Of Authors Known and Unknown

Among my favorite parts of long airplane trips, if there can be favorite parts, is disappearing into a just long enough, just writerly enough, just engaging enough book. By this I don't mean a worthy book or a deep book. No...I mean science fiction, sword and sorcery, or romantic novels. It makes time fly and even makes the middle seat in a crowded plane almost bearable. That's because I get lost in those kind of books. I read obsessively and barely notice my surroundings. It beats sleeping pills and usually beats the movie by a mile.

On my last three plane trips, I gave myself up to three of Philippa Gregory's novels about the wives of Henry VIII. I started with The Other Boleyn Girl, followed that with The Boleyn Inheritance, and concluded my latest travels with The Constant Princess. That covers Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and Kathryn Howard. Jane Seymour gets short shrift at the end of The Other Boleyn Girl while Katherine Parr had yet to make an appearance by the end of The Boleyn Inheritance.

Ms. Gregory is no slouch. She has her doctorate in 18th century literature; her novel on the slave trade, A Respectable Trade, was adapted into an acclaimed four part BBC television series. Miramax bought the film rights to the Other Boleyn Girl, which was a bestseller in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, the movie is due to be released in February. As one of my long ago favorite movie critics, Joe Bob Briggs, would say, "Check it out!"

Less well known than Philippa Gregory, is my former colleague, Kim Keltner. She was first the receptionist and then the office manager at Mother Jones during about half of my time there. Kim was known for an arch style and a biting wit, but I don't think anyone was aware that she was an aspiring writer. Long after she left MJ, Kim's first book, The Dim Sum of All Things, was published. Harper Collins is just about to release Kim's third book, I Want Candy.

The pre-release promotion has this to say about Kim and the new book:

"Wong Keltner is unabashedly sassy and biting... the result is both refreshing and smart." –Publishers Weekly

Candace Ong is fourteen and sick of being "a fat, fucking dork." She'd rather be the girl on the cover of Candy-O, her favorite album by the Cars. She'd rather be her best friend Ruby, who has perfect boobs and has already "Done It." She'd rather be anyone than "the eggroll girl," frying crab Rangoon and eggrolls at her parents' restaurant.

A coming-of-age novel that's honest about the lives of teenagers, I Want Candy reads like an updated Judy Blume with a dash of Amy Tan. Bestselling author Kim Wong Keltner (The Dim Sum of All Things, Avon 2004) treats Candace's first, awkward sexual fumblings frankly and with laugh-out-loud humor. Her prose crackles like the Pop Rocks her heroine munches, and like Candace, we savor the sweet explosions.

Stuck toiling away at the fryers of the Eggroll Wonderland after school and aimlessly wandering the streets of San Francisco, Candace hoards every penny and steals what she can. She keeps it all under her bed in a pink, plastic Barbie Corvette that she dreams of trading in for a real vintage red Mustang that she can drive into the desert.

Between Ruby, who's been ditching her lately to hang out with boys, her mother, who’s “constantly extolling the virtues of perfectly fried eggrolls and an intact hymen,” and a seemingly-endless parade of street sleazies trying to get in her pants, Candace has to watch her back. Rock-and-roll reinvention seems as far away as David Bowie's Major Tom.

But when a tragic accident turns Candace's world upside down, she decides it’s finally time to change from Candace Ong to sexy Candy-O: a hip, sweet-talking bohemian whose colorful arsenal of cusswords and encyclopedic grasp of Bowie lyrics may be the key to the new Candace.

At turns honest and tender, Kim Wong Keltner writes with enough wit to smack the reader right back to the injustice of the eighth grade. Astutely capturing the paralysis that parents, bullies, and a foreboding adult world can have on the quest to find oneself, Keltner may be writing about the Chinese-American experience, but her themes appeal to anyone who’s ever wanted to be somebody else.

About the author:

In the fourth grade, KIM WONG KELTNER won a cutthroat spelling bee, which encouraged her aspirations as a writer. Over the years, she honed her ear for dialogue while listening to elderly Chinese ladies dish dirt over endless games of mahjong. Kim and her husband make their home in San Francisco’s Sunset District, where all the other Chinese people live.

The Diversity Chronicles

Almost the minute I got to Mills College, I was appointed Co-Chair of the Faculty and Staff Diversity Committee. I'd like to say this was a tribute to me or that it was founded on a thoughtful matching of my background and experience to the needs of the Committee. It wasn't. Rather, it was an expedient decision based on the fact that I oversaw the Human Resources function and had come from PolicyLink, an organization dedicated to social and economic justice. That appointment, as well as my friendship with David Gin, the head of financial aid, led to 5 senior staff leaders sponsoring a workshop on diversity during spring break. About 65 staff attended the all day session called Undoing Racism.

