race

Girl w/ Pen is happy to share the following guest post from Kayla Parker, a senior Sociology major and Entrepreneurship minor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. (read more about Kayla at the end of the post)

Being a black woman in America can be absolutely terrifying at times. One of those times was a year ago when I stopped for gas off an unfamiliar exit and left thankful I still had my life. At this gas station, I was both objectified and degraded in a white man’s twisted version of a compliment. When I went inside for gum, one man shouted at me, “Oh you’re a cute little nigglet, aren’t you!” Acknowledging the 15:1 ratio of white men to my black ass, I turned to leave. Only to have one of them follow me. I left the gas station alive, but for a moment, I thought I would not. I remember hitting my lock button five times, like I do every time now. Regularly, I fear that my physical body will be assaulted for being a woman, being queer, or because of the melanin my skin contains.

In my Gender in Society class, we explored the unfortunate realities found at the intersection of race and gender and how those who find themselves there navigate white spaces. In The White Space by Elijah Anderson, Anderson defines white spaces as “overwhelmingly white neighborhoods, restaurants, schools, universities, workplaces, churches and other associations, courthouses, cemeteries, and situations that reinforce normative sensibilities in settings in which black people are typically absent, not expected, or marginalized when present.”

Black spaces, on the other hand, are often depicted as crime filled ghettos and are easily avoidable spaces for weary white people. Growing up black, I quickly learned that it would not be as easy for me to avoid white spaces as it was for white people to avoid black spaces. Finding a way to navigate these spaces is a condition of my existence and historically, navigating these spaces incorrectly has had negative and, sometimes, fatal effects on black women.

For centuries, black women have been persecuted in the United States and reminded that they are outsiders who need to find a way to incorporate themselves within our predominantly white and patriarchal society. Subtle reminders, such as the events that took place on the Napa Valley Wine Train in 2015, are intended to remind black women of how to behave in white spaces. One victim says it best when she explains that their only offense was “laughing while black”. On August 22, 2015, a group of book club members, ten of them black and one of them white, hopped aboard the Napa Valley Wine Train for a fun trip through the Wine Country. Though allegedly laughing no louder than the other inebriated white passengers on the train, they were asked twice by management to lower their voices. Minutes later, they were ordered off the train and turned over to the police.

Time and time again, we’ve seen differences between how black women and white women are treated when doing otherwise normal acts. A few actions that garner disproportionately negative and sometimes fatal responses for black people that achieved trending topic status on Twitter included: #LaughingWhileBlack, #DrivingWhileBlack, and #ShoppingWhileBlack. In my experience, I would’ve hashtagged #BuyingGumWhileBlack.

In The Continuing Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places Joe Feagin states, “[One problem with] being black in America is that you have to spend so much time thinking about stuff that most white people just don’t even have to think about.” Activities that white men can do without simultaneously thinking of their race, gender, or sexuality are not available to me because I don’t have that privilege. I was born queer, black, and female so activities like buying gum at night put me at a higher risk for assault than most.

To navigate white spaces as a black woman, I am constantly making sure I’m Black but not too Black. To ensure my safety when I navigate these spaces, I stay strapped, but I also make room for white people. When I am walking on the street, I find myself constantly stepping out of the way for white men and I believed I was doing so at a disproportionate rate than my white female friends.

My friend Emma and I decided to obtain some empirical evidence. We sought to discover if white men, whether consciously or subconsciously, make room for white women on the crosswalk more frequently than they do for black women. Whenever the crosswalk had over five people, one of us would stand directly across from a selected white man. When the light would turn red, we’d cross the street and if we had to move out of the way within two feet of chosen white man, we counted it. Emma and I tested this and walked across the crosswalk over 250 times. Emma stepped out of the way for 51 white men. I stepped out of the way for 103.

My overwhelming feeling on this crosswalk was that I did not belong. There were several times when I would move out of the way too slowly and would find myself bumping shoulders with the men I passed. Twice, I found myself stepping out of the way for a gaggle of three to five white men. One time, one man angrily mumbled under his breath when I did not move out of his entitled pathway.

I believe this experiment speaks volumes to the character of our society and negates speculation that we are moving towards a “post-racial” world. For centuries, Blacks were legally banned from white spaces, thus coddling and developing white entitlement to these spaces. Today, Black women face the consequences of the white man’s entitlement.

