I defended my dissertation in July of 2016, a few months prior to the Trump v Hilary election.

It was HARD.

Folks dissertating or writing a first book now, I want to offer a few reflections:
🧵 It's critical to give yourself time away from the news. This feels impossible when things are changing so fast and when many of those changes are tied both to the fate of the country and directly to your work.

But you can't move forward amid so many distractions.

You have to understand, Gen Z is not going to back down.

They lost every teen milestone to the pandemic. They went to high school scared of being shot. They are inheriting a burning planet.

What are we gonna threaten them with, taking away their reproductive rights? They've lived through so much social upheaval AS CHILDREN and TEENS that now, as young adults with the capacity to contribute to the social upheaval themselves, they will most certainly do so.

No one:
Me: 2022 Oscar Outfits as Public Health Graphs Amy Forsyth as Mental Health Services by Race/Ethnicity and Rurality

Im proud to finally share the work of two fabulous women of color artists who used their insight and skill to help us explain the impacts of worksite immigration raids through graphic art (all while while mixing it up with interviews & public health deets)
iceintheheartland.lib.uiowa.edu The artists, Carolina Jones & Dalia Harris, share their stories here, detailing how their upbringings & culture shaped their participation & understanding of the project.
I'll share each individual art piece in the thread below.
iceintheheartland.lib.uiowa.edu/about/

often i end up helping folks put money on commissary accounts when they are detained because this is nearly impossible without a credit card, computer access & English.
The profit made by the PIC by monetizing every interaction and relationship sickens me, every time. I don't hate many people, but the person on a yacht paid for by money made from incarcerated folks trying desperately to call loved ones, well... I may make an exception.

Excited to share the new cover for the paperback edition of #Separated, with lead quote from @jeanguerre & updated foreword from @JulianCastro.
🤩🤩
We have some plans in the works for discussion guides developed by students, especially those closer to the experience. more soon! For those new to the hardback to paperback process (I know I was), the paperback is the same as the original (minus any remaining typos), but you also have the opportunity to invite someone to comment on what has happened since the original publishing, hence, Secretary Castro

Ive taught 3 courses during the pandemic now & feel as experienced as a prof can be given that we are only 4 months into this. here's a few basic lessons I've learned and what I fear for the coming semester. 1/ students are coming into the fall wondering how profs will incorporate their need to grieve, disappear, be quarantined, mourn deaths, & get sick. faculty are putting time into a well-organized and laid out class (as we should), but not into how they will cope with the above. 2/

When my book (Separated) was published, I used the advance first to pay someone to do my TOC cause lord was I exhausted... THEN I divided the rest 4 ways. Yes, I kept a fourth, & the other fourths were given to the 3 families central in Separated. Here's why it matters 1/ As a researcher/advocate who wrote a book that was about people's suffering, I had no intention of making money off of the story in ways that did not benefit the community itself. We, as authors, MUST know the difference between addressing suffering and profiting from it 2/

Communities have different histories. REMEMBER AND HONOR THOSE HISTORIES. DO NOT ERASE THEM.

But often, those who oppress use the same tools to do so no matter our histories, identities, or cultures. We are seeing evidence of this constantly now, here's a few examples.
1/ Border Patrol drones used to monitor protest: a drone flew over Minneapolis Friday "to provide live video to aid in situational awareness at the request of our federal law enforcement partners." businessinsider.com/cbp-flew-a-pre… 2/