Finding Feminism amongst Sex, Sugar Daddies, and Patriarchy

When walking down Kampala highway in Gulu, there is a huge billboard that reads: “Not even Sugar Daddies can stop her!” Below that are the words: Brave, Focused, Victorious. And then below those words is the phrase: Cross Generational Sex stops with you. Then you see a head shot of a young girl smiling at the camera with the words “Go Getter” on her shirt. On the flip side of the billboard there is a picture of an older middle-aged man and next to him a message in Luo (the local language) that first addresses the girl and asks, “Can you live without a man who is older than you?” Then below that it addresses the man on the billboard and asks, “Can you sleep with a girl who is as young as your daughter?”

At other various locations on the road we see another series of smaller billboards that run together in sequence, one after the other (there’s three all together) that tells a similar story. The first sign shows a picture of a young girl accepting gifts from an older man. The second sign shows the girl alone, pregnant, and forlorn. The last sign shows the pregnant girl speaking to an older woman and the police, and next to them we see the older man being taken away in handcuffs. Even though the signs are in Luo, the message reads clearly through the pictures and is along a similar vein as the billboard about cross generation sex: Don’t accept small gifts from older men (“con men” as they call them here), who more than often expect “something for something.” In fact, defilement (as they call it here) – or men having sex with minors -- is the number one crime here in Uganda.

There’s a comic book that circulates, which is sponsored by USAID that attempts to educate the young people here in Uganda about the problems around sex. As I read through the pages, my mouth was open in disbelief at how every single page of that comic book addressed another social ill, another issue around sex being misused and degraded, as a means to control and manipulate women (and men alike) due to strong patriarchal values and lack of education.

The comic book tries to dispel the many inaccurate, yet ignorant beliefs about sex in the community as well as encourage gender equality and respect between men and women. In the comic book, we see a variety of characters – Robert, who is being pressured by his friends to have sex to prove he is a “real man.” Robert sleeps with a girl, who tells him she is pregnant and he angrily responds to her, “I’m not stupid! Virgins can’t get pregnant. I wasn’t born yesterday!” (Really, Robert, are you sure?) Then we see, Steve whose mother is trying to set him up with a nice girl from the village, but he actually has a Sugar Momma (exploitation can go both ways), an older woman whom he has sex with, but who gives him money and ultimately controls his behavior. Steve falls in love with the girl from the village, but upon this knowledge, the Sugar Momma in a fit of jealousy, tells him that she is HIV positive.

Another subplot deals with a group of school girls putting on a drama called “Something for Something” to raise awareness about con men deceiving young girls by buying them small gifts (“something”) in exchange for sex (“something”) and then leaving them as they drop out of school due to stigmatization and unplanned pregnancies. In the comic, the first recital of the drama receives praise and support from the local community. An older man (you see where this is going) approaches the group’s leader and said he was so impressed with the play that he’d like to sponsor it in order for the girls to travel and perform at other schools. The head of the drama group meets with the business man in his office to discuss the sponsorship. He writes her a check and then asks her, “Now what can you do for me?” Angered and disgusted by his behavior, she yells at him and storms out of the office.

Page after page, the drama goes on, but it is not fictional – it is a representation of reality in Uganda.

What is going on here in Africa???

The reality of the corruption of sex and its use to manipulate women, thus destroying their lives, hit home during our community assessment meetings. At every community meeting, we ask the community: What are the reasons for the decline of young girls in school?

The community usually lists the following things:

• Cultural influences. Families do not have money to send girls to school, plus they feel like sending them to school would be wasteful.
• Girls are married off too young due to traditional cultural norms because they are seen as a source of financial gain for the family.
• Con men pursue young girls, which result in unplanned pregnancies.
• Due to the war and congestion in the camps, communities experienced serious poverty and famine. In order to get out of poverty and to feed themselves and their families, girls exchanged sex for food and other small gifts from con men.
• Girls are overworked and have too many responsibilities, and therefore, cannot concentrate on their studies.
  
  

At one particular community meeting, a woman answered that young girls are not continuing their education because con men are defiling girls, and simultaneously I witnessed four or five women put their heads in their hands at the exact same time as if that answer was too much to hear because it was all too true.

Another truth is that gender inequality and the exploitation of women are not isolated to Uganda or Africa. In the Philippines, we see women attempting to avoid poverty through sex tourism and families selling their girls into prostitution. In Nepal, women remain silent about domestic violence and rape within marriage. In Egypt, patriarchy manifests itself in polygamy, female circumcision, and strong cultural and misinterpreted religious values about women’s bodies. (In fact, Egypt has one of the highest rates in female circumcision.) In Ecuador, the problems are domestic violence; husbands cheating on their wives and having children outside of wedlock. My host brother, Manuel, told me that in one of his classes in college, the teacher asked: How many people’s parents were still together? He was the only one out of 40 people who raised their hand. Teenage pregnancy is also a problem; girls 12, 13, 14 are having children.

In Egypt, I saw women in Siwa wearing full blue-colored burqas that covered their entire bodies with only mesh holes for them to see out of as they walked the streets. Their freedom of movement was limited to the accompaniment of a male relative, and they moved through the dusty streets like blue wraiths. (When I saw them I wondered what beautiful women were hidden under there, what their stories were, and how they saw their faith and Allah). The attire of the women from Saudi Arabia was quite different: sleek silky black full length, long sleeved dresses with matching hijab that fully covered their hair and faces. The only opening in their outfit was eye slits, and their eyes, outlined with heavy eyeliner, pierced through their coverings. Unlike their Siwan sisters, whose burqas resembled more of a worn bed sheet, the garb of the Saudi Arabian Muslim women reflected riches (perhaps from oil?), and sometimes I would see a studded-jeweled design on the back of their black gowns. Once, I saw a woman with a design in a shape of a scorpion. I wonder: How is the traditional Islamic belief of modesty represented in that?

But veiling goes beyond simple modesty, and from what I know, women are suppose to veil because showing their hair (a sign of beauty) or any skin would arouse men’s sexual interest. A woman does not want to instigate this type of inappropriate behavior in men other than her husband, and therefore, she must not show herself to strangers. What kind of society is a society in which men need to be kept in check like that?! If men go wild at the sight of a woman’s hair or flesh, then we really need to reconsider why men, with apparently so little self control, are the ones leading our nations.

Again, I have to point out the obvious, that we see religious values (often due to misinterpreted texts or corrupt religious leaders) reverberating in oppressive cultural practices. After the Women in Islam class I took in college, I learned that although Muhammad had many wives, he turned to them (especially his youngest wife, Aisha) for guidance and counsel regarding political matters. I recall that there is one line in the Hadith that refers to Muhammad shifting a curtain (or a veil) so another man would not lay eyes on one of his wives. How this one line got misinterpreted to lead to centuries of covering up women is something that I still need to personally investigate, but the power of religion to distort and oppress – especially when it can favor one gender controlling the other – is displayed in this very example.

Religion plays its role in the Philippines where women turn to unsafe herbal remedies to abort unwanted pregnancies. Women used these methods because the Catholic Church promotes “natural family planning” and does not condone birth control like condoms and other contraceptives. As a result, women use alternative and unsafe methods, and the population of the Philippines is burgeoning out of control and seriously contributing to the problem of poverty.

But what of women here in Africa?

I have already gotten into some heated debates with our hosts here about women’s roles within the house and in society. Although Dr. Beatrice (our host) has more education than her husband, she even agrees that women have to be subservient to their husbands. Her response baffles me to some extent; she claims higher education than her husband, and not that that matters, but she says nothing when he argues with me, “I only cook when she is sick. Her job is to cook and clean because she is the wife.” I am trying to understand their perspective, as I know they are coming from a society that still adheres to the practice of bride prices – men give a “dowry” (or “buy”) their wives from the woman’s family. They also cite examples of the disaster that they witnessed already happen when women obtain power, especially in political office. They told me that one prominent woman in office destroyed her family when she was promoted and then had a higher job status than her husband. She started sleeping around, drinking and partying, and neglecting her traditional duties of wife and mother. Dr. B and Mr. C said that when women gain power or feel “liberated” this power dynamic destroys the family structure. Women begin to feel entitled to the same things their husbands were entitled to (i.e. multiple sex partners, a career, not being responsible for domestic chores, etc. – we really need to address these perceived roles!). In order for a family to stay cohesive and successful, they say there has to be someone in charge, someone dominant, and in Africa (as is the story mostly everywhere else in the world) it is the man.

