Beka > Recent Status Updates

"Try new experiences as a family. Take risks together. Finding our way through a new + strange world forced us to see ourselves in a different light. We witnessed our children, + they witnessed themselves + us, working through challenges --having to do meaningful problem solving in a new-to-them culture + environment."

"In our society there is selective obliviousness about the value a parent provides to the community by raising a child. Our culture + economy absolutely depend on parenting + caregiving work but refuse to compensate it.

It's really high-value labor, but it's largely unpaid + unrecognized. Our entire economy is built on the expectation that women will continue to do this unpaid work."

"You're not a failure if you want help as a parent, or if you want a work schedule that accommodates parenting. Those are not unreasonable things to want.

What's unreasonable is that we've been conditioned to think that these hopes or expectations reflect a personal weakness instead of a systemic issue."

"There are two systemic issues that we spent a dozen really challenging years trying to resolve:

the cultural expectation of rigid work schedules, and the cultural expectation of raising children in isolation."

WHEWWW.

"A lot of stress and anxiety falls away when we accept that we are parenting the children we have, not the children we were, not the children we anticipated, and not the children we imagined."

"Understanding that your child is not you and that their childhood is not your childhood can feel strange.
Some of the most stressful times we've experienced as parents have been when we went off the script that we were raised on. And we don't think we're alone in this."

"Remember, mi'jas. We are migrant farmworkers.
Like seeds, we carry home in our bodies. Home is where we grow it, together."

"The words 'everyone is welcome'
land lightly
inside my lungs,
expands them and fills them
with the courage to speak up."

"My daydreams and la causa (the cause)
have come together to give me
a new thing
to dream
and be
someday."

"Papá almost always agrees with Rafa.
Though he isn't the oldest child,
Rafael is the oldest boy.
Rafa's boy words count more
than girl words in our family.

Rafael knows this and he tries
not to make us feel bad
but it still happens
and it snaps twigs of sadness
inside of me each time
Papá is so unfair."

"Papá is a cactus plant
Who lives in the harshest conditions
With a prickly shell
And a desert flower
Who blooms
Only once a year."

"Queer Jews (our book) calls for integration are *transformative* rather than assimilationist.
The construction of queer families means making conscious, deliberate choices all along the life course.

Most queers marry, because they want to, because they want to express their love publicly to their communities..."

"Our energies must flow toward our sisters, not backward toward our oppressors.

It is the primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness of + with each other, which is at the heart of women's liberation, + the basis for the cultural revolution.

Together we must find, reinforce, + validate our authentic selves. We see ourselves as prime, find our centers inside of ourselves."

"Only women can give to each other a new sense of self. That identity we have to develop with reference to ourselves, + not in relation to men. This consciousness is the revolutionary force from which all else will follow, for ours is an organic revolution. For this we must be available + supportive to one another, give our commitment + our love, give the emotional support necessary to sustain this movement."

"But why is it that women have related to + through men? By virtue if having been brought up in a male society, we have internalized the male culture's definition of ourselves. That definition consigns us to sexual + family functiona, + excludes us from defining + shaping the terms of our lives."

"The grudging admiration felt for the tomboy, + the queasiness felt around a sissy boy point to the same thing: the contempt in which women --or those who play a female/feminine role-- are held.

Older women will recall that not so long ago, any woman who was successful, independent, not orienting her whole life about a man, would hear this word. (Lesbian.)"

"Lesbianism is different from male homosexuality, + serves a different function in the society. 'Dyke' is a different kind of put-down from 'faggot,' although both imply you are not playing your socially assigned sex role...are not therefore a 'real woman'/'real man.'"

"A lesbian is the woman who, often beginning at an extremely early age, acts in accordance with her inner compulsion to be a more complete + freer human being than her society --perhaps then, but certainly later-- cares to allow her."

"Many mark the dawn of gay liberation with the Stonewall Rebellion in NYC, when patrons of a working class bar called the Stonewall Inn, along with local residents, resisted police oppression publicly + violently for the first time.
Stonewall grew out of earlier activism, developed in response to the Vietnam War + the civil rights movements."

"If we take Audre Lorde's call to move from silence to action seriously, then anytime queers take control of language, whenever they name that which they are, they are engaging in activism.

As words like 'queer' + 'dyke' moved from labels meant to demean + isolate to powerful words expressing identities, queers began to claim power over their own lives."

"If violence is a means of patrolling boundaries, then antiqueer violence will continue so long as queers are perceived as *not* fitting into certain boundaries.

So long as certain Christian leaders continue to demonize queers as 'other,' so long as high schools see a same-sex prom couple as 'a problem,' antiqueer violence will remain a social problem, not just for queers but for everyone."

"Frequently, queers first experience antiqueer violence from parents + family members who want to patrol the family's boundaries + enforce traditional roles. Because of this, queer youth often end up on the streets + drop out of school.

Queer youth have a high homeless + high school dropout rate, + often have less support from family members to respond to state + social antiqueer violence."

"When we speak of violence, we speak broadly about the physical + discursive use of power to maintain social, cultural, + physical boundaries that support dominance of one group over another."

"Queerness has a lot to do with violating boundaries, challenging norms, + shaking up social expectations.

Queers question what it means to be male + female, what sex means, what kinds of relationships are good, what kinds of family structures should exist, + what it means to be American."