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“Muchacha, pareces mosca en leche,” my mother’s words urge me to change clothes, expressing her view that the white blouse I’m wearing makes me look like a fly in the milk. The laughter and other sounds of recognition when I say these lines on stage give me a solid clue as to how many of my peeps are in the audience. By my peeps I mean Raza, a term that means community in this context, rather than race. Personally, I identify as Chicana, and I also see myself as part of that larger collective of 60+ million people labeled or self-identified as Latinx, Latina, Latino, Latine (gaining traction like Latinx as gender-neutral), Hispano, Hispanic. There is no universal agreement as to what we call ourselves or others call us, and language is always evolving. It’s becoming common to see these terms used interchangeably. But this blog isn’t about what we call ourselves, it’s about colorism, a type of discrimination that favors lighter skin over darker skin, often within the same racial or ethnic group. Earlier this month, the Pew Research Center released a report titled, Latinos and Colorism: Majority of U.S. Hispanics Say Skin Color Impacts Opportunity and Shapes Daily Life. The Pew report explained that colorism can be related to racism but is its own form of discrimination, and not surprisingly found that persons with darker skin experienced more incidents of discrimination than Latinos with lighter skin. I won’t summarize the other findings but will simply say it stated the obvious, the lighter you are the greater the chance you’ve had better opportunities for a decent education and higher status better-paying jobs, and careers. The charts that accompany the report illustrate the research finding and are visually quite interesting. You can read a fuller discussion on colorism and racism and how these -isms affect our families as people from different ethnic groups and racial backgrounds enter into long-term unions and our immediate families become multi-racial in this Time Magazine article. Colorism is not unique to the Latine community, it’s everywhere, not just here in the United States, or in Latin America, it is a global phenomenon, including in India, Brazil, and many African countries. When traveling in India some years back I saw so many billboards advertising Fair and Lovely products, holding up lighter fairer skin as the standard of beauty. And there have been campaigns by Bollywood actors seeking to counter that narrative. People are voting with their pocketbooks to lighten up. An article in Marketplace reported that the “global market for bleach creams and injectables that purport to lighten skin — and which carry many potential health risks — stood at an estimated $8.6 billion in 2020, including $2.3 billion in the U.S.” A quick bilingual internet search for the image mosca en leche produced these two books with the phrase as their title. Haven't read either, but the book covers caught my eye. No matter the language, we know that a fly in the milk (or the soup) is not a welcome sight. My mother’s message was loud and clear don’t call attention to your darkness. I purposely accentuated my skin color as a form of spite. The existence of colorism was often denied with phrases like para mi todos son iguales, everyone is equal. But everyday conversations I heard among adults confirmed this deeply entrenched prejudice. "Juan Felipe is such a smart, kind boy, too bad he’s so dark." And the never-ending praise for light-skinned babies. "Carolina’s baby is so pretty, tan güerita, such light skin, tan preciosa la niña." It is not uncommon for family members and friends to assign a nickname based on physical attributes, la negrita, la prieta, la güera, la chinita. And these names are typically uttered with great affection, I took no offense when my parents or other relatives called me mi prieta. Listen to some Cuban music (just one example) and these terms of endearment are everywhere. I spent several weeks in Havana and engaged in conversations with people I befriended about their easy-going and common referencing of someone’s skin color. They were baffled by my explanation that such references in the United States would be considered racially insensitive or outright racist. Today I am a pale version of myself, having lived in the temperate climate of Northern California. When I see current pictures of me or look in the mirror, my mind’s eye sees me in the darker hue of my younger self. As I put my hand up against the chart in the Pew Research Poll on colorism, I’m a 4 but my true color is a 6. I love beach vacations because being in the hot sun restores my true color within a matter or two or three days. Pero aqui en el norte de California estoy muy palida. Talking about colorism and naming and acknowledging prejudices in our community is a good thing and a starting point for addressing our biases. It does no good to pretend otherwise. The issue was part of a national conversation with respect to Lin-Manuel Miranda's In The Heights and the casting of few Afro-Latinos in major roles. "Lo prieto no duele," my mother would say when she’d hear my siblings tease me. "Sonriete, para poder verte." Smile so we can see you in the dark. My mother’s comment that being dark never hurt anyone simply perpetuated the lie. No different than being told that sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never hurt you. We know better, words can and do hurt us. And so does colorism. Check out my one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? where I explore how colorism in our community, along with perceptions of us as perpetual “foreigners,” leads to devaluing Latinos. Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? is streaming, on-demand, and it’s free, between Friday, November 19th and Monday, November 29th as part of Re-Encuentro, the Latina/o/x Theater Festival. Go to irmaherrera.com, and click on the red RSVP button, this will take you to Re-Encuentro’s RSVP form, complete that and the link will be mailed to you. You must register to receive the streaming link. Thanks for watching, it’s available during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Every year on November 2nd, el Dia de Finados (Roman Catholic All Souls Day), our family would make a pilgrimage to Collins Cemetery, the segregated cemetery in the outskirts of Alice, Texas, our hometown. My mother and other relatives would likely have gone days earlier to spruce up: do some weeding and wash the gravestones. On that day more popularly known as Dia de Los Muertos, we would bring flowers to honor my mother’s parents, Refugia Solis and Enemencio Martinez, and other family members who were buried there. We did not grow up with the colorful Day of the Dead celebrations we now see everywhere. Our remembrances were simple: we brought flowers to our loved ones, yes, marigolds and chrysanthemums. Our visit would include prayers as well as touching and saying the engraved names on their tombstones. As she has done since childhood, my only remaining sister Ida who still lives in Alice continues el Dia de Finados tradition. Collins Cemetery, now a designated historical site by the Texas Historical Society, is the resting place for my parents, Esperanza and Claudio, and our siblings, Raquel Rosario and Claudio, Jr. White people, Anglos as we called them, are buried in a different cemetery several miles down the road. A few Black families that lived in Alice also buried their loved ones at Collins in their own section, separate from us. Thankfully, the fence dividing our two groups was taken down many