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*ITCH Interview with CLP!

• Taking a step back, how would CLP define the term "feminist"?

Honestly, I can only “speak” for myself- a CLP definition would require several, infinite board meetings to develop!

I would probably define feminism as the ongoing processes of individuals and communities towards a vision of a progressive space where women are valued and revered for the unique experience and perspectives they bring to understanding and crafting a just world. In CLP’s work this would especially need to be honoring of feminisms and the multiplicity of ways women reclaim power.

I think this is probably heavily influenced by my own definition of “empowerment” as the process in which the individual and/or community is liberated to reject the representation of self that was imposed upon them by others, so that they may contribute to discourse and understandings of truth and reality, as well as articulate and/or feel their own sense of identity and agency to influence existing power structures and construct a different world. In this definition, liberation allows all participants to become, as described by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, fully human—a concept that is intentionally ambiguous and honoring of the highly contextual, unknowable, and ever-changing needs and nature of human life.

This needs to recognize that oppressions fragment all people—leaving women out of discourse not only oppresses and devalues the contributions of one gender; it oppresses the humanity of everyone. Thus, feminism must also include men and how they’ve internalized the devaluation of women, their own femininity, and their wholeness.

• How do you define what Child Leader project does and how do you see your organizing addressing issues concerning the furtherance of feminist issues in India and here in Southern California (Riverside)? Child Leader Project is a dialogical, values-based leadership program that encourages service, transnational collaboration, and higher education for youth in South India and Southern California.

So, how does CLP put feminisms and this ‘project definition’ together?

We are an organization run primarily by women (with some incredible men!) where women are the agents and visionaries of change. Although this creates an interesting space for women’s organizing on behalf of youth issues, it also raises some questions about how organizing or education has been “feminized.” Why don’t we have men? We have recruited in men’s and women’s spaces, yet we overwhelmingly attract women. What’s up with that? I feel this represents one of the myriad of ways in which men are also oppressed within patriarchal systems—what is it about this work that is possibly “too feminine” for men to participate, and how do they miss out on transformation and wholeness in the process?

More importantly, I find CLP’s work to be “feminist” in that it strives to create spaces where women are leaders, are valued, and are advocated for. I think this takes place by all involved—from the USA side (our women leaders, supporters, or high school participants) as well as the Indian side (our young female students, their mothers as participants, our university-aged female mentors, the teachers and staff at the school, etc.) Not only are women valued, but men are also part of that process—on both “sides” and at every “level.” I feel like we strive to create visionary spaces, as if these opportunities and gatherings and conversations and projects should be microcosms of what we’d like our larger world to look like.

• How has CLP come to find itself in India?

Lots of practical and impractical reasons for this one. I personally found myself in India because of my interest in religious studies—particularly Islam. Quite honestly, looking back at the decision to study abroad, it was a joint decision between me and my partner at the time. We both loved a challenge and we didn’t want to go to Europe.

I guess I may have always had a fascination with India—but I may need to own that as a media-fostered image. As a high schooler, I ran the Coalition Against Hate club and was an active member of social justice work at my church. So, I think I personally connected India with social justice and injustice.

My study abroad experience was pivotal. I was in India for about five months and had to cut my trip short because of a rather serious illness. Nevertheless, I knew I wanted to go back. I felt a connection to India and the individuals and friends I had met while living and studying there, and it felt a natural fit for exploring further possibilities.

Now, I’ve been a tutor and a mediator and a “peer leader” and community organizer of sorts and variations all my life. Thus, I knew the project would be around education, leadership, and social change. And, simultaneously, I knew this was one of the issues confronting youth in India—just as it is for first-generation youth here in the USA. I saw an incredible opportunity for connection in what felt to be a truly radical way.

On a “practical” level, India is the perfect collaborator for this effort. Language is not often a barrier, and when it is, we have to adapt, improvise, and learn. Education systems are also very relatable and translatable. There are also social, political and economic connections between the USA and India—our discourse about democracy and development is surprisingly similar at times. Secularism, too. Of course, these words carry hugely different connotations in both countries and within both countries for different groups, but there is a discourse that can be shared and explored nevertheless—especially at the higher secondary and university level. The notion of “diversity” is also interesting— when I first went to India, a university professor said that India was the most diverse country in the world. I was skeptical of that, of course, having grown up with the old and horribly problematic adages of the salad bowl or the melting pot and what not. But, over time, I saw what that professor was trying to communicate about India’s diversity, and I feel like students from So Cal and students from South India have similar experiences in understanding, and hopefully overcoming, “difference.”

• What do you see as your organization's present role there?

We are collaborators, dreamers, learners, investors, advocates, fans, guests, mentors, mentees, artists, and activists. Our role is one of humility and courage.

• What problems/areas of concern do you perceive as unique to women and children in India?

I struggle to answer this question. Obviously, there are huge, huge specific concerns for women and children in India. But, equally obvious, those concerns are shared in the USA at different levels and contexts. There is immense similarity and immense difference. And, amidst all of that, I have to admit I’m only beginning to see these concerns fully. So I choose to speak from experience and observation more than anything else.