In this era of Trump, a man who campaigned and won with rhetoric of textbook sexism, misogyny, and xenophobia, we must work to de-normalize the white supremacy that thrives at the expense of other minority groups. Stepping out of the way for a person of color may seem small, but I’m sure we’d see some positive outcomes from us feeling more included on the goddamn street.

Our society must be better and our society must be more tolerant. Maybe a world where black women and white men are equal on the street, is a world where a black woman doesn’t have to be afraid to buy gum from the gas station.

After transferring to UTK in 2015, Kayla continued her passioned for business but also discovered that she has a passion for social justice. When seeing the growing wage disparity, racism, and sexism in the world, Kayla began dreaming of ways to make Knoxville more tolerant and more safe for everyone, especially those who are disenfranchised. Combining her love for business and social justice, Kayla worked as a Marketing and Event Planning Intern for Big Brothers Big Sisters of East Tennessee. She helped plan, organize, and host their largest annual fundraiser, Cash 4 Kids Sake which helped pair more positive mentors with impoverished youth in the community. She continues to volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters during events. The marketing and event planning skills acquired during this internship with nonprofit, BBBS helped Kayla in organizing and planning events for her on campus organization, Students Who Stand (SWS). SWS is a support group for student sexual assault survivors. Their aim is to provide an inclusive environment to provide support to survivors, increase awareness, and engage in continuous dialogue with the University to encourage policy changes that will make campus safer and more supportive. Recently, Kayla organized, executed, and hosted a Sexual Assault Round Table with University administrators who handle sexual assault cases and activist Kamilah Willingham who was featured in CNN’s The Hunting Ground. She also organized an open mic for sexual assault survivors called Survivor Voices ft. Kamilah Willingham which gave other survivors a safe platform to share their experiences. Kayla has recently discovered her passion for writing and writes on her blog. In her final year of college, Kayla plans to continue to dedicate herself to her studies, grow her organization, and dream of the day she can finally own and love a Great Dane.

Today, the black woman has been sexualized and objectified in more ways than one. With the degradation of the black woman, the value and uniqueness of them has been ignored. The media offers a made-up truth about black women, and society has swallowed this stereotype. This means Hollywood has a narrow perspective of black women, and only represents a select few. In movies and TV, black women are either a struggling single mom or a successful strong business woman who can’t find love anywhere. Issa Rae, the creator of the hit HBO show Insecure, has come to not only change this narrow-minded portrayal of black women but to also show the many types of women within the black community alone. We are all different.

Insecure is a sequel of the web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl that follows Issa, played by Issa Rae. Issa is a 29-year-old “insecure” woman who struggles with everyone’s depiction of her. Although she tries to defy them, stereotypes seem to follow her and ignorant questions become the norm of her everyday life. Issa Rae’s content follows the different sides of women of color and how multidimensional Hollywood’s depiction SHOULD be. Insecure is just what we need in today’s Hollywood and so I looked for a TV fan who could offer some analysis. I found Janelle Jones, whose work I read as a student of inequality. Janelle Jones is an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. Her work focuses on unemployment, job quality, racial inequality, and economic development. She is an alum of Spelman College, where of which she received her BA in Math. She has an MA in Economics from Illinois State University.

Here’s my conversation with Janelle:

Q: Issa Rae believes that Hollywood’s representation of black women isn’t relatable. Do you think Issa Rae is achieving her goal to change that representation?

JJ: I think Hollywood representations of black women are incredibly narrow, and that makes them not relatable to so many. There are three common depictions that have even the slightest focus on black women: some kind of tragic tale about struggle and redemption, black women as the sassy best friend, or black women in the strict position of service. The thing I love the most about Issa Rae and Insecure is this complete human story that centers on a black woman. The HBO series is an extension of her popular web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (great title). The ability for black women to be silly and awkward is not something we get to see on mainstream television.

Q: What direction can we go in (what else needs to be done) for Hollywood moving forward?

JJ: Shows like Insecure (and Atlanta) are taking huge steps forward by showing complete stories centered on very normal aspects of black life. Another huge step would be more people of color behind the scenes, as directors, writers, producers, etc. Part of telling a genuine black experience on TV is making sure that story is in black hands throughout the process, from conception until it reaches the audience. This is particularly hard to do when only certain aspects of the production process are entirely white. The fact that four blacks, Issa Rae, Prentice Penny, Melina Matsoukas, and Larry Wilmore, are in charge of every part of Insecure is obvious, from the dialogue to the fashion to the soundtrack to the locations.

