Sextant: Volume XXIII

SEXTANT The Journal of Salem State University

Winter 2017

Volume XXIII, No. 1

A B O U T S E X T A N T

Editor’s Note Sextant: The Journal of Salem State University Volume XXIII, No. 1: Winter 2017 President Patricia Maguire Meservey Provost and Academic Vice President David Silva Editor Peggy Dillon, Communications Sextant Advisor Gail Gasparich, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Editorial Board George Abboud, Sport and Movement Science Cleti A. Cervoni, Education Darlene Crone-Todd, Psychology Robert Daniell, Management Cathy Fahey, Library James P. Gubbins, Interdisciplinary Studies Bethany Jay, History Mark J. Malloy, Art + Design Shannon A. Mokoro, Social Work Victoria J. Morrison, Nursing Arthur Riss, English Leah E. Ritchie, Management Steven E. Silvern, Geography Keja Valens, English Design and Production Susan McCarthy, Marketing and Creative Services Sextant: The Journal of Salem State University is published by the faculty and librarians of Salem State University. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of Sextant: The Journal of Salem State University or Salem State University.

Copyright © 2017 Sextant encourages readers to submit letters or comments to: Sextant, c/o Editor Peggy Dillon Salem State University Communications Department 352 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA 01970-5353 or pdillon@salemstate.edu Letters may be published and edited according to space.

Sextant articles may be reprinted with permission of the editor.

Ask and you shall receive. In the fall of 2015, as the new Sextant editor, I asked members of the Salem State community to contribute their most recent efforts—articles, essays, poems, photos, and artwork—for the next issue.

I didn’t know what to expect; but, to my delight, the submissions poured in.

The magazine now in your hand is composed of materials that were sent in over the months after my original request and then vetted and approved by the Sextant’s capable and eclectic editorial board. I also received tremendous editing assistance from Eileen Margerum, communications professor emerita, and Rod Kessler, English professor emeritus and a former Sextant editor.

The contents of this issue mirror what a liberal arts university stands for: providing a broad, well-rounded education in a variety of subjects. Contributors come from the fields of art, communications, education, English, geography, library science, nursing, philosophy, social work, and sociology. Their collective body of work harkens back to the classical era, when a liberal arts education was essential for free people to actively participate in civic life.

Travel is one of the many subjects covered. Lorri Krebs journeyed to Churchill, Manitoba, the “polar bear capital of the world,” in a remote region of northern Canada. There, she encountered these majestic animals up close, learned about the benefits and shortcomings of polar bear ecotourism, and saw first-hand the effects of climate change in the Arctic. Regina Robbins Flynn trekked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, an experience that became as much an internal voyage as a geographic one.

In other essays, communications professors delved into the modern media landscape. Guillermo Avila-Saavedra’s analysis of the 2005-06 television show Commander in Chief, which depicted a female president, is especially timely given Hillary Clinton’s historic 2016 run for the presidency. Jane Regan, who spent years as a journalist in Haiti, chronicles how her students from that country’s first-ever investigative journalism course tracked the billions of dollars in aid that poured in after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

Several current and former professors explore the diverse aspects of the cultural landscape. Elspeth Slayter discusses how veiling symbolizes major shifts in Turkish culture and how she and her Turkish husband navigate those shifts as a couple. John Tamilio III explains how a peer-collaborative model helped his students understand the poetry of T.S. Eliot. Sarah Dietrich, Amy Jo Minett, and Zach Newell describe and analyze their experiences during the eight-week summer 2014 cultural exchange with Iraqi scholars who visited the Salem State campus. And authors C. Julie Whitlow and Patricia Ould include an excerpt from their 2015 book Same-Sex Marriage, Context, and Lesbian Identity: Wedded but Not Always a Wife.

Visually, three very different artistic styles are represented in these pages.

Donggong Wu painted vibrant landscapes of the North Shore and New England while a visiting scholar during the fall 2015 semester. Barbara Poremba took photos at the 2007 Coney Island Mermaid Parade, then applied photo filters to her images to create cartoon-like pictures. Dennis Sanchez Rosemartin derived inspiration for his painting “Entranced” from the tree in front of his home.

Lastly, poems by Claire Keyes and Alexandria Peary provide parting notes.

I hope you enjoy this issue.

The Sextant is accepting submissions for the Winter 2018 issue.

For contributor information, please go to salemstate.edu/sextant.

Check out past Sextant issues at issuu.com/sextantssu.

Winter 2017

SEXTANT

Volume XXIII, No. 1

E S S A Y S About Travel

Where Climate Change and Polar Bears Collide: An Arctic Ecotourism Journey

By Lorri Krebs

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Walking the Camino

By Regina Robbins Flynn

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About Media 12

Follow the Money: Student Journalists Track Haiti’s Earthquake Aid

By Jane Regan

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About Culture

Lorri Krebs

The First Female President: Gender and Power in Commander in Chief

By Guillermo Avila-Saavedra

Elspeth Slayter

The Vagaries of Veiling: Navigating Culture and Social Change in a Turkish-American Family

By Elspeth Slayter

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The Experience of Reading T.S. Eliot: A Peer-Collaborative Model

By John Tamilio III

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Our Iraqi Fulbright Adventure: Internationalization and the Terrain of the “Third Space”

By Sarah Dietrich, Amy Jo Minett, and Zach Newell

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Wedded But Not Always a Wife: Lesbian Identity and Same-Sex Marriage

By C. Julie Whitlow and Patricia Ould

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P O E T R Y What Diamonds Can Do

By Claire Keyes

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To Karin Rhodes, Whose Mother Upon Coming to America Was Also Served Fried Clams

By Alexandria Peary

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I M A G E S Photo Essay

25th Coney Island Mermaid Parade: Fantasy or Reality?

Photos and text by Barbara Poremba Paintings of the North Shore and New England Paintings by Donggong Wu; text by Mary Melilli

I N C L O S I N G Entranced Painting and text by Dennis Sanchez Rosemartin

Donggong Wu

Portfolio

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27 Maritime Museum of Salem

Back Inside Cover

On the front cover: Donggong Wu, Salem Harbor (Detail) 1

E S S A Y

Where Climate Change and Polar Bears Collide:

An Arctic Ecotourism Journey Lorri Krebs

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Lorri Krebs

limate change is not the biggest threat facing polar bears right now—at least that’s what I was told by tour operators and residents in a remote region of northern Canada in November 2015. “Humans have created more grief for those poor bears; it’s no wonder they want to eat us,” lamented Steve Clubb, my tour guide and resident wildlife expert. Wait.… What? Eat us? No climate change? That’s not what I expected to hear when I set out on a week-long expedition to Churchill, Manitoba, the “polar bear capital of the world.” Because my research and teaching interests as a professor of geography encompass tourism and climate change, I was more than a bit concerned that I would return from my research trip empty-handed in terms of “leading-edge knowledge.”

more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to make this Arctic wildlife-viewing trip. I quickly justified my decision, for several reasons. Polar bears are often touted as the indicator—or sentinel—species for climate change. Just a photo of a polar bear often elicits discussion of climate change, melting glaciers, and/or sea-level rise.

Tourism and climate change are two huge areas in my discipline and in my own areas of interest and expertise.

For both my undergraduate honors thesis and master’s thesis, my research focused on wildlife management. I could get back to my roots and explore aboriginal issues in the north, examine how tourism can have positive and negative impacts, see the thinning ice, and catch thrilling glimpses of wildlife in their natural habitat.

The whole process surrounding research and publication Yes—I had to go! Once I made up my mind, I began at a teaching-focused university is an interesting thing: doing background work for the trip.

Though not impossible, it does I soon discovered that almost require some creative give and every international conservation take. During my early years “Humans have created more grief agency offers trips to see polar on the tenure track with a 4/4 bears, at costs ranging from for those poor bears; it’s no wonder regular teaching load, a few $5,900 to $8,600, not including directed studies, an occasional they want to eat us.”

Wait….

What? the more than $1,700 in airfare. internship, and the odd I was shocked to learn that these graduate course peppered in, Eat us? No climate change? That’s groups were sold out for the next I felt that I had some (albeit 18 months.

Maybe it’s the photos not what I expected to hear when limited) options to continue of bears adrift on melting ice any academic research and I set out on a week-long expedition chunks that place the impacts of publishing while balancing climate change front and center. both with my teaching. I’m to Churchill, Manitoba, the “polar Maybe it’s heightened interest sure this is a familiar story in traveling as far north as the bear capital of the world.” to many faculty members.

58th parallel. Or maybe it’s the What we sometimes forget anthropomorphized polar bear is the importance of keeping images on Coke commercials and in cards and magazines, ourselves open to opportunities that are overlooked with bears posing, waving, kissing each other, and because they may not be traditional research routes. I cuddling their cubs that draw so many people in. Either began to realize that if research was a priority for me, way, it seemed as if everyone wanted to go to Churchill to I needed to take advantage of any situations that see the bears live and up close. Although there are polar presented themselves. bears in Alaska and the Yukon, Churchill seemed to be “the” place to see them. Just as salmon return to their Such an opportunity arose in the spring of 2015, and rivers to spawn, and caribou migrate south, so too do it came from an unlikely place: My mother wanted to see polar bears gather in Churchill in late fall. polar bears. Not on television, not in a zoo, and not alone.

Her desire to see these majestic animals firsthand before What makes Churchill unique and essential for polar they become extinct due to climate change lured me in, bears is its geography. The town’s western Hudson Bay although I didn’t need much convincing. I thought about location supports a rich marine ecosystem that promotes the research potential, experiences, future projects, case a healthy population of seals, polar bears’ primary food. studies, photos for presentations, and lecture material I Both species also depend on the area’s precipitous freeze would have if I went on a polar bear ecotour. Here was that provides the solid ice necessary for their survival. the opportunity I had yearned for.

Any change in the ice’s thickness, length of time that the ice is frozen, or degradation of the marine ecosystem will Then I looked into the particulars, such as the timing have significant and immediate consequences. The fear (early November—right in the middle of classes) and is that climate change is now affecting this precarious the cost (more than $6,000 for 5 days). I wasn’t sure balance of nature and will continue to do so.

I could be my mother’s travel partner after all. But the The bears’ main feeding period ends in July, when the ice breaks up and the bears return to land areas to fast Left: A polar bear looks up at the Polar Rover from which ecotourists until the ice re-freezes in late fall. Churchill’s location, view the bears in Churchill, Manitoba.

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and its relatively shallow water, provides an ideal environment and the first place to see the rapid freezeover at the southernmost point of polar bears’ habitat.

It is where large numbers of bears congregate and await the frozen waters and their first meal in four months.

These types of critical habitat areas provide the ultimate locations for human-wildlife interactions. In a positive light, Churchill offers the best chance to see a polar bear and provides the basis for a flourishing ecotourism industry—both reasons why I was heading that way.

north. “Here’s too far south for me,” he said, “full of tourists, transients, and no work.” It turns out that many others echoed this sentiment; the local population has been steadily declining for more than 30 years to the current 813. There are only a handful of aboriginals now, I was told, “maybe three or four Cree families left; that’s it.” This was certainly not the extent of local native involvement that the academic journals implied was necessary for successful ecotourism.

With the plane still in the middle of the icy runway, its doors opened and a small ramp offered us a steep, rom Boston, Churchill is 1,505 miles as the crow slippery slide accompanied by biting wind and frigid flies. Unfortunately, the planes don’t fly the same temperatures: There was no doubt that I was in polarroute as the crows, and there are no roads into bear country. An old school bus and a driver were Churchill. The phrase “You can’t get there from here” waiting. “We have to hurry,” said Steve Clubb, who also takes on a whole new meaning, since one could fly served as our driver and assistant in the restaurant. “The to Dubai or Tokyo in the same time it takes to travel helicopters only have a small window to get you guys from Boston to Churchill. The trip takes between 15 in the air. I’ll take your bags and you can go to your and 19 hours, with two stopovers if you try to do it all hotel after.” The itinerary said we would go to the hotel at once. I opted to book each leg and then in the morning take the separately, flying first to Chicago helicopters to see the bears. “If and then on to Winnipeg, where I The phrase “You can’t get the bay freezes today, they’ll be no stayed overnight, then headed up bears tomorrow,” said Steve. “It’s there from here” takes on a to Churchill. This journey took 28 colder this year so the freeze may hours but saved me $1,500. And whole new meaning, since one come sooner. So hurry up.” this multi-stop trip happens only if But everything I had read the weather is good, connections could fly to Dubai or Tokyo in suggested that the ice is forming match up, and the pilot decides later and thinner than ever, that the same time it takes to travel that it’s safe to leave Winnipeg climate change is most evident airport. Yet somehow, during the from Boston to Churchill.

The in these ecosystems, and that short three- to four-month tourist polar bears are drowning because season, more than 12,000 people trip takes between 15 and 19 there isn’t adequate ice coverage. manage to descend on this town Shrugging his shoulders, Steve hours, with two stopovers if of fewer than 1,000 residents to said, “Years ago we’d get four see birds, beluga whales, and polar you try to do it all at once. or five weeks of good polar bear bears before climate change renders viewing, but lately we’re lucky if them extinct and “they’re all gone.” we get three—too cold too soon.”

Before my trip, I pored over the recent literature Apparently, we were there during the third week of on climate change, aboriginal issues, and wildlife polar bear tours, and from the helicopters we could see management until I felt I had enough background how thick the water was, how slowly the ice-chunked knowledge about my destination to make the most of waves rolled, ready to freeze in an instant. a short research trip. Three planes, one helicopter, and “Last year we got skunked on the last few tours,” an empty bank account later, I arrived on November 7.

Steve said, referring to the tour company’s inability to As it turned out, I was not so well-informed. locate bears for the tourists. “Those bears were gone During my Calm Air flight from Winnipeg to from one day to the next.” My group was lucky: You Churchill, I was lucky to be seated next to a man could see the open water of Hudson Bay, which meant who spoke Inuktitut, one of the official languages in the bears were still on land, waiting. northern Canada that is also one of the few that is From the air, rocks, snow, and water stretched as written. I had already spotted the Canadian Aboriginal far as the eye could see. The helicopter pilot told me to syllabics in the seat-pocket literature, so it was a treat look for bears, noting, “They look like potato chips on to hear him speak it as well. We chatted in English the ground.”

They do! Their skin is black and their fur (his third language after French), and he told fascinating is actually transparent, so although we think of them as stories about how his ancestors learned to hunt by white, they are not. Thinking potato chips, I began to watching the polar bears. When we landed, I began gathering up my things and noticed he was not. He Right: This polar bear looks up at the author through the grated floor explained that the plane was going another two hours of the Polar Rover’s viewing platform.

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Lorri Krebs

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Lorri Krebs

Ecotourists photograph a polar bear from the safety of the Polar Rover.

see one after another; I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough. There is no legislated distance the helicopters are required to keep, unfortunately, though this pilot was mindful of not wanting to scare the bears. He did circle and swoop around them so that I could get a better look, but he backed off as soon as the bears started running. They don’t have enough fat stores at that time of the year to expend the energy needed to run, so it is definitely harming them by getting too close. Numerous studies have quantified a myriad of negative impacts on wildlife in areas of high air traffic; many species were found to have stopped eating and/or reproducing altogether. But there they were, pacing by the water’s edge or curled up shielded from the wind in groups of two or three. I counted 21 that first day.

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uring the next four days I spent eight to 10 hours each day with local guides in a giant Polar Rover—a specially built vehicle for viewing polar bears­— driving over the tundra or simply sitting and peering out the window. Waiting, just like the bears. But I wasn’t the one who hadn’t eaten for months, yearning for seal blubber, anxiously testing the thin ice, so close to a meal yet so far away from actually eating. Indeed, I was already rewarded with incredible experiences at their expense: The sheer rugged beauty of the place took my breath away. “Keep your hands and heads inside the vehicle,” Steve warned. “The ones who approach aren’t curious and don’t want to be your friend, no matter what you heard before. They want to eat and won’t hesitate to eat you.” Point taken.

to the side, I saw a huge bear lumber towards the Rover.

However, we still hadn’t actually seen any bears from As the bear neared, Steve closed the door to the back of the Rover, and people were getting restless. We all the vehicle. The driver turned off the engine. No escape. knew the risk with these ecotours: You may not see any My heart was pounding with excitement. I couldn’t get wildlife. We are not in a zoo; the animals are not tame. my camera out of my zippered pocket as my fingers had They don’t appear on command just because we all spent already turned numb with cold in those few minutes. But days and thousands of dollars to get here. The guides I had my phone, and I switched between video and photo played a game with us: The first person to spot a bear and kept my finger on the button. I probably took 200 would win a beautiful hardcover polar bear book. That “bursts,” but my eyes never left the bear. got our attention: Everyone peered anxiously through the windows over the tundra, looking for that potato He reached the front of chip in a sea of snow. the Rover, then stopped and “There’s one!” shouted one sniffed the tires. I leaned out ...I spent eight to 10 hours each day of the guests. We all rushed onto the railing to get an to her side to catch a glimpse with local guides in a giant Polar unobstructed picture, and as the driver sped off in the he heard me move. His head Rover—a specially built vehicle for direction she was pointing. swung around, and he trotted With all the bumping along viewing polar bears­— driving over the right towards me. I felt my the crazily uneven terrain stomach drop in fear. Steve through ice and water, feeling tundra or simply sitting and peering pulled us back from the railing as though the vehicle would just as the bear reared up. It out the window. Waiting, just like tip over on two wheels at any happened so fast that I froze in time, I focused on hanging disbelief. The bear put his front the bears. But I wasn’t the one who on to my seat and did not paws on the side of the Rover, even see the bear. Then we hadn’t eaten for months, yearning for his nose reaching about 12 feet stopped. No bear. My heart in the air. We could hear him seal blubber, anxiously testing the sank, and you could feel breathing, grunting, sniffing. a collective sigh as people No one moved or took photos thin ice, so close to a meal yet so put down their cameras in from the viewing platform. defeat. But we stayed there far away from actually eating.

It was minus 15º C (5º F), but and waited patiently. “Don’t my palms were sweating. Then make a sound,” Steve warned. the bear dropped to all fours “Bears have great hearing, not so good eyesight, but smell and walked under the platform. I held my breath. He was and sound travels far in these parts. Don’t be that person so close I could see a scar running down the length of his who scares them away.” nose, likely from a fight.

We sat silently as the wind howled outside. Five I have researched large mammals—big game— minutes went by. Ten minutes. Then we saw him. He for many years, observing black bear behavior, radiomust have been lying down, seeking shelter from the collaring wolves, trapping lynx, and even being bluffwind. He popped up a few hundred feet from us and charged by a grizzly while doing habitat transects in the headed straight towards the Rover. A ripple of energy Yukon. But never did I feel an adrenaline rush like I had went through the passengers as everyone fumbled with just experienced. There is something mysterious, and their cameras. “Shhh!” Steve warned us again. But the inexplicably scary, about polar bears. bear kept coming, slowly, sauntering as though he had all Then someone stomped on the grate, and the bear the time in the world. Click, click, click went the cameras bolted. I realized suddenly that it would be no contest as we jostled for position in front of the window, not-sobetween a bear and a human out on the tundra. Even polite elbows poking here and there. Then Steve walked a starving, bedraggled old polar bear could outrun a to the back of the Rover, opened the door, and beckoned person in a split second. “Quite the aggressive one, eh?” the brave to head out onto the open-air viewing platform.

Steve asked before herding us back inside. We saw many The frigid air rushed in, and most who at first seemed to more bears that day, but none so close as that first one. want to head out changed their minds, sat back down in the warm seats, opened their windows, and stuck their I learned more in the first four days on this trip than cameras out.

