Me Too

Mind you these are the sexual assaults I remember the most. They begin when I’m five—by an uncle and it lasts for a while. At nine, a soldier who works with my father comes visiting with his family—he sticks his tongue out, flicks it, and licks his lips whenever he catches my eye during a backyard BBQ. At twelve, a neighbor rubs himself against my backside. That same year, American soldiers catcall me as I ride my bike to the library; once there I’m afraid to leave so the librarian escorts me halfway home. At fifteen an old man presses up behind me and places a gnarled hand on my pelvis as I wait in a crush of people to get on a Ferris wheel during my hometown’s fiestas patronales (to this day I hate being in a crowd). A cousin peeps in through a bathroom window as I shower at seventeen. While a student at the University of Puerto Rico a hand is shoved between my legs one morning as I walk to class. Unavoidable men hanging out on street corners force me to walk through gauntlets of sexual harassment every day. I fend off the hands of supposed friends—their touch feels wrong. An English professor offers money for sex; men call me puta after sex; and then there’s the date rape. I’ve worked with many assholes that thought it their God-given right to offer lascivious comments and inappropriate touches. And I kept quiet, silenced by shame, afraid of the pushback because heaven forbid one should talk back since what are you but a female, a whore, a vagina? It takes courage to speak up.

On 14th Street/Union Square NYC

If you’re a writer it pays to be awake as you wander through life, eyes and ears open to the stories that are everywhere, even if this awareness of place and space is informed just as well by the desire to be safe. I love walking in New York City. Besides my Brooklyn neighborhood, one of my favorite places to walk is up 14^th Street starting at First Avenue and heading west. Every time I do, I have the most interesting encounters.

Recently, I noticed a couple walking hand-in-hand across Third Avenue. The woman was heavily pregnant, heavy as in she seemed about to give birth, and maybe not to just one baby. Her lips and nose were swollen, her hair disheveled, and she looked fed-up and tired with the business of being pregnant. I felt a quick sympathy since I know what it’s like to be ponderous with child and want to take back control of one’s body. A glance at the man leading her across the avenue revealed he had a wide-eyed startled look on his face; it was a cross between embarrassed and scared; a cross between startled rabbit and deer caught in head-lights; a cross between, yes, I’m responsible for that belly, and what the hell have I done. It was a funny and tender scene.

Further up 14^th Street, I came across a homeless man. He looked like life had dealt him a rough hand; he was grizzled and sunburnt, sitting on the sidewalk, back slumped against a building as if in defeat; his face was almost completely covered by poorly done spider web tattoos. After I passed him, I wondered what tattoo artist would agree to do that to someone’s face?

Past the homeless man, and in complete contrast, I encountered an attractive young woman sauntering up the sidewalk in a wispy, light colored dress that revealed a couple of well-done tattoos scattered about her body; I admired a lovely palm tree etched above an ankle before I began to listen in on the loud phone conversation she was having. “What are you doing this weekend?” she asked the cell in front of her face. A young-voiced male responded that on Saturday he was going to see Cool and the Gang at B.B. King’s, and on Sunday he was going into Brooklyn to a house party. “Give me a call when you head back,” she replied. I continued my trek towards the Farmer’s Market at Union Square, leaving her behind, thinking that maybe she was interested in him, but he was playing hard to get. Then I heard her say, “I’m not wearing underwear,” as if commenting on the weather, and then add, “I feel like such a slut.” I was so startled by the revelation that I had to stop, while she continued her languorous walk up 14^th Street, cell phone still held in front of her mouth. I dutifully pulled out the notebook I carry around for moments such as these and began to write. I wasn’t waiting to get home to do it—I’ve learned that lesson well.

I wonder if anyone notices how every once in a while an older woman dressed in workout clothes suddenly stops on 14^th Street to scribble furiously in a small notebook? And if they do, what stories about her, if any, flit through their thoughts?

 

 

Love Is A Struggle

ZulmaWrites

Our next-door neighbor calls my husband Joseph and me “the love birds” when he sees us holding hands, or with arms intertwined, or sharing a laugh as we come and go about our daily business. Today is our thirty-third wedding anniversary and we’ll be celebrating as we like to do to mark special days in our relationship; like our serendipitous meeting thirty-seven years ago in Old San Juan; like my getting on an airplane a year and half later to come live in New York City, with a suitcase full of inappropriate clothes and shoes, a box of books, my favorite blanket, and nostalgia for my island; like our wedding three years later in a small apartment on the Upper West Side surrounded by our closest friends and my mother and sisters.