What was interesting about the workshop was how many issues came up in the small discussion groups. Some of them were touching in their simplicity. Those were things things like "Why can't we have Christmas trees on campus?" Others were disturbing because they so clearly mirrored the state of our country today. Those were things like a white staff member exclaiming in shock and dismay, "I had no idea that there was racism on the campus until a few months ago!"

One of the recommendations that came out of the workshop was to use technology to continue the discussion. As my small contribution to that effort, I set up a blog and invited staff to participate. Since it was my invention, the blog ceased to exist when I left Mills.

It was a modestly successful experience--a few staff members were brave enough to post comments, a few told me privately that they really appreciated my courage and leadership. One or two told me they had absolutely no interest in the subject. Mostly, though, timidity carried the day. For better or worse, an overtone of fear dominates the work life of Mills staff.

At the time, I was the Assistant Vice President for Finance and Human Resources--which meant I had to steer a middle course between my own opinions and what was appropriate for a senior staff member in a punitive administration. That in itself was an interesting proposition: How to say something meaningful without losing my job? Below, you will find my postings. I'd love to have your opinions and thoughts about any of them!


WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2007: A SAFE PLACE?

One thing that stood out in the survey we just did to evaluate the Undoing Racism sessions was the deep desire for a safe space in which to discuss emotionally charged subjects in a way that was both respectful and honest. While many thought the sessions were a good start, most felt they were limited in their ability to create a truly safe space.

Among the issues cited were the mixture of supervisors and supervisees in the sessions and the chilling nature of being one of the relatively few people of color in a group. For some, the nature of the facilitator's agenda was unwelcome.

What I am not sure about is this: How do we create the safe space that so many people are seeking?

One idea, presented to me by the Staff Advisory Committee (SAC), was that we start a group for Staff of Color. The goal articulated for the group was to create a place for staff of color to be supported, to be mentored and to build bonds.

Being newer to the campus, I'm not exactly sure why SAC or HR are the ones who should start the group. I don't really understand why it is beneficial to such a group to be started by HR or SAC and how "starting a group" is done .

My questions are:
--Would whichever entity took the lead put out invitations?
--Would the inviting entity set agendas, facilitate meetings?
--At what point would the generating entity (HR or SAC) be expected to retire--after setting up one meeting, after setting up a few?
--Would a group started by a department of the College (HR) or a committee that advises the President (SAC) be considered genuine?
--What sort of support should or could HR or SAC give the group?
--What would be considered success--a group that continues to meet independently, a group that has a certain number of consistently attending members, a group that is able to move the College towards specific policies?

Anyone have any ideas that would help answer these questions?

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2007: JEWISH SCIENTIST,GERMAN SCIENCE

The Good German is a play written in 2003 by David Wilts and recently staged by the Marin Theatre Company. It has nothing to do with the movie of the same name, but it has everything to do with the question of racism.

Parts of the play strain credulity, some of the play is too talky. But, overall, I came away with a new insight and a new understanding of how a group is assigned its "defining characteristics" and how no matter what evidence there is to the contrary, those assignments remain unshaken in the minds of the people who have assigned them.

Because it takes place in Nazi Germany and explores a subject we have all accepted as a racist nightmare, the play allows its audience to consider and react to the larger questions involved in assumed superiority and assigned inferiority.

Memorable moments like, "Sure, Einstein was a Jew, but the science he did was German!" built inescapable links for me to Joe Biden's distasteful comment about Barak Obama, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy...” The fact that one is placed into the mouth of a World War II scientist and the other fell out of the mouth of a twenty-first century politician makes the parallel all the more disquieting.

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2007: OF EQUITY AND EQUALITY

Before I came to Mills, I worked for a research and action institute called PolicyLink.

PolicyLink uses the term "equitable development" to describe the work it does. Because I spent four and a half years working there, I've been thinking about the difference between equality and equity for a long time--well before Daniel brought it up in our recent diversity sessions.

To me, equality is about numbers more than fairness. Equity is about investment, ownership, and the power to influence, shape and direct.

When you have equity in a house, you own part of the house. My husband and I always joke that we own the laundry room while the bank owns everything else. Regardless of how true that is, what our little bit of equity means is that we affect change in the house--we make the decisions, the choices, and we set the priorities. When we were renting, the landlord did all of that.

