I have been purchasing these books since I came to Chicago, I guess one per a year, probably as a part of a New Year resolution. I do not remember exactly. In some of them I am struggling with the motive for writing my memoir. Often I write of a need to tell my story in order to piece my memory and myself back together. In a few of them I talk about the telling of my story as a way to become whole again and reclaim my life.

In several of the journals I am engaging in “an ordinary pursuit of a perfect format for my story. A novel, for example, would be too long. Would an average reader want to read for hours the mundane details of a struggle to keep sane amidst complete destruction?” Reading through these pages, I soon realized that my focus on motive and form helped keep me silent. I began to question this lack of a voice.

Early in childhood I was developing a strong and clear personal voice. I always felt a strange excitement whenever I had a writing assignment in school. I wrote panoramic descriptions with flourish, and wrote plots with gusto. Sure, my teachers knew that during “the storm on mount Igman, while window shutters slammed against the building with a brute force of an overjoyed four year old stomping her feet on the playground,” fairies did not appear whispering secret messages that only I could hear.

Nevertheless, they encouraged my flowery verses and crazy plots, and I loved the adrenaline rush and shortness of breath caused by the speed of my writing once I caught the rhythm of my imagination. This playful relationship with language abruptly stopped with the War during which I focused all of my cognitive resources on survival.

Once I started college in Chicago, I rekindled the relationship with language, this time developing my academic voice into a powerful one. I enjoyed learning the mechanics of formal language that allowed me to explore abstract ideas and connections, without a possibility of being hurt. Soon, this became my primary voice and it worked well for me since my life at that time centered on the pursuit of education.

However this voice is not the one that I could use to tell my story. I mean, to relate the truth of war and its layered and deep impact on survivors, I would have to dig deep inside and for that I need a personal voice, one that I believed did not function in the English language. What I failed to see is that just like the language acquisition; literacy is a process rather than the event. In this sense, I have to escape the refuge of my academic voice, and allow myself to forge an emotional relationship with this new language in order to become fully literate. I hope to find the voice that will tell the story of survival and will aid me in recovery. Writing, I expect, will help me become whole again.

The tree itself was a small, plastic tree bought by my parents on credit, as most of the luxury items were in the old Yugoslavia. My sister and I firmly believed that the tree predated my birth, making it, we often stated, a family heirloom. A bit shaggy in spots, held up by electric tape on the bottom, and barely a foot tall, this tree was the most festive and cherished family member. It was prominently placed upon a small console.

Ornaments were not bountiful. There were only a few nice glass ones. Most had fallen victim to disagreements between my sister and me. The ones I loved most were candies wrapped in a festive, sparkly foil. We got them when my grandmother decided to buy new ornaments for her tree. The first time they were hung on the tree, I could not resist and I unwrapped and licked one of these cherished thirty year old candies. Later I learned that Mom had fond memories of these in particular, as they had hung on the Christmas tree when she was a child. I did not tell a soul that night, relieved the next morning that the candies had not made me ill.

To compensate for the lack of ornaments, we would cover the tree with silver confetti. The three of us would shower the tree. I was very proud of my ability to throw the silver threads high in air and achieve the effortless decorating look. The final touch was, in our opinion, the stroke of genius. Mom would take cotton from a makeup bag and unravel it to create snow under the tree. A bit more silver confetti and the sparkly snow became the winter wonderland look we all loved.

While we did our chores, mom would place gifts under the tree. These were always modest gifts, usually a book or a journal. On special occasions we got earrings or hats, gloves and scarves. These gifts were special to us since she would wrap them with such care, making them look like the ones we saw in magazines. Beautiful paper and ribbon was just the backdrop for her artistic expression. She would include fresh berries or evergreen branches or even the twigs and bows made of orange rind. Each gift was wrapped differently, and we felt so special just looking at them.

We would circle around the tree, lifting the gifts and shaking them, trying to guess what we were getting, knowing that we could not open them until after the Christmas Eve dinner. And this dinner was what made this day truly special.

Christmas Eve dinner was a simple feast of fish, German potato salad, red wine for adults and a berry juice for kids. Freshly baked bread and a variety of homemade cakes and cookies rounded out supper. My favorites were tiny sugar cookies and chocolate covered marzipan bars, which would usually disappear in minutes.

While the food was always delicious, the true star of the evening was a candle lighting ritual prior to dinner. There were three candles in all, and two small dishes. One contained red wine, the other with a bit of bread, set in a medley of evergreens at the center of the table. Mom would light each candle and recite, “Please God spark the love in our hearts.” Dinner would end by extinguishing the candles with bread dipped in wine. With that mom would say, “Please God stop the hatred in our hearts.” To this day I keep that tradition. And though I am so far from my family in Sarajevo these small things bring me a little closer to home.

