stephanie gentry-fernandez
LATINO-LESBIAN, SPOKEN WORD ARTIST, TEEN OUTREACH ENTHUSIAST, AND ACTIVIST FOR NON-VIOLENCE
Interview by Noelle Janka
Staff Writer
After being blown away by one of Stephanie's performances last month at the COOL Idealist conference in Berkeley, I was able to chat with her about her art, her passions, and her work in the fight against domestic violence and relationship abuse.
Orbis: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background: where you grew up, education, how you got into performing and writing?
SGF: I grew up on the Southside of Chicago (with frequent trips to Mexico City where my mom's family is … I actually finished 2nd grade over there) and was in Chicago public schools through until high school, when I got a scholarship to a snotty college prep school. My neighborhood was weird, because it's considered one of the "nicest" neighborhoods in the Southside, but the reality of the Southside, in terms of crime, poverty, gangs, etc., were still very present. One of the main reasons I got the hell out of Chicago public schools was because I saw someone shot and killed at school when I was 12.
I got into performing as an escape. I was incredibly shy until high school, but had been involved in Chicago Children's Choir and was familiar with the stage. Basically, I started off with "traditional" theater and LOVED it because I could let out all the emotions I normally kept swallowed. But I started getting sick of the gross sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, capitalism, etc., etc., that happens in "traditional" theater. I've always written but it didn't occur to me to "perform" it until I graduated high school and started finding out about spoken word. I loved that even more! I got involved at About Face Youth Theatre and they incorporated my work into "Inside Out," a production we put up in 2002. That got great press and was a huge confidence booster for me just because I was getting such positive responses. Little by little, I got involved in the Vagina Monologues in college, in Café Teatro Batey Urbano, and other organizations that encouraged VOICING and SURVIVAL.
O: Where are you based now?
SGF: I live in Oakland, California and work at CORA (Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse) which is in San Mateo County,
California.
O: Can you talk a little bit about the work you do for CORA? Are there other organizations, groups, projects, movements that you are involved in?
SGF: I am the teen outreach coordinator. We do presentations in high schools about healthy relationships and what is abusive, kind of a "domestic violence 101" type presentation. I also facilitate two 15-week groups for two juvenile detention facilities in the county. These groups are an extension of the workshop and talk about whatever the teens want to talk about.
At the moment I'm not involved in anything (!) just because I'm still acclimating (I just moved from Chicago in January and am focusing on my job for now) but of course the Bay Area has so many things to get involved in I'm not worried about finding something!
O:How often do you get to share your work publicly, and in what kind of venues?
SGF: I'm kind of burned out in terms of performing at open mics and such, so I've been more focused on sharing my work in the group I facilitate at a juvenile detention facility, through work and through universities that invite me. So, about five times a year.
O: And how did you get started?
SGF: I got started just at open mics in Chicago, of which there are plenty.
O:What social and/or political issues are you most passionate about?
SGF: Non-violence, and right now the prison industrial complex and criminalization of people of color and queer people. And also the genocides that are occurring in Juarez, Mexico, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
O:What do you consider your most important message? And what do you hope to accomplish with your work personally/nationally/globally?
SGF: I guess just to honor your story, no matter what it is. I hope to achieve peace.
O:Who or what do you consider to be your biggest influences, heroes?
SGF: Stacey Ann Chin, I Was Born With Two Tongues, Saul Williams. hmmmm personal heroes? My little sister.
O:What are you reading, listening to, and watching these days?
SGF:Sandra Cisneros-Caramelo; Muse and Kanye West; "The L Word" and "Sex in the City."
O:What advice do you have for young artists and activists trying get their work/message out there?
SGF: Your message and your story are important. Don't forget that.
Untitled
by stephanie gentry-fernandez
Caught in the cloak of labels
politically correct and otherwise
you make me a burrito spic
then quickly a pinche guera
but the tracks of my train of thought
know no border patrol
and my dreams
have no fences
tripping between languages and races
between brown and white
between barrio and parish
i fall before i can even open my mouth
and a jumbled Spanglish sentence
hits deaf ears to those
who can only see my skin
instead of hearing my voice.
My innocent parents believed
it would be perfectly okay
to raise biracial children
in an Irish Catholic neighborhood
that commits more hate crimes
than any other neighborhood
in the country.
The slap in the face they received
stings them daily
as my brother and i strive to prove
an identity that we can't even define
since the bubbles that claim your idea
of race
say only white
and Hispanic, non-white and saying we're mixed race
doesn't do justice
when our brown blood
pulses through our veins so thickly
our heartbeats keep us awake at night.
Amerika has lied to us, Mami.
Dad, we will never be as Amerikan as you.
There are too many summers
spent at Abuelita's
There are too many times we were singled out
forced to pencil in either one or the other
and just white
would be a sun-bleached, washed-out version
of tamales and tamarindo
quetzal feathers, rosa mexicana, jade, mariachi music,
la Virgen de Guadalupe.
We would be displayed like circus freaks
during cultural festivals
the only Chicanos in the school
as the smiling white and black faces
would call my heritage "spicy,"
and then ask me to do their Spanish homework.
Amerika, land of opportunity
melting pot cliches of acceptance
and tolerance
and success
that i never see when I go to the barrio
and for all the hype the paisanos give
about La Raza and being accepted
I still get shocked stares
when they hear me
speaking Spanish.
I'm tired of this spell checker
slashing red gashes into my page
whenever i write in my mother tongue
as if there was something wrong
about the language i speak
that needed to be corrected.
So who is Amerikan?
i have the right papers, the right skin color,
i even grew up in the right neighborhood
in a nice house
with lots of white people all around me
and yet i am never made to feel like
this is my home
i am never made to feel like
Amerika is my home
as a Mexican-American
i am never made to feel like
Mexico is my home
as a gringa pinche guera
and i'm tired of being homeless
uprooted another immigrant
half-breed she's not from here
well she's not from here
you ask me why i'm angry
you ask me why i'm angry
but never realize that it gets lonely
when no one ever tries to understand
your language.
Amerika where will you put me
Amerika just let me be
why did you lie to me
Amerikan is not me
Mexican is not me
when all i ever hear
is can't.