MAY 2019
DECOLONIZING PARENTING DECOLONIZING PARENTING ISSUE 2
Curated & Edited by Se’mana Thompson and Maria Teresa Carmier Cover Art by Sahand Azaad
CONTACT
IG: @mxsemee & @jambalayamami Shop: queerindigenousgirl.etsy.com
ABOUT THE COVER
Sahand Azaad illustrated the cover and said this about it: “it’s referencing how i feel being an outcast among my own community, how being autistic makes me feel looked down on as a parent...(djinn imagery) it appears in our culture now as respectability politics. even if we’re all the same color certain things about me are too “tribal” and “uncivilized” and it’s tied up in my neuroqueerness because i express my authentic self instead of denying it.”
The font in this zine is OpenDyslexic and is used to make it more accessible to our readers.
MAY 2019
Welcome to the second issue of Decolonizing Parenting zine. It’s been about two years since we released our first issue. This issue we focus on queer autistic Black, Indigenous, parents of color raising autistic children. We are single mamas/parents, unschoolers/deschoolers, artists, zine makers, poets and we live on the margins of the margins. We are more than grateful to feature and share this space with Jo, Viveka and Sahand!
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
TABLE OF CONTENTS Joanna De La Torre Joanna De La Torre Sahand Azaad Sahand Azaad Maria Teresa Carmier Se’mana Thompson Se’mana Thompson Viveka Frost
Autistic Unschooling Disabled BIPOC in SDE Decolonizing Parenting Dev All The Single Mothers Meet Mx. Semee Unschooler/Deschooler Life I Am Them
I’m really appreciative that I’ve relaxed with unschooling these days. It makes sense that I do though, I couldn’t handle a strict schedule and putting all this unnecessary pressure on me and J. If I’d been worried about structuring our time “wisely” each day/week, I’d be way more anxious and stressed. Especially lately. I’ve been pretty low on energy the last 5 days. I’m allowing myself rest and to do whatever activities I can when I can without so much of the internalized ableism and overall cruelty taking over. To make matters worse, a tooth at the back of my mouth broke and soon began to scrape the side of my tongue which makes it somewhat difficult to talk, drink or eat. It can be really painful at times too. It has been frustrating trying to function at all when I get distracted by all the brand new pain and other crap that is happening around my face because also, hello seasonal allergies. Sigh. The frustration builds because this week I finally have the courage to talk to my therapist about me looking into getting a psych evaluation for autism. I want to go over what I’m thinking – thoughts, feelings, how an official diagnosis would help me receive medical accommodations (especially re: dental procedures!) I’ve been needing and do some wonders on my mental health. I am wondering if she’ll help me find a clinician or recommend one. My hope is I can communicate all of this to my therapist, considering how I’m doing. Now we know I recently been low energy and been through some (depressed) things. Check, check. So focusing on some type of schedule would have exhausted me. People, including myself, forget or downplay the impact that conversations, doing things together or alone and some play time have. J an I did some cooking over the weekend, we read and looked over books on consent and astronomy, we chilled in the backyard and checked on
MAY 2019
Autistic Unschooling by Joanna De La Torre/@chill0na
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
our plants. We had an ongoing conversation about what consent is and we went over definitions of words J didn’t know or understand. We shared our feelings and talked about how being angry/upset doesn’t necessarily make you a mean person. Somebody who says/does something cruel to or to make fun of someone else is what being mean means. One of these days I actually got out and ran some errands on my own. Alone time is mandatory for this autistic, now unschooler. I still did things, I say, no matter how much I try to compare myself to other people’s ways of work and life. The magical and difficult part of being an unschooling autistic parent is still managing and caring for our families even on extremely difficult days/weeks/hell, months. It might not look pretty or organized, it may be an entire mess and there will be tears and being upset for a while. Maybe there is a lot of help from the kid/dos or some loved ones. Maybe there is a ton of physical and mental space while somebody or all of us are decompressing and saving our spoons for a better day. Autistic unschooling has been freeing. Inch by inch, I’m doing away with perfectionism and these modes of controlling everything, specifically those things that could never be contained anyway (like the humans we care for). Instead, I pay attention to our efforts. Our rituals. Our practices. When I first came upon that excerpt by John Holt “to trust children…” years back, I had no idea where that vision I experienced reading it would take us to. It’s overwhelming. To glimpse at Love becoming expansive and then, make a burrow just for us.
