The Town Trauma

In the comments to my last post, Lori Hahn wrote: "So, what I'm wondering is what the big hackle-raising town trauma is and how it ends up in a tourist book." I began to respond, and when I finished, I realized that I had actually written a whole new post. So, this is it. (I'm being deliberately vague about the Native American tribe and the place and all in the interest of pseudonymity, but maybe this is recognizable to people who are familiar with the events in question.)

The town trauma took place over a statue.

About three, almost four, hundred years ago the town that I am writing about was a Native American village, probaby one of the first pallisaded villages of that tribe in the region. At the time, this particular tribe was building its own sphere of influence between the English colonists on one side and the Dutch on the other.

Through a series of fairly complicated events, the English colonists went to war against these Native Americans (who had also pissed off a few of the other Native American nations around them, which happened often and was exploited by colonizers). The English explicitly stated that they intended to fight a total war against this Native tribe; and at the end of the war, the English drew up a treaty that all but eliminated this tribe from the face of the earth. Some scholars have called this the first case of intentional genocide in what became the United States.

In the course of this war, the English militia attacked the village on the site of the modern day town. They surrounded the village, set it on fire and killed anyone who tried to escape. The descriptions, written by the militia captains, are flat out chilling not just for the destruction that they describe, including the killing of children and elderly people, but also for the soldiers' expressions of deep conviction that they were doing the work of god. There is actually a famous engraving of this massacre that served as the frontispiece to one of these accounts.

In the following decades, the town was settled by English colonists, and developed a racially homogenous citizenship. Centuries after that massacre, in 1876, the descendants of the settlers decided to commemorate this bit of their history. By the 1880s, they had raised enough money to erect a statue to the English leader of that massacre, with words to the effect that he was this great and wonderful hero who cleared the land for Anglo settlement. The statue stood near the place believed to have been the location of the earlier village, with the English leader reaching for his sword as if advancing to battle.

A century later, that Native American tribe, which then had about 200 members, all of them of mixed ancestry, petitioned for tribal recognition and opened a casino on their reservation. There was quite a bit of controversy about them becoming a tribe, due to that mixed ancestry (I should note that most of the people claiming descent from the first Anglo settlers to the town have just as "mixed" an ancestry, as will happen over three centuries). One person has told me that really, none of the residents of the reservation are Native American at all. That person, of course, had a vested interest in them not being Native American, and when I asked where I could find documentation of that, he dodged my question. (Incidently, I'm a bit biased against him personally because he was a bit of an asshole to me. I have written about him before as being a person who has a vested interest in my book not actually being published.) In any case, legally, they are a tribe, identify themselves as Native American, and seem quite committed to researching that particular tribe's culture and history.

In the 1990s, this Native American tribe protested the statue of that English solder, and asked the town to take it down and destroy it. The townspeople (and to say "white townspeople" would be redundant) became enraged. From all accounts, people called each other names and almost got into fistfights at town meetings. While I'm sure the language from both sides was confrontational, I do know that in situations like this, where local legends and versions of history are questions, any critique is seen as a personal insult.

To many of the townspeople, this wasn't just a re-examination of the English policy toward Native Americans, taking into consideration the Native American point of view. This was a wholesale attack on their ancestors, both those who had served in the militia that attacked the village and those who had erected the statue. To the Native Americans, of course, the statue glorified an act of genocide and defiled the graves of their own ancestors.

The town appointed a commission to investigate the history behind the statue and make a recommendation for action that would be amenable to everyone involved. The commission investigated original event back in the 1600s, questioning whether or not the expedition against the Native Americans was really a massacre (!) or a justified act of war (!)--concluding that "maybe, maybe not, we will never really know"--and recommended that the statue be removed to another town.

Now, there are no markers at all to tell what happened on that site. This is in a region in which every town claims to have a site on the Underground Railroad, a bed where Washington slept, a connection to the Mayflower, a first one damn thing or another, or some combination of the above.

When I first visited the town seven years ago, I really wanted to know where this village had been, but could find absolutely no one and nothing to tell me. Imagine my surprise when I found out, while researching the book, that the whole time the site had been right outside my boarding room window, and that I had walked right past the site of the statue and right under the site of the village when I went out to excercise.

When I started to research this book, and would talk with people about the things that I was finding, I was really shocked at some of the outright racist attitude toward the Indians in that area. (Remember, I come from the south, and I know from racism. Then, again, the racism that I encountered in the north is a subject for another post.) The word "savage" was actually used. I had thought all of that had ended in 1950s movies.

