Women of Color: writing

Red is my favorite color most days. I love red, it is one of three equal colors in the Mexican flag, it makes up one equal third of the identity of my peoples. Red for the indigenous aspect of my ancestors, white for the Spanish colonizers who came and took their lives, their land, their love and green for the mestiza race that bloomed from the red and white mixing. A perfect interpretation because green is not a primary color, you can only find it from mixing yellow and blue, like the skies that burn brightly while falcons and eagles dip down to grab snakes from under cacti in the desert.

I also like pink, hot pink, rich pink, deep pink - pink so bright it inspires white people to comment on my color choices. Pink like a New Mexican sunset, "You're so bold to wear such bright colors" they say, admiring my colors while they wear black and grey and tan only. Like vampires, afraid to attract attention, they walk pale in the bright yellow, orange, red of the sun, afraid to shine under blue skies.

Maybe they are afraid to sneak out from the shade of trees in their bright colors because of the power of the hawks that roam in the sky. Knowing that while we may have been colonized, once we are free to fly there is no marginalizing us anymore. I twirl in skirts, red as blood, with embroidery in the colors of five differently shaded rainbows. I boldly wear yellow - all shades of yellow, lime green, dark green, bright blues, orange anything to connect me to my people who are not afraid to walk freely out of shadows and into bright, warm, yellow sunshine.

Nothing around me is dull, I am attracted to other bright shiny things, the brighter the better, I'm so bold. Colors stream out of me as I walk through this world, connecting my brown feet to brown soil, dipping my red hands into red chiles, smiling green when white people ask me "what are you?", "can you speak Spanish"?, "is your mother a citizen?" all the while knowing that it is I who can walk freely under blue skies, not them. I am Chicana, I am de colores, and they are jealous.

Kandace Creel Falcón
July 2, 2009

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With summer comes color, or colors. Write about what it means to you. Color. Is it full of meaning or is it not? Do certain colors turn you on or turn you off? How do you think of color in relation to your gender or sexuality? Are you consumed by colors or do you consume them?

We would love to have your thoughts poems, esaays, prose pieces on this topic,
we want to hear from you! Please see the "How to Become an Author" blog
entry for further information on responding to this and all future prompts. We welcome all posts, if your writing doesn't end up speaking to the prompt but is triggered by it we want to know!

Happy writing!

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Summer is that time of year when I
act freer, see things brightly and remember.

Living in the old house on 1048 Central Ave
in St. Paul. No AC, just rattling fans in strategic
places with shades pulled down and curtains drawn.

Fruit in abundance, not just the
apples, oranges, and bananas
but also the strawberries, blueberries,
cantaloupe, honeydew and cut up
watermelon before bed in cotton pj's.

Riding bikes in blazing heat around
the neighborhood, hanging out at the
playground, meeting and making new
friends.

Walking with my sisters to get
dipped ice cream cones from
Dairy Queen down the block.
Happy to share the time with
just them.

Remembering the hot trip to Philly
in 1977. Staying at Grandma and
Grandpa's with mom while my older
brother and sister went to Aunt Alma's
store or to New York city with Uncle Junior.

Summer is youth, fresh, and bubbling over
with sunshine. It is snippets of photos, flashing
through the slide projector. It comes and
goes too fast...

Lori Young-Williams
6/25/09

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Let's kick off our writing prompt with Summertime. George Gershwin wrote
Summertime, when the livin' was easy. When you hear the word Summertime, or
Summer, what do you think of? Who is or is not with you in the Summertime?
Where do you go in the Summertime?

Please submit your blogs on this topic by midnight on Monday June 22nd. While this is not a "strict" deadline, we will be posting a new prompt the following week, but if inspiration strikes you past this "deadline" please feel free to share your words.

We would love to have your thoughts poems, esaays, prose pieces on this topic,
we want to hear from you! Please see the "How to Become an Author" blog
entry for further information on responding to this and all future prompts.

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Thank you for your courage in sharing your writings and your words of wisdom in
this forum! You have two options to post your writing to the Women of Color
Writing Blog. You may:

1) Email your post to Lori Young Williams as either a word document or an email
message to youngwms@yahoo.com . We will not edit your words, rather simply
copy and paste your words into a blog entry. Please be sure to write how you
would like your name to appear with your entry. Or,

2) You may email Kandace Creel Falcón at kjcfalcon@gmail.com to begin the
processes of becoming an author for the blog. This option will allow you
to post any time you want/feel like to the blog and will eliminate the middle
step of having to send your blog entry through Lori.

We look forward to reading your writings.

