Welcome Welcome to week three’s reflections! This has been really lovely learning about such nifty people so let’s see who all we are gonna get to know this week.
February 15th 2026: Harriet Tubman Day
– On March 10 each year, Americans pause to honor Harriet Tubman
– Born around 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman entered the world as Araminta Ross, the daughter of enslaved parents Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross
– Her enslaver, Edward Brodess, rented her out to work for other families starting when she was just six years old
– When Tubman was thirteen, she was at a local store when she encountered an enslaved person trying to escape. Trying to stop the runaway, an enslaver threw a two-pound weight in their direction. It missed the runaway and hit Tubman in the head instead. The blow fractured her skull and left Tubman with chronic headaches, hallucinations and sudden sleeping spells. During these episodes, Tubman experienced vivid visions that she understood as messages from God, showing her a path to freedom.
– Over time, she negotiated with her enslaver to choose her own work assignments as long as she paid him a yearly fee. These jobs took her to different parts of Maryland, and she learned from each place.
– She connected with Black sailors who told her about the Underground Railroad, a network of people and safe houses that was routing enslaved people to freedom.
– After she escaped to Philadelphia, Tubman met William Still, a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Tubman learned the system and soon returned to Maryland to bring her family to freedom.
– Between 1850 and 1860, she made nineteen trips back to states where slavery was still legal, and led about seventy people to freedom.
– Enraged, enslavers posted bounties for Tubman’s capture. One was for $40,000, which would be worth over $1.5 million today.
– She helped plan the Combahee River Raid in South Carolina, which freed about 750 enslaved people and destroyed several plantations. This made Tubman the first woman in American history to plan and lead a military raid.
– On March 6, 1990, the United States Senate passed a joint resolution to establish the holiday. The House of Representatives passed it the next day. President George H.W. Bush signed Proclamation 6107 on March 9, 1990, making March 10 an official day to honor Tubman’s courage and legacy.
– Each year on March 10, Maryland presents the Harriet Ross Tubman Lifetime Achievement Award to someone carrying forward her legacy.
Reflections
1. Tubman used her knowledge of Maryland’s landscape and connections with helpful people to guide others to freedom. What knowledge or connections do you have that could help someone in your community?
Knowledge, hmmm, I have knowledge about volleyball, and I have really enjoyed coaching young women in a sport that I love. I have often thought about offering clinics, but just been too lazy to get around to it. I think it could be fun. I feel like my knowledge is more suited to lessons and coaching opportunities for the youth. I also suppose making another zine could be fun, youth or adult level.
2. Despite facing chronic pain and the constant threat of capture, Tubman made nineteen dangerous trips to bring others to freedom. What cause or person in your life is worth taking risks for?
Most everyone in my life is someone worth taking risks for. I feel and care deeply for my family and friends. I know that I would do anything for them without a second thought. I think standing up for the rights and freedoms of my friends and family is also worth taking risks for. Like we talked about last week, protesting and boycotting and fundraising are important to do as someone with white privilege to help my friends. The same goes for me as a woman to fight for our rights and liberties.
3. Tubman spent her later years running the Home for the Aged and supporting women’s right to vote. How can you continue working for justice even after achieving your own goals?
The work towards justice is ongoing. I am not sure it will ever dissipate, but rather evolve and transition. I think my goals in life are very simple in the fact that they mostly stem around free time and creativity. They are not limiting — I can continue to work for justice even when I am older. The how, what, and the where will most likely change. But not the why.
February 16th 2026: Marjorie Stewart Joyner
– Marjorie Stewart Joyner was born on October 24, 1896, in Monterey, Virginia, and grew up in poverty with many siblings, though only a few survived to adulthood.
– At 16, she moved to Chicago to join her mother, working as a waitress and domestic servant while learning the beauty trade.
– In 1916, Joyner became the first African American to graduate from the A.B. Molar Beauty School in Chicago, then trained under Madam C.J. Walker to learn how to style Black hair.
– Walker soon hired Joyner as a national spokesperson and adviser for her network of beauty schools.
– After Walker’s death in 1919, Joyner oversaw over 200 beauty schools training more than 15,000 stylists.
– Noticing how time‑consuming the Marcel wave hairstyle was, she devised a machine using heated rods attached to a hair dryer hood that could curl multiple sections at once.
