Mamita Mala :One Bad Mami blog

In about two weeks la familia Mala (minus poroto) will head to Detroit for the Women’s Media Equity Summit and the Allied Media Conference.

After having attended the Reform Immigration for America Summit with poroto, it became really clear that just having travel money isn’t enough, especially with children. Sales of the SPEAK! cd and a scholarship from the WEC help make the trip possible pero there are table to buy so that we can share our work with you, housing, food, ground transportation.

So please consider making a small gift to one of these amazing mujer media makers (yes, myself included). As independent media makers rooted in activism, justice and amor, much of what we do isn’t compensated so gracias. It is because of you that we are all able to do what we do.

And ps: The AMC is beginning to feel like a spiritual pilgrimage for me, an opportunity to reconnect in the flesh with hermanas whom I love and respect fiercely. Just thinking about seeing Little Light, Cripchick , Fabi, Noemi, BFP, BA, Nadia, Elle, Kameelah, Adele , and Lex makes me get all teary. And the opportunity to share that experience with la Mapu makes me want to weep tears of joy. Ask Adele, the whole way to the airport after last year’s AMC I wept and made her ass weep. ja ja, Nothing like two Ricans overwhelmed by love.

Help us again…thank you

We need to get there.
We have fundraised, asked for grants, compromised, felt energized, asked for days off, gotten free airline tickets, borrowed time, overcharged credit cards and emailed/talked/made plans with friends and strangers across the lines.
And still call us shameless, we ask for more. Y porque no?

please consider donating to these fine, chingona mujeres

Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz, raising chingona mujeres. Sending single mami love
laMamitaMala.com
mamitamala@yahoo.com

Elle, southern sistorian, who I shall meet one day even if we live closer than other folks. Oh we shall share a beer very very soon http://elleabd.blogspot.com
mselleg@aol.com

blackamazon Sydette otherwise known as the bad ass who I love
http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com
Sydette@gmail.com

Fabiola, fabmexicana who guest blogs here, leaving pedacitos de su corazon. Otra mami soltera de Cali
fabmexicana@gmail.com

Noemi Martinez
spiller of dreams-single mami
hermanaresist.com
csdistro@gmail.com

ms. cripchick
a powerchair-roaring queer radical woman of color
cripchick’s weblog
stacey.milbern@gmail.com

Many of us will be taking part in the Women’s Media Equity
Summit on July 16th.
At the AMC, we’ll be involved in several different caucuses, meetings and generally raising
a ruckus wherever you may find us. And OUR KIDS WILL BE CAUSING ALL SORTS OF MAYHEM AT THE KIDS TRACK AND IN GENERAL. It will be a sight to see. Things will happen. We will write/blog about it.

es una de las primera lecciones
como borrar
sin dejar una mancha
sin dejar señal del error
finjir como si el tropiezo nunca occurio
pero donde esta el aprendizaje en el acto de erradicar los mal pasos
donde esta la parabola
la moraleja del cuento
si el libro se queda cerrado
sin enfrentar la realidad
y renunciar la verdad?
Porque alli se queda
imperceptible al ojo desnudo
la tintura del beso
en el dobladillo de mi falda

Really, that’s the only word for me now

En serio, que parte te regalo?
Seriously, which piece should I give to you?
Que pedazo de mi carne y su historia te vendo?
What part of my flesh and it’s history can I sell to you?
Cuanto me das por una libra de lagrimas?
How much can I get for a pound of tears?
Cuanto me das por cada cuenta de rosario con nombre de un muerto
Manny
Anibal
Anthony
Hilton
Frankie
Luis
Marcelo
brisenia
How much will you give me for each rosary bead named for the dead?
Is there a list building app for that?
Cuanto me das por las horas de miedo por mis hijas menos blanca que yo?
How much will you give me for the hours of fear for my daughters less white than me?
Seriously, what’s the going per hour rate for that shit?
And do I get some sort of credit for the threats, bruises, and tape
is there an employee incentive program for the healthcare that I cannot get
that I am told that I don’t deserve
como se traduce que mi vida como madre y mujer
no vale fucking nada?
What the fuck do I need to put on my resume?
Who the fuck do I need to pay to bring me over that border
when I’m told that my border ain’t real
cuz one mañana abuela woke up to work the fields
step over her drunk father
as an American Citizen.
How much tit or pussy do I have to fucking flash to make it any clearer that the dollar I earned doing just that is worth any fucking less than yours because it ain’t backed by a degree or sponsored by an organization
cuz it ain’t got a book deal.