years ago. Throughout South Texas, we lived with cradle to grave segregation. On my father’s side of the family, the Herreras and Morenos were buried in the border town of Escobares, Texas where his family was from. We visited their gravesites less often as Escobares was 135 miles south of Alice. The current population in Starr County, where Escobares is located, is 96% Hispanic according to Census data, and it was likely that way for several hundred years. There were few, if any, opportunities for integration. How we remember the dead varies among cultures. The Black Lives Matter movement made the words Say Their Names part of our present vocabulary. I am glad for that as it is important that we remember those who have died, that we say their names. And it is equally important to remember how they died. Earlier this year on August 2, 2021, the Second Anniversary of the racially motivated mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, this image above caught my eye. I set out to learn about it and to identify its creator. Two years ago, the nation was shocked when a 21-year-old white supremacist shot 46 people on a quiet Saturday morning as they shopped for groceries and back-to-school specials at Walmart. He aimed his assault rifle at anyone who “looked Mexican.” According to the online manifesto he posted, he was stopping the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The 23 people that were killed are remembered in this image. My internet research led me to Appalachian painter and activist, Ellen Elmes. I found her contact information and wrote her, asking permission to weave this image into my one-woman show. We arranged a phone conversation, and she wanted to know more about my intentions. I described my play and how I use theater to raise awareness about the impact of prejudice and how stoking hatred towards groups inevitably leads to violence. She kindly granted me permission but wanted me to know the back story of how and why she came to paint these individual portraits. She had read an essay written by David Carrasco Saying The Mexican Names: Reflections on Another Pandemic published on the First Anniversary of the El Paso shooting. “This past Christmas,” Carrasco wrote, “I visited the Cielo Vista Walmart to see the “Grand Candela”, the 30-foot tall golden obelisk monument which honors the people killed in this attack . . . I was disappointed that there was no plaque that listed the names of those killed . . . I stood in silence for a few moments. I pulled out the list of names from my pocket and whispered them to myself.” Click here to read the essay. Her reading David Carrasco’s essay wasn’t totally random, Ellen and her husband Don, are longtime friends with him, having attended college together in Western Maryland. Carrasco is the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America in the Harvard Divinity School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Carrasco’s family is from El Paso. “I was deeply moved by David’s remembering of the victims and compassionate perspective,” Ellen wrote. “His words brought me to the point of realizing my desire to paint portraits of each of the 23 people murdered. Not knowing when I began painting if I could make such a project a reality, I started painting one portrait a day, each on a 9” x 12” canvas, throughout the month of October 2020. Painting the portraits became kind of a daily mantra for me, choosing the colors and photographs to work from for each person, recreating as much as possible a kind of visual vitality in paint to honor their life on earth. Initially, I looked up online pictures and info, whatever I could find, about each person and that is what hooked me into doing the paintings. They became real people. And spinning off of the importance of knowing and remembering their names, I decided to look up a legendary or mythological or cultural meaning of each name and incorporate that into each painting.” Read Ellen Elmes’ statement about this work on her website. Click here. With the help of the Harvard Divinity School staff and community leaders in El Paso, Ellen and Don were able to get addresses for all the families and mailed them the individual portraits she had painted of their loved ones. The families received them on Christmas Eve 2020. The story of the portraits became known to others and her images made their way to social media on the Second Anniversary of the Walmart shootings. Thank you, Ellen, for this series of portraits titled A Tribute to Beloved Lives. And thanks also to David Carrasco for sharing his experiences about growing up in a world of prejudice and segregation, something familiar to me and many of us. I have woven Ellen Elmes’ images into my one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? which is part of Re-Encuentro 2021, a National Latina/o/x Theater Festival taking place later this month. You can learn more about the El Paso Massacre and the events that gave rise to this deadly assault in this illuminating Truthout article by colleague Camilo Pérez-Bustillo. Click here for article. Thanks for reading this blog. I appreciate your sharing it with family and friends. Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? written and performed by Irma Herrera Streaming, on-demand, Free Starting Friday, November 19 @ Noon (Pacific Time) through Monday, November 29th Midnight Click here to RSVP. You must RSVP to receive the streaming link

Eureka! You can now register to watch Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? during Re-Encuentro, the national Latina/o/x Theater Festival. My one-woman show will be available for on-demand streaming starting Friday, November 19th at Noon and through midnight November 29th. There is no cost for watching any of the performances during the festival. Click here and it will take you to the page where you can complete the rsvp form, please note that you must scroll down to the end of the play's description to see the RSVP form. Although the form states "[t]his reservation is only for the premiere of Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name on Friday, November 19 at 12:00 P.M PST," you can watch the performance ANYTIME during the 10-day streaming period. You must register to get the link, so do it now, it takes less than a minute. According to the registration page, the link will be sent before 11/19. There is no indication as to when the link will be sent, but I will keep an eye out for it and I will let you know when I get my link, as I too registered to see it. Although you might well imagine that I'll be watching it on Friday, 11/19 at Noon. Did you already see the show on stage pre-pandemic or a Zoom presentation during the past 18 months? I invite you to watch it again, as it is revised and updated. This performance was filmed at StageWerx Theater in San Francisco, so if you watched on zoom all you saw was a talking head on a rectangular screen. For anyone who is fully vaccinated and comfortable with small gatherings, please consider hosting a watch party with a handful of friends. Your support has meant so much to me. Please help spread the word, tell your friends about it. Money-back guarantee that it will be an hour well-spent. What Others Have Said "This is a show for all generations. My teen son, retired mother, and I saw the show together and couldn't stop talking about it. Ms. Herrera invites us to examine racial history in America and our own perceptions in a way that opens conversations through humor and authenticity. ¡Cinco Estrellas!" ~Melinda Martinez, Teacher Training Coordinator, Puente Program “Put @irmadherrera's theater piece, "Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?" on your to-do list . . . Personal and deeply thought-provoking on issues of identity important for us to think about today” ~Professor Marsha Cohen, Hasting College of the Law

