The Matrix
Fall 2016-Spring 2017
Inside intro.........................................................3 pain and pleasure......................................4 thunder tongues /tangerine......................5 a self love letter.....................................6 a vow for the bad trans woman..................7 hanging up................................................8 ambient terror..........................................9 fucking white bitches..............................10 arms reach...............................................11 to listen..................................................11 take back the night.................................12 the four corners.....................................13 mood ring................................................14 dirty water.............................................16 sick.........................................................17 false god................................................18 what she deserves....................................19 love letter.............................................20 action is progress....................................22 lax.........................................................23 photos....................................................24 wildflower.............................................25 staff.......................................................26 the matrix is the official newsletter of the women’s resource center which is funded by the assosiated students of humboldt state university. the views and content of the matrix are not censored or reviewed by the assosiated students. all correspondence regarding this publication should be addressed to the women’s resouce center the matrix editor humboldt state university 1 harpst street arcata, ca 95521 all responses or letters to the editor of the matrix will be published if requested. copies of all correspondence should be sent in writing to associated studenst, humboldt state university
* cover art and other images (unless otherwise labled) by brynn oleda
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Hello!
Thank you for picking up this copy of The Matrix, a feminist publication from Humboldt State’s Women’s Resource Center’s. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is The Matrix? And what does the Women’s Resource Center do? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Women’s Resource Center is located in the back of the MultiCulturalCenter on the Humboldt State campus. We are here to educate and impower you! We hold workshops, host speakers, and work with other clubs on campus to provide a safe space for students. Here is some info about us:
Vision Statement
Mission Statement
We at the HSU WRC envision a world in which: We are actively addressing privilege and oppression within our organization and working to create a space for all people to cooperate on equal grounds. We encourage and value feminist and social justice ideals, dialogues, and expressions. We are connecting with other social justice organizations, on campus and elsewhere, to build coalitions and community.
Because relations of domination affect all people; we at the Women’s Resource Center aim to provide the tools, support and safe spaces for empowerment and for people to dismantle systems of power, privilege and oppression. Simultaneously we are transforming our communities; as well as acknowledging and embracing diverse perspectives and strategies that promote collective visions of liberation.
Resources and Services
We value and respect difference and the multiplicity of identity, recognizing that the health of our organization depends on it.
We have recently restocked our Rosa Parks Resource Room, dedicated to the memory of Rosa We are sharing knowledge and resources with com- Parks and her activist work. We have an extensive selection of books, DVDs, CDs and other resourcmunities concerning issues of race, class, gender, es to check out of the library. If you know of a sexuality, and the environment. book, DVD, CD, or zine that you would love to see in the Resource Room please email us with the We advocate the experience and enjoyment of postitle. This library is based on an honor system and itive sexuality and freedom of sexual expression, as well as both the affirmation of parenting and the affirwe trust that you will return the items. mation of those who choose not to.
We are working towards alternatives to capitalism: Honoring individuals and communities that are creating autonomous spaces for liberation. We experience the freedom to create, love, and enjoy both life and one another.
We want to hear how we can support you, so email us at hsuwomen@humboldt.edu and let us know what you would like to see us do; put on more workshops, get more books, more DIY, more poetry, more sex toys, more period talk, you name it!
The Matrix The Women’s Resource Center sponsors the publication of a feminist magazine called The Matrix. This publication serves as a forum for the expression of feminist ideas, and contains poetry, fiction, news, politics and art. The Matrix has been recognized as one of the top college publications by The Nation magazine, and has loyal readers all over the country. The Matrix you are about to experience is based around the theme of
(Y)our Story,
the concept that it is a revolutionary act to stand up and tell your truth against those who might silence you.We gather together to tell and experience stories, they are human glue. The beautiful submissions we have recieved are those stories. We hope you enjoy them.
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Sometimes I wonder who I would be, & where I would be if you hadn’t taken, taken, taken from me. You took from me things I can never get back, and things I can only try to repair. I gave you my heart mind body & soul and you ate it all up, you devoured me & left nothing but continued to try to take. You r i p p e d a hole in my life turned me into an island &taught me that I was lucky to have you visit.
pain & pleasure by Jocelyn E.
