Questions for Cristy C. Roads

Author Questions 

Even though we have had some amazing readings this has by far been my favorite one for this class. I enjoyed it so much that I read through the whole thing in about an hour. It was impossible to put the book down. As a bisexual Cuban I could relate to a lot of what Cristy was writing and I saw myself in the text more than once. Although my family was never too religious they still had that embedded homophobia that's practically part of the culture. I eventually told my parents after years of subtly hinting at it and they didn't really care so I consider myself very lucky. I was really curious to find out how Cristy's coming out story was with her family. I know it's something people probably ask a lot but who was the first person you came out to and why did you feel like you could finally do it?

 I was born and raised in Cuba, I came over in 2008 when I was 10, and by 2011 I was already going through what most would describe as the "emo" phase. I really want to know what her all time favorite Green Day song is? Punk Rock is definitely something that helped me through some really tough times in my life and I always thought it was weird that I would look for comfort in these people who had no idea I existed. It was reassuring to know that I am not the only person who basically based their whole life off of a band. Since I know Green Day and Ren and Stimpy played a big role in Cristy's life I was wondering if they also played a role in inspiring her art style? If not how did she come up with it?

I did further research and read on her website that besides her writing and her art she also teaches here and there. I found it pretty cool that that's what she went with because I think teachers like her are very needed in today's world. Was teaching what she always had in mind? and if not how did she know that's definitely what she wanted to do? Like I said I think it's great that we have such open-minded and progressive people teaching the new generations, but it only brings up the question of; has she ever gotten in trouble for her non-conformant beliefs while teaching?

The Wage Gap That's Not The Same For All Women

Conceptualizing the Latina Experience in Care Work

By Mary Romero

For starters I would like to begin this blog post with a quote from the piece that really stuck out to me because it symbolizes the inequality not only between men and women, but also between women of different races as well. "This field continued to investigate black women's underpaid toil after emancipation in the South, and later their experiences migrating to the North to eventually dominate the care occupations as white women moved into factories and office work" (Romero 265). The wage gap and opportunity gap between men and women is evident but the one between women themselves is quite big too. Not only do white women get paid more than Black and Latina women, but they also get better opportunities of employment. Black women were only able to occupy the care work business because white women moved on to something 'better'.

In this category Latina women get paid the least depending on where they come from. It's known that Latinas who come from predominantly European backgrounds are privileged over those of darker skin stones. Also European immigrants may get better opportunities than both Black and Latina women. 

Seeing these statistics one can see that America just might be racist 

Even though this is evident, I will put it aside to talk about how being a care worker is seen as possibly one of the worst jobs one could have. Romero mentions that only people who have no other option take on these jobs because everyone looks down on them. Even though these are hard working and caring people they are summed down to servitude. And yes they serve people, but don't we all? In one way or another we all serve someone. There's nothing wrong with these jobs and Romero mentions that all the new literature and newer studies have destigmatized these jobs globally which I think is a great thing. 

Another thing that caught my attention about this work was, "Instead of conceptualizing emotional labor as paid or unpaid labor extracted from the employee to benefit the employer, recent globalization studies conceptualize "love" as the essential component of the work, partucularly among nannies, childcare worker, and nurses" (Romero 269). This jumped out at me because she mentions that employer literally search for women who have children of their own because they feel like they're more capable of showing love to their children. This is ironic and kind of cruel to me because a lot of the time these women have to basically abandon their kids  to go work for these privileged people, who simply don't have enough time to take care of their kids for x and y reasons, so that they can support their kids. They have to go take care of someone else's kids instead of their own so that their kids  can survive. And most of these families hiring them know this, but they're more worried about them having 'maternal love' to show to them kids. Like... isn't that your job ma'am???