I ever would have from reading the published literature.

My mom nudged me out of my seat. “Go!” she insisted.

“Get us a better picture.” The platform was small, with a grated floor and a four-foot-high solid railing. I had a great view with no elbows to contend with, since there were only three of us there along with Steve. As I moved over

I attribute that mostly to our choice of tour company, Churchill Nature Tours. When we were unable to book the trip through larger, more visible, and established tour companies, a colleague suggested this smaller, local one, and I will be eternally grateful. We saw the

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in four months for behaving poorly. The females were not roaming the town or pacing by the water’s edge; they were storing their fat reserves for emergencies and protecting their coy (polar bear cubs less than a year old).

The males try to kill the coy, to eat, but also so that the females will go into estrus again. There are significantly True, we all ate at the same restaurant, went in higher numbers of males than females, and that trend the same helicopters, and vied for space in our tundra does not bode well from a sustainability perspective. buggies (there is a carrying capacity limit for the number Additionally, climate change will continue to affect the of people and locations each company is permitted). But females and their reproductive capabilities. As the climate Steve’s narrative as guide was not pre-printed, and I am warms and oceans take longer to freeze, the sea ice will certain that the other companies did not visit the local also break up earlier, thereby reducing feeding times at pub and talk to the people who lived there year-round both ends of the season. Even one week’s less time on the and who shared their stories openly and willingly. Steve ice in spring means less time for cubs to mature and eat brought us to Inuit museums not open to the public at seal, and fewer fat reserves moving into the fasting period. the time, took us to the local As the bears wait for the post office to have our passports water to freeze every week, the stamped with a polar bear and There are significantly higher Manitoba Conservation & Water Northern Light insignia (one Stewardship puts out a Polar Bear of the few post offices globally numbers of males than females, Activity Report for Churchill that are allowed to do this), and that trend does not bode well that lists how many bears were introduced us to a local wildlife sighted, the number that were a management tool known as the from a sustainability perspective. problem that week, how many “bear jail,” and even brought were in the bear jail, and how us to a bear extraction. In an Additionally, climate change will many were flown out.

If a bear extraction, bears are held just continue to affect the females and becomes too aggressive towards a outside of town in a holding area human or any built environment, made of concrete; a helicopter their reproductive capabilities. it gets put in the jail; if the bear then airlifts the bears using has been there multiple times, harnesses and lets the bears As the climate warms and oceans it is flown far away from human dangle in the air while flying take longer to freeze, the sea ice settlements. These efforts are them to a wilderness area undertaken to avoid killing where they will be dropped off will also break up earlier, thereby the bears. A human-polar bear far from human settlements. encounter rarely ends well for If the bears are lucky enough, reducing feeding times at both the bear, so the encounters are the freeze will occur and they ends of the season. minimized as much as possible. will be released without the helicopter ride.

While I was there, reportedly just outside of town a bear was ecause so many polar bears descend on Churchill sniffing around a backyard; the resident shot what is in the fall, there are full-time “bear rangers” who known as a “bear banger,” intended to scare the animal drive around this one-square-mile area 24 hours away. Instead, the bear was hit by accident and died. a day; to protect humans, five trucks drive up and down Unfortunately, it was a female who had two coy, who streets, circling the town. Even though the main town were then taken away to a zoo somewhere in the south. area is only six blocks long, no one walks—except the Sadly, there is a low life expectancy for cubs raised tourists, who are then caught and told to take a vehicle without their mothers. everywhere. Talk about exacerbating climate change: Observing wildlife behavior, listening to local Vehicles idle all day and locals drive back and forth, even stories, visiting culturally significant places, and having between four houses. But they have a good reason. Once insights shared by locals can occur almost anywhere we tried to walk across the street from the restaurant to in the world—but I am very happy I was afforded this a small retail store, and a ranger pulled up in his truck opportunity in northern Manitoba. It was exhilarating to and told us to get back inside the restaurant. There was see a bear saunter up to the Rover; heartbreaking to watch a polar bear right behind the retail store, and we would a male stalk a female with the intention of killing her cub; have run straight into him. frustrating to know that their food source is suffering from so much pollution throughout the oceanic food chain I have referred to all of the bears as “him” because that they may not survive long enough to worry about they were indeed all males—and aggressive ones at climate change; and upsetting that nearly every time that. But you can’t blame an animal that hasn’t eaten other companies with their large tour buses, matching Canadian Goose down jackets, and logoed water bottles, while we were whisked about town in an old school bus, shivering in our layers of clothes and scraping frost from the inside of our windows.

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Lorri Krebs

A polar bear walks on the tundra at the edge of Hudson Bay.

there is a human-bear encounter it ends badly for the bear. At the same time, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to see these dynamics firsthand and to gain more knowledge than all the literature I read could have ever provided me with about polar bears, ecotourism, and climate change impacts in the north.

Justin Krebs

Lorri Krebs is a professor of geography at Salem State University. She specializes in regional economic development, community identity and planning, and sustainable tourism development. She holds a master’s degree focusing on ecosystem approaches and parks and protected areas, and a Ph.D. focusing on technology, tourism, marketing tools, and decision-making. Her research interests include sustainable local foods, non-profit organization development, and ecotourism.

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I M A G E S

Balloon Lady

25th Coney Island Mermaid Parade:

Fantasy or Reality?

Barbara Poremba

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Shrimphead Accordion Band

T

he Coney Island Mermaid Parade is a whimsical

procession of honky-tonk and mythological

pageantry held each year on the first Saturday nearest the summer solstice to mark the opening of the summer season. The parade—which has no ethnic, religious, or commercial purpose—is a nod to the Coney Island Mardi Gras parades of the early 1900s, when Coney Island was a major amusement-park destination. The event features about 3,000 scantily clad street performers dressed in elaborate homemade costumes, who march by streets named Neptune and Mermaid, past Nathan’s Hot Dogs and Astroland Amusement Park, ending on the Boardwalk of Coney Island Beach. The parade attracts thousands of spectators to this seaside community.

let the parade pass by me. From that angle, I was able to capture some vivid and remarkable images.

As soon as I saw my photos—with their bright colors and loud costumes—I knew I had captured something amazing. Continuing in the playful spirit of the event, I applied photo filters, which transformed the images into surreal cartoon-like pictures. These photos have been mistaken as “fantasy” paintings, but their “reality” is confirmed in the originals at the bottom of page 10.

These and other photos from the parade are on exhibit at A&B Burgers in Beverly.

Kim Mimnaugh

These photos were taken in 2007 at the 25th Mermaid Parade. I was attending as a first-time spectator, capturing candid shots in the moment, with no expectations of what the results would be. A bluebird sky and very hot first summer day provided a perfect backdrop. If you Google the parade, you will see the marchers posing for photographers and smiling for the camera. But my approach was to simply sit down on the ground and

Sanitized Reflections

Barbara Poremba is a professor emerita of nursing whose Salem State University career focused on public health. Her passion for photography started when she received her first Brownie camera as a child. While photographing the funeral of JFK as a teen, she developed an interest in telling stories with pictures, an interest that would later lead to documenting her work in international health.

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E S S A Y

The First Female President:

Gender and Power in Commander in Chief

Guillermo Avila-Saavedra

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season and attracting the attention of feminist groups, political organizations, and journalists across the nation.

However, audiences gradually declined, and ABC cancelled the show in May 2006.

Back in 2005, though, the show’s premise proved compelling and controversial. On September 27, 2005, Commander in Chief premiered to 16.4 million viewers, making it the highest-rated new show of the

This essay examines the show’s initial success and eventual failure in the broader context of American politics, culture, and society, at a time when national politics were on the cusp of massive change. It also looks at ways in which contemporary American ideas about femininity and masculinity are articulated or challenged in the show. The analysis of a television program cancelled more than a decade ago is especially relevant given the context of the 2016 presidential election in which Clinton was the first woman to be a Presidential nominee. This fictional construct of a female American president proposed by Commander in Chief almost became a reality. Examining the show through the lenses of realism, the question of feminism versus femininity, and women’s political agency helps illuminate whether the show’s narrative made the electorate more or less accepting of the notion of a female president.

n the summer of 2005, ABC’s marketing campaign for a new prime-time drama titled Commander in Chief included the tagline, “This fall a woman will be president.” Around the same time, a number of fake political cartoons featuring a female president appeared in major newspapers. A Washington Post media critic ridiculed the new show’s premise, as if having a female president “were the craziest thing in the world,” adding, “Imagine how offensive this all would be if the premise were, ‘This fall a black man will be president.’” It’s doubtful that the reviewer realized how prescient his sarcasm would prove to be just a few years later when, in 2008, Barack Obama was elected president. Then, Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee in the 2016 Presidential election. Although Donald Trump won that election, Clinton received nearly three million more popular votes than Trump did.

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Realism

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ommander in Chief starred Academy Award-winner Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen, a political independent, brilliant scholar, and accomplished university administrator who is elected as vice president to conservative Republican Teddy Bridges. After President Bridges dies from a stroke, Allen is urged by Republican party officials and even by members of her own family to resign in order for the Speaker of the House, conservative Republican Nathan Templeton, to be sworn in as president. Allen resists the pressure and, without the benefit of a party or political allies, takes the Oath of Office as the first American female and politically independent president.

from VP chief of staff to trophy husband”), and mixed feelings about the gender of the president (“Since when does being a mother qualify you to be the leader of the free world?” and “At last, we have a woman president!

Hooray!”). It is not that audiences would mistake the program for a news feature. Rather, the producers encouraged an atmosphere that blurred the distinctions between fiction and reality to bolster the credibility of a somewhat implausible character: a female president.

Positive portrayals are pivotal when considering the potential social influence of television texts. Media scholars have argued that The West Wing “presented a healthy corrective to the American anti-Washington impulse and an antidote to public cynicism.” The Realism and the appeal of The analysis of a television program program presented an authenticity are main concerns idealized image of the cancelled more than a decade ago is of television dramas. To be White House—a highly successful, they need to be positive view of public especially relevant given the context of believable. Commander in Chief service that ignored struggled with the fact that the the 2016 presidential election in which internal White House notion of a female president politics, staff competition, Clinton was the first woman to be a seemed too improbable to and presidential isolation. some viewers. One media Myron Levine wrote that Presidential nominee.

This fictional critic joked, “Now prime time The West Wing “depicted is populated by aliens, ghosts, construct of a female American the White House staff as a and even a female president”; ‘close-knit, hard-working, President proposed by Commander another wondered whether dedicated group of human “Maybe we already have too in Chief almost became a reality. beings motivated by loyalty, many artificial presidents in conviction, and a sense prime-time series, stretching of patriotism.’” Scholars the limits of credibility beyond believed that viewing positive images of the even the usual television standards.” (Robert Bianco American presidency on The West Wing would from USA Today and Tom Shales from The Washington promote within viewers more positive Post are the main sources for the TV reviews throughout images of the office and of those who have this article.) Clearly, the program was concerned with served as president: Except that, given authenticity and credibility, as evidenced by the fact that its gender dynamics and clearly partisan former Republican and Democratic staffers and advisers plot lines, The West Wing did not need to were hired as consultants and writers. Furthermore, worry about believability. If Commander the program often dealt with real political issues such as in Chief was at least partially motivated natural disasters, terrorist threats, and Supreme Court to influence public opinion, it needed to nominations. balance its emphasis on authenticity and The aesthetic of Commander in Chief borrowed from realism with a highly idealized portrayal documentary and news formats. The opening credit of a female president. sequence was extremely short compared with other Mackenzie Allen on Commander in Chief prime-time dramas. The characters were introduced was perhaps the best-qualified president by displaying their names and titles on the screen in seen in American television. Former a news-like fashion. Even more telling, on the show’s chancellor of a university that under her website ABC included a fake discussion forum called tenure received two Nobel prizes, she The Mackenzie Watch, with the mission of “maintaining a is a brilliant Middle-East scholar, an vigil on Mackenzie Allen’s promise to America” as if she educator, and a loving wife and mother. were the real president. Entries in the forum “discussed” Even more revealing is the fact that she such issues as whether Allen stole the presidency (“If does not display ambition for the sake she were so wise she would do the smart thing and step aside”), whether she would run for reelection, the role of power; she wants power so that she of Allen’s husband as First Gentleman (“poor Rod Allen, can make a difference in people’s lives.

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Feminism Versus Femininity Portraying a politician in such a positive light can upset viewers, depending on their politics. The most common negative reviews of The West Wing were politically oriented comments saying that the program reflected a Bill Clinton-like administration and Democratic ideals.

Linking a particular political agenda with the American dream on national television has political implications. In the case of Commander in Chief, press coverage noted that “Conservative conspiracy theorists speculate that the hit ABC drama doubles as a campaign ad for Hillary Clinton” at a time when she was a U.S. Senator. The program distanced itself from partisan politics by portraying Mackenzie Allen as an independent. However, the program’s creator, Rod Lurie, is an outspoken liberal, and most of the villains on the program are Republicans, including House Speaker Nathan Templeton, played by Donald Sutherland.

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ublicly, producers claimed that the fact that Allen was a political independent would carry the show, not just her gender; in other words, the program aimed for a broader appeal than simply identity politics.

However, on the pilot episode—which sets the tone and mood for the series—the narrative was undoubtedly about gender. Consider the exchange in which Nathan Templeton tries to convince Allen to resign after the president’s death and after she has expressed her intentions to liberate a woman imprisoned in Nigeria for giving birth outside of marriage. It was his dismissiveness about the woman’s fate that convinced Allen to remain as president, as she asserted, “I’m going to go out there and I’m going to take the oath of office and I’m going to run this government, and if some Islamic nations can’t tolerate a female president, I promise you it will be more their problem than mine.”

Audiences’ involvement with Allen proceeded to tear up the Commander in Chief provided further resignation speech she had prepared In the case of Commander evidence of the program’s blurring of and was sworn in as president without reality and fiction. In addition to the in Chief, press coverage the benefit of a party or political market-driven The Mackenzie Watch, her feminist convictions. noted that “Conservative allies—just ABC created a real, online discussion Other narrative elements on Commander forum for Commander in Chief viewers. in Chief, as well as the history of conspiracy theorists Many viewers posted ideologically powerful women on television, charged entries, such as “Guess that’s speculate that the hit argued against the radicalism of such what happens when you try to shove texts. During its first episodes, the ABC drama doubles as a Hillary Clinton down everyone’s show established an emphasis on the throat, lol. America is not so naive to domestic aspects of the president’s life. campaign ad for Hillary pick up on ABC’s agenda—trying to get The press took notice as well, with America ready for Hillary, why didn’t Clinton” at a time when comments such as, “Everyone knows they just call the show ‘Hillary in ’08!’ the president’s duties: defending the she was a U.S. Senator. and get it over with?”. The majority of nation, putting together a trillionthe entries dealt with the president’s dollar budget, making breakfast for gender. A viewer celebrated that the kids.” The need to highlight the President Allen “is a strong woman making time for her domestic concerns of a female president had to do with family and doing a great job and not being compromised.” our very real social expectations of gender roles.

On the other hand, a self-labeled feminist viewer decried Plenty of television programs have depicted working the program for its portrayal of “a softer side, soap-opera women, from Cagney & Lacey to Roseanne and Murphy side of life in the White House.” Clearly, there was a lack Brown, that also felt the need to pay attention to the of consensus among viewers about whether the program domestic. Most of those shows, however, included celebrates the feminist aspect of Allen’s presidency or certain elements of radicalism. Commander in Chief extolled the virtues of her domestic side.

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lacked the working-class appeal that allowed for beauty pageant, she certainly does wear more lipstick Roseanne’s subversiveness. Mackenzie Allen was an than any of her predecessors.” A more nuanced review attractive, heterosexual, well-educated, white, upperargued that “the problem is that by giving her no party, middle-class woman. She practically embodied the no positions, no platform, it ends up defining her—like status quo. What, then, was the source of the character’s many strong women on TV—mainly by her gender.” alleged subversiveness or radicalism?

Some narrative elements seemed to point Commander As president, Allen possessed all emblematic American in Chief in the direction of traditional feminine television feminine values. Above all, she was a caregiver. When genres such as prime-time soap operas. For example, the she assumed office after the president’s death, she was episode in which the Russian president made a state visit also “helping the country heal.” She was emotional to the United States displayed a strong focus on Allen’s and compassionate. When she was informed that five wardrobe and the logistics of planning a state dinner.

American covert agents have been killed abroad, the The episode also had an almost ridiculous emphasis on first thing she asked was, the problems of protocol that “Does anybody know them? a female president presents— The press seemed ambivalent as Does anybody know their Who greets whom? Who names?” She valued education dances with whom?—as if well when determining whether over exploration. When she she were not the first female was presented an executive American president but the Commander in Chief was a feminine order endorsing a NASA first female president in or feminist show. Some reports, program to Mars, she refused the world. Given that the to sign it. Instead, she made audience’s average age was over noting the delight of feminist activist her first executive order a 50, viewers at the time must college program offering have certainly remembered groups, describe the show as a student loans without interest that Margaret Thatcher was “feminist fantasy” and the Oval in exchange for teaching three prime minister of England years at a public school. during most of the 1980s.

Office as “feminism’s final frontier.”

Allen was also portrayed However, focusing on the constantly as a wife and as a domestic life of a female mother. On the way to deliver her first address at the president is not necessarily an anti-feminist viewpoint.

U.S. Senate, her youngest daughter spilled grape juice all Media representations of family settings can become over Allen’s suit. However, even if the emphasis on the an expression of the challenges working women face. domestic and private are portrayed as inevitable in the life Emphasis on domestic issues may also point to the of a female president, not all narrative elements that refer contradictions that family responsibilities put on women. to traditional feminine behaviors are necessarily positive Arguably, similar arguments can be made about or constructive. In a flashback scene, Allen remembered a Commander in Chief. For female audiences, the program state trip to France when, aboard Air Force One, President may have shown the extraordinary constraints that the Bridges asked her, as vice president, not to meet as distribution of responsibilities between the genders puts planned with the French defense secretary to discuss the on powerful women, with society tending to define Israeli-Palestinian conflict—her area of expertise—but those women by their domestic or private sides rather to meet instead with the secretary of culture to discuss than their political power. cultural exchange. All this took place while President Bridges was watching a football game, barely paying Women’s Political Agency attention to her. In another scene, defining politics as a contact sport, Templeton struggled to find an adequate erhaps unconsciously, some equivalent of “wear a cup” for Allen. journalists seemed The press seemed ambivalent as well when to undermine the determining whether Commander in Chief was a feminine credibility of Geena or feminist show. Some reports, noting the delight of Davis as president in feminist activist groups, described the show as a “feminist Commander in Chief fantasy” and the Oval Office as “feminism’s final frontier.” by referring to A reporter noted how much fun it was “to imagine a her previous film woman with a feminist agenda in the situation room.” roles, such as “the Other reports made fun of Geena Davis as the president mother of a mouse” of the United States, stating, for example, that “a set of (Stuart Little) and as plump red lips take over the oval office” or that “she’s “a bug’s girlfriend” President Twinkle, maybe the presidency should be a (The Fly). One reporter

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compassion. A reviewer noted that Allen was “the unHillary, as likable as Laura Bush and as tough as Harry Truman.” The problem is that in America, powerful women are held to impossible standards that are not required of powerful men. Just like real female politicians, Allen struggled to keep a balance between toughness and femininity.

asked: “Who knew when Thelma plunged off that cliff that she was heading for the White House? How about Louise for chief justice?”. Another reporter made clear that Mackenzie Allen seemed not to be modeled after a historical or political figure in the same way that The West Wing President Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen, appeared to be modeled after progressive Democrats.

