Message to the Mexican Consulate

Consulado General de México en Atlanta

Contáctenos
Consulado General de México en Atlanta
2600 Apple Valley Rd.
Atlanta Georgia 30319 USA
Teléfono: 404-266-2233
Facsimile: 404-266-2302

Su nombre:
Su email:
Su teléfono:

Para una respuesta más rápida,
por favor proporcione su Dirección postal:

Asunto: Protección a Mexicanos

Su mensaje:

Estimados representantes del Consulado,

Les escribo como un ciudadano de EE.UU. y residente de Atlanta para solicitar su atención a los casos de Gerardo Bonilla y Dionisio Martínez, artistas oaxaqueños.

Ahora se quedan en un carcél en Nayarit. Les suplico que hagan lo posible para apoyar derechos humanos en México. Estos artistas no han cometido ningún crimen. Ellos no merecen ser encarcelados, y corren peligro de tortura.

Muchas gracias por su atención.


Translation:

Dear Consulate Representatives,

I write to you as a U.S. citizen and resident of Atlanta in order to solicit your attention to the cases of Gerardo Bonilla and Dionisio Martinez, Oaxacan artists.

They are now in a Nayarit prison. I beg you to do whatever is possible in order to support human rights in Mexico. These artists have committed no crime. They do not deserve to be prisoners, and they are in danger of torture.

Thank you for your attention.

*Update: I just realized I referred to myself as a man in the email. Damn, my Spanish is rusty.

Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey is running for President in 2008

I was going to write a serious post later today - maybe I still will - but as I was blog-surfing I ran across a great blog called The Other Side of the Eye. It has this post, which is the absolute most entertaining politically related news item I've read since starting my own blog. Check out the post, then check out the post comments, then check out the Impaler's campaign website.

Nel Sangue,
atlasien

Teaching and Learning in Oaxaca

More than five years ago, I was on the track to become an academic and studying for a crucial graduate-level Spanish exam. Don Quijote was on the required reading list. I'd been putting off reading it, simply because it was so important, so daunting and so long.

I decided I needed some time by myself. I had some money saved up, so I went to Oaxaca City in Oaxaca, Mexico and rented an efficiency apartment near the town center (in fact, right behind the breathtaking colonial cathedral) for six weeks. At the same time, I signed up for tutoring at a private language school, since I was at that awkward advanced level where formal classes don't really help anymore. I'd been to Oaxaca City before. It is (or was?) one of the most beautiful places in Mexico. It has such a vibrant urban indigenous culture; I could hear the old languages spoken every day just walking along the streets or stopping by the marketplaces. The food in Oaxaca is the best in Mexico, in my biased opinion, and therefore the best in the entire Western Hemisphere… there are even many non-Oaxacan Mexicans who'd agree.

My tutor was a young man named Hugo who happened to be studying for his own linguistics degree. I'd already formed a sort of stereotype of Mexican intellectuals, and Hugo fit that to a T: slightly pudgy, wearing glasses, speaking in soft, serious tones and formidably intelligent. I really needed his help, because I'm not the most social person and find it difficult striking up friendships with people I randomly meet. Without Hugo I wouldn't have anyone to really practice my Spanish with. We never had lesson plans. We just talked for an hour each day, and he'd correct me when I said a word or phrase wrong, then give me new vocabulary and the occasional informal writing assignment. He had a wry sense of humor and once teased me for using "palabras domingueras" -- he explained these were ornate words employed by haughty, high-class families who had formal picnics every Sunday. Of course, I was picking up these words from the 17th century Spanish of Don Quijote. We spent most of the time talking about linguistics, Don Quijote, history, anthropology and culture. Hugo's ancestry was Zapotec, and he was in the process of learning the Zapotec language. Zapotec has multiple tones, like Chinese, but unlike Japanese, Korean or the Indo-European languages.

Oaxaca City is in a sad state today, and I really hope Hugo is doing OK. The whole problem in Oaxaca started with a teacher's strike. Teachers are pitifully underpaid. My own lessons with Hugo were dirt cheap by American standards but much more than he would have received in the public system. As far as I understand it, every year there was a traditional strike, and every year the government would give them a small raise, since otherwise the teachers would never get an extra penny. The new PRI governor of Oaxaca decided not to follow the tradition and instead clamped down on the teachers strike and demonstrations using paramilitary goon squads. An association including the teachers union, other unions and left-wing groups began massive demonstrations. Tourism, one of the mainstays of the economy, has disappeared. Protesters have been shot and killed, arrested and tortured, disappeared. Federal troops are currently occupying Oaxaca City.

