This is a short video as we get ready to start the bike parade in Ft. Collins for Tour de Fat.  Enjoy this little short video!

Thanks so much for reading the iRobyn site for so many years!  Every few years, there’s been a change.  Either with theme or content or both!  Now, as 2010 rounds out, there’s going to be some (r)evolution come to the iRobyn site!  Video blogging!

I am really looking forward to incorporating the video element to the iRobyn site.  I have contacted 2 friends of mine (and likely will get a couple of other friends) to have some conversations on the intersections of race, class, and gender AND the intersections of religion, race, and sexuality.  Politics and culture will be part of the conversation pieces, too!

The Vlogging portion (or video blogging) will be an addition, not a replacement, to the iRobyn site.  I’m hoping to do a sort of “hot topics” or “current events” Vlog.  This will likely appear once a month.  Text blogging will continue throughout the month.  And, in addition to the “hot topics” or “current events” Vlog portion, I’ll likely do some Vlogs “off the top of my head.”  An example of this will be in the San Francisco Vlogs that will appear next week!

I’ve decided to use YouTube for these Vlogs, and my channel is: nomadicmestiza.  These Vlogs will go to Twitter and post to FaceBook.  The interspped of the intergoogler is quite fascinating!  I’m looking forward to see how all this will pan out!

So, if you’re reading this and you’d like to be a conversation partner, ring me or ping me via email!  If you think “why hasn’t Robyn called?” Well, I’m working on it!  You likely are my next phone call or email!

Another thing you should know is that these Vlogs will appear on a website encouraging radical inclusivity.  It is call No Differences.  They contacted me today wanting to know if I would be interested in sharing the video feed!  I said a hearty “yes.”  Plus,  anything that will encourage the conversation for the full inclusion of every person…I am so up for it!

Stay Tuned!

So, I’m trying my hand at Vloging.  This is a short clip that I did w/ Milan, my iPhone!  I am hoping to do some vloging while in San Francisco next week.  Like on the streets and whatnot!  Brilliant, right?!

Unfortunately, we live in a world of hate.  And, sometimes that hatred, whether we recognize it as such or not, lives close to us.  This is my response to your hatred!

I think what disturbs me most is that you’re teaching your kid to hate.  All this under the guise of religion, God–Christianity!  And, that makes me incredibly sad.  Teaching your kid the wrath of your God is a theology of fear–I do not know that God.  And, despite my own epistemological disposition(s) and standpoints, the God that I am most aware of is a God of Justice.  That is the true Jesus community.

We already live in a world of fear mongering.  Why would you increase this mentality of fear by teaching your kid about anger that originates in God.  How is this life-giving?  How does this type of logic create an ethos of belonging and hospitality in your life, your home, or your kid’s life?  I argue that it is not life-giving and does not create a way to be hospitable nor does it create ways to belong if one is different.

I think that fear mongering and homophobia are both a great injustice in this society.  I think that you likely have not thought critically about the issues of religion and sexuality.  I think that you have simply accepted the normative (read: heteronormative) and dominant (read: white, hetero-patriarchal) position concerning religion and sexuality.  That, my dear, is a shallow and uninformed position.  It is rooted in masculine domination and heteronormativity.

Good luck living your heteronormative and homophobic life.  Your kid will likely have queer friends, black friends, and brown friends.  Your kid will have to deal with difference, unlike you when you were growing up.  If I were to give any advice, and I don’t call it parental advice, but just general life advice, it would be this:  Do your best to learn to manage and negotiate difference.  That skill is the one the world needs most.

The end.  Love, R.

Quit stalling, Quiznos! Farmworkers’ Human Rights Now!

Protest & Rally in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Friday,

October 15, 11:30 -1:00pm

outside Quiznos corporate headquarters – 1001 17th St. (17th & Curtis, downtown Denver)

In May, Quiznos promised that it would soon be joining in agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to improve the wages and working conditions of farmworkers who pick tomatoes bought by the company.  Months have now passed and it is time to hold Quiznos to its word.   Until Quiznos’ promises become concrete actions, we will intensify our call for justice!

