somebody else's paradise

capitalism part III: what is neo-liberalism?

the Feminism and Global War group of the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research organized a panel discussion of neoliberalism today, with the aim to think about neo-liberalism from a feminist lens. three theorists of neoliberalism sat at the table, and after the discussion took place i realized that all three were antropologists: Aihwa Ong (UC Berkeley), James Ferguson (Stanford) and Lisa Rofel (UC Santa Cruz). whether due to the shared disciplinary background or not, a common ground emerged throughout their brief talks. the need for “small” stories of neoliberalism, perspectives from below, that debunk the idea that neoliberalism functions according to a singular and unitary logic, paying attention to the different meanings and faces of neoliberalism. all of this in contrast to accounts of Neoliberalism with a capital N (read: Harvey, Hardt & Negri,…).

a familiar mode of thinking, which has my sympathy – unpacking singular and unitary logics, attending to the stories from below, to the effects on concrete bodies. yet here it didn’t work. for one, at some instances these methodological and epistemological concerns had clearly been transformed into a meta-discourse. in the middle of the discussion Aihwa Ong uttered a surreal sentence linking the self-acclaimed modesty of her approach with accounting for modernity, globalization and neo-liberalism all at once. it also didn’t work because of the defensive set-up in its critique on theories of Neoliberalism, with the capital N. of course Gopal Balakrishnan (from New Left Review, who became the new History of Consciousness professor) and Chris Connery (Cultural Studies) insisted upon a more structural, more political theory, more Marxist account of neoliberalism. as they sat next to each other, and kept on whispering comments throughout the talks, it felt as if there were two blocks: the speakers in the front and the marxist back bench. and i kept on thinking, i want and need stuff from “both” of these approaches and how did they become so divided in this space…

i shouldn’t forget to mention that James Ferguson did a provocative thing in his discussion of a particular (basic income) project in South Africa that was pro-poor and pro-neoliberal at the same time. (“let’s try to think about that conjuncture, we can’t even think about it. and what if most effective politics are emerging not against neoliberalism, but from within…“) and that Aihwa Ong had a silly emotional outburst: you know, it’s really scarry to be here in Santa Cruz. everything needs to be framed in terms of “structure” and “oppositional politics”…. (i mean, honestly, the woman is from Berkeley…) and that James Clifford displayed his usual kindness and brilliance in shifting and creating the grounds to connect the pieces and divisions. his intervention began like this: as we all know, when we don’t like a political strategy, we call it reformist, when we do, we call it Gramcist…

a quick word with (the impressive) Gina Dent afterwards, who just became director of the Institute of Advanced Feminist Research. she didn’t disguise her insatisfaction with the event, in terms of the non-communication (beyond affirming their own positions) between the panel and the marxist back-bench. ah, but surely that was to be expected, i said (thinking about this particular set-up). not when i organize, she responds with beautiful fury.

but the pleasure of the day lay in the encounter with veronica. we had, eventually, found each other on this entirely de-centered campus in the forest – not an easy thing, this campus doesn’t cease to surprise and disorient, especially if one tries to think in terms of a central square or meeting place. after the panel we went to our home and talked and talked and talked. veronica just came back to california after two years in madrid, where she found the karakola and precarias a la deriva; maggie had put us into contact. lots of stories of european feminist networks and connections (oh, i get happy like a child when talking and plotting about these kinds of feminist families or mafias) and migration and euro-nostalgia.

more friends

a long intense and exciting conversation with kristy today. funny how that works after months of emails; if i think about it, the last time i saw her was probably in february. and there never really was an opportunity to connect much, there merely was a recognition or promise of something possible. i suddenly remember the scene at the Katrina conference way back in January; i had just arrived and was still under some kind of shock or terror of this place. marÃa and i had found a little corner in the dinning hall during lunch break, and we were partly listening (and partly getting annoyed) to a picture slide show about New Orleans and Katrina. we spotted these girls talking together, and at that moment they seemed like the only other people in the room i could envision some kind of connection with. let’s go to talk to them, i said, with an urgency that smelled of survival. one of them was part of the Chavez coop and invited to me interview at their house, and kristy and sam were part of the Student Workers Coalition to Justice, and that is how we joined the group for a while. but kristy somehow disappeared from santa cruz soon after that. when her first email from beirut arrived, we learn that she had decided to live a year with her lebanese family. then there’s war, and email becomes something else. the need to write, have life-lines. the decision to leave beirut, accompanied by an unmendable need to go return. back in the U.S. she returns to New Orleans. from one kind of war zone to another; seeking an understanding of how they are connected in so many ways. a intensity of a war zone quotidian that is difficult to live with, but that also installs itself under one’s skin and seeps a vital restlessness into one’s veins. she had just come home to her parents, down in L.A., when she seriously sprawled her ankle and is forced to stay on the couch for three weeks. these moments when your body forces you to stop running around. until she can walk again and… leaves for beirut. eager to catch up with each other in San Francisco before she goes.