My one-woman play will be shown nationally as part of Re-Encuentro, a theater festival sponsored by The Latino Theater Company of the LA Theater Center. You can watch a recently filmed version of my play, on-demand, in the comfort of your own home. To make sure you get the registration link, please provide me your name and email address in the Contact Irma! Form on the home page of my website, irmaherrera.com, as I’ll include this information as soon as available in upcoming newsletters. I last performed before a live audience the weekend of March 6-8, 2020, in Brian Copeland’s Best of SF Solo Series in San Leandro, CA right before COVID shelter-in-place orders. Although most shows that weekend were on the cusp of selling out, even ticketed folks were forgoing activities where large groups of people gathered. Still, it was a great weekend. That was 21 months ago, the separation of immigrant children from their parents was still in the news, the Walmart Massacre in El Paso, a very recent and painful wound to the Latino community. Back then COVID was not yet dominating our lives, George Floyd had not yet been murdered by a callous police officer, the COVID virus had not yet been racialized by top government officials leading to a spike in Asian hate crimes. All this and more are incorporated into this updated version of my show. Live theater is gradually re-opening, from Broadway to local venues, and I am so excited and grateful. I love sitting in a theater, especially those intimate black box spaces. Gradually the lights dim, and darkness surrounds us. There, I am transported and can experience situations that are totally new. It is equally exciting to see myself and my community in familiar struggles and joys as their lives unfold on stage. And as much as I love being in the audience, it is a wonderful experience to bring those stories to you. The laughter, sighs, uncomfortable chuckles, shuffling in the seats, and the absolute silences are immediate feedback of audience reactions. As we develop our stories we do so quietly, alone. If we are lucky, we share our work with a small group of trusted friends, and get their reactions, we shape and reshape. We workshop our material in larger groups, in classes, in someone’s living room, and eventually, we put the play on its feet for the broader public, but we really don’t know what we’ve got until we perform our work before an audience. During the pandemic, there has been strong demand for my play and I have been presenting on Zoom. An extra-long curtain rod with a burgundy velvet curtain along the wall, extra lighting, a Panasonic camera, and a microphone connected to my iMac, transform mi oficina into a virtual teatro. I’ve presented a Zoom adapted version of my play, and short excerpts, for schools, colleges, law firms, organizations, a conference of law professors, and even as a part of a fundraising event. Audiences have varied - from a dozen folks to hundreds. It is exciting to know people are watching from Texas to Michigan, New York to California. Post-performance, we invite audience members to share their thoughts around specific questions: And we have found that audiences are receptive and engaged and often the conversations continue 30-45 minutes beyond the scheduled program time. Here’s a comment shared by a member of a law firm that used Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? as part of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program. “Irma’s one-woman performance is an engaging way to learn about racial and gender discrimination. Her performance is thought-provoking, enlightening, and, at times, quite funny. Participants overwhelmingly appreciated Irma presenting these topics in this unique way. Equally valuable were the breakout groups following Irma’s performance . . . For some, it was the first-time participants felt comfortable having these types of conversations and many felt like they gained a greater awareness of their colleagues’ work and life experiences.” During the next several weeks, I will share more of the backstory of developing this work, originally titled, Tell Me Your Name, and how the play is always evolving. So, if you aren’t already subscribed to my newsletter, please get on board by visiting my website, irmaherrera.com, and providing your name and email address on the Contact Irma! Form. Or you can email me at irmadherrera@gmail.com and ask me to add you to my distribution list. I’m so excited that no matter where you live, you can see my show. You don’t have to get yourself to the San Francisco Bay Area. Although a trip to San Francisco is always such a treat. The theater festival is on for just 10 days, and watching the play is gratis. After that 10 day period . . . poof . . . like magic, the show will no longer be available for streaming. As more theaters open up, I hope to start performing live again, maybe I’ll be invited to perform in your city. Thanks so much for reading my blog.

So pleased to announce that I am being honored by IANGEL in a virtual gala on August 19, 2021, at 5:30 pm (Pacific Time) with their Amel Zenoune-Zouoani Rights & Leadership Award. I will share this honor with Julienne Lusenge, a tireless leader on behalf of women and girls in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lawyer colleague and friend Nancy Newman founded IANGEL (International Action Network for Gender Equity & Law), an international network of lawyers dedicated to gender equity and justice. It harnesses the power of pro bono legal assistance, connecting it to the cause of women’s rights locally, nationally, and around the world. Nancy’s vision and can-do attitude are a testament to the power of an individual to make enormous changes. IANGEL’s Rights & Leadership Award was named for Amel Zenoune-Zouani, an Algerian law student who was murdered by fundamentalists in 1988 for refusing to give up her law studies. The award in Amel’s memory keeps her in our hearts and minds, reminds us of the sacrifices made in pursuit of gender equality, and inspires us to continue the hard work ahead. Please visit IANGEL’s website to register for the event and to learn more about the organization and its important work. https://www.iangel.org/ The $30 ticket price supports a great cause. I will be hosting ten friends, so if you would like to attend as my guest, please send me an email, and I will put you on the list. My last blog was about a Zoom interview with author Joan Steinau Lester, sponsored by Alta Mesa Center for the Arts. She and I discussed her latest book, Loving Before Loving. The event had great attendance, thanks to all that joined. For those who are unable to be with us that Sunday afternoon, here is the video of the interview. As mentioned in the interview, Joan has received more emails and letters about this book than any other of the fine books she has published. Joan recently posted a moving story and picture on Facebook that I share here with Joan and the couple’s permission. I hope your summer is going well, the Delta variant is wreaking havoc around the nation, so please protect yourselves. Many people feel done with the CORONA virus, but the virus is not done with us. Therefore, patience and caution are in order, and that includes mask-wearing, hand hygiene, and getting vaccinated if you haven’t yet done so. Thanks so much for reading my blog post.