My heart was broken before you ever walked away. I wake up in the night feeling empty with dreams of you. Your touch I craved, yet it only brought me pain. Your breath on my neck felt like validation even through my tears.
How could you serve yourself? even after I begged you to stop pleaded&cried while you pinned me down & told me
“This Is Love” You were the serpent whispering in my ear, telling me my pain was worth it for your pleasure.
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there’s a vicious storm outside and my mind is tasting unfamiliar call me back i need to hear you the timber of your voice call me something pretty lead me on thunder on my tongue i could make a choice if you’d hold me to it but you’re much too kind to ask for something from me
thunder tounges/ tangerine
i’m floating or i’m drowning i’ll find out when i open my mouth my lungs become accustomed to this constant flood of orange juice or tangerine i’m thinking tangerine i’d like to kiss you with the sunrise or let the rain just wash right over me wash right over me it’s made me quite interesting i think to be made of such a porous material mailable and maybe i could make my own shape if you’d stop touching me they’re touching me i can’t make up my mind. it must be made of something but i don’t have enough time and i can’t find enough raw materials. sticks and stones and leaves and bits of shiny things and bones and broken bits of pottery and salt and one more thing there’s always one more thing
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A Self Love Letter by Paradise It starts with the little things, loving yourself i mean like remembering to buy toothpaste and making a point to brush in the morning it takes forgiving yourself when you don’t and fulfilling other goals until you can like getting out of bed or forgiving yourself when you don’t it takes guts wrenching cause you haven’t eaten all day or a food coma because you have it takes apologizing to yourself for accepting friends that put you down or can’t stand to be around you it takes applying for a part time job before a full time one
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cause you can barely leave the house or calming down and accepting that its okay to take a break this is your story do what you can it takes deleting his number cause he don’t love you like he’s supposed to cause you don’t love like you’re supposed to yet it takes forgiving yourself when you can’t help it but still trying your hardest not to when you know its time to be alone and love it even when it hurts at night it takes feeling all of this shit inside your body, and recognizing it. it takes walking down your own path remember, this is your story.
Image by Luz Estrella
A Vow for the “Bad” Trans Women (Personalize as you wish)
I am not one of the “good” trans women I won’t spare the feelings of people who misgender me I will not abandon my opinions to make the world easier to understand for cis people I will use the word cisgender it’s in the fucking dictionary, look it up I will not explain everything you want to hear about being trans Instead of asking me about my personal life 10 minutes after meeting me Just google it is my mantra I will not try to hide the masculine parts of myself When people ask if I used to be a man I will say “no” When people ask me what my real name is I will tell them it’s “fuck off” When people ask me if i’ve had the surgery I’ll say yeah! I had a root canal on my front tooth when I was 11 What else could you be talking about?