The situation has gotten very little coverage in the US English-language press. Since a U.S. filmmaker was shot and killed there last month, there's been more of it. Sadly, he filmed his own death.

From the Mercury News:

No obvious gunfire is audible when the fatal bullet enters Will's abdomen. There's just a sickening thud and then a high-pitched scream, the final sound the 36-year-old filmmaker recorded of himself as he stumbled, then collapsed. The last several seconds of the video are clearly taken with the camera on its side, motionless.

Today a tense uncertain calm reigns in Oaxaca. Within days of the Dec. 1 inauguration of Mexico's new conservative President Felipe Calderon, the leftists who'd been leading protests in Oaxaca were arrested. They've been charged with sedition, among other crimes. Efforts to bring Will's killers to justice may tell much about whether Calderon, after a divisive election, can take control of this troubled state and nation.

Six months of unrest have taken a heavy toll on Oaxaca, a place famed for its archaeological sites and beaches, but it remains among Mexico's poorest states, with high rates of illiteracy, poverty and disease. About a dozen people have died in the unrest, most of them protesters. Hundreds more have been arrested, detained or, in a handful of international cases, deported.

What can people in the U.S. do? Here's an appeal I just ran across doing a web search, posted in CounterPunch. Oddly enough it has an Apocalypto connection.

From One of the Actors in Apocalypto
An Urgent Message on the Disappeared of Oaxaca
By BERNARDO DIAZ

Greetings from Oaxaca, Mexico.

My name is Bernardo Ruiz and in this movie, Apocalypto, I play the part of Drunkards Four.

My Oaxaca friends Emiliana and Hilaria, who now live in Austin, agreed to pass on to you my message. Apocalypto is about some of the amazing ancient history of our country and its indigenous people. But as you probably know, our struggles continue even to this day.

In recent weeks, our beautiful city, Oaxaca, has been occupied by federal troops. It came at a time when many of our people were beginning to stand up for our civil rights with sit-ins and other kinds of non-violent protest. Now the troops have started tracking down and arresting not only our leaders, but also many people from our artistic community here. One of them is my good friend the painter Gerardo Bonilla. Another is the artist Dionisio Martinez.

Some of you know Gerardo, because three years ago, he exhibited his paintings at La Peña in downtown Austin. It means a great deal to me--and I know to Gerardo and Dionisio--just to feel that you in know something about our real lives today, and to know that you are thinking of us and support us.

Call the local Mexican embassy and your state and local representatives and please send a letter on their behalf addressed to President Calderón.

Consulate General of Mexico
800 Brazos St, Suite 330
Austin, TX 78701
512-478-2866 ext 107

I said this before, but I really hope Hugo and his family and his teacher friends are OK. I will be writing a letter to my own Mexican consulate.

Mexican Consulate
2600 Apple Valley Rd NE
Atlanta, GA 30319
(404) 266-2233

Group Homes

I still feel kind of bad about The Wire ending with Randy getting beaten up at his new group home. As with any really good show, it's so easy to get wrapped up in the characters.

Here's a recent post about group homes from the Sunshine Girl on a Rainy Day blog. This blog is one of the very few ones I've found from the foster care alumni point of view (alumni meaning people who "aged out" in foster care). The blog owner, Lisa, has really interesting and educational posts on the foster care system. Her posts are often on highly emotional subjects yet take a measured and thoughtful tone. I've read before at her blog that not all group homes are bad; if established and run correctly, they can be safe places. They can also be hellholes, just like the one Randy went to on The Wire.

Adoption and Foster Care in The Wire (Spoilers for Season 4 Finale below)

This season may have been the best yet. I loved the focus on the school system and the introduction of the close-knit group of junior high school boys, Namond, Duquan, Michael and Randy. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the next season of The Wire is going to focus more on foster care. Last night's season finale touched on foster care and adoption in several ways.

