An Open Letter To All Filmmakers: Keep Making Your Movies

Yesterday I attended the Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza and was really impressed with the short films, documentaries, and feature films that were being screened.

It was a reminder to me of just how much we Latina filmmakers have to say about our life experiences. I walked away both challenged and inspired to keep telling our stories.

What also touched me deeply was the passion in each filmmaker's voice during the Q&A and hearing their responses.

Indeed, some of the topics were heavy which made for great conversation with the filmmakers. I applauded them for the bravery and determination and asked if on any level they were worried they would take heat for making a short/movie about homosexuality, inter-ethnic relationships, infidelity, the whole identity issue on Spanish speaking Hispanics vs. those who cannot speak Spanish and does that make them less Hispanic, and AIDS in the Hispanic community.

I was thrilled to hear their answer, "This IS our life and WE all deal with these issues, not just Hispanics. These are universal issues and we need to stop sweeping them under the carpet and pretending that they don't exist!"

I could not agree more. So to ALL filmmakers out there - keep making your movies!

Buddhistian - A New Religion?

This evening my husband and I had a very interesting conversation with our eleven year old daughter, Maria.

Apparently she is trying to come to terms with what she should call herself from a religious perspective. She is not sure if she, when asked, should say she is a Christian or say that she is Buddhist. She is thinking of calling herself a "Buddhistian". A term she coined all on her own.

Both my husband and I posed the question to Maria, "Why do you feel the need to call yourself anything?"

It seems a couple of the kids at her school are vocal about their religious beliefs and she is just uncertain what to say when confronted. She actually overheard a student telling another student that you have to believe in God and if you don't, your are going to the H-word.

"At the end of the day," we told her, "You still have plenty of time to work through who YOU will decide 'what' you want to call yourself. If you even decide to do that at all!"

We warned her that words and titles can trap us if we are not careful and explained how.

More importantly we shared with her that she should not let anyone force her to make a decision nor should she be ashamed to say what she believes. But to make sure they are her beliefs, not ours.

Both me and my husband were raised in Christian homes and are now practicing Buddhists. We truly understand what Maria is going through and we saw this as a teaching moment for all of us.

We also conveyed to Maria, that even though we are practicing Buddhists, we did not stop being Christians. Nor have we stopped learning about other religions, for they all have many great qualities. (For me personally, Buddhism and Christianity compliment each other. I can say quite honestly, that I understand the teachings of Jesus much better through the lens of Buddhism. And Christianity has taught me just how compassionate Jesus was and is and continues to be in my life).

In the end, we are very happy that Maria is working through this and we want her to enjoy the journey she is on. We all have our own spiritual paths, but for us personally we made it clear to her that our true religion is Compassion.

For us, it matters not what you call yourself but how you carry yourself and how you treat others. What good is it to call yourself a Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, and not conduct yourself as one?

The real measure of who you are, we explained to her, is deciding what kind of a person you want to be not based on a religion, but rather on whether you can decipher between right and wrong and behaving accordingly.

Did she get it? We think she did. We look forward to many more discussions like these with both of our children.

As for our twelve year old son, Lawrence, well he's definitely Buddhist! We go to him when we get stumped for our dharma teachings!

You Know You Are Getting Old When...

You know you are getting old when your 11 year old child dumps all of their Halloween candy on the floor to be inspected and asks, "Mom, which of these candies were around when you were a kid?"

Snickers - check
M&M's Plain - check
M&M's w/Peanuts - check
Three Musketeers - check
Butterfinger - check
Baby Ruth - check
Smarties - check
Tootsie Rolls - check
Nestle's Crunch Bar - Check

As you look through all the candy, your answer is, "All of them."

And their response is, "Wow, these candy companies have been around a really LONG time, haven't they?"

Feeling Exceedingly Grateful

Last week was probably one of the most challenging weeks I've ever experienced. And as crazy it was, surprisingly, I am feeling grateful. Grateful that it's over!

The week was packed with back-to-back meetings and much to do on the home front and that is not so unusual. We are all dealing with trying to juggle work, family and social calendars. Midweek, I was one of a few producers on a huge event in the film industry. An event we have been planning for several months. And as all events go in the entertainment business, there is always so much stress and pressure leading up to the day of the event. Not to mention the immense pressure the day of the event.