Commander in Chief can be described as either a political drama or as a gendered text in the tradition of primetime soap operas. The ambiguity of its classification opens more possibilities for interpretation. As a political drama it perhaps attracted a broader audience, thus making the notion of a female president a realistic possibility. As a prime-time soap opera, it resonated more directly with female audiences. On one hand, they may have interpreted the program to endorse the domestication and privatization of women’s lives. On the other hand, they may have interpreted the program’s emphasis on the domestic as evidence of the unjust social pressures to which powerful women are subjected. The prevalence of any particular interpretation relates to the position of the fictional representation in the social and political landscape.

Television reviewers and journalists approached Commander in Chief based on The gendered ideologies of political debates that at the time already included the possibility of Hillary the program collide with the Clinton’s candidacy. The frequent public and private spheres, parallels between the program and Hillary Clinton—who made her first and it is uncertain whether run for the presidency in 2008, just two years after the show ended—made the program contributed to the program both controversial and or undermined the cause of timely. The gendered ideologies of the program collide with the public and female political leadership. private spheres, and it is uncertain whether the program contributed to or undermined the cause of female political leadership. The perceived press bias against the The term “soccer mom” appeared during the 1996 credibility of the program’s main actress demonstrates that presidential campaign as a group of swing voters, defined this fictional representation of female power was presumed primarily by their filial obligations, who could decide destabilizing and provocative and not entirely welcomed. the election. This term seems to promote a language of A decade after Commander in Chief’s cancellation, as Clinton privatization and domestication of women, while only pursued the presidency again, it is not entirely clear men are defined as having political agency. Women, whether our cultural expectations of gender roles have through the metaphor of the soccer mom, are defined dramatically changed. as essentially apolitical. The fact that Commander in Chief defined Mackenzie Allen as appealing to soccer moms Guillermo Avila-Saavedra is an associate is problematic, since it implies that women’s presence professor of advertising and media studies at in politics is constructed from assumptions about gender Salem State University. His scholarship focuses in a way that men’s political participation is not. on the relationship between media In a flashback scene, Allen remembered the vice-presidential debate with the Democratic candidate, war hero General Warren Keaton.

When asked what vice-presidential candidates bring to a party’s presidential nominee, Keaton answered, “I help him on the John Wayne front.

Mackenzie Allen was picked because Teddy Bridges needed help with soccer moms.” Soccer moms came up again when Keaton, now Allen’s vicepresidential nominee, thanked “all the soccer moms that elected him” during his Senate confirmation hearings.

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Guillermo Avila

The show’s narrative emphasized Allen’s political independence and often portrayed her as painfully unaware of the mechanics of politics. When her husband suggested that she imitate Templeton’s strategies because “he is a politician,” she replied, “I’m not turning into that.” She worked solely on morals, fairness, and

representation and identity construction, intercultural communication, media in Latin America, and Latino issues in U.S. media.

His work has been published in, among other journals, Mass Communication and Society, Communication Quarterly, and Media, Culture & Society.

E S S A Y

The Vagaries of Veiling:

Navigating Culture and Social Change in a Turkish-American Family

Elspeth Slayter

Murat Recevik

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One hot summer, we were spending time in our Turkish home on the wine-producing island of Bozcaada, along with our 12-year-old American niece, Melia. After touring Istanbul’s Sultanahment Cami (often referred to as the “blue mosque”) and Bursa’s Yesil Cami (the “green mosque”), Melia had been particularly keen on seeing “an everyday kind of mosque like the church I go to on he question is all Sundays.” We decided that the Köprülü Mehmet Paşa Cami, too familiar. “Does built 400 years ago, was the perfect option. It is a tiny, he make you wear nondescript mosque nestled on the back streets of the one one of those black veils at town on Bozcaada—better known as “Tenedos,” as it was home?” I heard this first as referred to in The Iliad.2 a quizzical question posed by my colleague upon learning that my As we waited to enter the mosque, Melia and I wrapped husband was Turkish. “No, he does not, not black, not our heads in scarves that matched the modest clothing any color,” I responded, “but sometimes I make him wear we had chosen to wear. As I wound my sparkly turquoise one on Halloween!” Not knowing exactly how to take my crepe veil around my hair, I glanced at my husband’s face. sarcastic but well-intended response, my colleague giggled None too happy, all he could say was, “Please, don’t do nervously, asking, “Isn’t that what Middle Eastern men it.” Rubbing his forehead with his hand, he continued, make women wear?”

“Please. They’ll think I made you wear that—and little girls As a woman married to a don’t have to wear that thing!”

As a woman married to a Muslim man man from Turkey, I suppose Sighing, I countered, “She looks I shouldn’t be surprised at from Turkey, I suppose I shouldn’t be more like Sophia Loren in an the plethora of questions I field on a weekly basis about surprised at the plethora of questions Alpha Romeo, ready for a drive along Italy’s Amalfi Coast, than Islam, and the act of veiling a young Muslim girl with her I field on a weekly basis about Islam, in particular. The veil seems hair wrapped like that.” Leaning to evoke a visceral curiosity and the act of veiling in particular. against the ancient stone wall and concern from so many I across from the mosque, my meet in the United States.

The veil seems to evoke a visceral husband and I began to debate.

There is much to discuss Melia watched attentively. curiosity and concern from so many about Turkey, as it is in the midst of a seismic cultural After a time, we paused. The I meet in the United States. shift, yet most people I meet three of us stood in a perfectly really would rather prefer spaced, quiet détente, each to discuss the veil. Nothing one with hands on hips, staring at one another. As the is perhaps as enthralling, mysterious—and to some, northern Aegean sun illuminated our struggle, my head troubling—as the practice of hijab, or modest dress, by throbbed with the constriction of an oncoming headache. some women in the Middle East. But indeed, it is also I felt a bit of marital claustrophobia around the topic of the veil that best exemplifies cultural change in modern discussion—a well-worn pebble in our collective shoe.

Turkey. As the goings-on of the Middle East gain Melia glanced around the narrow alleyway between a 17thincreasing space in our daily minds, it is often Turkey century mosque and a row of small Ottoman-era stone that is brought up as a “moderate” and “democratic” option houses before looking back at us. Sighing, my husband that bridges East and West, although this is less and less rolled up his sleeves in the heat. I fidgeted with the edge of a reality in the current Turkish political context.1 of my raw silk scarf, its jewel-toned hues undulating in the hot breeze. We had been at it for 10 minutes already— And while the veil is still the all-time number-one topic an eternity in this heat, even for a debate-loving academic. of interest to many who wend their way in and out of my life, I find that questions on this topic always miss what Melia walked to the left, running her hand across the is of most interest to me about the veil. In the context of cool stone walls of the mosque without taking her eyes my marriage, the veil plays much more of a role in my off us. Squinting at the sun-bleached minaret on top of life with respect to how it has come to symbolize major the mosque, she broke the silence. “Are you ever going social changes in Turkish culture—and the ways in which to finish this conversation, so we can actually go inside?” my husband and I navigate these changes as a couple. One she asked. After another round of sleeve adjustment, my experience sums up how the vagaries of veiling play out husband turned to her. “We’re almost done, canım3 [dear]; in this regard. you can read the sign about the mosque in the meantime, okay?” We turned away slightly, aware of the need to quickly find an interim peace treaty.

Previous page: The author, Elspeth Slayter, stands in front of a mosque.

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Shifting from the gentle tone reserved for our niece into a sotto voce and rather grumpy whisper, my husband said, “You realize, don’t you, that you are encouraging a young girl to veil—and they don’t have to; it was never like that growing up here. Little girls did not have to veil. And, you don’t have to veil as a yabanci [foreigner]!

I never saw this veiling until these recent years and it upsets me a lot. You are your own women—be yourselves! It is not disrespectful for a non-Muslim to enter a mosque without a veil. And you can be Muslim and not veil!”

The answer to this question lies in the reality that is Turkey today. Clearly, it is a country in flux that is shifting from the political and cultural dominance of a secular model to the encroaching re-embrace of many Muslim traditions in large sectors of society. To a great extent, veiling has become a major and often conflicted symbol of this cultural change.

Although culturally a Sunni Muslim, my husband was raised in a secular household, as were most Turks during the 1960s and ’70s in the geographically western parts of Turkey. These secularists, the most extreme of whom are often referred to as Kemalists (after the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), supported Atatürk’s modernization and secularization efforts to the letter of the law.5 This included a ban on women wearing the veil in public settings as of 1924, when Turkish women were granted the right to vote.6

Elspeth Slayter

Not relishing the time or the space for engaging in a full-on argument, I laid down my own law.

“Sweetheart, this is my true self. I want to veil to show respect, and Melia has stated her opinion on how she wants to handle this visit. We should honor that. She wants to learn about the veil and what it feels like to wear one— while being respectful of others’ space. I respect Fiercely committed to your concerns, but you moving from what he have to respect that it is viewed as the archaic our choice now—or you Ottoman Empire into a are as bad as those who modern, European-focused have limited women from state, Atatürk harnessed his choosing to veil in the political power to spearhead past.”4 With nothing left to significant cultural changes, say, we left our unfinished The author’s niece, Melia, at the Bozcaada mosque. including a change to a argument in its unwrapped secular state modeled on state and proceeded to paste smiles on our reluctant French rather than on Islamic law.7 These laws still govern faces as we turned to take Melia into the mosque. the nation today, although the Gezi Park protests of June 2013 were in part spurred on by incremental additions As two mini-skirted Turkish teenagers walked by, of Shariah law-type regulations by the Islamist AK Party flaunting bikini tops, Melia was quick to note the currently in power.8 disparity. “Why are we dressed more respectfully and When we visit my husband’s birthplace each year, he conservatively than lots of the Turkish ladies we see? is aware that aspects of strict Muslim culture have begun You know, like yesterday, when we saw the veiled lady to appear. During his youth, secularism went so far in my sitting next to the topless lady on the beach.” My husband husband’s household that during a rare visit to the mosque chuckled, as if to say, “The ball’s in your court on this with his father after the death of his mother, he, his one.” I let the question hang in the air as we walked up brother, and his father needed a reminder about the order the steps. of physical movements during the prayers. After following After we pulled open the heavy, ornately carved along as best they could, the family emerged to find their wooden door, Melia gently took off her shoes and began shoes stolen—quickly surmising that one wears only old a careful exploration of the building. Distracted, I found shoes to the mosque. More recently, with the povertymy husband’s stance on her veiling to be confusing. We inspired great migration of eastern Anatolian9 villagers to had always seen eye to eye on the practice of veiling. the western part of the country, starting in the 1960s, the Unlike the majority of our secular Turkish family practice of Islam and the use of the veil have become much members and friends, my husband has always supported more apparent in previously secular bastions such as the people’s individual choice to veil or not to veil. Why, cities of Izmir, Ankara, and Istanbul, where my husband then, was he fussing about Melia’s choice—or mine? was raised.10 19

But back to Bozcaada and our small-town mosque. The sound of padding feet on the thick red carpet revealed the entrance of the imam, who welcomed us with handshakes.

My husband commenced the Turkish greeting process with great respect and deference such as is only reserved for elders in the family. This was a slightly surprising action to me, given both our current argument about the veil and his strong views about the potential dangers of religion being mixed with nationalism after having witnessed the extreme turmoil in his neighboring country, Iran, during the 1970s.

Much to Melia’s delight, Imam Mehmet welcomed us warmly and was happy to tell us all about this mosque.

As Melia traced intricate patterns with her feet along the mosque’s ancient carpet, I realized that my husband had put all of this history aside for the moment. I could gather from my limited Turkish that he was drawing on his love of architecture and training in Turkish art history to foster a hearty conversation with the imam about the aesthetics of the mosque. As my husband and the imam guided us through the different nooks and crannies, Melia asked questions about each area we saw: the sermon area, where a cap and robe sat folded neatly next to the Quran; the minaret from which the call-to-prayer or ezan is made; and the ablutions area just outside, where we had seen people washing their feet the night before on our way for 20

a scoop of black mulberry dondurma, a thick and stretchy ice cream replete with sticky mastik gum from the Kharamanmaraş region.

I felt a bit of dread as we reached the women’s private prayer gallery above us in a loft space. It is the existence of these realities in Islam that make me uncomfortable, as much as I do believe Islam to be a religion of peace and potential empowerment for women in the right cultural context. Nodding to me, the imam motioned to my husband and then to me.

“Please tell your wife”—my husband translated with a chagrined look on his face—“that the women are up in the gallery, with air conditioning, because we need to remember to look up to the women in our life, to respect and love them and to honor them above all else.” Placing his hand on my husband’s shoulder, the imam continued, “Tell your foreigner wife that this is important to know about the practice of Islam; we are not always what some people portray us to be.” My husband did not meet my gaze.

Elspeth Slayter

As such, I have observed that the more visible presence of practicing Muslims in traditionally non-Muslim areas is upsetting to some, especially Kemalists. Once, while a passenger in an Istanbul cab, I was left speechless when our avowedly Kemalist driver cried out through the window: “These scarf people, I wish they would go back to Anatolia! We don’t like scarves.” Over the last decade, I have been shocked by comments such as this.

The top of the Bozcaada mosque.

Once, in a supermarket, a clearly secular middleaged woman made conversation with the shopkeeper about the shopkeeper’s toddler, who was angling for a package of cookies. Upon learning the boy’s name, Beytoullah (the suffix of which is a reference to Allah), the woman’s brow furrowed. Although she completed her purchase in the store, she spit out her words: “I will call him Beytoul. I do not believe in religious names!” Another man I knew insisted that the women working in his home remove their veils, saying, “There is no room for that in my home.” This was the same non-religious man who reported going to the mosque once in a while in order to make business contacts with AK Party members.

As I thanked the imam for our tour, my limited skills in Turkish belied all that I wanted to say. I wanted to tell the imam that I “got” what he was saying—that I had studied the Quran with an eye to gender matters and that I had grown up with a Spanish grandmother who donned a black veil every time she went to church. I might have agreed that yes, we foreigners get a biased view of gender matters in Islam, such as the image of a stoning portrayed in the famous Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentary about a Saudi princess who was accused of committing adultery.11 And I am sure that I would have tried to discuss my introduction to feminism of any sort, such as the ground-breaking writing in Fatima Mernissi’s book Beyond The Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society.12 In this work, Mernissi centers her defense of the veil, and other aspects of the practice of Islam, squarely within the Quran. She joins other Islamic feminists in arguing that when implemented according to the true intent of the Quran, Islam empowers women to be considered for themselves, their words, and their actions—not their bodies. While these empowering words represent the truth of many Muslim women in Turkey and beyond, I must admit that they do not represent the realities of Muslim cultures in which respect for women’s rights (and veiling choices) has gone to a conservative extreme, such as in Afghanistan.

Interpretations of the Quran’s teachings on modesty are interpreted differently in the vast array of Muslim cultures, from Turkey to Qatar and from Nigeria to Malaysia.13 And I might have wanted to engage this imam in discussions of the various sections of the Quran as they relate to veiling, including: “Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty: that will make for greater purity for them: And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do” [24:30] or, “O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. Allah (SWT)14 is ever Forgiving, Merciful” [33:59].

As with the various interpretations of these phrases, there are various interpretations of the ideal physical structure of the veil. The nature of a particular headdress worn can vary by culture and or country according to the ways in which hijab is practiced there. There is no one hard-and-fast rule about how women should dress, how a veil should or should not be worn, what the color or shape of that veil should be, or what the veil should cover on a woman’s body.

Veils are referred to by different names in different cultures: the infamous blue burqua of Afghanistan; the full black çarsaf worn by women across much of the Arabian peninsula; the British niquab, consisting of a scarf about the head alone; or the tesettür, a light, draped overcoat and colorful headscarf seen around more conservative areas in Istanbul. And, of course, there are Muslim women who wear no veil whatsoever. In fact, many Turkish women who consider themselves good Muslims do not follow a formal hijab practice, but rather dress modestly in Western fashions, perhaps believing that modesty is as modesty does.

While my husband and I will likely continue to disagree about if and when I, or other American family members, should veil in Turkey, I hope that our struggle does not mirror that of the nation as a whole. As with any practice, it is emotionally laden and/or symbolic for some more than for others. As the Turkish Republic wrestles with how Islam will and will not be a part of the nation’s legal structure and culture, we will be watching veiling trends closely during our time in Turkey each year. In the end, it was an observation from Melia that led us to somewhat of a solution to our debate.

1. Reza Aslan. “Turkey: A Democratic Superpower in the Middle East,” NPQ: New Perspectives Quarterly 27(4) (2010): 41-43, doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5842.2010.01204.x.

2. Robert Fagles, trans., The Iliad of Homer (New York: Penguin Books, 1990). See, for example, the passage in Book XIII: “Now there is a certain huge cavern in the depths of the sea midway between Tenedos [Bozcaada] and rocky Imbros; here Neptune lord of the earthquake stayed his horses, unyoked them, and set before them their ambrosial forage.”

3. Canım (jha-num), a Turkish word which translates as “dear” in English and which can be used in all manner of conversations— from a friendly conversation between a passenger and his taxi driver, to a shopkeeper and a beloved customer, to an uncle and his niece.

4. “To ban or not to ban,” Economist, 369 (8347), (2003): 46.

5. Cagla Diner & şule Toktaş. “Waves of Feminism in Turkey: Kemalist, Islamist and Kurdish Women’s Movements In an Era of Globalization,” Journal of Balkan & Near Eastern Studies, 12(1), (2010): 41-57. doi: 10.1080/19448950903507388.

6. Elisabeth Özdalga, The Veiling Issue, Official Secularism and Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (New York: Routledge Press, 1997).

7. Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002).

8. Seyla Benhabib, “Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn,” The New York Times, June 3, 2013, accessed on April 7, 2014, www.nytimes. com/2013/06/04/opinion/turkeys-authoritarian-turn.html?_r=0.

9. Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey, includes the Eastern part of the country that borders with Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, as well as what has traditionally been referred to as Asia Minor, or the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of the country. Poverty and an agrarian lifestyle are common in these areas.

10. Barry Strauss. “Four Jarring Signs of Turkey’s Growing Islamization,” The Atlantic, (2013), accessed April 7, 2014, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/4jarring-signs-of-turkeys-growing-islamization/276425/.

11. Antony Thomas, Death of a Princess, directed by Antony Thomas, (Associated Television; Public Broadcasting Service, 1980), television movie.

12. Fatima Mernissi, Beyond The Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society: Revised Edition (London: Saqi Books, 2011).

13. Asma Barlas, “Believing Women,” Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002).

14. “SWT” is a commonly used shorthand for the Arabic phrase “Subhanahu wa ta’ala,” which means, “May He Be Glorified and Exalted.”

Murat Recevik

As the three of us walked through Istanbul’s Mısır Çarşısı (Egyptian Spice Market), Melia pointed out a set of sisters.

At our favorite red-pepper store, identical twins stood before us. However, while one woman had a full-body veil in black that showed only her face, the other woman sported a thin halter top, tight jeans, and high heels. Their mother bustled behind them happily, wearing a babushkalike scarf that held her hair back, reflecting a cultural but not a religious tradition. All three women were working together happily, perhaps providing the best symbolism for how Turkey might consider moving forward as one diverse nation: Live and let live.

Endnotes

Elspeth Slayter is an associate professor of social work at Salem State University and chairs the campus Institutional Review Board. Her research and teaching focus on people with disabilities and the child welfare system; she also follows the Turkish studies field.