- Although Wee-Bey had wanted his 14-year-old son Namond to follow a likely short-lived career in drug-dealing, he finally changes his mind and gives up parental rights from prison to allow Namond to be adopted or fostered or "guardian"ed (it's not clear which) by ex-police major Bunny Colvin. Wee-Bey was a terrifying psychopath in Season 1, but it turns out he's capable of doing at least one thing right.

- Sgt. Carver tries to get Randy into another foster home. His beloved foster mother Miss Anna had been sent to the hospital by enforcers trying to kill Randy for talking to the police about the rowhouse murders. The attack on Miss Anna should have been prevented by Carver but wasn't. Unfortunately there is no foster home to take him right away. Carver breaks down and offers to foster Randy himself, but social services says he'd have to go through screening for at least three months. Randy ends up going to a group home, where the older boys savagely beat him for having a snitch reputation.

None of my favorite characters dies. Bodie is a great character, but I never forgave him for killing Wallace in Season 1, and his death seems like a inevitable natural consequence of the life he chose.

I also think it's great to see black parents adopting or taking in black children on such a major TV show. Mentions of foster care adoption in the media often turn so quickly to transracial adoption and discussions about white parents adopting black children. It's an important topic, but it's also such a hot topic I feel like it sometimes obscures the fact that there are many, many black adoptive parents out there who are adopting from the system. They're also dealing with problems, issues and social pressures while trying to do the right thing for their children.

Pandagon Post on Transracial Adoption and Abortion

I'm too tired to participate more in this Pandagon post from a few days ago -- Feminists for Life's next project is a ban on tampons -- but the post and the 80+ comments afterwards are really fascinating. There are some adoptive parents and adoptees contributing, but the majority of the posters are not really adoption insiders, so it's definitely not your typical adoption-board discussion. A lot of it has to do with foster care adoption.

I have comment #81 awaiting moderation.

Weekend Wrapup

I was just reading here on the Angry Asian Man site about the Rosie O'Donnell incident on The View (a show I'm not familiar with at all), in which she used "ching chong" language to mock Chinese people. This is so upsetting to me that I can't even force myself to watch the linked clip. She acknowledged the language on her website but hasn't apologized. I was thinking about writing a blog post in the form of a letter to her TV show on exactly how it's upsetting and why it's such a nasty slur on all Asian people. When I was little I remember being surrounded by kids yelling those words into my face, and I've gotten into physical altercations over them. I could describe the feelings I had then as a young girl, and ask her if she ever wants her kids to feel that way, or to let them make other kids feel that way. But I have too much stress in my life right now to dredge that all up and order it neatly in writing. Instead, later this week I'll contribute somehow to a campaign asking her to apologize, which I hope someone will organize shortly. Ugh.

I haven't had time to see Apocalypto yet. Hopefully, I can make it this week. I read this viewpoint from an archaeologist -- Is "Apocalypto" Pornography? -- that discusses the details of some serious flaws that one would expect in the movie. The costume design is apparently as good as it seems in the trailer, though. I do take issue with how the reviewer wraps up by saying that Braveheart is a good movie. That kind of destroys her credibility as a film critic for me, since I think Braveheart was overall a boring, bombastic piece of crap interspersed with a gratuitous nasty homophobic subplot and about 20-25 minutes of awesome battle scenes.

I feel like I'm ending the weekend on a positive note... that is, as long as no one kills off any of my favorite characters on tonight's season finale of The Wire. The reason is that I've managed to create the optimal flexible timetable for adoption versus conception! It's got the family seal of approval, and now I just need to run it by the agency worker on our first homestudy appointment.

Stage One: Prep. My dad gets his ankle operation done in January, recuperates for 6-10 weeks and then departs our extra bedroom to return to Japan by April 2007. Our homestudy, which should be written by then, gets activated as soon as he clears the bedroom, but matching will almost certainly not begin right after that.

Stage Two: Waiting. We will be either waiting for matching or in the process of matching or committee, and also in a parallel attempt to conceive. I am willing to try some measures my gynecologist might suggest, but not anything on the scale of IVF or that involves a high risk of multiple births.

Stage Three: Pregnancy Deadline. I get pregnant. I call the agency, let them know what's up and say we need to go on hold within a month. If we happen to get matched before that month is up (although this isn't really likely) then great! We will be able to give the adopted child 100% of our attention for 8 months until I give birth.