During our community meetings, women are vocal that the challenges to having a healthy family stem from men neglecting their roles and responsibilities and drinking the family’s money away. Domestic violence is an issue, and women claim that men will divorce them if there is not enough food to eat in the house. Men have multiple sex partners outside of marriage bringing back HIV and other STDs to their wives. A recent article in the newspaper here read: “Highest rate of HIV is Spread Amongst Married Couples.”How f'ed up is that?

It is very difficult for me not to blame men for the burden women carry, not just here in Uganda, but the world over. As a social worker, my lens is able to see environmental factors at work here in Northern Uganda: poverty, war, joblessness in the IDP camps all contribute to men’s inability to provide for their families – and when you cannot fill your main role and purpose (or what you think is your main role) that leads to disempowerment, hopelessness, and depression. Thus, people turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism and leading to the high incidence of alcoholism here. (Every morning I buy eggs from the little shop below our apartment, and the men have already started drinking). But tell me, why are men still running the show when many of them are shirking their duties? Women now not only have to run the family, they are responsible for generating income, leaving women overworked and over burdened.

As with any work we wish to do, we have to first think about our own value system. Being self-aware of the values we live by is crucial because these values are the foundation from which we conduct our daily affairs – in business and in our personal lives – whether we are conscious of this or not. And if we wish to work towards a goal, to have a vision of change, then we need to be aware of what values, beliefs, and ideas within us are going to help us get there or be a detriment to the cause. This trip has made me hyper aware that I need to do this self-analysis and critical thinking about my own views on women’s equality and where I see women’s rights 10, 20, 30 years down the line. I’m being confronted with the questions: What really is my vision and ultimately, what will my role be in creating this reality?

During the debates about women roles I had with our hosts here, I found myself biting my tongue and toning down my own views on women’s roles and equality. In my other travels, I have lackadaisically spoken about my own opinions and thoughts about marriage from a feminist and personal perspective. I usually say, “I value my independence, freedom, education and career before marriage or any type of partnership. I don’t know if I’ll get married because I don’t believe in the institution (women being owned by men). And I don’t think I’ll have children because I want a career that allows me to travel, and the “soccer mom” life strikes me as extremely oppressive, limiting, and unappealing.” Blah blah blah. My list rattles on, and I think this little schpeal of mine has been my recorded speech since high school, with additional addendums (and sparks of anger) as I progressed through various Women and Gender classes in college and experienced a variety of heterosexual relationships (all of which, in my efforts to retain my identity, individuality, and independence has usually threatened our relationship, or dare I say, even de-masculated my male partner). Usually when I state my views to people in other countries (and in the States) I get raised eyebrows, women clicking their tongues at me in disbelief and disappointment, and a few women saying I can have those beliefs because I am from the United States and women don’t experience the same oppression there than in other countries.

Yet, that is another myth, I tell them, because inequality and oppression are manifested in different ways in the States. Women in the US still suffer from discrimination in the workplace, for example. I worked on numerous cases at my old job as a paralegal at an employee rights law firm where women lost their jobs because they were pregnant or women who were working on Wall Street were excluded from opportunities to advance their careers because of the “Boys Club” atmosphere, thus hitting the glass ceiling. Women electricians are experiencing modern day discrimination equal to what the women experienced in the movie, “North Country,” a true story of women being ruthlessly discriminated against working in the mines. What about the more subtle forms of oppression that the majority of us don’t consider? For example, the music industry or the media. The music video that first comes to my mind is the recent Justin Timberlake and Ciara “Love, Sex, and Magic.” In this video we see Ciara wearing practically nothing, clothed in an animal print leotard with something around her neck that looks like a leash. In one scene, Justin is holding on to her “leash” like an animal and then he proceeds to lick her face (what is up with that!?). Ciara – dressed in animal print with a collar – symbolically (and obviously) puts her in an animal-like, dominated position in the video by Justin. And to top it all off – Justin is a white man and Ciara is a black woman. Wow. Historically, the white slave master had leashes around his slaves. Wow. So Justin and Ciara just made a present music video condoning this type of scene and behavior – not knowing that their lyrics and their actions in this video reflect the history of the oppression of women and black people. It not only reflects this history, it condones, and therefore continues to promote the exploitation and domination of women by men and white people over people of color. And to top it all off again – the music video implies that all this is just… sexy. Yeah. Sexy. Oppression and exploitation… sexy? Really? But nobody really talks about all the imagery and lyrics in music and the media because our social climate and the dominate framework for how we think about things is that sex sells. So, with that lens, Justin and Ciara are just “doing their thing” and being “sexy.” But this is just one of the countless examples of music and music videos using lyrics and sexuality to promote the objectification and degradation of women’s bodies. We are not aware that music, especially, is changing the way young people think about their bodies, sex, and relations between the genders.

So what does that mean for women in the West? I think it means that we can’t be passive and think we’ve achieved liberation if this is the social climate we are working with!

I am still trying to think critically about the vision I see for women in the future and I am realizing I have to reform my vision by re-analyzing how I maneuver through my own life. I have over valued independence, self-sufficiency, aggressiveness, ambition, and being in control – all masculine traits. While these values have served me in different ways, I recognize that I also disapprove of traditionally feminine qualities: nurturing, passivity, flexibility.. etc. These characteristics are the usually undervalued in society, as we admire and esteem traits that reflect ambition and can get you “to the top.” Women are currently reflecting those traits and achieving great success. Not only do we have women CEO’s, who command corporations with fierceness, but they are doing all that on top of raising children and being wives. So that’s a good thing, right? We have women who are now multi-faceted and in fact, I argue, more apt and capable than men because they are fulfilling their roles in addition to the roles men traditionally fill – being bread winners. But what about those traditional feminine characteristics? These characteristics are looked down upon, tossed aside, and undervalued in our society. We see society’s opinion of feminine values reflected in our perceptions of women’s work, for example. When women leave their jobs to take care of new born babies, they get little maternity leave and are often not hired back to their job. Keeping house and child raising – traditional female roles – are not celebrated. In fact, all of those positions are unpaid for a wife, and are low paid jobs in general. We do not value women’s work. Therefore, there is little respect the feminine.

Taking a step back, I am comparing the plight of people of color to the women’s movement and seeing some parallels. Are women attempting to switch roles with the oppressor? In order to compensate for the lack of women’s rights throughout history, are women taking on masculine characteristics in order to establish power that has been denied to them for so long? Are women now just over compensating to gain lost ground? And if so, then if women’s liberation is instead taking on the form of copying oppressive male characteristics in order for women to gain equal rights, and if that is the lens I am looking at this movement, then I really need to ask myself: Is that the trajectory of this mission? What is healthy for the development of all peoples and all genders? What really is equality?

Equality is determining that two different things have equal value. However, the current global social climate considers traditionally “male” traits to be better than “female” traits. Therefore, we need to elevate women’s work and women’s roles so that traditionally female jobs such as child-rearing, teachers, and nurses have just as much value as traditionally male jobs. But it goes beyond elevating women’s jobs or paying women equal salaries. It ultimately begins with our own personal views and reforming the very way we think about what is important not just for success – but for healthy growth, development, and real progress in society.