I do not get to clock out of this shit,
ever
or write it off on my taxes
as a business expense.

En mothafucking serio
tell me to my cara
mujer a mujer
que los 16 años
that have included the oh so valued
television, radio, newspaper appearances
speaking in front of the UN, congress and las divinas called del south bronx
que this lucha isn’t about who the fuck I am
isn’t about my identity?

LLC

Everyone should read and reflect upon Cripchick’s post on accessibility and what that means for the various communities we are a part of.

Here’s a pedacito:

Accessibility is:
# childcare

do you have childcare so parents can come? will kids be safe and have programming so parents don’t have to worry about them?

# sliding pay scales

do you have different payment options? if people can’t afford your event, can they volunteer their time or services instead?

# different ways of getting information out

how do people hear about your events? is it just email and facebook or do you use mailings and phone trees too?

# gender-neutral bathrooms

with a long history of trans and genderqueer people being harrassed and in danger when they go into bathrooms, do you have bathrooms where gender does not matter? a lot of times gender-neutral bathrooms are single-room bathrooms where disabled people can also go in with their personal attendants or parents can take their kids. this is helpful for everyone.

# food options

do you ask about people’s allergies or if they need vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, etc?

# wheelchair and other mobility-related access

is Point A far from Point B for folks that walk? what physical barriers are there?, if you’re going to close meeting room doors, are they heavy?, are there chairs for people? are the chairs wide enough that everyone can be comfortable? it’s cool to be creative about making things work but know that if basic access requires a lot of energy, people may not come.

She’s asking for peeps to being their own ideas to the blogmesa as well.

I’m plugging away in my other more “worky” spaces and obligations while building up the courage to walk down the calle to pawn something to I can buy pull ups.

I’ll be in DC Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the Reform Immigration for America Summit so if there are any DC peeps who would like to try and meet up let a Mala know.

I’m also looking for some childcare help as I’ll have poroto with me.

I love my hijas and not for nothing, despite what some may think of the choices I have made and continue to make, la Mapu and poroto are pretty kick ass and I’d like to think I had a little something to do with it. Pero Single Mami’hood 2.0 has been exhausting and the one thing that has frustrated me, isn’t that I feel like I have to do soooo much alone, pero rather that in the case of poroto, she has a father who is here and who can take an active role in her life. La Mapu has never really had a father around. Her papi is in Chile which has made visitation and co-parenting a non-issue. Pero Poroto has her father a few subway stops away.

Now don’t get me wrong, el Chileno is a good father, and I’ll admit that I’m still resentful that he insisted on going through the court, on the day my abuela passed no less, for child support as a way to punish me for my infidelities. And to this day I am getting split payments meaning I never get the full amount when I am supposed to, instead I get money in pedacitos which is killing my broke ass. Now in hindsight, I am regretting, not establishing through the court some sort of visitation decree.

I am not a fan of courts or the (in)justice system. And the last thing I want to do is drag a Latino man through a system that is stacked against him, me, and families like mine. And the idea is not to limit his access to our daughter pero rather to establish some regularity. As it stands now, he can see Poroto when he pleases. De facto this has meant that he usually picks her up after work on Thursday evenings and sees her on both Saturday and Sundays.

This time is sacred to me for a number of reasons. One, it gives me some alone time with la Mapu. We do homework, go to her favorite spots to eat, watch movies and chill without my attention having to be split. For so many years it was just la Mapu and me and it’s nice, especially for her to have that. Two, it gives me some time for myself. Since I work from home, it’s a treat to be able to sit and research a blog post without being interrupted every 10 minutes, work on poetry which requires my undivided attention, flirt, have a glass of wine, chat with amigas, do laundry without having to pry a toddler away from the machines that sell virgin mary rings for 50 cents.
Never mind that I rarely get a night out, to chill with friends, have a date, go dancing, perform poetry. This requires special negotiations since el Chileno doesn’t take Poroto overnight, ever.

La cosa is that when el Chileno does come, it’s never at a specific time. Usually on the weekends it’s before noon but sometimes it’s way afternoon and with little or no notice, so I can’t ever make plans ahead of time. Like yesterday he came at 4 pm. He had obviously gone out the night before and was hungover and I’d hate to admit it, pero I was a little jealous. Ay the privilege of the non-custodial parent, the Latino male, all of it. So I asked him if maybe we could create a little more solid schedule of pick up times. He looked at me like I was crazy. He explained how now that it was nearly summer he’d be keeping her for longer anyway, essentially telling me to chill. When I mentioned a business trip to DC, he said good luck with that, as in, I’m not helping your ass.