A lot of anger on the part of the townspeople has to do with the fact that the casinos do so well. The casinos attract more of the tourist business than the historical sites, attract more of the service employees (which is the biggest pool of labor), and lead to a lot of social problems that go along with gambling and the like. As a separate nation, the reservation is free from any outside regulation. Also, the tribe makes a lot of money, so they are able to buy up a lot of foreclosed or for sale land adjacent to the reservation, thereby expanding their territory. The symmetry is rather poetic. Just don't point that out off of the reservation. The statue controversy -- like a lot of fights that seem silly -- allowed a lot of these tension to erupt. Now, among some people, you can't even mention the events that took place 400 years ago.

I feel so negligent in my blogging duties!

I finally finished the little local history book, which I have begun to call my "tourist book" because that's the market. The last two weeks were the crunch weeks, made all the worse by having my summer class overlap with my spring class (my spring class is what they call a "mid-semester start" course, which isn't a bad idea, until it overlaps with the other semesters!) I found that, after having record days of writing, my brain is numb in the verbal lobes, so my verbal abilities are a bit slurred. All I want to do is sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep! I'll be happy about finishing later.

Writing for this popular press has been quite the crash course; and, taken with my previous publishing experience with an academic press, I find some benefits to both. Both might do well to adopt some of the tactics of the other. I kinda wish both would not treat the author like the intellectual equivalent of the field hand; but then, they probably wish the writers realized that they are the content providers and not the whole show.

Ultimately, everyone involved is trying to make a product. Even we writers see the book as the product of our research and writing activities and want people to buy and read the thing so that maybe someone will let us write another (or so that we can prove that we are able to do it and never again have to write another, it all depends upon who you talk to!)

Academic publishers realize the main audience for the books that they publish will be read critically, possibly by only a small group of people who specialize in facet of the book being published. So, they do everything that they can to make sure that the writer's work has been read by experts in that particular field. They make sure that all of the citations are complete, consistent, and accurate, and that everything being said in the book makes sense. These will be things that reviewers and readers will check. These are the things that make the book a serious contribution to the author's field. The academic press, then, is interested in the quality of the content because that quality will sell the books that they publish.

The popular press, or at least what I'm calling the "tourist press" (again, because that is the market -- and you know you've seen these books in the museum stores or in the "local history" sections of book stores in tourist towns), is much more interested in selling the book to anyone and everyone. So, they want the book to look good and they would like it to have a nice, uncomplicated narrative that will appeal to people with at least a passing interest in the subject.(I am also waiting to be told that I was too critical of the town in the last chapter because I, at long last, raised class issues and gave a little too much credence to an unpopular ethnic group's position on an issue that still raises hackles.)

They do not ensure that the book will be read by experts before they publish it, beyond having them "skim it to give us a good quote for the back." They don't insist upon citations, and actually discourage them because their audience couldn't care less about citations beyond "Further Reading" suggestions. The author, realizing that their citations are unwelcome and will cut into their word count, just doesn't include them. The publisher, interested in getting the book on the shelves as soon as possible, doesn't do much in the way of proofing the content. So, when the book reaches the shelves, the quality is, literally, questionable.

On the other hand, I like that this little tourist press works its butt off to make sure that the book sells as widely as possible. They want to put the damn thing in hotels, restaurants, all of the tchotcke stores, at all of the tourist traps, at all of the tourist attractions, at anywhere a tourist might stop for a snack or a bathroom break, everywhere for 100 miles around the actual town. They also want booths at academic conferences. They want it to sell way more than I do; and I'm the one with my name on the book and the one who need the royalties to offset the cost of the damn illustrations! That impresses me.

Academic presses, are good at selling to academic markets. They go the very tried, true and respected routes, in trade publications and at conferences. I'm not knocking conferences, mind you! One of the best moments of my life was having my book featured by my press at a big conference in my home town, where I went to graduate school. All my old grad school buddies were there. They thought they were going to have to get a forklift to carry my head out of the hotel.

I digress. My point is that I wish that academic presses had the ability to sell to a broader market than academics. Not that I want the academic book to be in hotels and restaurants and all of that; but it would be nice to go into Barnes and Noble and see a copy on their shelves, or to go into a bookstore in the state where it took place and see it in their "local interest section," or to go into a museum in the state where it took place and see it in the gift shop.

