The Orbis

Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: Undefined Section

 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.

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