I recently read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson in my book club. My friends and I found so much in the book to talk about and after reading it felt compelled to write a letter to the editor of our local newspaper, the Las Cruces Sun News, urging everyone to read […]
After writing When a Woman Rises, my first novel, I realized that I had finally written something that the people who made my novel happen – the Maya people of Chiapas – can read and enjoy, and in doing so be reminded of the creative spark they carry within themselves and encouraged to bring it […]
In the days following the murder of George Floyd, my friends and I on the Steering Committee of Weaving for Justice joined organizations throughout the world to express our solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. On June 3rd we posted the following words on the Weaving for Justice Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-l5NwAuU1/) We continue to post inspirational quotes from individuals standing up for justice in the U.S. and […]
Since we postponed face-to-face sales of weavings from Maya cooperatives in Chiapas in March, Weaving for Justice has been selling their work through remote means and occasionally to someone in our Las Cruces community by leaving a package on their patio. During the first week of this new selling experience I thought I had contracted […]
Books as Bridges by Christine Eber, October 2, 2019 This essay was originally published by Powells.com and appeared in October 2019 on https://www.powells.com/blog “Books don’t matter to us. What matters is that our children don’t get enough to eat and get sick and die.” I don’t remember exactly when Flor de Margarita Pérez Pérez said this […]
12 February 2019 Since my first novel, When a Woman Rises, was released on September 10th I’ve had the opportunity to do readings in places as different as the English Bookshop in Uppsala Sweden and the Casa Camino Real, a bookshop on the old royal road between Mexico City and Santa Fe. At each reading […]
About a month ago I was in Anapra, Juárez, Mexico to show “Maya Faces in a Smoking Mirror” at The Corpus Christi Catholic Church. The church is a humble one in a colonia of Juárez that has seen its share of violence over the years. But the people of this community have demonstrated more than […]
10 July 2018 Tonight I’m volunteering in the donated clothing room at Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, helping mothers from Central America find clothes to replace the clothing they crossed the border in. I immediately realize that the women’s ankle monitors present a problem. My friend Mary and I try to help […]
When a Woman Rises is my first novel after writing for several decades about the lives of indigenous women of Chiapas, Mexico in social science publications. The novel is coming out in June 2018, an historic moment for indigenous women and their families as it marks the first year that an indigenous woman – […]
23 September 2017 The past few weeks I’ve been designing this website with the help of a friend. It has taken me into uncomfortable territory, for example sharing my personal history with the world, in essence saying “Look at me!” Today I thought about how strongly this activity contrasts with the ethos of my Maya […]