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Hanging Up by Rose They say good friends are always happy when the other one calls them But being friend and doctor has proved less health, more impalements. You never cared about those stab wounds The ones inscripted from a dulled razor blunt not only because of raging pain I experienced but because the wounds were also self-inflicted gashing away any minute imperfection hoping and praying compulsive agony will gain you worth and love someday. With each slash of blunt metal I found out how much venom seeped through your being the obsessive need to compose a white, creased itinerary make love to misery and concoct worldly philosophies about nothing. You’re too dated for me. You’d rather exist behind tinted windows blindly ignoring the world chasing false realities heart frozen ignoring people who saw good in you and cried for you like I used to. Yeah, I did value our humane conversations but that was before you stared too long at that glowing screen possessing the dire need to put down others for being white trash dicrepit means of proving so-called self-value of your sleaziness convinced you could make top model with your dramatic stupidity. Before my health started to dwindle, dodging your stabbing taunts I chose to break out of creased white agony
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a five-hour drive up North to find solace in education, my precious privacy not just my mission after high-school’s bridge burned down it was also the perfect restraining order. You didn’t think I’d make you regret it. And that meant your heartfelt medical supply vanished, she was gone. See, I saw there was going to be no fifty/fifty Our friendship was not a friendship it was a deal to make your stock prices soar . You wrestled phonelines into submission called for collection of my soul pleaded with me to succumb to your ignorance You wanted to have that last sugar-coated smile to see me break down before the mirror and say you had been right all along I was so grateful that beautiful people like you stayed friends with a failure like me. When I felt the apapleptic explosion of your defeat wanting to murder that trusted cellular tool of warfare gut out its wires stomp on its waste all this because I would no longer suffer the abuse of treating slicing horror like it is flickering joy. I know for what seemed like an eternity the empty sound of me hanging up-- for good-- shattered your world, it debased the base of your inhumanity left you so shaken, shuddering hands scrambling Now, it was just you petrified alone
ambient terror by b oleda i need to scream but i’m afraid if i open my mouth my whole insides will fall out and my hair will fall out and then my teeth and my fingernails ambient terror alive and beating pulsating and bleeding coating the back of my tongue and my throat leave me be leave me be leave me be she gasped in my ear i let her go the bile the bitter salt i let her go the tears and the blood something is building. i had a dream that you left me because my breath smelled bad. i smoke incense like cigarettes to cleanse what i can rose and patchouli a cloying cover up. my mortality is crimson on my toothbrush and under my fingernails powder pink spit in the sink and scratches on my body she gasped in my ear and held me tight i let her go i had to let her go
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Fucking white bitches We grew up poor, living in an old trailer in the middle of nowhere. I walked three miles each way, down a dirt road to go to a one room school house. I wanted to become a doctor but knew I’d never get a chance. My mom finally got our family to the States when I was ten. I met the father of my child in church; I was just a stupid kid. I was fifteen and he seemed so grown up. He came from a good Catholic family but he was a piece of shit. We only fucked once; it was in an empty room in the church. He took advantage of me. I got pregnant. Don’t blame me, I’m just a guy. Don’t be a dumb bitch; you have to get an abortion. No, I don’t. Don’t tell me what to do; I’m a good Catholic, I don’t believe in abortion. After that he always called me a whore. Both he and his parents wanted me to get an abortion; how Catholic is that? They called me a puta, and stuff. We had sex once and I got pregnant, plus now I always have cold sores. He gave me herpes and a child. When the baby came she split me right open; blood was everywhere. I almost died giving birth; lack of oxygen and loss of blood. He sends me ten dollars every once in a while and considers that paying child support. Everywhere I go I can just tell white people hate me; because of my skin, how I dress, how I talk and who I am. White people look at me and they see me as the devil; they hate me. I feel white hatred and can only imagine how it is for my daughter. I’m surrounded by people who hate me. Fuck white people; white women think I’m not good for anything but cleaning their houses. All white men want to do is fuck me. They want to fuck me and then pretend they’ve never met me. White women think I want to fuck their men. Fucking white bitches think I steal their stuff, and their men; fucking white bitches. Look at those tall, thin blonde bitches and their diamond rings. That lily white bitch has an amazing wedding band but I bet her husband’s moved on to banging some other bitch. Don’t they realize they’re wearing blood diamonds? I hate white people. ~ underkitty
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Arms Reach by Luz Estrella
Feeling all down and grumpy Takes away from the beauty of nature Instead of looking down, You got to look up. Watch the clouds above pass us by, See what’s behind the buildings. I am in the presence of earth itself. Nothing more, nothing less Than the immense magical mountains. It’s almost like they were saying “Hi” to me and I wanted to give them a hug. I would ask “how old are you?” And they would respond “as long as I can remember”. Such words can make you go wise. Then I ask myself, “how old am I?”. I’d tell myself “as old as you want to be”. It is a fragment of our imagination, So let yourself not be ruled by it. You can create your own time And the space in between.
