California: a state of contradiction

Yesterday I went to Southern U. to meet with some students (yes, I actually to try to be a diligent prof.), and I ran into a colleague in the hallway. Of course we both had bloodshot eyes from our lack of sleep from the night before but we also had this giddiness that felt palatable (another colleague sent me an email telling me that he thought that the mood on campus was just happier and lighter--someone else said the world seemed shinier).

But my friend also provided me with a sobering reminder. We are both Californians, at heart, and she reminded me that Proposition 8 in California had passed by a 4% margin.

For those of you who don't know, Prop 8 was an amendment that strikes down gay marriage, preventing more happy couples from celebrating their partnerships. People needed to vote NO on Prop 8 to keep marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Unfortunately, many did not--because the pro-Prop 8 forces were well funded and organized, predominantly by religious groups outside of California (80% of funding to promote Prop 8 came from Utah).

And for liberal-progressive Californians the celebration of Obama's election was tinged by the passage of Prop 8.

I often wax nostalgic for California. I even teach a class on California narratives, one that focuses on the state as a site of social change. And yet, as liberal and progressive as certain segments of California's population is (most notably the SF Bay Area which overwhelmingly OPPOSED Prop 8) I can't help but remember that California is a state of contradiction. It has a very diverse population and one of the largest Asian American and Latino (specifically Chicano) populations in the U.S. But it also has a long and deep history of racial animosity towards these particular groups. And while left leaning, this is also a state that has been governed by Republican stalwarts such as Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, and now "The Governator."

However, for a realistic take on what we need to do to keep fighting, please see this entry by the Poplicks duo, Junichi & Oliver. I think, in particular, Oliver's reminder to us that we need to keep fighting--that the road to civil rights has never been linear, is an important one to keep in mind.

And for any of you in need of convincing about the need for human rights FOR ALL--let me point you to NYU law professor Kenji Yohsino's Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights. Because marriage should be a right for all humans, regardless of their identities (again, need I remind anyone of the anti-miscegenation laws on the books for so long?)

Finally, in a more upbeat note, please see this link:

Californians, or maybe more accurately San Franciscans, definitely have a progressive sense of history making (and a great sense of humor too!)

Book Plug: Covering by Kenji Yoshino

I have just finished reading Covering: the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights by Kenji Yoshino.



Yoshino is a law professor at Yale University and his book (published by Random House) is both a work of legal scholarship as well as a memoir about growing up gay and Japanese American, and his research on issues of civil rights as a Yale law school professor.

His basic argument is that all people cover, in the sense that we hide or mute parts of our identities, our personalities, from the general public--and that this covering demand, made most explicitly on certain groups of people like gay men, racial minorities, and pregnant women, is an assault on civil rights.

Using his own life as a text for interpretation, he traces the stages of his gay identity through three stages: conversion, passing, and covering. He sees covering as a form of assimilation--and tracing the legal precedents of Title VII, he also sees the ways in which the American legal system has sought to create legal jurisprudence that emphasizes a common American culture of conformity.

There are many more things to say about Yoshino's argument and the main message of his book--which is that it is imperative, in our day and age, to think about the covering demands we are placing on people and to understand them as limiting civil rights. As Yoshino writes:

"We must find a way to protect difference that does not balkanize the country into separate fiefdoms of competing identity groups. We need a new paradigm of civil rights."

What I appreciate about his book is the elegance of his prose--the way that he weaves his gender/sexual/racial identity into the larger legal narrative he is telling. And that he makes this all very accessible to a broad audience interested in issues of identity, of assimilation, and of course, of civil and human rights.

And if you want to actually see and hear Yoshino discuss these issues (and you have a good 30 minutes to spare), you can hear his lecture at UCLA law school on this clip.