She visits Turkey annually and tracks the ways in which conservative Islamic practices are an increasing reality for Turkish women.

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E S S A Y

Follow the Money:

Student Journalists Track Haiti’s Earthquake Aid Jane Regan

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n January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving another 1.3 million homeless.

Promises of aid came in from around the world. All told, governments and multilateral institutions pledged more than $13 billion, while private humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross and Oxfam pitched in almost $3 billion more.

Soon, literally thousands of “humanitarians” also arrived: representatives of dozens of United Nations and governmental agencies, as well as hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and even more do-gooders sporting T-shirts reading “God’s Pit Crew,” “Hands of Hope,” “Hope for Haiti,” “Hope in Haiti,” “Hope to Haiti,” “Drops of Hope,” and “Fountain of Hope.” The invasion helped solidify Haiti’s nickname: “Republic of NGOs.” But who was going to make sure the donors were indeed delivering “hope” and doing appropriate work? Would journalists nose around in the muck to find out whether anyone was skimming funds, lying about

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work done, cheating victims, or just wasting donations?

Who would “follow the money” and “ fouye zo nan kalalou,” or “stick their fingers into the stewed okra,” as the popular Haitian proverb goes?

As it turned out, Haiti’s media were not up to the task.

With no tradition of investigative journalism, with crony media owners, and with few media reports digging deeper than repeating a rumor or occasionally translating a Miami Herald story, it was clear the country’s newspapers and radio newsrooms would not defend the public interest.

Indeed, Haiti’s news ecosystem is considered by many to be the bleakest in the Western hemisphere. A few years back, the largest media owners’ association deplored a “general decline in quality,” calling its journalists “irresponsible” and too “friendly” to their sources. One study in 2007 said reporters were “content to be simple conveyor belts” of information from the government, the United Nations, and other authorities. Envelopes of cash are routinely handed to reporters at governmental press conferences, and news directors have even been known to encourage their staff to accept these “per diems” rather than offer raises.

Screen capture by Jane Regan

Sherlyne Joseph, a member of Radyo Zetwal Peyizan, interviews refugee Sam Brignol at a refugee camp in Léogane in July 2012.

Worse, despite the country’s being the second-oldest republic in the hemisphere, none of its public or private universities had a university-level journalism program.

Instead, a plethora of so-called “journalism schools” taught men and women who may not have even finished high school little more than how to hit “record” on aging tape recorders.

Those of us who had for years worked to foster a more critical, alternative media movement knew the country’s mainstream media could not be counted on to watchdog the aid, the donors, and the do-gooders.

Consequently, we decided to combine forces and build our own outlet. By then I’d worked as a journalist and media scholar in Haiti for almost two decades. I offered to lead a consortium made up of a small non-profit that works with community radio stations, an “alternative news agency” called Alterpresse, and an association of female community radio volunteers.

We called it Ayiti Kale Je (literally “Haiti Eyes Peeled”) in Haitian Creole, Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) in English.

We had a plan, but we didn’t know how we could pull it off. All three institutional partners had lost their offices, equipment, and most of their archives. Many had lost family members and had staff living in tents. We also didn’t know how we could fund it. As the months rolled by, we learned that most donors preferred supporting things they could see (and, often, photograph for their websites) such as tents, temporary school buildings, a drainage canal, and toilets.

Not that those items weren’t urgently needed. More than one million Haitians were living in fetid fields or parking lots with little food, unsafe water, and far too few latrines.

But we were convinced that millions of dollars were being wasted, and that—with young idealistic reporters and community radio volunteers across the country­— our partnership could do important work for both Haitian and foreign audiences. Within weeks of the disaster, donors and officials were already pumping out “reconstruction” plans written with little input from Haitian experts and citizens. This was one more reason, we thought, to launch our reconstruction watchdog collaborative.

Eventually we rounded up funding from Danish and American donors and launched our first investigation in the fall of 2010. Then we discovered we lacked reporting power.

The grassroots movement radio volunteers—farmers and teachers and youth leaders—were close to the ground and to their sources. They could practice what is sometimes called “native reporting.” But we had only a few trained journalists, and the training was very basic. I decided we should “grow” our own investigative reporters. Friends and supporters at the State University of Haiti invited me to launch the country’s first-ever investigative journalism class. Using a training manual from Africa and ideas from some of the great U.S. university student-powered newsrooms, I debuted the first course a year after the earthquake, in January 2011.

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By June, we were producing truly hybrid investigative reports that combined the skills of young journalism students with the local knowledge and wisdom of community radio members. One of the first pieces­— about the impasse over reconstruction of the capital— was co-authored by Esther Labonté, a fourth-year student. Although she had taken journalism courses before, she noted that none had taught her to be skeptical and to speak truth to power.

“What I really liked is that you go out and report,” she said at the time. “And when you speak to an authority, and then you go out and do research, you find out he was not telling the whole truth.”

“Haiti Grassroots Watch helps a lot of people realize what rights they have,” Guerrier later said. “It listens to the people living under the tents…. Now I can go and talk to the authorities and NGOs and make them respond to questions. I have to walk several hours from my land… but I do it so I can help my brothers and sisters rise above the misery in which we live.”

Within weeks of the disaster, donors and officials were already pumping out “reconstruction” plans written with little input from Haitian experts and citizens. One more reason, we thought, to launch our reconstruction watchdog collaborative.

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n all, the consortium published 39 investigations: text and photos in French and English relayed by websites and a small, progressive newspaper in Haiti, as well as by dozens of websites and organizations abroad. We also recorded audio versions of the investigations in Haitian Creole that were delivered on CD to more than two dozen community stations and to one commercial station—whom we paid—with a national reach. Writing, recording, and delivering the

Screen capture by Jane Regan

Another early report, on life in the camps outside of the capital, was co-reported

by Jean-Maxot Guerrier, a 48-year-old farmer, called a “country priest” because he’s a layperson who performs funerals and other duties if no priest is available. A father of six, he does not know how to read or write. But he’s an avid member of his radio station located in the hills above Léogane, a seaside city close to the earthquake’s epicenter. He interviewed refugees at two camps and did a news stand-up for the group’s first video report.

Over the course of about 40 months, I taught the course four times to more than 200 students. With the help of the best students, many of whom later became paid interns, I also taught or supervised about a dozen seminars for community radio volunteers and professional journalists around the country.

Peasant and community radio member Jean-Maxot Guerrier does his news stand-up in October 2010 outside a refugee camp in Grand Goâve for “What is the plan for Haiti’s 1.3 million homeless?”.

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audio versions multimillionwas onerous work dollar World but was key, since Bank program most Haitians that, at least in get their news certain cases, via radio. Text undermined versions of the local organizing and democratic work also went practices. out in English and Spanish on the Most reports Inter Press Service were possible only (IPS) international because peasants, newswire. When teachers, church foreign media laypeople, union relayed the work, organizers, and the country’s Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit the country on January 12, 2010. other members of mainstream media community radio were practically stations or social movement forced to cite the work on “Anyone familiar with the media reality groups trusted Haitian their front pages or in their and gave them in the ‘global south’ knows that in many students news programs. access to communities and information that so-called About a dozen of the countries, journalists are woefully “professional” Haitian and investigations were also made underprepared to watchdog the massive foreign journalists would into video documentaries, never have, as IPS editors in Haitian Creole with inflows of money from UN agencies, acknowledged in a letter a English subtitles. These were few years back. shown on some local Haitian foreign governments and the myriad stations and at some three“The pieces produced humanitarian NGOs, large and small.” dozen screenings across the delve deeply into the country organized by student myriad challenges of Haiti’s reporters. Using a batteryreconstruction and shine a powered projector and a much-needed light on the bed sheet, the students and local organizations hosted realities versus the official narrative of Haiti’s elites and screenings and discussions in small towns and remote the hundreds of NGOs operating in the country,” wrote villages for people who generally live with no electricity editors Katherine Stapp and Diana Carboni. “Anyone and who see television only when visiting a barbershop, familiar with the media reality in the ‘global south’ more often than not to watch a soccer match. knows that in many countries, journalists are woefully underprepared to watchdog the massive inflows of “When we saw the movie about how companies want money from UN agencies, foreign governments, and to turn our hills into giant pits, that’s when I really the myriad humanitarian NGOs, large and small.” understood this mining issue,” said Elsa Thelusmé, a 51-year-old grandmother and farmer living near one of the The consortium also took a dozen Haitian students areas where foreign companies were quietly given a license to a three-day conference with Dominican Republic to dig pit mines. “Why didn’t any of our politicians or university students, produced about a dozen Spanish‘official’ journalists tell us about this?” language audio summaries for an agency that distributes reports to community stations all over Latin America, Thelusmé was referring to the consortium’s oneand participated in two international journalism and year, six-part investigation into gold mining that made communications conferences. international headlines. Its findings exposed back-room dealings between foreign mining giants and crooked Today, more than a dozen HGW “graduates” work in officials. Outraged senators soon demanded a moratorium newsrooms across the country. while agencies looked into the terms and the eventual Milo Milfort was in the first of the four investigative environmental impacts. journalism courses. He graduated in the spring of 2011 and worked part- or full-time with HGW until 2014.

Other reports led to the exposure of sex-for-work Today he’s a multimedia journalist freelancing for a arrangements, wasteful white-elephant housing projects, Dominican Republic news agency, for Noticias Aliadas illegal construction in a watershed, the dangerously of Peru, and for Haitian newspapers and magazines. unsanitary disposal of portable toilet contents, and a

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Beethoven Plaisimond

Author Jane Regan teaches an investigative journalism course in 2011 in a temporary classroom with plywood walls and a sheet-metal roof. The room has no electricity and no sound insulation from the other temporary rooms that surround it.

“In the course and then at HGW, I was able to apply notions and practices of journalism that I didn’t even know existed,” Milfort said recently. “Some of the investigations that we did, and that had major impacts, are still topics of conversations today, especially the work on gold mining.”

Journalists know when they are making an impact: The powers they are trying to watchdog get nervous.

Mining giant Newmont told its employees to be wary of farmers asking questions. The Haitian housing reconstruction czar stopped taking HGW calls. And in 2011, when the consortium decided to inquire into the distribution of free seeds (some of them donated by the multinational corporation Monsanto), the director of communications for the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded organization doing the seed distribution sent out an email that warned:

And all the way back in 2011, HGW looked into that year’s sham elections and the likely failure of externally 26

Today, many post-earthquake international aid efforts are finally being denounced as “wasteful,” “inefficient,” and “shameful.” But one international aid effort paid off.

Haiti Grassroots Watch spoke truth to power in a way that would not have been possible without a true partnership.

Professionals worked with students, farmers, workers, and other community radio volunteers and applied concepts and best practices from the United States’ great investigative journalism courses and classrooms.

Kate Regan

“[A] journalist is trying to do a report…. I ask you to be very vigilant and, if the case presents itself, do not respond to any question, no matter how simple it seems…. It is important to advise us immediately of all incidents, or requests, in order to help us better respond.”

imposed “democracy.” The meltdown of the latest elections process in January 2016 came as no surprise to the consortium and its loyal followers, in Haiti and abroad.

Jane Regan is an award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker, and social movement media scholar who teaches multimedia journalism at Salem State University. She lived in Haiti for almost two decades and helped found two alternative news agencies. She has worked for WGBH-TV, Somerville Community Access TV, PBS, the Miami Herald, the Associated Press, and Inter Press Service.

I M A G E S

Paintings of the North Shore and New England Donggong Wu

Salem’s Old Town Hall (Detail) 27

Forest River in Summer

Fall Mountain in New Hampshire 28

Gerry Island in Marblehead

Forest River in Fall 29

Landscape of Marblehead Harbor

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onggong Wu was born in Quanzhou in China, where he lives and works today. Quanzhou is a harbor city with a long history of trading and a local cultural heritage, similar to Salem. In his oil paintings depicting scenes of the North Shore and New England, Donggong is driven by a desire to capture the similarities and differences between the landscapes of his homeland and the landscapes of this region. He is impressed with and drawn to Salem’s period architecture and beautiful harbor and is intrigued by the seasonal changes of the New England landscape.

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—Mary Melilli, chair of Salem State’s art + design department

Li Zhang

The paintings that Dong created upon his arrival to the United States were done from direct observation and completed entirely on site. He has a great ability to capture the colors and time of day in his works. He is highly skilled at depicting the key elements of each scene.

His works are remarkably accurate in terms of detail, yet they also have an impressionistic and gestural quality.

One can look at any of Dong’s recent oil paintings and

know exactly where he was standing and what he saw at the time the painting came into being. The brush strokes are energetic and full of life. While his paintings are not large in size, ranging from 12-18 inches, they somehow encompass vast spaces and statuesque structures, thus transporting the viewer to the places rendered on the canvases.

Donggong Wu, an associate professor and director of painting at Huaqiao University in China, was a visiting scholar at Salem State University during the fall 2015 semester. During his semester here, an exhibit of his oil and acrylic landscape paintings of the North Shore and New England was shown on campus.

E S S A Y

The Experience of Reading T.S. Eliot:

A Peer-Collaborative Model John Tamilio III

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n one of his recent books, How to Read Literature, the renowned Oxford literary theorist Terry Eagleton writes, “Poetry is concerned not just with the meaning of experience, but with the experience of meaning.”1 Earlier in the same study Eagleton states, “The experience which matters is the experience of the poem itself.”2 T.S. Eliot also understood that a sensate approach to interpreting poetry would glean a more profound analysis.

Again, Eagleton concurs: “The conscious meaning of a poem does not matter all that much. This is why Eliot did not greatly care what interpretations of his work readers came up with. It is the impact his poetry makes on the guts, the nervous system and the unconscious which concerns him most.”3 I have long instructed my undergraduate students that they should approach Eliot’s work with the heart over the mind, with finely tuned nerve endings. In so doing, they will attain a level of understanding of the poet’s work beyond the analytical.

Eliot’s poetry is meant to be experienced as much as it is to be understood—if not more so the former.

Such an approach can also be dialogical, augmented by the various experiences that different readers have of Eliot and share as part of an open discussion. This essay will attempt to show how this augmenting can occur and what learnings will rise from such experiential peer discussions.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is the introduction that most secondary and undergraduate students have to Eliot. There is a standard interpretation of this piece that students are habitually taught. Prufrock is trapped in his upper-class existence. He most likely works for a member of the aristocracy: Prufrock is not

“Prince Hamlet”; rather, he is [a]n attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool.

In other words, Prufrock is more like Polonius than Hamlet or Claudius. Such self-abnegation appears throughout the poem. Prufrock has “measured out [his] life with coffee spoons” and feels he should have been “a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” There is a burning question he longs to proffer, probably to one of the women in the drawing room (the poem’s setting), but he fears he will be misunderstood and, therefore, become an object of even more scorn.

(These women are already chatting about his thinning hair and appendages.) Or it may be that, as Lyndall Gordon suggests, “Prufrock’s overwhelming need is to ask not a lover’s question but a metaphysical one.”4 The question may be about himself and his existence.

Prufrock is a man trapped in the banal existence of his social class. The very title of the piece sets the tone for what follows, as does the epigraph from Dante. We quickly learn that this is not a “love song.” The suggestion that it is a romantic ballad is dismissed by its juxtaposition with the prim and proper, upper-crust appellation of the protagonist. His first name is not Romeo or Ricardo. It is J. Alfred. Prufrock does not exactly roll off the tongue either; it is hindered by three sets of hard consonants. Like Guido 31

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Eliot, born in Missouri, settled in England before the First World War. He published Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917. Portrait by John Gay (1948).

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da Montefeltro, confined to The Inferno, Prufrock is sure that his narrative will never be heard by the living. In sum, Prufrock retreats into a “world despairing introspective day-dream,” a world of “self-pity and self-disgust.”5

of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” not only illustrates how poetry can be analyzed experientially, but also shows how it is a corporate task.

How is this understanding distinct from the experience first-time readers have of this poem? Furthermore, how does what they share about their reading of “Prufrock” augment understanding wrought through experience?

In this essay, I will show how a peer-collaborative reading

met with a couple of freshmen from Salem State University who had never read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” or anything else by Eliot.6 I distributed a copy of the poem and read it to them.

I then asked, “What do you think this poem is about?”

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I did not offer an introductory lecture, nor did we use any secondary materials. What they had to say was both novel and enlightening—and the exchanges between the students added to the depth of their interpretation.

Their initial response was that the poem was very confusing. One student confessed, “Once I read the line about him going bald,” which appears almost a third of the way through the piece, “it began to make more sense.”

Both students latched onto the fact that Prufrock is an older gentleman. Denis Donoghue reminds us that “in an interview in 1962 [Eliot] said that Prufrock was a man of about forty and in part himself and that he was using the theory of split personality.” 7 These students felt that Prufrock was much older than 40. “He is a very old man,” they said.

Part of what led them to this conclusion, as they wrestled together with the poem’s meaning, came from an impression that came from the totality of the verse. Much like the title character in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, who is reflecting on his life from his deathbed, my students felt that Prufrock was looking back on his life— evaluating whether he “lived it the right way.” One student stated that if Prufrock had to live his life over again, he would not change anything. As the conversation continued, the same student observed that maybe he would. “He plays two roles in his life,” she said. “One role is positive and the other is negative.” (Recall Eliot’s statement regarding split personality.) When asked to expound upon this, she claimed that some of the other characters in the milieu of the poem see Prufrock as a Hamlet figure, although, as he states, he is the prince’s assistant (e.g. “an attendant lord”). The other Prufrock, the inimical one, has a “deep, bad secret.” The secret is not the question he longs to ask one of the women in the drawing room, part of the standard interpretation.

Prufrock’s query is a self-evaluation—or metaphysical, as noted earlier by Gordon. “He is looking at the life he led,” one student said, “and is trying to decide if he deserves to go to heaven or hell.” The face he wears changes with each social context (“There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”).

What astounded me most was the students’ ability to draw a candid image of Prufrock, Eliot, and the poem’s context on a first reading! Prufrock is an older gentleman— whether he is in his 40s (as Eliot suggests) or his 80s—and, although not royalty, he is a member of the elite. He is a man of means and privilege. One student commented, “[Prufrock] seems like a business man. I can picture him going to work wearing a suit, but I do not know where he goes.” Throughout his literary career, Eliot went to work each morning impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, umbrella in hand, donning a Stetson. He worked on foreign accounts for Lloyd’s Bank in London and later became a director at the publishing firm Faber and Gwyer, which became Faber and Faber. The other student said, “I picture [Prufrock] being blue-blood. I see him walking the streets of Boston, in a place like Beacon Hill.” The same student

said that she felt the poem took place in the early 1900s.

As an undergraduate at Harvard College in the first decade of the 20th century, Eliot often walked through Beacon Hill and used this area of Boston as the inspiration for some of his verse, including “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” One imagines the narrator walking the mile from the Union Oyster House near Quincy Market (“sawdust restaurants with oyster shells”), through Scollay Square, turning up Tremont Street as he heads for the Back Bay. You can see him traversing the cobblestone walkways past tightly knit brick townhouses at nightfall (“When the evening is spread out against the sky”). This trek leads him to wherever he is going to contemplate asking his “overwhelming question.”

They also noted the ironic title. In fact, they did not like the title. “This isn’t a love song,” one of the students mused. “It doesn’t fit what follows.” They assumed, at the outset, that it would be a piece about Prufrock’s love life or about “the pieces of his life that have been in romantic relationships.” In the recently released Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected, editors Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue note Eliot’s claim, “I am convinced that it would never have been called Love Song but for a title of Kipling’s that stuck obstinately in my head, The Love Song of Har Dyal.” 8 I did inform them that the epigraph between title and poem is from Dante’s Inferno and summarized it for them, because it is in Italian. They made no comment on that, though.