Join the CIW and allies from around country to demand that Quiznos uphold the human rights of farmworkers in its tomato supply chain!

This action will kick off the “No Coast Encuentro” Oct. 15-17, a regional gathering to strategize and network around the Campaign for Fair Food.  For more info, contact NoCoastEncuentro@gmail.com or visit DenverFairFood.blogspot.com.

BACKGROUND:

Florida farmworkers who pick tomatoes are among the nation?s most exploited workers: they earn sub-poverty wages, have no right to form unions or to over-time pay, lack traditional employment benefits such as health, sick leave or pensions, and have not received a significant raise in nearly 30 years.  At the current rate, a Florida tomato picker must harvest over TWO AND A HALF TONS just to earn the equivalent of minimum wage for a typical 10 hour.  In the most extreme situations workers are held in modern-day slavery and forced to work against their will.

In 2001, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers – a grassroots organization of migrant farmworkers based in Florida – and their allies launched the Campaign for Fair Food, calling on retail food industry leaders to address the egregious working conditions and poverty stemming from these companies’ high-volume/low-cost purchasing practices.  As a result, the CIW has reached historic agreements with McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and others to directly improve farmworker wages and working conditions and set new standards for social responsibility in Florida agriculture.

Despite these breakthroughs, however, Quiznos ? who profits from the exploitation of farmworkers due to the sheer volume of its tomato purchases ? has yet to take responsibility. While Quiznos has begun discussions with the CIW, those talks continue to drag on without resolution.

Visit ciw-online.org for more info.

I turned 34 in Nashville, TN with a group of LGBTQ folks.  It was the next to last day of this event, and I already had a tremendous summer.  Now, with some new super cool friends, I was rounding out the month of July (my birthday is 7/30) in style:  super queer and swanky–all in mestizo style!  I discovered during this last week in July, as I was nearing my birthday, that I felt more compelled to live than ever before.  I felt as though I was growing into myself in deeper and more meaningful ways.  So, I now stand back and say, on September 1, 2010, that I have a life full of love, and I am compelled to live.

I don’t know exactly what this means or how this is performed, necessarily, but I just know it is.  It is becoming fuller as I move thru each and every day.  The compulsion grows and my heart palpitates, as the world does, for acts of justice, for the destruction of hetero-patriarchy, and white supremacy.  Its people, places, and things (e.g. nouns) that encourage my life–that give meaning to my life–that root me in the every day practice of justice.  Its community and warm hearts who buttress my life full of love.  Its long distance friendships on either coast which highlight my sense of belonging.  And, it is my ongoing acceptance of my borderland / mestizaje body which deepens my compulsion to live.

So, the year of 2010 is 1/2 over, and yet I’m just beginning my 34th year.  The fall quarter is about to begin, and I am ready as ever for what this year has to bring me.  I mostly am grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had this year, the opportunities which are coming toward me, and the folks I have yet to meet in person, though correspond via email.  I’m thinking here of AnaLouise Keating and Norma Cantú.

What is there not to love about life and the good things that life brings you–has brought me?  I can’t think of anything other than the good things in my life that urge me to press on.  I’ve turned 34, and it just keeps getting better. . .

Thank you for making this year something meaningful!  You are a good thing wherever you are–in the Midwest, on the West or East coast, or right here in Denver.  You compel me to live a deeper and more meaningful life!  ¡Gracias por todo  y Amor a tí!

Be well, R.

The following is posted on the PostColonial Networks site as their “launch” post.  If you are interested in this style of academic writing, contact the editors!  They are currently looking for additional posts!

A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. – Gloria Anzaldúa

I am a border.  My body is a borderland.  Each day I wake, I carry with me the reality of having a Mestizaje body:  both Anglo and Mexican.  Mentally and emotionally, I am situated on the border and in the US/Mexican borderlands, specifically Texas, where el río bravo marks nation/state territory.  I exist in these always rushing and sometimes violent waters.  I always exist in between nations and cultures and languages.  It is an inescapable reality, a never-ending borderland.

