or a girl and ended up having a battle of the sexes that pushed up the ratings by some atrocious numbers. And there they wer fighting it out for little miss Tequila.
Then the true love drama. All these s-called celebs can't find true love so television will help them find one. Then there are these auditions where girls fight it out for flav ... with a huge clock tied around his neck.
But I watch them nontheless because it is mindless entertainment, which is what they say too, because it is reflective of a larger culture, a culture that puts notorious British Papparazzi to shame.
Nobody wants to be avergae. They all want to be taken seriously. Because their job is tough and they will show it you on relity televison how models have to strut out their stuff for a photo shoot to the point where it hurts and a tear or two appears around the made-up eyes.
Tyra Banks, in her America's Next Top Model, which I watch all the time, goes on and on about how serious the modeling business is and how models are misunderstood like a crusader out to correct all those isconceptiosn. Trust me, the world could do without all the rhetoric. Putting on a $20,000 Versace or Oscar De LA Renta gown on superbly toned body and posing in awkward positions is no rocket science.
Why are we so fascinated with knowing all about what's going on in other peoples' bedrooms? Is it because our lives are so bland, so boring that we need to vicariously through these celeb show them all shows.
And it never ends. We have seasons of them and they never find love too like us who never see the point of our own lives sometimes.
later...
Living alone is not exactly a pleasant experience. You are stuck with the television for company in the lonely evenings when there is a winter advisory outisde and you would not want to risk your precious life for a trip to the coffee shop or the little neighborhood theatre.
Or with the internet because as they say it is the window to the world.
About reality televison, I must say it is good converstaion stuff. Like when I go to my hair stylist, I can endlessly discuss how Miss New York's breasts are not real because in the series that she first appeared in, she had much smaller assets than what she flaunts now and which could put Pamela Anderson's boob job to shame. And then there is Brett Michaels, the guy who lines his eyes with kohl and has a harem of strippers from all the world. Gosh ... if I had kids, I would throw the televison out of the window. Who would want the kids watching strippers fighting/striping for this rockstar of bygone eras ...
But then it is addictive I must admit. Because I want to know who is going home next and if Miss New York. And TLC's What Not to Wear team has pushed up my credit card bills because I now order clothes online that I think are age-appropriate and whatever else London and Kelley feel. And my wardrobe looks as if needs a $5,000 makeover.
They make the most out of single and ready to mingle sor of themes that probably resonates with a lot of the audience. Like Tila Tequila who did not know if she wanted a boy or a girl and ended up having a battle of the sexes that pushed up the ratings by some atrocious numbers. And there they wer fighting it out for little miss Tequila.
Then the true love drama. All these s-called celebs can't find true love so television will help them find one. Then there are these auditions where girls fight it out for flav ... with a huge clock tied around his neck.
But I watch them nontheless because it is mindless entertainment, which is what they say too, because it is reflective of a larger culture, a culture that puts notorious British Papparazzi to shame.
Nobody wants to be avergae. They all want to be taken seriously. Because their job is tough and they will show it you on relity televison how models have to strut out their stuff for a photo shoot to the point where it hurts and a tear or two appears around the made-up eyes.
Tyra Banks, in her America's Next Top Model, which I watch all the time, goes on and on about how serious the modeling business is and how models are misunderstood like a crusader out to correct all those isconceptiosn. Trust me, the world could do without all the rhetoric. Putting on a $20,000 Versace or Oscar De LA Renta gown on superbly toned body and posing in awkward positions is no rocket science.
Why are we so fascinated with knowing all about what's going on in other peoples' bedrooms? Is it because our lives are so bland, so boring that we need to vicariously through these celeb show them all shows.
And it never ends. We have seasons of them and they never find love too like us who never see the point of our own lives sometimes.
later...
Monday, January 28, 2008
in new york city, traversing the streets where everything comes together - the colors, the languages, the dialects, the races ... or do they?
on Saturday night, we walked down a street in the wee hours of the morning where men chatted loudly outside strip clubs, where women leaned against the store windows with their cheap lights and bargained for a night's company, where smoke was dense and where immigrant restaurant owners kept busy hours selling kebobs, fajitas and spring rolls.
There, in that moment, everything dissolved. Because in that energy, in that mix, there was nothing distinct, nothing too different.
And it was liberating. the thick air, heavy with the cheap perfumes, cigarette smoke and all that slang was dizzying but yet I inhaled it quickly.
The Indian/Pakistani/ Bangladeshi neighborhood converged with an all-Hispanic one. In that 10-minute walk, it finally felt I was in a big city where there is scope for everyone, where there is space for everyone and where we can can all make it.
A half-an hour train ride away was a world where I only stared at tall buildings, designer showrooms and women carrying Gucci bags, their best foot forward in Jimmy Choo shoes ... and it seemed shut out ... something that's so out there
but back in the little restaurant, staring at the television that showed Bollywood songs, and sipping the thick, sugary and milky tea, in between mouthfuls of achari chicken and roti, it all seemed to come together ... to make sense ...
there is a world for everyone. Yes, and that's where we belong. We need to find ours.
Just as the old man spread out a worn blanket near the subway entrance, preparing for another night, his box with newspapers, food, and some clothes was tacked against the wall, he looked at ease with what he had, the little he had, a handful of the world. Perhaps he was grateful he got the spot. he nodded at me as i passed him.
There, in that moment, everything dissolved. Because in that energy, in that mix, there was nothing distinct, nothing too different.
And it was liberating. the thick air, heavy with the cheap perfumes, cigarette smoke and all that slang was dizzying but yet I inhaled it quickly.
The Indian/Pakistani/ Bangladeshi neighborhood converged with an all-Hispanic one. In that 10-minute walk, it finally felt I was in a big city where there is scope for everyone, where there is space for everyone and where we can can all make it.
A half-an hour train ride away was a world where I only stared at tall buildings, designer showrooms and women carrying Gucci bags, their best foot forward in Jimmy Choo shoes ... and it seemed shut out ... something that's so out there
but back in the little restaurant, staring at the television that showed Bollywood songs, and sipping the thick, sugary and milky tea, in between mouthfuls of achari chicken and roti, it all seemed to come together ... to make sense ...
there is a world for everyone. Yes, and that's where we belong. We need to find ours.
Just as the old man spread out a worn blanket near the subway entrance, preparing for another night, his box with newspapers, food, and some clothes was tacked against the wall, he looked at ease with what he had, the little he had, a handful of the world. Perhaps he was grateful he got the spot. he nodded at me as i passed him.
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