Stage Four: Waiting Again (with a baby). I get pregnant without matching. We keep our application on hold until the baby is one years old, and then update the homestudy and go active again. Alternately, I could have a miscarriage, which sends us back to Stage Two to start over again. A friend of mine recently had a miscarriage so I know I shouldn't discount that possibility.

A Moronic "Asian" Racial Smokescreen

When I lived in Miami, I developed a halfway cynical attitude about racial solidarity. Miami is so diverse yet segregated, and it's easy to find cases where no one likes each other: Cubans vs. Mexicans and Guatemalans vs. "Anglos" vs. Haitians vs. long-time African-American residents and so on. On the other hand, just because there are quarrels and insults between groups doesn't mean people can't put them aside and work together for common goals.

On of those common goals is shunning and isolating white supremacists. These grotesque creatures swarm around the edges of the anti-immigration movement and are also found, only lightly disguised, at its very center. To try and disguise themselves further they recruit greedy minorities as racial smokescreens. The Southern Poverty Law Center had a great article on one particular group:

Smokescreen: Activists say a black anti-immigration movement is gathering steam. But it seems to be largely the creation of white people.
by Brentin Mock

The article is very reasonable and measured. It includes the consideration that some of the black people involved in the groups truly believe that Hispanic immigration is a dangerous force that threatens their economic status. But most black people are still very uncomfortable about anti-Hispanic racism; it could be turned back against them quite easily. There's a great sarcastic phrase I've heard a lot recently, "brown is the new black". The SPLC article clearly shows that the real power and money behind the black anti-immigration group CBA (Choose Black America) comes from white people with links to white supremacist organizations.

(As an aside, I strongly believe in these two statements: 1) our immigration system needs to be reformed 2) illegal immigration needs to be reduced. I also believe both goals can be accomplished without using insane, racist measures that won't work anyway, like building a stupid wall between America and Mexico and treating all Hispanics darker than a certain shade as if they were illegal by default.)

The black smokescreen described in the SPLC article was fairly well orchestrated and well concealed, although the reporter, being an expert in these organizations, could see behind the cover. This morning I read about a different Asian smokescreen just as nasty but also incredibly inept.

I initially read this at a blog called Migra Matters but here's the first part of the original local newspaper article:

Immigration group may not be what they seem
By Michele R. Marcucci, STAFF WRITER
Article Launched:12/04/2006 04:01:40 PM PST

Hovering above a busy Berkeley intersection is a billboard that reads No Racist Amnesty. It was placed by a group called Vietnamese for Fair Immigration, whose leaders say they feel illegal immigrants -- and particularly Latino immigrants -- are to blame for the long waits their family members face to come here from Vietnam.

But the group may not be entirely what it seems.

The Lompoc-based group, which has endorsed political candidates, written letters to the editors of newspapers and has aired its views on Web sites, was co-founded by a white, Southern California cyclemaker who is also a member of one of the state's most prominent immigration control organizations.

In fact, the group's self-proclaimed Vietnamese-American spokesman, who wrote at least one of the letters and has espoused the group's views on several Web sites, is the group's Caucasian co-founder using a Vietnamese surname, his wife said.

The spokesman, who called himself Tim Binh, initially denied that he was the cyclemaker from Lompoc, Tim Brummer. But after a reporter told him his wife identified him as Brummer, he said it was her idea.

And he feels he used the name legitimately, adding that he may make Tim Binh his legal name.

"I speak Vietnamese. I eat Vietnamese food. I live with Vietnamese. In my mind, I'm half Vietnamese. Just like my wife thinks she's half-American," Brummer said.
...

Tim Binh... ha ha ha aha hah what a freaking loser. That's my first reaction. That, and "liar, liar, pants on fire". There are unscrupulous Asians out there who would be perfectly willing to provide a smokescreen, they're just too expensive, so the cut-rate white guy had to step in.

Here's his wife's brilliant observation on immigration:

"They can just cross the border. We cannot swim across the ocean," Hoang said when asked if she thinks the immigration system favors Latinos.

She should be attacking the Pacific Ocean instead of Mexicans.