Life is complicated with a Mestizaje body. Without the sun, my body varies in shades of brown.  And, therefore,  ways in which my body is read by some give me certain privileges. Yet, when my body is read by others (those of varying colors), I am situated as having a Mestizaje body.  Yet, when I speak, I am confusing to certain people.  My Tejana accent, the way my mouth speaks and utters both English and Spanish, the way my body speaks its language–each of these moments disrupts the stasis of my world further situating me in the Río Grande, most times without a life vest.  This is particularly pronounced in academic spaces and when I am with Latin@ communities.  I belong to both, yet do not fit in either space.  And, while I become visible to some during these moments, the reality of the/my Mestizaje body remains invisible to most.  My Mestizajeness remains invisible to the White culture.  I am perhaps read as an ambiguously raced person, but the Other, the White Other, defaults to naming me as a White person.  For others, however, I am a light-skinned Mejicana.  Invisibility becomes a living, embodied reality.

In many ways, the reality of having a Mestizaje body is the reality of vagueness and invisibility.  I am unnatural and exist in between worlds.  I am colorless or invisible to the visible world of color around me and remain living life in treacherous river waters as I navigate both the Anglo and Mexican realities.  The river in which I reside is in constant transition; it is not home and I do not belong.  As a result, I am always in constant transition.  I am without a state, without a nation, and only have an invisible body.  The Mestizaje body, MY Mestizaje body, has no home, no permanent space to which it belongs.  This/my body seeks to take root wherever it is welcome.  In this vein, I echo the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, who, in search for a place to be visible and in which to take root, writes:  “And if going home is denied me, then I will have to stand and claim my space, making a new culture — una cultura mestiza — with my own lumber, my own bricks and mortar and my own feminist architecture.”

Aimee Carrillo Rowe, in her article entitled “Be Longing: Toward a Feminist Politics of Relation,” speaks of home space as a site of belonging, implicating the politics of location.  Home is a location, a particular space from which we relate.  That, a “politics of location” is a “politics of relation.”  Carrillo Rowe contextualizes this article by locating herself, her physical body–making herself visible in the space where English words are constructed into sentences and sentences become paragraphs resulting in an article.  Likewise, in an effort to make my Mestizaje body visible to the larger world, while traversing and attempting to survive this (my metaphorical) river, and in an attempt to become particularly visible to the reading world, in order to find a liminal location from which I can relate and Be-Long, I will locate myself using words.

In many ways, words are a place of home for me.  It is a primary place where I am visible to both the Anglo and Mexican worlds.  I can shift in between these realities, these cultures, these liminalities.  It is a move in becoming a nepantalera, one who exists in between things, realities, worlds, people.  I do believe that I regularly construct a home with words.  Perhaps even in words.  Language wraps my body in ways that allows my body to perform my Mestizajeness.  I find a sense of belonging, a home, in the beautiful braided reality of multiple languages, particularly Español y Ingles.  For me, for my Mestizaje body, this is the place of napantla, that very particular in-between space where the river, my life, flourishes.

Initially, when I began drafting this narrative, I was sitting in my favorite chair, which is khaki in color.  The sun was shining through the windows and there behind me was a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains and a deep blue sky (I am writing from the United States, Denver, Colorado to be precise).  Now, however, as I finish this narrative, I am sitting in a Latino/a home, not far from mi casa, where the language of the home is Español and the ethos is welcoming, and I belong here.  I belong because the language shifts between English and Español and the interactions are not part of the dominant culture.

In many ways, this transition in writing and the act of writing from different places highlights my everyday life:  the always in transition and the never fully be-longing.  Likewise, using the metaphor of the river as a site for locating myself, my body, and as a way to highlight the lack of belonging is key.  In order to belong, I must first know where my body will land and in which direction my feet will tread.  It may not be home, but it is a space for relating.  Yet, though a river is visible, and in particular this river that flows between Mexico and Texas, much of the river’s life or activity is invisible, like my Mestizaje body.  This concern of invisibility highlights home space and the challenge to belong.

