February is Black History Month. Because I come from a place where everyone is more or less the same color, the idea of a month celebrating the achievements and contributions of a minority based on its skin color was something I only gradually understood. In fact, my first indication of the cultural implications of skin color in the United States came in 1983 with my arrival and made sense to me only much later. I was exhausted when I arrived at the airport in New York. No one was there to welcome me to this new world, but I had been directed to take a taxi to the Chinese Consulate hotel. It was 11:00 pm as I pushed my two seventy pound suitcases out into the dark night toward the taxi stand. I was relieved to see a big yellow taxi pull up and have someone lift my luggage into the car. I was more relieved that the driver politely understood my tangled English pronunciation of my destination. He even took my heavy luggage up the stairs to the registration desk. I had not paid attention to his skin color until then - he was black. He asked for exactly what I had been told was the appropriate fare and, struggling with the new currency, I paid him that amount. To this day, I regret that I did not know enough to give him a tip for his kindness. He might never know that I grew up in a culture that did not tip and I now wonder if he walked back to his taxi thinking that Chinese are cheapskates. As he drove off, I remember that I walked into a Chinese conversation about another guest at the hotel who had just been robbed by a black teenager and a warning that I should be careful or black people would rob me, too. I was too tired to appreciate the irony of that experience then, but it was my first lesson in the racial politics of the United States.

Later as I settled into the predominantly white campus population at Harvard, I forgot all about that first evening. The fact that I could forget about it should have been my second lesson. Despite what my Physical Anthropology courses taught me, namely that human skin color is the result of a people’s past environment, and inconsequential to the universality of most human traits, this attribute seemed to have a disproportionate cultural side effect. It was easy to see that the majority of workers doing menial labor on campus were black. Although both Asians and African-Americans could easily be discriminated against on the basis of physical appearance, Asians in 1980s Cambridge seemed to be exempt. Whether it was being part of a ‘model minority’ or the benefits of the civil rights movement that insulated me from experiences that would have made my race an issue, I am not sure.

I am certain, however, that discussion of race in America is a complex and potentially perilous enterprise. This is true even in places devoted to rational discussion of social issues. Last September, for example, Professor Early gave a well-received talk at the Law School on issues surrounding the call for slavery reparations by some African-Americans. Yet, rather than a discussion, he was the subject of a personal attack in Student Life. Small wonder racial issues are rarely the chosen focus in less ‘enlightened’ forums. Black History Month should be the one time each year when Americans of all colors could discuss these issues. Unfortunately, most of what I hear simply points back to the ideals of integration and equality in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not to the problems that remain. Perhaps this is why most of these commentaries are embedded in memorials of the man who symbolized that dream for so many Americans - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a fitting memorial to Dr. King, but it ignores both the other things he fought for and the thousands marching alongside him on the road to civil rights.

The reason Dr. King is important to the American Dream is not limited to his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, the first televised and unedited presentation of the undeniable justice of black demands, or its famous reference to his children by being “judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It is that he also recognized economic justice as a part of that equality. The freedom so many Americans of color struggle to achieve and so many immigrants come to America to find requires an array of realistic choices, and those choices depend on having at least a certain level of resources. A year after his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, King told his Atlanta congregation that he was “much more than a civil rights leader,” he said that “there must be a better distribution of wealth…We can’t have a system where some people live in superfluous, inordinate wealth while others live in abject, deadening poverty.” If he were alive today, I wonder what he would say about the current rate of unemployment, the present tax cuts that give most of their benefits to the very affluent, or the budget deficits that threaten our ability to provide for those who never had a chance to secure the resources necessary to make a realistic free choice. Much of the weight of unfavorable economic conditions is borne by black Americans, but all ethnic and racial minorities are affected.

Perhaps Dr. King would return to the phrases he used so effectively in 1963, reminding both white and black citizens that “their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom bound to our freedom.” The idea of being bound together reaches down to our smallest actions. I hope the taxi driver that, in my ignorance, I failed to tip did not avoid Chinese passengers in the future or treat them less kindly due to my actions. I hope that in the future no matter how tired I am I will speak up when I hear racial stereotypes being used to label people. We need to remember the kindness we have offered and received as individuals, and overlook the apparent lack of understanding for each other’s group efforts as a flawed but truthful part of our background. Moreover, when we exercise the only real voice we have to affect economic redistribution in our country, our votes, we should remember that freedom of which King spoke that binds us to each other.

