"I don’t know how you do it," my neighbor’s girlfriend commented. My five-year-old daughter Siu Loong was at her father’s house and I had taken advantage of my free night to attend and photograph a march against police brutality, then stayed out till midnight developing the film I had shot.

"I dunno. I just do," I mumbled, not knowing what else to say.

But that’s not entirely true. To simply say that leaves out the resources and community I’ve gained from years of being engaged in social justice work.--read more >>

Yo Mama Says The Parental is Political
[Producer's note: we first published this way back in the late 90's.... no, come to think of it, it only seems that old, actually maybe it was the early oughts. Anyway, seems like a good moment in time to republish it... --S]

So you’re tired of politicians who never listen, administrations that ignore public opinion? Well, if Yo Mama were president, she’d revolutionize government from top to bottom. What’s her platform? It isn’t her platform: it is YOUR platform: --read more >>

Happy Mother's Day mamas! Tired of feeling like it's yet another commercialized thing to participate in? Here's an option for you!

This year's theme for taking back Mother's Day from Mothers Acting Up is Mother Leadership. "Children's wellbeing is at the top of every mother's agenda. It's time to bring it to the top of our political agendas." For information about the Mother's Day Parades and to find out if there's one in your area, visit the Mothers Acting Up website at MothersActingUp. --read more >>

Susan says: China is on tour with Ariel Gore right now! For details see the events news on the side bar... and now for your regularly scheduled interview!

Before the internet made it easier to network with other alternative parents, before there was a genre of mama zines, or even Hip Mama, there was "The Future Generation: The Zine for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others." Created by China Martens in 1990 (after the birth of her daughter in 1988), the zine was unlike any other. Her mother, who read to her from as early as one month old and fashioned cut-and-paste picture books for her as a toddler, was her original zinester influence. She has a short story "On The Road (with baby)" published in Breeder: Real Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers; is a columnist for Slug and Lettuce; and won the 2002 Baltimore City Paper "Best Of" zine award for "I was...a Student Nurse." Seventeen years later, China is still cranking out issues of her groundbreaking zine—most recently #15 "The Raising Teenagers" issue. She spent the last year compiling all of the issues into one too-good-to-be-true volume: Future Generation: The Zine-Book For Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends And Others

China and I have been long-time Internet friends and have collaborated on Mamaphiles, a mama zinester collaboration. When I heard about her new book, I couldn’t wait to (virtually) sit down and chat with her about the journey that led to it.

Stacey Greenberg: So why did you decide to put out a zine in the first place?

China Martens: I wanted to create an information and support network for alternative parents. There wasn’t anything like that at the time. It was very rare to meet other parents like myself. We were all hungry for information, departing off the "known" path of the way we were raised. It was hard being a parent in the subculture because you lost some of the support and resources you had first gained within it: you no longer could keep up in the same way because you were a parent. But you didn’t fit in with mainstream parents or parenting resources either. We needed to communicate with each other, and for the first time I felt I was experiencing issues that there wasn’t already a zine or a movement based around addressing. There was not even a single zine that had parenting essays in it or was made by a parent. (Not that I saw anyway, and I had been around a lot of zines in what felt, at the time, like the heyday of zines.) The closest thing I could find was Mothering Magazine which had the natural parenting stuff I believed in, but absolutely nothing political in it, or punk, or said anything about how to put your ideals into action when you were living the nitty-gritty life. (Like if you were poor or stressed out). --read more >>

I read an essay called “Linking Movements, Linking Lives” by Cherry Galette and was amazed by her ability to link issues together as well as by her critique of systemic oppression. In “Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind,” the workshops on supporting women and children that Vikki Law and I have been giving this summer, one thing I keep saying is that supporting a woman’s right to have a child is as important as supporting a woman’s right to have an abortion; if one is truly pro-choice, there has to be a choice.

Cherry quotes Loretta Ross “Choices are for people who have them, and lots of people don’t.” She examines economic privilege and poverty while discussing the common ground between reproduction rights, queer liberation, trans liberation movements. She discusses the struggles of recipients of public benefits, immigrants, female bodied people of color, farm workers, people in recovery from substance abuse, incarcerated individuals, and others. You should check out her essay here.

