Positivity

When you are the boss of yourself, you have to be the one to motivate and reward yourself. Rewards are easy. I've bribed myself with myriad things over the years, most egregiously with an embarrassingly expensive makeup brush. I simply wanted the brush badly enough that I stayed committed to my goal of writing every weekday. 

Motivation can be trickier than providing an incentive. It seems like it would be easier, and certainly cheaper. I find it much more difficult, however, to consistently tell myself that I should sit down to work because I am awesome at what I do and because I love what I do. Both of these points are  compelling and true. When other people remind me of this, I feel buoyant, confident, and enthusiastic. It's really, really hard to maintain this state on your own. Partially this is because telling yourself that you're fabulous feels inauthentic, and partially this is because I forget to practice positive self-talk until I've descended into a dark place of self-loathing and despair. It's much more difficult to dig yourself out of that pit than it is to keep your confidence riding high. 

I've been working really hard at practicing positivity. Here are some of my strategies:

1. Make a list of everything you've done today or this week or this month. Put down absolutely everything that required more than minimal effort. That includes loads of laundry, any form of cleaning that improved your quality of life, important emails sent, books read, pages written, lesson plans prepared, all incidents of exercise, and any meetings pertaining to your work (particularly those involving your advisors). Marvel at the labor it takes to move through life.

2. Go to a coffee shop or a yoga class or a bar--anywhere that you could feasibly run into a stranger who asks you "what you do." Explaining your work to a non-expert always makes you feel really smart. You know things!

3. Listen to your anthem on repeat. Internalize the message.

4. Pull out the first graded paper you wrote in graduate school and compare it to the most recent page you've written. Even the clunkiest page of your dissertation will look brilliant next to that first attempt at coherence. How could you not compliment yourself after facing this evidence of growth and intellectual maturity? 

5. I'm not above asking my partner or my parents to tell me I'm smart, pretty, kind, thoughtful, and a net-positive addition to society. I don't dig for the compliment because it feels desperate and then I feel loathe myself even more. I just ask someone to pick up their pom-poms and start cheering for me. After their rah-rah-rah I can usually rally for a few rounds of "2-4-6-8-who-do-we-appreciate." I have no shame. 

Ultimately, it's less about what you do than how often you do it. It's healthy to be self-aware and self-critical, but you have to balance it with a daily dose of self-affirmation. 

I CAN DO ANYTHING GOOD!

Petit Bourgeoisie

I've been incredibly happy and satisfied with my life over the past few months, and I've put a lot of thought into what exactly has contributed to my buoyant mental state. Certainly I have absorbed some of the joy and confidence my partner feels in his new job. He has also sustained and nourished me in more tangible ways, by feeding me delicious dinners most days of the week. My family and friends are healthy and happy and are experiencing successes in their own lives, so I feel naches about that. I'm knitting a sweater, which is a fun challenge. I've traveled to Boston, Gainesville, Baltimore, and New York City (several times). These trips gave me a chance to spend time with family and old friends. I also got a lot of work done in NYC, which was professionally fulfilling. 

What has made me happiest, however, has been the autonomy that I've gained since beginning my dissertation. I wake up every day and decide where, when, and how to do my work. Sometimes that means pulling my laptop into bed at 6:30 AM and diving right into my documents. Other mornings I force myself out of bed right away and head out to a coffee shop, so that I don't give myself the opportunity to fall back asleep, or do the dishes, or try on all of the winter dresses I just brought up from the basement. And once I begin working, I choose whether to start by writing or by reading. I set my own priorities, and I can give myself the time and flexibility I need to ensure that I complete the task and complete it well. There are days I work for six hours straight. Those days are uncommon and awesome. There are also days I barely manage to sit in front of the computer for three hours. Those days are also uncommon and, frankly, feel terrible. 

It's not that I love having no structure. Quite the opposite, actually. My life is quite structured, in the way that a bounce house has a finite boundary. The walls of my work week span from 7:00 AM on Monday morning to (at the latest) 5:00 PM on Friday. I do not bounce in the bounce house on the weekends. That's when I do more sedentary activity, like watch Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles and playing Bejeweled on my iPad. There's no height requirement to get in the bounce house. The only rule is that you bounce for at least three hours each day, preferably four, ideally five. There's no overtime though so I don't overexert myself. 

The problem with the bounce house, however, is that I rent it from a cranky, paranoid overlord who has goals and ambitions and gets very very worried about liability. It is amazing to bounce in the bounce house. What is really not fun is being responsible for it. 