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Hello Women of Color Writers -

We are writing to say that we are changing hands as Sherry Quan Lee the creator
of this blog has stepped down and Kandace is joining me at the helm. Thank you
Sherry for your inspiration and creating a space where we can write and respond
to our own lives. For more on the beginnings of this blog please see our March
3rd, 2009 blog entry.

As we move from Sherry's wonderful creative beginnings we hope to encourage a
more collaborative space for women of color writers (of all genres- poetry,
prose, essays, memoir etc.) to share our writings and our words with one
another, and to create an online community of women of color writers with this
blog. This blog is a space for all women of color to post their writing, to
converse about the details of our lives and most importantly inspire our own
creative processes and other women of color writers who write for our lives.
Historically this blog has also been a used as a resource for other women of
color writers as well as informational about upcoming writing events in the
Twin Cities area, we will continue to do this as we expand and hopefully
incorporate women's voices from exciting geographic locations around the
US. We will be posting a new writing prompt about once a week to keep you
motivated, inspired, and grounded.

A note about blogging: Please keep in mind that this is a public space, meaning
the words you write here can be viewed by anyone with internet access, in this
vein once you disseminate your intellectual knowledge it is out in the world
to be consumed. We do of course ask, that if anyone's words are to be used,
cited and/or quoted on other blogs or in any other public arena that we are
given credit for our thoughts, ideas and writings. In regards to one another,
we are committed to always being respectful of each other (personally and with
our writings) on this blog. Please feel free to comment on the writing here, we
will be approving appropriate comments. If you would like to become a regular
poster on our blog please see our post on "How to become an author" for more
information.

We look forward to seeing where this journey can take us and welcome any
suggestions for how we can make this blog a true collaborative effort.

Your facilitators,

Lori Young-Williams and Kandace Creel Falcón

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Hello Readers! I just wanted to welcome our new administrator of the blog Kandace Creel Falcón. She is a Doctoral Candidate in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota and will be helping to oversee the general workings and writings of the blog. Welcome!

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Nu Griots2
presents
Woven Voices
April 27, 7pm
Penumbra Theatre
270 Kent St., St. Paul

Inspired by the artistry of Sonia Sanchez & Carolyn Holbrook, the writers from the 2009
Givens Black Writers Collaborative Retreat will perform a collection of original pieces.

Admission by donation - no one turned away for inability to pay

For more information contact Ellena Schoop 651-895-5603

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More books from the Women of Color writing class.

1. the last communist virgin - wang ping
2. the fortress of solitude - jonathan letham
3. norwegian wood - haruki murakami
4. kitchen - banana yoshimoto
5. "night women" - a short story by edwidge danticat
6. the wife - meg wolitzer
7. spring moon - bette bao lord

And more...
Growing Up Chicana/o, Tiffany Ana López (Ed.)
Loving in the War Years, Cherríe Moraga
Chicana Falsa, Michele Serros
Loose Woman, Sandra Cisneros
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Cherríe Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa (Eds.)
Chicana Lesbians, Carla Trujillo (Ed.)
Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios, The Latina Feminist Group
Canícula, Norma Cantú
The Moths and Other Stories, Helena María Viramontes
Making Face, Making Soul Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminist of Color, Gloria Anzaldúa (Ed.)
Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature, Tey Diana Rebolledo & Eliana S. Rivero (Eds.)
So Far From God, Ana Castillo
The Desert Remembers My Name: On Family and Writing, Kathleen Alcalá
Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name, A Biomythography by Audre Lorde
Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism, Alice Walker

Thank you!

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It’s not about what we got, it’s about how you got over, walked over, through, inside, flip over, and on top of a people from greatness.

It’s not about what we got, it’s about being abandoned by our country and dissed by the media. It’s about being in a space, a place where no one knows your name. It’s about the breakdown in communication and the forced assimilation into spots where you are not welcomed. It’s about the loss of life, the loss of love, the loss of community, and the loss of culture.

It’s about the ma’am(s) that you will never understand.
It’s about the farewells with no jazz funerals
or second-lines. Our celebrations.
It’s about the force whiteness for niceness
Which stems from your guilty conscious for all the wrongs you have done
And not undone.
It’s about blatant injustice served on a silver platter.
It’s about being an American and being denied justice.

I saw,
I experienced an America that did not look like America to me.
But there it was.
And here I am.
A survivor.

It’s not about what we got,
if we got,
because most got gainked on your gots.

It’s about how you got
When you got
what you got
and how you got - From the backs of Americans

It’s about how you mistreated God’s people: Po’ folks and Black folks. This whole Katrina thing is (the current tense) about race and class.