Recovery

I hate Vicodin! It's really nice as long as I'm just lying in bed sleeping or staring at the ceiling. But if I try to do anything else, like reading or watching Battlestar Galactica, it makes me feel disgusting and nauseous. I took my last Vicodin at 8am this morning, and so far the 600 mg ibuprofen pills are doing the job by themselves, as long as I move slowly.

I talked to our worker today. She said the agency is happy to work with us in our new expanded 0-7 age range, and our first homestudy appointment can come the week after next. I told her all about my fertility situation and the current state of uncertainty. My ideal situation would be to get a placement, have one year just bonding with the child and giving them 100% of the attention, then conceive a little brother or sister. But this is just impossible to plan. Neither time to conception nor time to placement can be known for sure. If I get pregnant before we get matched, we would probably have to postpone adoption for a year, and she says the agency would be fine with doing that.

My mother subbed for my ESL class last night; because of horrific traffic only one student showed up. I'd assigned a homework essay called "Letter to Your Congressperson". The students had to write a letter with three parts: personal introduction and why the issue matters to them, the problem, and then the suggested solution. I'd expected students to write about some of the big-picture issues we've been touching on all year, like immigration and the war in Iraq. But the student who turned his letter in for correction actually wrote to request that Russian-language programming be added to the cable package at his subsidized apartment complex. Now that's a local issue! She said the letter was quite logical and persuasive.

Laparoscopy Results

I had the result I least expected. My fallopian tubes are 100% normal! During the earlier HSG test, I must have had something called a tubal spasm that affected the results and gave a false indication that my tubes were blocked.

I'm not very lucid right now, since I'm on Vicodin. But we (my husband and I, with input from my mother) have talked about what to do next. We want to conceive a child. If we can do it without IVF, then the sooner the better. On the other hand, we may still have unexplained infertility, in which case we're back where we started.

Either way, we're still set on foster care adoption. We'll need to alter our parameters, though. For example, it's not a good idea to adopt two siblings if there's a chance we might have a baby soon after placement.

The next step is to consult with our doctor and our agency.

Despite soreness and wooziness, I'm basically happy. My uncertainty has expanded, but so have my possible choices.

Graduation I

We had graduation last night. I'm going to miss our classmates. Several of them have already adopted, so I found it incredibly valuable to hear from people who were already experienced in the subject and had great, positive things to say about it. Hopefully I will see many of them again in the support group after we adopt. Everyone loved my lasagna. I have to brag about it and say it was the best dish at the potluck. The only other dish that came close was a jambalaya someone's relative brought in.

I don't feel comfortable telling any of our classmates' stories on this blog, even anonymously, and even though the stories are so illuminating. However, I will tell a little story from a presenting couple. Last night we had a mini-panel with two special presenters: a therapeutic foster mother and an interracial couple (black/white) who had adopted from the agency several years ago. After mentioning how their two adopted sons, who are biological siblings, have totally different personalities, the couple talked a little bit about race; specifically, how their sons handled the same question at school, "Why is your momma white?" One son would say "Because that's the way God made her." The other would say "Because she IS!!!".

By the end of this week we will know for sure whether we're staying with our agency. I really hope we do. It's a very warm environment. The other couple said they'd visited many other agencies during their adoption journey, angrily mentioning they felt some of them were "selling babies". I'm worried because I don't feel comfortable with many of the other choices out there, either. Especially since we're not Christian.

Tomorrow I'm also having my laparoscopy, and I'll be recuperating Friday and all weekend. I plan on catching up on Battlestar Galactica Season I and finishing Jeff Vandermeer's Shriek: An Afterword. My little dog will be so happy to have me hanging around all day. I'm going to draft my mother to teach my ESL class tomorrow night.

Potluck Lasagna

Whew, I'm exhausted. I just spent a straight three hours putting together a vegetable lasagna for tomorrow night's potluck dinner celebrating the end of our adoption class. Here's the recipe. It needs an extremely big, deep dish about 24 inches long. One of those aluminum square dishes designed for roasting large turkeys would work well.

Deep Demanding Grilled Vegetable Lasagna
----
3 large red or yellow peppers
7 small eggplants or 2 large ones
1 onion
6 cloves of garlic
2 pounds of spinach
2 large jars tomato sauce, store-bought or homemade
a large bunch of broccoli
2 big containers of whole milk ricotta cheese
grated hard, flavorful cheese (e.g. parmesan, romano, asiago)
small amount of goat cheese
2 containers fresh mozzarella

1. Roll out the lasagna sheets using a manual pasta maker. I use 3 eggs, a little bit of salt and a combination of half semolina flour/half white flour. 3 eggs is the right amount for about 4 layers, although you may need slightly more. Once rolled, separate the fresh sheets with paper towels or sprinkled flour.

