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That Ginger, Anna

That Ginger, Anna

Tag Archives: texas

Please, Please Help

18 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Personal and Fun

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

alvarado, charity, chicano, childhood, donation, gofundme, grief, help, High school, oklahoma, texas, tragedy

It’s been a while since I’ve written. But please take ten minutes and read this.

First and foremost, I am asking for a favor. A family I greatly respect and who shaped me into the person I am today has been faced with a horrible tragedy. If you are able, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it if you would donate to this GoFundMe cause.

Three members of the family (the mother, younger sister, and niece) were instantly killed in an automobile accident and a fourth (another sister and the mother of the niece) is in critical condition. In the coming weeks, months, and years the surviving siblings, children, and grandchildren will have to bury three people they love and help another recover from the worst thing a mother can experience.

I have written about my experiences in high school and college in Oklahoma before and I always highlight the negative things I went through, but the Alvarado family was a gleaming exception during those years.

Beginning in my 10th grade year, before I could even drive, one of the brothers became one of my best friends. He and his family had a huge impact on my life and I will never be able to repay them for the kindness, hospitality, and friendship they provided. I went to high school with three of the siblings and spent many afternoons and evenings at their house during the early part of my time in high school. Even after high school, when I left Oklahoma, I attempted to remain in touch with them (poorly so, on my part).

I never really ever felt like I fit in in Oklahoma and always had a hard time making friends, but the Alvarado’s embraced me and always made me feel welcome. From going on my first date ever, to learning to play pool and La Loteria, to learning about Vicente Fernandez and Pedro Infante, hearing stories about their time working in the fields in Minnesota, high school parties and car wrecks, barbecues and float trips, hospital visits and joy rides around Tulsa blaring La Camisa Negra and Baby Bash, beer pong and smoking my first cigarette, Pocos Pero Locos and trays of McDonalds fries, and too many more memories to count. My relationship with this family impacted every part of the person I have become academically, politically, socially, emotionally…

If you know me at all, you know my love and appreciation for the history and culture of Mexican and Chicano people runs deep and it all began with this family over twelve years ago. They helped me when I was new to a small rural town, when I was lonely and struggling to fit in, when I felt there was no way to relate to the people surrounding me, when my dad was in Iraq and my mom and I were in a new place alone. They made me feel like I was part of something and taught me so many things that I can’t adequately express in a few paragraphs.

This is not meant to be a verbose story about my experience, but rather I want to express, as clearly as possible, how incredibly appreciative I am of the relationship I had with this family during my formative years and how your donations could really help them through this time.

I can never repay them for what I’ve gained through knowing them, but I would appreciate any help you can provide.

Please, please donate and share this campaign

Rest In Peace

Please donate and share: gf.me/u/x3a5w

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Part 1: Why the Jews and Perché Venezia?

07 Friday Oct 2016

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in School and Work

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

academics, bronx, fate, God, grad school, graduate school, historian, history, history student, jewish, jewish history, jews, judaica, judaism, MA, NYU, religion, sephardim, six degrees, student, texas, Thesis, UNT, venezia, venice, writing

So, as usual, I didn’t get to follow the schedule I’d planned for starting this new series because life and that paper chaseee. But here we are now. Ok, this first post will mostly be a background about why this Catholic, Army-brat from Georgia became interested in Judaica studies (didn’t even know that was a thing until 2011) and how a seminar paper from 2012 became a thesis chapter in 2013 and has impacted my life more than I could have ever fathomed. This initial post is more about me than about Jews in Venice (if that’s all you’re here for, just wait for part two-there will be no personal stuff in that one), but I will link to my original paper and the L.A. Times article about the same topic from last year. Part 2 will be an updated summary of my paper/thesis chapter with some new material and commentary.


I am going to start by saying I knew NOTHING about Judaism. Zero. Zilch. Nada. I knew Hitler killed millions of “the Jews” in the Holocaust, that Jews didn’t believe in Jesus, and that they didn’t eat pork, but that was the extent of it. I know about Christianity because that’s the religion my parents are and therefore how I was raised (mom’s Baptist non-denominational and my dad is a non-practicing Catholic). I know about Islam because I had several Muslim friends (see also: hung out with an Imam’s son in the back of his coffee shop after school for a few weeks my Junior year) in Tulsa and I became more curious about that religion when my dad was deployed to Iraq. I’ve learned about Christianity in Sunday School since I was 3 years old and I learned about Islam through independent study, friends, and a couple of university classes. But guess what? In all my travels and all the moves, I had not ever met a Jewish person-to my knowledge.