To Listen by Gill Allen
Listening is the most Incredible Helpful Thing you can do. It is good For them. And wonderful for you. To listen to someone’s Story. What could be more human. Listening to them Pour out their soul. That is when we recognize That is when we see Everyone else Is a real person Too. In listening to them We live with them. That is amazing. That is fantastic. Just by hearing them Just by listening We become them. We enter into a state Where there is no I, he, she, me, There is only WeNo. There is only One. One Life One Self One Love. We listen to the Memories, Those echoes Of a greater experience, And we know that We are grasping at smoke. We know the feelings That the Story is telling; We can almost remember, Like remembering love, Though we aren’t quite there anymore. But in listening We bring it back And we almost reach it again.
Image by Jillian Freiheit
So we should listen To each other When we can.
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booklets from the take back the night march
made by ariel fishkin 12
The Four Corners by Emma McCallum-Spalaris I love you. Who? You! The Universe! Only ten numbers separate me from you (area code included) And never once have you calledout in your sleep, sleepdreaming of running women with fallen hair and tight toothed smiles anchoring our foreheads together accidentally jaw hit Bruise blooms snuffling drool A downy heat cave of affection under crescent stars. I love you. When? In the shower! Thoughts spin and tiny drain tornados take away my suds Ten minutes till class is over, a bridge between squeaky hallway shoes and grass-printed mud snails During seven hours confined to hot car singing and for gentle caresses of cup shaped mattresses whispering confessions into flannel surfaces and drifting dreams. I love you. Why? A glowing kindness! Have you ever stood in front of a mirror and smiled, really smiled or recorded yourself laughing deep ugly laughs with whole body shaking? Perfect melded mind man deliciously cresting saltwater waves with subtle skin taste Speechless spoken pretty dirty prince I am stuck in awestruck cycles and I know I need this and you, endless. I love you. Where? Waiting in line at the post office! The crooks of my elbows: stealing all rational thought to make way for youyouyouyou Sky touches sandstone and knees rise above trees, I sit in silence and reflect Yellow yolky breakfast-to-go captures burnt culinary perfection or in the reflection of clay smeared phone playlists 10pm on Thursday nights Flicker fire flint creates sedating smoke and openly wanting, I inhale. I love you. more can I say!
What
Image by Luz Estrella
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Mood Ring
By Nairobys Apolito about the work: “My work focuses on subtle expressions with close up portraits using vibrant colors to contrast one’s conflicting inner emotions. Coming from a film background I used those tools to create a cinematic quality to these stills and capture a story within.” “I initially became interested in making portraits that caught the subjects subtle expressions when I was exposed to the film ‘moonlight’. I felt that I could relate more to those people/ characters because there was a sort of quietness to how they were actually feeling inside.”
about the process: “I asked the subject to choose the gelcolor, the music, I had a conversation with them about how they were feeling-” “This project is not about me just taking portraits of people with different colored gels, I think that every color they chose had a meaning be it an emotion they were yearning for or how they were actually feeling in the moment I captured them.”
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“You have these fun, bright, almost bubblegum-pop color scheme being contrasted by moody expressions that seem to lean towards seriousness and/or depression. I think a lot of my emotions also came across through my work, I know that this series wouldn’t have evolved in this direction if I had been in a happy place. I wanted to touch on the fact that the world may be lively, but people’s inner emotions are always conflicting.”
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S i c k I used to be able to feel you Creeping under my ribs Fluttering in my chest Making me sick.
You had such a hold over me With every step I took You would send my head Spinning to look over shoulders Tense with the panic of you. My hands still remember Your clammy hold on my Skinny bones And how on Earth Did you look at a child And decide that That was your life to take? To take and ruinMold to your design. I know you were fucked up But what about me Made you think I was meant to be fucked up too? You ruined intimacy for meKisses suffocate, Sweaty touches trigger gag reflexes. And I fucking hate you and anyone Who shares your name Who plays your game.
You cupped it in your greasy hands And decided it was yours to treasure And lock away with a swallowed key. You stamped your fucking name on it Leaving me to scrub skin raw, Naked in the streets. I often think That you turned to cold feet Because you knew That the vision of meA child sitting behind the stand Swearing to tell the truth, nothing but the truth Would be enough to damn you to an eternal hell. And I almost wish you had stuck to your lies So I could have ripped your life from your hands And curled my tongue Into the shape of a ten year sentence With your name on it. You see, because you broke a child Who was willing to send you to hell With a smile set in place.