In India, I have been privy to dowry deaths at the doors of emergency rooms and the beating of women on a street at New Years by an intoxicated partner. I read of “kitchen accidents” every day in the newspaper. I know not to go out at night by myself. I know my mother in India is miserable and in a marriage she feels economically and socially powerless to get out of, while she simultaneously encourages her daughter, Amala, and I to find husbands because this is the “only way.” I’ve been told by the young, female teenagers I work with that, yes, they will go to college, but then they will get married and have kids and that will be the end of that.

This doesn’t even begin to speak for the concerns of low and high caste women, Muslim women, widows, or street and slum women. Not educated women, not unmarried women, not married women, not girl children. I’ve got an infinite level of learning to do.

However, while honoring the unique problems and areas of concern for Indian women, I think women from around the world will read the stories above and feel connection to these struggles. I know I do.

• What advice would you give to a fellow college student who is entering into a new situation where he or she has no precious experience in working with that culture or that community? To clarify, what should his or her approach be?

Accept your “self.” I accept my status as an outsider—and a privileged outsider at that. I reject the idea that I would ever be able to completely shed my skin and “blend in” to the scenery. And why would I want that? That is somewhat akin to the idea that feminism is “blind” equality between women and men—and it’s so much more. It’s about valuing different experiences. Thus, as a white, upper-middle class, heterosexual, educated, female from California, I bring a specific experience that is simultaneously wide and restricted and can be valued for its uniqueness and its limitations.

So, I think this is what is important for a fellow feminista to remember: one must own their identity, their assumptions, their experiences, and their privilege in order to move beyond it. One must explore it, know it, hold it in their hand and peer at it and the myriad of ways it has shaped their vision and assumptions of the this world. I think privilege has contours and comfortable places where one can take long naps and sip chocolate milk. The key is to know that privilege was not due to your goodness or your innocence—your abundance and security is at the expense of another’s scarcity.

However, this is no time for guilt and heaviness. This should inspire action. One’s privilege should inspire one’s hands and heart to move and recognize how their comfortable “palace” is truly a prison of the mind and spirit. To get out of it, you have to look at where you are and take it down bit by bit. This is part of the transformation. And it’ll take forever!

But this is what I mean by accepting one’s self—inclusive of the expansiveness and beauty of one’s own individual ability to make change and be an agent of change, while simultaneously knowing and owning their limited and assuming nature. This allows humility and courage.

• As a student activist here on our campus ("Activism" being the key idea of this issue of the 'zine), what do you see as the biggest obstacle that is preventing more UCR students from getting involved in community oriented humanitarian work? What drives you to do what YOU do and do you have any guidelines to help more students get to where you are?

I love UCR with a fierce and bizarre devotion. UCR faculty, staff and students pushed me and nudged me along to believe what I was doing wasn’t completely insane. In that case, maybe the biggest obstacle to more UCR students becoming involved in this work is our ability as campus community to dream about what is capable of them at all—maybe we should all be dreaming bigger for one another! Maybe we should all be prodding and reminding one another that it is all possible, that it is not as difficult or as impossible as it looks (although it will be difficult).

As an institution, UCR can also be providing the resources to kick-start the dream. The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship allowed me to worry about the project itself—not the foundational resources for the project. So, I think UCR students need more daring, dreaming advocates and more resources.

I am driven by a lot of things. Mostly gratitude. As stated earlier, I believe (I know) that our wealth, our privilege, and our abundance is not ours alone—it was a byproduct of the work and generosity of thousands of different hands. I mean this in the most concrete way (i.e. how many hands have touched all the components of your tennis shoes or how is your wealth as an educator the product of all the people that educated you and all the students and parents dreaming and paying money to the UC Regents?) to more abstract ways (i.e. how am I composed of all the bits and pieces of this earth and the interactions and decisions of all the people around me?). When you begin to think of this, it is hard to feel separate, independent and self-made. You realize and feel a radical sense of interdependence. And, following that, I feel a deepness in gratitude. I’m driven by that gratitude.

• What do you hope for the future of CLP? Where do you see it being in 3 months? 1 year? 5 years?

I want CLP to be sustainable and useful. I want CLP to be transformative. I want CLP to raise enough money where its participants feel like they can follow their dreams. I want CLP to deconstruct “otherness.” I want CLP to become an inclusive force of people bound by a belief in interdependence.

More concretely, I’d like to see it as something that can be sustained in India and Southern California on its own. In three months, I want CLP to be finishing up its summer programs with 60 students and 12 Riverside-folk and I want all of us stirred up by the experience.

In one year, I want to be preparing another group of high school students. This group will be from the ESL classes of Ontario, San Bernardino and Riverside, CA. They’ll be getting their passports and visas and training to collaborate with their peers in India after their first full year of CLP. In one year, CLP graduates in India will be preparing for college, confident, with a fat CLP scholarship to attend the university they applied to that year.

In five years? More schools in India and Southern California will be exchanging students. Indian youth will be coming to the USA and California youth will be going to India. New partnerships will be popping up in Indonesia, Mexico, and the Ukraine. All of them will have scholarships for higher education regardless of their identity or citizenship or language or religion. Alumni from the program will serve as mentors to younger youth, donating their time and resources to sustain and support their fellow dreamers.

And me? I’ll be there—in body or spirit.