In the late nineties, Joe was asked to give a toast at his brother’s wedding. This is where…

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Love Is A Struggle

Our next-door neighbor calls my husband Joseph and me “the love birds” when he sees us holding hands, or with arms intertwined, or sharing a laugh as we come and go about our daily business. Today is our thirty-third wedding anniversary and we’ll be celebrating as we like to do to mark special days in our relationship; like our serendipitous meeting thirty-seven years ago in Old San Juan; like my getting on an airplane a year and half later to come live in New York City, with a suitcase full of inappropriate clothes and shoes, a box of books, my favorite blanket, and nostalgia for my island; like our wedding three years later in a small apartment on the Upper West Side surrounded by our closest friends and my mother and sisters.

In the late nineties, Joe was asked to give a toast at his brother’s wedding. This is where Joe quite seriously said (in our family it’s become a favorite aphorism), that “love is a struggle.” His words provoked startled laughter from the wedding guests who turned to look my way with amused glances as if I were the cause of it all. As it happens, those words have gained more and more relevance as the years have passed. We’ve persisted through our troubles to grow as individuals while being a couple and parents, sometimes one’s growth outpacing the other’s, but eventually getting to where we need to be to move forward in a way that honors who we are. So yes, love is a struggle in so many ways. We’ve been fortunate: I knock on wood, offer prayers, give thanks everyday for the gifts I’ve been offered, and reaffirm my commitment to being fully present in my relationship, to live with joy, and above all, to cultivate a giving heart even when love is difficult.

An Epiphany on the L Train

Hell of a commute this rainy morning: people bugging because of the weather, subway platform in Brooklyn is stacked with hipsters, and the L train that pulls up, stuffed as usual. I squeeze in and find myself up and close with all these strangers and I can’t remember the last time I plucked my chin hairs. I resist taking out my cell and instead take a look around and have the horrible thought that this is the perfect target for a fucking terrorist to come blow himself up in the name of Allah—packed morning rush-hour train heading into the tunnel underneath the East River.  I  catch myself before panic gets a hold; this is not the last thought I want on my mind if the worst happens. I resist, changing my thought course, think of my family and begin to say I love Joe, I love Akela, I love Lucca, I love myself. I look around again and send out loving vibes to all. This is how I want to go when the time comes, not with fear but with loving thoughts. An epiphany on the L train. That’s how I reach my destination and then deal with the pissed off people trying to climb up out of the subway behind overweight ladies who are laboring to get themselves, and sometimes a suitcase, up those dammed stairs, and others trying to get down to make that train, huffing and puffing, and losing their patience because they can’t get through, and spraying everyone by accident on purpose as they close their wet umbrellas. But I insist on sending out love as I climb out of the subway relieved to see the rain.

Written in Blood: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“We read to know that we are not alone.” —William Nicholson

The most recent kerfuffle surrounding Sherman Alexie’s award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian got me thinking about how I have approached teaching this young adult novel to my middle and high school students. Recently, a middle-school principal in New York City removed the book from the school’s required summer reading list after parents protested that it was inappropriate. One parent went as far as to say, “It was like Fifty Shades of Grey for kids.” My snort of disbelief after reading this was followed by the realization—and here I must offer my most sincere apologies to Mr. Alexie—that I myself have been guilty of censoring parts of the book in my classroom.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was published to great acclaim in 2007, winning the prestigious National Book Award for Young Adult fiction that same year. It has garnered numerous other awards and in 2008 the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) listed it in its “Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults.” But the book has also created controversy. It has been banned in several states and removed from the shelves of middle and high schools—deemed pornographic, racist, and anti-Christian. Since 2010 it has remained on the American Library Association’s list of banned and challenged books in the United States along with the likes of J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

The book is about Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as Junior, who lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state. He decides to attend an all-white farm town high school, twenty-two miles from the “rez,” in order to get a better education. As Arnold points out, he’s the only Native American in the school besides the school mascot. The book is funny yet heartbreaking and deals with issues young people face today no matter their race, gender, or social/economic status. The part in the story that occasioned the outcry in NYC takes up about half a page of the book and it’s about masturbation. It is part of a chapter titled “Because Geometry Is Not a Country Somewhere Near France” in which the narrator explains his love of geometry and how isosceles triangles make him feel “hormonal.” Arnold then proceeds to assure the reader that he also likes curves, briefly veering off into the topic that alarms parents by admitting that he spends “hours in the bathroom with a magazine that has one thousand pictures of naked movie stars.” What follows is a funny and honest apologia for masturbation.

