How I Talked to My Daughter About This Election

Amores. Just got off air on Vocalo, where I was talking about how I talked to my child about this election. I know many of us are struggling with this today, and for the record, I am not an expert on parenting, but if it helps, here is a summary of what I said:

1.) The most important thing we can do right now for our children is to remind them that we love them and we will do everything we can, ALWAYS, to keep them safe. As my partner points out, this election cycle has painted both candidates as monsters, and Trump in particular has been in focus as someone who is actively violent/calling for violence. Children need to know that he is not coming for them RIGHT THIS SECOND.

2.) Our job as parents and guardians of children is to communicate and model our values. I know there are some people who voted for Trump based on economic policy, not social values, and they too may be wondering how to reconcile that in their homes. The reality is that individual family values are never entirely in line with what is happening in our larger politics, and so we must ALWAYS be having conversations with our children about what we believe and demonstrating what that looks like in practice. Remind them that doesn't change.

3.) Our daughter was relatively nonchalant about the news, in part because she is lives in a city and a state where neither mayor nor our governor reflect our values. She knows that there are things we can do, no matter who is in charge, to make change in our communities. Beyond that, she understands that our family believes we MUST ALWAYS be working to make change, to defend others, to speak up. That has been the case under Obama, would have been under Clinton, and certainly will be under Trump.

4.) If there is any hope to be found in last night's results it is that when people get together, they can make change. In this case, I'm DISMAYED by what people got together to do, but it is a reminder of what people can accomplish together. I am emphasizing to my daughter the power of building coalition, strength in numbers, and focusing on strategies for a larger goals.

5.) We have work to do. And we need it. If your children are in despair, there has been no better time to get them involved in a change effort STAT.

Finally, I think it is okay to cry, to be angry, to show our feelings. I want my daughter to grow up knowing that we invest in the things we believe in with all our hearts, even if sometimes our hearts get broken. Because remember - the heart is a muscle. It is stronger and healthier when we exercise its fullest range.

This was an email. I'm just plagiarizing myself!

Hola Amores y Amigos!

I hope you will once again forgive this group email, but I am writing to tell you a joke and some updates. Warning: the joke is only funny if your preferred form of humor is in the form of terrible jokes best told to five year olds, which *is* actually my favorite kind of joke. 

In this email:

1: In which I rhapsodize about 100 Hauntings, and throw in this already over-discussed "joke."

2: In which I discuss discussing things on the radio.

3: In which I warn you that The Americans Are Coming.

4: In which I oh-so-helpfully tell you about what (your) money can do (for me).

5: In which I announce some upcoming solo things featuring the L.A.T.C.P. 

1: In which I rhapsodize about 100 Hauntings, and throw in this already over-discussed "joke."

Q: What did one ghost say to the other ghost? A: Do you believe in humans?

Jajajajajajajajajajajaajaja. This isn't as good a joke as "Why were the ghosts standing by the door? They were waiting for their Booooooooooooooober." But I like it because I am ALL IN on ghosts. Years ago, I read a book called Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination by Avery Gordon (amores, "spectrality studies" is a WHOLE ACADEMIC FIELD) and I just loved it. Gordon argues that whether or not a ghost is real, the fact that people say there is a ghost *is* real and it matters. In my own (totally depressing) research on lynching, I found that ghost stories were one way communities archived and passed on information about events that actually happened, but which weren't noted in the public record. Anyway, fast-forward to now, and I have just spent ONE WHOLE YEAR working with co-director Bobby Biedrzycki and the most awesome intergenerational team to collect over 300 ghost stories at 15 different community sites and make a play about it. If this is sounding awfully familiar, yes, we toured a version of this play this summer but the fall version is (actually and really) TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Because we obsessively rewrote it. And you can do different things in a theater like [redacted for spoiler] and [redacted for spoiler]! I am so excited about it! And I hope you will come see it! We only have shows on Thursdays and Fridays at 7pm, starting tomorrow. (Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!) Tickets and more info can be found here: 100haunting.brownpapertickets.com

Also- parents and guardians of small children who don't want to see plays about ghosts: we are offering a craft and story hour for ages 3-12 during the October 28, November 18, and December 2 shows. 

2: In which I discuss discussing things on the radio.