I envision a society in which the feminine is just as valued as the masculine – two different sides to the same coin – both having the same value. In Eastern Religions, we see Yin and Yang. Yin represents the female: passive, yielding, dark, cool, etc. Yang, the male: active, aggressive, light, hot, etc. Yet, one can only exist because the other one exists; there is only day because there is night, there is only hot because there is cold. The mountains (yang) only exist because of the valleys (yin) that surrounds it. One cannot exist without the other; both equally depend on each other. In Kundalini Yoga, the yogi (through yoga and meditation) tries to raise their feminine energy (represented by the Hindu goddess Shakti) located at the base of the spine to meet masculine energy (represented by the Hindu god Shiva) in order to bring the practitioner into Nirvana. Both male and female energy are needed for this ultimate spiritual transformation and are equally significant in their roles in this process. Can we shape the roles of men and women with this lens? Instead of seeing one set of gendered traits superior to another, can we see masculine and feminine in its pure form – two complimentary energies, sacred and significant in their own right and power, and absolutely necessary to wholeness, balance, and healthy transformation? In Chinese Medicine, when a person’s own internal combination of yin and yang is unbalanced, when one tries to overpower or dominate the other within the physical body, the body’s equilibrium is disrupted and disease forms. In society, perhaps it’s the same way – too much yang forms patriarchy, thus resulting in a sick society.

So how can this vision manifest itself in our present day reality? First, we have to give equal opportunities to children from birth to play with both dolls and trucks (gendered toys). We need to teach our children that however they express themselves is healthy – if a girl wants to play in the dirt, let her; if a boy wants to cry, let him. We tell our boys at such a young age how to “be men” by scolding them when they cry because “real men don’t cry.”Being human means experiencing and expressing the full range of human emotions, and by denying boys and men from expressing anything but anger and aggression, we are ultimately denying our men from being full, well-rounded, fully integrated human beings. By telling our young girls that they shouldn’t get dirty outside and should be playing house or discouraging them from participating in athletics, we are also denying our girls a way for them to know their bodies in an empowering way and giving them the message that boys are allowed to do some things they are not. These are the messages we need to tell our children as they grow in order for them to respect themselves as well as each other.

In addition, we need to lead by example. Within our own selves, we need to strike a balance between our own masculine and feminine traits – equally embracing both the yin and the yang within ourselves even if we have more of one than the other. We need to be able to express ourselves in the ways that make us happy and whole people, to our full potential, regardless if I am female and independent or male and nurturing. In our own relationships, I would like to see a society where child-raising and income generation are genderless roles. Whichever partner can fulfill those roles the best then does those roles without controlling or oppressing the other partner. And if by chance, the one partner who was raising the children now wants to generate income, the roles can be switched without one partner feeling like they no longer have a purpose or identity. Jobs and roles within and outside the house are interchangeably filled by both partners. Decision-making is an active and equal process of collaboration. There is no “head of the household” because the partnership and power is shared. Giving birth and child-raising is elevated to its actual position as one of the highest and sacred positions in society. Mothers are ultimately sheltering, training, and grooming the future of the human race, the next generation of people – how has society forgotten what an important (if not the MOST important) role that is in general? Because the next generation, depending on how we raise them, will ultimately determine the future of the planet – probably even more so than the leaders of our nations. With that perspective and those responsibilities, women should be Queens in every household and paid more than the President himself.

When this reality starts to manifest, there won’t be a need for feminism because there won’t be any patriarchy. I won’t have to” find” feminism here – or in any developing or developed country because women would not be subjected to (or active participants in) the oppressive realities promoted by patriarchical institutions. And when that day comes, perhaps I won’t look (and feel) so much of a mad woman in search of a reality that could very well exist not only if men thought critically about their privilege and their roles, but if women believed in and were made aware of their own power as women.

Muno

When I run in the mornings, I usually have kids calling at me, “Muno! Muno!” When Yuna (who is Korean) and I walk down the street together, we hear kids again, calling at us, “Muno! Give me 100 shillings!” The local language of the Acholi people is Luo, and according to our Luo-English dictionary, muno means: “n. a white man; originally it was a name given to colours other than black, the whites being called otara, but later on when the Arabs became known to be different, then only the whites were called muno.”

This definition is very unclear and warranted some explanation. Yuna and I asked Chris (one of our friends from Gulu) what muno exactly meant. He said that the word otara refers to white European and American people. Muno, on the other hand, means everyone else who is not this type of white, but everyone who is not black either. Basically, muno meant everyone who is in-between black and white. However, if you are muno or otara you are still a muzungo. And a muzungo means foreigner.

While muno and otara essentially mean two different colors, Chris explained to us that both these terms are lumped into one category: white. You are either black or white in Uganda, and if your skin color is any shade lighter than black – you are considered to be white. And when you are white, you are a muzungo and people automatically assume you come from privilege and have money.

But why do people here assume that if you are any shade of brown, you must still be white? The NGO workers and missionaries come from all different countries, but are mostly white. We have seen a handful of people from Asia, also here on business or “to help.” And there is a huge Indian population in Gulu and in Uganda in general. They are the store and business owners, and they usually make much more money than the average Ugandan. While we were having dinner at one of the fancier restaurants in Gulu, Apollo pointed out to us the “richest man” in Gulu, who is Indian. He owns many businesses here and lives in a huge mansion with his Ugandan wife. It’s no wonder why Ugandans assume that even if you’re not from the West, but you’re a lighter shade of brown, you are wealthy.

It’s been a very interesting experience to witness my identity change depending on the country I am in. My biracial background and ambiguous looks have granted me access to places and opened up cultures in a way that would be denied to me previously if I was phenotypically Caucasian. In every other developing country I have traveled to – I am a woman of color, and almost always, I can pass as a native. Yet now in Africa, I am perceived in a whole new way that I have never experienced before: I am white.

The last country I was in where I was highly aware of looking different was actually the Philippines. This was a confusing experience because I assumed that this would be the one place where I would blend in and not feel different than anyone else. After moving to a mostly white suburban town when I was 12 years old, I grew accustomed to feeling like an outsider although at the time I knew I couldn’t place the feeling. Straddling two different cultural worlds was my constant struggle, invisible to my white friends. After a few years in college, surrounded by diversity, the desire to travel to the Philippines to know myself and my roots became urgent. At 20 years old, I stepped off the airplane in Manila into a sea of Filipinos thinking, “Finally, finally – a place where everyone looks like me.” However, walking the streets of Manila, I constantly heard comments from strangers, “Mestiza, mestiza.” Mestiza, in the Philippines, meant someone who was a half-breed. In the past, during Spanish colonization, it meant half Filipino and half Spanish; in the present day, after American colonization, it means half Filipino and half white. And then during the duration of my visit, my Tito (uncle) Fred exclaimed on more than one occasion, “You look so much like your mother, Kristen!” What? I look like my mother? My white mother? Really? I spent my whole life having people ask if I was adopted when I was with my mother and saying I looked exactly like my father. But here, here in the homeland of my father – in a place where I thought I’d blend in, my biracial roots were noticeably apparent in my features. While this trip deepened my understanding of my Filipino heritage, family, and personal history, it also, for once in my life, created within me a high sensitivity that even here – in the Philippines – I still did not fully belong. But this realization, coming through comments from my family in the Philippines, saying I resembled my mother so much, spoke deep to my need to be recognized as my mother’s daughter – an identity that had always been denied to me by others outside my family because I did not visually look like her. Here in the Philippines, I understood and deeply connected with my Filipino identity, but also with my identity as being biracial – and half white.

In other countries, I have had quite the opposite experience, and in these experiences I whole-heartedly love and celebrate being biracial because it has granted me access to cultures because I can “pass” as a native. For example, when I traveled solo to Nepal, my first stop was in Thailand. In Thailand - I was Thai. This was my first experience of being able to “pass.” When the woman who sat next to me on the airplane found out I was traveling alone, she decided to adopt me for the duration of my stay in Thailand because I reminded her of her niece – and heavens forbid something happened to me. Both her and I moved freely in Bangkok, and I didn’t felt awkward or stared at even when she brought me to a Thai funeral of a friend of hers. She introduced me as her adopted niece for the week, people smiled at me, shook my hand, and that was that.

