Thank you again for coming out with everyone at the rally Friday. It meant more than I can express to see you marching with us. The rally was honestly a bit of a daze. At the time, I whispered to a couple people that I was a little nervous. I can admit now that I was really scared. (what are you doing? Are you really doing this? You have to do this.) I have processed less than a quarter of everything that happened. My brain will only let me chip away at all the layers a little at a time.
One thing I realized while standing in that circle... while sitting in the back of a paddywagon with my arms behind my back in plastic ties so tight I could not even twist my wrists... while waiting to be fingerprinted and booked... while waitig to get processed... while waiting to make a phone call... while waiting to get bailed out ... I realized that so many things have come together to bring me to (and prepare me for) that moment. I realized that I had so many reasons why I did it and why I had to do it....
Because I can barely pay my rent and buy top ramen off the $7-8/hour I make on campus, and I have only myself to take care of, much less a family... Because I get paid $8 as a CAPE runner to bubble in scantrons with a number 2 pencil... Because I sometimes work at the Media Center or in the Course And Professor Evaluation office until 2 a.m. or later and I see the janitors in the middle of their graveyard shit... Because when I'm hungry, I don't think well, I don't feel well, and I don't do well, and I imagine that goes for most people...
Because of Melany de la Cruz and Ingrid and Catia and the students who took over the intersection to protest the end of affirmative action. Because of Coleen Sabitini and Alex T. Tom and James Fabionar who were amazing role models to a young freshman senator who looked up in awe at students actually doing something in student government...
Because of Professor Espiritu and ES 183 (Race, Gender, and Class), because of Professor George Lipsitz and the possessive investment in whiteness, because of Professor Leland Saito and Asian Am politics, because of Professor Dede Halleck, because of you and the possessive investment in whiteness article I read in DOC freshmen year and photocopied/mailed to my family and some friends...
Because we're reading "A life in the struggle: Ivory Perry and the culture of opposition" in 1C...
Because of (and for) all the pinay, pinoy, a.p.i. students on campus... The night before, the people in SEJ willing to be arrested met to decide who would actually go. At that time, the union only had bail money for four. We debated and discussed who should go and why, choosing a "gender-ly" and racially diverse group. I was number ten (the tenth person who would be arrested if money was available); and I honestly did not expect the union to have money for all of us. Our "top 4" CD'rs were a White woman, African American man, Chicana woman, and Pinoy man. When Rene expressed some hesitation about being a spokesperson, he asked the group if his "Filipino-ness" was more important than his ability to speak on the issue. We wanted him to do it. So when it got down to it, even though we had a substitute ready to get arrested if I declined, I had to do it. I needed to be one of the five women: three Chicanas, one white woman, and one a.p.i./pinay. So I did it for KP and for APSA. I did it for all the a.p.i.s/pinays unable to volunteer because they did not have the clean record that I have. I did it to show that there are Asian students just as deeply committed to the struggle of people of color (of working class people) as Black and Brown (and down White) students.
Because a lot of Pilipina women work as prostititutes to service U.S. service men... When I was sitting in jail, talking with or watching women brought in because of the prostitution sting that night, I realized that the powers that be needed me to understand what that experience means that from a closer perspective...
Because I had to do my pamphlet for ES 1C on the prison industrial complex. I tried to do it on bilinugal education because I had taken TEP 115 and knew enough facts to write the pamphlet off the top of my head, yet each time I'd start, I'd end up writing about jails v. schools. So, in doing that 2nd project, I researched facts about the rates of incarceration, the high numbers of people, especially women (of color) in jail for drugs or stealing (food/money) and other non-violent crimes. All these numbers and statistics took on life, took on a face, because I sat there for a couple hours listening to women talk about why they were there...
Friday, at the rally, someone comes up to me: "Joy, the union can afford to send all ten of you."
"Yay?"
"You still want to do it?" And he hands me an orange sticker.
Want is a funny word. I needed to do it. I don't know that I wanted to do it.
Then I was told that my buddy Eugene (the person who'd come pick me up after they posted bail) was getting arrested also. So I ran around trying to find a new buddy. Three or four people scribbled their phone numbers on my arms, big because the pens wouldn't write well. (The police would have to confiscate any scraps of paper we had on us; and I was too flustered to memorize anything.)
At every moment when I'd get really really nervous, I'd look up and catch someone's eye or see a student I knew from class or from the coffee cart, or I'd hear someone shout "Si se" and I'd shout just a little louder "Puede." Then we'd smile and raise our signs and our fists a little higher and keep marching.
But it was hearing the Tagalog chant that really gave me strength... and that almost brought tears to my eyes. That might sound corny, but it's true. "Ma ki ba ka... wag ma ta kut!" Hearing aking mga kaibigan at kababayan (my friends and countrymen/la raza) remind us that "the struggle continues... don't be afraid" -- hearing not only Spanish, but MY first language -- helped me not be so nervous.
Ultimately, it was no big deal for me to get arrested. What did I really have to lose? Just some time.
Everything that I saw brought clarity to what I know. I feel blessed and very very thankful and very very lucky. I feel incensed at the bullshit reasons why some people are in jail and the way the system wastes all that human potential. (I was desperate for a piece of paper and a pen, or a crayon and the wall.) I feel depressed at all the pain -- being in there hurt my spirit hurt because the pain, the feeling of people screwed over by life in a lot of ways, was tangible. I feel sobered by reality. I feel empowered by the examples of women who are survivors in a way more real than I can truly know. I feel tired because the task at hand is so big and depressing and kinda overwhelming. I feel inspired because I see so many people around me struggling and I have (I have to have) hope and faith that what we are doing is making a difference.
This turned out a little longer than I had planned. And I could write pages more. Probably will, to help myself sort this out. But I really just wanted to say thank you. Refering to a Nelson Mandela quote ("Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure"), please know that you are one of the lights that shine and give me permission to do the same.
In solidarity,
060401-1am