Although they disliked the title, they did enjoy the poem. It is rich in its descriptions and easy to visualize, they said. “As it unfolds it seems to pick-up speed.” One student thought that Prufrock “is speaking directly to us.”

She not only derived this from the first line (“Let us go then, you and I”), but also from the confessional tone of the poem, an observation often cited in Eliot scholarship.

“He is telling us something,” the other student said, “something he has seen and wants us to see.”

Towards the end of our session, the students compared this poem to others they had read in high school. They liked the fact that “Prufrock” was not a “typical” poem.

“It does rhyme from time to time, which is good, but it doesn’t always rhyme and move in a repetitive rhythm.”

The student who said this then moved her hand in iambic pentameter while saying, “da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM.” Both students laughed.

In terms of poetic devices, they latched onto Eliot’s use of repetition. “I do not know why he mentions the women talking about Michelangelo twice,” one student said, “but it must be important.” They also noted his repetition of the word “time.” Indeed, repetition is significant in poetry.

Sometimes it is utilized for emphasis. Other times it signals a change in meaning. Think, for example, of the final line of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The second-to-last line is about the physical distance the speaker needs to travel that night. The last line is about the narrator’s understanding of his own mortality.

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s poetry only experiential? Are there no intended meanings that writers infuse into their verse? Of course, both suggestions are valid: We are to be aware of how poetry makes us feel (and how that will assist interpretation) and we are to use our minds to unravel meaning. If we read a poem such as “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden (1975), for example, we are easily lured into deciphering the meaning of the verse. It is a childhood memory of the altruistic love that a father had for his son—a love that the son appreciates only in retrospect. If, however, we read a poem by the recently deceased Geoffrey Hill, such as his first of three “To the High Court of Parliament” (the poem which opens his rather difficult 1996 collection Canaan), do we think or do we feel? If the former, we will approach the poem as an enigma and find ourselves (at least most of us) utterly confounded.

Where’s probity in this—

the slither-frisk to lordship of a kind as rats to a bird-table?9

There is more research to be conducted in this area.

There are myriad queries scholars can (and should) consider. That said, many educators such as Parker J. Palmer and Thomas H. Groome contend, as does Plato in the dialogue Meno, that teachers are pedagogical midwives who draw meaning out of their pupils as opposed to inculcating knowledge in them. Students draw it out of each other as well. I encourage colleagues to incorporate this approach when teaching poetry, especially verse whose meanings are not self-evident.

Endnotes

This is just the first stanza. Most reach for the dictionary to look up “probity” and wonder what “slitherfrisk” means. I am not sure what Hill intends with the second line exactly, but I can feel cool, scaly hands moving down my back to my legs in slinking, serpentine fashion. I think I know what he means by “rats to a bird table,” but I definitely feel something ominous, which complements “the slither-frisk.”

1. Terry Eagleton, How to Read Literature (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), 192.

Good poets compel us to think and to feel. Eliot knew this and wove the latter into words that were exceedingly impressionistic. Knowing this, and having seen that shared impressions unearth other feelings, which in turn uncover others in a cyclical dialogical manner, literature professors are challenged to adopt an interactive approach when they teach poetry. By interactive I do not mean multimedia, although I am not dismissing the use of technology. Also, I am not suggesting that professors have not taken such approaches in the past.

However, there has long been an assumption in literary studies (an assumption held by students, in large part) that poetry is difficult to read, because understanding it is arduous. What if the cerebral is taken out of the lesson plan—or at least put on hold? What if students were encouraged to read with their emotions, to feel the words the way one would feel a piece of music? Tomaso Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor” is intensely somber and heart-wrenching. Audiophiles do not need to be told this.

Likewise, “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is jubilant and heartening. I do not need to think to arrive at that conclusion. The ears tell the heart. In terms of poetry, the heart is informed by the eyes and as well as the ears.

6. Because they volunteered, I had to work with those who agreed to be part of this study. Originally, I hoped to work with about 12 students. Only two showed up for the discussion. That, however, may have given us a dialogue that was better facilitated.

As I continue to explore the thesis presented in this paper, I plan on working with more students in a similar manner.

2. Ibid., 137.

3. Ibid., 68.

4. Lyndall Gordon, T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998), 68.

5. Elizabeth Drew, T.S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 35.

7. Denis Donoghue, Words Alone: The Poet T.S. Eliot (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 7.

8. T.S. Eliot, The Poems of T.S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems, eds. Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2015), 374.

9. Geoffrey Hill, Canaan (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996), 1.

Natalie Mellinger

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Poetry also has its own music: diction, rhythm, and cadence collaborating to emote feelings in readers, to construct atmosphere with language, to compel the sensory. Part of how poetry communicates is individualistic: the poem as experienced by each distinct reader. Most of the poetry undergraduates study comes from a rich and lengthy literary tradition. Each generation finds value in Homer, William Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson, which is why contemporary college students still read them. Bequeathing this canon was a corporate act. The reception of it likewise. Why should we think that understanding poetry is any less corporate?

John Tamilio III, Ph.D. (B.A. ’90), teaches in the philosophy and English departments at Salem State University.

A member of the T.S. Eliot Society in St. Louis, he has research interests in ethics, the philosophy of religion, the poetry of T.S. Eliot, and postmodern literary theory. Professor Tamilio is also an ordained minister who serves the Congregational Church of Canton (NACCC) as its pastor.

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Our Iraqi Fulbright Adventure: Internationalization and the Terrain of the “Third Space” Sarah Dietrich, Amy Jo Minett, and Zach Newell This article is about what we three authors affectionately refer to as our “Iraqi Fulbright Adventure.”

Here, we share an eight-week experience from the summer of 2014 involving what was described by the Fulbright Program as a “ faculty development, mentoring, and cultural exchange” program designed “to equip scholars with the knowledge and tools needed to build the capacity of their home institutions and to advance the education of future generations.”

In addition to the authors, members who made up the Fulbright team and planned our program represented a cross-section of the university community with diverse talents and skill sets. We were Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) faculty, the then-associate director of our Center for International Education (CIE), a TESOL graduate student and military veteran who had served in the Middle East, the then-chair of the Salem State library (who had recently returned from a Fulbright in Egypt), and a graduate student from Morocco with an M.B.A. finishing his master’s degree in mathematics.

All stakeholders of our grant—including our Iraqi guests—were willing to step into a metaphorical “Third Space” in order to challenge traditional binaries of unequal power: staff/faculty, novice/expert, Westerner/Easterner (or Middle Easterner, as in this case).

Internationalization and The Terrain of the “Third Space”

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hile an extensive overview of “internationalization” and “Third Space” theory is beyond the scope of this article, we take the concept of “Third Space” from Homi Babha’s 1991 book The Location of Culture.1 Babha describes how when two or more cultures come together and the power between them is different (whether real or imagined, prescribed or inscribed, abstract or concrete), identities undergo extreme flux and therefore must constantly

be negotiated and renegotiated.2 In their 2011 article about the global/local boundary in education in developing countries, June George and Theodore Lewis articulate the terrain of the “Third Space” as being “where the local and the global can co-mingle and new understandings can emerge.” They add that “although the global/local interface constitutes a zone of tension, it can, in the realm of education, become an area of creative opportunity.” 3 35

During our Fulbright Adventure, we had the profound privilege to witness and live an experience in which the roles of manifold identities were fluid, ever-changing, and present in a Third Space of “internationalization.” That is, we chose to cohabit “a zone of tension” 4 —at times, of profound tension—and we reaped the rewards of “new understandings” of the classroom, and the world, while experiencing with our Iraqi guests boundless “creative opportunities.” In this essay we aim to show how our work with Iraqi scholars took place in a space of cultural, social and epistemological change, a space in which competing knowledge and discourses were brought into conversation to challenge and reshape identities. Our resultant model of “internationalization” was successful due to the necessary fluidity, flexibility, agency, and awareness of identities inhabiting this “Third Space.”

The Fulbright Team: Glimpses and a Closer Look

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rom the beginning of our Fulbright grant—to provide training in TESOL to junior scholars from Iraq—we emphasized the Fulbright mission, which is “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” 5 The team members who sought to fulfill this mission had themselves already occupied Third Spaces, which led to mutual understanding between cultures and prepared us for the radical negotiations we’d have to undergo in working with our Iraqi guests. We came together as a team having lived and worked extensively in Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Iraq, Mexico, Romania, and Saudi Arabia. One team member, born in Morocco, had lived in France and Canada subsequent to joining our team; another had served in the United States armed forces in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. Throughout the grant, time and again we experienced shifts in power that challenged any presuppositions we might have had related to our job titles or descriptions.

Despite her initial vision of what scholars should experience, the principal faculty contact, charged with finalizing scholars’ academic and co-curricular activities, had to learn exactly when to defer to the graduate students on the logistics team, who had come to know the scholars intimately and informally on van trips to Halal grocers and on the way to the mosque, among other situations.

Scholars themselves recognized the shifting dynamics of power within the team: Thus our program driver and logistics team member (a graduate student) was quickly dubbed “Commander in Chief” by the scholars, who also wanted to erect a statue in her honor in Baghdad and Erbil. The Associate Director of the CIE taught graduate courses in pedagogical grammar but also ensured that all scholars had cell phones and Internet access immediately upon their arrival, critical connections given the waves of terror sweeping across Iraq during the program.6 36

Like all the members of this multidisciplinary team, the librarian played a variety of roles that were integral to the creation and exploration of Third Space. A former Fulbright scholar himself, he facilitated multiple community partnerships, most notably with “Friends Forever,” a Nobel Prize-nominated peace-building organization that works with youth from countries in conflict, including Israel, Northern Ireland, and Uganda.

In short, having stepped into and out of Third Spaces in our past work, we were each primed to explore with our Iraqi guests’ varying assumptions about our identities, power, the world, and ourselves.

Identities, Destabilizations, Divisions

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he Fulbright team was not alone in experiencing shifting identities. In the first weeks after their arrival, Salem State faculty and staff oriented scholars to their new surroundings, worked with them on courses tailored for the Iraqi context, and set up times for them to observe classes and take local tours. As new arrivals in the U.S., the scholars—leaders and “experts” in their home institutions, the best and the brightest—took on or returned to the unfamiliar role of “student” in their daily classroom discussions of curriculum development or research and writing for an international context. They began to do so willingly, with the likely mindset of Iraqi students, only to encounter another disturbance: our expectations of scholars as equal partners in the learning process. Inevitably, scholars stepped into that Third Space where identities are unsettled and where power structures are ambiguous, where professors asked to be called by their first names, for instance, and discussions and collaborative group work took the place of lectures. This space for scholars was a negotiation of their relationships not only with American professors in their summer coursework, but also with their colleagues. Previously assumed hierarchy and status in the Iraqi context were contested. In classroom discussions, traditions of gender deference were shaken and destabilized, as scholars were provided equal voice and time in classroom discussions; age was no longer imbued with the monologic power of the last word.7 This process of destabilization was not easy. It became most apparent with a topic taken on early in the summer: a focus on dialogue versus debate and subsequent conversation analyses of relevant topics chosen by scholars, such as the current state of curricula and teaching in various regions in Iraq. Initially, these exercises worked well, as scholars tried out and reflected on “Western” communication strategies that encouraged active listening, turn-taking strategies, and the conceding of viewpoints.

After each session, the conversation observers shared what they noted.

Then one scholar took extreme offense at an observer’s comments despite the fact that the comments seemed well-intentioned and descriptive: The observer merely

emergency meeting to discuss and brainstorm responses to the conflicts, fearing that, unaddressed, divisions could grow more serious. In the From that point on and end, we decided to address throughout the first weeks, the problems in different there were divisions among ways and to come at it from the scholars, which also all sides: through open began to reflect the ongoing discussion with scholars led violence and deteriorating by course professors (with political climate within the help of Dr. Seuss’s The Iraq: Some Kurd and Arab Sneetches, whose message scholars distanced themselves may well be universal);8 from one another, and there through assigning private was worry between Sunni face-to-face and phone and Shiite scholars. These conversations between divisions were exacerbated by Fulbright team members and a public “Muslim Journeys” the individual scholars we had panel discussion on Identities grown closest to (and—of in Iraq. Planning the panel significance—who trusted us discussion, the scholars— enough to speak individually Sunnis, Shiite; speakers of and openly share their Arabic, speakers of Kurdish; concerns); and through more men and women—engaged general conversations about in active and sometimes mutual understanding and contentious discussion with logistics Then came an evening of light, for in this collaboration about how to present their team leaders during evening country to an outside and weekend cultural events.9 audience. Unable to agree on simple act of sharing food in the “Third The scholars’ first month a unique Iraqi identity, the Space” of the Iftar, photos were taken, coincided with Ramadan. scholars finally resolved their experiences were relayed, and borders Just before Eid, the scholars dilemma by breaking the decided to host a community presentation into two parts, Iftar to break the Ramadan which corresponded with the were crossed, if not erased briefly. fast.10 They invited everyone geopolitical borders of Iraq they had met and worked and Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish with throughout our program. The scholars shopped, scholars showed up in their traditional clothing and sat at borrowed pots and pans from the university dining one end of the table; the other scholars took the opposite service, and spent the day of the Iftar preparing side. It was early in the eight-week experience, and the traditional dishes for more than 50 guests, including scholars were intransigent in their constructions of who university faculty and staff, their mentors, and the Nobel was Iraqi and what was Iraq. Audience questions about Prize-nominated group the scholars had worked with, Kurdish independence fueled the fires. At the end of that Friends Forever. The Friends Forever group included day, the Fulbright team (all in attendance at all events) Israeli leaders and teenagers—Jewish and Palestinian— witnessed the scholars break into small groups and walk and a group of Protestant and Catholic teenagers from back to their residences, vividly separate.

Belfast, Northern Ireland. Then came an evening of light, for in this simple act of sharing food in the “Third Reflections, Ramadan, the Iftar Space” of the Iftar, photos were taken, experiences were relayed, and borders were crossed, if not erased briefly. t this point, we had to begin to reflect, and At the close of the event, one Israeli participant reflected fiercely: It seemed that cultural and political tearfully that he had never imagined he’d have the differences were raised too soon, before the opportunity to share a table and meal with a woman from scholars had truly bonded and grown to trust one another.

Iraq. Moreover, the scholars came together again through In the days following the panel discussion, even while their shared goal of hosting the Iftar and breaking fast shopping or on their way to the mosque, the scholars together with people of all faiths, the divisions between went from the first weeks of laughter to mutterings and them blurred as they drifted from table to table, talking grumbles, while they sat in different groups bounded happily with their guests and with one another. by cold shoulders. The Fulbright team held a weekend pointed out how many turns that scholar had taken in the conversation and his subsequent dominance.

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Departures and Arrivals

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his crossing of borders continued in numerous ways and on a variety of levels throughout the remaining weeks of the scholars’ stay, through interactions among themselves, with the team members, and other university and community stakeholders.

After the Iftar came more discussion-based classes on curriculum and teaching, an ice cream social, a week in Boston, and finally an afternoon goodbye tea before the Fulbright team escorted the scholars back to the airport and waited with them on this side of the security gates.

As the scholars crossed the checkpoint and turned for one last wave, the Third Space became somehow even more literal, more concrete: Phrases were called out in English and Arabic; they were looking back and we were looking forward. When the last scholar disappeared, we turned, exhausted, towards home.

6. The scholars consistently shared their deep concern for the families and loved ones they had left behind, unsurprising given the escalation of violence in Iraq with the rise and spread of ISIS or “DAESH.”

Our Iraqi Fulbright Adventure involved navigating a terrain where identities and power shifted and changed over those wild and wonderful weeks. This is the terrain of the Third Space: a place of continually questioning and probing, of negotiating and renegotiating—where faculty, students, and scholars alike can rethink and confront assumptions and roles and participate in the making of global and local knowledge. In this space we are no longer receivers of a standard of information in fixed roles, but participants in a new reality of exploration and discovery. We had a place and an opportunity to bring together faculty, students, and staff, cohorts and partners in building meaningful relationships that were predicated on the idea of an integrated and inquiry-driven approach to educational exchange and cooperation—an approach in service of mutual understanding occurring in the name and space of “Internationalization.”

10. ‫رطفلا ديع‬‎ Eid al-Fitr, also known simply as “Eid,” is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide. Eid marks the end of Ramadan by a festive “breaking of the fast.” Ramadan is observed as a month of fasting. From sunrise until sunset, Muslims must refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and having sex. After sunset, Muslims partake in the Iftar, which literally translates to “breakfast” or breaking of the fast. Observance of Ramadan is considered to be one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

2. For “Third Space” work which pushes past binaries, see Henri Lefebvre and Donald Nicholson-Smith, The production of space (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1974/2014). See also bell hooks, Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994) and Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1996), among others.

9. We should note here that we would betray our Fulbright agreement and our trust with the scholars if we provided specific examples or identifying quotes, either of which might put scholars’ lives at risk. Thus we remain intentionally general throughout this article.

Sarah Dietrich, visiting assistant professor of secondary and higher educations, teaches courses on second language acquisition, biliteracy development, and culturally responsive teaching. She has worked in Brazil, France, Switzerland, and Mexico, where she was a Fulbright Scholar in Teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Her research explores the role(s) of perspectives and beliefs regarding language and culture in teacher training.

Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Institute of Diplomacy

1. Homi K. Bhabha, The location of culture (London: Routledge, 1991).

8. This Dr. Seuss book explores discrimination and touches on issues of superiority, learning from experience, and the importance of building community.

Susanne May

Endnotes

7. Through the creation of a community of practice, the program sought to reinforce the position that the scholars’ voices in the classroom were equal regardless of age or gender. Shared experience was thus privileged in the setting of the program over historical self-identities.

Amy Jo Minett is an assistant professor of English/Graduate TESOL at Salem State University. She has worked on English language aid projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Europe, and the Balkans. In addition to collaborative work on the pedagogical implications of “Internationalization as a Third Space,” she researches the role of English Language Teaching in Security, Democracy, and Open Society in conflict and post-conflict countries.

3. June George and Theodore Lewis. 2011, “Exploring the global/ local boundary in education in developing countries: The case of the Caribbean.” Compare: A journal of comparative and international education 41, No. 6: 721.

5. Fulbright Program history, Bureau of educational and cultural affairs, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved from http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/about-fulbright/history.

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Maya Newell

4. See Mary Louise Pratt. 1991, “Arts of the contact zone,” Profession: 33-40.

Zach Newell is the interim director of the Berry Library at Salem State University.

He continues to work closely with colleagues to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue, most recently through a grant called “Art on the Edge: Expressive Culture from Around the World.” He also continues to explore informational constructs and creative/ artistic practice in a global context.

Zach was previously a Fulbright Scholar in Alexandria, Egypt.

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Wedded but Not Always a Wife: C. Julie Whitlow and Patricia Ould

Marilyn Humphries

Lesbian Identity and Same-Sex Marriage 39

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he use of a certain words can reveal much about identity—some accurate, some over-general: boy, girl, black, white, gay, straight. Some words are both ugly reminders of hate and prejudice that have been appropriated as markers of solidarity and group membership: nigger, dyke, queer. We are, however, also part of an era in which identity is being claimed and rights are being asserted. Black lives must matter. Immigrant children are “dreamers” for some, illegal aliens for others.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are also blessedly being seen as fluid and no longer binary. Here at Salem State University, students have demanded new policies that allow for chosen names to be used on rosters and in records, and preferred pronouns are now part of their chosen identities.

become a reality, and many mainstream churches still reject the union of same-sex partners. Everyday fears about revealing their marriages can lead women in samesex marriages to avoid the use of the term wife in certain contexts in order to avoid confrontation or the disclosing of their identities as married lesbians.