– She filed for a patent in 1928 and later receiving U.S. Patent 1,693,515.
– Joyner’s invention transformed the beauty industry, and salons across the country adopted it, though she earned little profit from it herself.
– She helped write Illinois’ first cosmetology laws, founded professional and community organizations including the Alpha Chi Pi Omega Sorority and Fraternity, and supported Chicago Defender charities like the Bud Billiken Parade.
– At 77 she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bethune‑Cookman College and remained active in community and beauty efforts until her death on December 27, 1994, at age 98.
Reflections
1. How did Marjorie Joyner’s personal struggles—growing up in poverty, losing siblings, and not finishing high school—shape her later success as an inventor and businesswoman?
It’s hard to speak for someone, but I like to believe her struggles helped shape her savviness and her ingenuity. Hardships both make and break people, and Joyner appears to have leaned into a never-give-up attitude. This is not to say that without these hardships she could not have gotten a patent, but the circumstances sure steered her towards success.
2. Marjorie Joyner designed her permanent wave machine to work on “both white and colored women’s hair.” What does this tell us about her approach to solving problems?
This tells us that she has an open mind, she is able to truly dissect how something works since she’s able to adapt/accommodate for differences in hair structures, she understands that problems are not always unique or limited, and that she is indeed a business woman.
February 17th 2026: Black Masking Indians
– These traditions were brought to present-day New Orleans by French settlers on March 3, 1699. They celebrated each year with street parties, masked balls, and fancy dinners. When Spanish colonizers took control of New Orleans in the mid-1700s, they banned these celebrations. The parties didn’t return until Louisiana became a state in 1812.
– By 1827, residents dressed in colorful costumes and danced through the streets, copying what they had seen in Paris. Ten years later, the first official Mardi Gras parade happened.
– In 1857, a secret group of wealthy white businessmen called the Mistick Krewe of Comus organized a parade with torches, marching bands, and decorated floats — setting the pattern for celebrations to come…However, Black people in New Orleans were not allowed to join.
– Black communities took over backstreets — turning Claiborne and Jackson into their own Mardi Gras corridors long before the city officially recognized them. Every neighborhood developed its own ways of celebrating, and what grew out of those streets was both a party and an act of resistance.
– One of the most powerful traditions to emerge was the Mardi Gras Indians, also called Black Masking Indians. Their roots run in two directions at once. When enslaved people escaped plantations, they sometimes found refuge with Native communities in Louisiana. At the same time, the actual masking was a practice with deep roots in West African and Afro-Caribbean cultures. These two traditions met in New Orleans and wove together into something new.
– Indian tribe members spend most of the year hand-sewing the intricate suits and headdresses they’ll wear each February. Each suit tells stories: Scenes from Congo Square. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ancestors who fought for their freedom.
– In 1901, a group of Black men formed a Benevolent Aid Society, a mutual aid network providing resources where state and federal support failed. By 1909, they had become the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club and made their first Mardi Gras parade appearance. Members wore grass skirts, bushy wigs, and blackface makeup — a deliberate provocation designed to mock the racist caricatures of white minstrel shows while simultaneously celebrating dark skin. In a New Orleans where colorism divided Black communities through “brown paper bag tests” and other practices that favored lighter-skinned Creoles, Zulu pushed back by embracing Blackness openly.
– If you want to see the Mardi Gras Indians in person, you have more opportunities than just Fat Tuesday. Tribes gather several times a year for what are known as Super Sundays. Wherever you choose to celebrate, you’ll be honoring what Black New Orleanians built for themselves when the larger world tried to shut them out–a practice that persists, proudly, year after year.
Reflections
1. The Mardi Gras Indians spent generations building a rich cultural tradition in spaces the city didn’t officially recognize. What traditions or gathering places in your own community serve a similar purpose — and what would be lost if they disappeared?
– Town Hall Collaborative
– Convivio Cafe(s)
– Five Points
To touch on the final place mentioned, I think the issue here is that gentrification is already showing what can be lost if this neighborhood disappeared. It is still there, but it faces gentrification, which causes Black residents to become more dispersed throughout the city, instead of having one neighborhood that is truly a space for them. The community is not gone mentally, but physically it’s had to shift. I don’t know exactly what was lost. I think going to events and institutions and businesses in the area is important to keep the traditions and community that remains from fully being lost. I’ll let y’all look into the other two spots.