2. Do the long, long, laborious vegetable prep. a) mince onions and garlic, fry them in olive oil until translucent, then throw in the spinach and cook it down, adding salt, pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Set aside. b) grill the red peppers under a broiler under medium heat until their skin browns and separates from the flesh. Peel the skin off, cut the flesh into strips, save the pepper juice but throw away the seeds, set aside. c) cut up the broccoli and eggplant, put onto separate trays. Brush them with a combination of olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe some ancho chile pepper. Broil them under high heat until they are cooked and just slightly browned. This will probably take 2-3 shifts under the broiler, and itneeds to be watched very closely. Set aside.

3. Boil the fresh lasagna sheets. They should all be thrown in a very large pot with hot boiling water. Pour in some oil and stir them vigorously to keep them from sticking to each other. As soon as they become loose and flexible (no more than 1-2 minutes) immediately drain and pour cold water on them. Then put some more olive oil on them and slosh them around a bit so they don't stick together while you're getting the layer-building started.

4. Build the layers. Suggested order:

- base layer of tomato sauce
- lasagna sheets
- ricotta cheese, spinach, small amount of crumbled goat cheese, sauce
- lasagna sheets
- grilled eggplant, fresh mozzarella slices, sauce
- lasagna sheets
- grilled broccoli, more ricotta
- lasagna sheets
- grilled red peppers, grated hard cheese, sauce
- lasagna sheets
- top layer of sauce

One Last Post on the Theme of Genealogical Frustration

I think I've been doing these posts as a way to procrastinate on a longer post I have in mind on religion and adoption.

My mother's family is from West Virginia, although they left the state when my mother was very small. The only time I've ever been to the home state was for a family reunion over the weekend held in honor of my recently deceased grandfather. I was a teenager at the time. I'd met several of my relatives before, so I didn't feel like I was among strangers.

My great-aunt told me some family stories at the reunion. She said with great pride that our family could trace ancestry from General Robert E. Lee, but the records were burned in a house fire in the 1930s, so there isn't any proof. So this was why all my male relatives had "Lee" somewhere in their name! I was quite impressed at this possible connection to such a famous historical figure. When I later asked my mother about it, she laughed and rolled her eyes. She told me that half the population of West Virginia has Lee in their name, but of course their records vanished in (pick one) a house fire/flood/earthquake/sinkhole/meteor strike.

Doraemon

During the one year I spent living in Japan and going to Japanese kindergarten, I fondly remember reading Doraemon comic books/manga. Doraemon is a robot cat from the future who lives with a little boy named Nobita. Nobita happens to be a whiny loser with only occasional flashes of moral fiber and likeability. The diligent Doraemon, armed with futuristic gadgets, tries to help him improve his family and school life.

Although I could read very well in English by the age of 6, I couldn't read Japanese at all. So I would make my dad translate the comic books for me, panel by panel. If it was up to me, I'd have "read" Doraemon like this all day and night. My dad would always get tired after about 20 minutes, though. If he tried to just stop translating I'd command him to continue, so he'd rebel by inventing completely inappropriate translations. "In this panel, Doraemon says he wants to have sex with his sister", he would say. Then I would yell "No he didn't I know he didn't say that that's not what he really said stop doing that just tell me what he really said".

My favorite Doraemon plot that I still remember strongly is one I think of as "Nobita's Loser Ancestor". This is how it goes. In school everyone has to give a class presentation on their ancestors. Two of Nobita's classmates are mean kids who always bully him. I remember them as "Fat Boy" and "Snail" but looking them up on Wikipedia they are actually "Takeshi" and "Suneo". Takeshi's ancestor was a samurai, and so Takeshi gives a loud bragging presentation about how awesome his samurai ancestor was. Nobita goes home and asks Doraemon if his ancestor was also a samurai. Doraemon pulls out one of his time-travelling devices and shows Nobita the past. It turns out that Nobita's ancestor was a hunter. Apparently in feudal Japan hunters were absolutely the lowest of the low. Being a hunter was much, much worse than being a peasant farmer.

