blogs that make me think
Last week, hapa momblogger Kristen of Motherhood Uncensored gave me a nice birthday present [yes, I turned 33, unencumbered by the existential angst that my handful of longtime readers had to put up with last March, thank you very much]: she gave me a Thinking Blogger Award. Mine was one of five blogs that make her think—more specifically, all my race stuff makes her head hurt. Heh. It’s always nice to get comments, letting me know that one of my sappy stories made someone go “awww,” or one of my lame attempts at humor made somebody laugh anyway. But to have someone publicly declare that your writing makes them think… That’s really cool.
And so, now’s my turn to share. It’s a hard question, to pick five out of all the amazing blogs I read to dub with this Thinking Blogger Award. From race and writing to pop culture and parenting, not to mention all the blogs I’ve picked up about journalism, social media and online community because of my new job, you all have gone from just a cool new way to fight off isolation to a diverse, widespread community of thinkers/writers/doers that I am proud to be a part of. But since I have to do it, here are “5 blogs that make me think.”
Reading Writing Living — Susan Ito makes me think about race, identity, and the meanings of family, and about how to write it all down. More than that, she’s become a teacher, a friend, and like a hapa big sister I never had.
Twice the Rice — Ji In’s opened up a whole new world of thinking about family, culture, identity, race and belonging to me, and I thank her for letting me be there.
Daddy Dialectic — Blog founder and main writer Jeremy Adam Smith says what I wish I could about the politics of fatherhood and what it means to be a dad dedicated to equity, change and social justice for our children and for all children. [So does frequent contributor Chip.]
SeeLight — Claire Light doesn’t know who I am [the one time I left a comment, I think she confused me with her friend Jeremy of Daddy Dialectic, who I found via her in the first place]. She is a hapa science fiction writer who blogs passionately about race, identity, justice, hybridity, speculative fiction and the power of the written word. For a hapa nerd and wanna-be writer who did his college ethnic studies thesis on the mixed-species characters in Star Trek, her work gets never fails to reenergize me and remind me of why all that was, and is still , so important to me.
Mama Nabi’s Hwe — I read a lot of momblogs, and somehow the majority of them seem to be written by Asian American moms. But Mama Nabi stands out in my mind, and on my reading list, because she is, as she says, “raw” in her telling of how she lives the intersection of race, culture and parenting. She vents, she rants, she doesn’t hold back, and she reminds me that my wife and I are not alone in our vision of and passion for a more just world for our babygirl in which difference is not merely “tolerated.”
If you all see this—thank you. And now it’s your turn.
Okay, I know it’s just supposed to be five, but I have to note one blog and blogger who’s been making me think a lot lately. Rob Barron of How About Two has made me think hard about what it means to be a father, what it means to love with your whole heart and being, what it means to go on and do what you have to do for those you love. I cannot imagine what he and his wife and family have been going through, but through his openness and honest emotion, he has let me and so many other virtual strangers in, and I am changed by it.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007