Q: As a Spelman alumna, you’ve probably met women of color from different walks of life. Do you agree with Issa Rae about Hollywood’s representation of black women?

JJ: The first and most lasting lesson I learned at Spelman is that black women are not a monolith. At times there feels a societal need to put us in very rigid boxes: strong, maternal, angry, loud, etc. To me, Issa is saying that black women are those things but also friends and lovers, and awkward, and ambitious, and flawed. And because Issa is the creative force behind the show, and not just the main actor, it feels very real. The experiences of black women filtered through the white gaze feel very different than Insecure. It’s that authenticity that I think black women specifically recognize, respect, and enjoy it.

My second favorite thing about the show is the representation of black female friendship. I can’t think of another show (other than Girlfriends) that illustrates only black women who are true friends. When asked about this aspect of the show in an interview a few months ago, I love Issa’s response: “It’s so important to show that black women do have friends,” Rae says with a sarcastic edge. “We’re not all just fighting and punching each other and cursing each other out and ending up on the Shade Room together.”

Eunice Owusu is a sociology major at Framingham State University and a Council on Contemporary Families Public Affairs intern.

Women – and black women in particular – have seen significant improvements in high school completion rates since the turn of the century, almost cutting in half the black-white gap for women during that time, as I shared last month. But has that meant an increase in college entry and completion – especially since a college degree should demand higher wages in the labor market?

The second report in my Young Black America series of reports examined just that. I found that young black women and men are entering and completing college at higher levels than in the past. Yet, these gains haven’t been enough to noticeably close the gap between them and their white counterparts.

From 1980 to 2013, women had higher college entry rates than men, with white women having the highest entry rates of all (see Figure 1). In 1980, 46.9 percent of 19-year-old white women had entered college (including community college). The college entry rate for white men was 41.0 percent and the rate for black women was 40.0 percent. Black men had the lowest entry rate of 25.9 percent, 14.1 percentage points lower than that of black women.

Since then, college entry rates have significantly increased, with most of the increases occurring between 1980 and 1990. During that time, entry rates for both black and white women increased about 20 percentage points, and rates for white men increased 22 percentage points. College entry rates for black men increased the most, rising 29 percentage points from 1980 to 1990.

Despite making the most progress in entry rates, young black men still lag behind black women and whites. In 2013, the entry rate of black men was 60.0 percent, 34.1 percentage points higher than their entry rate in 1980. However, this rate was still 6.6 percentage points less than black women, 9.0 percentage points less than white men, and 17.9 percentage points less than white women.

But entry is different from completion. The data on racial gaps in college completion rates were even more striking. Although my analysis of high school completion rates showed a significant convergence between black and white women, the exact opposite is the case with college completion rates (see Figure 2). In 1980, 11.5 percent of 25-year-old black women had completed college with a bachelor’s degree or higher. During the same year, the college completion rate of white women was 21.3 percent, for a black-white gap of 9.8 percentage points.

Things got worse not better: In 2013, the gap in college completion rates between black and white women was 21.4 percentage points, with completion rates of 19.7 percent and 41.1 percent, respectively. The same is true among men. In 1980, the black-white gap in completion rates for men was 12.9 percentage points, and it increased to 17.6 percent in 2013.

These growing rather than shrinking gaps confirm that there’s more work to be done. Young blacks are 30 percentage points more likely to enter college than in 1980, with entry rates increasing 26.6 percentage points for black women and 34.1 percentage points for black men. These are significant improvements, but remain far behind their white counterparts. Young blacks also still lag almost 20 percentage points behind young whites in college completion rates.

But the growth—rather than continued decline—in black-white gaps highlights the need to examine why these racial gaps persist, and in the case of completion rates, continue to widen.

Increases in educational attainment are important, but not just for their own sake. College degrees should lead to higher employment rates, wages, and other labor market outcomes. However, large gaps in completion rates are likely to result in sizable racial disparities in these outcomes. Upcoming installments of my Young Black America series will examine whether that is in fact the case.

Cherrie Bucknor is a research assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. She is working on a year-long series of reports on Young Black America. Follow her on Twitter @CherrieBucknor.