By Theresa Crushshon – Fleur de Lis
Email April 5, 2009

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In Saturdays class we used the triggering subject of hands, women's hands. We wrote for 10-15 minutes. Here is my piece.

------
Aunt Rose was in the kitchen making herself something to eat for lunch. She had on her blood red robe that zipped up the front with small lace design around the collar. She moved from the back cupboard to the table with a plate, then a bowl, which she filled with lettuce. I watched her pour the dressing over the top of the lettuce. I recognized her hands, the long thick brown fingers like her brothers, my dad's. Aunt Rose shuffled to the refrigerator for the left over chip-beef sandwich from yesterdays outing. She pulled open the styrofoam container and I saw the palm of her hand. A chocolate color crease marking her life line, long like like mine. Her hands, like my hands.

Reminds me of the last visit when she shared how her husband's hand hit her, slapped her. How her hands took a hammer and broke up ice outside to get the water hose, frozen to the winter ground. How her hands dragged the hose in the house, to the bathrooom, to the tub. Her hands turned on the water and her hands carried the hose and nozzle to the bedroom where her hands unleashed a spray of cold water, dousing her husband. Spraying him in bed till he was soaked. Her hands fought back.
----

I was in Philadelphia visiting my dad's family. And when I saw my Aunt Rose again, I didn't realize how much she favored my dad. Down to her mannerism, down to her hands. Hands say different things about a person. Color, tecture, and size all come into play. I have many creases, lines around my knuckles. They make my hands look old and yet strong. I have big palms and give firm hand shakes. I believe that my hands are the way they are because I need to be able to hang on to life, when things get rocky. These hands need to know how to fight back.

Whose hands do we have and how do we use them?

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Here is a list of books that I used during my writing class - Women of Color: Writing Our Stories and few more.
Feel free to comment with books that you have found important to telling your story.

Skirt Full of Black - Sun Yung Shin
Just Plain Folks - Lorraine Johnson-Coleman
Bailey's Cafe - Gloria Naylor
Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Street - Ann Petry
The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
Women Who Run With the Wolves - Clarrissa Pinkola Estes
Borderlands - Gloria Anzaldua
Of Orphans & Warriors - Gloria Heyung Chin
Cane - Jean Toomer
killing rage - bell hooks
Ladies Pages - Noliwe M. Rooks
black notebooks - Toi Derricotte
A Shining Thread of Hope - Darlene Clark Hine & Kathleen Thompson
Chicana Without Apology - Eden Torres
Afro-American Women Writers: 1740 - 1933 - Ann Allen Shockley
Bamboo Among Oaks - Mai Neng Moua, editor
The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
The Women of Brewsters Place - Gloria Naylor
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Huston
Who Set You Fowin'? Farah Griffin
River, Cross My Heart - Breena Clark
Slavery By Another Name - Douglas A. Blackmon
Picturing Us - Deborah Willis, editor
Chinese Blackbird - Sherry Quan Lee
The Woman Who Fell From The Sky - Joy Harjo

Writing Books
The Triggering Town - Richard Hugo
Free Within Ourselves and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction - both by Jewell Parker Rhodes
The 3AM Epiphany - Brian Kiteley

Movies
Rosewood
Amistad

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Introducing Lori Young Williams: Lori Young-Williams is 41 years old, a prose and poetry writer born in St. Paul. She comes from a working class family that believes in laughter, crying, and praying when times are good, bad or otherwise. Lori has one brother, one sister, and another sister who passed away when she was 14. She received her degree in Human Relationships with an emphasis in family relationships at the University of Minnesota, 1992. Lori works a 9-5 job in Human Resources and Finance, but her passion is her writing. Most of her poetry is about her family—family relationships and how they impact her life. She has been published in Interrace magazine, the Turtle River Press, the National Library of Poetry, Quill Books, Dust & Fire and other anthologies. Also, she has self-published two chapbooks. She has read in various bookstores, coffee shops, and spoken word events in the Twin Cities. Lori recently was accepted as a participant for the Givens Black Writers Retreat, with Sonja Sanchez and Carolyn Holbrook. She is currently working on her Master’s Thesis through the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University of Minnesota. She has studied with Rose Brewer, Carolyn Holbrook, Sherry Quan Lee [that’s me], and others.

