Ethnic Scrapbooking

Mother's Blessing

My sister, the compassionate soul that she is held a "Mother's Blessing" for two of her expecting friends a couple of weeks ago.  I got to photograph the event and it was beautiful...I wish I had stood firm and had my last child at home...anyhoo...too late now. 

Instead of a traditional baby shower, it was a Beautiful, Beautiful Sunday afternoon at the National Arboretium in Washington, DC.  friends gathered to shower blessing upon the moms to be and their babies, with song, music, poetry and tributes.  It was beautiful.  If you are linked to me on facebook, check out the captions in the photoalbum my sister Candace Mickens posted.

The ladies smoothed plaster strips across their bellies and made masks...well works of art really.

What a spectacular event!!!

St. Croix Vacation Album

UPDATE:

Back on July 3rd I posted my plan on how I was going to deal with the 2,000 photos from vacation. I'm glad to report that I have made progress. 

1. I have slapped photos into a pre-decorated travel theme album that I won at a silent auction ($25) and we have something to show friends. CLICK HERE to see the inside pages
2. I sorted all of the photos by day!

My plan has been revised, (see here for original plan) because it was just that a plan, something to motivate me, (plus plans are made to be changed)...not a strict set of standard operating procedures.  Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

July 3rd - Emancipation Day in St. Croix

I wish we were back in St. Croix today to celebrate.  We heard about this day of celebration when we visited a local Jr. High School.

Article Excerpt by Bill Kossler

July 3 is Emancipation Day in the Virgin Islands, marking the day in 1848 when St. Croix's African population rose up to break the bonds and shackles of chattel slavery some 19 years before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. St. Croix will be hosting a series of celebrations, conversations and commemorations leading up to the day, with Fourth of July celebrations the next day.
  The celebration is organized every year by the History, Culture and Tradition Foundation, led by Mary L. Moorhead of Frederiksted.
  Emancipation was brought about by the St. Croix slave rebellion of 1848. That revolt was lead by Moses "Gen. Buddhoe" Gottlieb, an enslaved African and master sugar boiler who could travel from plantation to plantation.

Mickens Family in the heart of Fredericksted June 2009

 Buddhoe could read and write and was knowledgeable in world affairs. That same year revolutions swept across much of Europe, and Buddhoe may have considered himself a part of that widespread movement.
 Prompted by the takeover of Fort Frederik, the military stronghold in St. Croix, and threats by the enslaved Africans to "burn down the town of Frederiksted," Gov. General Peter Von Scholten reluctantly made the proclamation "from this day onward all unfree in the Danish West Indies are free."

 The events of July 3, 1848, ushered in a new era between the black working class and the Danish crown. The proclamation freed not only the blacks in Frederiksted, which was the capital of the Danish West Indies, but also the nearly 3,000 enslaved Africans throughout the entire Danish West Indies, including St. Thomas and St. John. Though slavery was abolished, the movements of workers remained tightly controlled, leading to the Fireburn revolt thirty years later, in 1878.
  To mark Emancipation Day, every year there is a donkey race, a fun pastime on St. Croix that goes way back into colonial times.
  "Everyone loves the donkey race," Moorhead said Wednesday. "It's funny, and like a big country picnic. You can't help but be happy and smiling at a donkey race."
  There is also a long walk from Christiansted to Frederiksted.
  "It's a very spiritual event," Sen. Terrence "Positive" Nelson said Thursday, encouraging everyone to join in. "We go slow and if you get tired, you can hop on the bus following the walk and ride." 
  Source:  http://www.onepaper.com/stcroixvi/?v=d&i=&s=News:Local&p=1212899458

St. Croix Vacation Album

Although our family has taken week long vacations before, I've never scrapbooked the whole week, amazing I know.  I've scrapbooked whole albums on just one day events, but never a week long event for my personal scrapbook collection.

Here's my game plan:  (I'm making this public so you can hold me accountable)

1. download and tag all photos - DONE!
2. dowload and tag all of my sister's photos  - DONE!
3. delete bad shots and duplicates SCRATCH, too time consuming, not going to do
4. Revisit Stacy Julian's ideas in Photo Freedom (I highly recommend purchasing this great reference book)  - DONE 7/16/09
5. organize photos by day - select 8-10 to print/use DONE 7/17/09
6. order two sets, use 2nd set for Kids,Parent's & Hostess album -  revised plan 7/17/09, create a 9 image collage for each day, print at home one 8x10 for each day
7. Create photo album or traditional album - hard choice for me, uploading to a photo album seems very appealing and quick, but I love to customize using my own stash. - Created one mini-album in an hour by purchasing a pre-decorated album at silent auction for $25!
8. Kids Pages - let them do their own two-page spread or mini-albums?
9. Parents Keepsake - give them the prints in photo sleeve album or what?
10. Cousin Tina (our hostess) - Create Thank You gift - traditional mini-album or loose print...decided, have Lisa Renee Young create a blank beach-themed mini-album
11. Deadline - Complete by September 1, 2009

Leave a note or additional ideas in the comments section on what you think about my plan.

Family Historian at work.

Rosh Hashanah

Shanah Tovah, I'm wishing you a good and happy New Year.

I love celebrating New Year's Day, multiple times through out the year.  It's a good way to be mindful, reflective of the past and hopeful for the future on a more consistent basis.

My boys and I have read a Jewish folktale for the past to nights in honor of the Jewish New Year.  Pictured below is my Star of David Album, that I will be teaching on Oct 19 at www.harborscrapbooking.com event.

 

I'll talk more about the contents of this album in 10 days...do you know why?

08-08-08

By now you've probably heard why the Olympic Games with begin on 08-08-08 at 08:08:08 pm.  Below is what I found over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_in_Chinese_culture#Combinations regarding the significance of the number eight in Chinese culture.

