14 minute read
Feminist Five
Advertisement
"Beyond the Gender Binary will give readers everywhere the feeling thatIn the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from theirIn The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and FairerAn intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing,A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age isIn the words of author Sunisa Manning, A Good True Thai is about “politics, anything is possible within themselves"--Princess Nokia, musician and“Documents centuries of techniques designed to limit progress in the blackoriginal lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now partHealth Care, author T.R. Reid describes the methods that other industrializedUnburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story anda page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a youngprotest, and radicalization” from the lens of three wildly different universityIep Jāltok is the first book ever published by a writer from the Marshall Islands — co-founder of the Smart Girl Club community. Although some of the material may be upsetting, this is a bookof Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family’s democracies have used to provide healthcare for citizens for far less than what the power – and limitations – of family bonds. black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection thatstudents in 1970’s Thailand. In the novel, the main character, Det, thethe 29 atolls and five islands that the U.S. government thought would make swell that should absolutely be included in the curriculum." – Starred review, Schoollands and opens a dialogue with history. is spent for health care in the United States. These countries, in doing so for threatens to undo them both.great-grandson of the king who has just lost his mother, meets Chang, a brighttesting grounds for nuclear weapons in the 1940s and 1950s. The United States In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate AlokLibrary Connection In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of herless money, provide universal coverage for all their citizens. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. Hisstudent from the Klong Toey slums, and Lek, a Chinese immigrant with radicaltested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshalls, including the 1954 Castle Bravo test Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. When America achieves milestones of progress toward full and equal black homeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenous families, essentially disappeared. From her memory of her mother’s death, to her beginnings in the T.R. Reid describes his purpose in writing this book to “search the developed world for effective health care mother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is black and her children's father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing ideals, and becomes acquainted with their respective political circles. on Bikini Atoll, 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on participation in democracy, the systemic response is a consistent racist backlash that rolls back those wins. We Are Not Yet Equal examines five of these moments: The end of the native rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo’s personal life intertwines with tribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings. Her poems sing of beauty and survival, illuminating a spirituality that connects her to her ancestors and thrums with the quiet anger of living systems and take lessons from the ones that work best.” Not surprisingly, Reid finds positives and negatives in many of the systems he evaluates in an unbiased fashion. His conclusion that all of these other plans spend wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd According to Manning, writing this novel came from several veins of inspiration. One source of inspiration was her discovery of the history of Thai nobility in the 1970s that radicalized and sacrificed their power for the Hiroshima. "Thank God we have Alok. And I'm learning a thing or two myself."--Billy Porter, Emmy award-winningCivil War and Reconstruction was greeted with Jim Crow laws; the promise of new opportunities in the Northin the ruins of injustice. less on health care administration than the United States, achieve better outputs than the US system, and When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.oppressed. Manning also wrote the novel as a historical fiction piece to allow herself more freedom whenIn her poetry, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner confronts the intersection of colonialism, nuclear testing, climate change, and actor, singer, and Broadway theater performer during the Great Migration was limited when blacks were physically blockedcover all citizens within their countries is irrefutable. to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman,commenting on the monarchy, access, and power in Thailand, a privilegeresistance. Jetnil-Kijiner speaks of the irony of an American uproar over nuclear from moving away from there is another boy, thealso allowed to her bytesting on goats and pigs,the her for "When reading this book, all I feel is kindness."--Sam Smith, Grammy and Oscar award-winning singer and songwriter South; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to laws that disenfranchised millions of African American voters and a War on Drugs that disproportionately “An American Sunrise is full of celebration, crisis, brokenness and healing, with poems that rely on lyric techniques like repetition, avoidance of temporal specifics and the urge to speak collectively… ” “Not many writers of any ilk… can match T.R. Reid’s ability to bring a light, witty touch to really serious topics–like health policy around the globe. ” –New America Foundation ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing brings the archetypal road novel into rural But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional Thai-American heritage. Finally, Manning has also discussed that the novel gave her an opportunity to reimagine her mother’s experience as a poor Chinese immigrant student in 1970s Thailand. instance, when little was made of the rampant, post-nuclear-testing cancer rates among the Marshallese. Through her poems that range in style—the predominantly free verse text begins and ends with picture poems You can order hard copies of A Good True Thai at East Bay Book Sellers and Point Reyes Books, or read online "A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewtargeted blacks; and the election of President Obama led to an outburst of violence including the black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri as well as the election of Donald Trump. —Daisy Fried, New York Timestwenty-first century America. relationships, what it means to make someone "family, " and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a debut for our times. on Amazon. and also includes prose poems—Jetñil-Kijiner reveals stark contrasts between an idyllic past, a present, and a threatened future for the environment. death ofsearing diseased