2. Zulu made a deliberate choice to reclaim racist imagery and flip its meaning. Can you think of other examples where a marginalized community has done something similar? Did it work? Who gets to decide?
I think the LGBTQIA+ community has done a great job of reclaiming slurs previously used to demean and belittle, for example, “Queer.” I think many marginalized groups have reclaimed words previously used negatively to have new positive and uplifting meaning and connotations.
3. The article ends with the image of young people running up to chiefs, wanting to carry the tradition forward. What makes a cultural tradition worth preserving — and what responsibility, if any, do outsiders have in protecting traditions that don’t belong to them?
I think it’s easy to understand what makes a cultural tradition worth preserving when you think about any tradition you have, small or large. In a day when languages and cultures, animals and agricultures, have gone extinct, how can you not understand how important it is to preserve a cultural tradition? You will know if something is worth upholding when you feel as if you want to tell people about it and you want to brag about it, and you want everyone to know how important something is to you, and to your being. I think outsiders have a responsibility of respecting and honoring traditions, they should help protect them, and they need to understand the who, what, whens, whys, etc. about them before they claim to protect it. Outsiders have a duty to stay in their lane until invited over.
February 18th 2026: George Washington Carver Day
– Carver was born enslaved around 1864 on a plantation near Diamond, Missouri. Before George reached his first birthday, slave raiders kidnapped him, his mother, and his sister from the Carver farm. The three were taken to Arkansas and resold in Kentucky. The slaveowner Moses Carver hired a neighbor to find them, but could only find George. His mother and sister were never seen again.
– Moses and his wife, Susan, raised George and his brother James as their own children, teaching both boys to read and write. James helped Moses with fieldwork, but George’s health was weak, making physical farm labor impossible. Instead, Susan taught him cooking, mending, embroidery, laundering, gardening, and how to make simple herbal medicines.
– As a child, George Washington Carver developed an intense fascination with plants. He began experimenting with natural pesticides, fungicides, and soil treatments to support the work in the fields.
– At age eleven, Carver left the farm to attend an all-Black school in nearby Neosho, Missouri. He lived with Andrew and Mariah Watkins, a childless Black couple who provided shelter in exchange for household help. Mariah shared her extensive knowledge of medicinal herbs with Carver. After about two years, disappointed with the quality of education at the Neosho school, Carver decided to move to Kansas.
– In 1880, Carver was accepted to Highland College, but later his acceptance was rescinded due to him being Black.
– In the late 1880s, Carver was inspired to try higher education again. He enrolled at Simpson College in Iowa. He was their first Black student and studied art and piano, hoping to become a teacher. His professor, Etta Budd, encouraged him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural School.
– In 1894, Carver became the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State. His research on fungal infections in soybean plants was well-received and earned him an invitation to attend graduate school.
– After earning his master’s degree in agriculture in 1896, Carver was in high demand and had several job offers to choose from. The most compelling came from Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Washington was eager to build an agricultural school and wanted Carver to run it. Tuskegee was dedicated to having an all-Black faculty for its Black students, and to Washington, there wasn’t anyone more suited for the role. Carver accepted, and was so inspired by Washington’s dedication that he added Washington’s last name to his own, becoming George Washington Carver.
– At Tuskegee, Carver built curriculum to teach students how to optimize Southern farmland. He taught crop rotation and how to make and use organic fertilizers. He also popularized the practice of planting soil-restoring crops like peanuts, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, and soybeans to offset the nutrients depleted by cotton, the dominant crop in the South at the time.
– As farmers followed suit, they found themselves with surpluses of peanuts and sweet potatoes. Carver developed hundreds of uses for these crops. He developed methods to turn sweet potatoes into flour, vinegar, ink, dyes, and paints. And, famously, he found over 325 different products from peanuts, including milk, cooking oil, paper, soap, and wood stains (but not peanut butter, despite popular belief!). My opp?
– In his final years, Carver was diagnosed with pernicious anemia. He created the George Washington Carver Museum and Foundation at Tuskegee and gifted it his entire life savings — equivalent to nearly $1 million today.
– He passed away on January 5, 1943, at approximately age seventy-seven. That same year, Congress designated his birthplace as a national monument — the first ever honoring a Black American.