Circa 2006 or 2007, I went to Alabama with my mom and we had lunch with her uncle. He knew I was interested in history and gave me a jump drive with our family tree on it. He was an amateur genealogist and had traced my mother’s, father’s, mother’s family tree. I never looked at the jump drive, but he passed away in the Summer of 2011 and I thought I’d better check it out. I opened up the document and to my surprise, he traced the family back to the 15th century in Bassano del Grappa, Italy! After some Googling, I saw that research had been done by other people who thought the family were exiled Jews from Spain or Portugal. I obviously thought it was cool, but didn’t really dig any further. When I started graduate school in 2011, I took a class about Venetian History and learned about the ghettos and a little bit about the Jewish population there. A new student arrived the following Fall and we became friends-it turned out she was Jewish. It just so happens that I signed up for a History of the Reformation class with her and the professor was Jewish too (hold on to your shorts, this will get trippy in a little bit). We had to come up with a paper topic and since I always tried to piggy-back my research paper’s off one another, I thought I would expand upon research I’d already done about Jews in Venice.

**Grad School pro-tip: I highly suggest finding a broad topic you like before you start graduate school and using that to guide all of your seminar papers. It turns out my broad topics were Italian Politics and Judaism. I went to two universities and took 25+ classes and was able to spider-web my papers and expand upon a few core topics each semester. (Obviously, I took unrelated courses like Carribbean History and Russian Cinema for which I wasn’t able to research anything related to these topics, but you get what I mean.) If I ever got nervous about using my own prior work, I’d just cite myself and link to my paper on Google Docs, but as far as I know there is no academic dishonesty in this approach and it will cut down your workload tremendously because you’ll be familiar with a group of sources and have already researched a topic that you can just expand or reframe in your next class.**

As a result, I wrote a seminar paper entitled: Jewish Life in Early Modern Venice: Migration, Segregation, and the Economic Necessity of Jews in Venice. I worked really hard on this paper and was proud of it. (SN: This paper contains the least amount of passive voice I could possibly use-so if you have issues reading things written in passive voice you best skidaddle on out of here now…also, this was my first real seminar paper, so excuse the errors and also realize I am NOT AN EXPERT of Judaica-sorry in advance). After some issues with my thesis committee and topic, in 2013, I decided to build upon this paper and some research I’d done about Venice in another course. This paper became a chapter in my thesis (I wrote more about it during my trip to Italy in 2014) and I got into the Ph.D. program at UNT shortly afterward. I left UNT, I had this chunck of research/writing, and a tangential connection to some family history. So, that’s the end of it, right? Nope.

In 2014, I went to Italy and got to visit all the places I’d talked about in my thesis. From the place the first Venetian settlers came from, to the town where my family came from, all the way to the Jewish ghetto itself! Later that year when I got to New York, I quickly found a job in Riverdale, an affluent-and largely Jewish-suburb in the Bronx. I began working for a family as a companion to a lady with Alzheimer’s. I soon found out that her daughter-in-law was from Fort Worth, Texas. The following year, upon meeting her in-laws, I asked them if they knew the Jewish professor who was on my thesis committee (not just because he was Jewish-I’m not that redneck-but because I knew he was an active member of the Jewish community in North Texas) and helped guide my research. It turns out my new bosses’ in-laws were very well aquainted with that professor I took the class with way back in 2012. Then, early this year, I logged into Facebook and had several notifications. 3 or 4 friends that knew about my seminar paper and thesis had linked me to the L.A. Times artilce about the history of Jews in Venice! I found out shortly afterward that I wasn’t accepted into a Ph.D. program, so I really thought that was the end of all this history stuff, but it turns out I wasn’t quiteee done.

As part of my job, I go to a Jewish Senior Center multiple times a week and earlier this year I met a member of the senior center who is an Afghani-Sephardic Jew from Israel. We became close friends, and in the past 6 months my research about Judaism has increased ten-fold (peep my IG if you’d like to see my interactions with the Jewish community in the Bronx). While I’ve branched out beyond Venice, I am still finding new sources which connect to my thesis!

So, a family tree given to me in Alabama in 2007 and viewed in 2011, led to a seminar paper in Denton, Texas in 2012, and a thesis chapter in 2013. An application to a Ph.D. program using this chapter as a writing sample brought me to New York City in 2014, where I found a job with a connection to two Jewish families in Fort Worth, Texas and the Bronx, New York. This new job led me to a Jewish Senior Center and a new friend from Israel, who just so happens to be an expert in the field of Judaica. Here I am, 4 years after writing that first paper and just last week I found yet another connection between Venice and “the Jews”…

*Next up: Let’s talk about the modern day divides within Judaism and the history of Jews in Venice/their importance to the Venetian economy!

*Probably next weekend…

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Home, home on the range…

22 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Personal and Fun, Travel

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Tags

America, bronx, christmas, city, country, home, lifestyle, New York City, NYC, single, southern, texas, Travel, twenty something, woman

I am backkk!