What is it that makes me do it?  Is it the Old Navy commercials with the attractive young people dancing around with their pets?  Is it the obscene amount of car and jewelery commercials where people make out or pass out?  Or is it the underlining theme to all of this?  That notion that if you care about people, you will show them this by giving them things.

And giving them things makes up for all the crap you put them through the rest of the year?  This whole cycle makes me feel sad and without.  I don’t make cookie plates or buy people sweaters with snowflakes on them and somehow I feel like less of a person because of it.

But when it comes to Christmas day, and we’re opening presents and my friends and family are calling to say “Happy Holidays!”, I feel overwhelmed in a different way.  Instead of feeling sorry for myself or kicking myself for not buying Uncle Fred that mounted singing fish, I feel overjoyed to have what I do; people who love me, healthy children, a job, and a warm place to sleep at night.  Happy New Year to you all and thanks for stopping by.

My father remarried about 3 years ago to an Irish woman who brought her 3 kids all under the age of 10 with her to live in our house. Since then my sister and my stepmother both have had children bringing the total number of kids to 7. The ages are 21, 20, 10, 10, 5, 1 and 4 months. So as you can imagine, our house is very noisy and Christmas day is no exception.

I have always loved the weeks leading up to Christmas because it is a time for family and even though all of our cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles are living in Ireland or England we still keep in touch, especially over the Christmas period. We receive countless cards each year from friends and family back home who we rarely see but haven’t forgotten us and we certainly haven’t forgotten them. All of the Christmas cards from Ireland have a festive stamp on them usually containing the words “Nollaig Shona Duit” which means merry Christmas in the Irish language, Gaelic.

Every year my grandparents send over selection boxes, which are big boxes of different types of Irish chocolate bars which I stuff my face with on Christmas morning. A few days before Christmas we make Christmas pudding which is a heavy steamed pudding filled with dried fruit. The tradition is that each member of the family must stir the pudding mix before it is cooked and while you are stirring you make a wish. After Christmas dinner, the pudding is brought out and doused in brandy and then lit on fire as everyone applauds and the kids blow the cake out before we eat it.

Every Christmas Eve we make mince pies. Mince pies are small pastries filled with mincemeat which is a thick preservative made with sultanas, raisins, and apples. We leave the mince pies out for Santa along with a pint of Guinness or if he is very lucky, a glass of whiskey. Before going to bed on Christmas Eve we watch the Christmas special of English and Irish comedies like Only Fools and Horses, Father Ted, and the Royle Family.

After this the kids go to sleep, we wrap the presents and put them under the tree for the next morning. Usually at about 6am or earlier on Christmas morning my step brothers bust into my room with my step sister and jump on my bed to wake me up. My dad then has to go downstairs before any of the kids can to check if Santa has come. When he gives the signal, all of the kids run downstairs to open the presents. After the mad scramble of opening all of the presents is finished, we bring out Christmas crackers which we take turns pulling. The winner usually gets a paper hat small toy. We spend the next few hours calling our family in Ireland and asking them what presents they got from Santa. After a huge Christmas dinner, the rest of the day and following days are spent quietly with my family and family friends.

Christmas is my favorite time of year and my family have continued our Christmas traditions in the country we now call home. I encourage everyone to make the most out of this Christmas period with your family and have a great holiday wherever you may be.

During winter break, the first morning after the snow storm would become very noisy. My sister and I, along with other kids from the neighborhood, would run out and go wild on the hill in front of our apartment building. The crowd pleasers were sled races on the “trail of death,” ending with a steep drop onto the street. The goal was to throw oneself off the sled in a most artistic and heroic way at full speed. I developed my own style and would fall in a classic James Bond fashion, ending on my feet, keeping my cool.

On weekends we went skiing, having the luxury of Olympic ski trails twenty minutes away. We would spend all day skiing and warm up at the ski lodge before the most anticipated event of the weekend. Skiing at midnight was what we all waited for eagerly. One trail would be illuminated with lights, while music accompanied us as we raced down the mountain. All I could see was the sparkle of lights refracting through snow, making me feel as if I was an integral part of the magic of nature.

These feelings of wonder and excitement of snow and winter disappeared after the war. When Sarajevo came under the siege in the Spring of 1992, all electricity, gas, water and food were cut off, leaving the city of then 500,000 people without infrastructure and under a constant assault. The first war winter was a big adjustment for us. My sister and I soon relied on each other for strength and support.

Our regular routine of getting up at 2 am, crossing part of the city under sniper fire and waiting in line for water up to five hours, became almost unbearable in winter. We dealt with the cold, the physical exertion and the understanding that we could be killed at any moment by a grenade or a sniper. What made our routine soul draining was the fact that we went back to a home without windows, which were shattered in the first months of the war, and lacking a viable source of heat.

