Laurita Dianita

Last Fall, I decided to undertake a series of photographic portraits and narratives of women in Alaska. I wrote about the idea in the early life of this blog: http://www.lauritadianita.info/?p=16. I am finally beginning.

I am interested in sharing the stories of the women that make Alaska the unique place that it is. I am interested in showing the different forms that women’s strength can take: from fixing snowmachines and putting up firewood and hunting to bringing your family across the ocean as a refugee and resettling in this strange, cold land to fighting with wisdom and compassion for the well-being of your people who have lived here for many thousands of years.

For those who are not from here, such stories can provide a much-needed humanity to Alaska; they can provide a portrait of our state apart from the we-all-live-in-igloos misconceptions or Sarah Palin’s mama grizzlies.  For those from here, we all, I think, deserve to stop and celebrate the women who are our neighbors, coworkers, family members, forbearers, tribal leaders, legislators, and inspirations. In a state with mostly male legislators and the highest rates of sexual violence in the country, a state where the mayor of the largest city can veto equal rights for LBGT folks, we need to celebrate and promote the places where we are forward-thinking in terms of gender: we have some tough-as-nails women up here doing good things.

I am interested in telling the stories, through photographs and interviews, of what strong and compassionate women do and who they are. Most important to me, however, is the question of how they came to be. How does strength and passion develop? How does someone develop a sense of justice? Where did each woman find her inspirations and role models and which lessons and oppressions did she have to reject? This is important to explore because it gives us clues into how we can raise and educate children to be strong, just and compassionate leaders in the world. And in particular, it guides us in this process for raising our daughters.

Very soon I will have the first installment, featuring Tiffany Zulkosky. You can get a sneak peek of the photo on Flickr.

I got my first photos published! And in an independent, internationally-distributed feminist parenting magazine called Hip Mama, which is the kind of place I’d want to be published.

How did this come about? My rad fellow Mount Holyoke alumna, Amanda Englund is one of the magazine’s editors. She took a liking to my pictures, asked if she could use them in upcoming editions, and then she & the other editors picked some off of my Flickr account that they thought fit.

But, as Oscar pointed out, it’s not only the photos–it’s also because they see me as part of their tribe. I think he means that a photo has more relevance to a person or, in this case, a group of editors, when the person behind the camera shares some common hopes or values and wants to give their art to the same cause. And though I am not yet a feminist mother and Oscar is not yet a feminist father, we are hatching plans to become them. I guess this, indeed, makes me part of the feminist parenting tribe.

These is one of the pictures they used:

I am so proud of the Photovoice kids, proud of the confidence and intimacy with which they spoke to people about their photographs during the exhibition on Friday night. My mom told me afterwards, “Laura, they were so comfortable speaking with adults and representing themselves. You two should be proud of having prepared them so well.” The 6 young artists spoke about depression, neighborhood stereotypes, alcoholism, and self-confidence. They spoke to artists, parents, teachers, social service providers, native corporation administrators, legislators, and assembly members. They got us two more show offers and a follow-up news article in which Denisha Crowe is going to play a pivotal role and may write something. Crystal Luddington, our up-and-coming community organizer then called everyone afterwards to arrange our next meeting. So proud.

Autumn Meloy spent Friday all in a dither about Julia O’Malley’s article in the Anchorage Daily News that featured her, mixing up her pride with her embarrassment and back and forth. The kids were excited to find out that all of their photos are up on adn.com. Oscar and I were too exhausted and pulled in too many directions during the exhibit to soak in how big this was, but many e-mails have been sent to us since to remind us. Afterwards we laid down exhausted and just held each other and congratulated one another.  We are a good team. In this and in everything.

(BTW, on Oscar’s blog he describes his own pride and excitement and posts the Alaska Teen Media Institute radio story about Photovoice: www.okiave.info).

Thanks, Charles Tice, for the photos:

(Left)

Chester discussing his photos with youth social worker Joe Francisco, medical file clerk & photographer Dexter, & Chester’s sister while Becky Judd of Anchorage United for Youth & friend visit.

(Right)

Northeast Anchorage Representative Pete Petersen and another visitor looking at Edward’s images

This Friday, December 4th, from 5:30 – 8:30 pm @ Kaladi Bros. downtown (6th & G) w/ appetizers from Gallo’s….

the 6 teenagers who stuck with this program form its beginning on August 3rd until now, the 6 teenagers who poured their hearts and creativity into their photography and into their analyses of community and personal issues, the 6 teenagers who came Saturday morning after Saturday morning this fall for planning meetings, these 6 will be presenting their photos. They will be sharing their art, their narratives, their world views, their burgeoning social consciousness with Anchorage. Their photographs address issues ranging from the kinds of emotional support and listening teens need from the adults in their lives to gang and tenant issues, from Mt. View’s reputation and the transience in the neighborhood to alcohol abuse. They aim to speak to funders and policy makers about the need for youth programs such as Photovoice. They aim to speak to social service providers, teachers, and parents about what they as young people need from adults. They aim to debunk myths about Mt. View and humanize its residents.

Oscar and I have worked with these kids for 4 months now. We love them, are proud of them, get frustrated with them and push them to do better, and ask you to come listen to them.

*This is an Anchorage United for Youth (AUY) project, connected to the larger AUY goals to increase graduation rates, decrease youth substance abuse, and decrease delinquency.*

(Marioma, little Raja, Attahir & others dancing)

On November 15th, the local Darfuri community, along with the activist group Save Darfur and a faith-based charity, put on a fundraiser for Darfur with Sudanese food, introductions, singing, drumming, and dancing.