I’m finally home in Tejas for Christmas and I am so, so excited and ready to relax and have some fun.

I have TV service, a microwave, central heat and air, my dogs, my parents, fruits, vegetables, meat, a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, I don’t smell urine, and it’s so quiet I can hear myself breathe. It’s like heaven on earth, haha!

I have all my cameras charging, got my Chromecast set up, unpacked. Everything is perfect. 

I have some plans for my visit: going to get my hair done, having a KDrama marathon with friends, going down to Houston for my birthday, going to midnight Mass, eating some good food, going to go run, taking my dogs for walks, driving, geocaching, writing, filming, hanging out with my parents, soaking in the hot tub, getting my nails done…just regular stuff-most of which I don’t get to do up in New York. I hope I get to see some friends and go to the movies too.

Y’all, it SMELLS SO GOOD HERE. Like, so good. 

My mom also stopped at Taco Bell on the way home from the airport (because it was the only thing open at 10 PM on a Monday night, don’t judge me) and we got 5 things for under $10! WHATTT? That’s why I spend so much money when I come down here. Everything is SO cheap, it’s insane. 

I sound like I’m on vacation in some tropical paradise, but Texas is pretty rad.

Anyway, just a quick update. The next two weeks should be pretty fun so check back for more. I already know I’m going to be sad when I leave because I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Let’s do this thing, folks!

  

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It’s Been Nine Months Since My Last Confession

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Personal and Fun

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

anna, army, blog, catholic, catholic missions, catholicism, city, cleaning, cofession, dallas, easter, guilt, lazy, lazyness, life, missions, New York City, NYC, photography, religion, san antonio, seven deadly sins, sin, sloth, texas, thatgingeranna, twenty something, vice, WODW, woman, write or die wednesday, writing

Forgive my tardiness. My mom is coming to visit for the Easter weekend and I put off all my cleaning until the last minute. I’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the last 3 hours dusting, vacuuming, Swiffering, mopping, doing dishes, bleaching,Windexing, burning candles, doing laundry, taking out garbage, and other such nonsense. 

I pride myself on keeping a clean house, but there is nothing like an impending visit from your mom to help you see all the little things that need to be done.

My mom get’s here tomorrow at 2:55, but I have to be to work at 3 so she is going to meet me at my boss’ house and hangout with me there until I get off. I only work a couple of hours tomorrow, so hopefully we will get home early, make dinner, have some wine, and watch a movie or something. Friday we are going downtown, then Saturday I am taking her to Little Italy and the New York Botanical Garden for an orchid show, all here in the Bronx! I don’t know what we are doing Sunday yet. A friend invited me to go to church with her, but I will have to see what my mom wants to do.

Anyway…this week’s Write or Die Wednesday prompt asks what your biggest vice is or which of the seven deadly sins you commit most often?

Write or Die Wednesday

This is quite fitting for Easter, haha!

There are seven deadly sins: greed, envy, lust, sloth, wrath, pride, and gluttony.

I’m Catholic and part of being Catholic is examining one’s conscience on a regular basis, before going to confession or on a regular basis to keep one’s self in check!

Despite daily efforts to avoid doing sinful stuff, I could probably list twenty ways I commit each of these sins regularly. That being said, I definitly think I commit the sin of sloth most often!

  

I LOVE to sleep and watch movies, so that often leads to avoiding my responsibilities. I obviously work and maintain good grades, so it hasn’t necessarily impacted my life negatively, but it is definitely a severely bad habit that I possess. I can use almost anything to justify not leaving the house, even if I am initially really excited about doing something. My laziness means I don’t exercise the way I should, I don’t devote enough undivided attention to completeing assignments to the best of my ability (again, while still maintaining my grades), and I definitely don’t “take life by the horns” as much as I should. I am also spiritually lazy. I am Catholic, but I always seem to come up with excuses for not going to confession or praying the Rosary. I do pay attention to my faith and use it as a tool to become a better person, but sloth has contributed to not growing my faith to its full potential. 

Netflix, sleep, foreign languages, and wine are definitely my biggest enablers. I so thoroughly enjoy each of those things that I would rather partake in them than pretty much anything. I also LOVE hiking, shopping, fishing, swimming in the ocean, and traveling, but since I am living on a budget and can’t really safely do the others alone, I stick to my ol’ sloth-making activities. 

I’m sure anxiety and self esteem contribute to my laziness, since it is so much easier to avoid fear, confrontation, and other awkwardness when you just stay home. 

Gluttony would probably be my next biggest sin. I am definitely a hedonist at heart and I have a difficult time with self-discipline when it comes to certain things (like movies, goat cheese, and wine, HAHA!).  