Both Carrillo Rowe and Anzaldúa write about concepts of home, belonging, and space.  For Carrillo Rowe, home is a contested space, which reveals the political nature of space and relating.  The term that she uses in the above article is “location.”  The contested space of home is a political location for the body.  The contested nature of space is laden with the politics of identity, too, which thereby implicates our bodies.  Identity, she indicates, assumes elements of belonging.  Similarly, Anzaldúa writes about the urgency of taking space and building a home.  Anzaldúa is prepared to build a new culture rooted in the nature of the Mestizaje body should home be denied her.  And, what is profound about the work of Anzaldúa is that she grew up in between different worlds and cultures, navigating the radical differences she encountered.  It was surely contested, and it was certainly a challenge to find a space from which she would relate.  Both Anzaldúa and Carrillo Rowe incorporate these experiences into their academic work as a way to construct belonging, take space, and contest the dominant paradigm.  Looking to them as examples, I am able to see my body become visible and belong, albeit colorless, in a world full of varying color.

The challenge to belong is also political.  Connecting my invisible Mestizaje body to a world full of radical differences and color challenges me to put my body into motion, in transition, and to traverse the varying elements of el Río Bravo.  It is in this way that my invisibility becomes political and my body’s potential emerges into something valuable.  Traversing the river implicates my body in ways unseen.  Belonging in between worlds and cultures, that is, being a nepantalera, is the place of movement , transition, and belonging, where the politics of relating are actualized.  “Belonging is that movement in the direction of the other: bodies in motion, encountering their own transition, their potential to vary”  (Aimee Carrillo Rowe, “Be Longing: Toward a Feminist Politics of Relation”).

Postcolonial Body Performance Narratives (PBPN) by Robyn Henderson-Espinoza

Yesterday was a difficult day.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  I had coffee with a friend, finalized a conference paper, ran some errands, and then was home for the day.  I finally decided to wrap up in my favorite blanket and take a nap.  I was hoping that this would help ameliorate whatever wrongs were existing in my head.  It worked, actually!  I felt renewed and sensed that I embodied the capacity to be productive for the evening, which was much needed!

As you might know, I am packing to move, and I am noticing that this process is quite depressing and anxiety producing.  Where I’m moving is amazing, and so I should be down about it.  But, with the new start of a quarter in my doctoral studies, AND studying both for a comprehensive exam & language exam, it just is taxing.

With that said, I decided to begin packing my books.  I have many–likely more than the normal person, but not more than someone in my field–and when I begin to pack, I tend to think about where I started, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. (How Trinitarian of me!)  Last night was one of those nights for me.

With a renewed sense of hope, I began to pack books from my days when I studied systematic theology.  From Liberation Theology to Aquinas, I had all the books.  I have a whole row of Moltmann books.  I took a seminar on him while in graduate study in Chicago.  Then, I came across my Liberation Theology books.  I felt compelled to sit and read Jon Sobrino’s text:  Jesus in Latin America.  I did not, but the compulsion to act was there.  I wondered what that was about.

After packing 8 boxes of books (and that was only half of this one large shelf), i decided to quit for the night.  I had successfully packed up a bunch of boxes of books–books that took me back to undergrad, in fact.  I paused at some of the books (books detailing modernity and postmodernity), and while skimming the table of contents, I became amazed that I had a clue about the subject material.

While moving is anxiety producing and difficult on and in my body, I am encouraged that I am heading in the right direction.  Perhaps my pauses while packing were moments where the Divine stood with me in my doubt?  Perhaps these were moments of sacrality, recognizing the uphill battles I’ve fought in education or the loneliness I’ve experienced while studying?

I don’t know exactly?  I don’t know how to name my feelings from last night while I was packing.  I just know that I didn’t feel alone in this process.  And, I normally do feel very alone, and that is quite frustrating.  Last night, however, the process was encouraging and humanizing, and I had moments of realizing how far I had come–both personally and in my family.  That feels important to share…

Back to packing early on this Saturday morning!