In Egypt, I wore a variety of identities ranging from Egyptian, Persian, and Moroccan in order for my traveling companion (who spoke Arabic) and I to get the discounted rate for Muslims at tourist sites. However, even when I veiled with a scarf covering my head, Egyptian shop owners, who were used to international travelers could identify that I was not Arab and would ask if I was Hispanic or Asian. It was and is very rare for anyone to guess that I am Filipino, let alone biracial.

In Ecuador, I passed as being from somewhere in South America. During the first week of my stay there, I befriended an African-American girl from the States who was also in my program. My host sister, Patricia, joined me one evening when I went with my new friend back to her host family’s house for a goodbye party for one of the other American students. Upon our arrival, everyone greeted my friend and said to her looking at us, “Oh look, you brought your native friends with you!” My friend had to explain that I was also American, but the rest of the night, out of a party of 15 or so white, rowdy Americans, only a one or two other people came over to talk to Patricia and me. I felt invisible. I was invisible because I was assumed to be just another native, another relative visiting the host family, nobody important, no one of common ground. I realized that “passing” gave me privilege to move around Ecuador more freely than my white companions, but it made me invisible to a community in which I am suppose to be from. I’m not saying that it could have been partially attributed to the fact I was an outsider coming into a party (and we’ve all experienced that in the States – where nobody pays attention to you because they just don’t know who you are), but the fact that from the very moment I walked in the door, the Americans were already convinced I was “just another native girl” separated them from me. In fact, my entire time in Ecuador, I felt more at home with my host siblings’ friends, who took me in as their own. My own Filipino background (including the similarities between cultures, value systems, food, and our similar collective histories of Spanish colonization) and Catholic upbringing provided us with common ground as well as a cross-cultural connection. In general, I think this was more of our connecting thread rather than my ability to blend in because the skin color of people of Ecuador ranged across the spectrum, so you could be fair or dark skinned in Ecuador and people wouldn’t really look at you twice.

I spent 4 months in Nepal being Nepali. It was strange, yet comforting to feel almost completely a part of a culture and a people due to my ability to blend in and cultural background. I was completely aware that if I could learn to speak Nepali fluently, I could make a life here where no one would question my ethnic identity. In some way, this was alarming -- that I could reconstruct my identity like this (because would that deny my Filipino roots?), but I was highly aware the privilege this ability also awarded.

During my duration of my stay in Nepal, I had such freedom of movement that I walked the streets without any harassment, unlike my white American friends who, if they were male, would be solicited for money; and if they were female, they would be solicited for sponsorship or for marriage. Nepali men on the street were mostly street musicians and would approach white women, no matter what country you were from, and ask them if they would monetarily fund and support their music. Now, not just by giving a few rupees at that very moment, they wanted support for their music and living expenses. Or they would blatantly ask women to marry them. Again, we see the power dynamics of 1st world versus 3rd world trickle down to the micro level. Yet, unlike the Philippines, where Filipina women are actively searching to marry white, Western men (through match-making websites, mail-order bride companies) to save their families from poverty, we see Nepali men actively seeking out white women to also circumvent poverty.

In Africa, it’s a similar situation. I’ve heard (and corrected) our hosts and other people who refer to me (and Yuna, and sometimes even Nadia, who is lighter shade of brown African American) as white. If your skin is any other shade lighter than black, you must come from somewhere other than Africa, from privilege, and therefore, are expected to give out charity and free things. If you’re a white or light skinned brown woman (from any race), you also become the target of unwanted advances or marriage proposals from men. Just yesterday, my boda-boda (motorcycle) driver, after two minutes of driving together and small-talk, told me I should stay in Uganda and marry him.

Although I am half white, I identify as a woman of color because I cannot “pass” as white, and therefore, have never, will never, and can never assume the privilege that comes from being white. I am all too highly aware that I could have been born fairer skinned, and that would have drastically changed the way I am perceived in the world and my experience within it. My biracial friends and I know all too well the range of experiences people of biracial decent have depending upon their mix and skin color. Yet, even if one can “pass” as white – that does not ease up on one’s identity confusion. But people of biracial decent are not the only ones who are constantly cognizant of our racial identities, all people of color move through the world constantly thinking about the color of their skin and how they are being perceived in the world. Questions run through our heads like, “Am I being treated this way because of my race or the color of my skin?”

The history behind children who are of mixed race is not a pretty one. During slavery, white plantation owners would rape black women, and their children -- half black and half white – depending on the shade of their skin would either live as slaves or attempt to “pass” as white. Passing as white, however, was at your own risk, and if your true heritage was found out, you risked greater persecution. In the Philippines, prostitution flourished around US military bases – in a country where the economy failed to provide jobs for its people, Filipina women chose to sell their bodies in order to avoid poverty, while white American men chose to exercise their privilege and power over third world women by buying sex and women's bodies like a commodities. In addition to this, Western men bought Filipina women as mail-ordered-brides to fulfill their fantasies of a having a submissive, exotic Asian wife that was lover, slave, and maid wrapped up in one, and if she did not live up to this stereotype, she was at risk of domestic violence. In both these scenarios, the products of these relationships were biracial children. More than often, historically, biracial children were the violent result the colonizer dominating the colonized.

Miscegenation laws were only recently abolished in the United States in 1967 (see the story of Lovingday v. Virginia at www.lovingday.org). Before then, it was illegal for people of different races to marry in sixteen states in the US. So, the question is, what does it mean to biracial in today’s society? Despite the history of biracial unions, we find that biracial relationships have evolved (however there are still stereotypes that exist). We see different dynamics between our parents from different races and between each other in our own interracial (romantic or non) relationships in the present day time. And as much as I feel anger at colonization and at the oppressor – for many of us, the reality of being biracial is that we are the combination of both -- the oppressed and the oppressor. In my work for social justice, this presents some interesting contradictions, but makes this work, again, extremely personal. My anger at the injustice faced by people of color by the dominant race is real, but my existence is realer. For me, it is no longer the colonizer versus the colonized. It is no longer white verses black or people of color. It is no longer the majority versus the minority. It is no longer the oppressor versus the oppressed. Because then it is my father versus my mother? This mission of social justice all of a sudden transcends this reality of black and white or us versus them because in being biracial -- that reality just does not exist because we are both. And despite my own struggles straddling two different cultural worlds, my parents have offered a loving environment where diversity is celebrated and where being half and half didn’t matter because I was still whole. Being biracial in this current day and age, I believe our ability to maneuver between different racial and cultural worlds, to adapt and to connect to a wide diversity of people grants us a unique perspective to see and experience life from multiple racial and cultural vantages points. While I can be angry at the collective history of people of color being oppressed by white people, I am highly aware that my own mother is white – and that this mission to promote social justice and human rights means so much more than uplifting the oppressed (and in turn not becoming the oppressor), but to transcend race all together.

The fact that our president is biracial gives me hope that we will see in our lifetime at least the beginnings of a movement to do just that: to transcend race and instead look at each individual as a unique person with a diverse background, a divine spark, and an important member and contributor of our global community. Perhaps when that time comes, the children in Uganda will cease to call me or anyone lighter skinned muno or muzungo, but instead larem, which means friend.

GOD = Go Overseas and Deceive

In Uganda, the people say that the cross came before the flag. Meaning, Christianity came first to convert people, and then the British colonizers followed later. The link between Christianity and colonization is tempered according to this view point. However, upon further inquiry, we learn that the Christian missionaries were the ones who invited the British colonizers to come to Uganda. Therefore, the statement should correctly read: the cross brought the flag.

The acronym for GOD as seen above is the interpretation of the spread of Christianity according to some Africans. This, by all means, is not a widely spread view (but, of course, there’s always a current of dissension in every culture against the dominant paradigm). Yet, it encompasses in a quite blatant message, a startling and uncomfortable truth.