Please join Joan Steinau Lester and me as we discuss her latest book, a memoir, Loving Before Loving, on Sunday afternoon, July 11th, 4-5 pm (Pacific Time). The event is free, but you must register to receive the Zoom link. Register here: https://bit.ly/LesterConvo or by via the QR code. I was familiar with Joan’s work, having read some of her books and many published essays, and I had heard her commentaries on racial and gender justice on the radio over the decades. During the past two years, we have become friends, and I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about Joan’s commitment to equality that has guided her for decades. The book cover flap description captures the essence of her memoir. “Committed to the struggle for civil rights, in the late 1950s Joan Steinau Lester marched in protest as a white ally, a young woman coming to terms with her own racism. She soon fell in love with and married the Black writer Julius Lester, establishing a partnership that was long and multifaceted but not free of the politics of race and gender. Over time, as the women’s movement dawned, feminism helped Lester find her voice, her pansexuality, and the courage to be herself. Braiding intellectual, personal, and political history, Lester tells the story of her fight for love and justice before, during, and after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 decision striking down bans on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia. She describes her own shifts in consciousness, from an activist climbing police barricades by day, reading and writing late into the night, to a woman navigating the coming out process in mid-life. Speaking candidly about every facet of her life, Lester illuminates her intimate journey to fulfillment and healing. Loving Before Loving is a riveting and deeply personal memoir that eloquently communicates the deep pains of sexism and racism and presents a guide to transforming those pains into strength and meaningful progress. Lester's search for a path that allows her to become the person she wants to be offers insights for anyone struggling for equality within a patriarchal society.” It was an honor to provide a book blurb and to join the numerous writers vouching for the work. “This book is the real deal, the way it was. A good book for folks to grow on. I love it! Bravo!" ~Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple "Weaving her personal history with decades of social history, Lester's memoir beautifully captures her relentless quest to find her voice as a writer and as a woman living on the forefront of social change. An engaging and inspiring narrative!" ~Beverley Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? You can learn more about Joan's work at her website: http://www.joanlester.com/. It's a good read and please consider ordering the book from an independent bookseller. Amazon offers us so much convenience and discounts, but they do NOT need our business, but small booksellers sure do. As I was re-reading Loving Before Loving earlier today, I was struck by one of the photos in the book of the FBI poster of the missing civil rights workers who were killed by a white mob, with the assistance of local law enforcement. The reason they were murdered: for registering voters in Mississippi in 1964. Joan was friends with the brother and sister-in-law of Mickey Schwerner, one of the slain young men. The right to vote was long denied to Blacks, American Indians, Mexican-Americans, Asian-Americans. And people were brutally beaten and some killed for seeking to ensure everyone could register to vote, and actually cast a ballot. Efforts are underway setting up hurdles in many states to restrict voting rights. So the battle to ensure our civil rights is very much still the fight of our lives. We cannot move our nation in the direction of equality while the vote is being suppressed. I hope you are well, that you and your family are vaccinated, and that you have had the opportunity to reunite with loved ones in person. It has been a very tough year with many people suffering immense personal losses, including the deaths of family and friends, and so much economic hardship. I haven’t been in touch for the past several months as I dislocated my right shoulder in a fall in April which caused three rotator cuff tendons to tear, requiring surgery. The recovery process has been more difficult than I anticipated and I was encumbered by a sling and belly cushion that immobilized my right arm 24/7 for weeks. I found it impossible to be on a keyboard more than a half-hour each day attending to email and some social media. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get more writing done soon and producing episodes of my Stairwell Teatro in the coming months. Not sure when my play, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? will be back on stage, and I'll certainly let you know of any upcoming public performances. I have been presenting it on zoom to law schools, conferences, and law firms, often as a component of diversity, equity, and inclusion training which has been enormously rewarding. I revise it often to reflect current events in our country. I look forward to seeing those who can join on Zoom next Sunday, July 11th, 4-5 pm, and to an interesting conversation with Joan Lester. Be sure to register here https://bit.ly/LesterConvo to receive the link you’ll need. Wishing you a healthy and safe summer.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. I remembered this morning that I had told an Easter Story at Stage Werx in San Francisco two years ago, the last time I performed at that beloved SF venue. Lo and behold, I found the video this morning. So, I am sharing with you today. It’s 20 minutes long. I shared it two years ago. This Easter also coincides with the 53rd Anniversary of the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was struck down by an assassin’s bullet outside his hotel room in Memphis. I think of Dr. King often, remembering his global vision of fighting for justice in all forms, including economic justice. And that is inextricably tied with racial justice since so much of our nations’ economic disparity is directly related to opportunities that were not available for our parents and grandparents as a result of the nation’s laws that allowed (better yet demanded) segregation and second-class treatment of black and brown people with respect to education, housing, voting, employment opportunity, and the list goes on and on. Efforts to curtail our rights, particularly with respect to voting, are getting the full-court press, and we must fight against them, today and every day. Last Easter we were just beginning to see the toll COVID-19 was taking especially in communities of color. We were getting wildly distorted (and outright false) information from our government about COVID and what we could do to protect ourselves and each other. Little did we know what pain and sorrow awaited so many who would lose family members, in some instances, multiple loved ones. Or the financial wreckage it would leave in its wake, especially among the most vulnerable. Last Easter we had not yet seen Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin take a knee on George Floyd’s neck, and extinguish his life. As I watch highlights of the Chauvin trial, my heart breaks at the pain of those who witnessed the event first-hand, and the trauma and grief so many of us feel about how racism kills. BLM reminds us to say their names -- men and women killed by police violence. And many people die at the hands of others, filled with hate which has been stoked in no small part by politicians and so-called media personalities. The Walmart Massacre in El Paso claimed 23 lives (46 people were shot) mostly Latinos and the spa killings in the Atlanta area, which targeted Asian women killed eight people, six of them Asian women. The perpetrators - two young white men who targeted people of color. I am hopeful that justice will be done in prosecuting all these cases. And I am moved by the activism of young people (and folks of all ages) who are speaking up for racial justice. I am also hopeful that our nation is moving in the right direction. We are putting programs in place that provide a social safety net much needed right now. We are investing in our nation’s future. A highly effective vaccine was developed in record time and is being administered daily in unimagined numbers all over the country. More needs to be done to get it to the most vulnerable communities. Those of us who can afford to help others who have lost their livelihoods should dig deep in our pockets and give to the multiple worthy causes serving people in need. Right in your community, there are folks you interact with who would appreciate your generosity. Maybe your tip to the food delivery person can be bumped up to 50% rather than 20% once in a while. Imagine that person being able to buy a little something they otherwise could not give to their children, their parent, their partner. And also send a donation to a food bank. Have you seen the lines of people waiting for food? Sadly, there is much suffering and want in our country. What better time to be generous than when we are moved by the spirit of resurrection and renewal? We renew our faith in our community by service and generosity and lending a hand to those in need. Looking forward to seeing folks again in person, whenever the time may be right. Best wishes as we move forward into Spring.