-B.J.A
I loved you-so much. And you took that loveKisses on your cheek, Bright smiles with missing teeth, Tight hugs meant to keep you safeAnd warped it Into something scarred and ugly. You taught a child What it is to hate With a poison filled tongue. You taught a child Not to trust those you love Just because you love them. You taught a child What it is not to be a child. Is that what you wanted? Because I’m still screaming, Stamping my feet in a bitter rage For you to give it back.
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False God by Rose
Trying to seep into me like cool water pleading with me to submit to your shame praying you can bring down my wall of emotionally-charged logic in the name of false healing pretending to lead me by shaking fear into my heart. The pit of despair I dropped you into was not what I created for you You created it 10,000 days before decades before, past lives before, within a misoginistic matrix where you learned how to make false concoctions of spiritual light conceal your wrath to gain your victim; full compliance. Your smile wears false perfection and purity sitting on a white horse, looking down upon those who can’t help but committ the paradox of life. You corner your objects of conquest steal stability from their brains sync the best morsels of them into your own mutilation the poor souls don’t realize they are discarded until they are too far gone. Then you met me. I have been pushed and pulled apart I am no stranger to darkness. You will never fix me with exploitation I was never an abundant well of empathy to be seduced, then drained. No way will I ever be the vessel to purify your parasite-infested waters you could never convince me such a toxic exchange would heal me. I was not special I was there. Right now, I am here. Surviving. I will not bend over for your cowardice but I will guard my path and the paths of other she’s you try to hurt. I will not let your dirty feet plunder across the floor of my chaotic, stigmatized brain. You are not the answer a poor excuse for a savior you will always lose in the victimizing hell you have created for yourself.
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What She Deserves by Kai
Lay her down
ask her what she likes Keep your distance Don’t be obvious about it Careful, every touch hold the possibility ripping her out of the moment your hands trace the shallow curves a survivor of trauma you could never understand you’ll have to protect her shield her from the words and the stares they threaten her even here so take care understand she’s not fragile beaten and bruised she’s just learned that there are rules to who she can show the way she was made She has scars both mental and physical to reminder her the way caution must be kept from the wind in this world she was never set to win love, a thing she has to earn but will never deserve
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Love Letter love letter For overburdened everyday heros I’ve never told you this before but I think the way you hold yourself together like gorilla glue on a broken vase is beautiful I just wish I could convince you you are strong enough to melt yourself into a new mold and cast yourself whole again you’ve never loved the hand at the end of the pen indents ink leaves massaged into palm creases you’ve never respected yourself think it leads to egotism and greed but what would you lose if you held your head a little higher like spires on towers that puncture the limits of the sky you don’t have to be proud just don’t be ashamed You’ve done nothing to deserve the way you treat yourself Maybe if someone told you it’s not your fault in the first place you’d believe me that it’s okay to run away on Christmas to hide under the piano praying no one looks down to duck behind trucks as cars drive by looking for you they search not recognizing your necessary escape it’s okay to be afraid to not know where you’ve been and only recognize pain it’s okay to forget the air in your lungs and the feeling of breathing in no one has told you it’s okay to be like this to quiver like shells on ancient beaches feel broken like bourbon bottles at 3am it’s okay to sleep in patches and cry the rest of the time I think what you need to be told most is that you deserve release to run and free yourself with every horizon line your foot makes with the sidewalk every tangle the wind makes in your hair you deserve to lose yourself completely otherwise you would never be found