For example, when our friend Amy’s parents shun her partner, Beth, and do not allow her into their home, Amy’s marriage to Beth cannot be discussed, and the accompanying descriptor wife cannot be used without discomfort. To avoid conflict, Amy avoids any use of language that emphasizes her identity as a married lesbian and neutralizes her contextual identity in situations where her marriage to Beth is not accepted.

We began this research in 2004, An equally difficult social shortly after same-sex marriage was situation arose when our friend made legal in Massachusetts, in order to Our findings reveal that, for Jane got married. She was unable understand whether and why the term to share her news with co-workers, a variety of contested and wife is being used by married lesbians to as she works for a Catholic hospital introduce and refer to their marriage complex reasons that include where her supervisor respects church partners. Since then, our research has doctrine and does not approve become even more relevant, given the age, acceptance, safety, of same-sex marriage. At her U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision to workplace, she cannot introduce as and solidarity, the term wife legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. her wife the woman to whom she is is not always used. We Our findings reveal that, for a now married. She cannot even allude variety of contested and complex to their relationship, despite the posit that identity is being reasons that include age, acceptance, fact that they have been in a loving, safety, and solidarity, the term wife is constructed through the use committed relationship for more than not always used. We posit that identity 20 years. The contextual identity of of relationship terms across being without an obvious partner is being constructed through the use of relationship terms across a variety is one that she must adopt at her a variety of social contexts. of social contexts. We use the term workplace, or else she risks losing contextual identity as a way to discuss her job or breaking the expected the self being presented by a speaker code of conduct at that workplace. when one of the available relationship terms—wife, partner, This contextual identity may then carry over to other spouse, or another alternative—is used in different social situations.

For example, a male plumber fixing the toilet situations. The term wife also has cultural implications from in Jane’s home asked how many people used the sink. the women’s movement and the struggle for gay rights that Unwilling to disclose—due to issues concerning intimacy influence the preferred language used by married lesbians to and safety—that it was she and her wife who shared the describe and discuss their house, she instead said that she and a “couple of people” marriage partners. live in the house. Because she was unsure of what the The backdrop of the plumber’s reaction would be to her marriage, and was struggles for equality for alone in the house with him, she used a contrived and women and lesbians have dishonest circumlocution to avoid using a relationship evolved in tandem with term that disclosed her marital status or her sexual the realities of rejection orientation. These are routine instances of avoidance by unsupportive or or lying in certain social contexts that different-sex hostile family members, partners probably never have to ponder. conservative workplaces, Another aspect of the complexity involved in a and some churches married lesbian’s using the term wife involves associations that do not allow open that accompany its meaning. A wife is “a married woman disclosure, never mind or a woman that someone is married to,” according to the blessings. Court clerks Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Yet to understand have refused to grant licenses even after legal Previous page: A couple kisses in line while applying for a marriage same-sex marriage has license at City Hall in Cambridge, Mass.

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the term wife fits, but it is not difficult to understand, based on historical associations to wifehood, that it is untenable for others. Women born after 1962 had mothers and role models who were more likely to have married later; had more professional opportunities; attained higher education levels; and had more say in decisions about birth control, divorce, and shared domestic responsibility. Their daughters’ perceptions of a wife, and associations with the gender roles inherent in this term, were being formed through cultural and historical reference points.

why married lesbians use or reject this term, it is important to consider the historical and semantic role of the wife.

Wifehood has been accepted at various times in world history as a religious obligation, forced barter for status or property, or as an arrangement by family for personal or financial gain. Each of these scenarios lacked agency by the woman involved. In the 20th century, the notion of love became a prerequisite for marriage, and yet, the pre-feminist version of a wife who stays at home to take care of her husband’s needs, fulfilling the duties of the home with grace and good cheer, still holds a place in our collective consciousness.

To understand lesbians’ avoidance or acceptance of the term wife, we must also review the negative narrative about homosexuality conveyed as part of our collective cultural script and the way in which identity is expressed through the use of specific relationship terms. Until the 1960s, federal government officials routinely investigated

During the decades leading up to the women’s movement, a wife was obedient to her husband, by law could not own property, typically did not work outside the home, and certainly did not have a career. A wife was expected to bear and raise children and take care of her home; those who worked outside the home had no reprieve from these responsibilities.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the second wave of the women’s movement brought about changes in the expected role of the typical married woman. In the 1960s and ’70s, women began to reconsider gendered expectations in their roles as wives, and more women became interested in maintaining their careers. These socio-cultural, political, and historic changes are not the only factors to influence our participants’ choices of relationship terms, but they provide the backdrop to the shifts in attitude and language use.

We must place our interview and survey participants in this historical context. At the time our survey data were collected, a 50-year-old was born in 1961-62. Women born before this time were assumed to have a different image of a wife than those born later, which can be explained in part by sociolinguistic prototype theory. In R.A. Hudson’s view, prototype theory can be applied to the social situations in which speakers hear a linguistic item and associate it with its typical use. He believes that speakers need very few instances, possibly just one, to be able to generalize and imagine a prototype for the linguistic item at hand.

Because women have only been able to use the term wife in the United States since 2004, those who reference their female spouses with this term are doing so without a clear mental representation of the lesbian wife. For some, Co-author C. Julie Whitlow, far right, cuts the cake with spouse Olga Merchan at the party after their 2004 wedding in Salem, Mass.

Photo courtesy of C. Julie Whitlow

We use this theory to explain in part the gendered interpretation of a wife as resembling Betty Crocker, more often than Ellen DeGeneres, among participants born before 1961—despite rapid changes in the roles of women since the 1960s and the diverse ways in which women have been portrayed in popular media. Many of the women we interviewed expressed a similar prototype of a wife, regardless of age.

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Marilyn Humphries

orientation had government been passed across employees’ sexual the country. histories. It issued These highly a 1950 report titled publicized repeals “Employment of of discriminatory Homosexuals and laws put gay Other Sex Perverts rights into the in Government” national spotlight that considered and resulted in homosexuality a the backlash that “mental illness” has accompanied that posed a all struggles security risk to the for civil rights. government; the In 1978, gay report led to more rights laws were than 4,300 gay Above, Peter Hams watches his mothers, Marsha Hams and Susan Shepherd, the first same-sex couple repealed in St. men and lesbians to apply for a Massachusetts marriage license, cut the cake at their first wedding anniversary.

Paul, Minnesota; being discharged Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon. States began to from the military and to more than 500 losing government enact laws prohibiting adoption and foster care by gays jobs. Stoking these flames of ignorance and suspicion, and lesbians, measures that disproportionately affected the American Psychological Association in 1952 listed lesbians, as far more women than men were seeking to homosexuality as a “sociopathic personality disturbance.” adopt. Beginning in July 1981, when a rare skin cancer In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive that would be diagnosed as being related to AIDS was order banning gays and lesbians from working in the federal diagnosed in 41 gay men in New York and California, a government or for any private contractor associated with it. decade of suspicion and fear of gays was ushered in.

Despite this hostile climate, slow progress was made The federal government was slow to respond to the toward openness and tolerance. In 1955, the Daughters of crisis, and a rapidly increasing mortality rate from AIDS Bilitis became the first lesbian rights organization in the ensued.

The entire LGBT community was attacked, even United States, providing safer spaces for social functions though few lesbians were at risk. ACT UP was created than the often-raided gay bars. In 1956, Dr. Evelyn Hooker, in 1987 to protest the treatment of AIDS patients and a pioneering researcher who argued that homosexuality is the pharmaceutical companies’ huge profits on AIDS not a mental disorder, shared her research at the American drugs, even while such companies denied life-saving Psychological Association convention that homosexuals and medicines to those who could not pay the exorbitant heterosexuals had no marked differences on a variety of prices for prescriptions.

On December 12, 1989, ACT psychological tests.

UP led 5,000 activists to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in In 1966, the Mattachine Society staged “sip-ins” New York City for a “Stop the Church” demonstration. in New York bars, protesting the New York Liquor They protested the Catholic Church’s policies on AIDS, Authority’s rules against serving alcohol to gay patrons sexuality, reproductive rights, and safe-sex education, because they were considered “disorderly.” In 1969, Carl including the false information that condom use did not Wittman, in “A Gay Manifesto,” first urged “coming out” help prevent the spread of HIV. as the most important aspect of gay liberation. In 1970, Faced with the terrible loss of friends and loved ones, the first Gay Pride parade took place in honor of the 1969 yet fueled with newfound political momentum and Stonewall rioters, and in 1973, the American Psychological social capital, the gay rights movement did not stagnate Association reversed its position and voted to remove but instead began to move in the direction of marriage homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. and family. Legal initiatives regarding second-parent The approval of the birth control pill also helped lessen adoptions, raising foster children, accessing sperm banks, prejudice against gays and lesbians. By 1964, almost 3.5 and immigration laws that would allow permanent million women were taking “the pill.” Until this time, residence for bi-national couples became new goals for a rationale for the “immorality” of homosexual sex was the LGBT rights movement. that it could not lead to reproduction, which was seen as As with all political and social movements, there is unnatural. By making sex separate from conception, the always discord from within. In the case of marriage, birth control pill liberated women and made sex between there are those in the feminist and gay rights movements same-sex partners more acceptable. who have always viewed it as an oppressive institution.

Concerns about same-sex marriage have centered around By 1976, 29 gay rights laws modeled on the Civil the “homonormative critique,” a fear that marriage and Rights Act that targeted discrimination based on sexual 42

the right to serve in the military will placate gays and lesbians so much that the community will ignore more pressing concerns such as health care, transgender rights, immigration, and racism. Critics also fear that the narrow view of relationships and families prescribed by marriage will deteriorate what is left of LGBTQ culture and identity and lead to the assimilation of gays and lesbians into the mainstream at the expense of working-class gays and lesbians, people of color, or those who prefer other relationship structures.

Yet despite the controversies and dissonance surrounding same-sex marriage, both within and without the LGBTQ community, marriage equality for all has become the defining issue of the contemporary gay rights agenda. The June 2013 Supreme Court decision which struck down one section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was the turning point in the struggle for marriage equality. Until then, no federal benefits had been ever granted to same-sex couples.

On the cultural front, gays and lesbians have been increasingly depicted in a positive and realistic light on contemporary TV shows from network hits such as Modern Family to original cable series such as Orange is the New Black.

Hit music has also heralded samesex marriage; Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performed their pro-marriage rap Same Love at the 2014 Grammy Awards, and the song was nominated for Song of the Year. This cultural backdrop certainly helped shape the identities of the married lesbians who participated in our research.

lesbian and gay role models depicted in the media and popular culture, and the parents of younger women were often more accepting of their lesbian daughters.

For the younger lesbians among our participants, “coming out” was seen as a positive political statement.

Gay-straight alliances were found on most high-school and college campuses, allowing for positive social opportunities. This would logically imply that our younger participants would be more comfortable and confident in using the term wife, both as an accurate depicter of their marriage partners and as a positive way to use language to come out as married lesbians without fear or self-consciousness in a variety of social contexts.

Even when lesbians are able to marry, presenting their relationship status in daily discourse varies, and the extent of disclosure and comfort is keenly tied to contextual identity. Choices are based on the individual’s perceptions of the situation at hand and on how well she can predict or interpret the reaction of interlocutors. The social context determines which Our interview and survey data relationship terms are used, while also indicating the identity that show a clear distinction in the one feels safe in revealing. Among use of the term wife based on married lesbians, that complex sense of identity is evolving in the age of our participants. For contemporary America, even as same-sex marriage surges toward women born in 1962 or before, national recognition.

using the term wife to refer to female marriage partners conjured both a traditionally gendered image of the wife, and the stress of coming out every time the term is used.

Our interview and survey data show a clear distinction in the use of the term wife based on the age of our participants. For women born in 1962 or before, using the term wife to refer to female marriage partners conjured both a traditionally gendered image of the wife, and the stress of coming out every time the term is used. This would logically incite feelings of discomfort—or rejection—of the term, and lead to its avoidance as a marker of identity.

By contrast, participants born after 1962 would have had a far more positive image of being both a wife and a lesbian. The married women they grew up around would have been more likely to be educated and pursuing careers. Males would have shared household duties of different-sex couples, and there would have been a more egalitarian image of women portrayed in the media.

Lesbians and gays achieved prominence as a cultural and political group to be taken seriously. There were positive

Our interview participants and survey respondents vary their contextual identities by using different relationship terms in different situations. Family dynamics, community associations, workplace interactions, and social and service encounters all must be interpreted by married lesbians through the lens of revealing one’s identity. In many contexts, this situation entails disclosing one’s sexual orientation to strangers, a choice influenced by interpersonal relationships, religious affiliation, politics, geography, and personality.

Most of our participants report some instances when they are reserved, avoiding the term wife or any language that reveals their sexual orientation or relationship status, whether it’s due to (self-reported) internalized homophobia, insecurities about the prospect of losing a job, or blatant rejection, discrimination, or suspicion.

In states and regions that are more conservative, with a greater presence of unaccepting families, workplaces, and church communities, it will take much longer for old prejudices to dissipate and for the political and social realities of same-sex marriage to become acceptable.

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One further area of influence is the strong motivation for lesbian parents to be open and clear to their children.

Several of our interview participants with children cited a positive and consistent presentation of their parents’ relationship as one reason they consistently use the term wife. They did not want their children to get the impression that their parents’ love was anything to be hidden or feel shame about. As more lesbian couples have children, or co-parent children from previous relationships, the more visible these families will become and the more the identity of the couple as married will be expressed in schools, doctors’ offices, sports teams, and play groups.

The language that children use to refer to their parents is one that we did not explore at all and is certainly one worthy of future investigation so that we can best understand how family identity is being navigated.

While our participants under age 50 largely prefer to use the term wife, those age 50 and over prefer an alternate term, most often partner or spouse, across similar contexts. Our survey data reinforce these trends, revealing a decisive difference in attitude and presentation of identity by younger married lesbians as compared to their older counterparts. Those under 50 would have been largely unaware of the Stonewall riots and may not have been aware of the crackling anger and backlash against the gay community during the AIDS crisis. They would have instead experienced gay pride parades and gay/straight alliances in high school. The idea of coming out to friends and family was routine, one not commonly entertained by earlier generations of lesbian couples who had quietly lived their lives in the closet with only their closest friends aware of their relationships.

However, the prototype of the 1950s housewife still informs the image of a wife as the caretaker and doting companion of a hardworking male. This is still part of our collective consciousness, and even younger married lesbians are influenced by the way the term wife has been used and construed. Our younger interview participants have embraced the term wife more fully and convincingly. More of them did not fear coming out, and many were supported wholeheartedly by their families. The cultural context that they grew up in also featured

Marilyn Humphries

Our interview participants also present the strong intuition that they must “take back” the term wife, redefining and using it consistently across social contexts in order to change its meaning to fit their own perceptions and identities. They are appropriating the definition and image of a wife to create a new one that could take many forms, depending on the relationship and family structure being presented.

By contrast, And while the word wife is participants born not inherently offensive, we report the sentiment after 1962 would that, for some, the have had a far more term must be used in the way that offensive positive image of language has been used, as a marker of pride and being both a wife in-group solidarity by those that it had been and a lesbian. used against.

It will be important to continue to monitor how family, children, church, workplace, and business or legal encounters are navigated with respect to the growing desire among same-sex couples to be open in their relationships. The language of legal forms and documents, school and camp registrations, and a host of application forms often assume a hetero-normative agent. As same-sex couples continue to demand full and equal recognition, an examination of how language is accommodated by society—and the gaps in how samesex couples and families are able to present themselves on the myriad forms, applications, and websites that we all navigate daily—will shed light on the degree of openness that is afforded across the social spectrum.

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Karen Kahn, far left, and Patricia A. Gozemba were married in Boston in September 2005. They co-authored the book Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First Legal SameSex Marriages. Gozemba was a professor of English and women’s studies at Salem State University for 38 years, from 1964-2002.

female role models who differed from those of older women. Their mothers had careers, and the feminist movement had paved the way for gender equality in educational and workplace situations.

Another important reason that some married lesbians avoid the term wife is related to gender identity. We have discussed evidence that there are no “right� relationship terms for those who may not selfidentify with gendered language. There is a need for the reinterpretation of existing gendered relationship terms and pronouns to reflect the growing awareness of nuanced gender identities. With more fluid gender roles becoming acceptable, and with greater exploration of gender identity in younger people, another important area of research will be to document how transgender and gender-queer individuals are navigating marriage and constructing identity through marriage.

associated with marriage can be used by all same-sex couples, without reserve and with increased resolve, the full acceptance of same-sex marriage will be confirmed.

This essay was excerpted from the book Same-Sex Marriage, Context, and Lesbian Identity: Wedded but Not Always a Wife, Lexington Books, 2015. It is reprinted here with permission from Lexington Books.

Photos by Marilyn Humphries were originally published in the book Courting Equality: A Documentary History of America’s First Legal Same-Sex Marriages by Patricia A. Gozemba and Karen Kahn.

C. Julie Whitlow is a professor of English and coordinator of the graduate programs in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Salem State University. She teaches courses in second language acquisition and writing and is interested in gender and language as it applies to sociolinguistics and the construction of identity. She lives in Salem with her partner, Olga, and their two daughters.

Kate Sherrill

It seems safe to postulate that widespread acceptance of the term wife by a large majority of married lesbians across most social contexts will evolve. However, visibility and constant advocacy must continue to ensure that the language used by same-sex marriage partners can be used as freely and easily as it is for different-sex couples in every corner of the United States and beyond.

Despite the overwhelming preference for the term wife among younger women, use of this term by others is still under negotiation, and our survey respondents and interview participants have given clear evidence that it cannot yet be used indiscriminately across all social contexts. Self-definition for same-sex couples will continue through the use of language that allows the open expression of love and commitment. When the language

Above, Kate Sherrill, left, puts a wedding ring on co-author Patricia Ould at their 2012 wedding in Marblehead, Mass.

Marina Whitlow

As human sexuality and the gender spectrum become more understood, defined, and accepted, we anticipate that young people will become increasingly comfortable with a fluid expression of gender. As the current language available to discuss and refer to gender nuance is limited, we also predict the expansion of the definitions of gender-specific terms such as wife, aunt, niece, and daughter and their masculine counterparts, as well as a shift in, or creation of, new linguistic terms such as genderneutral pronouns and relationship terms.

Kathy Coogan

The extent to which all same-sex couples are embracing the opportunity to marry is open to interpretation. Our interview participants and survey respondents were largely white, educated, and economically secure. Most reside in Massachusetts, a state that has liberal political leanings and a historical record of tolerance and defending civil rights. We posit that these women are among the most secure in their identities as married lesbians, with support likely among their families, communities, and workplaces.

Less likely to face rejection and hostility, they are more likely to be open in disclosing their identities as married lesbians.

Patricia J. Ould is a professor of sociology at Salem State University.

Her areas of specialization are gender and sexuality studies. She is interested in how gender roles interact with gender identity and sexual orientation and in the ways gender roles impact the lives of women in different cultural settings.

She lives in Orland, Maine, with her wife, Kate.