I have spent time with many different cultural and geographical communities this summer and fall as part of my community research and community engagement in Mountain View for Anchorage United for Youth. Of all of these, my connection to the Darfui community is the best example of why personal connections matter, and why social service work must include relationship-building.

A shared acquaintance connected me to Debbie Bock, a volunteer with the Save Darfur group in Anchorage, who volunteered to take me by the apartment of  Abubaker and Safi, the informal leaders of the recently-arrived and resettled Darfuri community here in Anchorage.  A while later, I stopped by their apartment again to talk about the idea of a focus group and Abu eagerly volunteered to bring people together for me and interpret. He also made some comment about not understanding how to use facebook or e-mail or his digital camera, and so I offered to help. He organized Darfuri men for the focus group and sort of interpreted. It was chaotic and difficult and people came in and out during the group, but I heard their voices.

(Abubaker is in the back. In the middle is Attahir, the first Darfuri to bring his family to Anchorage. On the right is Tor Gach, a leader of the Southern Sudanese community and a Nuer interpreter.)

Abu told me he could help me pull together women for a female focus group and suggested that I should meet them first. And so I arrived at his house on a Friday evening with carrots fresh from my parents’ garden in hand. It was Ramadan and the sun was soon to set, so he put the carrots in the pan with some liver he was cooking for his roommate and then drove me around to meet Darfuri women. Each one made us sweet tea or offered us Pepsi.  We broke fast with one recently-arrived family that gave us heaping amounts of aseeda (a pasty starch used to scoop up sauce) and an okra meat dish, soup, and salad. Abu then drove me to meet Halima, with whom I spoke in Spanish (her 4th or 5th language) as telenovelas played in the background. All of this took way too long and I was worried about time–this would be a common theme in dealing with Abu–but I just had to…adjust. Check my worries. Check my European-American sense of time and work and just BE with them.

I spent another Saturday afternoon teaching Abu to send photos by e-mail and organize photos into folders. Oscar and I knocked on various doors to invite teenagers Marioma (from Darfur) and Gislaine (from Togo) to Photovoice and I retuned to Halima’s apartment to invite her for an interview. Her neighbors told me she had moved, and invited me in to eat goat stew, watch Sudanese concerts on their TV, and call Halima. The man who had cooked the goat stew once operated a restaurant, and I spoke with him about opening a restaurant in Anchorage, and helped them find the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center, in response to their worries over citizenship health checks. I later interviewed Halima in her apartment with a Jordanian interpreter who brought her two hyperactive children, one of whom threw up after two pieces of the cloyingly sweet (and delicious) baklava and orange juice Halima offered us.

After being out of touch for while, I called Abu to ask him something, and it turned out he wanted my advice, so he came to my office to ask about how to establish non-profit status for the Darfuri community and how to formalize the ways in which they already help one another financially. He also wanted my advice on his course of studies at UAA. I agreed to help him with both concerns through some connections, and he agreed to come be a part of the Anchorage United for Youth planning effort and be a voice for his community in this. I also helped out the community with advertising for and taking photos at the Darfuri event, and ate and danced there at the event with my dad.

The point of all this:

A lot of this doesn’t sound like work.

Indeed, it’s fun. And tasty. And sometimes difficult in that I have to be humble and patient and give up my typical ideas of productivity.

But if I hadn’t been personally introduced to Abu and Safi by someone they trusted and cared for, hadn’t sat and eaten their goat stew or baklava or aseeda, hadn’t traded favors with Abu, hadn’t said my “Asalam Malekums” or chatted or shrugged my shoulders at the sometimes chaotic and often unplanned way that things happened, I don’t think my research would have been as successful and I don’t think the Dafuri community would become involved with Anchorage United for Youth. As Wisteria Ward, who works at New Hope Baptist Church in Mountain View told me, “If service providers want trust, they have to build relationships here. We have to see their faces around.”

That’s less tangible than anything on my job description, but no less necessary.

And that requires an adjustment on our parts.

Last Thursday, Oscar and I were having dinner with Ben & MacKenzie Kerosky and the subject of reactionary politics and sexism in Alaska were brought up.  MacKenzie said that this was one of the hardest things about this otherwise wonderful state. I agreed, but remarked that Alaska is also home to so many incredibly tough women who mush and skin otters and chop ice for drinking water, or women who come here as refugees seeking asylum and who have to build their lives anew, women who should make us question traditional gender norms…and then, suddenly, I got an idea:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make a book of photos of the women of Alaska with short bios for each one? Someone should do that.”

Ben asked, “Well, how about you?”

“Yeah, amor,” Oscar added, “It’s your idea.”

And I protested that I’m not a photographer and that I don’t have anything other than an old manual Pentax K-1000 from 1980…but over the next few days it occurred to me that that’s okay; I can make do with what I have just like women here make do with what they have: a new country and language and confusing bus system, a cabin in the woods with no electricity or water, changing ice conditions for hunting and fishing. And anyway, I don’t have to publish a book. I can just talk with the women I meet and take photos and ask to write about them and do it here to share with you, little by little, in whatever time I find.

So that’s my plan. I want to begin with a brilliant Darfurian woman I interviewed and photographed recently for my work once I have a chance to get her consent. If you know women who embody this spirit of making do with what they have, with struggle and survival and adaptation and strength (that’s my criteria for now, anyway, but it might change), let me know.

[Update 11/18/09: I talked and gave a copy of the photo I took to Halima, the Darfurian woman. She agreed that I could interview her and post her photo on the blog, so I will do that in early December. I'm excited!]