Reflections
1. Carver’s early mentors played a significant role in shaping his path. What does that say about the importance of access to mentorship and education?
It speaks volumes. I always feel so lucky that I got the parents I got in this game of luck we call life. Beyond that though, I can look back on almost every year of my life and think wow, this person was such a mentor to me, or this teacher truly helped me by going the extra mile, or this opportunity truly opened doors for me. If you are cut off from seeing people like you doing things you may want to do, it’s hard to imagine something for yourself that you don’t know is possible. Having someone say, I believe in you, or you could do this if you wanted to, is invaluable when you are young. And hey, when you’re old too, am I right?
2. Carver’s work with peanuts and sweet potatoes was a direct response to the economic devastation that sharecropping and single-crop farming had caused in the post-Reconstruction South. How does understanding that context change the way you think about his research and its impact?
It shows that not only was he innovative, he was also practical, and inclusive, and meant to cause real change to solve a real problem. If it had been accidental or just a passion project, it would still be impactful. However knowing this, it puts into perspective just how deep rooted capitalism can go. Yes, I went there lol. New markets, new job opportunity, new food possibilities, new economic opportunities, and it was empowering to a community that was long discriminated against.
February 19th 2026: Juneteenth
– June 19, 2026 marks the 161st anniversary of Juneteenth. It commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and brought news that slavery had been outlawed more than two years earlier.
– States seceding from the Union, like Texas, were unconcerned with the President’s political motivations / Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, Texas still had state laws that made freeing enslaved people illegal. It wasn’t until the North sent troops to Texas to enforce this proclamation that celebrations were in order.
– On June 7, 1979, the Texas Legislature passed a bill declaring Juneteenth a state holiday.
– From there, the fight to make Juneteenth a federal holiday took decades of grassroots organizing, spearheaded by Miss Opal Lee, a 98-year-old activist from Fort Worth, Texas.
– Starting in her 80s, Lee organized annual 2.5-mile walks, representing the 2.5 years it took for news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas.
– At 89, she conducted a symbolic walk from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., departing in September 2016 and arriving in January 2017.
– She repeated the trek in summer 2019, and led a pandemic-friendly caravan in 2020. Her persistence paid off.
– On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday, the first addition since Martin Luther King Day, which was established in 1986.
– Biden awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
– It’s important to note that Juneteenth didn’t officially end slavery for everyone. On paper, that didn’t happen until the 13th Amendment went into effect in December 1865, which stated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (National Archives).
– But that exception clause—”except as a punishment for crime”—created a loophole that persists today. Millions of incarcerated people perform labor for pennies per hour, continuing a system that disproportionately impacts Black Americans. The same amendment that abolished slavery preserved a pathway for its continuation under a different name.
– Beyond that, free did not mean equal. Enslaved people were no longer enslaved, but they didn’t gain the right to vote, own land, bear arms, attend integrated schools, or marry outside their race. Freedom without rights left newly emancipated people vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and economic subordination.
– Without genuine protection and equal opportunity, celebrating Juneteenth risks becoming performative—a gesture rather than a commitment. Commemorating June 19th requires acknowledging that the work of emancipation remains unfinished.
Reflections
1. Miss Opal Lee walked 1,400 miles in her 80s and 90s to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. What action could you take in your own community to inspire others to take action?
Denver is quite a physically active city, so I am sure spreading the word about walks happening this Juneteenth could easily spread to people who may not be as tuned in or aware. Fundraisers could be joined with the walks. Now that I am answering this, I realize it might not just be about Juneteenth. In my apartment complex, or anywhere with a community bulletin, I think there is ample opportunity to spread the word about community organizations or events. Wherever you have reach, you should be advocating, speaking about, and raising awareness for injustices in your community. That is what I work on doing when and where I can. If you aren’t connected to the community in any way, maybe start there.
2. The 13th Amendment’s exception clause allowed forced labor to continue in prisons. How does understanding this history change the way you think about the criminal legal system today?
If you know me you know I have done a pretty deep dive on this subject through volunteer work in Colorado. My perception of the criminal legal system in this country has been forever changed. I even just heard a promo for an interview they did on CPR about how the prisons in CO are at max capacity. I need to go find it on their website because I did not catch when it would be airing live. The difficulty many people face just to escape (harsh but valid) being sent to prison, or sent back to prison, is heartbreaking. The systems here are not meant to keep people out, but to keep people in. It can feel like the odds are against you, because they are. I have been unable to volunteer as of late, so this just reminds me that I need to look more into the legal and community campaigns working to remedy this injustice and this system.