Yep, that’s right. I admit that I masturbate.
I’m proud of it.
I’m good at it.
I’m ambidextrous.
If there were a Professional Masturbation League, I’d get drafted number one and make millions of dollars.
And maybe you are thinking, “Well, you really shouldn’t be talking about masturbation in public.”
Well, tough. I’m going to talk about it because EVERYBODY does it. And EVERYBODY likes it.
And if God hadn’t wanted us to masturbate, then God wouldn’t have given us thumbs.
So I thank God for my thumbs.

This portrayal of teenage sexuality is frank and truthful. I can understand why it would make some makes parents and other adults uncomfortable, but to equate it with Fifty Shades of Grey is absurd and going a bit too far, especially when it results in yanking the book out of libraries and the hands of readers.

The Absolutely True Diary is about a fourteen-year-old’s experience with the complexities of race both within and outside of his community, and with the grinding effects that poverty, alcoholism, unemployment, domestic violence, gun violence, death, bullying, stereotypes, and lack of educational opportunities have on individuals, families, and the larger community. It is also a book about friendship, love, forgiveness, hope, the strength of family, and finding one’s place in the world. Above all, this book brings to life the stark reality of being a Native American today in the United States; it is not a pretty story.

From the moment Alexie’s book was published it became part of my middle school classroom library. It also became one of the books I read aloud to my classes every year and a student favorite. This is a book that engages students and makes them think. Despite the serious topics explored in the book, the narrator is irreverently funny and appealing to teenagers—he is someone they can relate to. Yet there I was cutting out the controversial passage for my 7th grade students not because I objected to the discussion of masturbation in a young adult book, but because I imagined a possible afterschool scene like the following:

Parent: “Anything interesting happen in school today?”
Child: “Ms. Ortiz read this crazy book to the whole class where the boy masturbates.”

I could then visualize the outraged parent calling the principal, the DOE, and the media to complain about the use of “inappropriate” materials in the classroom, or even worse, accusing me of being inappropriate. It makes me shudder just to think about it.

I no longer cut out the aforementioned passage because I teach high school now. Students at times respond with embarrassed laughs when I read that part, but mostly they are captivated by Arnold’s struggles and adventures. Rather than being banned in schools, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian should be required reading in history classes. Before being exposed to the book, most of my students were unaware that Native Americans live on reservations throughout the United States, and that these reservations have some of the highest rates of alcoholism, poverty, unemployment, suicide, domestic and sexual violence, diabetes and other health related problems in the country.

In a 2011 Wall Street Journal blogpost titled, “Why the Best Kids Books are Written in Blood,” Alexie explains the rationale behind the controversial topics he writes about:

I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.

This is why my students understand Arnold’s struggles and why this book is a favorite—they live his struggles also.

Comfort Reading

How do we cope when the world around us is seemingly going crazy? How do we grapple with the daily stream of horrific events we are confronted with, one more gruesome than the other: the Newtown school massacre, the gang-rape on a bus in New Delhi, the Boston Marathon bombing, the  Bangladeshi factory collapse, the ten-year sexual slavery of three young women in Cleveland . . . the list goes on and on. How do we get up every morning to greet the new day, raise our families, smile, and practice compassion when faced with a never-ending supply of tragedy? It’s enough to make one lose faith in humanity, to sink into despair.

We all have different ways of dealing with stress and grief. One can ignore the onslaught of bad news, or instead pray, meditate, or join action groups to create more awareness about issues like gun-control, violence against women and children, and work-place safety, just to name a few. But more immediately, we can also turn to books. And yes, while it is a rather simplistic coping mechanism, never underestimate the power of a good book. I’ve written before that books are my refuge, especially in those moments when my spirit needs solace. Specifically, I read books with HEAs—happily ever after endings. While I read widely and eclectically, sometimes I just need to read a book where I am guaranteed that in the end love will prevail, and the forces of good will overcome evil. These books are the perfect antidotes to the horrors of every day life.

I’m especially a fan of books with smart badass heroines, like Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, who can take care of themselves and others. Another favorite comfort read is the young-adult Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. The six-book series has what it takes to supply a life-affirming dose of comfort when needed—a strong female lead who can kick ass, forbidden romance, sexy vampires, action, suspense, angst, and best of all, a happy ending.  What about you? Do you have comfort reads?