So...as I think about the continuum of diversity, multiculturalism, and social justice, I also think about the continuum of homogeneity, equality, and equity.

As an accountant, I believe in numbers--fact is, to me, she who has the numbers has the power to move the mountain.

But numbers--the basis of equality--are only a first step. Without that first step, the second step--equity, the capacity to participate in shaping an enterprise--is impossible.

What do equity and equality mean to you?

SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2007: EVEN WHEN WE'RE TRYING

In 1970, when the ethnic studies movement was brand new, I had an African History professor who said, "Unless you study the language of the people, you'll never understand either their culture or their history." I took him seriously and, when I chose East Asian Studies as my major, I also chose Mandarin Chinese as my foreign language.

I was reminded of his wisdom again this week. After a frustrating series of discussions, we brought in an outside translator to help us talk with an injured employee about successfully returning to work. Having a third party translator to help us made all the difference.

What we were able to accomplish with the translator was exactly what we had not been able to accomplish in all the discussions that went before. As it turned out, the issue wasn't really understanding what was said. Rather, the issue was understanding what was being left unsaid.

What the employee wasn't saying had everything to do with how s/he understood the plan. Knowing how the employee understood what we were saying made it possible for us to explain the things that seemed unworkable. Time will tell, but I think the employee no longer sees the plan as a recipe for failure.

As I think this over, I find myself wondering how we all--from first time job-holders to college officers--discover what it is we assume must be left unsaid and how we begin to say those things so that others can respond to them.

What do you think?

TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 2007: BLUE EYES, BROWN EYES

The day after Martin Luther King was murdered, Jane Elliot walked in to her third grade classroom in Riceville, Iowa and asked the children to spend two days doing an exercise. She divided the class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. Then, she showered one group with privileges while the other was held back. The next day, she switched them.

Her experiment--and those that followed it--was the subject of several award-winning documentaries. I borrowed one of those documentaries, A Class Divided, from the Berkeley Library over the weekend.

After watching this old Front Line show, I got to thinking about how often I've heard people say something like this, "It's not up to me to teach you about diversity and racism, it's up to you to teach yourself." The blue eyes versus brown eyes exercise is a pretty good example of how to do just that.

That got me to wondering: Would people be interested in having a 5 o'clock screening of Jane's newest video, The Stolen Eye, one afternoon?

Maybe her most moving film, The Stolen Eye follows Jane as she conducts her world famous Blue-Eyes/ Brown-Eyes Exercise in discrimination in Australia with a group of Whites and Aborigines. For more information on Jane and her documentaries, go to Wikipedia and search for Jane Elliott+Riceville.

FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2007: MUSING ON THE FORUM

Did you attend the Student - Administration forum this afternoon? If you did, I hope you'll share some of your thoughts.

Three things from the meeting are on my mind. The first is the issue of how Mills attends to its parenting population. I'll talk about that here and cover the other things--voice and retention--in separate posts.

A recent article in Employee Benefit News says: parents' concerns about what their kids are doing after school create significant levels of stress and lost productivity, costing employers between $50 billion and $300 billion annually in lost time. It goes on to say: Employees let silence and stereotypes deny them a balance. About 45% of surveyed employees think flexible work arrangements would mean a pay cut, while 32% think their boss would say no, and 32% feel it really isn't okay, even with company programs. Another 29% say co-workers would think they didn't work hard, and 28% feel it could cause them be fired.

That statistic about co-workers'opinions stopped me in my tracks. How do I, an older woman with no children, react to working with a number of people who are raising families? We juggle schedules for field trips, team sports, sick children, and family vacations in the midst of our busiest season. It's hard on all of us--either you're the one running out the door or you're the one picking up the thing that your colleague had to leave undone. Regardless of which one you are, you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

How do we support both parents and non-parents? Tax firm RSM McGladrey tries it this way: They ask their employees to identify a personal life goal at the start of each year along with their work goals--and then they expect a report on both at the end of the year. I did that at my last job. My personal goal was to go home for dinner three times a week. I didn't succeed, but I can not tell you how affirming it was to have my supervisors write in their evaluation of me, "We support Joan in going home for dinner three times a week."

Would you be willing to articulate a personal goal and then report on it as a part of your evaluation? How much would you be willing to stretch to support your colleagues in reaching for their personal goals? And, if you supervise others: Would you be willing to support the personal goals of your direct reports?

FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2007: THE CRESCENT, THE CROSS, THE STAR OF DAVID

One of the most surprising things that came out of the March 22nd diversity session was the fact that holiday celebrations were prominently featured in all 3 of our small group reports.

