A couple of months back, I had the pleasure of listening to Marlon James read from his latest book “Black Leopard, Red Wolf“. Before his visit to Houston, I read the New Yorker article on him. The VERY long New Yorker article that just was so…LONG. OMG! What do people write mini-novels as profiles!
Okay, after I got over the length, I was very much enthralled with this writer in perhaps a different way than the rest of the literary community had been. It was this quote that got me:
“ I just want to de-exoticize Jamaica.”
And that sentence, despite the other hundreds of sentences in that piece, was the one that made me do a double take.
It’s a Caribbean thing, I suppose, that everything piece of art about an island or country is exotic or layered in smoky nostalgia. It’s like that with Cuba. Just the mention of my father’s ancestral home conjures images of 1950 cars cruising down the seawall, or tattered Spanish streets with crumbling buildings, or forlorn exiles in Miami, or tobacco, rum, and dancing girls. That island in 90 miles from the southern most tip of the United States that was a playground for the rich so long ago. Cuba, the place everyone wants to visit before it “changes”.
That exoticism of the island, and all the islands of the Caribbean, have done more hard than good. Like, why did it take a hurricane to understand how Puerto Rico was screwed over for decades, unable to be either their own place or be fully part of the United States. When one think about Jamaica, it’s about how Stella got her groove back.
Here’s what I’m not saying, that these islands aren’t places to be admired for their beauty. They are, quite simply, paradise. But even paradise has a dark side, a real side. People live there, beyond the edges of resorts and getaways for vacationers. There’s a reality there that, if understood, would burst the bubble.
This how places stay frozen in memories, how stereotypes take hold, and how things move as slow as you like because nostalgia and exoticism exist in a different dimension. Like a half-baked Doctor Who episode I’m expecting the Cybermen to be the explanation for all this, but, alas, it isn’t to be so.
I’d almost rather the Doctor Who episode, half-baked and all.
This otherness also extends to our stories. Oh how different and cool it is to read a story from a Jamaican writer, how vogue or in fashion. (Cubans were so last year!) Often times, literature from these islands are the flavor of the season and only worth studying or considering as part of a Caribbean studies program.
Question: Is the British colonized Jamaica, why isn’t some of early Jamaican literature studied along side Jane Austen? Question: If the Spanish colonized Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic, why wasn’t our early work studied next to Cervantes?
Answer: We are the other. The tropical cousins that no one really wants to know more about but only acknowledges when required.
I understand Marlon James and his thought of de-exoticizing his home land. It’s only when we look at something in it’s truth can we know what is really going on. Until then, it’s still a dream, a memory, a nostalgia that’s better kept at bay.
Waking up,
~Icess
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There is a saying that has circulated around social media and public discourse — representation matters. And it does. Seeing yourself reflected back at you is affirming. It tells you, shows you, that you are not alone and that you are okay.
After the turbulent 2017, I needed to see that. I needed a piece of alright and I usually find that at yoga.
I love yoga. It is my zen and my focus. Every time I step on the mat, I repeatedly prove to myself how strong I am and how much stronger I am becoming. During the darkest part of my life, the mat was where I proved everyone and everything wrong. I’ve cried on the mat, came to realizations on the mat, resolved on the mat.
But when black bodies were pushed on the ground or fell after gunshots ripped through their bodies, sometimes on a weekly basis, I didn’t want to be on a mat for a while.
For a long while. Even when I needed it the most.
But then I found out that a black yogi leads a couple of classes at a studio near me, I jumped at the chance, even if I had forgotten how to breathe.
Houston has a couple of well known black yogis and I’ve wanted to take a class with them for awhile. There’s the Awkward Yoga Girl, Alicia Tillman, who’s TrapYoga classes, I’ve heard, are the most legit thing on this planet. There’s also Davina Davidson who is inversion goals. But both of these ladies are too far from home and work to make it a regular thing.
Fall Creek Yoga is 20 minutes away and Jennifer Brown was leading a yin yoga class. I read what it was (I’m a heated vinyasa girl) but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what it was like to be lead by someone who looked like me.