Often, when we see improvements by all (be it in educational attainment, income, health, etc.), we overlook the fact that gender or racial gaps still persist or have even gotten worse. There has been much attention given, and rightfully so, to all of the progress that women, and black women in particular have made. But, what about where women stand in relation to men? Or where black women stand in relation to white women? If significant gaps still persist, can we be satisfied with the progress we’ve made? Or is there still work left to be done?

As a young black woman, sociologist, and researcher at an economic policy think tank, I am particularly sensitive to this and make a point to address these issues in my work at CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research). It’s part of the reason why I began my Young Black America series of reports that strive to answer the question, “What’s going on with young blacks today?” An important goal of the series is to explore the intersection of race and gender while tackling the issues facing young people today.

The first report in the series found that there is positive news on both the gender and racial dimensions in regard to high school completion rates. After decades of mostly stagnant and depressing numbers, both women and men have seen marked improvements in high school completion rates since 2000. Furthermore, throughout the entire period I looked at (1975-2013), women overall have achieved higher completion rates than men.

But, what I found most interesting was what happens when you throw race into the mix. In 1975, 88.7 percent of white women between the ages of 20 and 24 had completed high school with either a high school diploma or a GED. During that same year, the rate for black women was only 76.9 percent, for a black-white gap of 11.9 percentage points. Since then, white women have maintained this sizable advantage, which averaged about 11 percentage points through 2000. In 2000, the completion rates for black and white women were 79.0 percent, and 90.6 percent, respectively.

Fortunately, since 2000 there has been a significant convergence in completion rates for black and white women. The completion rate of black women has increased 10.4 percentage points since the turn of the century, reaching 89.4 percent in 2013. During the same time, the completion rate of white women increased at a slower pace and stood at 94.5 percent in 2013. The result was a much smaller black-white completion gap of 5.1 percentage points – 57 percent less than the gap in 1975.

Closing achievement gaps should be an important part of any economic agenda. While a lot of attention is given to racial and gender achievement gaps separately, the double burden of being both a woman and a racial minority can present a unique problem for black women.

So, yes, we should take a moment or two to celebrate these accomplishments. The high school completion rates of young women are at their highest ever, and remain higher than the rates of men. Although black women still lag behind their white counterparts, this gap has been trending downward for more than a decade and hopefully will continue to do so.

But as we all know, in order to realize racial and gender economic equality, education is just one piece of the puzzle. Increases in high school completion rates are important because they widen the pool of potential college entrants and graduates – with a college degree becoming increasingly necessary in today’s economy. However, even a college degree doesn’t guarantee labor market success, as my former colleagues Janelle Jones and John Schmitt at CEPR have shown. We must not ignore issues of racial and gender discrimination, or other structural issues that are at the root of many of the economic problems we face in this country. Subsequent reports in my Young Black America series will address these and other issues facing young blacks.

Cherrie Bucknor is a research assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. She is working on a year-long series of reports on Young Black America.@cherriebucknor

Guest poster Janelle Jones, Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, gives Girlwpen an update on her most recent CEPR report. Janelle researches and writes on a variety of U.S. labor market topics, such as unemployment, job quality, and unions. (Bio here.) Last summer she wrote Has Education Paid Off for Black Workers? The project continues with this new study that asks what is the union advantage for black workers? At the end, Janelle puts the new study in context with her earlier one.

So far this year, we’ve had some pretty mixed union news. The workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted not to join the UAW but just this week the NLRB ruled in favor of Northwestern University football players’ ability to unionize. Even in the midst of inconsistent union success, John Schmitt and I find that unions still have a significant positive impact on black workers’ wages and benefits.

We’ve all heard that unions are dying. While that may be an exaggeration, even for black workers, the racial group with the highest levels of unionization, the share in a union has been falling continuously since the early 1980s. In 1983, more than one in four black workers (27.1 percent) was in a union, compared to only 13.6 percent in 2013. Over this entire period, black men have had higher unionization rates than black women, although that gap is closing.

In the face of this unionization decline for black workers, are unions still having an impact?  Well, yes. Even after controlling for systematic difference between the unionized and non-unionized workforce, unionization has a significant positive impact. For the years 2008-2013, the union wage premium is 15.6 percent for all black workers, 18.1 percent for black men and 13.1 percent for black women. That is, black workers in a union earn 15 percent more per hour than their non-unionized counterparts. Now, that’s a raise!