What was curious to me was how deeply members of all the break-out groups that day seemed to feel about the importance of celebrating all holidays--Ramadan, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa AND Christmas. What the Christmas proponents wanted was to see Christmas trees on campus again--not to the exclusion of other decorations, but simply as one of the decorations we use at a festive time of year.

That impulse towards inclusiveness made me think about the way Seattle handled a request to include a menorah in its holiday display last December (Seattle Times, December 10-12, 2006) . "I felt we'd also have to put up Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish symbols. Where does it stop?" asked Port of Seattle Commissioner John Creighton.

Depending on whether I'm being my private self, an individual with eclectic taste, or my public self, a non-profit administrator, I react to Mr. Creighton's remark two different ways.

My private self says, "What's the problem with including all the symbols? So many traditions celebrate the waning of the year with symbols of light and life...it's breathtaking. My administrative self says, "How will we make certain that we have included everyone?"

That leads me to ask each of you my question of the day: In a California that prints its ballots in as many as 7 different languages, is "Happy Holidays" the only solution or is there a richer, more expansive, more inclusive alternative?


WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2007: THINKING BEFORE SPEAKING

I woke up this morning to the closing chorus of Amazing Grace sung in Korean. Far more lovely than the usual sounds of NPR, it was coming from Los Angeles, the home of the largest Korean and Korean-American community in the nation. Yesterday, the leaders of that community organized a prayer vigil for the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting rampage. The sound clip I heard as I woke up was audio tape of that vigil.

Shortly after the singing faded, there was an interview with a member of Radio Korea, KYPA. What he said reminded me of how much the choice of language for a headline or a news story frames our reactions to traumatic events. "South Korean Cho Seung-Hui,” he said. "Why does the headline have to say South Korean? It could just say his name and maybe a couple of paragraphs later say he was South Korean. Why is the fact that he's South Korean so important that it's the lead?"

As I mulled this over, I remembered a series of bus shelter billboards I saw a couple of years ago. They might have been put up by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project. The billboards showed a sentence that said, "That Puerto Rican guy is really level-headed." The words Puerto Rican were then crossed out and the sentence was re-written "That guy is really level-headed." The point, of course, was that the descriptor Puerto Rican was unnecessary and had nothing to do with whether or not the man was level-headed.

I can't help but wince as I recall how often I've been guilty of that same mistake. Maybe the one small thing I can do today to end such careless slips is spend a little time working through the Writing for Change activities on Tolerance.org

MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2007: VOX POPULI

The Community Forum on April 20th contained some penetrating insights as well as some examples of missing the mark. In my opinion, one of our misses was on the subject of participating in hiring decisions.

Like many organizations, Mills uses the committee approach for hiring. That makes sense. If you get all of the stakeholders together, let them interact with the candidates, and then gather their feedback before making the hiring decision, you have as close to a 360 degree perspective as possible.

The last two searches in which I participated had layers of committees--some saw all the candidates, some saw only the finalists. Neither had fewer than 10 staff people involved.

Each member of the committee had her/his own opinion. Each felt strongly about the candidates. Each provided valuable insights. In the end, however, the decision was made by the hiring manager. In my opinion, that is as it should be. S/he knows far more about what it takes to do the whole job than I do. My perspective is limited to the one or two parts of the job that are important to me. Listening to the opinions of others always reminds me of that.

What does it mean to participate in a hire, to be heard? To me, it means meeting with a pool of candidates, forming opinions, expressing them to the final decision maker(s), and knowing they have been considered.

It's always hard to remember that the measure of being heard isn't whether or not a particular candidate gets the job. It's how much one was included and how much one participated. Sometimes I confuse the fact that "my" candidate wasn't chosen with not being heard. The more actively I participate, the easier it is for me to remember the difference.

If you were a hiring manager and you made a decision different from what some members of the hiring committee wanted, how would you assure those individuals that you heard them?

SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2007: COMMENCEMENT, 2007

This was my first Mills Commencement. Through most of the speeches, I was sitting on a bench, behind the crowd, near the trees. That gave me a chance to watch the friends and families of the graduates and take in the whole scene. For most of the degree presentations, I was sitting in the middle of the sea of chairs, focusing on each of the graduates as--one by one--they received their hoods.

What struck me most throughout the ceremony was the diversity of the crowd and the graduates. Not perfect, of course, but so vastly improved since my own graduation 33 years ago, that I couldn't help but be struck by the difference. There is still so much work to do, so many inequities, so much improvement needed...and yet, just for these few hours, I could be proud.