Only one room in our apartment was heated since it had the last remaining window. We created a “wood-burning “stove out of a water heater and burned old shoes, furniture and clothes for heat. Wood was almost impossible to come by and we refused to cut down our apple tree or deplete parks or even take wooden crosses from the cemetery. Though our extensive library was off limits, mom was forced to use a couple of books in desperation.

During winters, our home was so cold that to get to the bathroom at the other end of the apartment, we had to dress in layers. Soon, my sister and I learned to live with frostbite on a regular basis. There were scabs on our hands and toes that we accepted as badges of honor.

One frigid morning, after walking miles and waiting in water line for four hours our feet froze so bad that we were in tears. As they began to thaw the pain was excruciating. We ran to our balcony barefoot, dipping them in the snow to numb the sensation. We cried and laughed, feeling a sense of pride that we made it through one more day without giving-up.

I love snow, but now it comes with memories of cold and the constant struggle to stay warm during the war. Even in a warm home, I still feel the chill that cuts to the bone, becoming a physical reminder of war, making it impossible to escape and forget.

*Photo by Zeljko Puljic for FAMA from the “Survival Guide”

A car that has Four Wheel Drive on negative 16 degree mornings when I have no coffee

A clear and concise parenting plan

A job that pays me benefits

Someone to take the GRE for me

A government system that allows me to get ahead while still providing a little help.

Enough time in my day to work 9 hours, have dinner with an old friend, and still have time to study after read more

PTSD is greatly misunderstood in general society. It carries the stigma of mental disorder, and is often interpreted as a singular response to an event or a prolonged exposure to trauma. Defined as a response, and paired with a lack of societal interest and inquiry, PTSD becomes either something one should “get over” or “keep to themselves.” In this environment, those who live with the disorder often become isolated and misunderstood.

After my escape from Sarajevo in 1995, where I lived with constant exposure to severe violence and war trauma, I fled to Croatia. Shuttled from relative to relative, I finally ended up in a refugee camp. It was during this stay that I experienced my first symptoms. I had trouble sleeping and on those rare nights when I was able to, I would awake in a panic. Often I felt certain that I am about to die or that a shell was about to strike the house. I struggled to realize that it was just a dream, and even then I would still feel the same fear and adrenaline rush I had daily during the war.

In those first days after the war, I was often startled on the street by sudden loud noise, to a point where I would duck behind a car in order to protect myself from what my mind recognized as a grenade. Within our small group of refugees we often joked that one could recognize Sarajevans on a street, since they were the ones walking very fast and ducking constantly.

After reaching Chicago I stopped eating, torn by guilt that I was living in peace with plenty of food while my friends and family did not have that luxury. My weight dropped to 96 pounds and I was not doing well. In order to not think about the war and my experiences I completely focused on school and work. I worked long hours and focused on maintaining a 4.0 GPA. I strove for perfection in everything I did, since this complete control would help me avoid possibilities of future trauma.

I focused my research on psychology and social studies thinking that I must do something to help others in need since I’d had the privilege to survive. In my studies I became outspoken and very angry with systems of oppression, with people’s indifference to genocide and famine. It seemed that all I could feel was anger, powerlessness and sorrow. This cluster of emotions became so unbearable that I entertained thoughts of suicide. The only thing that prevented me was the feeling of duty to repay the gift of life and a possibility of a new future, something so many of those living under oppression and in war zones do not have.

In order not to feel I started to drink. Not much, a glass of wine here and there until I could not end my day without my “medicine.” All of this came at a great expense. I became disconnected from my friends and my health deteriorated so much that in 2003 I began to have trouble walking and I lost ability to control my emotions. I was soon diagnosed with a form of autoimmune disorder that essentially destroyed my thyroid and created confusion in my metabolic processes. My mind and body were waging their own war, against each other.

My health is improving now and I do not have so many nightmares as before. I still get nervous during the Air and Water show, and I still have control problems. The feeling of guilt has not gone away and a sense of immediate danger is still here. PTSD is a part of me, an ever evolving organism with its own rules and demands. Every day I struggle to claim my own space.

*Image gratefully borrowed from William Turck

That summer passed in a whirl of places to go, people to meet, food to be introduced to and events to attend. I have to admit that specifics of those first months in Chicago are blurred since they came on the heels of my escape from a war zone where a life without electricity, water and food had become normal. I was not just adjusting to a life in a different culture, but I was re-adjusting to a life where electricity and water are constantly at our disposal and food is not given in selected and small rations.

This was a life I used to know, but had to get myself acquainted with again. Most of my memories of those first months come in snap shots devoid of clearly defined emotions. That is, until my first Thanksgiving.

That Thursday we were to spend with my husband’s family in suburban Chicago. I did not truly understand what the Thanksgiving dinner entailed, “I guess it’s like a Christmas dinner,” I thought to myself. Oh, I knew the history of Thanksgiving and I’ve seen it re-enacted in movies but I did not truly know what to expect. So, I prepared my Bosnian desert, the only one I knew how to make without making a disaster zone in my kitchen, and I dressed up and went to partake in what I saw as a cultural exercise. This was going to be fun and I have to admit I was excited.