Next, we examine the union advantage for black workers by education and find the largest gains in wages and benefits for the less educated. Unionization raised the hourly wage for black workers with less than a four-year college degree by nearly 20 percent (19.3 percent for those with less than a high school degree, 19.4 percent for those with only a high school degree, and 17.7 percent for those with some college but short a four-year degree). The union wage premium for these workers is almost double the (still noticeable) 10.3 percent premium for black workers with a four-year degree.

Finally, we turn to the effect of unionization for black workers in traditionally low-wage occupations, including security guards, janitors, and food prep workers. While black workers accounted for just over 11 percent of total employment in our analysis period (2008-2013), they made up over 18 percent of all workers in the 15 low-wage occupations we analyzed. Similar to workers with less formal education, the union wage premium is nearly 20 percent larger for black workers in these occupations, compared to the 15.6 percent premium for black workers overall.

In the report, we also look at the effect of unionization on health insurance coverage and retirement plans for black workers. For each of the breakdowns listed above, gender, education level, and low-wage occupations, black workers in unions were much more likely to have these on-the-job benefits. For example, for black women, unionization increased the likelihood of employer (or union) provided health insurance by nearly one-third (31.1 percent) and a retirement plan by more than one-third (41.0 percent).

The promise of unions looks like an important consideration for black women. Black women—who face double-discrimination based on race and on gender–find themselves by most measures at the bottom of the pay and benefit scale. The most commonly offered solution is to increase educational attainment. But we’ve done that. Black women have already doubled graduation rates since1979, and the share of black women with less than a high school degree has fallen by more than 20 percent. Yet labor market difficulties persist. Our research shows that one thing that can complement increases in education in a concrete way would be increasing unionization, which offers black women higher pay and substantially better benefits to help overcome, at least in part, the double-discrimination.

Maythee Rojas is a teacher, critic, and writer.  Author of the new book Women of Color and Feminism (Seal Press), she is currently an associate professor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at California State University, Long Beach.   The book is a fascinating overview of feminist history and the construction of identity politics within feminist movements, with a diverse representation of notable icons, which includes not only Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash and Saartjie Baartman, but Tracy Chapman and Laura Aguilar as well.  It’s a smart, page-turning read that offers numerous examples to illustrate powerful points.  The book easily belongs in the hands of the many online feminists today who are in search of a book to start the critical journey of self-education on the connections between race, class, sexuality and gender.

Over phone and email, I recently spoke with Maythee Rojas about intersectionality, resisting multiple oppressions within feminist movements, and the hopes for her new book in addressing important issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality in feminism(s) today:

Allison McCarthy:  What led you to working on a book focused on women of color and feminism?

Maythee Rojas: I have been teaching a course on the subject for the last nine years and the literature and theory by women of color is something I have studied closely as a scholar. However, when I set out to write this book, I wanted to avoid writing something that could be construed as the authoritative book on women of color.  There’s no such thing, nor should there be. I respect Seal for taking something academic and making a commitment to developing it as part of a mainstream series. It helps create bridges with the academic world and find new audiences beyond the Ivory Tower.  My hope is that this book will lead other presses – mainstream and academic — to publish more works on women of color.

AM:  In what ways did your academic research on Chicana/o and Latina/o literature contribute to your literary vision for Women of Color and Feminism?
MR: In the book, I consciously attempt to focus on multiple groups and communities. Learning about Chicana/o and Latina/o culture has never been in isolation for me.  In fact, if you look at the history, experiences, and creative expressions of Chicana/os and Latina/os, you’ll find that other communities of color have often influenced them.  There’s a lot of overlap in terms of the messages relayed and socio-political issues addressed.  As a scholar, I have the same approach: having a specialization in Chicana/o and Latina/o literature requires me to think about other groups in an intersectional manner.