Women crossing the stage with their babies and their children; boyfriends and brothers in baggy pants lounging under the trees and making plans, via cell phone, to have friends join the celebrations; tears in the Senior Speech at the mention of Native ancestors denied an education; graduates processing out of the ceremony in motorized transports; interracial children sitting on the shoulders of the parent of one race while clapping wildly as the parent of the other race shook the President's hand...it made me think of this line from Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech, " I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

We're not there yet, not by a long shot, but between 10 a.m. and noon on May 12, 2007, sitting in the sun on Toyon Meadow, I felt as if we might actually have a chance to make Doctor King's 1963 dream into a twenty-first century reality

Auld Lang Syne

When Deborah said she didn’t like getting old, I used a time-worn joke for my response. “It beats being dead,” I said. As far as it goes, that’s true. But, I do agree with Deborah, I don’t like getting old either.

Having my knee hesitate before supporting my step, finding that all I have to do is look at food in order to gain weight, feeling my thumbs protest when I buff out the silver polish on the butter dish…none of that is fun. Much of it is made worse by the fact that I’ve been blessed with nearly perfect health all my life. Suddenly I find myself taking prescription medication daily. When did that happen?

But it isn’t all down side. As much as I am dismayed to see a stout, grey-haired woman looking back at me from the other side of the mirror, I am measurably happier, definitively more confident, and vastly more grounded than ever I was in my teens, twenties, and even in my thirties.

A large part of that has to do with being happy in my marriage. What was once a tempestuous, white-hot love affair has aged over the years into the mainstay of my life. I still smile uncontrollably when I catch sight of Bob in a crowd and I still count the hours until he’s scheduled to come back from a weekend diving adventure. Like the dog, I know the sound of his van, and I begin to listen for it by mid-afternoon on the day he is expected to return.

But as much as I attribute my fifty-something equanimity to a happy marriage, that’s only part of the story. The other part is the years of challenges accepted, lessons learned, and failures understood. In short, it’s the advantage of living fifty-six years, one day at a time.

I often think that I would have liked to have become more than I am. But to this day, I don’t know what that more would have been. Looking back on what I’ve done, I find I’m satisfied. Many of you have heard me say that I would have preferred to be a lawyer or a writer. But not having done either, I can’t be sure that I really would prefer those lives to this one. For the most part, I’m proud of what I’ve done.

My accomplishments are small things, to be sure. There is the Mexican poet who was released from the twilight zone because I would not give up on setting his immigration records straight. There is the daredevil architect who is walking without help today because I stormed the gates of Kaiser for him after his motorcycle accident twelve years ago. There is the Cohousing community that went from three residents to five and thereby became viable the night I put my deposit down. In the grand scheme, these are only small things, but they made a big difference in a few people’s lives.

Well beyond the things I’ve done, what mitigates the difficulties of getting old is how my appreciation for the world increases each year. That appreciation simply did not exist in the tormented, self-absorbed consciousness of my youth.

I don’t remember ever being so struck by the beauty of things as I am now. Even the plainest of teenagers takes my breath away. I find his or her freshness to be positively heartbreaking. This afternoon, while putting out the compost, I was transfixed by the shadows of branches and leaves on the wall. I don’t know if I would have even noticed them thirty years ago. Traffic rules seem like a miracle to me. Why, in a day and age when everything seems to be breaking down, do people still stop at traffic lights? Why do they still merge on to the freeway in an orderly fashion? The dependability of both behaviors is ineffable. Even my nemesis, the blue jay that steals the peanuts I put out for the squirrel, strikes me as profoundly brave when I see that he’s nursing a hurt foot.

Sometimes when I cannot thread a sewing needle, I hear my grandmother’s voice echoing across the years, “Thread this for me, will you, Pet? Your eyes are younger than mine.” I remember how easy it was for me to take the needle from her, lick the thread and carelessly push it through the needle’s eye. I had no idea then of what a gift it was to be able to do that. I simply could not imagine that the day would ever come when it would take me three or four passes to do something as simple as thread a needle.

I wonder, as I remember how my grandmother would laugh at my quickness, if the careless beauty of my long ago youth gave her half as much pleasure as that of others gives me today. As I wonder, I find that I long to have that sparkling youth back again. But I want it back without having to forsake the appreciation I have for it now. Nana would say, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too, Joan Catherine." Yet, that is exactly what I want--the cake of youth and the ability to taste it with the refined palate of age.