Now this is something that irked the fuck out of me when we were together too. He assumed and still does, that since I work from home, it’s not really work. Like it’s easy maintaining a Latino website that’s considered pretty damn important while wiping asses, potty training, coloring, singing the abc’s, cooking, not to mention the immigration stuff I’m working on building, the rwoc stuff, and poetry. Throw in tutoring for extra money, and I’m still broke, still can’t go to conferences since the majority of them have no childcare and even without the path I have chosen, there is no way in hell I can even afford a sitter to go for an interview for a “real” job like my mom thinks I should just suck up and do (that’s a whole separate post).

So what’s a mami to do? What do other mamis do. Do I insist on a schedule? Do I just give up and act like he’s useless and do whatever I need to do to do what I need to do?

I’m pretty damn frustrated right now.

PS : I ain’t too proud to beg…as always I accept donations, including money (you can paypal me) and babysitting!!!

I had so much fun at the first Hispanic Panic and the event was such a success that it’s happening again. I hope that those in the NYC area can come through and support the amazing work of Latino writers/artists.

NOWHERE and Charlie Vázquez present: HISPANIC PANIC!

An evening with six Latino LGBT/feminist writers, poets and activists.
Wednesday, May 27th 2009 , 8PM sharp, 21+, Free

New York City’s only ongoing monthly queer reading series gets frisky in May, with HISPANIC PANIC! Host Charlie Vázquez has gathered a brazen roster of Latino/a literary talent, and with an LGBT/feminist slant that is sure to shock and reveal. Join him and literary ninjas Karen Jaime, Charles Rice-González, Cristina Izaguirre, Maegan ‘La Mamita Mala’ Ortiz and special guest, scholar and writer Larry La Fountain, who will be joining us from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to promote his new book Blue Fingernails. These six writers will be presenting writing chronicling the politics and desire of contemporary New York City queerness and much, much more.

NOWHERE is located at 322 E 14h St (btwn 1st/2nd Aves)

If I had written this post last night, when I wanted to, when I was crying with frustration and disgust, it might have read a little differently.

I admit the last few days have been hard enough. I’m PMS’ing, my heart had a momentary lapse and my mother basically told me that I needed to get a real job so I could send la Mapu to a Catholic school, instead of working my ass off out of love writing for VivirLatino, doing important movement building work with SPEAK! and The Sanctuary, poetry, radical tutoring, and mami’ing my hijas the best I can. Apparently that’s not real enough. It certainly isn’t paying me in real enough money to keep up with rent (which I’m still $250 short on) and feeding my kids. Pero it is real enough for national organizations to court me as long as I don’t ask too many questions and it’s real enough for me to be on the radio. Pero it’s not real enough for people who said they would come to a listening party to support something that means alot to me and other hermanas that I love. It’s not real enough for them to visualize my carrying a stroller with a 30 poundish toddler up and down subway stairs, walking miles not for exercise pero so that I don’t have to buy subway fare and can afford milk, walking to change a bag of pennies, thinking of pawning some earrings. It’s real enough for me to go talk to young people about identity, media, gender and race, pero it’s not real enough for people to think it’s important to support what we do beyond a cursory pat on the head for a job well done little spic girl who we can’t even be bothered to name. I have been invited to two national conferences this summer, pero there is no money to get me there and of course the orgs who want my face, my race and my gender can’t be bothered to actually spend money. They will find another woman of color, mami of color, Latino blogger to take my place, one who they deem more worthy because they can pay their own way or because they play the game well, etc etc.

And I know that I and mujeres whom I love something fierce will be told, as usual, to put on our big girl panties, that we are ungrateful, and jealous and under all that the message is that we are not worthy of their money, that we don’t deserve to go to writing workshops or media conferences because I guess well we are not real writers or media makers. And I’m thinking really specifically about the message that was sent to my 11 year old hija who was with me last night, waiting for people. What message did she receive about being a Puerto Rican woman who follows her corazon.

Pero tonite there will be a reading somewhere else, a conversation somewhere else and everyone will buy books and nod their heads at the white woman at appropriate moments, and have their book signed and pose for pictures.

And meanwhile I have never been so close in all my years of doing this to saying fuck it and fuck you.