home again

tonight mihui will come home from three weeks of house-sitting in Berkeley. a house with a mad cat who needs so much attention that at night it wakes up the neighbors (who actually come to ring the doorbel asking if mihui could keep the cat quiet) if it is not sufficiently caressed, she told me on the phone. or something like that, mihui’s stories tend to be larger than life.

speaking of which: house-mates told me that meanwhile mihui is making stories from our house into a sit-com. a series of characters and stories spun out over a number of episodes – like Friends or Sex in the city, but set in Santa Cruz. true, this town is very marketable. (although it’s likely to be branded as paradise, and then i’m worried about this eternal return of the repressed in this paradise, as the movies and Hitchcock show us…) and true, the stories in and of the house don’t stop. but i’m holding my heart (another literal translation of a flemish expression) to see what comes out of this. (to start with, my character is the one with bushes of hair under her armpits…) and giulia, sahar, marco, wim, lotte, yoran and arwen, if i were you i’d hold my heart as well. (let alone “europe”, oh this old one will get represented in a funny way…)

meanwhile leta is psyched and marÃa is happy with the perspective of becoming famous. cynthia is doing the writing while mihui is doing the story-telling. cynthia’s rich daddy is paying, as he considers it time that his daughter makes it in Hollywood. and just about everyone around here seems to agree that it’s a good idea to have a sit-com about our house. it makes me wonder…

i haven’t known it otherwise: our house continues its flow of changes. over the summer back home i got the emails announcing that cynthia would move out and mihui, living in my room at the time, would officially move in. news that was cheered by many. this weekend we’ve learned that ammon the lizzard guy wants to move out. the process of finding a new housemate starts again… (let’s use a hidden camera during the interviews, leta joked, and that’s how i was informed about the sit-com…)

very grateful for the house this weekend. thinking of the story of coming here. the decision between this place and the chavez co-op. perhaps the most difficult part of the decision: how commiting to a house meant staying at least for a little bit longer in this town, and the washington house definately felt more “rooting” than the high-turnover student co-op. how it came to me. after the second meeting at the chavez house on a dark wintery sunday evening, i walked along the beach. suddenly, out of nowhere, a hugh shell arrives with the tide, just in front of my feet. i’ve never seen a shell like that here, before or since that night. i looked around, and found myself to be alone on that beach. it seemed to have arrived for me. i took it home, put it next to my bed, and decide that i’ll go for whatever feels better when i wake up.

then it came to marÃa, three months later. a dream at the earth activist training camp, about our house. the evening she gets back she tells me about the dream and that she must look for a house like that. just the week before it had become clear that in the end three people would move out of the house, and that we had to find one more new housemate. a dinner the following evening with leta, and it is decided that marÃa will move in.

this strange sense of being guided to the house, and finding the grounds for a good and gentle space in what, at least for me, is not a very friendly social territorium. i also learn this weekend, from marÃa who knew it a longer time, that a young girl took her life in this house. somehow something transformed into a gardian angel staying close to this home.

spanish – dos mujeres

i won’t bother you after every spanish class, promised, but alvaro’s games today made me laugh too much not to drop you note. which i must start by saying that, when marÃa comes to pick me up after class and we try to find a dining hall on Science Hill, as this particular concentration of science buildings in the forest is called, we find out that there is not much except a van that stops by every day at noon, selling tacos, burritos, french fries, softdrinks… to a long line of hungry students (many of whom live on this campus) and staff. all of a sudden alvaro’s previous game of criticizing food habits here seems a bit less funny. (and frankly, who conceives a campus like this, without enough adequate dining facilities or food stores?) it already got a bit less funny earlier in class today when we had to tell each other what we ate this morning, and the seriously overweight girl sitting next to me said “pizza”.