More than often, as we already know, colonization enters a country with a mask of aid and development. In the past, like here in Uganda, missionaries have preceded the colonizers. Their attitudes have lead to demonization of indigenous religions – and once you attack the foundation of a culture (its Gods and Goddesses, creation myths, and explanations of life) you threaten that culture’s very reason for existence. Those who came bringing God paved the way for the eventual destruction of indigenous cultures and death of native peoples from war and disease. This is not only true in Uganda; this is true for all indigenous peoples everywhere who have experienced colonization. In my personal collective history, I can cite the Philippines – the Spanish missionaries brought Catholicism and 350 years of Spanish colonization. And Catholicism, for example, brought a male God – Dios (a masculine noun in Spanish), which replaced the then existing word for God – Bathala (a gender neutral word in Tagalog and a word whose translation means male and female unification). This change led to the social and spiritual demotion of Filipino women in society when women had originally, before Spanish dominion, owned land, had decision making power in the family, and were respected priestesses and warriors. In the history of the US, Columbus might not have brought Christianity, but the Pilgrims did, and the Native Americans suffered (are still suffering) from the destruction of their lands and traditions, social ills from spiritual disempowerment, and historical trauma.

In Uganda (and this is the trend in developing countries worldwide), white people have historically either brought: A) Religion, B) Colonization, or C) Charity. It’s sort of ironic that the race that initially imposed their religion and culture on Africa and elsewhere is now the race that is trying to “fix” things. Tell me – can you identify the running theme here? Oppression comes in many forms whether it is in the form of saving souls (religion), bringing “civilization” to “uncivilized people” (colonization), or dispensing aid to poor people (charity). Who is in control here? Who has the power?

Religion is an interesting beast. All religions have their own dark pasts. They have conquered, converted and controlled people in the name of all-loving and all-powerful Gods whom I highly doubt would accept the carnage (physically, culturally, and spiritually) that has resulted due to the various religious missions and crusades. For example, the current Palestinian and Israeli conflict has always seen bloodshed. And for what? Surely not for competing Gods because Jews and Muslims (and Christians for that matter) worship the same God of Abraham! So then for what? For land? For ethnic pride? For vengeance for past wrong doings? For boundaries that we have created, boundaries of land, culture, and religion – that are manmade – are we suffering. And in this example, we fight each other in the name of the same God, which makes even less sense. In history and in the present time, we separate ourselves from each other over different religions, different Gods, because we believe our God delivers a different, if not superior message from the others. My own knowledge of religion has been academic by training, but motivated by a personal search for truth and meaning because religion’s vicious reality of persecution never made sense to me. And I say, from my own ongoing investigation (for which I do not claim to preach from authority but encourage everyone to seek their own truth) that the core of all religions deliver a similar message, one that has evolved from the oldest religion (Hinduism) to the newest (Baha’i), and that message is not one of separation or oppression or ethno-centric superiority of one God or people over another.

Ultimately, when we strip religion of its institutions, corrupt leaders, and misinterpreted texts, we find this running theme: unity, compassion, and transcendence. The great sages and mystics from all the major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) spoke the same message and expounded the same wisdom: We are all manifestations of Spirit. We have no boundaries between ourselves, each other, and God. The message is as simple as that.

Unfortunately, the message gets lost and warped, filtered through different cultural lens, distorted by corrupt leaders, and truncated by narrow minds. Religion then fails to be what it is meant to be: a cultural vessel containing this message, a safe place to individually better yourself (which in turn betters the community), and a community of morally and spiritually-minded, grounded individuals joined together by a mutual feeling of connectivity, responsibility for others, and dedication to service. Religion instead becomes a regimented set of rituals and obligations, a way to control and exert power over people. We see this in various examples throughout history – from Christianity’s support of slavery to the current cults in Idaho. We find examples in our everyday life – Catholic views of women to be chaste, virgin, pure have shaped society’s conservative views on women’s bodies, suppressed female sexuality, and presented a double standard regarding women’s promiscuity compared to men – men are glorified for their sexual prowess and women are condemned. So, I ask, how is institutionalized religion exerting its control over you? How has it shaped your childhood? The values of your parents? The values of the society that you were raised in? How have those values influenced the way you view yourself, the world, and how you live your life? I left religion because I thought it disempowered people, not only through the original missionary trips, but through modern day blind faith. Now, my search and my studies have given me another lens on religion, and I see it is as a powerful vessel, a tool for cultivating and tapping into each person’s greatest potential.

Religion feeds our need to transcend isolation and alienation. Humans crave meaning, we crave connection to others, our deepest selves, and to something greater than ourselves. Science may have explained our existence through the Big Bang and Darwinism, but it has not explained the why. We may know how we came to be here, but we still and will never know the why, and this question will plague humans no matter how far science and technology advances. What is the meaning of life? Here, we need God, we need connection to a higher power, to each other, to feel as if our lives matter and have meaning. This is the human condition. This is the beauty and tragedy of the human experience. This fundamental question either separates us or unites us depending on how we look at things. This either becomes a motivator for violent reaction in the name of religion or humble action in the name of compassion. This either makes or breaks us as a global community.

With all this knowledge, what do we do about religion?

First, to back track, we cannot erase or fix the past. There is no way to turn back time to convince the missionaries that their plight to save souls rather condemns cultures or to plead with colonizers that their aim to bring civilization really brings destruction to ancient traditions instead. While these historical truths are real and apparent, there is another blatant reality facing all of us: We would not be here if it was not for what came before us. No matter how far removed we feel from historical events – we must remember that history reverberates in all of us. As much as I disagree with mission trips and colonization, I am resigned to the fact that had not America colonized the Philippines for 50 years bringing American education and Western medicine, training Filipino nurses to serve the nursing shortage in the US, my own aunts would not have immigrated to work as nurses in NJ, eventually bringing my father here, who in turn met my American mother. Historical events trickle down to the family and individual level no matter where you are from, and in the face of this truth, I am acutely aware that I would not exist.

And what about you?

How did you come to be here? Don’t stop reflecting back to merely your parents’ journey because you know that how you came to be here reaches farther back than that. Your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents faced circumstances and made decisions. Their life story is your history. Their blood is your blood. Your ancestors (or parents or grandparents – dare I say – YOU) were either oppressed or your ancestors (parents, grandparents, YOU) were the oppressor. Can you face that truth? Your existence rests on that reality. Can you accept that truth? Now tell me: what do you do with that knowledge? What do you do with that self-realization? What about the realization that today, in your current life, you are either facing, dodging, or actively participating in some form of oppression? It might not be the same oppression that your parents or grandparents faced – it might be subtler, it might be just as blatant, or it might have taken a different form. It might be by not speaking about race because you think racism is a null topic. It might be by not questioning your own religion because your religion is the right religion for everyone, right? All these are forms of oppression. Now that you see this, what do you do?

This is our great responsibility. I challenge all the angry activists to stop being angry at the past, at religion, at each other. Transform that energy and passion to create the reality you wish to see in the world. It is our responsibility to go forward with the knowledge that builds upon the lessons of the past lest we run mankind around in circles – can we really afford to waste time reinventing the wheel? Can we really afford to stay silent during another genocide? Can we really say we’ve made progress since the Civil Rights Movement or Brown vs. Board of Education when minorities in the US are disproportionately living below the poverty line, dropping out of school, and getting incarcerated? Can we really say our religious institutions have evolved when instead of burning witches, we are condemning gays? Can we really afford to dehumanize and exploit each other over land or oil when our global community is undergoing preventable climate change?