Let’s say it now — yin yoga was difficult for me. Staying in the same position for five minutes is more challenging than you would think, especially if you’re used to flowing from one pose to the next. Despite that, that was the most comfortable I have felt in a yoga class.
Ever.
Usually, this is what happens when I attend a yoga class.
I’m the biggest person in the room
I’m the darkest person in the room
And before I take out my mat, people assume I don’t know what I’m doing.
The yoga instructor may or may not pay attention to me (as far as making sure I’m positioned correctly)
Essentially, I have to be perfect as I can at yoga to be taken seriously as a yogi. Sound familiar.
But this class was no judgment. I needed to get out of a position? Go for it. I needed to adjust a yoga position to fit my body? Yup, go for it.
I felt welcomed and sometimes I’m not in a yoga class. Jennifer made sure I felt welcomed before and after class. The fellow yogis in the room also made me feel welcomed.
This is what it was like to see yourself reflected back. It means acceptance.
This is a small thing probably. But it’s a big thing for me as I find my way back to the mat and back to what I love.
When I talk about my father and when I write stories about him, I chose my words carefully. His is a story of redemption. The success of that redemption depends on who you ask.
My dad was Osiris Fernández y Ferrer. That was his full name according to his Cuban passport. I say that with trepidation because I know that the age is wrong; he’s younger than the age shown. In order to leave Cuba in the 1960s, my grandmother lied about the birth date of her third oldest. It was like her gift to him, the opportunity to escape Fidel Castro’s Cuba as it began.
He wasn’t a nice man, my father. I know that now 15 years after his death. My dad wasn’t a nice man but he was always nice to me and I always sought his approval. I always had it. My life wasn’t as difficult.
My life wasn’t as difficult as my sister’s. My dad wasn’t a nice man to her. I wasn’t a nice sister to her either, a regret that I have asked for forgiveness for. My sister, I believe, has forgiven me. I haven’t.
And, if truth be told, I haven’t forgiven him either. See, in his world, there’s no way that he could have produced a child who was gay. In his world, he couldn’t have a brother who enjoyed the company of men. In his world, anything different wasn’t quite right. So my beautiful blood sister wasn’t quite right. She was a problem to be fixed. What we couldn’t see at the time was that she wanted a family and wasn’t getting it.
If the sins of the past come back to haunt, then they came back the first time I met my brother a couple of years ago.
I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery recently, what it actually means and what it takes to be brave. This bravery thing seems like a simple thing to figure out but I’m not quite so sure.
I’ve been called brave once. About a year ago. See, I did something that most people wish they could and I’ve been fortunate to be able to do. After working in journalism most of my adult life, I walked away from a career and a stable paycheck and decided to start over. All the way over and do what is in my heart to do. That means not taking opportunities unless they fulfill me in some way.
That is why I was called brave.
But is that bravery? That act of drawing a line in the sand and saying, “Here. I want to stop with this ridiculous merry-go-round here.” Is that brave or is that just being fed up?
Listen, I don’t want you walking away from this post thinking that I left the evil mass media. Yes, I have my opinion about what happens inside America’s newsrooms and they are strong opinions, but it was the best gig for a long time. It was a gig that allowed me to go on assignment in Mexico twice. I knew the news before the rest of the city. It allow me to impact the world in a substainal way and for that I’m grateful. But I want more. I want to write and write well and write books. It was kinda my thing for a long time, something I had to keep hidden at times.
This writing thing, this gave me my voice and empowered me to be a journalist in the first place. See that sentence. That’s an important sentence, reader. The order of it is so telling. WRITING came first, not journalism. For some people it’s the other way around.
Yes, I stepped off the merry-go-round a year ago. Not an easy year but I still wouldn’t call myself brave. I didn’t run into a burning building to save a baby. I didn’t fight in a war. I didn’t put on a uniform and swore an oath to protect. I didn’t stare down the barrel of a gun so others wouldn’t. That’s brave. All of that is so much bravery. No, all I did was demand more for myself and my life.
All I did was try to live the life I always wanted.