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by by Alison alison Kephart kephart But fear burns self-confidence like incense you watch it gracefully twist away and dissipate into nothingness feel the indents and bruises infused with your pigment the abuse is still a part of you We breathe the same pain like smoke in a bombed-out building the process of inhaling exhausts us blisters on our feet bleed our stories nightly like the red can represent hot hotly our hands burn at the thought of holding ourselves together it’s hard work, but someone’s got to do it I’ll hold your memory like a canopy of butterflies fragile and ready to break free you know how tender my fingerprints are my arms remember the way you twist like muscle memory like elephants’ instinctual pilgrimage to graveyards they’ve never seen We walk with them caution ourselves against feeling cause it only leads to grief pour our hearts out in exact measurements ration love for irrational reasons it’s time for us to love ourselves for the bottle we sent to sea with our unspoken names for the story our eyes have held captive for decades you deserve to love yourself the way your eyes change shade and when you laugh your scars fade into forehead crinkles you deserve to maintain a smile taste life’s sweetness like honeysuckle nectar walk with self confidence filling the callouses of your feet to feel your heart beat for the first time and know how much you are loved realize gorilla glue is pure strength, liquefied it is valid to process yourself together with pieces of a broken mess we are complete because we shatter by nature and build ourselves anew You are beautiful for your fractures and you deserve a good love letter even if it’s from yourself
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Action is Progress by Zoe Foxe
To make change, it is necessary to act. Passionate voices of people I walk past down stress filled hallways echo this message out across the quad. Puerto Rico has been conquered. My people suffer at the hand of privilege. Veins filled with money, power, and pride extend themselves only to take a little bit more. But what could they give that I would truly hold valuable anyway? I won’t beg them for their power. I won’t accept their militarized change, instead I will make them expect a change in their own ways. So I say love. Love is the answer to any question asked. To make progress we give them love, and we don’t ask for anything back. I understand that recognizing corruption is a way to cause systemic disruption. But if we really want to change the pace of our discussion, I think love ought to be brought from behind the curtain and be welcomed by warm spotlight as it gives its monologue on center stage. I’m a woman. I’m human. I’m alive. I’m one small girl, with one big heart, and I thought I could change the world until I started to find That this world is bigger than my own two eyes. People get treated differently in ways I have been blind to... “Lazy nigger” White man speeds off before I can hand them their cup of black coffee through the drive thru window. “Fucking bitch” before our conversation ends with a click. He hung up on me before I could explain to him how patriarchy is keeping me from living free. The irony. These stories were told to me one night after another day of my own monotone greys. 50 shades and a real conversation later, I was bent at the knee praying for something to make sense. I didn’t know back behind the scenes, just how cruel this world of suffering truly is. To make change, it is necessary to act. Blinded by my own ignorance, I turn out the main lights and try to feel my way to a new inference. As I strike the set, I see an empty stage holding a world I did not want to believe existed. With all that pretty paint gone, I see slavery never ended; racism has persisted through every year of history, and for every big society there seems to have always been some form of hypocrisy that kept the powerful free and the rest imprisoned by poverty. But not now. I want a new reality. How could my brothers be human beings, yet be so mean to the sisters that spoke so blatantly to me about revolution. About hope. About being there for those in need? And how could loving them not be enough to make a difference? It felt like getting my head cracked open by the concrete curb just outside the security and comfort of my self-built home.
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My world fell open that night. And as I opened my mind to the rain coming down and watched my truths unfold across the sea of street lights on my walk home there was still one thing I could believe. Love is what love does, in peace and in tragedy. To love might not be enough, but to act on love is the only way to react to the hate of the hands that seem to need, need, need. But please, Brandy, for me, hear my plea when I say I can’t turn my love away from anybody. His hateful soul needs love just as you need support. If I die trying to right all of man’s sins, and I stretch my one small heart just a little too thin, at least the rain falling down tonight will make a beat like a drum that can sing of how love was so close again. Hummingbirds can make quite a tune out of flying between the fire and monsoon. Healing the earth is not about who might lose, and who will win. I ask you then, to look to your enemy and find their human. Stare them down until their vulnerability is exposed. Put your love in them, instead of letting them take yours. Love is all we need. But it can’t be used until it is released. And after listening to 8 hours of passionate voices of people I have walked past in stress filled halls, I have found the same one solitary fact;
To make change, it is necessary to act.