Eight

The word for "eight" (八，捌) in Mandarin (Pinyin: bā) sounds similar to the word which means "prosper" or "wealth" (发 - short for "发财", Pinyin: fā). In regional dialects the words for "eight" and "fortune" are also similar, eg Cantonese "baat" and "faat".

There is also a resemblance between two digits, "88", and the shuang xi ('double joy'), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 (xi, 'joy', 'happiness').

Telephone number 8888-8888 was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.

The Summer Olympics in Beijing are scheduled to open on 8/8/08 at 8:08:08pm^[2]

A man in Hangzhou offered to sell his license plate reading A88888 for RMB 1.12 million.^[2]

Dragon Fish Industry in Singapore, a breeder of rare Asian Arowanas (which are "lucky fish" themselves, and, being a rare species, are required to be microchipped), makes sure to use numbers with plenty of eights in their microchip tag numbers, and appears to reserve particular numbers especially rich in eights and sixes (e.g. 702088880006688) for particularly valuable specimens.^[3][4]

 

Here's a scrapbooking tip on how to use Chinese and Olympic scrapbook products:

• Sit down tonight with your kids and discuss what it took for the athletes to make it to the Olympics...how many hours a day and years of practice and conditioning, the parental sacrifices, the MONEY involved, the mental strength needed.

• Discuss the process of dreaming, aspiring to be great no matter what you choose to do.

• Sports...focusing on the unusual sports at the olympics (and the ones that should be...like baton twirling)!

• Discuss people you know from China, or those with Chinese Heritage.

• List all the ways you connect to Chinese Culture.

I'll be letting my kids know that it's never too late to start training for the Olympics...create your own little set of Olympic games in the back yard this weekend.

Too Much Time or Engaged Parenting

Recently, I had an early afternoon appointment in downtown Baltimore, MD.  Since my husband was off work that day I invited him and the kids to come along and wait for me to finish my meeting so we could visit Port Discovery (the beginning of our stacation adventures...stay tuned for more entries).

This whole opportunity for quality family time turned out to be a cultural learning experience.  While we were at the Baltimore Inner Harbor we saw the last Coast Guard cutter that survived Pearl Harbor.  After quizzing the kids on where Pearl Harbor was (Hawaii), Jonathan asked, “Who bombed us?” Well that lead me to tie in Japan and the story my Dad just told them the weekend before about his two-year military stay in Okinawa.  At Port Discovery we got a private tour of the Egyptian Exhibit where we learned even more about a culture in a faraway place. 

 

At a recent scrapbook convention, I used this story as an example of Ethnic Scrapbooking and one woman responded that I have too much time on my hands…is that really the case?  Absolutely not, dealing with four kids and their summer schedules too much time on my hands couldn’t be further from the truth, but being an engaged parent …Absolutely, that’s what I’m about…taking every opportunity to inspire my children to learn, embrace, and understand.

U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce

Recently, I attended a professional development workshop offered by USPAACC.com (U.S. Pan American Chamber of Commerce).  I was thrilled to be surrounded by the Pan-Asian culture…I tried to take note of all things cultural.  Here’s a short list of what I remembered (lost my notes).

• Centerpieces were ceramic plates designed in honor of the” Year of the Rat”

• There were plenty jokes about short men

• The meal was grilled salmon over a bed of rice and spinach (maybe seaweed, I’m not sure)

• Heard fabulous testimonies of humble beginnings outside the U.S.

• Huge emphasis on learning and higher education

• The USPAAC honored and highlighted their scholarship winners

• There was an air of partnership…building of alliances and willingness to support one another

Some were offended by the rat image in front of our meal, but I thought it was a nice cultural touch.  I really enjoyed one speakers comparison of how she normally might have lunch in Hong Kong.  She said, the fish would have been brought to the table live for selection and then prepared, she might also have had her meal on a moving boat...both of those scenes sound exciting to me compared to the cold and drafty ballroom of the Hilton Hotel in D.C.

Mid-Atlantic African American Geneaology Conference

Oh I am so there!  It's April 19th in Cherry Hill, NJ...won't you come too?

CLICK HERE for all the details...SO, SO Affordable too!

Here's a shot of my Dad being video taped by a local tv station regarding his participation in a similar conference last year around this time  in Southwestern, PA.

To read a few more blog posts I've done about geneaology, CLICK HERE

Black History Month Outing

Black History Month is every month at our house, as is Asian American month, Hispanic Heritage month and etc.  We believe in learning 365 dyas a year.

There were so many events to attend last month in our area.  I made it a point to attend one event at a local community college, one in part because my husband came across this event and e-mailed it to me and I thought that was a very loving thing to do and two, my Dad was here visiting and I love sharing these educational events with him.

My Dad, 4yr old Joseph and I attended a lecture by Michael Twitty, (Please click the link and read his Bio)...He loves researching his slave ancestors and is a Hebrew School teacher!!!!

His presentation of the foods of enslaved Marylanders is the epitome of my book, Ethnic Scrapbooking.  Connecting to African-American culture through stories, research and food! 

His website is www.afrofoodways.com.  All I can say is definitely visit his site and catch one of his presentations in person.  He really inspired me to kick up our family history presentation another notch.  We exchanged books and my Dad and I are fighting over his book...he won, it went back to PA with him.

Here are some photos from the event:

A bale of cotton that he personally picked.

A sample of food that enslaved Marylanders would have eaten...they are not plastic examples, those were fresh smelling herrings & pig something, along with an oyster shell that the children would have used to eat from the pig slop trough.

My new source of inspiration...GO Michael Twitty GO!