We all deal with stress on the job. Whether it be a boss or someone we have to answer to. And others we feel responsible for, knowing that they are looking to up to us and counting on us to step up and lead if need be.

Except for a few snags that night, the event went well. Amazingly, we pulled it off and have received very favorable feedback from some of the attendees.

But, what I am most grateful for from this most recent experience is that I am learning that no matter how much stress and pressure one can be under, that it is in those moments, those opportunities, that we all have a choice. We can choose to allow ourselves to be overcome with worry and negativity OR we can face those stressful moments and say, "No, I'm going to keep my cool. I am going to stay focused. I decide how I should respond when things go awry. I won't let anyone take me where I don't want to go."

It works. It really works.

I have seen it happen before, be it in a business setting or at private event, in front of a crowd of people, where a person will snap, attack, criticize, blame, and just plain go off when things seem like they are falling apart. (Like last week at the event.) They take it out on everyone around them or anyone that they can make their scapegoat and in my opinion, that's taking the easy way out. That's way too easy. And it is these same people who will take ALL the credit when everything turns out well and make no effort to thank those who helped make it so. Sadly, we all know the type.

Well, as a wise old sage once told me, the real measure of a person's character is not how nice or cool people are when things are going well but rather how well do they respond when things aren't going so well.

No, I haven't mastered this level of coolness. I still have my moments. But, I am feeling exceedingly grateful and thankful that life is giving me MANY opportunities to put this teaching into practice. Almost too many.

Another IKEA Story

Today my husband and I went to IKEA to buy ONE thing - a computer chair.

Seems simple enough, does it not? Ha!

We get there and the first obstacle we face is trying to FIND the area where they have the desks and chairs on display. Well, we are lost almost immediately and so I go up to ask a worker very politely where the area is and she gives me THE HAND. That's right, the hand and says in a firm tone, "I'll be with you in a minute." Fair enough, but out of the corner of my eye, I see my husband walking around aimlessly and decide to join in on all the fun he's having. So I just walk off and leave the worker alone.

I figure, "What the hell...we are smart people...we'll find the area!"

So off we go reading signs and looking around corners. In and out of one section, then another and I can smell the cinnamon rolls and we comment on how we are getting hungrier by the minute. We try a section that looks familiar from our last visit, but no luck, just more signs and lots of people who seem to be lost too.

Finally, we find the area and pick out the chair we want right away and then it occurs to us, "So, what do we do now?" (So much for us believing that we are smart people anymore. Now we are really looking just ridiculous!)

Well, we figure out that you are supposed to write down a merchandise number and of course my high techie husband says, "Dianna, I can take a picture of it...modern technology?!" You know the tone, the one that makes you feel like YOU'RE the idiot!

Something inside me tells me to write the number down anyway and sure enough, the reflection on the plastic covering and the light from the camera make the numbers unreadable, but my husband decides, he still wants the shot. He is a director and they have to get the shot!

So off we go to check out and we walk and walk and and we walk some more but, we CAN'T GET OUT!! We walked for what seemed like miles.

As we are walking I mention to my husband that this HAS to be what hell is like. And we both comment on how the store is designed like this on purpose to get people to buy more items on their way to the checkout counter. Well, we tell each other, we are not falling for it.

After several minutes, the hunger was really setting in, the frustration was mounting and we had no idea where we were so we finally asked a sales attendant and sure enough we were going the wrong way.

So, we are just about to get to the checkout line and my husband spots the area rug section. "Oh no!", he says, "I'm falling for the store's trick!" And of course I follow him in there because I see an area rug on sale. Luckily, Earnest checks his handy dandy high tech phone where he has the dimensions notated of the two areas in our home needing rugs, stored on his cell phone and none of the rugs will work, so we manage to escape and get out of there quickly.

We are finally at the checkout counter and Earnest looks around and says, "Where do we get our merchandise? Everyone at the counter has their merchandise. Where did they get theirs?" And of course there are long lines. Many long lines.