I’ve been trying to make waves of my own: to address the anarchist community to see the systemic oppression of neglecting the needs of the radical parents, child-care givers, and children in their scene. I feel that most anarchists are eager to embrace community building; they don’t want to be just a scene of twenty-somethings in a movement that one grows up and leaves, but part of an ongoing culture of resistance. Yet if you look around, the presence of children and parents is very small; they are often pushed out because they are unsupported.--read more >>

For years I had followed the progress of the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and of the hospital’s founder, Dr. Catherine Hamlin. I first read about Dr. Hamlin in Ms. magazine, saw her on "The Oprah Show," pored through her autobiography in two days and now, miraculously, here I was speeding through the streets of Addis Ababa on my way to meet her. I was excited, but more than that I was scared. Dizzy from the heat, dust and the sudden jolting of the taxi, I was hanging on for dear life. The taxi driver must have noticed my discomfort.--read more >>

She estimates her age to be 72, although no record of her birth exists. She has only a few gray hairs on her head and her face is noticeably free of wrinkles, despite a lifetime of hard work. In her village Danyanish Mekonnen, mother of five grown children, holds the respected title of awaledje. Awaledje is the Amharic word for traditional birth attendant, a woman who, without any formal training, assists other women in giving birth. In nearly every village one woman stands out among the rest as the awaledje and is seen as an authority on childbirth and infant care.--read more >>

When Mother's Day was first born in 1872, breakfast in bed, Hallmark cards, store-bought bouquets and being taken out for brunch wasn't anywhere near the point. Then called Mother's Peace Day, the holiday was supposed to celebrate the values represented by motherhood -- peace, mercy, charity, and patience -- and the broader social and political implications of those values.

I just came across an advertisement for some kind of a high-end breakfast-in-bed kit, with a caption that said, "Celebrating our nation's true heroes," or something along those lines, and I felt a little hostile. It reminded me of what my friend calls Mother's Day, which is, "The Keep-'Em-In-Bed-Another-Year Holiday." Sort of like: give Mom a valium, some breakfast in bed, and keep her down. Mother's Day, at its origins, was intended to be exactly the opposite: it was a day to keep Mom up-up and at 'em, marching in the streets.--read more >>

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There are an astounding number of people who go hungry in the U.S., despite the imagery we see on TV and the hollow lies of our government. There is a stigma attached to hunger. People do not go around talking about it. To do so prompts immediate judgment from the middle class regarding laziness, stupidity, and other classist stereotypes. Because of this, you may work with single parents who are going hungry so they can feed their kids and never know it. Minimum wage does not cover rent plus childcare costs, much less food demands. Most single parents working minimum wage jobs are the opposite of lazy; they work 24/7. Their "work" does not end with an 8 hour shift at "work," and the profits of their labor do not go to them, but to business owners, giving them "just enough for the city," as Stevie Wonder sings.--read more >>

How Can They Make History So Boring? Emma Goldman, May Day, and The American Experience

by Gordon Edgar

--read more >>

MAMAS RISING UP!
Mothers Day Festival
Sunday, MAY 9th 2004
New York City

Mamas Rising Up!, a FREE annual event, will be held for the second year to reclaim Mothers Day and address the issues that women and mothers, especially low-income families, face every day. This year's event includes speakers: Katherine Arnoldi, author of The Incredibly True Story of a Teenage Single Mom; Ayo Harrington, Producer of WBAI's prisoner's program called "On the Count!" speaking about the prison industrial complex and families; Nermin Abdel-Wahab of SLAM, talkiing about student mothers; Women in Black; a member of Casa Atabex Ache; Maureen Lane from the Welfare Rights Initiative at Hunter College; The Colorado Sisters of NYC Zapatistas and Coatlicue Theatre, speaking about violence of women in Juarez and autonomous women's organizing (also will be performing), and others. The day will also have entertainment fromGraciela Monteagudo, Argentinean autonomista and puppeteer; Green Circus, environmental theatre for kids; Tomasia "infiniTEE" Kestner, hip hop recording artist and mama; the Mahina Movement; and kids activities. The Peoples Law Collective will hold a skill share about the rights of parents at demonstrations. Other events are planned throughout the day, which will run from 12-5:30 on May 9th at La Plaza Cultural Garden (9th street between B & C, Manhattan). --read more >>

One More Woman

by Michelle Tellez

I recently met yet another woman who from afar seemed like your ordinary, well-adjusted, middle class mother of two. Because our kids go to the same elementary school, after dropping them off, we started chatting. She told me she had just finished writing a book about her life. She giggled and confessed, “I was a slut!� I laughed and said, “Me too! We’re going to be great friends.� The conversation progressed quickly, and within a few minutes, we realized that what was making us laugh hysterically was rooted in the fact that we were both survivors of child sexual abuse. We were simply coping with old scars.--read more >>

For those who follow the news about the American occupation of Iraq, the name Jeremy Hinzman might sound familiar. Hinzman is an American infantry soldier who went AWOL, brought his family to Canada, and is claiming refugee status because the military will not recognize his conscientious objection to performing combat duty. As a result, he has been the subject of numerous news articles in publications from around the world. The name Nga Nguyen, on the other hand, is not quite so familiar. Nga is Jeremy's wife, and the mother of their 22 month-old son, Liam. --read more >>