Another thought about Carrillo's poem

So I've had a second thought for Jo Carrillo's poem, "And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You", floating around my head. I asked a question in class, and Celia gave an answer, but it's still been in my head.

My question had to do with the fact that Carrillo points out that the "white sisters" only see a part of reality when they look at the pictures. I asked if perhaps the reverse could also be true, that when they look into the white world, they only see parts of it. Celia said that this is unlikely, because their survival is dependent on their understanding of the other half. And I can understand that in some contexts. For example, in the Old South, with slavery. I've read stories of household help knowing all the secrets of their mistresses, and so I can see Celia's point.

But I guess I was thinking more along modern day, and on the international level. Do workers in Honduras, who make clothing for the more well to do in the United States, have to have an understanding of how the white people live? From my own experience, I've had people in Haiti and the Dominican make comments about how being white means being rich and not having to work. And from their perspectives, perhaps this is true. However, many Americans work for their money, doing real work- teaching, farm work, trash collecting. This is valid work, to earn a valid wage. I wonder if sometimes, the US is portrayed as too rosy.

When I Was Growing Up by Nellie Wong

I love poetry, and the poems we read a few weeks ago really grabbed me. This one talked about how when the author was growing up, she so longed to be white. To me, this speaks of the greatest form of repression. And we talked about this some in class. How once it's been internalized, the dominant group really doesn't have to work too hard. The oppressed group oppresses themselves, because they have internalized all these ideas- that they're not good enough, that the others are better, that this is the "right" way to be....

And I guess I just wonder if it has stopped for Nellie Wong. The poem is in past tense, talking about when she was a kid growing up. Does she see things differently now? And if so, how did she make that transition? If she can see that who she is is truly beautiful, has that been as thoroughly internalized as the things she internalized as a kid? It would be interesting to know about her life, past and present, personally, after having read this poem.

And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You

I really liked this poem. To me it was very powerful, to read the words of a woman addressing the issue of development and how it's viewed by US white women. It also reminded me a lot of the various accounts I've read in my politics classes.

The poem talks about how we see the parts of the world that we want to see, the pretty parts, the easy parts. But they also aren't the real parts. In one of my other textbooks, it was criticizing an ad that was for fair trade cotton. In the ad, there was a young hispanic looking woman "Maria" with even white teeth and a nice smile, her hair combed neatly and dressed in pretty clothes. But in reality, the women who pick cotton aren't smiling about it, they aren't beautiful as far as our public standards would call beauty. Their lives are hard and their bodies are abused.

Another criticism of US trade policy had to do with some piece of legislation that sought to end child labor in sweatshops. It said that the US could not import cloth (I think) that had been made by children. Unfortunately, all this legislation did was remove the legal restrictions on sweatshops. Children still worked there but now without any legal rights, because they were illegal.

When we try to impose our standards on other people from essentially different worlds, we tend to push them further away, further down. What's more, is that when we do choose to look at them, we only look at the parts that make us feel better about ourselves.

Money issues

A couple weeks ago, we watched a video on economic development and the role that gender plays in how different organizations go about trying to increase development in an area. It's been pretty well documented that women spend money on developmental target areas, like education, small business, and health care. Whereas men don't, to the same degree that women do. I guess I still wonder why. Some argue that it's because women are more maternal, that they care more about the family. Still goes back to is that natural or is that taught. I haven't decided, although I now feel I can decently argue both sides of this issue. There's also the question of what do women see as development's purpose- profit or sustenance? I think by and large, women see it as a means to keep the family healthy and secure, not necessarily as just a means to make money. Money is necessary for those two goals, but it's not the end all be all that it can sometimes seem.