Ideally, the perfect topic will straddle both of these worlds, and the material and the author's abilities will rise above the limits of either type of publisher. I'm not sure that is me. My tourist book could be much better and much more scholarly; but it should also have a regional focus not limited to this little town that is really not a town if it were to fall into that dual category of popular and academic. Meanwhile, I write for one, or I write for the other, and I bitch about their shortcomings and enjoy their benefits.

Also, I see an implicit question here: Why did I bother, with all of my bitching, to write this book? I even had one friend who wondered why I didn't break the contract. The last, well, I just couldn't do. I'd rather kiss my brother, with tongue -- squick! -- as break a contract! Well, I both started and finished the book -- in less than a year, which should give some idea of the quality -- because I wanted to salvage the last few years of my life, particularly last year. This book would be a way to literally have something to show for the time that I essentially wasted in that place. I suppose it is a souvenir of my time there, and I loves me some souvenirs!

Cockblocking

I have many things to ponder about the mess that I got myself into over the past week, what with the two classes, and the book and the sleepless nights, and the deep insights that came from extreme exhaustion, and the identification with the Bob Fosse character's morning routine in All That Jazz and so forth; but those very things have prevented me from writing a thoughtful post on the matter.

They have not, however, prevented me from helping out Claire over at Life and Times of Big Calabaza, where I have a guest-post on the gendered nuances of the term "cockblock." I could call it a gendered deconstruction of the term, but really, the deconstruction is rudimentary and an excuse to tell stories from my past.

You should also read some of Claire's posts, because she is funny, and follow some of the links at her site, as well.

Now, back to the grind stone. Why, oh why, do my chapters get longer as I write? Sometimes they spawn. To add to my litany of woe, as well, the publisher decided to tell me, just last week, that an index is expected now, not when I return the page proofs. That is because there will be no page proofs. I'm not even certain that there will be proofreading. There really is no quality control over the content. I have come to the conclusion that popular presses like this one (and there are others out there) are little more than glorified Kinkos; but, again, that is another post for another time. C'est la vie!

When It Rains, It Pours

It can't just be one class, then another, it has to be one class overlapping another. It can't just be the same course content, it has to be two different courses. It can't just be the two different and overlapping courses, it has to be on the week of an interview with a presentation (although it is now a phone interview with handouts). It can't just be the two different and overlapping courses on the week of an interview with a presentation, is has to be while I'm scrambling to finish a book. It can't just be the two different and overlapping courses on the week of an interview with a presentation while I'm scrambling to finish a book, the book has to have a missed deadline with the publishers (justly) nipping at my heels.

Part of me wonders what I would do with myself if I didn't overextend myself and have all of this drama. Would I lose all respect for myself? Would I feel unimportant? Would I actually get something done well? Would I actually have to face my fear that I am no better than I am now? Would the world collapse? Would the Apocalypse happen?

I would definitely blog more.

A Brush With Death on Vacation

Sometimes you need a vacation from a vacation. My week in Texas was, as reported on my "Absence Request Sheet," a "Vacation." When, however, your mother is going into the hospital to have a tumor removed, your grandmother falls and has to have her hip replaced, you catch a raging case of strep throat, and the very geography makes you feel as if you are being emotionally peeled down to different layers of your past -- when all of this goes on, you aren't having much of a "vacation."

The good news is that my mom is doing fine. The surgeon decided to go in through her C-section scar, which is almost exactly 33-years-old, minus two weeks. Back when she was in labor with my youngest brother, he decided to go breach at the last moment. That meant that the doctors had to cut him out,* whereupon he peed all over the operating table. At the time, I figured that was why he was trying to come out bottom-first. Now, I wanted to know if they thought the incision from that operation was a zip-lock opening. My mom did, too.

The surgeons went in and removed my mom's uterus and ovaries, along with a tumor that was twice the size of her uterus. I know that it was twice the size because they took pictures and gave a print to my dad (I suggested that he get them in wallet-size). So, I saw the things that they took out of her. The tumor looked like some sort of alien embryo in an amniotic sac. Fortunately, it had only swallowed that particular ovary and not attached itself to anything else. Fortunately, it was not cancerous.

The uterus was of particular interest since it once housed the zygote Clio, as well as my zygote brothers and an earlier, miscarried zygote X. From the picture, I could not imagine any full-term fetus in there, much less my own full-term fetus self.