Tell me: What do you and I tell each other – and I’m not talking about what we tell our children or our grandchildren – I’m asking, what do we tell each other, when in 10 years, 5 years, next week, tomorrow – we have failed to do our part in saving ourselves? The environmental activists claim that the ramifications of climate change are just upon the horizon. They also say that all this racism, sexism, classism, religious animosity bullshit is second priority if we don’t have a planet to live on. I say they are right. Our constructions of race, sex, class, politics, and religion are just that: social constructions that are only divisive. Man made. Therefore, what is done cannot be undone, but it can be transformed.

Why I ask this question of you and I, of my peers in this generation, is because we are the generation, regardless of color (especially those of color!), who are equipped with the education and the knowledge to change the course of humanity as we know it. And we will only have each other to answer to, to hold accountable for what happens in the near future because we are seeing the future unfold at a rapid rate. Things happening right now. Genocide in the Congo (just recently in Northern Uganda!), human trafficking in Southeast Asia, religious persecution in Israel/Palestine, US colonization in Iraq, the first black man (biracial too) to be elected president of the United States (not all current events reflect lack of progress!). Like I said in one of my other blogs, we are in a strategic position to dramatically and dynamically propel the future of our global community into a reality that transcends the social ills that plague us. But guess what? Most of us are getting comfortable. I can’t even say that we’ve forgotten the struggles that came before us because most of us don’t even know! Dare I say it – there are those amongst us who are aware of all I speak of, who know their personal and collective histories, and still chose to ignore their role. I say that you are more dangerous than those who are still ignorant.

That is why I pose my question to my peers because this is not a battle for our children. In 10 years, 5 years, next year, tomorrow – will you, can you, live comfortably in your house with your flat screen TV, 2.5 kids, dog in the yard, looking forward to your holiday bonus and the next family vacation, knowing that you failed to act, failed to look critically at how your own privilege gives you the opportunity to lift others, failed to live a life where you felt yourself important enough to be an agent of positive change? Will you sit, shifting slightly in your chair at the thought of all this, somewhat uncomfortable in your upper middle class lifestyle because you know you had the power to act accordingly? You might not feel the weight upon you now, but I guarantee we will all see in the current events of the near future proof of how we failed to act. We all know that we cannot erase awareness – once we are aware of injustice in any form, you cannot erase that knowledge – you can only chose to ignore it. And I tell you, this responsibility is not a weight if we all carry it together. I also tell you that we lie to ourselves every time we tell ourselves and each other that we are unimportant, that our actions don’t matter, and our fates are out of our hands. As individuals, we cannot “save the world.” However, collectively, if we act together and build a global community that is interdependent, shares resources, and cares for everyone regardless of race, religion, gender, socio-economic status – then I say there will be no need to save a world that does not need saving because we have carried each other not just to avoid annihilation, but because we all deeply felt and deeply knew we are a planet and a people worth saving. The power to do this does not come from being white. The power to do this does not come from privilege. The power to do this does not come from oppressing or helping people. The power to do this does not come from converting everyone to one religion, your religion or mine. The power does not come from God. It comes from the feeling of interconnectivity that transcends and moves us into our own power. (And I would say, to be even more radical -- that that feeling is God, is sacred, is divine, is the simple message all religions carry. God is not a person, a thing, an object, a noun existing outside of ourselves. God is but a feeling, a propulsion, an inspiration, a motivation that permeates all things and connects us to something greater than ourselves. And this feeling is just that – this mission is just that.) Let us, I say, wake up to who really has the power now. You. I. We.

We are, in fact, more powerful than we realize.

The Stars Speak Volumes When Traveling

I haven’t seen the night sky this bright, this close up since the time my friend and I rode our bikes 20 km uphill to Nagarkot, a small remote village near Kathmandu, Nepal known for its amazing mountain top views. When we arrived, we were, what felt to me, on top of the world. In the fading daylight, we could see rolling green mountains from every direction. Then at night, the silence and the dark night sky blanketed us like we were the only ones who existed under this brilliant canopy of living night suns. That feeling, however, of being alone before the universe was hardly a lonely feeling at all. Rather than feeling our existence grow diminutive in comparison to the vastness before us, I felt more as if our presence was just as significant in the universe as each and every star in the sky. It was a feeling that every living being, down to a single blade of grass, made up the richness of life here on Earth, and we existed amongst a great universe of pulsating life – equivalent to the pulsating lights in the night sky. We all had a right to be here. We all had a place and purpose in the universe.

The stars are so vibrant, so almost within my reach in Gulu that although I am not on the top of a mountain like in Nepal, I am taken back to that feeling of being swallowed whole by something greater than myself. As I sit out on the back balcony of our apartment amongst the night time cricket noises soaking in the starlight, I realize how thirsty I have been for connection back to Mother Nature. The stars have a timeless quality about them, and I sit here wondering if my African ancestors looked up to the stars and felt the same vastness that blurs of the boundaries separating human from plant, animal, and starlight. I laugh when I think how quick humans are to discern themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom. We may think, build cities, have politics, own land, but we forget we are made up of the same particles as insects, animals, and heavenly orbs. We might be the most biologically complex of all living things, but for that purpose, we then have the greatest responsibility to care for all the others creatures on Earth and the Earth herself. These are the messages that I feel in the presence of Mother Nature, these are the messages that get lost living in big cities, in the 9 to 5 scurry, in the money making flurry of corporations, in the decision making haggle of politicians, in the furrowed brows of scientists determined to advance technology, and in humanity’s desperate efforts to get ahead. How do we temper progress with these very simple and timeless realizations?

It has been interesting to be here in Africa and feel nostalgia for all the other places I have been to. I know that once I leave Uganda, I will ache for Africa as well. Places seem to leave a mark on your heart like old lovers do. There’s always an ache to return, but you know that if you do it won’t ever be as you knew it before. I hope this perception of mine changes because I know that my path in life will consist of much more traveling, and I can’t imagine feeling this ache for so many places. And it’s not so much the country as it is the company that I’ve kept, the different faces of Mother Nature that I’ve seen, and the lessons I have taken with me. When I think about the sun setting over the Western desert in Siwa, Egypt, I still hold my breath at the memory of the beauty of sun reflecting over an ocean of sand and the love and connection I felt in that moment for the company at my side. In Ecuador, it was the churches that held me in awe, and I remember laughing with friends so hard until my sides hurt climbing the tower of a basilica because we didn’t know if we would ever reach the top. In the Philippines, it was the deep, deep connection to the land, people, and history that because here held my roots, here held half of my heritage. And Nepal holds my heart in the Hindu temples, Buddhist stupas, rolling mountains, and intimate connections I made with all whom I met there. I know I may not get back to all those places in my lifetime or the many more I will see in the future. Yet I mourn the company that I kept in many of those places, the love and connection I felt with the people whom I met, traveled with, and guided me along the way.

I know that I am weaving something here with these 3 other individuals that I'm working with. The work we are doing is simple, but I think we are all well aware, on different levels, of the mission and the vision we’re trying to live out. We all come from different backgrounds and grew up in different parts of the world, and already I am fascinated by the differences in experiences and the interesting perspectives we bring to this work. I wonder how we will all part ways and what parts of this journey we will bring back with us to inform the work that we do in the future.

If through traveling, the universe continues to offer me life in such fullness of diverse people and experiences, then I pray to the Divine to keep them coming despite the ache I will feel at the end of each journey. For I know that only through expansion and connection with others from different cultures and vantage points am I able to expand and transcend my own limitations – my personal biases, my value judgments, and my own narrow thinking. Only through dialogue with others can we understand the variety and vastness of the human experience. Only through dialogue are we able to confront our own privilege as we attempt to empathize with the situations of others who experience suffering to degrees we will never be able to relate to. Only through dialogue and connection are we humbled. We are humbled before the infinite number of stars in the sky, but more importantly, before each other.