I created an Instagram account early this year to seek and build community with other disabled BIPOC in self-directed education (SDE) specifically for my location in the Inland Empire, which is in California. What is SDE, you might be asking. Well, the Alliance for Self-Directed Education defines SDE as “education that derives from the self-chosen activities and life experiences of the person being educated, whether or not those activities were chosen deliberately for the purpose of education.” My personal definition would include that those ‘self-chosen activities and experiences’ can happen anywhere: at home, with family, with community, at self-directed learning based schools and centers, at the pace the individual requires and may include curriculum at any points in time. The difference in this need and desire for structure is based on the person who is learning and who would be a part of creating this structure, which differs greatly from mainstream schooling structures and for some homeschooling curriculum. I would also add to my personal definition that SDE will have us unlearn schoolish (a term I first learned from Akilah Richards) patterns and decolonize education practices especially for disabled BIPOC who’ve more likely been stripped away from any and/or all autonomy and cultural ways to knowledge. I started the account because I need connection and relationships that prioritizes some major pieces in my life – raising children and SDE. I desire relationships and community that are in my vicinity because I’m tired of knowing that if I’m researching for (practically anything but) any specific meetings, groups/collectives, schools, workshops or learning centers, I’ll more than likely find them in/closer to Los Angeles county, Orange County or somewhere else in southern California.
MAY 2019
Disabled Black, Indigenous and People of Color in Self-Directed Education in the Inland Empire by Joanna De La Torre/@disabled.bipoc.in.sde
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
Rarely ever in the IE location I reside in or in other areas because to be honest, the ‘IE’ could mean a very vast area, if all of San Bernardino and Riverside counties are included. I don’t know how far this vision and work will go and lead me. That will certainly depend on my persistence and anyone else’s who wants to help make this group effort. It became apparent that I had to begin this path where I am and with whatever I have. I started the IG page so that local families of color and disabled people in SDE could find me and the group vision thru digital space. I also make weekly attempts (I’m not great at this so far, if I’m honest) to visit the park with my son and invite folks to join us with hope that this creates the in-person relationships, that brings us together so that we can talk about what we want from this group and what is needed within our communities that we can help cultivate. I hope this community support and work leads into some solid friendships, support networks, building our own learning spaces, co-ops. One thing I’d absolutely love to help organize and see grow is a care work collective for disabled people of all ages. For our families of course because it’s absolutely necessary that we take care of ourselves, that we rest and get some breaks from our families but to also create this care collective for other disabled families of color outside of our SDE circles. I’d love to see this disabled care work and access being developed at the workshops, conferences, zine fests, book fairs, and other events where we usually see any typical childcare provided (that is, if any childcare is provided to begin with). These are some of my big visions for starting up this page and group. All of this work is connected. Disabled people of color in self-directed education (especially if you’re unschooling mostly from home) in my area deserve fulfilling relationships, support in all the ways that are needed. Our whole families deserve
I believe in this work. I know there are more people, families and communities longing for this and want to help bring it together. While my dreams are big, I believe in our realities as well. I want to do this inch by inch with you. I can’t do any of this without you. Want to connect? Follow @disabled.bipoc.in.sde on Instagram or email me: jojoscircus@pm.me.
MAY 2019
respect, care and the space to be themselves and receive some actual rest that is not an afterthought.
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neurologically and existentially queer philosophically queer i can hear the echoes of my family’s warnings in my mind “kalash booye qorma sabzi mide” “sahands head smells like qorma sabzi” ur neurology is a threat to the arbaab, the malik, the mamlekat of settlers, “royalty” and small-time capitalists if they hear u talk they’ll know ur only faydeh, ur only use to them, is to be fried up with greens and beans in a delicious curry “hasas i” “sahands sensitive” u r too sensitive, the violence they do to us harms u in a way that makes u crazy and want to fight back “saresh o mindaze payīn mire” “sahand throws their head down and goes” u don’t think enough about how u being urself, u acting liberated, is going to put all of our safety in jeopardy “naslemoono avaz kardan” they ethnically cleansed us “bache haaro az madar pedareshoon joda kardan” they separated children from their parents “movazeb nabashi mindazanet zendan ya bachehato azat migiran” if ur not careful they will take your kids and throw u in jail this “they” that seems so ambiguous - i know exactly who they are the arbaab (the plantation owner) the dolat (the government) the sarmaye daran (the petty capitalists) when asian and african folks look down their nose at me and my face tattoos, my unashamed nakedness, my love of dirt and grass and insects crawling in my hair, and my relaxed attitude towards my kids, and under the breath say things like “kufar” (atheist), “vahshi” (wild), “heyvan” (animal), “f3she” (whore), “djinni” (demon),
MAY 2019
Decolonizing Parenting by Sahand Azaad/@dehati666
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