Searching for Hilarity in the Classroom

Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.—Japanese proverb

During a recent bout of spring cleaning, I was pulling out a plethora of long forgotten objects from my night table drawer—extra buttons, lip balm, cough drops, a variety of skin lotions, and such—when at the very bottom I came upon this long-forgotten thank-you letter from a former middle-school student.

There are many things that thrilled me about this letter—the most notable being that the student claims I helped her become a better reader and writer, which is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing as an English teacher. But it was the following two lines that made me feel immensely satisfied and happy, “I think you are a really great teacher because you make learning fun. You are hilarious also.”  There is no better praise or evaluation than from a student at the end of an academic school year. Apropos of the current debate regarding teacher evaluations— what better evaluation than from a student? Do school officials take into consideration these kinds of things when evaluating a teacher?

The letter got me thinking about the role of laughter in learning. Making learning fun is not an easy thing, and one of the best qualities a teacher can have is the ability to do just that. It is a challenge to come up with creative lesson plans that will engage students on a daily basis. Teachers have a difficult role in the classroom, but I also sympathize with students who yearn to be anywhere else but stuck in a classroom where “learning” is boring, repetitive, and seemingly useless. Effective teachers are constantly looking for ways to engage students and meet the “standards” creatively because there is nothing worse than having a classroom full of students who don’t see the point of what you are teaching. It’s not a pretty sight when students become bored—all sorts of mayhem can ensue!

I was especially gratified that a student deemed me “hilarious.” Teacher education programs should include a class on the importance of humor in the classroom. It’s the best way to capture students’ attention—it can create a positive atmosphere, and diffuse tense situations. Using humor sensitively can turn things around and resolve the thorniest of issues.  Some of my students’ lives outside of school are difficult so that making them laugh while they are in my class is an accomplishment, the same sense of accomplishment that comes from getting them to read a challenging text or write a well-developed and supported essay.

I get a kick out of hearing students crack up when I mess around with them, like when I say “Dude, pull your pants up!” or “Girl, cover up those chichis”! Or when I tell a funny story about my own life to illustrate a point I am making with regards to a lesson. Positive humor can keep an audience enthralled, be it small children, adolescents, or adults. It is challenging to stand in front of a class of thirty students and keep their attention on you while directing a lesson. Many times I find my students are focused on me just simply waiting to hear what funny thing is going to come out of my mouth next. I’ll take that if it gets the job done.  In my book, being deemed hilarious is great praise indeed.

Writing Like Sandra Cisneros

When English teachers choose a mentor author and a text for writing lessons they do not have to look further than Sandra Cisneros and her short story collection The House on Mango Street. Cisneros’s collection, first published in 1984, has become a favorite in classrooms across the U.S. and around the world—it has sold six million copies and been published in twenty languages. There is no better author to teach writers how to mine the stories we all have inside us, and how to use poetic and descriptive language to get those stories across. In fact, I want to write like Sandra Cisneros.

I want to write something like, “She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow” (“My Name”). Wow! I want to write something this vivid and profound. Can you imagine this woman? Is her story familiar? Cisneros is writing about her grandmother, but this is my mother, my grandmother, and my aunts, too. I want to tell their stories and my story along the way. I’m working on it.

Cisneros’s is a brilliant book to use as a mentor text in writing and reading workshops. I have used “My Name” to launch a personal essay assignment on names—how we got them, their significance, and the stories behind them. Another story, “Those Who Don’t,” can be used to initiate a conversation about racism and how people view communities of color. Yet another, “Hairs,” describes varied hair types within a family, celebrating with lyrical language the differences among the family members. It is a story that can be used to show how descriptive language can make something as common and simple as hair seem magical, and allows readers to visualize and use their five senses. The House on Mango Street is also a favorite among students, especially girls. It is a gem; a must in every English classroom.

“Eleven” from the collection Woman Hollering Creek is another favorite of mine. Each time I read it to my students I marvel at its artistry and craft. Here’s the opening sentence:

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.

It is a challenge to read this sentence aloud, but I relish doing it every time. The story is beautiful and heartbreaking as is “Salvador Late or Early” from the same collection. Salvador, who helps his mama with his “string of younger brothers,” whose throat must “clear itself and apologize each time it speaks,” and who inhabits “that forty-pound body of boy with its geography of scars, its history of hurt,” will haunt you long after you have finished the story. If you have never read Sandra Cisneros, don’t wait any longer. You can learn more about this author by listening to a recent WNYC interview with Leonard Lopate.