AM:  Why do you see the theory of intersectionality as critical for all feminists when addressing issues raised by women of color?
MR: Intersectionality applies to everyone, period.  We all have multiple facets of identity.  However, intersectionality is often applied only to those who do not fit mainstream categories of identity. Much of it has to do with people’s lack of deep introspection; or, whether they are willing to think about their positions of privilege on a daily basis and the effect of their actions upon others.  It’s a journey of integrity and honesty that’s a part of self-actualization in our lives.  If feminism is truly going to produce the result of equality for women and opportunities in a less biased society, we have to think about how women from different communities can reach that success.  We’re not all on the same level in any place.  What factors and what privileges stand in the way?  It’s really about working collectively.  It requires reflecting on people around you: their lives, opportunities, limitations.  If you’re working in a social justice movement or a place of transformation, you have to take those factors into account or it’s going to be a flawed attempt.  It does require those things.

AM:  How have women of color, outside of global feminist movements, contributed to a greater public understanding of gender, race, class, and sexuality?
MR: I think it’s through daily actions.  The interactions of everyday life are bound to challenge us.  So often, we have perceptions of others based on media, politics, and education.  However, when we encounter people who embody particular markers of race and class and sexuality and we interact with them, those markers fall away to flesh and bone individuals.  I also think our interactions with non-academics – our families and friends– teach us as much about culture as they do about them.  It’s more about what we are willing to open ourselves up to.  Does what we what learn about others connect with what we assumed about their background, sexuality, culture?  To more specifically answer your question, I believe women of color contribute to life through their daily interactions in public spaces, through the ways they raise their families, through the challenges they make to a system, a classroom, a workplace, etc.  For creatively minded individuals, it’s also through their cultural production (art, film, music, etc) and how they shape these expressions to share with other people.  I think a lot of people aren’t actually part of organized social movements, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of social change.

AM:  Have the feminist movements of past and present failed to address the needs and lives of women of color?
MR: I don’t think they’ve outright failed.  If I believed that, I would have to rethink why I am in Women’s Studies.  Have they had their shortcomings?  Yeah.  But that’s part of understanding that we haven’t accomplished all the goals of feminism and there’s a lot left to do.  I think it’s important that we’re critical of these shortcomings and that we register our disappointments.  We can use that as a preventive measure.  The book is rather critical at times of past movements, but I don’t think it argues that they haven’t worked at all. The people who have been responsible for writing about feminism and promoting feminism have been remiss in their inclusion of women of color and that’s important to take into account.  How willing are feminists to really self-interrogate, to really consider what they’ve gained at the expense of others, what hasn’t been achieved in the ongoing project of feminism?  For us to stay abreast of what hasn’t worked, what hasn’t been done, and whose voices are missing keeps us alive and moving forward toward an ideal.  Even if it’s not achieved in our lifetime, it shouldn’t be something we stop striving for.

AM:  Who did you envision as the audience for this book?  Have any of the responses to the book thus far surprised you?
MR: I kind of thought about it in two ways.  One of the audiences it’s geared towards is obviously college students, both graduate and undergraduate, and I think you can hear that in the classroom descriptions I use.  I was also encouraged to learn that it would be available in independent and mainstream bookstores, so that anyone could find her/his way to the book.  You might think that a book on women of color is only for women of color.  I can’t stop anyone from thinking that, but I hope that for anyone who reads past the first few lines, the reader will see that it’s for anyone who is interested in knowing themselves better and knowing more about the world around them.

AM: What projects are you currently working on?
MR: I have three projects that I’d like to see happen.  First, I want to finish my book, Following the Flesh: Embodied Transgressions in Chicana Literature, which looks at literary characters who are cast as “bad” women (mistresses, murderers, lesbians) and are maligned by society, and help us rethink what “bad” means. Examining these issues within both US and Latin American contexts, the book addresses crossing not only social borders, but also physical ones.  The next project I would like to pursue is a cultural history of Latinos and dogs. Drawn by my own passion for animals, I’m really interested in looking at how dogs show up in Latino culture.  Living in L.A. with a large Latino population and a dog-friendly attitude, there have been several race and class bias in the city’s laws that have been passed and I wanted to address those biases. I’m also interested in immigration issues in terms of how they relate to cultural shifts about pets as immigrants become more assimilated to the US.  A third project, which is much farther down the line, is a cultural history on feminism in Costa Rica.  My grandmother is nearing her 104th birthday and I would like to parallel her personal experiences as a woman (she has lived a very nontraditional life) with the development of women’s lives and issues in Costa Rica over the past century.  I imagine describing the historical and social changes of my family’s country vis-à-vis my grandmother’s own life.