4034 Young Women of Color Dialogue With Their Parent(s)

Speaker: Rev. Danielle Di Bona

Sponsors: Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation (UUWF) and Diverse and Revolutionary Unitarian Universalist Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM)

Prepared for UUA.org by: Kok Heong McNaughton, Reporter; Jone Johnson Lewis, Editor

The panelists were Robette Diaz and her daughter Chiara Sottile; Esther Rosado and her daughter Jasmin; Janice Marie Johnson and her daughter Lehna Huie; and the Rev. Hope Johnson and her daughter Jova Vargas. All the young women have been UUs since they were babies or toddlers and together, the mother-daughter pairs total more than a hundred years of membership in close to a dozen congregations spanning both coasts.

Moderator Danielle Di Bona, herself a UU minister of color, asked the panelists to consider four questions:

1. What is it like to be a young woman in this society?
2. What is it like to be a UU young woman in this society? Is it helpful or detrimental?
3. Where do you find nurture and support?
4. What do you long for in a UU congregation for your daughters?

As the young women shared their reflections on what it is like for them in this society, their mothers noted that things have not changed much between now and the time they were themselves their daughters' age. Although there is now a greater openness for their daughters to speak up, sometimes what is spoken is difficult and painful for them to hear. They are, however, thankful for the opportunity to hear what's in their daughters' minds. Although young women today have more opportunities for leadership, the same hurdles are still there for them to overcome as there were for their mothers. Society pits women against one another, and the competition is often hard and vicious. On the other hand, the young women can and do establish close relationships with a few of their peers who are more compassionate. As minority women of color, they have a hard time relating to the dominant white males in their social setting.

Being a UU gives these young women greater understanding about gender and sexual orientation issues, but it does not make life easier for them. On the contrary, there's a greater disconnect between them and their non-UU peers. It's often difficult for them to explain to their friends what being UUs mean to them. Their church community and the larger community out there seem like two different worlds.

Having their parents as UU professionals also means that sometimes the boundaries between religion and job become fuzzy. Religion becomes work. Spirituality suffers a loss. The long hours and frequent travels create tension in their family life. The family often chooses to belong to a different congregation than the one where one parent is an employee in order to keep the two separate.

There is an overall feeling of tiredness as they described how they, as UUs of color, are expected to be representatives in every aspect of congregational life. They are stretched thin across the denomination sitting on this or that committee, as professionals and as lay leaders. Yet they are unable to turn down opportunities to give voice to diversity because if they don't do it, no one else would. They wish for a larger community of color within the denomination so that more can carry the load, leaving them time and space for self-care as a spiritual practice. Without the support of a larger community of color, the existing small number of UUs of color is in danger of early burn out.

What do the mothers long for in a UU congregation for their daughters? One would like her congregation to be like some of the multi-racial family retreats that she has attended, where there is a mix of racially diverse, intergenerational families with kids of all colors doing things together. Another mother would like her district to be more intentional about inter-congregational programming. She lives in a district with fifty-five UU congregations within a 30-mile radius but no two congregations have gotten together for joint programming. One mother observed that when her children were babies, they were adored by members of her church, but as these children became teenagers, the adults in that predominantly-white congregation became fearful of them. She wishes for a congregation to be accepting of, and to provide a safe space for, her children no matter what age.

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