Tomorrow I am doing too much and I will be on Vocalo.org (91.1) at 8:40 in the morning, talking about, you know, ghosts and racism, as I do. And then, THIRTEEN HOURS LATER, I will be on WGN-Radio (720AM) at 9:30pm, talking about ghosts but possibly not racism. I also have a show in the middle. Send coffee. 

3: In which I warn you that The Americans Are Coming.

THE AMERICANS ARE COMING. In 2011, I made a play called The Americans, which is about Ukranians, jk jk. At the time, I was interested in the immigration debates, in the fierce tension over how we define "American" in this country. This year, the election is so painfully and outrageously divisive that we decided to bring the play back, updated to engage hot topics like grabbing you-know-whats. Since clones have not yet been invented, I asked the fabulous Katrina Dion to take it on - she is directing an ensemble who has had full reign to make any updates and changes they want, under my not-at-all-micromanagey supervision (I am doing my best). I'm excited to see it when it opens on MONDAY (the 17th)! This is a touring show, so there are only four shows in Chicago, including one right before election night, in case you want to laugh away the looming dread as Nov. 8th approaches. Tickets here: http://theamericans.brownpapertickets.com/

4: In which I oh-so-helpfully tell you about what (your) money can do (for me).

Oh money, what is it good for? Lots of things! I would love to live in some utopic agrarian society where there is equal lip gloss for all but, alas, capitalism. Meanwhile, I am the Artistic Director of Free Street Theater, a theatre company that was EXPRESSLY founded for the purpose of defying Chicago's racial and economic segregation. ALMOST 50 YEARS LATER AND THAT MISSION IS STILL FRESH AS HELL! At Free Street, we work very hard to make work that reflects the city we live in - who's on stage, who's in the audience, what we talk about, how we talk about it, and WHERE we talk about it. I mean, if you don't care one bit about theater, that's cool. But if you DO, surely you can agree that things like free and pay-what-you-can performances in spaces across the city, free childcare for artists and audiences, incubating new work from Chicago artists of color, and an education program for people of all ages SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA! And if you agree, please consider donating to our annual campaign, because I believe in all of the above, and if we don't raise $10,000 dollars I am going to have to sell plasma or something to keep it going! Plus, there are super cute t-shirts if you donate $25 or more. BLACK AND GOLD!  http://freestreet.org/campaigns/be-free-street

5: In which I announce some upcoming solo things featuring the L.A.T.C.P. 

Guys, I promise I have said no to almost every request to read or feature this fall, but these two things got through: On November 1st, I'll be reading at Tuesday Funk, which is in a bar and on November 19th I'll be reading with 2nd Story for the Chicago Podcast Festival. Details here. 

Okay, that's it! I hope you are all well - email me and let me know what's up with you! And as always, I'm no stalker, so if you don't wish to receive these emails just let me know!

Mil besos,

The Lovely and Talented Coya Paz (that's me!)

Cali, 1982

I started to write a long Facebook post about the things that I was thinking about this morning, after the decision by a tiny majority of Colombian voters not to accept a peace treaty that would settle a decades long conflict with FARC. And then I remembered I have already written about this, in a way. Poem below, as audio and as text

Eh...

Honestly, I haven't been doing much in the way of blogging these days. The problem is that clones have not yet been invented (OR HAVE THEY?) and I often go on the radio to express my opinions to a wider audience and also there is such a thing as Twitter. 

SinglePage

Recently, I had the great honour of being featured as part of the Chicago Artists’ Resource SinglePage series. I talk about how hard it was to return to poetry after my daughter was born. An excerpt:

When my daughter was born, I remembered words I had forgotten: sunqu, wawa, uripachallay. They poured out of me, bits of Quechua mixed with English and Spanish to form a strange litany of endearments I repeated again and again as I carefully traced the contours of her face, claiming for her every name,  every devotional, I could think of: mi amor, mi chula,mi nena, mi wawa, mi beba, my basket, my bean, my bundle, my love, my heart, mi sunqu, micorazón, uripachallay, palomita, little dove. When I ran out of words, I’d simply tell her I loved her, chanting: te quiero mucho mucho mucho, tanto tanto tanto, siempresiempre siempre. In the absence of any new thing to say about how much I loved my daughter, I became a kind of trilingual thesaurus…

Catch the rest of this essay, plus a video of me reading my poem, on Chicago Artist Resource.