I have been the Women of Color: writing blogger since its inception. It was started in conjunction with a class I taught at Intermedia Arts, Women of Color Writers, Writing that Saves Lives. I must be honest and say, I am not a blogger. Perhaps it goes back to growing up in an environment of silence/of being silent. Although I am now more verbal, and I can actually say, I am a writer--at 61 years old silence is still haunting; it's baggage (as is the fear of shame—I can’t write, I can’t spell, I can’t put together a grammatically correct sentence; I might say something “wrong”, I don’t want to look dumb). Thus, my“bloggings” have been sporadic and far between (okay there are other reasons, no time, not taking the time, rather spend time with my grandsons, etc., etc.).

Also, participants in the WOC writing workshop didn’t have much to write either. Possibly it has something to do with the fact that I am not blog site savvy. I didn’t imagine a site where others can only comment on what I had written. I visualized a site where others would also write “blogs”—I am quite sure I am not using the words blog, blogger, blogging correctly, but it’s okay, I’m still learning what most four year olds already know (don’t you love those commercial where the 4 ½ year old says something like I’m a pc and I’m 4 ½ years old)!

Although I don’t know much about blogging, I am now passing on the little bit I do know to Lori. Lori will be using the Women of Color: writing blog site for the workshop she will be teaching beginning March 21 (see her recent post). Together we will become tech savvy and maybe even get some photos and some links on the blog site. I will continue to sporadically post my musings, but Lori will too. Most importantly, we are shouting out to women of color to post their thoughts (not just comments) on this blog site, and we want women of color to post their creative writing (poetry or short prose)—and we will post it under creative writing, not under comments to creative writing, at least that is the plan.

(Lori and I wrote and performed, along with Ann Freeman, Sun Yung Shin, and Carolyn Holbrook, Chinese Black Women Got the Beat, 2006.)

Sherry Quan Lee
03/03/09

By the way, Susan Power is teaching a weeklong short story workshop at Split Rock this summer: www.cce.umn.edu/splitrockarts

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Women of Color: Writing our Stories
Women travel through stories, an oral tradition, and, perhaps, a visual one. We gather stories individually and as a group. We migrate. From south to north, east to west, from city to city, state to state, from other countries. From job to job, home to home, and family to family. We cross and uncross physical and spiritual boundaries.

Have you ever wanted to know how women’s past stories affect today’s stories? Have you ever wanted to document your family stories of migration – where you are from (geography), what you are from (culture), how (travel), when (history)?

Then join me for three lively, yet thought provoking afternoons. We will immerse ourselves in story. We will use creative writing, music, and collage to access family stories. Stories recalled from great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, and even sisters – your story.

Dates: March 21, 28, and April 4

Time: 12:30pm – 4:30pm

Location: Dunn Bros. Coffee – 4648 East Lake St., Minneapolis

Cost: $30/$10 per session, cash or check only, $30 payable at first class

Application Process: Class limited to 8 participants, must be available to attend all workshops. To register, e-mail your name, e-mail address, postal address, and home and cell phone numbers to youngwms@yahoo.com. Please include a note indicating why you want to participate in this workshop. A reply e-mail will serve as your workshop confirmation.

Instructor: Lori Young-Williams
Lori Young-Williams is a 41year old prose / poet born in St. Paul. She comes from a working class family that believes in laughter, crying, and praying when times are good, bad or otherwise. Lori has one brother, one sister, and another sister who passed away when she was 14. She received her degree in Human Relationships with an emphasis in family relationships at the University of Minnesota, 1992. Lori works a 9-5 job in Human Resources and Finance, but her passion is her writing. Most of her poetry is about her family—family relationships and how they impact her life. She has been published in Interrace magazine, the Turtle River Press, the National Library of Poetry, Quill Books, Dust & Fire and other anthologies. Also, she has self-published two chapbooks. She has read in various bookstores, coffee shops, and spoken word events in the Twin Cities. Lori recently was accepted as a participant for the Givens Black Writers Retreat, with Sonja Sanchez and Carolyn Holbrook. She is currently working on her Master’s Thesis through the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University of Minnesota. She has studied with Rose Brewer, Carolyn Holbrook, Sherry Quan Lee, and others.

Co-facilitator: Sherry Quan Lee, author of Chinese Blackbird, Asian American Press, reprinted 2008, Loving Healing Press, and How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman’s life, Loving Healing Press, 2008. Quan Lee taught Creative Writing at Metropolitan State University for ten years, then retired to finish her latest book, and to teach for Intermedia Arts (S.A.S.E: the write place), and other community venues. She also works as a Program Associate for the Split Rock Arts Program, College of Continuing Education, at the University of Minnesota. She earned her MFA at the University of Minnesota in 1996, and attended Cave Canem that summer. Quan Lee, a Black/Chinese woman who grew up white in South Minneapolis writes about identity.

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