It's remarkable that I get to be my own boss--well, within reason, since ultimately I'm accountable to my dissertation committee and to the university that pays my bills. As the boss, though, I can be really hard on myself when I don't meet my own expectations. My partner asked me once why I shamed myself so often over perceived shortcomings of productivity. Through fumbling to answer his question, I realized that I am at once a bourgeois and a proletarian. I own the means of my production, and I desire to maximize its potential for my own gain. I am also forced to work every day for my wages, and it's mentally exhausting work. The best I can manage is to be a petit bourgeois as often as I can... to manage the productivity, provide a safe and rewarding workplace for the worker, and try to keep the boss-lady happy. And lately, I've been doing a really good job at it.

Ground Zero

This post begins a three-part series describing my dissertation project. Today I will lay out the study as originally proposed. Tomorrow I will discuss the research I have accomplished so far. On Friday, I will post some reflections on how the project has evolved and changed since its inception. Change over time being, of course, an historian's primary interest, both in the distant past and the immediate, personal present.

I recently re-read the abstract I wrote before I defended my dissertation prospectus. My department requires that the abstract be circulated to faculty and graduate students in the email announcing the defense. I distinctly recall finishing one of the last drafts of the prospectus and absolutely dreading the task of writing the abstract. I also remember that, once I sucked it up and forced myself to sit back down at the computer, writing it was a loathsome, tedious experience that yielded an unsatisfactory product. 

The best part about the whole "ordeal" was that it did not matter; no one cares about the abstract for a document that by its very nature is prospective. Five months later, however, when I read this overstuffed paragraph I do find it instructive. It's a testament to the ambition of the project. I really wanted--hell, I still want--to tell a thoughtful story with contemporary relevance, national scope, and valuable implications for urban leadership. It's also evidence of my determination; I stubbornly jammed in every element and angle that I determined was important. The abstract talks about Jewish identity, professionalization theory, spatial politics, demographic transition, intra-religious tension, and ethnic conflict over three decades in three cities, and maps all of this onto the history of one institution!

Here's the basic premise: Jewish communities in large urban neighborhoods began to change after WWII, for a variety of structural reasons. Demographic changes pushed Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in these neighborhoods to reevaluate their membership policies. Executives, Boards of Directors, and Federations of Jewish Philanthropy debated the options for membership intake policy. Would they accept non-Jews, eschewing their sectarian mission? Or should they double down on their sectarian commitment, and work to strengthen their membership's Jewish identity?

I argue that the gradual shift towards more inclusive membership policies in postwar urban Jewish Community Centers derived from the universalistic social work training of movement leadership and local Center executives; that this universalistic commitment was guided by the imperative to maintain professional prestige and legitimize their expertise among fellow (non-sectarian) social work colleagues and to distinguish their expertise from religious leadership; that this distinct professional identity required constant validation because the unique expertise of Jewish social workers justified the existence of separate sectarian institutions like JCCs; and finally, that universalism won out over particularism during the urban crisis, as local demographic changes affected Center memberships and forced a reevaluation of these institutions’ sectarian missions.

I proposed to do case studies of three urban JCCs in order to support this argument: the YM-YWHA of Washington Heights-Inwood in northern Manhattan, the Soto-Michigan Community Center in Los Angeles' Boyle Heights neighborhood, and the Miami Y.  Throughout the chapters, I would move from telling the history of the JCC movement more broadly to an specific, emblematic episode in the history of one of these Centers. This close study would demonstrate how broader national or regional trends played out at the local level. For example, after describing how autonomous JCCs often came into conflict with their Federations--metropolitan fundraising bodies--over agency priorities, I would zoom in to describe a fundraising campaign undertaken by the YM-YWHA of Washington Heights-Inwood in the early 1950s. The Y was struggling to pay for the construction of a new building, and they wanted help from Federation to meet their fundraising total. The episode not only illuminates the complex financial relationship between the New York Federation and individual Centers, but also how these entities disagreed on the degree of responsibility Board members, Center staff, and local members had to subsidize and contribute to their own services and spaces.

To boil it down even further, here are the assumptions and questions that are central to my project. 

Assumptions

Beginning in the 1940s, American cities rapidly deindustrialized. Economic prosperity and changing social values prompted white Americans to decamp for the suburbs. Many formerly- Jewish neighborhoods transitioned to predominantly black or Latino. JCCs that were built in these neighborhoods to serve Jewish members had to decide whether or not to move, close, or start serving what they referred to as the "total community."

Questions

How did American urban Jewish Community Centers evolve between 1945 and 1980 in response to changing American society and values? How did community building occur in increasingly multicultural urban neighborhoods? How did JCCs define the extent of the Centers’ community? Would it include non-Jews? If so, would the Center relinquish its sectarian commitment and become a secular agency? How would this stance likewise facilitate cooperation with non-Jewish membership, particularly Latino Catholics, or underscore differences? Finally, did these changes affect the social service and communal welfare infrastructure of urban areas?

Any questions? Yeah, I bet you do! I'm not sure that I've done a better job explaining it here than I did in the abstract. 

