The
Chosen Family Issue
WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME
HOME HOME HOME HOME HOME
Letter from the editor Family is this odd concept that can seem so simple for one person to explain but difficult for someone else. The truth is, family comes in all colors, shapes, and sizes, and it’s not restricted to who you’re related to. As an avid fan of animation, I often think of a quote from Moral Orel, a show that ran on Adult Swim in the mid-2000s that is very dear to me. “What is family?” asks one character during a sermon. “Well, a lot of times, family is just a bunch of people who are forced to be together just because they came out of each other, but every so often...a miracle happens. A loving family, just like that—out of nowhere. Now, what causes this? A belief in God, a strong moral structure, blind luck? Who knows? Who cares?” It doesn’t matter. To me, family is about the people you choose to surround yourself with, whether they’re related to you or not. Family is experiences, places and feelings. Family is love. We hope you enjoy these submissions that celebrate and share the love of the families in our lives.
In Solidarity,
Vanessa L. Sanchez Editor-in-Chief, Siren Magazine
3
Our Family Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Sanchez Print Content Editor Kiana Nadonza General Assistant Keely Miller Visual Design Coordinators Jennifer Mendez Kimberly Harris Head of Photography Allison Barr Digital Content Executives Sally Nguyen Anette Rodriguez-Rojas Marketing Director Alex Dalton Public Relations Director Pilar Willis Special Thanks Fatima Roohi Pervaiz Karyn Schultz Kiva Hanson
4
Table of Contents 11 11 33 33 44 44 55 55 77 77 88 88 99 99 11 11 11 11 13 13 13 13 16 16 16 16 17 17 17 17 21 21 21 21 5
Welcome Home - Kimberly Harris Letter from the Editor Our Family Table of Contents Blood and Water - Makaal W. The Many Faces of a Family - Makaal W. The Family that Built Me - Rhonda M. Neal It's You... - Aliya Page From Fellow Survivors to Family - Keely Miller Resources for Survivors of Sexual Violence Escaping the Alt-Right & Finding Your Chosen Family K.R. Smith Home is Wherever He Lives - Sally Nguyen
6
blood and water makaal w.
friends are water. family is blood. right? supposedly blood is thicker, more important than water, yet i need both for survival. but, my blood is toxic. so i find water and turn it into blood, because i am divine. i gravitate towards people who fill the void. i fiend for traits in people, so i may collect the missing pieces. wanting them to fit together like a puzzle, each one fitting perfectly as though they were made for each other. luckily it will never be perfect, because i want water. not a replica of the toxic blood i’m rooted in.
8
THE FAMILY THAT BUILT ME RHONDA M. NEAL Yelling. Arguments. Drama. Hurt. Abandonment. Jealousy. Resentment. Hatred. Devastation. If you grew up in my household, these are the things that created a family. At a young age, I was shown how unreliable and heartbreaking the ones you’re supposed to be able to count on can be. I developed an anxiety disorder before age 10, and by 17 I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, among other things. I felt no family in the sense that it seemed everyone around me did. My family didn’t have unwavering love or support. It had no togetherness or teamwork. My family was simply a group of people who shared genes. As a young child, I fell in love with music and the events and feelings described within it. I opened my ears to the sound of Whitney Houston and the Jackson 5, to Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, to Snoop Dogg and Eminem, to Shakira and Beyonce, to Nirvana and Green Day. I listened to these artists and musicians, all different, create works of art that either inspired me or made me feel less alone.
9
Music became my real family. It taught me what love should and should not be. It was always there for me—it calmed me down and soothed me to sleep. It grew with me, while guiding me at the same time. These days, it’s the voices of G-Eazy, Blackbear and Amy Winehouse. The lyrics of Lana del Rey, The 1975 and Lorde. The music of Mac Miller, the Neighbourhood and twenty one pilots. The support of Panic! at the Disco, Nicki Minaj and Halsey. This is my family. A large group of misfit toys, wallflowers, Miss Independents, hurt souls and abandoned children. I may not share DNA with them, or even know any of them on a personal level, but they’re my family. They pick me up when I’m down. They never look down on me. They keep me alive. You see, maybe it’s not music for you—maybe it’s movies or friends or sports or school—but real family isn’t just genes shared between people. Family is love, and hope and your safe space. Family should be all of these things and it sucks, oh my god, I know it sucks when our biological family isn’t those things. That doesn’t mean we don’t have family, we just find ours in different ways and in different places. We all have a family in something or somewhere or someone. No matter what it feels like right now.