All along, my dad and I made jokes about how the removal of these organs isn't that big of a deal because, as my dad said, "we weren't planning on giving you kids a new brother or sister." The more that I thought about it, however, the jokes seemed a little disrespectful, especially since the sex organs are fairly integral to a person's life and gender identity. My mom had apparently been considering this aspect, as well. "I keep wondering if this makes me less of a woman," she said. "But then, I thought, naahh. I haven't used them in years, and there is more to being a woman than these things." The joke was hers to make.

The other good news, such as it is, is that my grandmother will now need assisted living. She's been on her own since my grandfather died in 2001. He was the last person that she worried into their grave. No one was left. She gradually began to slip away from the here and now herself a few years ago. My parents have been trying to get her into a home, but she won't go. They get exasperated, but they have sympathy for her. She knows that the home would be her last, and she has always been fiercely independent. A home would reduce her to a level of dependency for what she would know to be the rest of her life. Yet, she can't take care of herself and has missed many meals (which she normally would never ever do, no matter how much it might have done her good to miss one or two on occasion) and medication because she loses track of time more than most people, even the most harried, would.

I wish that I could feel more sympathy for her. I do feel sympathy, but it is remote, coming from a memory of my childhood when she was nicer to me because I was more easily manipulated and bought. The sympathy also comes from a fear that, because she and I are very much alike fundamentally, I could end up like her, but without the son-in-law who has a boundless capacity for generosity. Also, I think that I can see her less as the domineering old biddy that she has been for most of my life, and more as a woman who should have lived decades later, when she wasn't expected to be a wife and mother and could have found a life more suited to her. That is really what makes me feel pity for her: that she was so unhappy her whole life, and now it is coming to an end.

As for my strep, well, I at first worried that I might have infected my darling and profane Nephew the Younger, Boudreaux. Now, I suspect that little Boudreaux infected me. The child does go to day care, after all, and preschool kids are walking incubators of all sorts of festering microbes. Still, I would rather he infected me than the other way around. Little kids don't understand a lot of things connected to time, so everything is right now, and right now is forever. They don't understand that the 60 seconds to wait for a toy tattoo to transfer from paper to skin is not that long. They don't understand that daddy can't make the tongue, aflame with hot sauce, get any better any faster (and daddy sure as hell wasn't going to kiss the tongue to make it better). They don't understand that the inability to talk or swallow without excruciating pain will soon go away in a couple of days if you just take the antibiotics. Of course, given that last fact, I myself did not understand why the antibiotics were so huge!

So, back in one piece, with a few bacterial passengers, mom well and grandmother on her way to better care. We only had brushes with mortality, but nothing was fatal as yet. For that, I am grateful.

Now, I really need a vacation.

* This also meant that I was the only first-grader who knew exactly where babies came from, how they got there in the first place, the reproductive purposes of breasts, and what a Cesearian section was. Yeah, all the moms wanted their kids to play with me!

Janus on the Search Committee

This is a unique perspective, to be simultaneously both an interviewer and an interviewee. On the one hand, I perhaps have too much sympathy with the candidates here; but, on the other, I am able to feel more detached from the process of being interviewed because I have a bit more insight into the issues faced by the search committee there.

Here, as I go through the stack of applicants, a sense of near futility and curiosity overwhelms me. We have people who are extremely accomplished in their fields, who have doctoral degrees, who have published, who have taught, who have been administrators, who have had other careers. We have people who are in beautiful places near major urban areas, we have people who are local or semi-local. "Why are you applying for this job," I want to ask. "Really." I'm not being sarcastic, either.

What breaks my heart about many of them is that, given the information in the applications and given the time of year in terms of academic hiring, some of these applicants are clearly applying for something -- anything -- for which they might be even remotely qualified because they are facing graduation, the end of a grant-funded or limited-term position, or yet another year of patchwork, piecemeal, employment. Others clearly want to change careers, hoping that the skills that they have can be applied to the position (and they probably can, in most cases). They clearly are unhappy where they are and face yet another year of endurance.

The desperation wafts off of many of the pages; and I sympathize. I know that feeling of being willing to takes something -- anything -- without full consideration as to whether this job will be satisfying because you really really need to pay the rent. I have to keep telling myself that these are not my concerns. I have to make sure that I consider these applicants based on the list of expected qualifications and their resumes (although I try to consider who has more of the skills that will actually be most useful on the job). I keep hoping that they do find something that really will be better for them.*

Meanwhile, I understand now why I was eliminated from so many job searches, particularly in the archives field. I feel a bit more informed as to how to approach future job searches so as not to get eliminated immediately or so as not to waste anyone's time in applying in the first place. I also can approach this upcoming interview, or any after it, with a greater sense of calm in that this is not a personal exchange. I will be there so that they can get a better sense of not just my ability to do the job, but the way that I might do the job. For the first time, I feel as if the interview is a demonstration, rather than a futile exercise in grovelling.