Seeing that his ancestor is also on the bottom rung of the social hierarchy depresses Nobita so much that Doraemon has to take pity on him. They travel back in time to see if they can do anything to change the situation. In fact, they find Nobita's ancestor being bullied by Takeshi's samurai ancestor and Suneo's samurai suck-up ancestor. Nobita has two more of Doraemon's high-tech gadgets: a cloak of invisiblity and a glove of power. He uses these devices to help his ancestor. Hijinks ensue, and the samurai bullies are defeated. Before Nobita and Doraemon go back to the future, they give Nobita's ancestor the cloak of invisibility and the glove of power. Nobita also gives him a quick history lesson which probably had something to do with the existence of unprecedented social mobility during certain points in the feudal era. Nobita's ancestor is supposed to take the cloak and glove, leave his forest, kick some samurai ass and turn himself into a lord with his own castle, ennobling his descendants and thereby giving Nobita something to brag about when he does his genealogical class presentation.

As always in Doraemon plots, Nobita's stupid idea backfires. When they check up on Nobita's ancestor using the peering-back-through-time gadget, he's using the cloak to sneak up on wild boar and the glove to bonk them on the head. "These magical devices have made me the greatest hunter of all time!" he brags, holding up and flourishing the wild boar's carcass.

Siblings, Ages and Bedrooms

This blog is now two months old! I'm patting myself on the back.

Here's a short post regarding some rules on ages and bedrooms. This information can be hard to find, and it varies between states and counties. In our county, here are the rules for adoptive placements:

- children under the age of 1 can share the parents' bedroom. After that age, they need to be in a separate bedroom.
- children can be kept in the same bedroom under the age of 3. After the age of 3, if they are of different sexes, they need to be separated.

The rule about 0-3 would make perfect sense for victims of prior sexual abuse, but it applies across the board to all children. I shared a bedroom with my brother until I was 10, so it sounds a bit harsh to me. I was definitely disappointed when I found out about the rule. Since we only have one extra bedroom, it really limits our options for a sibling group to two boys or two girls. We plan on expanding the house and adding a bedroom, but not for another few years.

Every so often (who am I kidding, it's actually every day) I go look at bunk beds online, especially the ones shaped like castles or fire trucks.

Mish-Mash Post: ESL, age range and genetic testing

I had another fun ESL class tonight. The topic was marriage in America. As outside reading I brought in an article on the FLDS and Warren Jeffs' trial for accessory to statutory rape. Not the most heartwarming marriage-related story, but it started off some great discussion.

My husband and I have settled on an age range, sort of. We're now at 0-7. Now I'm wondering about changing it to 1-7. If that range would make the home study and certification easier, I'd probably go for it, since the chances of getting an infant placement are tiny, and it's not an age we particularly want. On the other hand, if there's a sibling group and the youngest is under the age of one, I wouldn't want to rule out that chance.

Tonight a conversation at SOA reminded me of my on again, off again interest in genetic testing to find out all my ancestry. On my mother's side, I know where we come from. Just using publicly available web databases, I can go back to 17th century Virginia, and then back to England from there, with a few branches leading into Germany instead. But my father was adopted in Japan in the waning years of WWII. He knows some of the history of his biological family, but mostly it's a blank spot. His mother's family had connections in Hokkaido but he grew up with his adoptive family in Nagano prefecture, which is a mountainous and very beautiful place about three hours west of Tokyo. Because of the Hokkaido connection, and also certain anomalies of our appearance (height, squareness of face), I've often wondered if the family is partly Ainu. I asked my dad once but he put me off and obviously isn't interested.

One of those expensive genetic tests like they did on the African-American Lives show could tell me for sure. This was an absolutely fascinating show, hosted by Henry Louis Gates, that used a combination of genetic analysis and historical research to explore African-American geneologies. It was especially interesting to me that many of the celebrities who signed on to the project, like Oprah Winfrey, had family legends that there was Native-American blood in the family, but when tested, the only one who actually did (Chris Tucker) was the one who least expected it.

