On her 80th Birthday: Reflections on Meeting Gloria Steinem in India

Gloria Steinem spoke at the India International Center in January to launch her book tour (photo credit: Ileana Jiménez, Feminist Teacher).

Gloria Steinem spoke in January at the India International Centre in Delhi to launch her book tour for “As if Women Matter.” (photo credit: Ileana Jiménez, Feminist Teacher).

At the start of 2014, I led a seven-week tour of schools in India speaking to high school students about feminism and education.

Little did I know that one of my favorite feminists and fellow Smith alums, Gloria Steinem, would also be conducting an Indian tour of her own.

One morning in Delhi, I opened an email from Smith trustee, Mona Sinha. She urged me to go hear Steinem at the nearby India International Centre, where she was going to speak about her new book, As if Women Matter, alongside her longtime friend and fellow activist, Ruchira Gupta, founder of Apne Aap, which supports survivors of sex trafficking, and who had also edited Steinem’s new book.

I immediately made my reservation. I wanted a chance to speak to her in the very country that had changed her life forever.

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Fighting the Good Fight: Students and Teachers of Color Working Against the ‘Isms

Yesterday I had a talk with a former student who is currently a first year student at an Ivy League university. Since her freshman year in high school, we have connected on our common Latina background, mine Puerto Rican, hers Dominican. Now that she is in college, I continue to feel connected to her as she forges her way as the first in her family to attend college.

During the course of our conversation, she interviewed me for a women’s studies class project on which she is currently working. As we talked, we shared common experiences of facing racism and classism during pivotal moments in our lives. When my family moved from the Bronx to Long Island, I faced racist epithets such as “spic,” “nigger,” and “afro” from children on the playground. The teasing and the bullying didn’t end there though. After our move to Long Island, my Bronx relatives started calling me “white girl.” I was suddenly living in two worlds that didn’t accept me.

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