Once we arrived I was directed into the kitchen where I was to leave my contribution to this great dinner that the entire family had been planning for a week. As I entered the room, I stopped in my tracks. I had not seen that large of an amount of food in several years. It reminded me of an impromptu feast at the beginning of the war where we, along with our neighbors had to cook all the food left in our freezers and refrigerators since our electricity was cut off. A war feast, that is prepared for the anticipated destruction of our city.

The family’s chatter during that first Thanksgiving dinner was comforting, but I could not avoid missing my mom, my brother and my sister whom I left behind. Throughout the dinner I wondered if they were being shelled or if they were cold and hungry. In fact, as I looked at the mountain of food on my husband’s plate I could not stop myself from guessing how many weekly meals that would translate into, and how long one could survive on the leftovers.

That evening I did not eat much, but I enjoyed sharing time and stories with those around me and giving thanks for the opportunity to create new friendships and family connections, a solid foundation for my new life.

This expansion of friendships and incorporation of new people into our family continues today, with our annual hosting of dinners for all those friends and neighbors who are alone. This is our way of saying thanks for the possibility of a safe environment in which we are free to create and foster new relationships and define humanity as a giving and nurturing concept.

On Thursday I received a call from my mom in Bosnia, wishing us a happy thanksgiving. She hoped that we would all be able to spend Thanksgiving together. And that is the dilemma for so many immigrants separated from families, scattered around the world in warzones, impoverished places or under oppression. We live in two worlds, the life we’ve found here and the world we wish to change for the better.

The debacle surrounding the Nebraska Safe Haven law highlights a hidden crisis within American families.

Last week Nebraska amended its Safe Haven law and social workers and hospital employees across the state breathed an uneasy sigh of relief. Now, only infants 30 days or younger may be dropped off at hospitals and firehouses with no fear of prosecution for the parents. For the last two and a half months, parents have been able to drop off kids as old at 17, and many have done so.

While the state scrambles to find homes for the 36 kids- mostly teenage boys, sometimes from other states- abandoned since September, America needs to start analyzing what conditions exist that drove parents to do the unimaginable. Society wants to blame the parents, but that won’t explain the good-bye scenes that were caught on tape.

“I’ll be good — I’ll be good, I promise,” one youth begged as his mother walked away, Ann Schaumacher of Immanuel Medical Center in Omaha told the judiciary committee. “It is not the right place for relinquishment to occur,” she said of ER abandonment.

Schaumacher describes an exchange well documented in Nebraska. Parents tearfully, but deliberately, dropping their kids off at hospitals and firehouses. These were not parents bent on cruelty, kicking their kids out of the car and fleeing happily off to the mall, but rather, already regretful parents and teenagers with overnight bags hugging goodbye.

A majority of the kids abandoned were diagnosed with a mental illness and 90% of the parents or guardians had tried to get help from the state. Indeed assistance is hard to find. Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS) runs a website called Answers4Families that has an avalanche of information and brightly colored links, but I couldn’t find a single contact number. The NDHHS is arguably under-funded but for families in crises reading an article on autism will not provide the real help their kids need.

Prolonged social and increased economic stress is taking a huge toll on the American family. For a lot of people, life has gotten harder, not easier, over the last 20 years. Food, gas, childcare costs and health care have all risen, while incomes have stayed mostly the same.

To add insult to injury, we live in a society that bombards our families with contradictory parenting messages. For example, breast feed or bottle feed, pre-school or home school? Then add to that a multitude of disciplinary methods to choose from. Don’t believe me? Go into your local bookstore and gasp at the hoards of parenting books available, not to mention the Super-nanny’s and Dr. Phil’s of primetime television.

Many parents also had less than ideal parenting models themselves. As a good friend of mine, and long time school principal, likes to tell her teachers “All parents love their kids. They don’t always do the best they can, but they do the best they know how.”

If the parents of those 36 kids considered abandonment their best and only option, how many hundreds more sympathized with them and went to bed praying for better options for their families? Nebraska’s amended safe haven law sends a “we can’t help you” message to struggling families and pushes them farther down a tunnel with no light in sight.

This tradition is, after all, what attracted me to Brooklyn in my restless early 20s. As a teenager I read Betty Smith’s coming-of-age novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and secretly believed myself to be a Brooklynite from a working-class immigrant neighborhood, despite living all my life in the cushy comforts of a Chicago suburb.