45

E S S A Y

Resilience:

Separating Truth from Myth Mary Byrne

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esilience. We hear about it all the time: in newscasts about human interest stories, reports about rebounding stock markets, and stories about how communities thrive and rebound after disaster. The business world uses the word to imply nimbleness and indomitability in market adaptation. Sports reviewers use it to describe teams that compete with positive spirit despite injuries or losses. Others use it to explain how veterans remain productive and stable citizens after exposure to war. Increasingly, the term refers to individuals and communities subjected to terrorist attacks or natural disasters, such as New York City after the September 11 attacks, Boston after the 2013 marathon bombings, or Paris and San Bernardino after the 2015 attacks.

Indeed, a cursory internet search about resilience studies or “resilience research centers” yields a multitude of sites within academic settings, trauma recovery programs, and communities such as Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado, that were affected by traumatic and violent loss.

In popular literature and movies in recent years, we have seen popularized stories of individual and group resilience such as Boys in the Boat, Room, and Unbroken.

Resilience is described as a process, a characteristic, an attribute of ordinary people in recovery from extraordinary adversity. But what in fact is it? The word “resilience” was originally used as early as 1620 to mean the act of rebounding, originating from the Latin word “resiliens,” meaning “to rebound or recoil” under pressure.

During the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, the term was used as a way to describe wood or metals that could support sudden or severe loads without breaking.1 In the 1970s, the word began to be used to refer to living organisms in the growing interest and science of ecosystems. Norman Garmezy and Michael Rutter began to study resilience in children who had reportedly overcome and in fact thrived throughout their youth despite very adverse developmental experiences. Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith’s 1982 breakthrough study of children on Kauai began to focus on resilience as a psychological phenomenon. This 40-year longitudinal 46

study found that a third of youngsters defined as “high-risk children” who faced disadvantages during development actually developed into competent and relationally successful adults. Studies of children, along with attention more recently being given to post-World War II and Vietnam-era veterans and prisoner-of-war stories, began to focus resilience studies on individuals.2 George Bonanno, who studies adult functioning, describes resilience as “the ability of adults…exposed to an isolated and highly disruptive event such as a death… or a violent life-threatening situation to maintain stable and relatively healthy levels of psychosocial and physical functioning…as well as the capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions.”3 This implies the capacity not only to go on living but to adapt and thrive with some creativity in further adult development.

Is this resilience a magical attribute? Is it only possible in those of us with extraordinary survival skills or with unusual faith in the ability to heal? Or is it an illusion and the actual luck of the draw for those who may just have good, positive supports around them and not intrinsic to individuals at all? Or is there something in the interplay of genes and relational environments that helps produce resilient individuals? Can it be taught and learned? Can it become part of a culture of survival and thriving, nurtured from one generation to another?

The closer we look at what resilience really reflects, the less magical and the more identifiable it appears as a unique, possibly teachable response by some individuals and groups. As social scientists have learned over time, resilience emerges as one of several possible categories of human response or reaction to enduring stress.

Furthermore, one can see the elements of resilience in individuals, community groupings, organizations, and perhaps even national identities. Resilience has come to be understood as an historically developing phenomenon with psychological, ecological, and social lenses—hence the capacity for resilience can be evident in individuals, families, communities, organizations, and even nations.

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ather than believing that stress, pain, and trauma weaken a person, research indicates that those who have experienced these challenges and emotions have often been able to demonstrate adaptiveness and even thrive, showing extraordinary personal growth.

But adversity does not always make people stronger. This assertion is illustrated well in the 2009 PBS series This Emotional Life. Resilience is neither a gene nor an inborn trait. The PBS series identified the common myths about resilience: “Resilience is a trait…. Resilient people are independent, tough, and self-reliant; they don’t need much from other people.… Resilient people are immune to stress and negative emotions.… Adversity makes people stronger.” 4 Rather, resilience develops as we explore life, with the support of others and through normative life processes as well as extraordinary events.

There has been recent controversy stirred by Angela Duckworth’s 2016 book Grit and how grit as “the power of passion and perseverance” is distinguished from resilience. Grit is understood as skill and passion applied to an identified goal, understood as more of a unidimensional concept. Bonnie Benard describes resilience most effectively when she attests that resilience is not a genetic trait that only a few “superkids” possess, as some media accounts would have us believe.5 Rather, it is our inborn capacity for self-righting, according to Werner and Smith, and for transformation and change, according to researcher Robert Jay Lifton. In this view, resilience is seen as our biological imperative, as if we are hard-wired to struggle and survive. However, there is definitely interplay between personality and environment. From a social justice perspective in assessing and identifying resilience, one must acknowledge that there is not always a level playing field in either of these factors of personality or environment. Someone born in war-torn Syria is not going to have the same developmental options as a child born in any war-free Western industrialized country. In fact, researchers have identified many factors that make up the construct of individual resilience.

This Emotional Life featured current resilience research, noting the multiple factors present in individuals who exhibit resilience. These factors include close relationships, a positive view of oneself and confidence in one’s strengths and abilities, the ability to manage strong feelings and impulses, good problem-solving and communication skills, a feeling of being in control, the ability to seek help and resources, the ability to see oneself as resilient, the ability to cope with stress in healthy ways and avoiding harmful coping strategies, a capacity to help others, and an ability to find positive meaning in one’s life despite difficult or traumatic events. Other scholars would add dimensions of a sense of inner direction, a sense of humor, and a sense of competence, spirituality, and perseverance.6 What comes across in interviews with survivors of prisoner-of-war camps, cancer treatment, and torture, as poignantly demonstrated in the PBS series, is the essential

need for a social connection and a sense of meaning. POWs who spent several years in Vietnamese prisons developed a tapping communication on their cell walls in order to communicate with one another via an original code. They spoke of this ability to connect, however fragile, as the way by which they maintained a social and bonding sense of a “we” identity and strength. Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning and other imprisoned or torture survivors talk about the sense of meaning they held onto throughout the duration of their captivity. Cancer survivors talk about the sustenance their faith provided and their belief in being part of a greater recovery community.

An area that is just now beginning to be explored is a possible neurobiological basis for resilient capacities in individuals. This portends a fascinating new chapter in resilience studies: how the mind deals with stress and shows adaptability to detect and navigate stress in the environment.7

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roma Walsh, one of the primary practitioners and researchers in understanding resilience in families, identifies the key elements in family resilience as being strong family belief systems, coherent organizational patterns with flexibility, and communication strength in problem solving.8 Walsh looks for families’ inherent strengths and vulnerabilities and their protective and risk factors, and she examines how those factors are exacerbated or complemented by the environment. As with individuals, protective, risk, and recovery factors are major components of family resilience. Families’ adaptive capacities and the joint sense of being able to make meaning in the midst of extraordinary stress and trauma reveal differing degrees of resilience among families. For instance, these elements are present in many refugee families who arrive in a new country with a sense of meaning and hope.

Many members of second- or third-generation immigrant families have amazing stories of family resilience in their histories. Family researchers who have focused on refugee families identify core clusters of strength: network factors offering external support; individual abilities and skills that contribute to internal supports; and a family’s meaning, values, and beliefs that offer “existential” supports.9 There are many lessons here for this country’s family and child welfare system: a sense of belonging and having continuity of meaning, significant ties establishing culture-bound values and beliefs, and the reduction of risks and negative chain reactions. This perspective resonates with pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton’s famously attributed quote, akin to developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner’s dictum, that “every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her” and is not afraid to show it.

Finally, military and first-responder families are often examples of resilience along the continuum. Many show extraordinary strength in the face of stress, risk, and long 47

connection

adaptability

durations of physical and emotional disconnection. As is apparent from divorce and suicide rates among returning veterans and their families, military families are also at extraordinary risk of breaking apart, due to first the absence of a family member and then the difficulty readapting to life together upon that person’s return home.

“Families need families,” Brazelton said. “Parents need to be parented. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are back in fashion because they are necessary. Stresses on many families are out of proportion to anything two parents can handle.”10 Brazelton also believes that resilient families often contribute to resilient communities. This dynamic is currently being played out in Flint, Michigan, where local leaders, health care providers, and families have risen up to demand healthy drinking water and essential resources from their state and federal governments, following a period of dismissal and egregious powerlessness.

A

2013 Meridian Institute resilience research study focused on resilience within communities and how communities display the phenomenon as a community group, economically as well as ecologically.

The study noted five core concepts present in resilient groups. One is attribute: Resilience is an evident attribute of the community. A second is continuing: A community’s resilience is an inherent and dynamic part of the community. A third is adaptation: The community can readily adapt to adversity. A fourth is trajectory: Adaptation leads to a positive outcome for the community relative to its state after a crisis, especially in terms of its functionality—its ability to move forward with necessary duties. And a fifth is comparability: This attribute allows communities to be compared to other communities in terms of their ability to positively adapt to adversity.

Norris et al.11 conducted a longitudinal study of many communities and found that the factors that made them resilient in order to survive and thrive post-disasters included having a base of economic development, social capital, information and communication, and an identity of community competence. The renaissance of New Orleans 48

efficacy

protective meaning

trauma

belonging

capital

Wordle by Brenda Vitale

risk factors

social

resilience

recovery

humor

vulnerability

post-Hurricane Katrina exemplified a community striving both to survive and to thrive after incredible disaster.

Ironically, when one considers the intersection of individual and community groups, the qualities of addiction-recovery communities are laboratories of resilience. In these communities, such as 12-step programs, individuals learn through the post-traumatic lessons of the community to develop awareness of one’s own vulnerabilities and strengths. Recovery groups emphasize making social connections and making meaning that help to prevent relapse and maintain health.

Community resilience-building is a requisite for public health. The Prevention Institute in conjunction with Kaiser Pemanente issued a report titled Adverse community experiences and resilience: A framework for addressing and preventing community trauma.12 By better understanding how community trauma undermines both individual and community resilience—especially in communities with intense and prolonged histories of violence—it is hopefully possible to intervene with communities to prevent continuing cycles of violence. The report calls for traumainformed prevention to address the affects of individual and community trauma and to promote community healing.

In an era of global and political uncertainty, understanding what constitutes organizational resilience has taken center stage in business schools and journals.

Given the U.S. and world stock-market volatility, resilience in organizations has been a much sought-after capacity. Expecting, planning for, and adapting to changes in business, education, and non-profit organizations have become crucial to survival and success.

Studying organizations for more than 15 years, Martin Seligman and his colleagues distilled the common successful element: optimism. They “discovered that people who don’t give up have a habit of interpreting setbacks as temporary, local, and changeable.” 13 These studies have led to development of the field of positive psychology, and in Seligman’s case he has worked to strategize how to develop resilience within organizations’ leadership and workforces.

Bill Kahn, an organizational psychologist at Boston University, has contributed greatly to the understanding of organizations under stress, especially in non-profit businesses. He identifies trauma in organizations as the prevalence of relational disturbances; strategic crisis management is the repair of such disturbances.14 His book Holding Fast is used in Salem State’s School of Social Work’s final practice class on leadership and management. It vividly portrays how difficult it is to create resilient caregiving organizations with the stresses and demands of today’s nonprofit world and shows how leaders and staff need to join together to build resilient agencies and organizations.

Daniel Goleman’s work15 on the essential component of emotional and social intelligence in leadership is yet another example of the introduction of pro-resilient attributes. He sees emotional intelligence as leaders’ ability to perceive, access, and generate emotions in oneself and in others in order to promote adaptability. Resilience researchers would term this social connectedness and the ability to accurately read the environment—that is, to use their emotional attunement to accurately scan the health of their organization.

I will not attempt to discuss the potential for studying national resilience here, although the needs identified in the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign and the many hot spots of trauma around the world hold many lessons about resilience unfolding every day. Australia’s Torrence Institute refers to national resilience as teaching citizens a “culture of preparedness” similar to that taught by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). There is a National Resilience Institute, based in Iowa, whose mission aims “to help communities cultivate lives of meaningful connection, hope, purpose, and wellness across all national borders.” Utilizing the “Thrive Model” of resilience, this institute works with post-trauma communities to develop six “Capacity Builders,” nurturing pro-resilient attributes with “trusted adults, high expectations, resilience building, involvement, vision, enrichment to strengthen their members, facilitate recovery from trauma, and prevent tragic loss of life.”16 This model was developed by Mollie Marti, a psychologist, lawyer, adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, author of Walking with Justice, and founder of the Community Resiliency Project to help communities recover from crises and grow their capacity to handle challenges.

1. Alastair McAslan, The Concept of Resilience: Understanding its Origins, Meaning and Utility (Adelaide, Australia: Torrens Resilience Institute, 2010).

2. Emmy E. Werner and Ruth S. Smith, Vulnerable but Invincible: A Study of Resilient Children and Youth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982). Also Werner and Smith, Overcoming the Odds: High-Risk Children from Birth to Adulthood (New York: Cornell University Press, 1992).

3. George Bonanno, “Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely adverse events?”, American Psychologist, 59(1), 2004, 20-28.

4. Elizabeth Gilbert, This emotional life series: What is resilience?

DVD Documentary (United States: Public Broadcasting System with Vulcan Production, 2009).

5. Bonnie Bernard, “The foundations of resiliency framework. https://www.resiliency.com/free-articles-resources/thefoundations-of-the-resiliency-framework/ Retrieved: 1/17/15.

6. Gail Wagnild and H.M. Young, “Development and psychometric evaluation of the Resilience Scale,” Journal of Nursing Measurement.

1(2):165–178, 1993. Also Nan. Henderson, Resiliency in action: Practical ideas for overcoming risks and building strengths in youth, families, and communities (Ojai, Calif.: Resiliency in Action, Inc., 2007).

7. Ilia N. Karatsoreos and Bruce S. McEwen, “Resilience and vulnerability: A neurobiological perspective,” National Institute of Health. Published online. May 1. doi: 10.12703/P5-13 PMCID: PMC3643078. Retrieved 1/20/15.

8. Froma Walsh, Family resilience: A framework for clinical practice, Family Process 42(1), 1-18, 2003.

9. Arve Gunnestad, “Resilience in a Cross-Cultural Perspective: How resilience is generated in different cultures,” Journal of Intercultural Communication 11, 2006. http://www.immi.se/ intercultural/nr11/gunnestad.htm Retrieved 1/17/15.

10. T. Berry Brazelton, Touch Points. http://www.brazeltontouchpoints. org/ 1992. Retrieved 2/3/16.

11. Fran H. Norris, Susan P. Stevens, Betty Pfefferbaum, Karen Wyche, Rose I. Pfefferbaum, “Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities, and Strategy for Disaster Readiness,” American Journal of Community Psychology, 141:127-150, 2008.

12. Howard Pinderhughs, Rachel Davis, and Myesha Williams, Adverse community experiences and resilience: A framework for addressing and preventing trauma (Oakland, Calif.: The Prevention Institute, 2015).

13. Martin Seligman, Building resilience, Harvard Business School Journal 89(4), 100-106, 2011.

14. William Kahn, Organizational crises and the disturbance of relational systems, The Academy of Management Review 38(3), 377-396, 2013.

15. Daniel Goleman, Leadership: The power of emotional intelligence.

Selected Writings (Northampton, Mass.: More Than Sound, 2011).

16. National Resilience Institute. http://www. nationalresilienceinstitute.com/ retrieved 1/25/16.

Margo Steiner

Finally, institutes and community resilience projects alike resonate with the work of the Centre for Resilience in Galway, Ireland. This work centers on the hope of developing a worldwide ecological understanding of resilience—de-centering the focus on individuals and building environments that individuals and groups can dependably resource for positive development when encountering trauma, stress, or disadvantage. We can indeed hope for and work toward socially just world resilience. May you find your own path and your own contribution to genuine resilience!

Endnotes

Mary Byrne teaches in Salem State University’s School of Social Work; she has served as chair and M.S.W. program director and field education coordinator.

She develops pro-resilient practices and works with trauma-experienced families.

She earned a B.A. from Regis College, M.S.W. from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and Ph.D. from Boston College’s Graduate School of Social Work.

49

E S S A Y

Walking the Camino

Regina Robbins Flynn

Regina Robbins Flynn

The Galicia section, above, is considered to be the most beautiful stretch of the Camino de Santiago.

O

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n a dark, rainy Friday afternoon after a long week of classes in November 2012, I just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and watch a film. As I wandered by the movie aisle in Target, The Way, with its bright yellow sign on the jacket cover, attracted my attention. That evening, I popped it into the DVD player and became immediately captivated with the story and the lead players. The Way is about love and the redemptive powers of forgiveness, both of yourself and others. Its backdrop is the 480 miles of the ancient pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.

After viewing the film, I thought that the Camino might be the type of destination that would allow students to discover places under their own steam, to stop the incessant selfies and the asking Siri, and to just remove their ear buds and listen to bird song, the throbbing of street traffic, or children laughing in a park. I’ve always been a walker, no matter the season or locale—seaside, city, woodland—although in the past five years I’ve had three major foot operations.

Regardless, I was intrigued. After seeing the movie, I put Santiago into the weather app on my phone and checked it daily, along with the weather in about a dozen cities around the world where I have friends and family.

I resolved after seeing the film to investigate the Camino, as I thought it might be an appealing option for student travel. For the past decade I have partnered with the Salem State University Geography Department on the annual European spring break trip. As the years went by I noticed more and more that students didn’t read signage, never referenced a map, and seemed to easily climb aboard tour buses yet not investigate how local transportation systems worked.

I was laid up for almost 12 weeks that winter with my foot in a cast. Now, I was in the midst of making myself walk more. The first real hike I took was in early April 2015, an almost three-mile trek my friend Paul and I devised that took us down a long stretch of road leading to Casco Bay in Maine. At the end of the walk I was completely winded, my endurance and strength gone. I knew I had work to do to get into shape for my proposed sabbatical.

arrow and a graphic depicting a scallop shell. St. James, the patron saint of Spain, was beheaded in Jerusalem in A.D. 44, and his remains—which some believe are buried in the Cathedral de Santiago—were taken by ship to the Iberian Peninsula where he had preached for many years. Santiago means St. James. The legend of St. James proposes that the ship carrying him sank but that his body washed ashore in Finisterre, covered in scallop shells. The fan-shaped shell has a series of grooves etched into the calcium carbonate, all coming together at the For weeks before Paul and I left for Compostela, the story bivalve’s base, symbolizing of the Syrian refugee crisis that a pilgrim might take any was spotlighted in the news. number of routes, but that We landed in Madrid on The fan-shaped shell has a series all routes end in Santiago.

October 7. As we explored of grooves etched into the calcium On our first morning the city’s center on our first we ascended the 62 steps morning, we noticed an carbonate, all coming together at the out from the town center. enormous banner hanging Earlier, as we finished our from Madrid’s City Hall in bivalve’s base, symbolizing that a breakfast coffees, we saw the Plaza de Cibeles, which pilgrim might take any number of routes, Jim again and waved. “What read, “Welcome Refugees.” are your names?” he asked.

This bold welcome made me but that all routes end in Santiago.

We told him. “Blessings on think about the divisiveness you both,” he replied. that was playing out in the United States about the I listened to the refugee crisis. conversations that surrounded us as we began, In two days we took the and I discerned Italian, train to Sarria, where we German, and Spanish. About would begin the Camino. The an hour later, the large group train deposited a number that was together at the of pilgrims at the clapboard beginning of the morning station. More riders poured had stretched out into a long, off the train than there were sporadic line of pilgrims, or cabs and, as we waited, we peregrinos. struck up a conversation with two men. One, named Jim, I had come to the Camino planned to start from Samos with Paul, who also loves the next morning with his to travel and explore, and travel companion; once in to savor an afternoon after Santiago, Jim was to meet a long walk reading in a his wife and continue on to terraced garden, listening Lourdes and Fatima. He was to chestnuts drop, the shiny distressed because the rental nutty fruit encased in a This scallop-shell image appears along the Camino to guide walkers. phone he had didn’t seem to green spindly covering. We be able to call the States; he noted that in the States the was concerned that his wife would be worried because she October evening we were enjoying would be dark, yet had not heard from him since his landing a few days prior. here it wouldn’t be dark until after 8 p.m.

