Queer Majority (interview)

https://www.queermajority.com/illustration/anas-story

I’m thankful to QM for reaching out for the interview and to the artist, Karthik Aithal for his illustration of me (in a field of poppies?)

Something in the interview (turned narrative by the zine) struck me.  I know it’s hard to get things right in interviews but this was important.  When I left my hometown of Chicago after receiving by B.A., I went to California.  The purpose was to hopefully launch the Chicana activism begun since my high school years. I found a job teaching at a community college in Ethnic Studies and I also worked as a teacher’s aid. By then, I was a woman, albeit 22 (back then, 22 was considered an adult in all senses.) I’m sure I missed my small immediate family back in Chicago but I wasn’t sad.  I was thrilled to meet César Chávez, to embark on a career in adult education, to work with 100% committed Chicanas and Chicanos, to immerse myself in the beautiful state of California, Northern and Southern. To this day, I am grateful to California for embracing me, my writing, my life and heart.

I’d received my B.A. in art education but at that time I was not doing art.  I’d learned to do line drawings with India ink in college.  It would be decades before I returned to that form.  I do them prolifically now.

by Karthik Aithal

Here are some samples of my current work: