BrownGirlsFly

A friend stopped by for lunch today and during our excited ponderings, we discussed some of my craziest travel adventures, including my encounter with the ticket-stealing Grandma on an Italian cross-country train. After he left, I began to reflect on the complexities of trust and relationship building when you’re on the road. Have your own culutral pespectives on safety and relational norms affected the way you interact with others while you’re traveling? Here are some tips, gleamed from my own experiences on the road, for how to achieve this balancing act.

There’s something inside me that wells like a raging river when I hear stories of violence, abuse and discrimination against girls and women. Grappling with these realities, has influenced the work of BrownGirlsFly. Not only do we want to encourage brown girls in the Western world to exercise their travel wings, we want to spend time understanding and aiding, where possible, the lives of brown girls globally.

Step 1 is knowledge. We cannot pretend to exercise social responsibility until we first understand that there’s a problem, what dynamics are feeding it, and what needs exist. As we learn more in the coming months, we’ll share the highlights with you. In the Broken Wings series, we’ll share moving stories of brown girls who need a bit of healing and repair before they can fly.

Today’s focus will be on the role of women in Indian society, the pressure to bear a male child, and the consequences which have resulted from the overemphasis on male value.

It’s undeniable … the free-spirited queen of NeoSoul, Erykah Badu is a brilliant wordsmith. Whether or not she represents your personal life philosophies or your preferred music genre, there’s something to be said for her fearless pursuit of self-reflection, uninhibited self-expression and continual reinvention.

For someone like me who’s been obsessed with sitting in the window seat since I was six years old, I implicitly understand the draw of her latest single and had to see what she was really vibing about. Indulge me as I muse about Erykah’s Window Seat lyrics and what they say about this traveling brown girl’s emotional journey.

Despite an excited start, the BrownGirlsFly chicas have been quiet for the past couple months. The daily grind and family commitments pilfered some of our spare time, leaving us little head space for blogging. And, our own lull in globetrotting left us lacking some internal inspiration. But, now, it’s time to get up and dance!

By 1911, International Women’s Day became a global institution which nearly 100 years later still serves as a strong vehicle for women’s rights protection. This movement has shaped my life as a women in America, and I want all women to experience the same freedoms. But, there’s a fine line between protecting an individual’s rights and respecting (and thus protecting) a culture and its practices. And, quite frankly, I don’t know which side of the line I fall on. Do I challenge a rite of passage because of its physical and emotional impact on a women? Or do I accept and embrace it as a cultural tenet? There are more questions than answers, but the resolution begins with dialogue and desire to understand. Join us in the conversation.

I’m on the fairer end of the color spectrum, but one glance at my stature, my facial structure, hair texture, eye shape, and you’d never for one second think I was Korean or otherwise of Asian descent. So, why is my newest nickname — one that I’m quite proud of, I might add — “Korean Girl”?

I’m not sure which was more important — his rebellious spirit or his magnanimous dreams — but both served my father well in his middle-class struggle to shed the poverty of his youth. Even before the money and the means materialized, with a debonair indifference known only to the upper crust, he marched past the racial and social limitations of 20th-century America and, often with his wife and kids in tow, pursued a life typically reserved for those of a different caliber.

Before long, Manhattan’s esteemed theater district and Boston’s seafood circuit, Florida’s sunniest beaches and California’s coastal living, Europe’s fine dining and the African-infused cultures of the Caribbean Islands became his playground. And, it was in this context that we first experienced the world. It was here that we learned the value of the frequent flier miles and hotel points – remnants from his career in sales – which fueled our family adventures.