Several friends have commented that they haven’t received a newsletter or a recent episode of my Stairwell Teatro. Have they fallen off my mailing list? No, dear readers, you remain on my distribution list . . . I have not published anything lately as I’ve been busy learning to use new live streaming software and continuing my education on promoting racial justice by reading books, watching webinars, and engaging in discussions, on and offline. Every Monday, in my neighborhood, we stand on our street, holding signs showing support for BLM. We’ve been doing it for 42 weeks straight. Many of us could not attend the huge demonstrations that took place around the world protesting the murder of George Floyd. Our way of showing solidarity was by coming together as neighbors. We must not remain silent about group-based hate and violence. As a popular protest sign says: Silence is Violence. The killings at the spas in the Atlanta area, where six of the eight victims were Asian women, brought back the sadness and rage I felt in the immediate aftermath of the El Paso Walmart Massacre. In August 2019, a white supremacist shot 46 people, killing 23, shattering the lives of so many families. The home-grown terrorist reported killing these people to stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas. His words echoing those of so many elected officials and “media” personalities. Words matter and the scapegoating and demeaning of Asians that we all witnessed starting with Donald Trump’s words have real consequences on the lives of individuals and our communities. No matter what explanations are offered by the perpetrators of horrific violence the identity of the intended victims, their ethnicity, race, gender reveals the true story. Blacks, Native Americans, Latinos, AAPI community, people with disabilities, our brothers and sisters In the LGBT community, women, we know what it's like to be demeaned and devalued and to worry about our personal safety and that of our loved ones. This is no time for silence, we must speak up, and do our part to combat destructive forces that are hurting so many. Dr. King’s famous words have such resonance at this moment. During this past year, while theaters have been closed, I have been presenting online and I especially love engaging with students and teachers. I was pleased to learn several days ago, that anyone can watch my upcoming online presentation which is part of the “Stories Build Bridges” Speaker Series sponsored by the San Ramon Valley Unified School District PTSA. The goal of the series is to promote inclusion, unity, and community through conversations about equity. This online presentation, an excerpt of my one-woman show, will be followed by a discussion with a panel of students. It’s free, but you need to register, either through this link or the QR Code. The form will ask you which school you're affiliated with, pick either one. You'll then get asked what your role is. Use "community member" option. Stories Build Bridges Series Tuesday, March 23, 2021 6:30-8 pm (Pacific) Join us if you can, and soon, I’ll have a new episode of my Stairwell Teatro.

B Pullman Porters, the Black men who staffed the luxury first-class Pullman cars on the railroads for over a century, were key players in expanding the rights of Blacks in this country. They were overworked, underpaid, and demeaned. They established labor protections for black workers where none existed. Their story is one of decade after decade of dogged determination and speaking truth to power, never losing sight that their battle wasn’t just for workers’ rights – they were seeking racial justice and fair treatment for their community. My interest in the Pullman Porters started some years back when a friend told me that passengers often called Pullman Porters George, regardless of what their names were. She thought of this story when she saw my play Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? in which I share the story of my favorite uncle, Tio Otilio, being called Tom at his place of work. The white people at his workplace thought it was too hard to say Otilio, so they simply called him Tom. Refusing to learn someone’s name and asking or demanding that they use a nickname, or simply unilaterally choosing to assign someone a name of one’s choosing is the ultimate form of disrespect. This experience is all too common for many of us with names considered too “ethnic” and not real American names. This practice is not unique to the United States. In Great Britain, upon entering service, new servants were often given 'acceptable', easy to remember, and generic names – Henry, John, and William were popular choices for men, while many female servants were frequently named Sarah or Emma. More about this topic in this article on the real lives of servants. I’m glad my friend shared the George story, as it drew me to a fascinating piece of Black history that has greatly enriched my understanding of our nation’s civil rights history. As part of my research, I read Larry Tye’s book, Rising from the Rails, which taught me much about these far-sighted men and the many women who together organized and fought for these rights. For those who aren’t up to tackling Tye’s book, check out an excellent hour-long lecture he delivered some years ago at the Library of Congress, There is also a great 16-minute video segment prepared by Democracy Now celebrating the contributions of Pullman Porters on National Train Day. Click here to watch. Interested in watching a movie about the subject? Paramount and Showtime collaborated in producing 10000 Men Named George, available on YouTube, click here. Railways were the fastest and most reliable system for moving people, goods, and information throughout the United States from the 1800s until the early to mid-1900s. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, George Pullman, a Chicago industrialist, and engineer by training, designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car, which revolutionized passenger train travel. Pullman cars were luxury hotels on wheels where service would be second to none. Traveling by Pullman was the ultimate in luxury, comfort, and safety in travel, and the preferred way of travel, initially by people with means, but eventually heavy marketing campaigns made this a must-try experience for the growing white middle class. Pullman began recruiting Black men as porters and set his sights on hiring former slaves. Keep in mind the Civil War had recently ended and Black people were in need of employment. He recreated the caste and colorism system that existed in the plantation, with lighter-skinned Black men working as waiters and bartenders in the Pullman dining cars. The ideal Pullman Porter was very well trained and closely monitored and was expected to learn and follow hundreds of rules that ensured dignified and diligent service. They obtained an education as they looked, listened, and learned. They picked up books, newspapers, and magazines left behind by passengers and brought them back home to their communities, and they reported back what was happening in other parts of the country. They distributed black newspapers and magazines published in major cities to small towns in the South, and all around the country. They were a source of up-to-the-minute news on what was happening in Black communities - where people were finding jobs and housing. At their peak, Pullman sleeper cars accommodated 100,000 people a night, and for decades these luxury hotels on wheels crisscrossed the United States. In the early 1900s, the Pullman Company was the largest private employer of Blacks in the United States. There was a saying that Abe Lincoln freed the slaves and George Pullman