3. Freedom without rights left newly emancipated people vulnerable to exploitation and violence. What does genuine freedom require beyond legal protections? How can you help create those conditions?
It requires economic, social, and political security. I can help by supporting Black owned businesses and artists, I can create safe environments and be a safe ally, and I can support politicians who believe in these freedoms for all. Even if it feels small, it’s what I can do at this time.
February 20th 2026: Black Poetry Day
– Every year on October 17th, readers across the country celebration Black Poetry Day. The date marks the birthday of Jupiter Hammon, the first published Black poet in the United States, born on October 17, 1711.
– Born into slavery in Long Island, New York, Hammon had a unique opportunity not afforded to other enslaved people. The Lloyd family, his captors, had deep ties to Anglican and Congregational churches, which encouraged teaching enslaved people to read the Bible. Because of this, Hammon was given access to the estate’s library and received an education alongside the Lloyd children.
– In many parts of the country, especially the South, anti-literacy laws were in effect to stop enslaved and freed Black people from learning to read or write.
– Hammon became a distinct and influential voice as a poet. His published writing was rooted in his religious studies and reflected the sermons he gave as a preacher to other enslaved people on the Lloyd estate. Some critics dismiss his work for not addressing slavery, but undiscovered poems found since indicate that those simply weren’t the ones that got published.
– His first published poem was called, “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries.”
– Hammon was one of only two known Black writers published in North America during the 18th century. The other was Phillis Wheatley, born around 1753, who became the first published Black American female poet and only the third American woman to publish a book of poems.
– Together, they opened doors that generations of writers would walk through – Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Robert Hayden, Audre Lorde, and Amanda Gorman.
– The idea for Black Poetry Day started with Stanley A. Ransom, a white librarian and folk musician who dedicated his career to learning about Jupiter Hammon.
– As early as 1970, Ransom proposed that October 17th be celebrated as Black Poetry Day “to recognize the contributions of African American poets to American life and culture and to honor Jupiter Hammon, first Black in America to publish his own verse.”
– The library where he worked celebrated the date from the start, but Black Poetry Day grew in popularity when SUNY Plattsburgh began hosting the annual event in 1984.
– Today, it is not an official federal holiday, but it is observed in classrooms and libraries across the country and recognized as a state observance in Oregon.
– Jupiter Hammon never saw freedom. He died in slavery and was buried in an unmarked grave on the Lloyd estate. But the words he put to paper centuries ago are still with us, and the day set aside in his honor keeps his work alive — along with the work of so many others.
– Black Poetry Day is an invitation to read widely, seek out writers you haven’t heard of, and support the voices that don’t always get the attention they deserve.
Reflections
1. Today, schools and libraries are removing books by diverse authors from their shelves through book bans. Knowing that laws once existed specifically to stop Black people from learning to read and write at all, what connections do you see between the past and the present? What do you think is at stake when certain voices are removed from the places where people go to learn?
It shows that people now can see the influence diverse books and stories have on people. Seeing someone and reading about someone that looks like you can inspire people to strive towards things they never knew possible. The same goes for seeing people and reading about people who don’t look like you. If you don’t see it or imagine it, then when you come across it it can feel off, and creates division and fear that you are being “replaced” or “attacked” which is absurd but seems to be truly how people react. Being young and reading diverse stories truly is a highlight of my childhood. If kids aren’t afforded that same opportunity, it can create a community that is unwelcoming and exclusive. Racism and sexism and the like are not innate in humans, it’s taught.
2. Hammon’s poems looked like religious writing on the surface, but scholars believe they contained hidden messages about slavery and white supremacy meant only for certain readers. Why do you think he might have written that way, and what does it tell you about how people find ways to communicate when speaking freely isn’t safe?