but i wanted to tell you about today’s game. alvaro made us listen to CorazÃ³n loco in the Bebo and Cigala version to review the verb poder (No te puedo comprender, corazÃ³n loco). a pleasant although a bit random way to learn verbs, i remember thinking. but alvaro clearly had a greater plan. when we moved on to conversation, he asks: so what do you think, is it possible to love two women, yes or no. or two men or a woman and a man, that’s not the point. 10 minutes of discussion in small groups. the class is hit by bafflement and confusion. “He wants us to talk about whÃ t?!?” the kids look at each other; some mouths fall open, some heads shake in disbelief. sitting in the back of the room, i overlook the wave of slight panic rolling over the class, and catch the gaze of alvaro sitting at his desk, supposedly correcting some papers but hardly disguising how much he enjoys the whole scene. the sense of moral panic doesn’t last very long. at least in my small group the young women find themselves on the same page and express it with fervor. “Â¡No es possible!” and everybody switches to english quite fast this time in order to make their point. i stay quiet, enjoy the spectacle of alvaro and the class. then the young women turn to me. what can i say, claro que sÃ... and i’m looking forward to the other games alvaro still plans to play with these american undergrads.

brown berets

the first Brown Berets meeting i went to definately drew me in but this evening i’m very moved. my impression about the relationship to history and legacy is confirmed: also this meeting starts with a member briefly telling the history of the group. the 1960s, the inspiration of the Black Panthers, and urgencies provoked by police brutality and poor education. (Walkout! is a film that represents a part of that history.) the original group disbanded in the 1970s but local chapters remain. in 1994 the Watsonville chapter is established by high school kids after more gang killings in which a 9 year old sister and 16 year old brother die. the first peace and unity march takes place. sandino, who is telling the story this time, pauses on education. the each one teach one principle put forward by Malcolm X. the educational drive of the Brown Berets: educating ourselves and the community, as school were and are not teaching what we need to know.

the educational part of this meeting revolves around the alliance between brown and black power. the words of the guy running for the Santa Cruz city council at the protest serve as an introduction: we need to understand how the undocumented people from Mexico and other latin american countries picking strawberries are related to black slaves picking cotton. we watch an impressive fragment of a documentary, in which an old black woman in Mexico talks about her family history. her ancesters were run-away slaves from Florida, who sought and found refuge in a Mexican village. she speaks of a whole community of black people with a similar history, we see images of a group of black women singing the negro-spirituals that travelled with their ancestors to Mexico. the images, words and songs affect the gathering a lot, and people start talking about how “race” as we know it now was an alien concept to their black and latino ancesters. how it was about cultura. and through the imaginaries of resistance that are spun out, a strong presence of native americans emerges. stories about how the Chicapoos and Seminoles, Native American Nations, were known to provide safe places for those running away from slavery, and how it was possible for initial outsiders to become part of their nations. a recognition of how strong this Native American heritage runs through the Black history in this country.

returning to our ancestral roots, they emphasized, means understanding how these ancesters didn’t discriminate on the basis of “race” like in the system the whites brought with them. there’s a deep history of black and brown unity that needs to be reclaimed, and that finds more contemporary foundations in the alliance between the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets, and indeed the fact that the Brown Berets as an organization is modelled on the Black Panthers.

the conversation moves on into strong personal positioning. a black woman (she’s the only black person in the group) talks about what it means for her to be involved in the Brown Berets. how her family and community asks her questions about why she’s involved in someone else’s struggle. and she speaks about having Native American blood, and how that blood runs through black people in this country. a white guy (there are about three white people with myself included) speaks about what it means for him to be active in the Brown Berets. he refers to the “When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out” poem written under the Nazi regime. one of the core members of the group wants to respond to the charge of “reverse racism” that white friends of him tend to bring up. if black and brown power is okay for you, would it then be okay for me to talk about white power? his answer: listen, man, does it look like whites need more power in this world?

then a woman intervenes, almost in tears. all the things you’re talking about are very important, unity is important, don’t get me wrong. but there’s also other stuff going on. part of my ancesters are from the Cherokee Nation. but the Cherokee Nation, they also had slaves, they also participated in the slave trade. and now they exclude folks like me and my family. if you don’t have a rol number – but what kind of shit is that, i don’t even want a rol number – but if you don’t have it, you’re not considered Cherokee. but it’s part of my culture, my heritage. and they try to take that away through rol numbers, and blood quantum. what kind of shit is that… we also need to be talking about that.