Actually, when you see it on the screen like that it reads a bit selfish. Who am I to demand that of the universe? To be happy, to live my waking hours doing something I love and to help humanity in that way? That’s selfish! That’s … audacious.
Yes, that’s what I am. I am audacious. I am a high clearance level chingona who defied textbook definitions of things a long time ago. I am a chingona who is learning her lessons from the university of hard knocks with a major in I do what I want. And yes it comes with bumps, hill sized bumps, headaches and heartaches, but love is like that sometimes – worth the fight and being fulfilled up to the brim.
Please, don’t call me brave. What I am doing isn’t bravery. I want more for my life than what I settled for originally. I’ve chosen that road Robert Frost talked about. I don’t know if it’s made all the difference because I’m still creating it as I go.
Bravery means there was fear to overcome but I was too busy wanting to live a life (and keep it) to live it in fear.
This is shocking because I never use to feel like this. Here, in a column I wrote for The Guardian, I talk about how folks will honor African American History but Afro-Latinos, our history and our heroes and heroines are left out. They’re also left out of Hispanic Heritage Month too but we’ll deal with that in September.
Listen, my black speaks Spanish. And I love learning about African American History. Love it. But I want to know about my history. Who are the people who fought in wars and made discoveries? Whose names are all but forgotten? What are the issues they have confronted and overcome?
What I love about social media and Twitter is that Afro-Latinos have been able to organize themselves a bit. Janel Martinez over at Ain’t I Latina? profiled Juliana Pache, creator of the hashtag #BlackLatinxHistory
And it’s amazing! People are posting photos of our beautiful leaders, singers, creators. Past AND Present. How amazing is that!
We’re doing what I wanted to do when I wrote that piece in The Guardian, we regaining part of our narrative, part of the Black History narrative.
So to add to the work my fellow Afro-Latina sisters are doing, I’ve been putting together a Twitter list of Afro-Latinos– organizations, publications, people. As I find folks, I add them to the Twitter list and so that column on my Tweetdeck continues to grow.
I have a confession to make. I’ve never read Langston Hughes.
Nope. Not in a class. Not out of class. Know of him. Know of his work. But never really engaged with it.
Yes, I know. I am a special kind of person. Got it.
However, I am growing into my blackness. That means I didn’t learn what it meant to be black until after I became an adult. My dad was Cuban and my mom Guatemalan. My friends were white and Latino. Black folks just didn’t know what to do with me growing up in East Harris County. To them, I was some weird freak, this little dark girl who spoke a different language and acted funny. She didn’t know who Teddy Pendergrass was (not until I moved to Detroit for a summer on an internship). Frankly Beverly and Maze (during my time in Shreveport when I went to a concert) or any other artist that encapsulated the black American experience.
So yes, I am coming to Langston Hughes late. I’m growing into my blackness. I’m joining the party already in progress, but I’m joining the party.
My original thought was oh what a nice poem. Sorry but I’m a prose person so it takes me a while and a couple of readings to get into a poem and unpack it.
I know now that it’s a call-to-arms, to awaken the creative thinking to get out of where you are.
It’s short but packs a punch. I see that in the first stanza. What gets me, to the heart of me, is this line:
This fenced-off narrow space
Assigned to me.
Here is where I nod. I said yes to this. I know what this cage is. I’ve lived in it even without knowing. There are consequences when you leave your space, there always is. But to be awoken, to open your eyes to reality, IS to want to break from the change. I continued reading.
Here is where I nod again:
And this is what I know:
That all these walls oppression builds
Will have to go!
Oh, this gave me anxiety. Of course, they have to go. Of course, they can not be allowed to stand. But how? This reminded me of something someone said to me once. One day you’ll get to the point when the cost of opening up is less than the cost of closing yourself off.
Is it better to say in your cage knowing its wrong but playing it safe or to tear down the wall knowing that it’ll be difficult and could hurt. I guess that will depend on how you badly you want change.
Another thing that gave me anxiety is all the internalizing in this poem. The eyes doing all the watching are in “black face” and “dark face”. It’s not from or of. That word choice is telling, putting the reader in the poem, making them part of the changed world. This continues to the final stanza, when the narrator is looking at their own body. It’s that internal, self-awareness that leads the call to arms.