Years after Smith’s book filled my imagination with the sites and smells of old Brooklyn, I finally got there. I moved to the industrial Bushwick neighborhood and I loved it. But most days I found myself exploring the many other neighborhoods that Brooklyn had to offer - Flatbush, Red Hook, Boro Park, Greenpoint, Brighton Beach, Bedford Stuyvesant and so on. Although many of these neighborhoods had experienced serious gentrification in recent decades, the strains of old immigrant traditions and the waves of new were prevalent enough to fill up all the cultural voids of a bland Midwestern girl.

When Pope John Paul died I remember wandering towards the Greenpoint neighborhood where the largest Polish-American population outside of Chicago resides. It felt like home to walk among the makeshift memorials and subdued gatherings of mourners.

Shopping on Fulton Street in Bedford Stuy was perhaps my most memorable time in Brooklyn. It was loud and noisy and annoying. But I heard 15 languages every minute and stumbled upon strange little shops with treasures from foreign places. It was never boring and it was never the same.

Ultimately, Brooklyn brought me back to Chicago by reminding me of the vibrant havens I’d left behind. My Puerto Rican neighbors in Logan Square, the best Swedish bakery in Andersonville, the Indian restaurants on Devon Ave, and little Mexico in Pilsen.

The rich inspiration of immigrant cultures is what had drawn me to another place. And immigrants are what brought me home.

I want to be able to give my children everything they ask for, for them to be content and stuffed full of food and happy with the Christmas booty they’ve received, but what am I teaching them? That Christmas is that terrible monster of greed that leaves one worked up and always unsatisfied?

Why is it that even when they get what they’ve asked for there’s always that sense of disappointment after all the presents are unwrapped? It’s like we’ve built this thing up so much that we can’t help but be let down. Why must we stuff ourselves silly on Thanksgiving and why must I empty my bank account on Christmas?

I’ve been missing something these past few years. I’m still new at the parenting thing in some respects. After all this will only be my fourth year celebrating Christmas as a parent. I think that I’ve gotten so wrapped up in trying to make it a satisfying holiday that I’ve forgotten to actually sit down and enjoy it with them. So this year instead of trying to fill the space in my belly or under the Christmas tree I think I’ll try to fill the space in my children’s hearts and make the holidays a special day for me to enjoy with them. Yes, of course we’ll have food and presents but those things will be a side note to sharing time with the people I love most in this world.

The day dragged on with customers asking their predictable questions: “How big is a medium cup?” “Where is the cream?” - I answer them with sass, to play the part of the typical independent cafe barista: “16 ounces, like every other joint in this city” and “Why don’t you look around for 10 seconds then ask me that question again”.

I decided to send a mass text message to everyone in my phone book letting them know that a group of us would be biking down together, and to meet at the coffee shop if they were interested. At the end of my shift, about ten people showed up, four of us had tickets. The rest of the group was going to gather material for a story to tell the grand-kids, no matter what the outcome the evening’s events, it would prove worthy of some kind of retelling, eh hem, wink.

We agreed to take Clark Street, not only to be visibly part of the political movement, but to be representatives in the constant struggle cyclists face: to be recognized as traffic. As we rode further south, the streets became as crowded as my thoughts. The sodium vapor bulb streetlights spilled their yellow light into what seemed liked a blurred photograph taken with no flash. All of the sudden we were on Michigan Avenue, looking for bike parking. We all walked toward the entrance together, past the t-shirt salesmen and war protesters, said our goodbyes and split ways.

Four of us waited in the line for about an hour. First enduring the loud speaker repeatedly stating what you must and mustn’t have with you, then a series of three ticket checks and bag searches. We finally reached the end, and for the first time, felt the excitement burning inside. In that moment I think we knew we had to just run towards whatever was ahead of us.

We could hear the roar of the masses as we got closer, but couldn’t see them. The standing area was shaped like a giant rectangular reservoir, with the edges sloped up. Only as we approached the edge of the dip did the multitudes reveal themselves. A vast sea of faceless shadows packed in the grassy field, a rare feast for the eyes indeed.

At first we didn’t know what to do, so we just kind of waded around without saying anything. After the initial shock faded we agreed to settle on one of the sloped sides, to safeguard a spot with overlooking the jumbo-tron and the crowd. There wasn’t much to do after that, besides wait for the screen to turn back to CNN. So we ate a ridiculously overpriced pizza while we waited.

As the votes were counted for each state, everyone sitting would stand and cheer or boo when appropriate. The roar was always deafening, no matter which way it went. Cell phone reception was very poor, but I managed to get a few bars. Perhaps the most lucid moment of that night for me came at 8:56, when I received a text message from my extremely conservative father that read: “Congratulations on your victory baby”. I have had many heated arguments with my pops in the past, where I left feeling angry and hopeless. But with that stupid little message, somehow it had all come undone. It was a virtual tip of the hat, a sign of respect that had never really been there before. I had felt very confident all night, but after that I knew it was over. After all, my dad is always right, just ask him.

The final twinkling was of course, the announcement. There was only a split second between Virgina being called blue, and the culmination of the mob. After that, it was totally off the chain.

