Monday Matter: A Little Fear, Jasmine Fingers and a giveaway winner
Your weekly Foreign Bodies roundup
Every Monday, we’ll send Foreign Bodies readers a story (or six) we recently read and adored. This is also a chance to do some housekeeping and give shout-outs and all that jazz. Our Monday Matter roundups are available for both free and paying subscribers.
First things first
A little housekeeping
We have a giveaway winner!
Congratulations to Hannah Bae of New York for winning a copy of Nigerian-American Bassey Ikpi’s memoir, I’m Telling The Truth But I’m Lying. Hannah is a writer and freelance journalist who's passionate about breaking the stigma against mental illness and (we didn’t force her to type this) she’s also a big fan of Fiza and Foreign Bodies! ;-) Getting your package all ready to send out this week, Hannah!
ICYMI: Issue 12 on hairless beauty standards and PCOS is out
Haaaaave you read it yet?
I wish it was just the razor bumps and cuts from shaving I had to endure. The simplicity of a blade gliding and slicing was not an option for me, I was often reminded. Use a razor, and the hair will grow back ten times thicker. Use a razor, and your skin will be as prickly as a man’s beard. Who will want to touch you?
Still not a paying subscriber?
As of this writing, there are only 30ish days left until our grant money runs out and we’re fully funded by readers like you, meaning the bulk of our work will only be accessible to patrons. Consider upgrading your account?
If you're a student, or if you find the cost in any way prohibitive, email me and we’ll figure something out.
Some other ways to support us: One-time donations or a little word-of-mouth love.
Read this!
Stories we’re loving
Can You Please Say Something in Khelobedu? (Catapult, Keletso Mopai): "I didn’t know my mother-tongue wasn’t considered an 'official' language in my country until I started going to school. Flipping through the school curriculum and not finding myself." A stunning essay about mourning the loss of a South African tongue.
Jasmine Fingers (Guernica, Lubna Safi): “In Damascus, I have amnesia,” writes Safi. “In the Arabic poetic tradition, a poet who expresses grief over separation from a homeland—who writes home into verse out of longing—writes a ritha’ al-mudun, a city-elegy.” Omg, y’all.
Column One: A family learns to tell a new kind of Thanksgiving story (LA Times, Esmeralda Bermudez): “If we couldn’t begin telling our children this nation’s story, how could we ever speak to them about our personal histories?” Bermudez, who hails from El Salvador, writes narrative stories about Latinx lives for the LA Times. Not only is this personal essay a must-read, the accompanying artwork by Anthony Russo is just beautiful.
A Little Fear (The Margins, Chime Lama): Two Tibetan-American poems worth your time. A piece of the magic: “I escaped from the shrine to the heat of the kitchen –/Scurrying aunts and silverware trays./Ama la, I know I have to serve the tea. Please don’t scold me;/My identity is unstable.”
In the news
Relevant news coverage that doesn’t really fall under our larger mission to de-stigmatize through personal storytelling, but is still essential reading for anyone who wants to stay up-to-date on immigrant/refugee mental health.
Karine Jean-Pierre on her mental health struggle and a blueprint for activism (PBS Newshour): In this video segment, Jean-Pierre shares what it was like growing up as the eldest child of Haitian immigrants—and the mental health struggles she continues to face.
Politics of immigration add stress for many Latinos, and leave them wary of seeking help (Claudia Boyd-Barrett, The Orange County Register): Cowed by the threat of ICE raids, immigration policies and racially motivated violence, some Latinx individuals are avoiding contact with anyone who might be deemed an authority, including leaders in health care.
Bookshelf
Books and essays I’m currently reading (plus reader-recommended works!)
Finally starting: My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education, a collection of essays from Cuban-American professor Jennine Capó Crucet about “how she came to see her exclusion from aspects of the theoretical American Dream, despite her family’s attempts to fit in with white American culture—beginning with their ill-fated plan to name her after the winner of the Miss America pageant.” Met Crucet at the AJC Decatur Book Fest a few months ago and have been eager to make time for this one since.
Reader rec from Cassandra Lee: Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. A true account of the author’s childhood, growing up as “an unloved daughter” in 1940s China.
Remember, we always have tons of wonderful stories and resources available at foreignbodies.net.
Love to see it
Shout-outs, thank-yous and more
A huge thank-you to my dear friend Puja Shah for opening up her heart and sharing a very personal story about PCOS for the latest issue of Foreign Bodies. If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
Congrats to supporter (and giveaway winner!) Hannah Bae for being nominated for a Pushcart Prize! Read her radically honest essay about how caring for children helped her reckon with her own experience as a survivor of domestic violence here.
This is cool. There’s a new independent journal examining the Partition, the 1947 division of British India into the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan that left 15 million displaced and more than one million dead. Browse the first Partition Studies Quarterly issue here.
Every single time Esmeralda Bermudez posts about her work at the LA Times, a shelter puppy finds a home.
Some Issue 12 love from readers Naheed and Nousheen <3
OK, that’s it for now.
Did you absolutely hate this? Open to criticism and suggestions. See ya later!
Love,
Fiza