We Must Lift as We Climb

There are people who identify with being a minority, but do not identify with being from an “impacted community.” It is amongst many of us who possess higher education where this feeling of “us versus them” arises. When we speak of racism, we have to speak about classism, sexism, and all the other “isms.” Being a minority of privilege does allow one to maneuver in society with greater freedom. But what does that mean? That one cannot identify as being black if one isn’t poor? Or one cannot identify as being Filipino if one isn’t living and working in another country to send remittances home? How much have we formulated our cultural or ethnic identities to revolve around socio-economic status?

What is interesting is that we encounter privileged minorities (at least those who are American born or Western-raised) who have dis-indentified with their ethnic group. The type of high standard lifestyles that professionals are able to attain: Prada bags, BMWs, dinner parties… etc. essentially mimic rich Western lifestyles. Money and education provide people of color with access to the upper echelons of society, which have usually consisted of white people. Which brings me to the question: Does this access and privilege lead to cultural denial? A bleaching of one’s ethnic identity?

In some cases, perhaps. In others, perhaps not. For example, there are minorities (usually, once again, 2nd generation, American born) who go the opposite way, and over-identify with their culture – living out all the good and the bad. Then there are others who straddle the line between the culture(s) of their parents and Western culture. This often times proves to be problematic, for example, with regards to the family-centric values of the parents’ country of origin and Western individualism. Or, in another example, there exists a clash between cultures regarding traditional roles for men and women in the family and in society. Negotiating our identity to balance the values of our parents with the values of the society in which we have been raised is difficult for all. It’s difficult to know which values are healthiest for us for the life we want to live. We often discover that our values and choices go against what our parents had wanted for us, say if we were living in the country they immigrated from. There is always some type of rebellion against parental cultural values (like in the movie the Namesake), and then there is also (for some of us) the fierce longing to return back to our roots and to the culture of our parents that we have for so long denied within us. I see a lot of us trying to reestablish our ethnic identities because although we were raised amongst other Americans, our family lives were very different than our white middle class suburban school companions – different languages were spoken at home, different foods were eaten, and different histories were recounted. Yet, while we reconstruct and renegotiate our identities to incorporate all these things, I think we have to be critical of what values and ways of thinking we have adopted from our parents (consciously and unconsciously) regarding important matters like women roles (what does women’s equality really mean?), health and well-being (traditional food dishes have created physical problems like heart disease and diabetes and, in addition, excessive smoking and drinking are considered cultural norms and the only social activity for men in most cultures), and communication (for example, seeking counseling services is considered taboo in most other cultures). We must look critically at our ethnic identities. We must honor certain traditions, but we must challenge others. Our position as educated, 2nd generation children give us the perfect opportunity to challenge the unhealthy views and traditions from both our parents’ countries of origin and the dominant culture we live in. We are at a strategic intersection of multiple cultures and vantage points that we have the ability (and power) to take the healthiest values from each to create a future that links timeless traditional values (such as respect for the family unit) with modern perspectives of social justice. This is how we create a new paradigm and way of thinking about the world, each other, and development.

With this in mind, I think one of the key missions in this line of work is to organize all minorities, especially those of us with privilege because we have the most resources. (And then to ally with socially conscious white people -- but I will expound on this in other blog). Historically, people of color have not been able to exercise any type of power. Now, primarily due to the struggle of our parents to provide us with a better life in the US, our generation is not only educated, we hold rank in a variety of careers. Despite this, we do not want to come into developing countries with a similar mentality that white people have come to developing countries with: dispensing charity. The idea is to recognize the commonality of experiences of oppression in our personal lives and throughout history in order to empower each other with ideas of lifting up ourselves and creating productive alliances to gain access to resources. Again, we need to subvert the hierarchy of charity regardless of what type of privilege it’s coming from: white or people of color. Like Paulo Freire says in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both… In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.”

So again, I ask, what is the ultimate vision? One of my biracial friends said that there existed only one movie where the two main characters were engaged in a biracial relationship and it wasn’t “a big deal.” In every other movie where there is couple from different races, part of the issue in the movie is the clash of races or cultures through the relationship. I remember my friend saying what we want are the movies to show inter-racial relationships and it’s not a big deal, not talked about, not the focus of the problems between the characters. But is that really what we want? A society that just doesn’t talk about race, gender, ethnicity? Because if we do not talk about things, then they do not exist. How can we forget or ignore the struggles of our ancestors? Or more recently, of course, our parents who immigrated? How many times did my Dad tell me as I was growing up that he walked miles to school with no shoes? Or what about when my best friend’s father tells her that he’s been supporting his family in India since he was 8 years old and he is STILL sending money to India to support them? I am only able to be here – to live amongst others of different races, religions, and cultures because the people before me have struggled. I feel like those who do not have a critical lens ultimately do not know history. If I do not know history, my personal and collective history, how can I go forward into a future that does not repeat the past?

Is ignorance bliss? There are many of us, both white and of color, who walk amongst us with blinders on. Without a critical lens on the power dynamics of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender throughout history and into the present day, then we do not see the historical trauma of people of color and minority communities everywhere. Without a critical lens, we do not have to get angry at injustice. Without a critical lens, we can blame people of color from not being able to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” because racism doesn’t exist anymore, right? Without a critical lens, we don’t have to ask ourselves why we cross the street when we see a black man walking towards us. Without a critical lens, we can spend our parents’ money freely and without guilt on expensive and unnecessary things because we don’t think about what political or economic mess they fled from in their home countries in order to live a financially secure life. Without a critical lens, we do not have to think about the genocides, colonization, wars, and displacement that affected our parents, grandparents, and ancestors. Because if we look at the issues facing minority and indigenous communities with a critical lens, with an acute awareness, then we cannot deny, cannot turn our eyes away from the physical, mental, and social sicknesses that are dragging communities of color down. If we look instead at the facts, not as the white historians have written about it in our history books, but as our grandparents and parents tell it as they reminisce about their past lives in another country, then we have no excuse in seeing how we have come to be here. We have climbed only because they have sweated and sacrificed to make sure we saw a better life. We have climbed only because they have lifted us. And now, with all our knowledge, education, and privilege, how can we fail not to lift others?

We must fully acknowledge our unique position in history and accept our responsibility in shaping the future of society. As a person of color born in this day in age with some privilege, we are able to access spheres of life that were previously closed to us (Obama is the perfect example). We are on the leading edge of a new paradigm. This new paradigm will only and can only come about through communities of color leading the way. We have the tools, as Paulo Freire says it, to liberate ourselves and the oppressor. Yet let us not fool ourselves into thinking, like I said in the beginning, that if we are of color or identify as minorities that our lives are automatically in line with this vision and cannot hurt the cause. The truth is that we are a detriment to this mission if we are ignorant and estranged from ourselves and our histories. If we cannot look at ourselves, let alone society with a critical lens, then we are indeed lost to the cause. But if we can, then it is our responsibility to lift others not only out of poverty, but also out of despair and hopelessness. By recognizing fully that the liberation of others is wrapped up in ours, we must lift as we climb.

Your Liberation is Bound Up in Mine

“When I go back to that area, I remember those things. I am the only one out of my friends who are left, the rest were killed. I think, why have I survived while the others have perished? God must have a purpose for me to have experienced all that suffering. I must do something with my life.” - Apollo

Apollo, a relative of Dr. Beatrice (the doctor who runs Kairos clinic), has been our companion/tour guide/translator for the time we’ve been here in Gulu so far. He is 20 years old and studying medical technology at the university. His demeanor seems a little serious at first, but he laughs a lot and his laughs are long and drawn out, which in turn cracks the rest of us up. His English is impeccable and extremely proper. We joke that his English is in fact better than ours! He is patient with our questions and speaks openly about his experience growing up during the war in northern Uganda. He tells us about his near escapes from either kidnapping or death at the hands of the LRA (rebel army), not once, not twice, but dozens of times. Once they came to his house, ordered him to sit and not move, but when they were distracted, he ran. They chased him for many miles. He tells us he had to run in a zig-zagged way, since they chased people in a V formation to surround and overtake them. When they capture people they ask them, “Do you want shorts or pants?” If you respond shorts, they will cut off your legs above the knees. If you respond pants, they will cut off your feet. Apollo has only known war for his entire life. It has only been 3 years since there has been peace in northern Uganda. Apollo’s faith in God, grounded in Christianity, has no doubt carried him through his experiences. His quiet conviction reflects his strong belief that he has survived to fulfill a greater purpose: to serve his people.