He most likely did that to remain under the radar, feels silly to write that because it seems obvious, but it makes sense. I am going to try and say this without coming off wrong, so bear with me. Religion was and always has been a very “trusted” source of prose. To obstruct it would seem sacrilegious, so he would most likely not be questioned on the validity and authenticity of his writing. He probably knew he was seen as lesser, so they were just glad he was on the same page as them when it came to religion. Also, religion was probably one of the few equalizers of the time. It was something they could expect to be shared and passed around freely and abundantly, so they could know that the message would reach the people it needed to reach. Obviously this is just speculation on my part, but that’s my theory.
3. Black writers make up only 5 to 7 percent of published authors in the United States today, more than 260 years after Hammon published his first poem. What does that gap tell you about systemic inequity?
It shows that when people fight for representation and affirmative action and DEI it’s not for nothing. The “American Dream” is technically open for everyone, yet it’s not really so. Inequality is truly rooted in the framework of this country, like mentioned with incarceration, its just been hidden and disguised under the surface but it makes things harder and harder for poc to get recognition and acclaim.
February 21st 2026: Spades
– The game of Spades known today is an evolution of Bid Whist, a blend of Whist and Bridge created by enslaved Black people in the south. Enslaved Black people weren’t allowed to learn how to read or write English, but slave owners believed that the game of whist would help them with the forced labor, so they were allowed to play cards.
– Bid Whist was also popular during the Civil War, influencing military culture. With the Great Migration the game expanded north with them.
– It was also spread by Pullman Porters, African American men that worked on railroad sleeper cars for Pullman Palace Car Company. They were the largest single employer of Black men in the country at that time.
– They’d often play Bid Whist on long journeys (which is likely where travel-related slang used while playing, like “pulling a Boston,” originates from).
– Pullman Porters were also the first to create an all-Black labor union in the U.S.
– There are a few stories about how Bid Whist evolved into the Spades we know today. One is attributed to the Kirkwood family from Mississippi, who played it regularly at home. When Frank and Mavis Kirkwood moved from Mississippi to New York in the 1940s as part of the Great Migration, they brought this variation of the game with them.
– Another theory is that the game spread rapidly through college campuses, particularly HBCUs, and made its way home with students.
– Its rise was never marked by a single inventor or a formal debut, but by the quiet, steady way it moved through communities, passed down through the practice of gathering for joy.
– Gabrielle Ione Hickmon has created the most comprehensive overview of the impact of Spades on the Black community. In her long-form piece, “How You Play Spades is How You Play Life,” Hickmon surveyed over 500 Black people to honor stories on when people first learned the game, how it’s played with friends and families, and what significance it holds for themselves and their loved ones. She sees the game as an allegory for the African American experience: “How You Play Spades is How You Play Life.”
– Similar to Mahjong, Go, Teen Patti and other games from cultures around the world, Spades has become a family pastime; a way that families and friends regardless of age, background or interests can come together.
Reflections
1. What games are an essential part of how you gather with your friends and family?
My family loves to play Tonk, Nerts, and Skip-Bo. Card games make me think of nights after dinner in the dining room at home. In the home both my family and my dad grew up in. It makes me think of nights on the porch at the cabin playing with the extended family. Cousins laughing and yelling and crying from both. It makes me think of generations and how we are all connected. I just might have to bring Spades into the fold this year and see how it sticks.
2. What types of recreational activities reflect your cultural identity?
I think my family has always been very athletic. Not one sport taking over, we truly all excelled in our own ways, but sports in general is something that for me felt like a part of my cultural identity. I would say family wise card games is another. I would also like to add cooking. Most everyone in my family enjoys cooking. We gather around it and it’s more than just a required activity for survival but its a time to connect and share with one another. Also might be silly, but I think saying y’all makes me feel alive and feel like I have a small sense of cultural identity through that word. I don’t have a strong accent, but that word has been with me when I was practically at the south pole, and it helped me feel a connection to home. So in a sense, language is also part of my cultural identity.
3. Why is it important to have a space to gather with your friends and family? What comes from those moments of togetherness?
Everything comes from those moments. It becomes almost connected in a sense and certain memories and phrases stick out versus dates and times. You remember that your friend peed her pants laughing or when your grandma spilled her wine trying to cheat, and its not when it happened but that it happened. You remember the whether and the music and the house that felt like home. You feel safe when you are gathered together.
That’s it for week three. I know these have been delayed, but I work on them during lunch, and recently I have not had time to transfer them from paper to laptop. Yes it’s a slow process but don’t fear, week four will be here soon.
Madeline Daily 