As for me, I continue in my quest to write something as precise as “Salvador with eyes the color of caterpillar, Salvador of the crooked hair and the crooked teeth, Salvador whose name the teacher cannot remember. . . .”

Resistant Readers

When students tell me they hate reading, I no longer react in shock or dismay as I did at the beginning of my teaching career. During my years of teaching middle and high school English, I have heard this sentiment repeatedly from low-income and minority New York City students.  I sense that many struggling students are traumatized by the idea of reading. While their lack of skills may have diverse explanations, this resistance is a defense mechanism developed over the course of their academic lives. Reading terrifies them. I’d also be terrified of books if I were a fifteen-year-old who could only read at a third or fourth grade level. For a bibliophile like me, the idea that books can inspire fear and dread, rather than excitement and wonder, is heart-breaking.

As the cultural critic Henry Giroux has noted, students’ resistance to learning is one of the few displays of power that they can claim in the classroom—they can simply shut down, withdraw, and resist. As a response to this resistance, I work assiduously to create a strong culture of reading and writing in my classroom that is respectful of all skills and abilities. I try to make reading as appealing as possible. On the wall outside my classroom door I keep a poster with the title and author of the book I am currently reading. Upon entering, students find themselves surrounded by books arranged attractively all around the room by genre and for easy access. I have made it a point throughout my career to amass a classroom library that gives me and my students’ pleasure. It is important to have high interest young adult books that will lure students into reading. I have also made it my mission to know what books are in the library, to read as many of them as I can, and learn my students’ reading levels and interests so I can suggest books they can dive into.

Knowing that this is probably the only time they can or will read for an extended period, I set up daily non-negotiable reading time in class. What I never do is tell a student they are at a particular reading level and can only read books at that level. This is the surest way to turn students off to reading even more than they already are. No teenager wants to be seen reading elementary school level books. It is also okay to let a student struggle with a book, especially if it is one that everyone else is reading. I make sure I support that student in a variety of ways during this process.

One surefire way to hook students into reading is by reading aloud to them. I have yet to encounter a student who doesn’t like being read to. My best teaching experiences have been reading aloud books like The Outsiders, Animal Farm, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sold, Black and White, Seedfolks, Twelve Angry Men, and many others. The discussions generated are always insightful, the writing in response to the books is inspired, and the skills taught while I read and stop to think aloud and share my thoughts are what students take to their own independent reading experience.

Another way I teach a love of reading is to read alongside my students for part of the reading time. I make no bones about my own passion for reading. My students realize at the beginning of the school year that independent reading time is sacred. They learn to value this time and to behave in ways that do not interrupt the reading experience. I also maintain a reading notebook, just like I ask my students to. The notebook is a place to keep track of the reading experience and where the reader can make her/his work visible. The reading notebook, my own and individual students’, can be used to teach quick lessons. For example, one of the first reading lessons I teach is that “Reading is thinking” followed by “Readers read with their minds turned on.” In my notebook, I keep track of the thinking I am doing as I read and share that with students.

I used to assign reading homework but realized that many of my students’ lives outside of school are not conducive to accomplishing this work: some students work after school; others go home to take care of siblings and may not have a quiet place to read; or more depressingly, home is a place where reading is not valued. Instead, I require kids to always have a book with them so they are ready to read whenever the opportunity arises—on the train to and from school, during lunch, at the library afterschool, or whenever they have a substitute teacher. Soon they are sharing books with one another, making recommendations, and seeing progress in their own reading lives. I post charts in the classroom to keep track of books finished, and little by little students begin competing and bragging about the books they are reading. It thrills me when a student arrives to class and proudly announces, “Miss, I finished my book!” or “I was so into my book this morning, I missed my subway stop.” Unfortunately, not all of my students become enthusiastic readers at the end of their time with me. Some are too disenfranchised to care anymore; they have given up hope in themselves and in school.

I read somewhere that the Puerto Rican champion boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho, killed last year in a drive-by shooting in Puerto Rico, didn’t learn to read until he was fifteen. Apparently, Camacho lived an unruly life on the streets of El Barrio in Manhattan, which included getting kicked out of one school after another, until a teacher taught him how to read and helped guide him into his future career. There are many like Camacho who are going through the New York City public school system with the most basic of skills. Some will be lucky enough to find a teacher who will help them succeed, some will do it on their own, but many others will not. I am convinced that reading can make a huge difference in the lives of these kids. We just have to break through that resistance and show them the gifts that reading can bring to their lives.