I offered him my phone and dialed the number for him, and The third day found us in Portomarin, where we they connected. As the cabs returned to the station, Jim said, “Well, I should go; here come the taxis. I don’t know stopped for a late lunch. We had seated ourselves in the what else to say.” sunshine after collapsing our hiking sticks when the owner came out and attempted to explain why we could “I love you,” I chimed. not sit there. We looked confused, and a young man sitting at an adjacent table with his companions told us in Jim laughed, we all did, as Jim said, “Oh yes, I love you.” broken English that they were working on the roof and After checking into our pension, we walked around where we sat might be dangerous. After we moved, this Sarria. I saw the first signage for the Camino: a yellow young pilgrim said he had spent six months in Arizona.

At the end of June, three months before my fall 2015 sabbatical leave, I received news that my left foot needed additional surgery. I was in the middle of teaching three summer courses to pay for my extensive sabbatical travel.

If I had the surgery now, my summer would come to an abrupt end, as would weekend sailing, biking, and walking, with enforced bed rest and then eight weeks of being on crutches. I decided to postpone the surgery, since my foot did not hurt, and I wore shoe supports to buttress my arch.

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It began to dawn on me that we were all the same here in Spain on the Camino: pilgrims placing one foot in front of the other, headed towards Santiago. An older gentleman sitting three tables over asked us in his thick Scottish brogue if we knew the story about the church across the street. He explained that hundreds of years ago, the church and much of the town had been where the Belesar Reservoir was now located. The townspeople marked every building stone and brought them up to where the church now stood; upon close inspection, we could see the stones’ etchings.

“Buenos dias,” I replied.

They regrouped. He turned around again. “Where are you from?” “Massachusetts,” I said. From their excited chatter, I figured that they had heard of our exoticsounding Commonwealth, and then like all encounters, we wished each other a Buen Camino.

The Camino winds its way through the farmlands of Spain, which in October are plowed under or still waiting to be harvested.

Roosters started off the day, and the endless barking of dogs followed. Later we passed one of the many small stands that farmers put out for peregrinos, stocked with apples, nuts, and water.

Curtains of morning fog secreted cornfields, veiled graveyards, shrouded hillsides in inexplicable earthbound mists, shot through with sunlight. Before us at every turn were meadows where the grasses were diamonded with dew.

Regina Robbins Flynn

In Spain’s Galicia region in mid-October, sunrise doesn’t occur until almost 9 a.m. The next morning, a number of pilgrims all started at 8:30 a.m., first light, as we zigzagged down the slopes of Portomarin in the grey dawn. A group of school boys in navy-blue school pullovers began to spiral out along the path, a few scampering into the adjacent woods to find walking sticks. As the morning progressed, they figured out that I was not Spanish. One of the boys was chosen to talk to me.

“Good morning,” he said in perfect English.

The Camino is also the Camino of animals: They are everywhere. We rambled past fields of grazing cows, horses looking for an apple, puppies looking for a head rub. On the first day a shepherd with his flock and two dogs crossed the road. The dogs never looked up or noticed the pilgrims; they were on a mission, moving sheep and lambs across the Camino. We passed enormous bulls and steers just a few feet from us—their hooves buried deep in emerald grasses—and also passed donkeys, hens, chicks, goats, pigs, and cats.

As the days passed, there were people we recognized and remembered. One young man, whom we named Mr. Lonely Hearts, walked alone.

I was sure his partner had bailed on him even before the trip began, or perhaps had left him earlier in one of the towns, deciding it was too much. Then there was a woman in her late 70s who was incredibly slow; on our sixth and eighth day out, I saw her walking off the trail to sit down and rest.

We walked past one guy, perhaps mid-30s, sitting on a rock drinking soda. As I went past, I realized he was Pilgrims often leave stones along the way to mark their pilgrimage. missing a leg and his crutches were balanced against a rock.

Camino pilgrims walk west all day, past granite From my three winters on crutches, I know crutches hurt farmhouses and rock walls so old that they supported and they try every muscle in your arm. My eyes filled thick coatings of lichen, vines, and pink flowers that with tears thinking about this guy, about his pilgrimage. struggled to find the sun through layers of stones. In Why was he walking? Did he know what to expect? What October, even near noontime, the shadows were always he was up against? lengthening. Since we started each morning at dawn, we were blessed with the sunrise of each new day, which The steady sound of walking, of hiking boots on drenched landscapes in gold. Curtains of morning fog gravel, on dirt, on slate, and the soft tinny ping of hiking secreted cornfields, veiled graveyards, shrouded hillsides sticks, or the knock of wooden poles, became the quiet in inexplicable earthbound mists, shot through with metronome of the pace I kept. Even on pavement, I used sunlight. Before us at every turn were meadows where the poles since they relieved stress on my knees, feet, and the grasses were diamonded with dew. back, and seemed essential with the day’s last kilometers.

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One morning we came to a small glade, where I could hear a distant pipe being played, as if I was suddenly in my own Camino movie and this lovely music were the soundtrack. As we rounded a bend, I could see a distant small meadow with a donkey and a blue nylon tent; a man and woman appeared, sitting on a stone wall, the woman playing a stringed instrument and the man playing a lute.

As we crossed a stream via a series of puzzled-together boulders, I wondered how the man with one leg would navigate this crossing.

but it demands your attention in a way that walking around your neighborhood does not. In cafés we read the headlines in El Pais, as refugees made their way into Europe.

At almost every farm there were small sheds on platforms with ornamental stones, sometimes in the form of a cross or a chapel steeple, which made the structures resemble small shrines. The sides were made out of slats of wood or bricks spaced inches apart. We peered between the slats but could not see anything. Paul asked a young man who wasn’t sure, but then later he found us and explained that farmers used the sheds, called horreos, to store winter feed for the animals.

Regina Robbins Flynn

The Camino can be quiet and still, especially in the forests with sprawling sycamore trees, or fragrant blue gum eucalyptus. In the farmlands, the hum of distant equipment, tractors, chainsaws, and cowbells added to the countryside’s chorus. Melodies of birds resembling small thrushes mingled with crows cawing, the sounds of streams cascading over rocks, the chattering and laughter of school boys, overheard conversations in a variety of languages, laughter hitting the same high notes. In our 10 days of walking I didn’t hear a single cell phone.

Local farmers leave food for pilgrims.

I never counted the days on the Camino. We were both aware of how many kilometers we needed to accomplish for a certain day.

I do remember thinking about the day’s destination, what this next town or city might be like. So there was something to not imagining what needed to be done, only knowing what needed to be done. Paradoxically, while each day had a purpose, each day had no purpose; it was as if there were only new things to see and experience and notice and appreciate and savor. I had no expectations in this odd way, no idea what might happen. I had no idea about Jim, or the woman who walked so slowly, or the man with one leg who haunted me, or the school boys, or the Scotsman.

I didn’t realize the length of some of the hills, how rainwater had rushed away the center of pathways, especially At almost every farm there were small on downward slopes. At times sheds on platforms with ornamental as we were climbing a hill, the Camino gently curved so stones, sometimes in the form of a that we were unable to see cross or a chapel steeple, which made how high we were or how far we had to go. The Camino the structures resemble small shrines. beckoned us onward, as if promising a level walkway just around the next turn: this grove of eucalyptus, that stand We entered the city of of pines. Many times just around the turn was another hill, Melide over an old stone bridge. I noted the sidewalks but then at the summit there would be a spectacular vista, with the brass scallop shells embedded in the pavement. where in the distance along a high ridge were windmills Again and again on the journey, I would wonder whether seeming to float in the middle of a caravan of clouds I had made the correct turn and there they would appear, composed of ice droplets and the colors of sunrise. beneath my feet, on the side of a building: the signature yellow arrows, the shells.

I kept thinking about the Syrians. I knew where I was going to be each day, yet what were their thoughts? Did I am always thankful to people who have imagined they count the days? Did they imagine the next stop, the beyond what is in front of them. I think of John Muir, next sleeping place, where they would get food? Had they or the designers of our national parks. I think of Benton heard about the sign in the center of Madrid? The story of MacKaye and the Appalachian Trail, Clinton Clarke and the Syrians slipped from us, but I wondered about them the Pacific Crest Trail: individuals, dreamers, who have constantly. Walking the Camino is not necessarily hard, envisioned and conceived of the world as a better place.

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The world needs dreamers, and every day I thought about the dreamers from Syria attempting to get to what they knew had to be a better place—but who, unlike me, didn’t have bright yellow arrows to guide them. Unlike me, they didn’t walk with the promise of a bed at night.

Unlike me, if anything happened to them, they might not be able to call home.

From Melide we walked to Azura, as the trail continued on with a series of switchback turns to the summit, and then a long walk into town.

The next day the trail started anew behind our hotel.

Before sunrise the shuffle of pilgrims on the sandy path could be heard along with the lowing of cattle, the barking of distant dogs, the roosters.

The longest day was our walk from Azura to Rua, more than six hours. A light rain fell all day, which made the downhills slick. My hiking boots had inserts that raised the arch in each foot. I was tired, we had been walking for more than four hours, and I somehow stumbled, twisting my left ankle and slamming my right foot against a rock.

I didn’t fall, but suddenly people surrounded me asking in a variety of languages if I was okay. I was, yet late that afternoon when I took off my hiking boots, I saw that I had injured my right big toe, dark blood behind the now-discolored nail. How this happened through the boot is a mystery.

riding a dark mahogany horse with a black mane and tail.

The rider hadn’t given us any warning; the only warning was the sound of the horse itself. For miles afterward we could see the horse’s embedded hoof prints in the soft damp ground.

Finally in Lavocalla, I began to think about the fact that we would finish the Camino the next day. At this point we had about a four-hour walk to Santiago. Many ancient pilgrims bathed in the streams and rivers surrounding the town. The best I could do was preserve a clean shirt to wear the next day.

We started off before dawn, as we wanted to arrive in Santiago before the noon pilgrims’ Mass. October 20 was a brilliant cloudless morning, the sun washing houses and hillsides in gold light. The slight wind was at our back, as if enticing us along. In San Marcos we stopped for a final Camino coffee. We could see Santiago off in the distance. Oz. Yet even from this vantage point it was still a solid two-hour walk, down another steep hill into the city’s outskirts, a series of steps, and then a bridge, the brass scallop shells buried in the sidewalks, as they had been in other cities and towns along the way. We didn’t see the steeples of the Cathedral of St. James until we walked for another 30 minutes, the wind urging us ever forward, and then we lost sight of the Cathedral again. Suddenly we arrived in the old town and headed up toward our destination. We entered the series of piazzas and winding alleyways, then down another series of steps, and we were there.

The last two hours of walking that day were the longest. Paul kept telling me that we were only a few kilometers away from our next destination, trying to keep my spirits up. I was I took a breath. If I had miserably slow, but we never picked up that movie kept on, finally arriving at on that rainy Friday, I would our hotel, which had a tiny not have been standing there refrigerator that allowed looking up at the Cathedral us to make ice for my foot. late on this Tuesday morning.

Pilgrims in the distance make their way towards Santiago.

That night we iced my nowswollen left ankle, soaked As we entered the the injured toe, applied bacitracin, and taped the nail.

Cathedral, people were being instructed to sing the No other lodging had had a fridge. A small Camino miracle? responses to the Mass, but the best I could do were the By the next morning, my feet were fine.

Amens. The church was packed. People were sitting everywhere, and priests sat in confessionals hearing in a Another long damp day followed with a thick drizzle, myriad of languages the recitations of sins. I sat down on as we wound our way toward Lavacolla. This would be our the base of a large pillar, my pack still on my back, and final night on the Camino. We walked past a waterfall that took it all in. No matter what happened on the remainder we could not see but could hear, when suddenly behind us of the trip, I just wanted to remember sitting there next to was the unmistakable sound of a galloping horse. There Paul and attempting to feel what we had just accomplished. are three acceptable ways of completing the Camino: by Late in the day we saw her: the old woman who moved foot, by bicycle, and by horseback. Suddenly, inches from so slowly. She was being embraced by a woman in her 20s us on the path was this man beneath a blue nylon poncho 54

A pilgrim’s hiking boot steps on a Camino marker.

who said, “Oh my gosh, I saw you on the trail and I was so worried for you. I prayed for you.” The old woman, not seeming to understand English, nodded, smiled, and kept walking, her sandaled feet barely lifting off the pavement as she shuffled towards the cathedral. Paul and I looked at each other, incredulous that she had made it.

Mr. Lonely Hearts was ahead of us on line at the Pilgrim Office, where pilgrims received their certificate of completing the walk. He had made it. I remember seeing him in Palas Rei, stumbling due to exhaustion, and then again the next day at a café outside of Sampaio, eating an orange.

We never saw the man with one leg again.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Paul and I reminisced about the trip after dinner. I had spent much of the afternoon working on this essay about our journey, and I wanted to know what his thoughts were about particular issues. We both wondered what had happened to Jim, our first meeting with anyone walking the Camino. We wondered if he had made it to Santiago, if he met up with his wife, if they continued on to Lourdes and then to Fatima, when I realized that I might still have his number in my phone. I did.

Jim asked us what the best thing was that happened to us on the Camino. I told him there wasn’t one instant that stood out among the hundreds of miraculous moments, but that as a whole it was the walk, the trip of a lifetime, for both of us.

As I write this in December 2015, the Syrian crisis is not solved, but countries are stepping up to allow for asylum. I suspect the horreos are full of feed, and that a thinning stream of pilgrims is winding its way into Santiago de Compestella, where today it is 46 degrees and the stone streets are wet from rain.

Paul Burlin

We called. Jim answered, and the three of us had a lovely conversation about his trip. He and his wife, Betty, did come together in Santiago, and they continued on to Lourdes and Fatima. Jim said that when he was in Santiago he was having dinner with friends and they noticed a man named Nigel who was sitting alone; they invited him to join them. When discussing the Camino, Nigel said, “You walk to clear your head, which allows your heart to open up, and then your heart launches your spirit.”

I remembered a line from the film: “You walk the Camino for yourself, and nothing else.” I agree. I certainly meant to try to see if I could find a better travel experience. However, I had had no idea that the Galician countryside was so beautiful, no idea that walking for four to five hours was something I would yearn for in the weeks to come. I missed the distant sound of barking dogs, because it meant I wasn’t alone. There were people out there along the Camino farming, milking, herding, serving coffees, raising families, collecting warm eggs, feeding livestock, stowing winter feed in the shrineshaped horreos.

Regina Robbins Flynn’s interests include the teaching of writing, especially creative non-fiction, travel writing, and poetry. Her work experience prior to Salem State University included public relations and business, and for eight years she was a member of the City Council in Salem. She coordinates the professional writing program in the English department.

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P O E T R Y

What Diamonds Can Do Claire Keyes Some write poetry on glass windows like Sophia Hawthorne at the Old Manse with her wedding ring. Common enough in the 19th century, but it was like finding a note in a bottle picked up on the beach. I felt a kind of awe.

Granted, Sophia was the wife of you know who and could commit what is, in essence, graffiti. With no repercussions.

And granted, she must have been godawful bored when he took off the morning after the snowstorm to visit Thoreau. And left her alone with the baby.

Alexandria Peary Sunset polka dots on a stick -64 different colors -101 different flavors after the airport, after the flight landed, customs, Immigration, stopping at Howard Johnsons later became Baskin Robbins, all that foliage, options on a stick.

But still, scratching on the window of a rented house in the room where his imagination played with dark things. So like him to face his desk to the wall. She stood looking out the window. Snowy fields, icy river.

Like giving names to coloring sticks (only in America). Picked up by brother-in-law who’s put on a suit opens the door of his Bel Air for her.

Was it really just being overwhelmed by the pretty view, the trees all glass chandeliers as she wrote? After coining the metaphor, she incised it with gusto.

Candy-striped sky served on an orange roof, a Scoop of BeBopRockRoll (though not the Beatles) in the booth and they feed her worms: thought that America had won the war.

And like most mothers she had to brag about her kid, Una, only ten months old, and named for Spenser’s Fairie Queene heroine.

Did posterity really have to know she stood on the window sill?

15 years later, a different uncle (this first brother-in-law dead) leans over will tell her child, a candy-striper, if you can name all the colors in the Crayon box you can go to college for free. She gets right to it, umber, lime yellow, burntsienna, forest green.

So we record the minutia of our lives, gambling that significance rests in our homely dramas. Thus Sophia got down on her knees, diamond in hand, proud mother, yes, but incidental not at all, a someone who signed her name with a flourish.

This poem was reprinted with permission from What Diamonds Can Do, published in 2015 by Cherry Grove Collections, an imprint of WordTech Communications.

Sunset fizzing

27. Orange restaurant roof

42. She left with a hat box

64. In a power blue that drives off.

The founder of Howard Johnson’s was quoted as saying, “I thought I had every flavor in the world” with those 28.

Claire Keyes is professor emerita at Salem State University, where she taught English for 30 years. Currently, she teaches for the Salem State Explorers, a lifelong learning program. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Literary

Bohemian, Sugar Mule, Crab Orchard Review, and Persimmon Tree, among

other publications. In 2015, Garrison Keillor chose two of her poems for The Writer’s Almanac on NPR.

Alexandria Peary’s four books include Control Bird Alt Delete and Creative

Michael Miller

Photo courtesy of Claire Keyes

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To Karin Rhodes, Whose Mother Upon Coming to America Was Also Served Fried Clams

Writing Pedagogies for the TwentyFirst Century. Her poetry and essays have recently appeared in the New England Review, Denver Quarterly, New American Writing, North American Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly. She is an associate professor

in the English department at Salem State University.

I N C L O S I N G

Entranced (Autumn 2015) Oil on canvas 12" x 24"

O

ne of the pleasures of moving back to the East Coast after 10 years out West was my renewed appreciation for the magic of autumn. Several times during my walk between the Salem State campus and my Salem home, I was awestruck by the intense colors that the trees displayed. On occasion the colors were so spectacular that I stood under a tree, entranced, for several minutes.

This piece combines that ephemeral, ethereal state I felt with details of a particular tree that stands in front of my home.

The tree’s branches stretch across the wall of windows in my living room, so I have been able to watch it change through the seasons.

This is the second of a series of three paintings of this tree.

It has elements of the more impressionist piece I painted first and the complete abstract of the scene that I painted last. However, to paraphrase Goldilocks and the Three Bears, this painting feels “just right.”

Dennis Sanchez Rosemartin began teaching in the School of Education at Salem State University in fall 2015. He received his Ph.D. in teaching and teacher education from the University of Arizona and has a M.A. in bilingual and bicultural education from Teachers College at Columbia University.

He is a former elementary school teacher and a returned Peace Corps volunteer.

Photo by Lorri Krebs. Photoshopped by art + design major Hannah O’Leary ’18

Sextant: The Journal of Salem State University CC130 | 352 Lafayet te Street Salem, Massachuset ts 01970 -5353

Salem State University Geography Professor Lorri Krebs visited Churchill, Manitoba, the “polar bear capital of the world,” in November 2015.

Read about her journey starting on page 2.