History in the News

I began writing this post in June, but lost steam as soon as I began my internship. While it's no longer timely, I still feel that this article is worth highlighting and hope my comments on it inspire those of you who missed it the first go-round to give it a read. I've chosen not to provide a summary of Coates' story and argument, and recommend that you look at my post after reading the article. 

In June, The Atlantic published a cover story by Ta-Nehisi Coates that garnered a lot of buzz. I want to recommend that you read it not only because it's a fabulous article--richly descriptive, informative, packed with history, and with a solid argument--but also because I think it does a pretty decent job of contextualizing my own research. In particular, the sixth section entitled "Making the Second Ghetto" introduces the very historiography into which my own project seeks to intervene.

The strength of Coates' article is how effectively it describes how racial discrimination has, since World War II, been incorporated into the structure of our society--our laws, policies, and practices concerning housing, employment, and mobility. This structural discrimination has perpetuated a wealth gap between black and white Americans. "The Case for Reparations" traces how American racial discrimination outlived the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement and continues to exist today in the form of discriminatory lending programs (especially around mortgages and housing), in unequal distribution of job training and placement programs, and in the insiduous claims of pathologically unfit black parents (particularly absent fathers and single mothers).  Coates argues that until we recognize that racism continues to shape the opportunities and decisions made by black Americans, we cannot begin to close the wealth gap and mitigate persistent economic inequality.

In "Making the Second Ghetto," Coates supports his claims by referring to a historical work of the same name, which was published by Arnold Hirsch in 1983. This book is a foundational text in the scholarship on twentieth-century U.S. urban history and African American history. In brief, Hirsch argues that racist housing and redevelopment policies in postwar cities transformed segregated neighborhoods (the "first ghetto") into overcrowded, decrepit, and still segregated black "second ghettos."  Although it is already 30 years old, historians are still debating its various merits--myself included! Why? Well, primarily because many of our contemporary social problems stem from the deindustrialization and disinvestment in American cities that occurred between the 1940s and 1970s, and if we want to understand the present it helps to examine these same issues in the past. 

The Making of the Second Ghetto offered a new, snappy thesis to explain why these events unfolded--prompting a wave of studies that agreed or disagreed with Hirsch's "second ghetto" model. Hirsch changed the way historians thought about the relationship between black and white Americans in the twentieth century by reminding scholars that state policymakers made outsized contributions to the problem of segregated urban neighborhoods. Previously, historians believed that American ghettos were the inevitable result of racism and discrimination. Hirsch challenged the assumption that the "inner city" ghetto was an inevitability, and repeatedly emphasized that the consolidation of the "first ghetto" into the "second ghetto" could have been avoided, had white business interests and white homeowners not parlayed their power into legislative action and housing policies that transformed extant ghettos into even more isolated (and isolating) neighborhoods. Hirsch wrote the following in the introduction to the book:

"Indeed, the real tragedy surrounding the emergence of the modern ghetto is not that it has been inherited but that it has been periodically renewed and strengthened. Fresh decisions, not the mere acquiescence to old ones, reinforced and shaped the contemporary black metropolis”{C}

What historians later knocked Hirsch for, however, was that all of the "fresh decisions" that he focused on in Making the Second Ghetto were made by white elites and not by black residents of the "second ghetto". Much of the research since 1985, and particularly in the twenty-first century, has focused on the black grassroots activism in formal politics during this "urban crisis" of the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of "The Case for Reparations," in fact, is its focus on the activist response of the Contract Buyers League to abusive practices by white real estate speculators. Coates highlights how these aspiring homeowners organized themselves--eventually forming a group as large as 500--to shame contract sellers for their exploitation and to file lawsuits seeking repayment of funds that contract sellers extorted from these vulnerable buyers. Rather than passively acquiescing to structural racism, black urbanites reacted in a variety of ways to challenge exploitation. 

This is where my research picks up. My dissertation does not look at arguments for reparation, nor am I particularly concerned with debating against Hirsch--plenty of more advanced scholars have done a superb job of clarifying and elaborating on his theory. Rather, I am interested in grassroots activism as a response to these transformations of the postwar city (the Urban Crisis and consolidation of the "second ghetto"). Specifically, I'm curious about how urban citizens used Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) during the 1960s and '70s as sites of activism. Consequently, how did this activism reshape the JCC? My research examines how non-white (black and Latino) residents of formerly Jewish neighborhoods like Washington Heights or the Lower East Side or the Central Bronx regarded Jewish Community Centers--a space that offered them social services and recreational space but did not claim to be for them. Likewise, the dissertation studies how the Jewish residents remaining in these communities used the JCC as a place to organize to "improve" the neighborhood--whether "improvement" was a euphemism for segregation or meant accepting diversity and advocating for the inclusion of non-Jewish membership.