One of the friends with me had battled an infamous illness for a good part of her youth, and because of her preexisting condition, found it nearly impossible to find any kind of health insurance that would cover her. After we all stopped jumping up and down and screaming, she looked at me, ecstatic, and with tears pouring down her face said “Katie, do you understand? I might get insurance now! I might be okay!”

Although the night may have continued, at that point it was over for me in a lot of ways. We stayed for the speeches, took the lakefront trail home and stopped by the water for a bit to take it all in. I sat there, and in my own way I prayed. To whom I’m not sure, but I prayed that the candidate would make peace with the promises he made to us.

And for the first time in my adult life, I was genuinely proud to be an American.

As I grew older my Irish accent slipped away, my family received green cards and established ourselves in the suburbs of Chicago. I was completely ignorant of the immigration system in America at that time and getting our green cards had no impression on me whatsoever. It was only after 9/11 when I started taking a closer look at immigration and the stereotypes it brings with it. I found out how difficult and expensive a green card is and that I was one of a lucky few in the millions of immigrants who desperately want one.

Since 9/11 the issue of immigration has received a massive amount of attention. Immigrant bashing in the media and by politicians has become common. But I have never heard or read of anyone having anything against immigrants coming from Ireland. When I arrived here I was treated as an equal. For me the only visible difference between myself and a person coming from Central America or the Middle East is skin color. Immigrants from these regions come to America for the same reason my family did, in search of a better life. But when they arrive, they are met with a barrage of stereotypes and are seen as “different” and their children do not fit in at school and are often times not welcomed by their classmates.

The sad thing is that America’s economy depends heavily on immigrants but all we hear about on the news is the need for a fence on the border and to keep everyone out. People are so afraid to accept those who do not look like them. My green card gives me exactly the same rights as a Mexican with a green card but for most Americans, he isn’t “cool.” Immigrants are no different from American citizens; everyone that lives in this country strives to live the American dream. It will only be after we move beyond our prejudices and stereotypes that we can work together to make America a better place for everyone regardless of background.

In addition to being able to do your own laundry, take a shower, or play a few arcade games, you can visit Irene’s barber and styling shop; have your teeth examined at Interstate Dental; seek advice from the Career Center; visit the Custom Shop if you need anything embroidered, engraved, or have a need for vinyl graphics; fill your belly at the Iowa 80 Restaurant; and even catch a classic flick at Trucker’s Theater (which seats approximately 40 people).

Once inside the mammoth building you can find such oddities as gladiator swords, golden grapplers, three-foot dolls, mattresses, cowboy boots, musical instruments, and a massive collection of pins, among many other strange objects.

You can also find a full length tractor-trailer, two cabs (from semi trucks), a 1931 Ford Model A, and a Dodge Power Wagon. Needless to say, the building itself is unbelievably massive, and yet it is only part of the 200 acre facility that makes up the rest of the Iowa 80 truck stop property.

While I wandered inside the behemoth truck stop on a trip a while ago, I wondered why such a place exists. I came to the realization that, considering how much strange stuff you can find in our nation, a truck stop such as Iowa 80 was uniquely American.

Did you know that the United States is the home of the world’s largest artichoke, olive, peanut, catsup bottle, ear of corn, and crucifix? Or that right here, on our native soil, we have the world’s tallest strawberry and fountain?

I find it strange that we have so many of these things. Is it because no other country cares about creating/maintaining the world’s tallest catsup bottle? Perhaps there is something more to it. I am beginning to wonder how much these structures define our larger American culture. The Iowa 80 truck stop claims that it has 5,000 visitors a day. People tend to gravitate towards structures and sites if they say that they are the World’s Largest or the World’s Tallest.

If enough people visit these sites, they become a part of who we are. Now I can’t imagine too many people know about the above stated freakishly large structures, but I have to believe that they draw at least one or two more people a year to the towns that host them, therefore validating their purpose. Visitors will likely tell their friends, as I am telling you about the Iowa 80 truck stop, in hopes that they may convince someone that it is worth going to see, which really means they are validating the structure’s existence.

Excess and exaggeration is something that America is famous for. We like to Super-size our drinks, add an extra patty to our sandwiches for a small fee, or buy our cereals, ketchup, and snacks in bulk at Costco or Sam’s Club. We even buy large vehicles such as Hummers and Escalades. These things make us feel like we are getting a good deal.

It’s hard to be frugal when we are constantly reminded of a good deal or sale in the Sunday paper. Billboards, magazine advertisements, and television commercials are so pervasive that it is often hard to ignore certain things.

Maybe we need to start resisting some of these so-called good deals. Perhaps we need to practice the art of being frugal in order to get ourselves out of the current economic crisis we are going through. Or maybe I’m thinking way too much and should be satisfied with visiting a giant ear of corn, catsup bottle or a two story outhouse. Somehow these things remind me of how we may need to reassess our priorities.

