Weekend things or the one with lots of elevator spiels

This was an interesting weekend. I am taking a class on Gender and Public Policy, and it is one of the most interesting classes I have taken in grad school. On Saturday, I had the chance to attend the Elect Her training, organized by the UMN Women's Center in collaboration with American Association for University Women. It seems to be primarily targeted at undergraduates, to encourage women-identified people to run for student government and hopefully in the long run for political office. There were icebreakers, student panels, quick elevator pitches and issue based discussions. They had a quite a lot of resources spread across tables.




The session which made it worth my while to be there on Saturday was the one with Senator Patricia Torres, who is the first Latina woman on the MN House. I have to be honest, I did not know about her before her training. But I found her to be super-engaging, honest and with some thoughtful stories to share. She mentioned wanting to lead now, of not being willing to be anyone's Latina token and that was definitely a point that resonated. It reminded me of another conversation I had recently with a woman staff in higher ed about how sometimes people from underrepresented communities are expected to speak on behalf of their entire community (even when they are not comfortable doing so, even when their lived reality is very different) and how it was very important to bring more people to the table. It can feel very white here sometimes; I've been in rooms and classes where I am the only non-white person and it brings with it its own special tensions and challenges.

Life advice from Dove chocolate wrappers

I also spent Sunday evening at school (woot, woot) to attend a prep session for a career exploration trip in DC soon. Serendipity has ensured that this trip is right after a conference I plan to attend so I get two things for the price of one flight (and very expensive living in DC). This is one of the things I am making myself do - I have doubt and self-hesitancy, as an international student I know that I am a little bit of an odd duck. I went for the session yesterday and realized that I only know a few people. There was a sheet passed around on which there was a column asking "Are you willing to host international students?" and some people had said no and I sputtered till they said it is because of jobs that don't allow people to have international guests (?!). The phrasing of the question felt awkward, and it was a sobering reminder of how it is the little things and big things.