One of the prayers that Catholic’s say at every Mass includes the line, “I have sinned in what I have done and what I have failed to do…” I remember the first time I heard this it kind of stunned me. I still think of sin as active choices we make to do bad stuff, but I never thought about the fact that you can also commit a sin by NOT doing something too. That’s still one of the big areas I have to work on, haha!

Texas Missions 

I’d say the sins I commit least often are wrath, pride, and envy.

I obviously get mad at people and sometimes want to smack them into next week, but I am not a vengeful, plotting, back stabbing type of person. I get my feelings hurt and take things personally more often than getting angry or wanting to get back at people. I’m also not a very prideful person. More often than not I assume that I did something to cause any negative events or behaviors and will often try to remedy the situation and apologize.   I admire a LOT of people and often do feel like other people are leading really fun and carefree lives, so I do feel envy in certain senses, but never in the way that I want to take what someone else has or live their life. I am thoroughly convinced everyone has their own problems and they have developed ways to cope with them. I know if I had the chance to inhabit someone else’s life or they had the chance to inhabit mine, we would each be unequipped  to deal with each other’s hardships. 

 Texas Missions 

Whether you are religious or not, we all do/think about doing crappy things everyday. I think as long as you are consistently working to make a positive contribution to the world (not matter what it is), correct your mistakes, and try to make others’ lives a little easier, then everything will all work out in the end. With this outlook you don’t even have to believe in/worry about heaven, hell, God, the devil, or sin (if you don’t want/need to) because the focus is on the now and doing the best you can in the present moment to make your life and the lives of those around you better. It’s a pretty awesome philosophy (check out A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle if you are interested)!

 Texas Missions 

Hopefully I will post a blog on Saturday or Sunday with some pictures from Little Italy and the New York Botanical Garden. I hope everyone has a good Passover/Easter or just a great weekend in general!

Talk to you guys next time!

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Italia in 40: Day 22…Venezia>Roma>Napoli

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by That Ginger, Anna in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

backpacking, budget travel, college travel, dallas, europe, european, female travel, italia, italiain40, Italy, solo travel, texas, tourism, tourist, Travel, travel advice, travel tips, traveler

Today was great!

I woke up around 8:30 and got ready. I made sure everything was packed, stripped my bed, put all my dirty linens and stuff in the sink, and rearranged my room back to the way it was when I arrived.

I’m a weirdo and like to leave hotel rooms cleaner than when I found them, so, yeah.

I went to the restroom and then checked out and headed to the vaporetto stop. My pass that I bought on Friday during the strike still worked, somehow, so I used it and went to the train station. I bought my ticket to Naples and the train was already there, so I jumped on-board and headed for Rome. The first-class section of the high-speed trains are awesome: free newspaper, free snacks, free WiFi, luggage storage and crazy large seats! Definitely worth the price, in my opinion…one of the only things I’ve been willing to splurge on during this journey. Also, yes, I validated my tickets and didn’t get any on the spot fines.

Once I got to Rome I found the platform for my next train and then went to get a sandwich and some water. I got on my next train and there was no WiFi, so I ate my lunch, took some footage on my GoPro, listened to some music and took a nap.

 

My friend was waiting on me right when I got to Aversa, so we went straight to her house and I unpacked my stuff and freshened up. About that time, her husband got home from work and we decided to go downtown and have pizza.

We drove to Naples and saw an apartment building that was completely on fire…everyone just stopped in the highway to watch. We went to L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele aka Eat, Pray, Love pizzeria! It was SO cool! I LOVE going to places from movies and TV shows and that movie is one of my all time favorites, so it was absolutely amazingly amazing. They only serve one kind of pizza and you get an entire one to yourself, so we all had drinks and pizza and then drove around downtown. I got some good GoPro footage of the traffic and crazy drivers, which I will hopefully get to upload soon!

Naples is something else man. All the windows of the stores are smashed or painted on, the traffic has absolutely no rhyme or reason, its crazy polluted and dirty…but it’s charming in a weird way. I was planning on taking the bus from my friend’s house to downtown on Thursday to go explore alone, but I don’t really know if I’m going to do that now…it was a little scary.

After dinner, we drove back to where they live near Aversa and got gelato. On the way to the gelato place I saw a woman standing by a bucket on the phone…it was a prostitute. I thought it was her seat just to wait for Johns, but my friend said it’s her BATHROOM and that she’s seen her pop-a-squat on it before!

Apparently crime syndicates own the women (usually from Africa, Asia, or Eastern Europe-not Italian women) so the police don’t arrest them or mess with them at all…I couldn’t believe it!

Tomorrow we are going back downtown and then to a wine tasting tomorrow night! Talk you guys tomorrow!

 

 

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