The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

There are times when I absolutely feel like I have been stuck-in-place. It is almost as if my feet have been cemented and I can not move. What makes this the top-of-mind on this sunny, summer Thursday? It is probably that I am feeling the stiffling suffocating smothering that is living in St. Louis, Missouri. Let me explain. This once hopeful, promised French founded colony that started with a nod toward inclusion and opportunity several centuries ago, is now mired in division, exclusiveness, and steeped in a racism that is as muddy as the Mississippi. The background over the past few years, centuries even, threatens any opportunity for growth. That has proven to be true in the city and the suburbs through my nine years of living on this side of the state. My feelings of being stuck are not unlike those I've heard from fellow transplants who are highly educated, highly experienced, and can't even get a barista job in this city that still celebrates high school g...

It's the first day of summer. The sun is shining through my balcony, the townhouse is quiet while I work, the promise of weeks of reading are ahead of us, it is something about the season changing that brings out a bit of optimism. We know the election season, nationally and locally, is a bit nuts.  We know there are folks who are being constrained at all sides. We know the economy has only recovered for some. We know the schools are a mess. We know it is hotter than hades in some parts of the country. We know all that is wrong. But in one brief moment, as natural light filters into my day, I thought about the promise of summer. When I was a child, summer vacation began on Memorial Day weekend. My late father and step-mother would pack up up in that tan and white station wagon for the long trek from Jefferson City to Benton Harbor. The promise of cousins, beaches, and the uncles' BBQ awaited us.  We left in the dark of night, as a parent, I now know their strategy....

Review by Tayé Foster Bradshaw My children and I were on a road trip to Alabama to pick up my college son. We decided to do what we always do, load up with books, and prepare to enjoy a combined twenty hours of reading on the trip south and back north. This time, we did something a little differently.  We picked up a couple books on tape.   Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet , was a nicely rendered story about the immigrants rarely talked about in history class.  This story is set in the months prior to the second world war in Seattle. Seattle in 1942 was a world that Asian immigrants, particularly Chinese and Japanese, were able to develop thriving insular communities that resembled their homeland. Many, by this time, were either second or third generation with their parents intent on them being "American." The Japanese and Chinese were vastly different people with language, customs, foods, and integration ways that were unknown to most Americans at that t...

This was a hard week. By every stretch of the imagination. It was supposed to be a great week, I was going to write about being excited that my youngest son is home for his last summer of crashing with the family. He is a senior in college and essentially finished with his major, he is adding on a certificate and will graduate in December.  We should be rejoicing. Last week, this exact time, I was putting the final pieces into the luggage to make the ten hour drive to Montgomery, Alabama. My daughters and I were anxiously waiting for my husband's emergency meeting to end. He normally does not work on Fridays in the summer. I was a bit annoyed with the wrinkle in my schedule so the girls and I finished our packing and went out to get lunch before the drive. Inconsequential things that make our day have a hiccup. We had a great drive down, laughs and sights. We enjoyed time with my son in his apartment and then prepared for the drive back up north. Somewhere in Birmingham...

I rarely link my book reviews to this commentary, but in this case will do so because of the topic. The issues of homosexuality are not new. They have been around forever. They were there with James Baldwin and Richard Wright. They were there with Ella Fitzgerald and Eleanor Roosevelt. They were there with Barnyard Rustin. There are throughout the movement for black lives with some of the most vocal and prominent voices rising up among LGBTQI individuals.  The open discussion of gender and identity, even among middle schoolers, is not something that was a part of my growing up. I admit I had and probably still have a hard time understanding the transgender identified individuals than I do in understand someone who is gay or lesbian. My older sister is as she says, "a proud, same gender loving woman" and was like that long before it became the thing du jour to "come out." She is the first lesbian and partner I met as far back as 1987 when I was barely married and...