For the past eight summers, Washington University has been host to a population that might not have been on a college campus for a long time: a group of adults whose passion is writing and who’ve come to explore and deepen their connection with their avocation. These are the participants of the Summer Writers Institute—a two-week-long intensive creative writing conference sponsored by University College, the continuing education division of Washington University’s College of Arts and Sciences. The Institute’s participants come from a wide range of backgrounds and do many different things in their “real lives.” Most have full time jobs (I’ve met teachers, copy writers, a rabbi, and a psychologist for example.) and have chosen to spend two weeks of vacation devoted to their writing. Some are retirees and some are college students. As the Institute’s director last year, one of the things I enjoyed most was seeing the variety of people who came to the conference and the excitement they expressed about learning from one another.

The Summer Writers Institute takes place June 14-25, and its central component is its workshops in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that are held every morning. Afternoons feature readings and craft talks by a variety of accomplished writers from the area. The Institute also offers a pedagogy talk, which helps participants who are also teachers think about new ways to teach creative writing, and is a lot of fun for anyone who wants to try out new writing exercises. A panel of editors from local magazines and literary journals meets to answer questions about publishing, and the participants finish the two weeks with an open mic event, sharing the writing they’ve been working on.

In the workshops, students write in their chosen genre with some of the best writers and teachers in this area, getting feedback on and direction for their work. Last year, John Dalton, who taught the fiction workshop, spent hours every evening reading and commenting on his students’ stories. Ruth Ellen Kocher, who taught the poetry workshop, gave her students inventive writing exercises in order to challenge them to try new ways of expression.

The workshops allow students to learn from each other as well, and to develop a sense of community. Every morning last summer students would gather for coffee and coffee cake, slightly bleary-eyed, but looking forward to the work ahead. There, I had the opportunity to listen in on the nonfiction writers discussing each other’s work. After lunch, I often chatted with a group of poets who were consistently energized about how much they were learning. It was exciting to see the writers coming together inside and outside the classroom.

In addition to getting to read the work of and to meet the participants, another aspect of directing the SWI that I truly enjoy is the process of hiring the workshop teachers and afternoon speakers. The Institute gives me the perfect excuse to call up local writers whose work I admire and to talk with them. On a deeper level, I enjoy being able to connect less experienced writers with the rich resources of the more established writing community of the St. Louis area. Also, as the approaches to creative writing are as varied as the writers themselves, and as one can never truly pin down the dragon that is writing, I value the opportunity I have during the Institute to sit in on the afternoon events. These are the times that I become another participant, taking in the beauty of well-chosen words and the wisdom of talented writers.

With one year of directing the Summer Writers Institute behind me, I’m especially excited about this summer’s upcoming Institute and the new aspects to the conference that will occur. This summer there will be a beginning fiction workshop for those new to the genre and an intermediate/advanced fiction workshop for returning participants and those with more experience in the genre. And, as the genre of writing for children is gaining popularity, we’ve added a children’s writing workshop as well. I hope the Institute will continue to change and grow this way in future years as we try to create as many writing and learning opportunities as possible.
I value the Summer Writers Institute because it provides a space for creation for those who do not usually have enough time to devote to their passion. I value the Institute’s ability to create a true writing community and a view of the larger context of what it means to be a writer for those who know that writing is a solitary and often isolated practice. The Summer Writers Institute provides both a place of exploration for those who are new to writing and an intensive period of production and reflection for those who are further along in their writing journey.

For more information on this year’s Summer Writers Institute, please go to ucollege.wustl.edu/summerwr or call (314) 935-6759.

Ida McCall is a teacher, a writer, and the director of Washington University’s Summer Writers Institute.

deborah krause gives biblical translation lecture

Deborah Krause, Associate Professor of the New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary, kicks off the Center for the Humanities Translation Series with a lecture entitled “Wrestling the Divine: The Discipline and Art of Translating and Making Bibles.” Krause received her Masters from Eden and her Ph.D. from Emory University, and is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Her teaching and scholarship focus on methods of biblical interpretation and their roots in critical theory, theology, and politics. In addition to a required course in Biblical hermeneutics, Krause teaches courses in the gospels, Early Jewish exegesis, the Deutero-Pauline and Pastoral Epistles, and various strains of modern Biblical interpretation.

The event takes place at 4pm on Tuesday, March 16, in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building Formal Lounge on the Hilltop Campus of Washington University. A reception follows the program. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, please call the Center at (314) 935-5576.

mia yun reads for center's the smartset series:
where great writers read