barnard-college-alumni

"To a person who sees life in clear blacks and whites the issue is doubtless a simple one: decent people don’t associate with criminals and gangsters or try to extenuate their crimes. One cannot but envy the man who is able to dispatch his social problems so easily. But to me, as to many other non-Communists and unattached liberals, the issue is a confused and troubling one. The Communists display the qualities of most fanatics, qualities that stem as directly from Cotton Mather as from Karl Marx. They are intolerant and ruthless, often unscrupulous, often violent and lacking in political judgment. They are also zealous, brave, and willing to put up with hardship and abuse. The Communist Party and its press have “assassinated”—or tried to—many a character, including that of The Nation. But they have also fought for decent conditions for workers and the unemployed, for equality of rights for Negroes, for relief and aid to the victims of the civil war in Spain. They have stood consistently for justice and nonaggression in international relations—as, indeed, has the Soviet government as well. Neither can one forget that Communists and Communist sympathizers from the United States fought in Spain in numbers out of all proportion to their numbers here; and, it might be added, they fought side by side with Socialists and Anarchists and democrats of all shades, even while political strife between all these factions poisoned the air behind the lines. The Spanish struggle taught many lessons, of which perhaps the most important was this one: It is not necessary for liberal lambs and Communist lions to lie down together. Enough if they will move ahead toward their common objectives without wasting time and strength in an attempt to exterminate each other along the way. The job of making this country unsafe for fascism calls for tremendous constructive effort as well as defensive strength. If Communists and non-Communists and even anti-Communists could forget their mutual recriminations and concentrate on the major task of our generation, there would be better hope of its successful accomplishment."

"It [The Nation] is a weapon in our common fight for a democratic victory and a decent peace; against reaction, isolationism, and appeasement. We have a political war to wage and win."

"Logic is not a vice of the fundamentalist. He is against birth control. He detests the very words. He shrinks from the thought behind the words. Birth control can hardly be considered without considering sex, and sex should be suppressed and ignored as far as possible. If children are born, let us not dwell on the incidences of their origin; let us presume that God sent them to bless our homes, and leave the matter there. Besides, says the fundamentalist under his breath, what will become of morals if people can sin without fear?...the bigots of both faiths are right; they do well to fear the effect of a widespread knowledge of birth control methods. At present such knowledge is in the hands of the upper classes-through bootleggers-and the effect of it has been to change the habits and morals and economic status of middle-class women, and to modify almost beyond recognition the middle-class home. Some of this knowledge gets through to the poorer classes. But, like bootlegged liquor, it is apt to be poisonous-the more so, the cheaper the bootlegger. So the women of the working class are dying from the effects of drugs and abortions, when they are not dying from the effects of too many children; and a bitter, passionate clamor for fair treatment is beginning to sound through muffling layers of poverty and repression. Not for the sake of the dwindling Nordic, but for their own health and happiness and security and freedom and for their children's future, these women are going to have what they want. If you doubt it, read "Motherhood in Bondage" [by Margaret Sanger (1928)]"

"In 1944, on the 25th anniversary of her association with The Nation, some 1,300 people turned out to do her honor at a testimonial dinner. Dorothy Thompson, the columnist and radio commentator, was one of a dozen speakers. She praised her friend for having fought “to throw light into dark places and to defend the peOple versus those interests that in our society have repeatedly striven to defeat the full realization of the promises of democracy.”"

"Create a culture of belonging"

"Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge. Investing in people is the foundation for great transformation. People are our most valuable assets, yet we often don’t value them until they’re gone. Instead of holding exit interviews, which are purely reactionary, we should conduct “stay interviews” or “purpose interviews” as a proactive way to understand what our employees need. It’s important that employees feel as though someone inside the organization cares about them, routinely engages with them, and has their back. Direct managers are uniquely positioned to fulfill this role – but we must equip them with the proper training, strategies, and tools to keep their best talent engaged. People can and will leave when they feel excluded."

"The role of leadership is evolving. What was once about objective strategic planning and organizational operations has transformed into a more subjective role – one that requires greater humanity and emotional intelligence. Traditionally feminine leadership qualities – empathy, vulnerability, gratitude – are more important now than ever. Leaders need to be able to connect with their team members on a human level in order to build trust and create a supportive environment where everyone can thrive. Let’s shift the paradigm. These aren’t “soft” skills – they’re essential skills. If we want to create warm, welcoming workplaces, we should be prioritizing these skills by making them requirements and including them as part of profiles, job descriptions, and evaluations."