10
Aliya Page
It’s y It’s you that I
Only you can c Only you can
Only you can tel
We are not bonded by blood but rather by the
11
It’s you...
It’s you that I call when I receive good news you that I think about at the lowest points of my day I am constantly missing now that I’m back at school It’s you that I wish were here It’s you that I can’t live without Why? Because
cheer me up when I think everything is falling apart n remind me why I’m here, and convince me to stay Only you can miss me as much as I miss you ll me you’re proud of me and make me believe you Only you can give me a reason to keep pushing Only you can talk me off that bridge It really is you You inspire me You made me who I am You love me unconditionally You give me a reason to live unfathomable amounts of love we give each other You are my family
12
From Fellow Survivors to Family Keely Miller
Content Warning: Sexual Assault When I began to come to terms with the fact that I had been sexually assaulted, I felt entirely detached from my usual support system. The shame and fear that grew within me when the memories started to surface were nearly unbearable. I felt stuck in my isolation for several months. I told one person about my trauma, and they were supportive, but I continued to feel alienated from my family as they had no idea what I was going through. Eventually though, I did tell my mom and she has been a source of great comfort even if she does not totally understand all that I am going through. I have gradually told other people in my life, which has also been cathartic. I still feel distance from these people though. This has continued to be hard on me but I have found an alternative support system. Around the same time I told my mom I joined a support group for survivors. There were three other survivors in the group when I initially joined. We spent the following two months supporting one another as we each processed our respective traumatic experiences. Over the many weeks that we met as a group, I was still feeling seriously isolated, struggling in school and interpersonal relationships as I navigated my own trauma. Showing up for group every week was not easy. I was left emotionally spent and raw each time. After a brief break, we started meeting again, and the group grew to nine members. At this point, I was in a much better place as an individual. I had been seeing a psychiatrist and 13
a psychologist, and I had been taking it a lot easier with school. I was able to engage more fully with the group and within a few weeks, I felt a stronger connection with these people than I had felt with anyone in a long time. They were a new group of friends. By the end, we confidently felt that we were a family. I am not surprised that I bonded with them because connecting over trauma and tragedy is not uncommon. However, a year ago, when I was just starting to come to terms with my assault, I could not foresee any positivity coming out of it. When I was stuck feeling entirely alone, I could not foresee myself having anyone by my side. The eight people that I met through the group came into my life in one of my darkest moments, but it is so encouraging that something so pure and special could come out of such ugly experiences. In the final meeting of the group, every one of us received eight personal notes from our fellow group members. All of these messages are so special to me. Every day I see the notes on my bedroom wall and am reminded of us sitting in a circle and sharing our love and appreciation for one another. I see those notes and am reminded that I have a group of friends that I can always turn to. Most of all, I see those notes and am reminded that I am not alone in what I am going through. I have no hesitation when I call them family. Maybe they’re not family like my mom and sister are family, but they have given me all the things I seek from a family: love, support, comfort and validation. 14
Of course, I still struggle with my trauma, but it is helpful to see the notes on my wall and remember the family I’ve gained. Now, when I am feeling lonely or I am affected by something someone says or by something I read in the news, I know that I have a support system to turn to. Knowing that there are people in my life that can relate to and empathize with my experiences helps me feel like I am not going through this alone. I just had to make the choice to seek out this support system, and it just so happens that I gained a family.