Other than this question of ancestry I have, I honestly don't feel a very strong connection to Japanese people in Japan... besides my father, that is. I do feel a strong connection to the land, especially the mountains and volcanoes. I'm not even a spiritual person, much less religious. But I get the feeling of spirits under the surface there. I also think a lot of my negative perceptions of Japan were shaped by Tokyo, a city I hate more each time I visit. It would be wonderful to go back to Japan on my own and visit other places like Hokkaido, Okinawa and Osaka.

Our Prospects

I feel so much better now. We had a consultation and I put all our issues down on the table (see my earlier post for details). I heard pretty much what I expected to hear, but actually hearing it was really important.

The worker agreed that my race might be an unstated factor in matches, but also said she doubted it would be a very important factor. She didn't think we would be really at a disadvantage compared to a white couple, especially once we articulate ourselves as a couple prepared for all aspects of transracial adoption. She also said that our position was decent, overall. In short, I heard, "you're not paranoid, but you don't need to worry quite so much."

Apparently all the applicants at the agency get very realistic assessments of how other caseworkers in the system are going to view them as potential matches for a child. She told us that opposite sex couples are in the first tier, then singles, then same-sex couples. It's unfortunate that our privileged position as a heterosexual couple comes at the expense of same-sex couples.

We're still not sure about the age issue. We won't need to decide until a week from now. I'm thinking of possibly going up to age 8 from our original 0-5. My mental picture of a child has always been that of a toddler. I just love toddlers. I think I could adjust, though.

Unconscious Bias

Here's a fascinating article about unconscious bias and stereotype threat. It shows how much the primal emotions of pride, shame and fear influence intellectual achievement.

Positions of Power: How female ambition is shaped

"Meanwhile, studies of what psychologists call "stereotype threat" demonstrate that awareness of negative stereotypes about one's group diminishes performance. Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona, conducted a study in which undergraduates were asked to memorize words while doing math; one group was told this was a problem-solving exercise, the other, that this was a test comparing men and women. Women's performance suffered only when they believed they were being compared to men—this prompted the stereotype that men are better in math. Another study examined how stereotype threat affected Asian-American women's performance on math tasks. When subjects were asked questions related to Asian identity before taking the test (prompting the stereotype that Asians are good at math), their performance went up. When asked questions related to gender (prompting the stereotype that women are bad at math), their performance went down."

Thinking Ahead to School

I found a great resource today: an organization called LEAD (Learners & Educators of Atlanta & Decatur). I haven't made any decisions yet about school for our future children, but I like knowing what's out there. LEAD is an association of secular homeschooling parents that teach classes for each other's kids.

I would probably start them out in public school, but if they don't thrive there I would pull them out in a heartbeat. One argument I often hear is that if children have social problems in school, you need to support them so they work their way through it, because they'll gain valuable life experience in dealing with adversity. Whenever I hear that argument I usually keep my mouth shut, because I don't want to attack another person's parenting choice. But I violently disagree with it. I had a lot of social problems at school, especially in junior high, and I didn't learn any valuable coping skills. It just made me feel more angry, depressed, shy, fearful, bitter and resentful. It prepared me for absolutely nothing, since I never faced as many problems later on in life; the older I got, the more civilized other people behaved towards me. I'm just glad I went into that very trying time with enough self-confidence that I could build myself back up again afterwards. The only useful lesson I learned is that I don't want any other child to suffer through the same problems.

Wonderful Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving yesterday was fantastic. I cooked collard greens and sweet potato pone for dessert. My mother made an entire armada of dishes including brussels sprouts with chestnuts and oyster mushrooms, okra with tomatoes and cornbread stuffing. My stepfather deep-fried two turkeys. The guests were my husband and me, my mother and stepfather, my uncle, aunt and two cousins, my stepfather's mother, brother and brother's girlfriend/partner, my father-in-law and two family friends for a grand total of 14.

I definitely would have enjoyed it more without the adoption-related stress. Because of the concerns that popped up on Tuesday, I feel like I can't see the path forward because I'm surrounded by a thick fog. I keep trying to beat it off by waving my arms, even though I know that won't really do anything to make the fog go away. There were a few points throughout the day when I felt very unsociable, but thankfully I was able to work these off by doing cleanup and washing dishes.

I've had some good conversations with my husband about our current situation. We're having an individual meeting soon with one of the workers at the agency, and that should also help clear up some of my concerns.