they say i have “bohran-i hoviyat”, a personality disorder that keeps me from conforming to my society. i know their sense of respectability grew out of fear. out of having to discard their dehati-ness, their jungli-ness, their “tribal” ways to survive, to seem respectable enough to avoid death. i sympathize but i also don’t give a fuck! regeneration is overrated aare (yes), i am a deev, a djinn, proud and queer and begging for change in front of the dukan aare, i let my kids walk barefoot when it won’t hurt their feet aare, i’m letting my kids grow however they want and yes, i’m telling them all about the violence and abuse that’s led up to where and who we are, aare, i still tattoo and pierce my face the way our ancestors did, jungli and unashamed, a proud deev baba, passing the tradition on to my toxme jinn (demon seeds)
MAY 2019
Dev by Sahand Azaad/@dehati666
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
MAY 2019
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
All The Single Mothers by Maria Teresa Carmier/@jambalayamami For the strange girls, teen moms, femmes, gnc and Trans single mothers of color : We deserve love so deep it’s extremely fulfilling and overflowing and while the uninformed public will try to have you believe otherwise, fuck them. do not ever believe that for one second that we do not have the right to exist equally and be respected. For the last year i’ve processed a self collected gallery of images that engage in a negative dialogue of the poor stereotypes about single mothers. It’s very triggering but my goal here is to confront it and engage in conversation with these collective images as a way to unpack it and process it together. First of all, these images are in no way accurate depictions of mothers. i decided not to show them for fear of triggering and No mother deserves this kind of projections and fuck you if you ever said some shit about a momma, someone being a mother with different baby daddies, gay moms, trans moms. fuck you. To set the tone, I want to share My favorite poem from Cynthia Dewi-Oka in an excerpt from Revolutionary Mothering. It reads : “I want to assasinate every man who’s ever fucked a mama just to see if her pussy’s still tight how much her dignity costs Whether the pain of labor softens her face” Now. Absorb it.
don’t no body give a fuck about a single mom. says a woman bothered by me trying to put my infant in the car as she waits impatiently for me to close my door. the single mom hate is real. and fuck if i haven’t cried about it too many times to count. i’ve not been able to fully over come with the help of medication, therapy, prayer,ceremony, and love but i’m trying hard because i met someone soft and gentle. and my heart flutters when i’m around them. and i smile with glee when i think of them. and i cry with pain when i think of how i’ll fuck it up. and i cry with pain when i tell my therapist how bad i want this but fear deeply yet cry my way out the hole. because i know i deserve this love. it may not be from him forever, but i am experiencing an attempt at forever. so where do we go from here? make community. find a group of moms and fucking love the hell out of them and fucking become a force.
MAY 2019
This has been a serious 3 year process. i’m still processing constantly but these images no longer haunt me as i am actively pursuing a romantic fulfilling emotional and physical loving nurtuing experience with someone i care for deeply enough to call my partner. when i got pregnant at 21 i had friends surrounding me who aided in these negative beliefs about mothers, mothering, single mother while black and latina. recently i went to a mothers in academia conference where I found a moment to mourn being single. i never had the intention to be that. i find myself stumbling over the confession for fear of what a potential partner might think of me and my choices and the fear of never being loved because of it. or how the voice of my father still reigns loudly when he said who’s going to want a ready made family. or when my brother and sister berated me and said you let a child molester into your house in front of my kids. or when she texted me to kill myself and asked me to apologize for ruining her life because i forwarded the text to her mom.
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
trying to love on the spectrum and being disabled is challenging but it’s possible. we out here trying to figure it out. am i here. am i there. do i believe this. do i think this. is this true about moms.
counter the narrative show up and be you. respond to rejection by being even more you. love out loud. and focus on the love wherever it comes from.
MAY 2019
Meet Mx. Semee by Se’mana Thompson/@mxsemee
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
MAY 2019
Unschooler/Deschooler Life by Se’mana Thompson/@mxsemee
DECOLONIZING PARENTING
I Am Them by Viveka Frost/@moisanom
JOANNA DE LA TORRE (she/her/hers) is a brown cis lesbian femme artist, writer, caregiver and unschooling mama living in the Inland Empire of southern California, in ongoing occupied Tongva land. Jo writes prose and poetry and publishes her own zine The Heart We Grew. SAHAND AZAAD (they/them) is a queer/trans-autistic kurdi writer and artist relocated from rojhelat to ohlone land. VIVEKA FROST, coming from a multiracial background, is a documentarian filmmaker and photographer. With her Indigenous Venezuelan and Afro-Latinx roots, Viveka is passionately addressing Indigenous issues, such as identity, stereotypes, decolonization, and cultural isolation.
EDITORS MARIA TERESA CARMIER (they/them/she/her) is a queer afroindigenamexicana mama, artist, poet and zinester from South Los Angeles. They have a BA in Fine Art from Mount Saint Mary’s University-Los Angeles. SE’MANA THOMPSON (they/them) is an Akimel Otham artist + zine maker, curator of The People’s Zine Library (a tiny lending library of 120+ zines by BIPOC), and teaches queer #AutisticAndNative #ADHDandNative unschooling to their two children. They all live together amongst the Pee Posh on Pee Posh and Akimel O’Otham Jeved.
MAY 2019
CONTRIBUTORS