To live in the Borderlands means you

are neither hispana india negra espanola ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back not knowing which side to turn to, run from;

To live in the Borderlands means knowing that the india in you, betrayed for Soo years, is no longer speaking to you, that mexicanas call you rajetas, that denying the Anglo inside you is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;

Cuando vives en la frontera people walk through you, the wind steals your voice, you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat, forerunner of a new race, half and half-both woman and man, neithera new gender;

To live in the Borderlands means to put chile in the borscht, eat whole wheat tortillas, speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent; be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints; Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle, the pull of the gun barrel, the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;

In the Borderlands you are the battleground where enemies are kin to each other; you are at home, a stranger, the border disputes have been settled the volley of shots have shattered the truce you are wounded, lost in action dead, fighting back;

To live in the Borderlands means the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart pound you pinch you roll you out smelling like white bread but dead;

To survive the Borderlands you must live sin fronteras

be a crossroads.

Reprinted from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Copyright I987 by Gloria Anzaldua

gabacha-a Chicano term for a white woman rajetas-literally, “split,” that is, having betrayed your word burra-donkey buey-oxen sin fronteras-without borders

It is late in the afternoon on a sunny Denver day.  I woke to rain and cloudy skies.  There was even a fall chill in the air.  As the day dawned, the rain clouds lifted and the sun began to shine.  Now, as I sit and type in my living room, the sun is brightly shining through my windows and the sky is blue as ever!  The sky is always gorgeous (in my opinion) when in Denver!

I spent the day today working on two projects:  my AAR paper on queering ethics & iFronteras, both of which are hugely important to me.  It was last night, though, when I finally had a moment of brilliance!  It is as if the dots are connecting…that, my research question in the field of Social Ethics is actually a valid one!  I felt great!  On some level, I didn’t want to head to bed.  I wanted to keep on researching and reading.  But, it was getting quite late (10pm), and I knew I had a full day ahead of me.  And, sure enough, it has been a full day.  But, before I went to bed, I emailed two professors.  AnaLouise Keating and Monica Torres.

What is interesting about both of these professors is that they have been trained in the discipline of English.  Dr. Keating in Literature, and Dr. Torres in English.  Now, however, they teach in a more interdisciplinary fashion.  Dr. Keating in Women Studies in Texas and Dr. Torres in the English department but with a cultural studies edge or focus.  I am more familiar with Dr. Keating, and in fact, have had email correspondences with her and chat conversations.  She is quite the scholar!

I became interested in Keating while researching on Anzaldúa.  Keating has several books which she’s edited addressing Anzaldúa’s work.  I am intrigued, for sure!  Dr. Torres is new for me.  I am new to her work (as of last night), but her work on the intersecting realities of epistemology & ethics compels me to dig deeper!  After all, that’s what this whole Ph.D. is suppose to do, right?  Sharpen the already existing skills to develop an edge in scholarship?  Or niche?  I think I am on my way.  In fact, I am sure I am on my way.  But, there are some important components to me connecting the dots!

A big part of being a scholar is the time in isolation–being alone and reading or writing.  I tend to do a lot of my work early in the morning, or late at night.  I also work from coffee shops.  I have my favorite one, and if you know me well, then you might be able to guess where!  Yet, I am aware that my effort to connect the dots is rooted in my ability to be in community.  And, much of my community–my compañer@s–are not in the academy.  They are part of a larger social justice community, whether clergy people, social workers, or other social justicey folks.  Its the voices of these folks who compel me to do the work that I am doing.  These folks help me be a good translator of high theory.  Sure, the academy is one place, but it is my community of embodied knowers who help me connect the dots in a much fuller way.

So, I am on my way…home now to read…but on my way to connect the dots between epistemology and ethics.  I never thought that I could find the tools to help me do this, but I have.  Many of these tools are women, or women’s scholarship!  What a gift.  What a _______ gift!  It is almost like a piece of sacrality given to me by those who embody a justice oriented wisdom.