15
Resources for survivors of sexual violence National Sexual Assault Hotline (800)-656-HOPE https://hotline.rainn.org/online Sexual Assault Support Services of Lane County https://sass-lane.org/ University of Oregon SAFE Hotline (541)-346-SAFE https://safe.uoregon.edu/
16
ESCAPING THE ALT-RIGHT & FINDING YOUR CHOSEN FAMILY k.r. smith
Indoctrination, or “brainwashing,” is perhaps the biggest threat to social equality that exists today. We are all familiar with the idea that hatred is taught and that intolerance is bred from within the family to which one is born. However, something that we rarely consider is how some individuals can escape from the path of hatred and intolerance despite being taught to fear and ridicule the “Other.” By sharing my experiences with overcoming a severely sexist, racist, homophobic, and politically conservative indoctrination, I hope that I will be able to persuade others to do the same—and to show that nobody is a lost cause. As feminists, we should seek out individuals who may be questioning their taught beliefs and values in an effort to help them realize a more tolerant and accepting worldview. Sometimes, your biological family is awful. For example, I was raised by a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan which, as I’m sure you can imagine, was quite the racist upbringing. In addition, my family adhered to strict Southern-Baptist beliefs. This meant condemning homosexuality, forbidding sex before marriage, denying the possibility of divorce (even in cases of domestic abuse) and as a woman it meant submitting fully to the authority and superiority of all men. I was pushed to sing at fundraisers for “crisis pregnancy centers” without even knowing what they were and, of course, I had to speak out against abortion. I was encouraged to join the Teenage Republicans group at my high school and I was discouraged from questioning any of my father’s beliefs. I learned to speak Spanish while being taught at home that immigrants were bad for our society and that everyone in the U.S. should speak English exclusively. Luckily for me, falling in love with the Spanish language and the many cultures of Latin America would save me
17
18
from my fraught family life and allow me the opportunity to get a college education and escape the alt-right belief system with which I had been raised. The process of radical unlearning was not easy. In fact, I had to sacrifice relationships with the majority of my family as I became more and more aware of their racism, hatred and hypocrisy. I am now an extremely liberal-minded, bisexual, pro-choice, sex-positive divorcee who fled an abusive marriage; and as hard as it has been to lose my family, I wouldn’t change anything about the person I have become. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is to break the bonds with people who negatively impact you. This is what feminist theorist Sara Ahmed calls a “feminist snap.” In her book Living a Feminist Life, Ahmed shares a very similar story of breaking ties with her father over ideological differences and she urges readers to understand this as a positive experience: “And now, when I tell people this story, they think I am telling them a sad story, a story of how the relationship between a father and a daughter came to a sorry end; a story of the severing of a family bond. So often people are sorry; they are even sorry for me. But for me, this part of the story is not the sad part. For me, this point, the snap, was not the sad point. It was rather, a relief from pressure.“1 I similarly have come to appreciate my estrangement from my father and his family as a positive act of self-care, one that has allowed me to grow, change, learn and live my life as an intersectional feminist. I no longer feel guilty for breaking those bonds. I know that it was a necessary step in my identity development. 19
I share all of this personal information as proof that change is possible. Racist, sexist, homophobic and bigoted indoctrination can be overcome and there is critical work that we can do as feminists to help this process along. However, as we evolve, we may find that fewer and fewer of our relatives understand us. Fewer and fewer will want to engage with us. That is why finding your chosen family is so important! It is easy to feel isolated, experience grief at the loss of family ties and believe that nobody understands you now that your beliefs have changed. The good news is, there are people like me out here who have gone through this before and I can tell you with certainty it gets better! Seek out like-minded people—especially those who have been on their own journey for longer than you have—and form a chosen family. Create friendships that build you up, make connections with people who are different from you and never stop the process of radically unlearning your internal biases.
1. Ahmed, 194. 20
HOME IS WHEREVER HE LIVES Home is the smell of fish and mud. Home is filled with motorcycles and no helmets. Home is drinks in plastic bags tied by rubber bands. Home is eating raw sugar cane. Home is arguments and broken promises. Home is the sleepless nights not at home. Home is shattered glass and spilt milk. Home is not at home.
Home is the house next door. Home is leaving the family, to find a new one. Home is immigrating to a new country. Home is building a new life outside of home. Home is wherever he lives. Home is wherever I live. Home is wherever we live.
SALLY NGUYEN
Submit
sirenwc@gmail.com thesirenmag.com
@sirenmag @sirenmagazine @sirenmagazine