hired them. The job of Pullman porter was physically demanding with porters working 400 hours per month, with no guaranteed sleep time while on duty. They earned low-wages and tipping augmented their salaries. Porters did whatever passengers needed: poured drinks, made beds, cleaned toilets, shined shoes, pressed clothes. They were subjected to indignities and humiliations from passengers in order to earn their modest tips. Pullman Porters were called boy, the N-word, and George on a daily basis. Being called George harkened back to the insidious racist tradition of slaves being named after their slave masters. The assumption was that these were George Pullman’s slaves. A group of prominent white men with a first or last name of George created The Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters George in the 1920s. It started as a joke, but the organization eventually had 31,000 card-carrying members including industrial tycoons, top military brass, senators, King George of Great Britain, and the baseball player Babe Ruth whose given name was George Herman. The group of “upstanding” white men asked the Pullman Company to provide a nameplate on each train with the proper names of the porters, so people would stop calling them George. They felt the use of their name, in this manner, was a disservice to their name. Rather reminds me that the Karen-ing phenomena -- describing privileged white women who complain to authorities about the everyday activities of black folks -- led to complaints by some that the Karen-meme was sexist, racist, or both. But back to the Pullman Porters. Notwithstanding the hardships of being away from their families for weeks at a time, there were pluses to holding these jobs. The pay was better than most jobs available to Black folks and offered the opportunity to see different parts of the United States, something simply out of reach for most people and in particular Blacks. They were exposed on a daily basis to the lives of well-educated, successful men and women who traveled by train. Pullman Porters were a key part of the Great Migration and these jobs helped create the Black middle-class. Porters were able to save a bit of money and their children were among the first blacks to attend college. Working as a Pullman Porter was a desirable summer job for young Black men in college who could work during travel peak season and earn some money. Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was the son of a Pullman Porter and Marshall himself worked summers for the Pullman Company. Many prominent civil rights leaders and elected officials, such as Willie Brown and Tom Bradley (former mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively) were the children of Pullman Porters. Malcolm X, also worked for the Pullman Company, although not as a porter, and that experience shaped his views of tipping and race relations: “It didn’t take me a week to learn that all you had to do was give white people a show and they’d buy anything you offered them. . . We were in that world of Negroes who are both servants and psychologists, aware that white people are so obsessed with their own importance that they will pay liberally, even dearly, for the impression of being catered to and entertained.” If you are a labor history buff, you have heard of the Pullman strike and boycott, headed by Eugene Debs, which was quashed by the US military troops on the order of the federal government. This strike in 1894 did not involve Pullman Porters, but rather white Pullman employees who manufactured the Pullman cars and who worked on the railroad cars. Blacks were not permitted to be part of the railway workers union, or for that matter, any other unions. George Pullman and the Pullman Company were virulently anti-union, and Eugene Debs famously said that George Pullman was "as greedy as a horse leech," later correcting himself and noting that this "was unfair to leeches." The top lawyer at the Pullman Company during these tumultuous anti-labor wars was Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son. When George Pullman died, Lincoln, Pullman's General Counsel, became the President of the Pullman Company. Pullman porters were the first Black workers to successfully unionize, no small feat. The moving force behind their unionization was A. Phillip Randolph a giant among civil rights leaders. Randolph, an intellectual power, avowed socialist, and actor was the publisher of the Harlem-based Messenger Magazine. In 1925 the porters who had banded together to form The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters hired Randolph to lead their union. The fact that he did not work as a porter was an advantage: the company could not fire him. Randolph led an arduous campaign for a decade that led to the Brotherhood gaining recognition as the exclusive bargaining agent for the Pullman Porters in 1935. Randolph called it “the first victory of Negro workers over a great industrial corporation.” He was the most widely known spokesperson for black working-class interests in the country and with his exceptional organizing skills, he envisioned and planned a March on Washington in 1941 to protest racial discrimination in employment in the defense industry. The March was called off when President Roosevelt met with Randolph and agreed to issue an Executive Order banning racial discrimination and also setting up the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Pressure from Randolph and other civil rights leaders also led to Executive Orders ending racial discrimination in the military services. The March on Washington initially envisioned and planned by A. Phillip Randolph took place in 1963. There, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Many consider Randolph the true father of the civil rights movement in the United States. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Learn more about Randolph here. When A. Philip Randolph retired in 1968, he was succeeded by CL (Cottrell Laurence) Dellums, who had served as the Vice-President for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters for decades. CL Dellums was the uncle of Congressman Ron Dellums who served with great distinction for almost three decades in the United States Congress, and later became the Mayor of Oakland. CL Dellums had worked as a Pullman Porter for three years but was fired for supporting unionization. He then became a union organizer and was elected Vice President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and ran the Brotherhood Chapter in Oakland. CL Dellums also headed the local NAACP Chapter and oversaw the NAACP’s work in nine Western states. CL Dellums served on California’s Fair Employment Practices Commission for 26 years from its inception, part of that time as its Chairman. Oakland’s Amtrak Station at Jack London Square is named after CL Dellums. Women were an integral part of the civil rights machinery that was at the heart of the Pullman Porters' organizing. When Rosa Parks was arrested, the phone call she placed was to E.D. Nixon, the head of the Pullman Porters in Montgomery, who helped organize the year-long boycott. As wives, mothers, daughters, and church ladies, they played an important role in spreading the gospel of fair treatment and equality. When recognized, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters also represented the maids who worked on the railroad. Sometime in 2021, when travel is possible, I look forward to visiting the National A. Phillip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in Chicago. In the meantime, you can visit virtually at their website. Thanks for reading my blog. I look forward to staying connected with you in 2021. May better days be ahead.