LAX | #SanctuaryCity I am the ticket inside of her purse, Silently waiting to be used. Through the fabric of red, white and blue I can hear a Short-Fingered Vulgarian on the radio. Over the airport speakers I hear my name “Now Boarding for flight 747...” And my world begins to shake-It all happened much too soon. I am the ticket inside of her purse, I am the ticket inside of her purse
Image and poem by Michael Ray De Los Angeles
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Images by Stephane Pantaleon
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Photos by Hannah Van Niekerken (top, left, middle, and bottom left) and Luz Estrella (bottom right)
The Wallflower by Stephanie Lemon The wallflower Dances on the cement Is battered by the sea The wind By sailors harsh voices Is suckled by the sun Is haunted by history The wallflower Weeps Hides in the cracks Hands reach from above Pluck the wallflower Green voices scream “weed� In the cement world The wildflower is a weed
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WRC Spring 2017 Staff Brynn Oleda is editor of this wonderful publication you have just perused. When they grow up they want to be a grandmother and an artist. Maybe they’re getting somewhere with the second one, maybe. Their chosen art form is metaphor, be that in words, images, performance, or exsistence. They are graduating with a degree in Film and Theatre this semester and are infinitly excited and terrified. Oh, and they hope you’ve enjoyed The Matrix. Stephane Pantaleon She, Her, Hers Fiscal & Staff Coordinator Born in Guerrero, Mexico, migrated to the u.s. on her mother’s arms (six months after birth). Grew up around the Salinian territories known today as the Salinas valley, California. Her existence/work centers around immigration, womxn & decolonization. ftp!
the EnvironI am Natalia, I am Educator mental Justice (EJ) ce Center. I at Womyn’s Resour regard enviaddress issues that and degradaronmental racism n work with tion and how EJ ca are facing communities that am a gradusuch oppression. I Environment ate student in the program and & Community M.A. tter understrive to have a be unities’ diverstanding of comm , and listening sity, their cultures der to learn to their voices in or ities that form from the commun our societies.
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Nombre: Alejandra Denise Aguilar-Ruiz WRC Position: Anti-Racist Coordinator Hello viewers of the Matrix! This is my last year at the colonial institution known as Humboldt State University, (which is on Wiyot land). I experienced and witnessed sexism, classism,racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism etc. I have questioned my own intelligence, morals, and safety, as well as the overly paid administrators that run this fuck up institution. I found protection and sanity through politically organizing, laughing and crying with the fellow comrades in M.E.Ch.A, the History club, Womyn’s Resource Center, Centro del Pueblo, Scholars without Borders, and F.R.E.E. and to all of them I salute you. As anti-racist coordinator, a history student, peer mentor, organizer (whichever title that is placed), I have learned my profound love is with the people. The community we have built in Humboldt, and the humble streets and people of San Bernardino (909) that created my mind and corazon, to grow, hustle and love. Don’t forget those roots. Power to the people. (Ale) Cali Dorsch I came to the WRC because I strongly believe in the liberatory potential of fe mmes and women working to gether for justice. I’m the he alth and body politics coordinato r because of my passion for he lping people find the right info rmation and resources to live ho listically healthy and meani ngful lives. I’m a CRGS major w ith pathways in Womens and Ethn ic Studies. When not chained to schoolwork, I like spendi ng time with my cat and other an imal friends, practicing magic, MUSIC, being with my best femm e friends, messing with herb s, and traveling whenever poss ible.
Ariel Rose Fishkin is an East Bay Area native who completed her undergraduate degree in anthropology at HSU, and is set to graduate with her Master’s Degree in Applied Anthropology in Spring 2017. Ariel doesn’t really know what she wants to do when she grows up (wait... is a 25 year old a grown up?), but she is currently working as an Advocate at Humboldt Domestic Violence Services and her life goal is to interrupt the cycles that perpetuate intimate partner violence and sexual assault. She loves writing music and sharing it locally at open mics and different performances. Her niece Talia is the light of her life. Thank you mom and dad, thank you Sarah and Tony, thank you Violet, Gabriel, Everardo, Kailey, Maddy, Cassandra, Mariam, Quincy, and a million other brilliant women and friends who taught me never to compromise myself.
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PRSRT US POS PA ARCAT PERMIT