"Embrace proximity-ship"

"Soft’ skills are the new essential skills"

"Chilean Gabriela Mistral who has been canonized as the Saint Mother…Mistral was an advocate for human rights and the plight of the Indian long before those concerns became fashionable."

"Just a few years ago, one could easily identify the women in all of Latin America who stood out in literature. Names like Gabriela Mistral, Alfonsina Storni, Juana de Ibarború, Delmira Agustini, Claudia Lars, not to mention the greatest of them all, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz..."

"This was the kind of woman she was: attentive to the present, dominated by the conscience of her deeds and of the course that history takes, incapable of refusing the claims of those who suffer from hunger or thirst for justice and love...If we read her work carefully, we will find embodied there the same concepts and attitudes, and it would almost be impossible to distinguish between art and life or to say if there is more authentic poetry in her verses that in her acts...Everything she did, said, and wrote was in some way saturated with that poetic air, revealing the marvelous, if somewhat delicate balance between the ‘is’ and the ‘should be.'"

"The other event was reading Gabriela Mistral. She had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959 and her books were part of the library's small Latin American collection. Up to then I had not read any work at all which railed against women being forced to take on the "shame" of reproduction, pregnancy, sexuality. I read these poems with immense relief. Finding that you are not alone in anger at "immutable" laws inscribed by an overarching patriarchy assuages anxiety to a degree that's hard to describe."

"Mistral’s poetry is resolutely hermetic and often has a nightmarish quality. Even her nominally straightforward verses — those having to do with elements of nationalism, such as national symbology or national landscapes — contain a surreal quality...Mistral surrounded herself with and was surrounded by metaphors of silence, shame, and secrecy. Much of her poetic oeuvre revolves around a private world difficult to decipher, a world of loss and despair, of fantasy escapes into other realities."

"Gabriela Mistral of Chile, the only Latin American woman to have won the Nobel Prize, was an educator, pacifist, and humanist who wrote with matchless intensity of frustrated and suffering womanhood. Her children's songs and lullabies are among the tenderest in the Spanish language. Without children of her own, she turned her love of children into a universal love for all humanity. She became a kind of world mother, singing about children "as no one before her had ever done," said Paul Valéry. "While so many poets have exalted, celebrated, cursed or invoked death, or built, deepened, divinized the passion of love, few seem to have meditated on that transcendental act par excellence, the production of the living being by the living being."

"I translated Mistral because I discovered that she really has not been brought into English very much, Neruda over and over and over, but not Mistral. I fell in love with her. You have to fall in love, I think, to do a long translation. Yes, and then it's fun."

"Poets—incredible nature poets like Mary Oliver, Gabriela Mistral, or Audre Lorde—look deeply at the world and make us feel like we are connected. Poetry that addresses the natural world helps us repair that connection. When you are paying attention to something, it’s a way of loving something. How can we continue to hurt something that we love?"

"Some of the greatest Latin American poets have been women. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Gabriela Mistral, María Sabina, and Violeta Parra are among them, but their true place in the history of poetry has yet to be fully acknowledged...At the turn of the century, a legendary group of women poets emerged, including Delmira Agustini, Alfonsina Storni, and Gabriela Mistral. Their work caused scandal and outrage but ultimately opened the way for other women to explore their experience in a woman's voice...Mistral was the paradoxical mestiza, who embodied contradiction. A childless woman who exalted maternity, she simultaneously embraced and scorned her indianidad. Her extraordinary mix of biblical and Amerindian rhythms got her the Nobel Prize in 1945."

"The official image of Gabriela Mistral violates all cultural stereotypes since her poems to mothers, women and children are filled with a deep ideological content that goes beyond that of a teacher preoccupied with the future of her pupils. In the poems by Mistral included in this anthology, we get a glimpse of her powerful imagination and figurative language based on minute elements. Her poetry is often stripped of the traditional metaphors associated with the poetic language employed by the women of her time. Mistral's voice, depicted in melodious lullabies and fantastic stories"

"Ya en la mitad de mis días espigo esta verdad con frescura de flor: la vida es oro y dulzura de trigo, es breve el odio e inmenso el amor."