“However “Epic in eternalsweep itsbut concerns, precise Sing,in its Unburied, Sing isdetails, A Good perfectly True Th poisedai shin for the moment.es on all fronts. It combinesTime and aspects of theagain, Sunisa American road novel and the ghostManning resists easy answers, story withreaching afotimely treatment of the longr nuance, for complexity, aftershocks offor truth. An a hurricaneastoundin and the opioidg debut from epidemic devouring rural America ... It is Ward’s most unsparing book.” - Parul Sehgal, New York Timesa talented new voice. ” –Kirstin Chen, bestselling author of Bury What We Cannot Take
“I believe “The sail there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives, that powers the Marshallese canoe/feeds our family, fights our wars, claims our
through words. ” ― Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This“It’s been a time of strange losses in the face ofland, visits clans/came from/a Mother” Time: A Newwhat should’ Generation Speaksve been victories. ” about Race - Artist andJesmyn Ward (born Ap- Sunisa Manning, AGoodTrueThaiKathyJetn ̄ il-Kijiner, iepjāltok ril activist1, 1977) is V an aid-MenAmerican on novel demonsist and an trates associate how profess the or of normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflictsEnglish at Tulane University. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for herThe daughter of a white American father and a Thai mother descended fromKathy Jetnil-Kijiner caught the attention of leaders around the world with her poem, physical and emotional violence. second novel Salvage the Bones and won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction forChinese immigrants, Sunisa Manning was born and raised in Bangkok and studied at“Dear Matafele Peinem, ” which she performed at the 2014 UN Climate summit. The her novel Sing, Unburied, Sinan international school forpoem, written as a letter g. She also received a 2012 Alex Award for the story aboutmost of her academic career. She carried this uniqueto her daughter, addresses the impending danger of The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes aboutfamilial love and community in facing Hurricane Katrina. She is the only woman and perspective with her to Brown University where she would study English andclimate change and vows to protect her homeland of the Marshall Islands alongside how enforcement of the gender binary begins before only African American to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice.Expository writing.her people. Simultaneously rooted in storytelling, her country’s culture, birth anand histord y, The and affects people in all first in her family to attend college, she earned a B.A. in environmentalism, “Dear Matafele Peinem” embodies stages o English, inthe focus f life, with people of color being 1999, and an M.A. in media studies andof Jetnil-Kijiner’s career as an educator, performer, and poet. especially vulnerabcommunication, in 2000, le dboth ue to Western conception at Stanford University. Ward choses of gen to becomeder as a writer bi to nary.honor Gender assthe memory of ignher ments youngerAfter graduating from Brown, Manning moved back to Bangkok where she worked in rural development for createbrother, a nwhoarrativewas killed for how a persoby a drunk driver inn shouOctoberld behave, what2000. In 2005, Wardthey are alreceived her lowedMFA in to likeCreative or wear, andWriting from the the Mae Fah Luang Foundation. According to Manning, her experience communicating with the farmers, some how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparableUniversity of Michigan. Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of Hurricane Katrina.of whom were connected to nobility, that worked with the foundation inspired much of the materialIn addition to performing her poems and creating poignant accompanying videos, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a linkfor Alocal between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against genderTired and traumatized, the family was eventually given shelter by another white family down the road. Ward went onGood True Thai. After a robust career in non-profit work, Manning is currently employed as a teacher at UCjournalist, a current Ph.D. student at Australia National University, and a co-founder and director of the nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, to work at the University of New Orleans, where her daily commute took her through the neighborhoods ravaged by theBerkley Extension.organization Jo-Jikum. Jo-Jikum is a Majuro-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering Marshallese youth hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font createWard was unable to write creatively for three years – the time it took her to find a publisher for her first novel, Where the Line through climate change-related project management, media training, and other environmental programs. an accessBleeds.In addition iblto eA navigatioGood Truen exThai,perienceManning fis rom one analysis to thean incredibly talented essayist nex andt. The proshort story se mainwriter. In tainsmost a of conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the In 2008, just as Ward had decided to give up writing and enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds washer work, Manning explores and unpacks her own identity as a luk khrueng (the Thai term for being mixedJetnil-Kijiner continues to speak at important climate events like Womadelaide 2018, where her primary focus accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing. The novel was picked as a Book Club Selection by Essence magazine andrace) woman, and pushes back against the Western perspective of Thailand. You can find Manning’s essays andis to ensure that the Marshall Islands, as well as other Pacific islands in immediate danger of rising sea levels, same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and received a Black Caucus of the American Librarystories on her website.have a voice in major climate discussions. Association (BCALA) Honor Award in 2009. It was shortlisted for the Virginia poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the humanCommonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power. ” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
