Cheryl N Olivieri

Cheryl N Olivieri

USA

I am posting my story, part of my story, because I have submitted a course proposal to the Sadie Nash Leadership Project in New York and New Jersey to teach “Feminision: Seeing With The Vision of Feminism.”  Among other border-crossing questions, I am asking whether a selected writer writes for herself or for another and, then, what creates this distinction?

I wanted to post my story, part of my story, so as to propose a perspective in which to cross a border of sorts, in which one steps through looking at a them and towards looking at an us.  I would like myself and my students to think ‘here, there, and everywhere’ how women shape, imagine, and create a world in which she can live.

I have some experience being a “host community.”  Those are not my words, but the words spoken by the then (2001-2003) Assistant Director of Education at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu to describe the  five Native Hawaiians selected to participate in a global research fellowship. (I was one of the five.)

I found being a “host community” extremely difficult because one is talked about, through, or around.  One became a premise, a way station, or a possible venue.  Oddly, though, that very one disappeared in the very process of that ensuing discussion.

I have been a “one” before:  I was the one sister of three brothers; I was the only one in my family to graduate from college; I was one in 12 of my New York City undergraduate class to obtain an honors placement; I was one of 5 in my undergraduate college to obtain a minority fellowship when I graduated Magna Cum Laude; I was one of 2 Native Hawaiians to receive a scholarship for the study of history at the Department of History at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii.  I was the only one in my family to graduate with a graduate degree.   I was definitely the only one to receive a research fellowship.

Yet as a woman or that who is positioned, one somehow disappears in the telling. As an educator, I think it is vital that women create a place to cross imposed borders of nation, religion, prejudice, and acceptance.

“Peace” as it is defined for me means “harmony” or “mutual concord,” “silence” or “calm,” and stems from the Latin “pacisci” or to agree.  From Marie-Ange Binagwaho, I learn that “peace” is “a space where people can be their best possible selves.” As one person living today, I would hope to think that “this world” could find it within and without itself to make space for just me.