"Piececitos de niño, Dos joyitas sufrientes, ¡Cómo pasan sin veros Las gentes!"

"The German, Polish, or Lithuanian Jew has been deprived of the sacred right to escape and be free."

"It would be foolish for our America to latch onto the filthy tail of this antisemitic campaign. We have enough to do in our own nations-where everything is still in a state of primordial chemical soup-without distracting ourselves with French antics or absurd ventures in Berlin."

"At the very least we should not continue, in the manner of the Pharisees, using the ancient proclamation against the Jew who has been thoroughly undermined by us. Moreover, we should, at a minimum, desist from exclaiming in plazas or in our homes the rebuke that was heard in the Middle Ages: "Hunt? the Jewish dog for being an infidel." Jesus Christ, in his infinite nature, would surely be infinitely disgusted upon hearing us utter such words as his supposed advocates and the sentinels of his doctrine."

"Let's not ask our countries to accept a massive number of desolate Jewish immigrants. But let's do ask that they-with little rational effort, which is to say, with basic humanity-accept a small-agreed-upon quota of Jews who Europe has spewed from its twisted Christian viscera. Argentina has established-and I believe quite comfortably-its portion of the quota. If our twenty countries can follow through on this great act, which can only be termed an authentic act of decency, we will have accomplished an effective, honest, and generous feat. One should weigh and measure such adjectives carefully as they are very important to those who safeguard the continent's honor. By way of this act, we will have returned to Europe some of the culture and Christian policies that it originally imparted to us. In its stance toward the East, Europe has marred and debased its bimillenary rule. Let us cast back to Europe, from our side of the world, a collective gesture of an integral and inclusive Christian right that we learned from that continent during its purer era and that we have strengthened rather than squandered."

"One of the few Latin American intellectuals who stood up against fascism and spoke about the impending fate of European Jews was Gabriela Mistral, who, in 1945, became the only Latin American woman to date to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. While not a Jew herself, we include here one of her essays, "Message about the Jews,"-which she wrote in 1934, shortly before assuming her post as consul to Chile in Portugal-because it is a poignant testimony to her commitment to human rights and the Jewish people throughout historical times of great suffering when countless other prominent intellectuals chose silence. Mistral was also influential in assisting with Jewish emigration to Chile when, after 1939, most Latin American nations had closed their borders to desperate Jewish refugees seeking asylum."

"I think I am a bit like Mistral: always a foreigner, always from somewhere else."

"The hardest part of my narration was when I read about my assault. I cried. It took me a while to get through it, maybe because of the way I wrote it. It was very graphic and one of the parts of the book that I wrote while crying. It felt like the scab was off, and I was diffing deeper into my wounds when I talked about this moment and others.…"

"Imagine this story as if you were telling it to your mother. I always write with this in mind. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily work when writing a memoir, but it helps to focus on telling the story to one person. I didn’t have an image of a reader, per se, but I knew that I had to use my voice to connect to them. When you connect to somebody’s writing, it is powerful because it is such an intimate experience, but imagine an added element—the element of your voice. You can use your own voice to exude sensuality, anger, love, raw emotions. I go into the studio a lot, so doing this wasn’t particularly hard for me. I just close my eyes and go into a space."

"A writer is always so conflicted about their work, so it was liberating to be able to be in this space of my words, without being judgmental or changing anything. I vividly remembered the ideas that I had, where I was when I had them, how I imagined this moment of holding this book, I was emotionally connected to it. I reflected on the story of my arrival, and then my time as a young woman. I cried during the scene of my rape, and I found myself rooting for my character as I read on! I laugh about it now because I am the character, she is me! The process of narrating completely transformed my relationship to the memoir, even after I never imagined that it would."

"I think it's really a good thing.... It's the best thing for the show, and I feel really good about it."

"I felt all kinds of pressure on myself...I didn't want to disappoint anybody. But that is nothing that compares to someone dealing with a health issue, so my shit is no big deal."

"And a quick glance in the mirror turns out to be a mistake. Oh God, is that my face?"

"Doyouwantogoona--Who is this? Oh, I have the wrong number."

"With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest indication that the child's problems will never be important enough for a television movie."

"Children are a house's enemy. They don't mean to be — they just can't help it. It's their enthusiasm, their energy, their naturally destructive tendencies."