the way people engage with each other is impressive. listening, hearing, taking people’s concerns and pains on, sharing them, constructing community. later during the meeting there is a time for nominating new members (i now understand better some of the dynamics of what seems quite a differentiated system of involvement and authoritative voices – everybody can come to the meetings but there’s a formal system of membership which works through nomination by a member in the meeting, followed by a vote about the person.) a guy of the core group nominates the black woman who spoke earlier. the political significance of this nomination escapes nobody and is expressed in a long round of applause. she starts crying, and i can’t help feel the tears welling up.

there so much more i learn, i’m not managing to digest and write about it all. touching upon three brief things for now. one, on October 13 & 14 the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the Black Panthers in Oakland will be celebrated. two, the impressive woman running for the Watsonville city council, mireya gomez, has been a queer latina spokesperson at college and member of the Brown Berets. the Brown Berets is mobilizing to support her, which is presented to the meeting, and especially to young people, as yet another educational activity: how to do a campaign in local politics. (and in many school programs this will get you credits, it is mentioned.) three, as part of la Otra CampaÃ±a el subcomandente Marcos & co are calling for a secret meeting with latin@ leaders from the US. secret in the sense that of course the time and place will be kept secret, but also that it will not be followed by a public communiquÃ©. instead, the idea is to strategize for a while about possible common and complementary tactics. and so a delegation of the Brown Berets has been called for. (oh, what a smart and bold move of the EZLN, to initiate this kind of transnational coordination… and if Chavez keeps on doing his funky interventions…)

making friends

run into sam on the bus this morning. the encounter touches me. i don’t have many friends in this town. which i should qualify, but it’s difficult to pin it down. i don’t mean the presence of friendly (ay, the language is not helping here) people around. there’s much of that friendliness, much more than in many other places i have lived. it’s the friendliness my mum was so attached to in her golden US years. by now parts of it make marÃa and me smile. like: yeah, sure we’ll meet up soon when you know it’s not gonna happen (i remember it made berna cry.) but i’m talking about other economies of affinities and affections; perhaps i’m talking about falling in love, for sure i’m thinking about people travelling with you through life, about becoming part of the caravan. changing the language might help: it’s the excess of ami/e in relation to friend (and i can’t help thinking that ami/e is related to Ã¢me) that seems so lacking.

on this cold, grey and foggy morning, after months of not having seen sam, it all of a sudden strikes me that sam is closer to being a friend than i would have thought. i wonder how much it is about me being less intensively “at war” with this place (as rutvica summerizes it) or the things that have objectively, or better relationally, changed between sam and me. we didn’t have any contact these months, but other webs of connection were spun. sharon martinas and challenging white supremacy. the intimacy between sam and kristy, and my connection with kristy during her experience of the war in lebanon and the trauma of leaving beirut as she did. as we’re speaking on the bus, a different dimension of life and experiences pop up between us than before the summer. part of me still feels that it isn’t really there, it isn’t real, but clearly something is different from before, more dense, more populated.

sam’s news. a whole bunch of them, connected to the Student Workers Coalition for Justice, went (back) to New Orleans this summer. they met up again with sharon while she was there. they keep going back to New Orleans, and continue to make plans to do so – i share my plans to go as well. then there’s the disintegration of the Student Workers Coalition for Justice. sam decided to join Rainbow theatre, a people of color theatre project, which means she can’t continue the Student Workers Coalition for Justice. kristy will be back in Beirut. and they are not the only ones who can’t make it this year. (she asks about me, and i tell her that i’m going to the Brown Berets meetings now, which also coincide on that same thursday evening…) oh, campus politics crumble a bit…

theories of slavery

getting into a UCSC class gets even more tough. Theories of Slavery by Angela Davis. maximum 15 students, of course there’s a waiting list and many people just show up in the desperate hope that there still might be a way to get in. i contacted Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness while i was back in europe, but the same story: since i’m not a student i can’t enroll nor even get on the waiting list. my emails were rather, well, insisting, and i had been telling myself, and friends, that i would take that class. (yesterday evening leta made me do the will-power thing: i will get into angela davis’ class…). but today’s situation was so awkward that i let go.

first an elaborate introduction to the structure and content of class, with all the tangible tension and eagerness of everyone wanting to be participating in what was presented to us. then the moment in which everyone introduced themselves… explaining why and how they really really really needed to be in this class. ay, i can’t do this… finally the moment of truth. angela carefully checked the list with 15 enrolled students. one free space and she got another student, who also wasn’t present, out (she should be writing up her phd these days, not taking classes.) two people from the waitinglist get in. two students from the Humboldt university in Berlin, who stressed that they had been unable to enroll through the normal procedure, got an impossible offer. this is what i propose, we make one extra space in the class, and the two of you decide among yourselves which one takes up the space. they looked at each other in terror… a number of people announced that they would be auditing the class, but angela responded that she had agreed to that before knowing that the class was so full, and that she would have to reconsider.

