What does it take to destabilize the patriarchy? Not much. In Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge, the young Katherine is able to do so simply by telling her uncle that a movie she went to with her beau ended late, causing her to arrive home later than usual. Eddie, the uncle, isn't able to verify the story of course. Can he trust her? Did she, despite her words, go to some bar and sit in a dark corner doing dark deeds with her young Italian immigrant boyfriend? She has never lied to him before - could this be the beginning of a downward spiral in whose twists she learns to be deceitful? His hitherto unquestioned grasp on her life is shaken loose with remarkably little disturbance.
His authority over his wife is also challenged, not even by any action on her part, but by her tone of voice when she tells him "What do you want from me? I did what you asked." And so she did. He cannot relroaach her action but tries to reproach her tone. "I don't like the way you're talking to me!" he replies, and it sounds like a confession of weakness. He's already lost the respect he is telling her he wants. It turns out, the legitimacy of this patriarch rested on wobbly posts. It's rather shocking how little recourse he has. Not only does he find that the law offers him no reinforcement when his women start defying him and young men come a-calling, but even taking things into his own hands by becoming violent and then setting immigration police on those he perceives to be his enemy, he cannot reassert the authority he has until now enjoyed without having to do anything except be a man.
The patriarchy was turned in its head for a few minutes in an auditorium of Roland Hall on Friday night, where Junot Diaz and Leo Espinosa gave a book talk for kids. Their joint effort, Islandborn, is a beautiful children's book about a young girl named Lola growing up in the Bronx. She finds out about the island of her origin, the Dominican Republic, from her neighbors who weave a tapestry of memories for her. The illustrator, Espinosa, lives in Salt Lake City with his family. Diaz is from the Dominican Republic and won the pulitzer prize for his book on Oscar Wilde. At the end of the talk he asked for questions from the king kids only, and then when those had been exhausted, suggested that we "turn the world on its head and ask for question only from women of color." There were hollers of approval.  |
| Dias posed for pictures with the kids afterwards. |
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