I am happy to present Part 2 of the Pullman Porters' Stairwell Teatro Episode. If you haven't watched Part 1, you can do so now by clicking here. This blog provides additional information about the Porters' extraordinary work for economic and racial justice along with links to articles, news clips, and the movie 10,000 Men Named George, which you can watch on YouTube. Although I had planned to complete Part 2 several weeks ago, the assault on the Capitol and the attempted coup, the Impeachment, and the transition made it challenging to focus on much beyond the news cycle. Fortunately, President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris took office with no incident, or violence, on an inspiring and hopeful day. Despite unprecedented challenges, our nation is moving in the right direction. All of us can contribute in multiple ways to get Covid-19 under control: from wearing our masks, washing/sanitizing our hands, avoiding travel and socializing, and getting vaccinated. And let's continue our work building a just and fair society as we heed the words of A. Phillip Randolph, the brilliant organizer of the Pullman Porters, who served as the union president for decades. The Pullman Porters and their union spent a century, 101 years to be exact, demanding better working conditions and dignity and respect for the Black community. They laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement and helped us realize this moment. I am so grateful for their contributions. Gracias. I appreciate your reading my blog and watching my Stairwell Teatro. If you enjoy reading my blog or the video episodes, please share them with your friends and family.

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2019 was the pronoun THEY and here's why. “It reflects a surprising fact: even a basic term—a personal pronoun—can rise to the top of our data. Although our lookups are often driven by events in the news, the dictionary is also a primary resource for information about language itself, and the shifting use of they has been the subject of increasing study and commentary in recent years. Lookups for they increased by 313% in 2019 over the previous year.” Earlier this year, the American Dialect Society named they as the word of the decade recognizing the plural pronoun's growing use as a singular form to refer to people with nonbinary gender identity. The winner was decided in a vote by the body's 350 members at their annual gathering. "People want to choose something that stands the test of time and sums up the decade as a whole," said linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer. Click here for more about this decision. Whoa. That is big and confirms the changes we have been witnessing. For several years now, folks have been letting us know their identifying pronouns. They’ve told us in their name tags: my preferred pronoun is they/them, in their email signatures, and in social media. And we’ve also been told in one-on-one conversations or at meetings and gatherings where people go around the room and introduce themselves. Earlier this week KQED Forum (San Francisco’s NPR Affiliate) had linguist Dennis Barron discussing his recently released book, What's Your Pronoun: Beyond He & She. I haven’t yet read it and look forward to doing so soon. Hear the interesting conversation and audience questions and comments during this hour-long program at this link. Perhaps the quickest way to get the low-dow on this topic is an enjoyable six-minute listen (or read the text) of linguist Geoff Nunburg’s Opinion Piece in Terry Gross’ Fresh Air. Click here. No question that initially most of us find this usage jarring. Take this conversation. “Stevie is home for the holiday break. They arrived yesterday.” “Oh, great, did she bring a friend with her?” “No, Stevie is here by themselves. Stevie uses the pronoun they.” My first reaction - like that of many people - is a bit of confusion and head-scratching. Often this is followed by protestations. “But it’s grammatically wrong. You can’t use a plural pronoun to refer to a singular person.” Oh yes you can, and we have been doing this without a second thought when we refer to an unspecified individual. “Someone slipped a note under my office door. I wonder why they didn’t just knock.” Living in the SF Bay Area, many of us get ample opportunity (and reminders) to practice the use of the nonbinary they and them, and little by little we are getting comfortable. As if to punctuate my point, here's a sign I saw yesterday at a cafe on Valencia Street in San Francisco. Eventually, the use of they/them/their as singular pronouns will most likely become second nature, because language is very much alive and changing organically. These changes reflect the fact that our understanding of the world is always in flux, and that is a great and exciting thing. My godchild Stevie asked family and friends to use the pronoun they when referring to them. And sometime after making this request, Stevie posted the following on Facebook. Please note I am sharing this with Stevie's permission. “Hey folks, so just wanna be clear with everyone and say my name is Stevie, I am non-binary, I am trans, I use they/them pronouns. Please respect that or try your best to . . . I am more than happy to have a conversation about this, I have a lot to say, and I promise not to yell at you if you say something dumb, lol, good day.” And Stevie has shared some of their experiences. Yes, some people are uncomfortable with this usage, and others have downright rejected their request. “What’s more important," Stevie asked, "to feel you are speaking grammatically correct English, or to treat me with respect?” Hands down, respect wins the day. And according to Merriam-Webster, Heritage Dictionary, the Associated Press Style Guide, and various authoritative sources, they is now a singular pronoun . . . and that means it's grammatically correct no matter that it may not yet sound right. Speaking of respect, I am reminded that in Spanish -- one of my native languages -- there are two forms of you, the familiar for use with peers and family and the formal which we use with elders and persons we do not know. I always feel a bit awkward saying the word you in English when I would have used usted in Spanish. It takes my brain a millisecond to recalibrate. And then it remembers, this is how English works, go ahead, say the words, "it is an honor to meet you, Justice Sotomayor.” Once upon a time, English used both formal and informal second-person pronouns: but thee/thou/thine/thy went out of favor centuries ago. And according to linguists, sticklers for grammar got plenty worked up about it back then also. And for decades everyone who cared about grammar was perfectly content with the fiction that the pronoun he, when referring to a mixed group of people, included me and all other females. Change happens, we get used to it, and move on until the next change comes along. Rinse and repeat. Of course, there are slip-ups and apologies are in order when I revert back to the pronoun I once used for Stevie. When we approach this with kindness and good intentions, folks are very understanding. Last week Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal was interviewed at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on a variety of topics. She was asked about how and why she shared information about her child’s nonbinary identity on the floor of Congress. Click here to see the video of her statement as the Judiciary Committee was considering the Equality Act to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community. Her words and the emotion they convey say it all. Individuals must have the right to be who they are, and to be treated with the utmost respect, the way each of us deserves. My one-woman show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? is all about respect and fair treatment. We show respect by learning how to say someone's name and their pronouns. My show has a limited weekend engagement in the San Francisco Bay Area, March 6-8, 2020. If you haven't seen it check it out. Click here to get your tickets.