]]> http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/10/24/america-bigger-taller-stronger/feed/ http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/10/20/fear-faith-in-two-thousand-eight/ http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2008/10/20/fear-faith-in-two-thousand-eight/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:34:24 +0000 Jill Garvey http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/?p=900 Last week I received a letter from my friend Jonathon asking for money. He had been laid off from his job with a major consulting firm and after spending a few weeks looking for work, decided that he needed to make a major change. At 28 Jonathon veered wildly off the corporate ladder and was preparing to go to southeast Africa to teach AIDS/HIV prevention. I was surprised to hear of his plans, because in his own words “roughing it isn’t really a term that people associate when they think of me”. He’s not exaggerating, I once saw Jonathon cut a meeting short to make a massage appointment. I was happy to learn that his request for money was to help fund a trip to Malawi, Africa, not just to get him through a tough time.

Then there is my friend Scott, who cheerfully informed me recently that he’d been laid off from his communications job in DC, and before I could express my condolences, exclaimed, “No, no, it’s a really good thing!”  And then there are the group of mid-twenty-somethings I met recently who peppered me with questions about what I do for a living and what it was like to work for ‘a cause‘. My initial reaction was slightly bemused, until I remembered that it wasn’t long ago that these same people would have glazed over as soon as I started talking about what I do. Something had radically shifted in the minds of these emerging professionals.

It seems I can’t go a day without meeting someone who has spent the last 6 or 7 years racking up student loans instead of work experience, and back when they charted their academic plans it wasn’t a matter of if they got a job, but where. While I hear a lot of anxiety in the conversations I’ve had with them, I’m surprised to hear even more curiosity, perhaps about the possibility of a successful future not measured by the size of their paycheck.

These are upper-middle class kids turned grown-up yuppies realigning their expectations for the sparkling futures their parents promised them in the ’90s, and I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Unless I’m crazy, they don’t seem to think it’s so bad either. These “kids” still have privileged lives ahead of them no doubt, but I can’t help feeling that my generation is starting to realize their complicity in a world of haves and have-nots. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I’d like to believe that as witnesses to so much loss we can finally feel that what we have is enough and maybe more than we deserve.

In my house (or tiny apartment) I pretty much know the answer as to what they will be for Halloween this year, but I have to ask, just in case. The feminist in me cringes as the word rings out in toddler unison “PRINCESS!!” What I’d like to hear is “DOCTOR!!” or “COMPUTER GRAPHICS ENGINEER!!” but with this I am merely delusional.

This princess thing is everywhere from shirts to shoes, jackets to underwear, bikes, bandannas, boots, bags, and beanies. Pretty much anything you can graph or embroider has those tiny jeweled crowned heads poised for purchase. Fortunately I have not bought, but inherited most of our Princess attire but none the less we have it and having it means we wear it. And in doing so creates an insatiable appetite for more of it. I retracted my statement long ago that we would not fall prey to such obvious marketing schemes.

What raises my brow about the Princess idea is that there is nothing real and tangible about being a princess. At least Spider Man is out there heroically swinging from buildings and rescuing Kirsten Dunst. I’ve watched Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White (about twenty times each) and it seems their only attributes are beauty, the fact that they can hide out pretty well (or at least sleep in for a really long time) and of course being rescued.

And while I know that my girls will grow out of those threadbare, tattered princess dresses and into something more suitable for negative degree weather, the thought still haunts me that this princess idea will stick with them and that they’ll always look to be rescued by some heroic prince and that their only true worth comes from how well they play the victim.

“What do you mean?” I asked, “I’m pro-choice, of course”.

“Yeah, but how do you feel about it?” he asked. This is where I started to get prickly. There’s a habit of defensiveness I’ve gotten into when it comes to the issue of abortion. A holding pattern developed in response to questions meant to entrap me in my own morality.

“I feel that if you aren’t working to improve women’s access to contraceptives and sex education then you don’t deserve an opinion”, I finally told him.

Undeterred by my answer my friend told me about his childhood in a place where women had as many children as they were able and he was taught that abortion was a bad thing. I realized he was trying to give me a better picture of his internal conflict, and I began to regret my statement (after all was I doing much to improve access for women?). So I cooled myself down a bit and started to listen. What I heard was someone who cared about women and wanted them to have better access, but who wasn’t sure how to communicate that without disenfranchising himself from his culture.