I look at my own body
With eyes no longer blind-
And I see that my own hands can make
The world that’s in my mind
Then let us hurry comrades,
The road to find
This call-to-arms is empowering. After self-realization and awareness comes action, and that action comes from creating. This is a solution to being caged, to waking up and realizing that one is in a “narrow space”. Escaping comes from creating, whether it’s art or opportunities.
A lot of punch in three short stanzas. A lot of meaning in few words. A lot of thought in how this fits into the bigger picture of the world.
Like my fellow people of color, I have felt imprisoned, caged, corraled, into situations that were not my choice. That is what was “assigned” to me. A label: angry black woman. A characteristic: lazy, whiny, ugly.
The moment we don’t believe those labels, or even chose our own (writer, activist, entrepreneur) we wake up to the realization of who we are. That is when we need to escape those other labels. And we do that by creating work that reflects our lives and time, actively developing and strengthing our voices, creating opportunities for growth and abundance.
Ironically, that’s how I’m growing into my blackness. I own my label. I embrace it. Afro-Latina. Writer. Daughter. Sister. Chingona.
Eso mero. (My blackness speaks Spanish)
Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Hughes. It definitely wasn’t lost on me. Happy Belated Birthday.
Kathy’s 2015 zine art project. Did this with my friend and helped us reflect on a year with lots of personal and professional growth.
Dear Reader,
I am so fortunate to know, although through social Kathy Murillo aka Crafty Chica.
She’s is just a ray of sunshine and BOY can she craft and blog and run a business. I’ve listened to some of her Periscopes and videos and I’m always in awe of her. Today wasn’t different.
My fellow blogger wrote a post about creating a 2015 zine to commemorate the big events and lessons of the year. It’s awesome and if you’re into coloring, you can be creative that way too.At the same time, my friend Tony wrote
At the same time, my friend Tony wrote blog post on his goals for 2016. Both of my friends are writing books and will be either in the middle or tail end of their journeys next year.
So they’ve inspired me to think about goals for next year. For me, I feel like my year didn’t start until June so I only have half year of 2015 to think about. This was a fantastic year and I learned so much about myself as a person and a writer so it’s a bit sad that it’s ending. That doesn’t mean I’m not excited for the new year and the adventures it’ll bring.
So without much fanfare, this is my ONE goal for 2016.
Yes, it’s just that simple. I want to continue the great success I had last year. I’m ending the year with a short story being picked up by The Fem Lit Mag (it’s called “Everything in its Place”), an anthology to plan and put together along with my co-editor, a two submissions, a book nearly completed, and a new short story in a new genre for me — science fiction. That doesn’t include the Afro-Latina retreat, the reading, and VONA.
All this among the scariest time for me personally, and the ending of an abusive work relationship.
Frankly, I freaking won 2015.
But I guess if you want specifics, here goes. In no certain order my goals for 2016:
Write more short stories
I wrote a new one and edited a couple that I’ve written in the past. I forgot how much I love the short story, how compact it is or can be when it comes to revision. Working with “Everything in its Place” was so freeing. It’s a flash fiction piece, less than 800 words. The constraints meant that everything needed to be not only in the sentences but between the sentences. Lesson: stories are just as much as much about what is unsaid as what is.
I’ll like to work with more short stories and try something new, genre, format, subject matter. My new sci-fi piece (which I haven’t named yet) was such an eye opener. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at another one or at a couple of ideas for scenes. May they grow into something great.
I feel like I’m developing as a writer and that my writing is moving into a new direction. I’m finding it so much more important, now more than ever, to reflect my world and to lead my voice telling those stories.
More submissions
In 2015, I submitted to things and said to myself, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I got this”. Then came VONA, the Owl of Minerva, and now The Fem Lit piece being accepted.
What would happen if I did that more?
In 2016, I’m going to find out. I want to submit to more journals, contests, and opportunities. You don’t win if you don’t play and I’m tired of not winning.