Of course, all of this is aided by the security of knowing where my next paycheck is coming from. Not desperately needing the job makes pursuing it so much less stressful.

People should be on both ends of this process early in their career. Most will be on the interviewee end. In fact, more people will be on that end more frequently in their lives than on the other, but the experience on the interviewer end makes a person a much better inteviewee.

*Actually, the first candidate invited for an interview found a more appropriate job for her qualifications in a better location. So, there is hope for the un-chosen!

Virtual Education, Part 7; in which a student becomes enthusiastic

The best e-mail arrived today from a student. (I would love to quote it, but I also want to protect her privacy.) She said that she had become so absorbed by the class readings that she began to do more research on each. For instance, they read an article about African American resistance on public transportation before the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She became so fascinated with these earlier protests that she started to look them up on her own. She said that she needs more than a semester to satisfy her interest in the material.

I told her that was how PhDs were created. People who need more than a semester to pursue their curiosity. She probably will not go into history, and I don't tend to prod them unless they specifically express an interest in finding a way to include history in their career plans. This is, after all, a risky and poverty-stricken field for which you must have a passion that prevents you from doing anything else (or an independent source of wealth). She will, we can hope, continue to learn about the subject long long long after she has graduated, and instill that desire to learn in the people around her.

Something that I found surprising in this was that I was so happy for her, yet I felt in no way responsible for her interest. Students, if they like the class, will tell you how interesting that you made the material for them, how they never liked history but you made it fun (and by "fun" they probably mean "engaging"). We teachers live for that little bit of glory that comes with being recognized for influencing someone. In this case, this student did not directly credit me, nor did I take her comments as credit.

Instead, my happiness stems from the fact that the student did the work for the class, and the material did the work of engaging her. History became relevant and interesting not because of a charismatic (or goofy, in my case) teacher, but because it was inherently relevant and interesting, and because the student was open to finding it so. I just witnessed the process, and it was thrilling.

Am I Ambitious or Self-Destructive?

Good news always comes with bad news. Just as I was walking out the door to catch my plane for Texas, I received a phone call from a college on the eastern seaboard. They want to interview me next week. I'm kind of stunned. First, because the prospect of an interview always stuns me because I believe myself to be the most unintelligent, self-destructive, un-"collegial," socially-inept person on the face of the earth. Second, because this happened so quickly; and, if all goes well, will continue to happen even more quickly.

Does any good news come without bad news? The interview is scheduled for next week; but guess who else is scheduled to interview that very same day? The first poor soul who is the candidate for the job here. (Incidentally, the candidate for the job here was scheduled entirely through HR, without any consultation with the committee.)

I was rather hoping to just miss a day of work for "personal reasons," or some such. Yes, another day off would look a bit funny coming, as it does, in the middle of the week and so close on the heels of a week off. Otherwise, the absence would not be a big deal. Now, with this candidate coming and me being on the committee and all, how do I work around this? I am having anxiety attacks over how to weasel my way into attending my own interview without either pissing off the committee here (particularly the head Pisser of the committee, who is also my boss) or revealing where I am going (particularly to the head Pisser of the committee, who is also my boss).

You see, I've been in this situation before. At another job, I let my boss know that I was looking, and that boss both made sure that my life was miserable while I was looking (making me look with much more urgency). I soon found out that he was writing terrible reference letters because, as he later admitted, "if I write you a good one, then you might get the job, and then you would leave, and I don't want that." This boss that I have now is much more demanding of loyalty. Plus, he would have every single reason to hate me for looking for a new job. I did just start here in November. Justice would be on his side.

This wouldn't be so frightening if all went well at the interview. Perhaps the Big Pisser would make everyday a living hell between now and then. Perhaps I could never ever get a reference from here for the future. In the end, however, I'd pack up and leave for the new place. This place here would have served its purpose and I'd be on to new crises.

Make no mistake, at this point I would like all to go well at the interview. That does not always happen. They may hate me. I may not like them. They might not pay a living wage relative to the geography. There may be better candidates. Then, I would return here, to a very angry boss, who would make my life a living hell and never write me a decent recommendation, but I would be here indefinitely, with no friends, no sympathy, and no way out.