Two weeks I have been here in Gulu, Uganda. Two weeks, which have felt like an eternity – yes, time has a definite kairos quality to it. To back track a little bit, we arrived on June 1st and for the first 2 days, Apollo took us around town and introduced us to life in Gulu. The town is small and easily accessible. Like most developing countries I’ve been in, the streets are littered with bicycles, motor bikes, chickens, goats, and the occasional cow. But let me tell you about the market, oh the market! The market here is almost as fun as the wet markets in the Philippines. I love the markets! They’re a world in and of themselves! Rice, beans, meat, vegetables, clothes, soap, hammers… you name it, you can find it in the maze of sights, sounds, and smells. The markets are still my favorite places to be when I am in another country because here is the center of life for a community! Here is where people come to buy sustenance, to sell what they have grown in the fields, to haggle over prices, to come together to exchange goods and conversation.
After we got familiar with the center of town, Apollo took us through the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps close by. These camps were established during the war, when the LRA was terrorizing the people in the countryside. The government ordered the people to relocate and organize in these areas, which resulted in cramped living conditions. Disease, unemployment, and alcoholism run rampant in the camps. Now, the problem is that even though there has been 3 years of peace, people do not want to move back to the country. Not only have they grown accustomed to the camps and NGO handouts, the conditions are so dire that they have to start from scratch upon returning to the rural areas. There seems to be no way to escape poverty.

The poverty here in Africa is different than what I have witnessed in other countries. I dare not say it is any better or worse here than in other places, but it is of a different nature. This trip is reminiscent of my trip to the Philippines, where I saw poverty on a large scale in the city amongst the squatters and in the slums and out in the country amongst the farmers. Here, in Africa, the poverty situation is just as terrible, yet they are coming out of a 20 year long war and the physical, mental, and emotional trauma is fresh, if not, still just beneath the surface. The One World mission is to link minority communities abroad, so we are in Gulu to work with the minority Acholi community, who has been the primary targets of the LRA during the war. The Northern region of Uganda suffers from the highest incidence of poverty at an average of 66% over the past 10 years. This is higher than the national average of 46% or the average of other districts. Gulu district registered 11.9% of highest HIV prevalence among pregnant women in 2002, compared with 10.8% for the western region, 8.5% for central region and 6.3% for the east. And in the Northern region, there is an even greater disparity in education as 69% of men are literate compared to 24% of women.

During the first few days, Akeema (the other facilitator) and I conducted the 3 day workshop on leadership, human rights, and social justice (what we were being trained on in DC) for the other One World US participants and local community leaders here in Gulu. We had initially anticipated 6 young leaders from Gulu to attend, but instead 15 people showed up! It was an intense 3 days, but we had so much fun and learned a lot about the situation of the Acholis here on the ground.
Now that the training is over, my internship here has begun. I am working along with the 3 other One World USA young leaders to team up with Kairos Community Health Center and do community outreach in order to educate communities on HIV/AIDS, malaria, family and community health. The structure of our week is as follows:

- Tuesday and Wednesday: meet with community members from 1 parish (multiple villages make up 1 parish) to engage is dialogue and conduct an assessment regarding the community’s challenges. Talk about HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention and treatment.

- Thursday and Friday: venture out into the community to meet with a few families to discuss more about their challenges and assess their income generating projects (usually communal gardens or beekeeping).

- Following Monday: write up our findings in reports.

So far the problems have been the same across the board: people are too poor for mosquito nets to prevent malaria, they do not have access to condoms, water and sanitation create poor health, they need fertilizer for crops and a more accessible water supply, people are too poor to go to the clinic, etc. The goal is for Kairos to use the data we collect to get the resources that the community needs.
In essence, we are attempting to assist these communities in developing. However, in reference to what I wrote about in my previous blog, the vision is to empower communities so that they can subsist on their own without charity. The people suffer from dependency now, since they have been so accustomed to hand-outs from NGOs and non-profits from the time during the war. Now, the NGOs have left since the war is over and the people are left disempowered, unmotivated, and waiting around for help. After assessing the state of these impoverished communities, the real question, first and foremost becomes: How do you empower people to help themselves when they have absolutely nothing to work from??

I will expound on that question in another blog, but currently, I am confronting some fundamental issues on the structure of our work here. Although we are from impacted community ourselves, we (us folks from the US) still come from privilege being from America. Being of color does not, by any means, put us on the same playing field as the people here. We are all very aware that our 1st world status gives us economic and educational privilege. Yet, we are unique in that, for example, both Nadia and Jon, who are both African Americans from the South can claim that black southerners experience poverty and neglect that resembles the discrepancy between the Acholis and the rest of Uganda. I feel a strong connection to this work through my connection to my roots, the struggles of my father’s family, my experience being bi-racial and the daughter of an immigrant, and my previous traveling experiences. I connect the experience of my father’s family growing up in the Philippines, the struggles of Filipinos in the Philippines and in other countries (discrimination, marginalization, domestic violence.. etc), the struggles I’ve witnessed amongst the peoples in other developing communities to my work here. Therefore, this work becomes personal, and as I have travelled and made connections with people living in the Ukraine, Thailand, Nepal, Egypt, and Ecuador – the urgent need to transcend race, ethnicity, religion, nationality to unite on a global front to work for social justice becomes even more pressing. My identity is no longer limited to my family, friends, ethnicity, or nationality – it transcends and includes all those I have connected with in all those places. I am no longer just obligated to care for people in my immediate community, city, or country – I am obligated to work for change that includes all whom I have met along the way and all those whom I have yet to meet and those whom I will never meet. Their struggles are bound up in mine and my liberation can only be found through theirs.
Anyhow, I am feeling highly sensitive to how we are going out our work educating the communities considering our privilege. Basically, our work feels hierarchical. While we emphasize from the beginning One World’s mission to connect minority communities across the globe in order to exchange experiences and empower from the ground up, our job for Kairos is to educate (which I realize naturally is hierarchical in structure to begin with). At first, I felt that, wow, what we are doing, we could just be some random white people from some random NGO doing this work. But we’ve tried to incorporate more community dialogue and emphasize the need for the community to have these meetings on their own in order to brainstorm ways in which they can work together to get the resources they need, instead of waiting around for western NGOs to come and save them.

Basically, what has become problematic for me is that we are telling the communities what they need to do. It is still reminiscent of a top-down process. However, we are aware this is the first time Kairos and the community are doing this type of community outreach and organizing. With that in mind, I know this is going to be a learning process not only for us from the US (since we will need to continuously be aware and sensitive to our own privilege and try to do what we can to NOT reinforce the hierarchy of 1st world “helping” 3rd world paradigm), but also for the community leaders here in Gulu. Although we are only into our first week of work, I am already coming to the conclusion that what is needed is for us to engage in more dialogue with the young leaders in Gulu (who were involved in the training and represent the community), instead of directly with the community themselves. I think that if we can bring in officials to educate the community leaders in micro-credit opportunities, agriculture techniques, community health, etc., then they can disperse that information out to the people.

Although I am feeling that there will be a hierarchy nevertheless and no matter how hard we try, I feel certain that when people come together with genuine selfless intention and a common vision that is grounded in the well-being of everyone, then the hierarchy can be transcended. When the hierarchy is transcended, then all that exists in people is an undeniable and overwhelming feeling that I am not separate from others. And when I am not separate from others then their fate is bound up in mine, not only by the decisions that I make, but by the values that govern my actions and how I choose to use my life.

As Lila Watson said, “If you have come to help me you are wasting my time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us struggle together.”