In the late summer of 2017, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States was hit by two destructive hurricanes back to back, Hurricanes Irma and Maria. At that time, numerous friends reached out to express their annoyance that newscasters were mispronouncing my name. It's OK, I said, this hurricane is an angry white woman, and ER-mah is the correct pronunciation of her name. I was able to obtain the official hurricane list for the 2017 Atlantic Basin from the National Hurricane Center and lo and behold ER-mah was the pronunciation assigned to the hurricane by the World Meteorological Organization. Hurricanes were a part of our lives throughout my childhood in the Coastal Bend Region of South Texas, 40 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. We experienced several major storms, and each and every one of them had a woman's name. We are smack in the middle of the Atlantic Hurricane Season (June 1 - November 30), so it's a good time to share with you what I learned about how hurricanes get their names. Information on the conditions that create hurricanes and how they go from tropical depressions to storms to hurricanes is explained with simplicity and elegance in this two-minute, click here, not below, that's just a screenshot. The first recorded usage of the word huracán, translated into English as hurricane, was in the mid-1500s in the writings of Spanish conquistadores who learned the word for storm from the Tainos, part of the vast Arawak tribes, the native people that lived in the Caribbean. This article in The Smithsonian Magazine is filled with information about the Tainos and their many contributions to food crop cultivation. Numerous English words, like canoe, hammock, and tobacco, come directly from their language. During World War II, US Navy meteorologists started naming typhoons in the Pacific after their wives and girlfriends. Several other ways of naming hurricanes have come and gone. For many years Atlantic hurricanes were given the name of the Saint honored on the day the hurricane first made landfall. The hurricane that struck Puerto Rico on September 13, 1876 (the Feast Day of San Felipe), was named the San Felipe Hurricane. In 1928 another storm battered Puerto Rico on the same day, September 13, and it became Hurricane San Felipe II. For some years, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) used the storm's changing latitude-longitude position as its name. Something like this: 40° 41′ 21.4" N 74° 02′ 40.2" W (DMS). Not surprising, this proved cumbersome and confusing and subject to miscommunication, and so this system was nixed. NOAA then adopted the WWII phonetic alphabet – Able, Baker, Charlie, to name hurricanes, but that proved unsatisfactory. NOAA's National Hurricane Center then reverted to the tradition of using "girl" names staring with Maria, the heroine of a 1941 novel "Storm" by George Rippey Stewart. As the feminist movement gained traction in the United States, demands grew to name hurricanes after men. In 1969 the National Organization for Women passed a motion at its national conference that called upon the National Hurricane Center to stop naming storms and cyclones using only female names. Roxcy Bolton, a Florida native and a women's rights activist who pushed hard on this issue for years and even proposed replacing the word hurricane with himacane. A decade later, good 'ole Bob made his debut in 1979 as the first male storm. I'm sorry I never met Roxcy Bolton, who fought so many battles challenging male domination. She merited an obituary in the New York Times three years ago. "Roxcy Bolton, a pioneering and tempestuous Florida feminist who was credited with founding the nation's first rape treatment center and who helped persuade national weather forecasters not to name tropical storms after only women, died on May 17 in Coral Gables, Fla. She was 90." It is an inspiration to learn all that she did in her lifetime. Adding men's names to the roster of hurricanes was just one example. She was instrumental in elevating the prevention and treatment of rape within law enforcement and in the medical profession, and she fought for maternity leave for flight attendants who lost their jobs when they became pregnant. Women hurricanes have been and continue to be fodder for stereotypes and jokes giving comedians ample material, typically demeaning of women. There websites dedicated to hurricane jokes. Here's one. Since 1979, the naming of tropical storms, typhoons, and hurricanes became the responsibility of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO is an agency of the United Nations, and the UN's scientific voice on weather, climate and water resources. Among its many responsibilities is maintaining the six lists of names for the Atlantic Basin. There are no hurricane names starting with the letters U, X, Y, Q, and Z as first names with these letters are less common than other names. In this rotation system the hurricane names of 2020 will be used again in 2026. Hurricanes are assigned easily remembered first names in English, Spanish, and French to reflect the backgrounds of the people who live in the countries in the Atlantic or along the Atlantic seaboard. Typhoons and cyclones in other parts of the world have names consistent with the backgrounds of residents of those geographical locations. This blog is only about Atlantic hurricanes. The official hurricane list is only changed when a storm's name is retired. This is done out of respect for victims and their families when a storm claims many lives or is extremely destructive. So, there will never be another Hurricane Katrina or Sandy. And 2017, a terrible hurricane year, saw four names retired: Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Nate. Based on the six-year rotation cycle, the hurricane names of 2017 will be used again in 2023, with the substitution of four new hurricane names: Harold, Idalia, Margot, and Nigel, as noted in this chart. Due to climate change, storms are becoming more frequent and deadly, and already the list of 21 names for the 2020 Atlantic Storms have been exhausted. Additional storms will be assigned names from the Greek alphabet. Closing with a note of sadness and paying tribute to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died on Friday, September 18 on Rosh Hashanah. "A Jewish teaching says those who die just before the Jewish new year [Rosh Hashanah, which began Friday night] are the ones God has held back until the last moment because they were needed most and were the most righteous. And so it was that RBG died as the sun was setting last night." ~Nina Totenberg, NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Thank you, Notorious RBG. You are loved and will always be remembered. "Fight for the things that you care about," she said, "but do so in a way that will lead others to join you." May her memory be a blessing. This painting was done by the multi-talented artist, Joan Baez, best known for her decades-long career as a singer and activist. It is part of her Mischief Makers Series, portraits of people she admires.