“Oh, a lot of things,” said Van, smiling at me. “Like today we were talking about the solar system.”
“The solar system? What’s that?” asked Fred. Shocked, I told them I had to get back to my machine before my absence was noticed. Later Van confided in me that Fred really did not know what the solar system was and had never thought about what was in the sky and beyond our world. He may have been a casualty of narrow-minded religious beliefs. Even Van once asked about Jewish people: “Aren’t they all rich?”
“Nope. Did you know Lea [one of my friends who worked in the plant] is Jewish?”
“Really?” he said, surprised. “I had no idea.”
All our work in industry did have some effect. Not only did we talk about our ideas and win supporters and open up discussion beyond the Democrat and Republican dance, but we worked on international issues through the unions, such as boycotting apartheid South Africa. One time in the machine shop, one older guy who had previously been belligerent toward me on a political issue, adopted my stance in a different discussion with co-workers. Some people played devil’s advocate to hear my arguments.
I loved proving to the guys that I could do my job, although sometimes I got tired of it. It seemed they were always watching to see if I would make a mistake, and sometimes I did, but I always got help when I asked. I remember being assigned to work with Jim so he could show me the ropes. Jim was a great teacher, and to this day his modeling of patience and clarity is something I aspire to, even in my English teaching. He was soft-spoken and had a wonderful laugh. Sometimes he would let me make the wrong cut so I could see it wouldn’t work and I learned to plan better.
There was a group of them I sometimes joined at the diner after work. At first I didn’t know why they invited me. It didn’t take me long to realize that they were not interested in me as person or in my politics, just in flirting or making fun of me. One night after second shift, when they found out through the rumor mill that I was gay, Jeb, the leader of the pack, leaned across the table and drawled: “Do you like to be finger-banged?” They all started laughing. I got up and walked out.
It was a long road to a better world and I was tired. Not only tired of the work itself, but tired of putting up with insults from men and driving points home as an activist. I needed a break, room to think, and a space for my creativity. I quit machining in 1991. I had left the Socialist Workers Party the year before. Life would take me to teaching and writing—my work today.
Kosovo Diary: June/July 1999
People are returning to their homes, lining up on the two lane road with possessions piled on cars and trucks, on backs, in sacks bound with rope and bursting. Over half the population of Kosovo had left because of the violence and war in this autonomous region of the former Yugoslavia, which is now splitting up. I am here to aid refugee women, as part of MOSAIC, an international women’s organization I helped found. A British woman activist is getting us a place to live in Skopje where we landed. This capital of another republic of the former Yugoslavia—Macedonia—with its Byzantine and Ottoman buildings and even a fifth century fortress, is now overrun with UN soldiers, representatives of the Soros Foundation and other organizations. Several refugee camps surround the city, fields puffy with tents as far as the eye can see, a busyness the city is not used to.
Today, my first day here, we are going to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, to help Igo’s grandmother return to the home she abandoned there. We drive up to the border, where the long line of loaded pickup trucks and cars is at a standstill. We, along with others, are waved on because of some privilege. Igo doesn’t explain. Some of the people on the line stare at our car with envy. While Igo is driving, her beautiful old grandmother, her skin weathered and lined, talks with her animatedly in Albanian. Lana, a young woman doctor and a Kosovar friend of theirs, is quiet, as am I.
As we come over a rise, the city of Pristina gleams on the dry hills, red roofs and sandstone buildings appearing like a mirage, clean and orderly from a distance. We arrive at Igo’s grandmother’s place and enter a war zone—homes demolished, piles of rocks, graffiti, a burnt smell in the warm air. We park in front and enter a ransacked mess—strewn belongings, dishes broken, photos torn to shreds. Everyone is speaking Albanian, so I don’t understand what they’re saying. Lana sometimes translates, but they are all busy with the disarray and calming the grandmother. Lana tells me she found Igo’s laptop in the mayhem upstairs—that’s why I heard her cry out. Igo’s mother arrives, bringing us Turkish coffee. There is so much emotion in the air that I want to weep but I drink the coffee calmly.
Then we go back to the street. Rubble everywhere, a bulldozer. A woman named Zhaka rushes up to Igo and starts crying and hugging her. People walk around like zombies, some wanting to talk to us, tell us what happened. They notice an American and think it means help. Lana sees her aunt, and they hug and cry among dust and piles of rocks where houses used to stand. I have never seen such destruction. I can read some of the disgusting Serb graffiti calling the Albanians scum and saying they’ll return to “do it again and again”—unrepeatable curses in Serbian. I feel sickened by the inhumanity. Stories of children gassed, bombs planted, books burned—all because of territory Serbs assert that they own, based on a history that is long gone. People are lining up to get UN food from an old gray truck. How do they go on with their lives after such destruction? Pristina used to be “a bastion of peace and education,” one of the activists in Skopje told me, as was Sarajevo once, I thought.
We go to nearby Vushtrri, where seventy percent of the city is destroyed. We visit with a friend of Lana’s. Her husband tells a story of Serbs gathering some Albanian men, taking them to a school, and telling the schoolchildren to beat the them with sticks to humiliate them. I can’t even imagine this, much less the other horrors I am told about. I learn that this city is the headquarters of the UCK (the Kosovo Liberation Army) and that is why it has been so devastated. Lana’s boyfriend is part of the UCK I think, but it’s not clear. People stop to tell us more stories. The nerves in my left arm are pounding as I find it more and more difficult to hear the translations. Lana asks if I’m okay. I shrug. She knows I arrived in Skopje with a case of shingles. The pain increases with stress.
Back in Pristina we go to a cafe. Under new laws instituted after 1989, Albanians were forbidden to speak their language, my friends explain. Books in Albanian were burned. Lana herself was denied the completion of her medical education because she was Albanian. As we drink coffee, a handsome young goateed filmmaker tells us about the master copies of his films being burned in the studio. One film told the story of a woman who was raped and then killed herself because her boyfriend rejected her. Another told of a man who looked for his father and found him in a mass grave. These were the horror stories the people had to live with.
The trip to inner Kosovo is making my shingles cut through my arm and shoulder like knives. It’s hot, and I’m wearing a sleeveless top, and the rash is red and bumpy along my left arm. It showed up right before I came to Skopje. When I went to a doctor in Skopje upon my arrival, we communicated in Macedonian, which is close to Serbo-Croatian, my first language. He gave me a cream to relieve the pain and prescribed vitamin B12. I asked how much the visit cost and opened my wallet. He looked at me, shaking his head: “You came here to help. I can’t take any money from you.” He smiled and made a joke about Clinton. I thanked him and benefited from his advice.