and that was that, the class was finished and full, as everybody knew all too well it would be. immediately a whole bunch of students queued up to speak with angela. i had put myself in the queue but with every second passing by i thought no, no, no, i can’t do this. i hear the german girls insisting that they can’t make that choice. angela responds that she has to submit the final list with names after this class, and if they can’t give her a name she’ll have to give the open space to someone else. almost angry, the woman just before me tells angela that the old agreement that she could audit the class was the only reason that she stayed in santa cruz after her graduation just before the summer. okay, so you can audit. note that we’re already at 17, with a long line still waiting. hardly disguised desperation on angela’s face. then there’s another thing i can’t help noticing. most of the students who got themselves enrolled, in the days following the announcement of the class in june, are white, and many of those in line are students of color. there clearly is an issue with who is fully and early enrolled (one needs a valid student number in order to officially enrol or even get on the waitinglist) and whose trajectory through these institutions is less evident and more fragile. in the end there’s a small group, all students of color, who insist that they really need the class and who will meet during the official class (but in another room) and do the same readings, and every other week angela will do a tutor session with them after class.

when it’s my turn to sit down with her, i just say “i’m sorry. this is awkward.” i look at her and smile. she nods, “yes, this is awkward.” “i would have wanted to audit the class, that’s what i would still want, but i see the situation. it’s okay.” her turn to smile. “you know what, just come next week. i think it’s okay.”

her presence is impressive. and there’s something about seeing her in action here at UCSC, after that other lousy-actor-Cali-governor (Ronald Reagan) made a public point out of it that Angela Davis would never teach at a public university in California again. and i’m eager to do the trajectory of this course. it’s aim is to look at slavery from the perspective of the failure of its abolition. the course is organized along six sections: (1) Paradoxes of Abolition and Legacies of Slavery; (2) Memory. Representations, Reparations; (3) Gender, Sexuality, Domination, Resistance: Feminist Approaches; (4) Slave Systems/Slave Lives: Classic Texts; (5) Political Economy of Atlantic Slavery: Anti-imperialist approaches; (6) Slavery and the Contemporary Era: Trafficking in Persons and Mass Imprisonment. i hope to be writing more about the classes in these pages, but listen, for next week we have to read the 700 pages of W.E.B. Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, and it’s not getting better in the following weeks…

spanish – la comida

a bit nervous and excited when i get up this morning. the spanish exam on monday was quite broad: almost thirty pages of exercises, reading and listening comprehension, small pieces of writing, and i know that my weird knowledge of spanish doesn’t sit well with a more standard divisions of levels. no problems in comprehension and after a weekend of studying verbs the verb grammar exercises must have been flawless, but then there were entire pieces i had to leave blank. (and yes, i admit, i simply switched to italian when i didn’t know the spanish words.) after class alvaro calls some people to come to his office and discuss problems with the test. he doesn’t call me, so i go to him – can i stay? i had counted the people taking the test on monday, and we were just above the prescribed maximum of 24 students. he nods, no problem. ooooh, my first full UCSC class…

alvaro makes me laugh a lot. he plays much of the time, and i’m not entirely sure if the kids (these undergrads really look so young) get it. all UCSC spanish classes use the same (incredibly expensive) books, in which the language is embedded within a latin american hispanic cultural background. but alvaro just skips over the cultural references and brings in his own photocopies. the conversation topic today was la comida, food, and instead of using the textbook which teaches us about the cuisine of Venezuela, alvaro gives us a text (La Dieta MediterrÃ¡nea) that starts off like this: “Cuando se estudiaron las costumbres alimenticias de los paÃses mediterrÃ¡neos, descubrieron que en general los habitantes de estas zonas tenÃan un bajo nivel de colesterol, comparados con los consumidores anglosajones, centroeuropeos o norteamericanos.” i mean, i do see the point of criticizing north american food habits. but he’s so obviously playing the european and the mediterranean with the students, and enjoying it a lot. and i enjoy the whole spectacle.