Probably, I should not have put myself in this position in the first place by accepting my own interview out east, or by applying for another job in the first place. Probably, I should not have put myself in this position by being so passive in pursuing a more traditionally academic career, or by going to a crappy grad school, or by even going to grad school in the first place. There are a lot of ways that I could have avoided being in this particular conundrum at this particular time. Having no time machine, however, and knowing full well why I am taking this interview, I must come up with some way to finesse my way through this.

Finesse was never my strong suit, so I have no clue.

Dispatches from Texas, part 4

Last night, my parents had gone to their band practice. They were big band geeks in high school and college. This is how they met. They tried heroically and desperately to turn their children into band geeks, which assured that we would never ever ever have any interest in being musical, at least in relation to marching and brass bands. Nonetheless, the fact that they are still very active in several different bands, is rather heartening.

Last night, while they were at band practice, my father tried to call me. First, he called my cell phone, but it was charging in the other room. Then he tried to call me on their house phone. I didn’t answer because I did not figure that it was for me and I was not anticipating any disasters coming out of a band practice. Yes, I am nearly four decades old and my Dad upbraided me with “we could have been in an accident. We could have been trying to contact you for an emergency. Did you think of that?” Welcome to my life from 1980 to 1995 and, apparently, beyond.

Later, when they got home, he gave me the little speech about ever impending doom on the other end of the phone line, then he checked his messages. “Oh, Clio,” he said. “A man left a message for you. He didn’t say his name, he just said ‘call me as soon as you can.’” No one that I know, who knows where I am, has my parents number. After a quiz about the timbre, pitch, depth, and defining characteristics of the anonymous man calling me at my parents house, my dad checked the caller i.d. The call was from him.

The reason that he was calling was that my grandmother, my mother’s 91 year old mother who caught the last plane out of New Orleans before Katrina and who has not yet died because God and the Devil are still debating who gets her, fell and broke her leg. He had to fly over there today. My mother, who tomorrow is facing a complete hysterectomy and the removal of a 8 inch tumor that may or may not also be attached to other organs and may or may not have to have a part of her intestines removed as a result, thinks she has the better deal. My grandmother, to say the least, is a handful.

I'm starting a pool as to when and for what reason she will be kicked out of the nursing home where she will now have to reside. I anticipate 6 weeks before she has dropped the southern lady facade and begun a campaign, based on guilt and self-pity, to impose her own dicatatorial will upon her fellow residents. She will be evicted for general unpopularity after she has used an ethnic slur against one of the nurses.

Dispatches from Texas, part 3

Over the weekend, one of my brothers came down from Dallas with Nephew the Younger. Nephew the Younger has many stories attached to him, but they are the sort that only relatives find interesting. He did, however, demonstrate his mastery of the word “Fuck.” He is not yet three years old and he can say “fuck,” “fucker,” and “mother fucker.” My brother coached him to keep the f-bombs down to one a day because “you don’t want them to loose their impact.”

Dispatches from Texas, part 2

Out jogging, I realized that kitsch is not limited to souvenirs. Many people landscape in kitsch. At one point, I found myself sandwiched between an extravaganza of Texas and an extravaganza of Kuntree Krapp over which the Madonna presided. Seriously, one homeowner had decked out his entire lawn with variations of the Texas flag, a cowboy sillouette, various cutesy ceramic farm animals, and pennants from the local high school football team. Across the street, his neighbor had a fake, wooden wishing well, also surrounded by various cutesy ceramic farm animals and what had to have been plastic flowers, with a background of fairy balls (for which my father has another name that contains an ethnic slur – and I don’t want the hits from people searching for that slur). The Virgin Mary, who, to the homeowner’s credit (and my disappointment), was not in a bathtub grotto, stood upon a little pedestal, also surrounded by the ceramic farm animals and plastic flowers. Both had flagpoles proudly waving the Stars and Stripes. Many lawns have flagpoles waving the Stars and Stripes. The cars “Support the Troops,” repeatedly.*

*I will post pictures when I get back to Nowhere.

Dispatches from Texas

White people here are not afraid to voice their opinions of Mexican immigration. Invariably, these white people oppose Mexican immigration. Indeed, these white people tend to suspect that all Hispanics are illegal immigrants here to take their jobs. These white people will voice these opinions in Mexican restaurants as they gorge themselves on chips and salsa.

Also, these same white people are very proud of their own French, Italian, or Irish ancestors, to the point of hanging the flags of those nations in their home or with the American flag on their front lawn, and become incensed at the discrimination that those ancestors faced.