As a writer, as a woman of color, I have something to say to the world. I have developed and earned back the voice to say what I need to say. I’m telling stories, my stories, the way I want. It’s time the world read them
Continue my Afro-Latina journey
A retreat, a reading, and now an anthology. This was the year I came home to myself. I am Afro-Latina and proud of it. I am two in one. I do not choose, I am.
As a result, I will read more Afro-Latino writers. I’m currently in the middle of Shadowshapper by Daniel Jose Older (VONA alum as well). I am so in awe of him and his effortless storytelling. I’ll be sure to write an annotation like I did with Graham Greene a while back. Lots to learn.
I want to write more about my experiences about being Afro-Latina in this “post racial” world. Oh, I got stuff to say.
And, of course, there’s the anthology. I can’t wait to work more on it and to finally call for submissions. A theme has been chosen. The wheels are turning and it’s baptism by fire. Thankfully, I enjoy learning this way. (Talk to me in a couple of months.)
Work more in non-fiction
I spent 12 years as a reporter so when I think about non-fiction I think articles. I don’t think memoir or personal essay.
A good friend of mine keeps telling me, you should write a memoir. I keep telling her I haven’t lived a live worth writing about. How wrong I’ve been!
After this year, I have a story to tell and demons to conquer on the page. I am a writer in transition with a world in flux. That deserves an essay or two, don’t you think?
Jennie Manning, blogging, and translation
Jennie Manning is in an interesting stage — nearly done and ready for a full workshop. I anticipate dusting off my query writing letter skills. Wish me luck.
Blogging = oh my goodness what do I write about. I think that this blog isn’t the how-to-be-a-better-writer-in-5-easy-steps type. It’s the here’s-what-it’s-really-like-because-I’m-doing-it-now type. I want to be a better blogger and write about EVERYTHING dealing with the writing life. Doubts? Yup. Rejection. Oh hell yes. Books (or lack of) that I’m reading. Sure. How to do awesome writing. When it comes up.
To demystify the writing life, I’ve got to also show you the ugly about it. This isn’t a life for the faint of heart. It takes some cojones to tell the world that you chose to be poor but happy. You should see that reflected here.
I am going to translate a short story of mine into Spanish because why not. It’s not like I have other things to do like teach, write, and publish. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Take care of yourself.
This doesn’t mean workout every day though I intend on going back to the mat and embracing yoga again. This means to speak my mind, to say no when the answer is no, to protect my sense of hope. Listen, my life scare was an eye-opener. I need to do things differently and not put myself in situations where people don’t care whether I live or die. Literally. I need to be strong enough to walk away and give my time and talent to the people and causes that deserve it. Frankly, I’m not dying so that other people a better sense of self or to extend their privilege.
This will be the most difficult goal to keep.
Basically, my goal is to make better art, get people to see it, and repeat. It’s a pretty ambitious goal list but 2016 is an ambitious year. It has to be, it’s going to be one for the record books. Are you ready?
Welcome to Miami. There are palm trees everywhere.
Dear Reader,
Today, I am dreaming of Miami.
It’s been nearly six months since I last stepped foot in that town and it changed my life. That was when I felt something break inside of me and a shift happen. There was bound to be change. That was June 26.
Me at VONA in Miami
It wasn’t even a month later that my life completely changed. I left a rough and difficult situation for home, where I wanted to be for so long. Looking back now, had I continued in that situation, I’d be dead within six months. That’s where my head was.
I’m not ashamed of it now, I was at one point suicidal. There was a time I curled up into a ball and cried. The crying didn’t stop and I soon found myself being diagnosed in a psychiatric hospital.
However, I had help getting there. I know now the dark side of humanity and that it pleased some to create the situations that lead me down this dark path.
So when Miami happened and that shift happened, a new life happened. Happened. Happened. Happened. I have that clear in my head, the last year happened, to me, around me, and in my heart.
During the week of Thanksgiving, I wondered if I would have something to be thankful for. I was upset that I wouldn’t. Surely this is the bottom of the low of my life. But a phone call from a former student, actually several phone calls from former students, reminded me how close I came to ending it all. They reminded me how life in 2015 started one way but is ending in a completely different way and that’s okay.
