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The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

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cook by faith, not by sight

by Elizabeth 3 Comments

 

I have always loved to cook. When I was younger, I loved helping my parents prepare for family holiday meals, whether that meant sticking my finger in the bowl to “test” the red velvet cake icing for Christmas, or helping my dad season the burgers on the grill on the Fourth of July. At the time, I don’t think I really processed how important food was to my family. It was culture and community. Like Shange writes, it was a celebration. It was love.

When I got to college, the importance of cooking became clear to me because I was no longer able to enjoy food in the same way. Not only did I not have my family to eat with or the type of food I was used to, but I also did not have a personal kitchen. Not having home-cooked meals is something that I think the majority of college students miss, but I also didn’t feel like I had an easy replacement. There aren’t many places in New York that have food that is both Southern and Black, and I can’t exactly afford to eat out all the time.

my mom’s mac and cheese recipe.

Once I moved to Plimpton and had my own kitchen, I was finally able to start cooking again. I realized almost immediately that there were so many things that I couldn’t quite remember how to make, or had never made without my mom. I got mad at her for being vague and she told me, “I don’t know how to tell you to make your mac and cheese, you have to figure it out.” Reading if i can cook reminded me of all of this. The book connects stories, history to the recipes, which I think is so crucial to the way that many cultures connect with food and cooking, and more importantly, the way that we use these things to connect with each other across generations and distance.

Out solution has been Facetime. She too far away to put her hand over mine as I pour ingredients into a mixing bowl, but she can watch me through the camera and tease me about not “folding” my noodles the right way.

Ntozake Visit and Reflecting on Mother/Daughterhood

by Tirzah Anderson 0 Comments

In reflecting upon our visit with Ntozake, I find myself thinking of mothering. Although that may not have been the main topic of discussion for our conversations with her, I cannot help but think of my own mother after the visit. Ntozake’s work often centers a type of motherhood, not always biological in nature, and after meeting her, I felt a need to call my mom and talk to her about my experience. When I called my mother, after sending her a few photos and a video of Ntozake addressing my mom, her only response was “You are blessed”.

For me, my experience meeting with Ntozake centered me back into the ways that my mother first introduced me to her work and the conversations that I have had with my own mother surrounding identity and the ways that our identities change our experiences in the world. My own mother influences the way I see Ntozake’s work and the way I understand my own lived experiences, so I wanted to share this experience with her as much as possible, because I know if she was granted with the opportunity to meet with Ntozake so openly she would utilize and appreciate it fully.

It is also important to note that although her work focuses on motherhood and ideas of mothering often, it is not just content of her work that highlights ideas of motherhood, but also the ways in which her work is intergenerational and can bring common ground to “mothers” and “daughters”, not only biological ones, but relationships that are created from commonality and experience.

 

 

The Daughter Identity

by Nadia 4 Comments

WGSBSFor the past few weeks, I have been thinking about the concept of being a daughter and how that is a motif in Shange’s work. My understanding of the saliency of (what I call) “daughtership” was further developed through my reading of Sassafrass, Cyprus and Indigo and during the Africana Department event “Who’s Going to Sing A Black Girl’s Song?” A Conversation on Black Girlhood with distinguished Africana alumnae Asali Solomon ‘95  and Alexis Pauline Gumbs ‘04.

At the event on Black Girlhood, I asked the alumnae about the connotations the word daughter has. They said daughter denotes duty, great gifts, a claim a
nd aspirational dreams that are given to them by their mothers. These terms Asali and Alexis used are relevant to daughters Sassafrass, Cyprus and Indigo. They all have the duties. Indigo put away childish things, like her dolls, to step into womanhood and Cyprus and Sassafrass have to attract particular kinds of men as future husbands.  They each have unique gifts as musicians, dancers and weavers and they all have to negotiate their mother’s aspirations for their lives and futures.

As I reflected back on each of the daughters’ their relationships with their mother, I realized that much of the mother-daughter relationship is dictated by their relationships to men. Hilda Effania’s letters to her daughters often include advice and warnings about men. Also, when one of the daughters gifts her mother with sexy lingerie, Hilda Effania comments on how their father would have come home more often if she owned this article of clothing.

In thinking about the role of men in mother-daughter relationships, Cypress’ dream made me wonder what mother-daughter relationships would look like if men did not exist – in a world where “there were only Mothers and Daughters” (185). I wonder if the fixation on men in mother-daughter relationships has anything to do with mother’s teaching their daughters about how to navigate relationships with men for their own survival and out of a desire to protect their daughters.

This brings me to a concept which I learned of at the Black Girlhood event which is idea of “mothering oneself” as well as daughters mothering their mothers. As each of the daughters in the novel enter womanhood, they begin to mother themselves through self-nurturing and self-care, especially when their actions and beliefs are contrary to those of their mother’s desire for them. While negotiating the limitations of the mothering their own mothers can provide as they become their own woman in the coming of age process, Sassafrass, Cyprus and Indigo being to take on the role of a mother in addition to that of a daughter as they care for themselves and as they look to have daughters of their own.

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