THE WELCOME ISSUE
We are thrilled this week to have Sloane Davidson guest-curate TueNight’s new Welcome issue, all about citizenship, immigration, and what it means to live by the true American ideal of “welcoming.” From Sloane:
“I have the immense privilege to spend a lot of time with refugee families. As the founder of Hello Neighbor, a nonprofit that supports recently resettled refugees through mentorship, I can often find myself sitting on the floor playing with children, profusely thanking moms for their tea and hospitality, or shaking hands and showing my respect to elders.
But my life wasn’t always like this…” More from Sloane
Here are the stories in our Welcome edition:
Benish Shah shares a middle school mehndi mishap
Carla Zanoni passes as a Latina
Penny Codrington remembers the invisible helpers
Robin Alperstein cries in court
Carla Raich finally gets her citizenship
We will be hosting our #DayofAction tonight (9/17) in Brooklyn. We have a great line-up and have reserved a few tickets at the door. Hope to see you tonight!
THIS WEEK
Leifer, Lauper and Lynch, oh my! (Image via Facebook)
Jane Lynch revealed that she sold a “Golden Girls for today” to Netflix co-starring Cyndi Lauper, with comedy legend Carol Leifer on board as a writer. 2019 inductees to the National Women’s Hall of Fame include Angela Davis, Sonia Sotomayor, Jane Fonda and Diane von Furstenburg. This Shaun Cassidy tweet will make you swoon like it’s 1978. Pioneering NPR journalist Cokie Roberts has died. Gen X also lost Ric Ocasek and Eddie Money this week. A swimmer stripped of her win because her bathing suit exposed her butt spurred this writer to explore some hard truths about growing up with curves. At 55, fashion designer Tracy Reese returns to her hometown of Detroit to start a sustainable clothing line. A “cheese conveyor-belt restaurant” has opened in London.
Obsessed: Beyond Meat
It sure looks like a burger (Image via Beyond Meat)
Back in February, my 15-year-old daughter declared herself a pescatarian. While I tried to incorporate more “meatless meals” into our dinner habit, I often made things with chicken or sausage on the side for the committed meat eaters among us. In June, we went to a Bar Mitzvah where our friend’s son gave a speech about climate change and how meat and dairy negatively affect the environment. And when the Amazon caught fire in August, prompting headlines blaming the world for consuming so much meat, my husband and I decided to meet our daughter part way and significantly cut back on the meat we eat.
In the midst of all this, I ran into a friend in the freezer section at the Park Slope Food Coop. She was buying the Beyond Meat burgers, and raved about them being about as close to tasting like an actual beef burger that a non-beef burger could get. We gave it a try. And you know what? Not too shabby! Unlike most veggie burgers, these mimic the texture and juiciness of a real burger pretty well, and piled with cheese and pickles and chipotle mayo, you’d hardly know they’re not the real thing. One of my regular easy weeknight meals had been pasta with sausage and broccoli, so when I saw that Beyond Meat had introduced a Hot Italian Sausage product, I was cautiously optimistic. Again...it was good! Not exactly the same as the real thing, but definitely tasty. We did not have the same luck with the brand’s Beefy Crumble. All hopes of a Bolognese sauce were dashed as soon as the product hit the pan.
Here’s to doing our small part to save the planet, one plant-based “meat” product at a time.
—Karen Gerwin
TueNight 10: Benish Shah
Image courtesy of Benish Shah
Age: 37
Quick bio: Benish has worked in almost every industry from law to baby food to tech, and kind of loves it. She's currently the Chief Growth Officer for Loop and Tie. She is the author of the children's book The Splendiferous Spillerella and has a new book for adults in the works.
Beyond the Bio: “If 25 year old me saw my life right now, she would be both sad, confused, and incredibly proud. I've survived PTSD — some Lifetime-movie level life things — switched careers and industries, and live in an apartment with a view I could have only dreamed of. My life has been nothing that I imagined it would be, good and bad. My only true unanswered question in life is: why did Mindy Kaling get famous before me? Because now everyone says I talk like her...but have they ever considered, she talks like me?”
1. On the nightstand: A book of poems by Nikita Gill, lavender balm by Eu Genia, and yes an obsidian stone that sits on my book of Muslim prayers.
2. Can't stop/won't stop: Watching Disney shows. Or watching Supernatural on repeat. It's just never happening.
3. Jam of the minute: Señorita.
4. Thing I miss: My hair, pre-law school making it fall out.
5. 80s crush: This may be a 90s crush, but I was pretty in love with Leonardo DiCaprio (as were all teenage girls).
6. Current crush: Chris Evans as Captain America. But mostly Captain America with a beard.
7. Will whine about: San Francisco and anything that is not New York
8. Will wine about: Oh...not a thing.
9. Best thing that happened recently: My sister came back for 6 weeks from living abroad, before she left again.
10. Looking forward to: Interviewing Pakistani immigrant moms for my next book and learning all the stories no one asks them about.
Story: The 5th Grade Mehndi Mishap
By Benish Shah
In the early 1990s, most people didn’t know what henna was, let alone the variation of the word “mehndi.” You see, Gwen Stefani had not happened at that time, and mainstream audiences hadn’t quite accepted that South Asia was “the land of colors and magic” just yet. During that time, my family lived in a town called Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. I say that as if the town does not exist anymore, but it does, and we still have extended family who love living there.
The Mechanicsburg of the early ‘90s was different than it is now. There weren’t many minorities. In fact, in my entire elementary school there was one African American kid. He was the adopted son of our wonderful and white Principal, Ms. Ingram. The other minorities in school consisted of: me, my younger sister, and an Asian girl named Chloe whom I tried, and failed, to befriend. She was cooler than me back then because the early ‘90s was also not the age of the smart-girl dominance. Despite the lack of diversity, Mechancisburg was a great place to grow up. Our neighbors were always incredibly nice, no one was ever overtly racist, and there was a growing Muslim community that met up at the small local mosque every Sunday. All in all, it was quite a picturesque upbringing.
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