Those phone calls reminded me that, to live a life worth living it is not about how much of one thing or another you have. It’s about what you contribute to the world. And it’s being here when it’s easier to not be. It’s about feeling the dark and the light.
Sometimes being Afro-Latina comes with stomaching the obvious — being left out of the narrative.
I tried to avoid the HBO documentary Latin Explosion because I already knew what it was going to be, a celebration of Latino achievement in America.
And it should be celebrated — Rita Moreno, Jose Feliciano — their very presence started a chain reaction that allowed Rick Martin to dazzle at the Grammys or Shakira’s hips not to lie.
But where are the Afro-Latinos? Are we not part of the story?
Usually, we are not. Usually, we are the other, the dark-skinned tio in the closet no one talks about. The Afro part of being Hispanic, whether you’re Mexican or Argentine, is usually swept under the rug.
But this documentary is very music heavy. We talk about salsa and include Desi Arnez in the conversation. The Fania All-Stars are mentioned. And yet, where is Celia Cruz?
We talk about acting and yet where is the infamous Zoe Saldana who was in one of the highest grossing films in recent memory?
Continuing with actors, how about Gina Torres who has had an entire career with little recognition of her Latina roots. And she doesn’t run away from it either as we can tell from this video.
Can we also mention Laz Alonso who is an actor on The Mysteries of Laura, which was adapted from a Spanish television show?
I find it difficult that the Estefans were part of this documentary and didn’t mention their friend Celia once, or the fact that they made a living with beats that came straight from their African roots?
It’s harsh when not even your own recognizes you and most especially when they were your friends.
It’s obvious that the documentary made me angry but it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t like that as a people, Latinos are not united. We have the potential to do great things and yet we insist on not accepting and telling our entire narrative. We, as a people, seem to be okay to just tell one side of the story and accept it as complete — this is who we are, not that other side.
Newsflash, there were slaves in Latin America. They have last names like Fernandez, Gonzalez, Guerra, Martinez. They speak Spanish. They dance salsa and bomba and tango. That music you are dancing to? Came from the motherland. That pride, part of that came from the motherland too. We are Latinos and we deserve to be part of the narrative of being Latino, not only in Latin America but here, in the US, which seeks to categorize us as African American.
Documentaries like this make me tired and upset. Story, my dear reader, is currency. Those with the currency have power and can frame the narrative in any way they choose.
That’s why it’s so important to tell our stories, the Afro-Latino story. It’s just as beautiful and varied as everyone else’s and it’s just as important to tell.
It was amazing and just knocked my socks off. You know when you work on something for so long and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out but you just can’t stop to think about it. That was that moment.
Wait, it’s all jumbling in my head like a brand new jigsaw puzzle. Let me start where all things start, the beginning.
I had this idea. What if there was a writing retreat for Afro-Latina writers? Like why wasn’t there before? It just seemed to be this was a thing to do.
You have to understand, Dear Reader, that when I thought about this, it was for an award given by a lit journal. It wasn’t really thought out completely. It was half baked on its way to being fully baked, as most ideas are.
But then I won it and all of a sudden I became something more than a writer. I became a person who created space for other writers. I became a person who went from writing in the shadows to asking people to apply to spend a weekend in a Houston in Galveston, Texas. I became a person with a voice and an opportunity to do something different.
Talk about adulting.
And I took it seriously and it was amazing. The five ladies that joined in were just amazing writers and people. It was surprising how close we became in such a short period. So much so that I can’t imagine my writing life without them.
Then we did this reading. This crazy awesome reading of our work and now people are saying they were inspired. I read a section of Jennie Manning, my novel in progress, and now people are asking about my character.
And yet, this feels like my life’s work, something that I should do always and constantly. Something I should explore because there’s an answer there somewhere, I think, though I have no idea what the question is.
And so this reading happens. It happens the same week I grade what feel like a million papers. It happens the same week I get some distressing news from my past. It happens the same week I questions a list of truths I’ve grown up with.
This reading happens just as life happened. As it should.
So here, I give you the reading. I hope you like it. I hope it inspires you. I hope it fuels you.
Icess Fernandez Rojas 