He told me, “The Latina women I know, like the women in my family, don’t agree with abortion.” My irritation rose again. Of course they don’t say they agree with abortion! Nobody agrees with abortion! I wanted to scream. But I didn’t. Because how would he know? How would he know the shame or the humiliation of a woman without control over her own body; over her own life really? Instead I told him the truth. Women may not agree with abortion, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have one. I’ve never met a woman who wanted to have an abortion, but I’ve met many who have had them and for most it was the most difficult decision of their lives. In many cases a woman who has an abortion won’t tell anyone except her closest friend. When we live in a society where women are able to make informed decisions, afford birth control, and demand that their partners use condoms, they have less abortions. In fact, women have more abortions in countries where it is outlawed. This is one of the main reasons I passionately advocate for abortions to be legal, because I care about life.

But hearing words like “pro-abortion” thrown around in presidential debates make it difficult to let my guard down. When I separate my moral compass from my convictions on abortion I’m not doing my feelings on the subject justice, and I’m preventing myself from speaking candidly with my friend who obviously wants and needs to have honest conversations about abortion with women. Through my work I’ve learned of poor immigrant women who’ve had abortions induced by health providers without their consent or knowledge, presumably because these health providers felt they knew what was best for these women. The outrage I felt after hearing these stories made me realize I have the same amount of passion and concern for women in the opposite position - women who choose to have a child and are either forced or pressured into giving it up. This is why the label “pro-abortion” bothers me so much. At the core it isn’t about abortion, it is only about the freedom to choose, and that is not a position I should feel I have to defend.

When I was a young girl, I would follow the Monarch butterflies into the fields of dancing clovers.  Their wings patterned freeways of black and gold that teased nature into perfection.  For days, I could lose myself in the endless games of the summer knowing that she stood yards away, by a window and guarded my safety.  I always felt safe, never in harm, never a stranger, never lost.

I was careless, in thought, when my parents moved me from the farm, not knowing that my home would become only a memory.  I knew nothing of loss or estrangement or that someday I would board a plane in an hour’s notice, just to miss the last breathe of my grandmother.  Maybe that is why I can’t believe she is gone; I never said goodbye.

The farm and she seemed like two entities entangled together in a world of fantasy and eternity.  For the old barn to remain standing, and the oak tree to still reach toward the sky, and the brook to still whisper secrets to the breeze is strange to me.  How could it go on existing?  How can I feel the chill of the evening storm or smell the scent of fresh iris blooms when her voice cannot be heard?

Outside the sound of first rain comes down in tap-dancing patters on the window- sill.  The lightning is closer now as it brightens the yard in daylight intensity.  The crack of thunder and shoots of light are simultaneous as I emerge from my sleeplike reminiscing.  The family gathers in the living room as we’ve done so many times before and I cannot avoid ritual.  My mother turns the lamp lights out and we all take our places.  The shades are opened and the display of lights is set out before us.  All of us watching in amazement and terror as the storm threatens the large oak just outside the window.  The room flashes, all of us present in the light, then in a moment we are gone, invisible.  I can almost feel her here, with us in the dark.  I imagine, once again, that I am a conductor, commanding the roars and claps to arise and dissolve.   The last thunderclap strikes out a retreated warning as the stars begin to show above the blanket of smoky clouds.  In this moment I realize, that I have been welcomed home.

Welcomed home to a room full of family, a life that reflects her life in its moments of perfection, where each member stores inside of them the energy and experience of living life with her.  She is here with us, and with the farm.   The entities that travel together through time and space, ever changing, have merged together forever in my memory.

Everything is left as it was before. As if her absence will be short lived and we will see her soon. I keep thinking that she has forgotten her special this-or-that, like the lovely plated silver hand-mirror and brush set that often reflected her primping gaze; so seldom used in the past few years. The brush; probably used last when the final hairs on her head were combed away from chemotherapy.

I can still smell her. The hint of ammonia, vanilla perfume, dust, from the carpet, the shampoo, and laundry detergent, she wore them all. I anticipate her appearing around the corner of the hallway, asking if I’d like something to eat. “Spinach and Liver, maybe?” To her amusement, I had often asked in all seriousness for this delicatessen as an after school snack. I still imagine her rolling her eyes and proceeding to the basement to fetch the liver from the freezer. I think, sometimes I hear her call me from the kitchen and trick me into helping her with the dishes.

Her walls are full of portraits framed in Wal-mart discount, sectioned frames, memories, that she has kept like no one else. Distant faces peer through years and years of light damage and dust as I struggle to recognize them from reunions and gatherings. Most of them are strangers to me, now that the connection is gone. We were once bonded together by the woman who held onto these memories. I listened to her stories so casually, as if I would always hear them told. I wish I could recall them now; she had so much faith in me to remember. I fall onto the bed, deep in thought. My family’s movement and conversation still outside the door, but I am alone.

The evening walks with her are over. The garden will go un-kept. The sewing machine will collect the dust, and the chair she fell into after long days of domestic upkeep, will go un-sat. I have watched my grandfather look over at the chair a dozen times since my visit. Sometimes, when he needs something, he still calls out her name. “Gertie!” He says. But silence is the only reply and then he remembers… then we all remember.