protest migra raids

a bus adventure to get to Watsonville. the autumn sun beats down on the watsonville plaza, where a bunch of people stand to demand justice for migrants. not very many, perhaps 150 or 200. as we walk towards the crowd, we talk about friends in santa cruz who didn’t see the sense in coming out here. what difference is it going to make? there will probably only be white and documented activists. but no, white people are rather absent (and frankly that doesn’t come as a surprise…). and yes, probably most or all people are documented here, which seems a logical division of labour, as long as these public meetings are not safe for undocumented people, in an economy of solidarity, no?

one moment i’m a bit taken aback by the situation. it’s almost the first public protest (there was a more spontaneous immediate one, in santa cruz, but they say that the group of protesters there was “really small”) after the raids and deportations, and there’s a nasty promise of more raids, yet so little people came out today. there’s no way you can stop it. but if everybody thinks like that, and clearly many many people do, it’s no wonder that the networks of collective action are so fragile. but slowly i get into the atmosphere of the gathering: there’s a sense of community and empowerment which is heart-warming. the shift in emotions is accompanied by one in moving bodies: moving away from the side-walk, where most protesters are standing with banners and slogans directed towards the street (how strange this sensation, cars as the main public of your protest), to the grass in the middle of the plaza. we sit down in a circle, and people talk.

the creation of a migra watch (already prepared by the Brown Berets), the mira migra, seeking to strenghten community connections and enable a fast-travelling alert system when the migra comes back to town. an agricultural laborer talks about working conditions. the head of a local school talks about the children whose parents been taken away, the children who’ve been taken out of school because of fear, and how the school now declares la migra unwelcome on their territory (oh, imagine all kinds of institutions doing that, declaring la migra unwelcome and organizing to keep them out…) fear is tangible and when one of the organizers asks if someone who was close to people who got deported wants to say something, there first is silence. then a woman steps up and talks about the children she works with, telling in fact the story of how she came to america, more than 14 years ago, and found herself working in the fields, not knowing english, and slowly slowly got herself into classes and trainings and now works in a kindergarten. a story of success, for which she is applauded. this should be possible for all, it is said. a member of the Watsonville City Council insists on how this country would crumble without migrant labor, how migrants in fact hold economic power. a black man running for the Santa Cruz City Council, holding a banner with “Black and Brown together”, invokes the image of latino workers bent over in the fields picking strawberries, and talks about how that image takes him back to his ancestors in the cottonfields. crucial that we make the connections, and building a struggle together. mireya gomez, who runs for the Watsonville City Council, speaks about the need to stand up, in the city council and at protest like these, and whereever you are, for those who cannot vote, and will not be officially represented. a refrain of Â¡Si, Se Puede!, and a people’s clap to wrap it up.

the Brown Berets are a discrete presence, without their uniforms, as agreed at the meeting. so that it can be a protest of “the people”. the other discussion last thursday now seems a bit unnecessary: what role the Brown Berets would take if the people want to go to the streets and march (the permit was for a rally at the plaza only). but it is not going to happen with this (small) crowd.

at some point marÃa and i stray to the taquerÃa, hang out for a while, search for a bus home. at the bus stop marÃa sees that bone-chilling advertisement for an agency that pays bail bonds, for sure they do good business in “gang” town Watsonville… Buy your freedom. still at the bus stop, a latino man who works here. when marÃa asks him, at some point in the conversation, whether he has friends here, he shakes his head. no.

as much as Santa Cruz makes me angry, Watsonville provokes a certain tenderness. both towns are equally small (~ 50.000 inhabitants) and have a basic agricultural layer, only Santa Cruz is on top of that a beach resort, a campus town, a silicon valley dorm-suburb, a hippie hang-out place, and supposedly the west-coast dyke capital. the things that give Santa Cruz a bit of an urban character, as people say. (but i keep on insisting that they got the notion of urban wrong.) and the things that make Santa Cruz so white and liberal – paradise as many here say. (but i’m sure by now you got my take on that.) oh, i have sudden strong fantasies of moving to watsonville. marÃa gives me a big sceptical smile, and of course i know she’s right (it would take us 4 hours a day to commute to campus by public transport, and since when do i like small rural places anyway… but i actually like this one, it is different from the white xenophobic place, where one gets beaten up if you are not “from” there, that shaped my visceral dislike of small rural places…). but it sure feels a good idea to spend more time here.

love team

clea and david bring marÃa home
flowers, cake and chilled champagne
excitement, stories and love.

(the affirmation of this summer
that i want to stay in santa cruz this year,
to live with marÃa. and she got us
a love team t-shirt from madrid)

(and jetlag, lots of it)