So now we are really looking like we have never shopped there and we haven't. So off we go to try and find our merchandise and the light goes off in my teeny tiny brain and I remember, "The numbers I wrote down. There was an aisle number and a section number. Maybe we are supposed to go there to pick it up?"

We both look around. We look up and behold right before us in big bright red, are signs with aisle numbers on them. Even numbers on one side and odd numbers across the way. Can this get any more ridiculous?

Sure enough we find the aisle and the section and on a bottom row, there is our chair all boxed up.

Then Earnest very innocently asks, "Are we just supposed to grab it? That's it? In that little bitty box?"

"I think so," I answered as I checked the numbers I had written.

So we both do this scan. You know the camera shot where the camera does a 360 degree pan and makes one complete revolution and comes back to the starting place. Sure enough, we see other people are pulling items off the shelves and retrieving their merchandise. So we make our move and we rush to the checkout line.

I walk quickly toward one line and Earnest toward another. I try to get him to come over to my checkout lane and he refuses. As I walk back towards him, I notice that he is pointing up at a sign that says, "CHECKS & ATM ONLY". "We're paying cash," he whispers. I can read his body language and by now, he just wants to get out of the store as fast as he can.

As we are nearing the line, I turn to Earnest and by this time, I'm laughing and I say, "No wonder they say in the commercial, START THE CAR!...by the time anyone FINALLY gets out of here, their car batteries are probably dead!"

Hey, but the chair was cheap! And it wasn't even on sale.

Yeah, we will probably shop there again.

'Some' White People Have Simply Lost Their Minds

I am posting a story that ran in the Huffington Post yesterday written by my husband, Earnest Harris.

SOME WHITE PEOPLE HAVE SIMPLY LOST THEIR MINDS

There is no other way to say this but to put it all on the table. Some white people have simply lost their minds because they are besides themselves trying to figure out how in the world they slipped up and let an African-American man in the White House, as President of these not so United States.

While thankfully there are a few whites who have been willing to speak up about what is really bubbling up, or more like, spewing forth lately, people like former President Jimmy Carter, Tim Wise and some other bloggers here on The Huffington Post, most people simply have tiptoed around the huge white elephant in the room. The outrageous incidents, which seem to be increasing in frequency -- Glenn Beck's obvious racial appeals by saying Obama hates white people, Sen. Joe Wilson's unprecedented outburst before the world yelling at the President, the birther's refusal to accept the truth, the almost mob like town hall meetings where some people openly carried signs that were perfect for a Klan rally, Rep. Lynn Jenkins' "White Hope" remark, 'tea party" leader Mark Williams referring to President Obama as "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief," the uproar over the President of The United States daring to give an inspirational speech to America's school kids -- I could go on but you get the point -- these are nothing more than the ugliest of racism that has simply boiled over the sides of our famed and mythical melting pot.

Right-wing whites have simply reached the point where they cannot take it any more. And the message seems to be that they will say and do whatever it takes to de-legitimize this President. And they seem to be certainly saying "never again." The saddest part about all of this is that it was just a few moths ago that many of us in the multi-ethnic coalition that banded together to usher in the Obama era were celebrating what looked like the start of a new seemingly post racial America. But just nine months later, I have to say I don't think I have seen a time when the bitterness and seeming us against them mentality was more evident. And by "us against them," I mean whites against the flood of people of color that are seeming to challenge the idea of what it means to be America and American. All you had to do was look at the faces of some of the Congressman in the crowd at President Obama's speech to see the venom that was only thinly veiled. It almost matched what we saw and heard from some of the people in the crowds at the recent town hall meetings.

The irony in all this is the challenge the Rep. Wilson's, Glen Beck's, Sean Hannity's and Rush Limbaugh's throw down by trying to intimidate the rest of us by daring us to call out this racism and to call them what they are -- silly men, and some women, who have seen the future and realize that the future is one where white men are not the only ones with a seat at the table anymore. And this scares the hell out of them. So they spew this crap and dare us to stand up to it and speak the truth. But we have to let them know that we will not back down, that we will not go away, that we will indeed call them out, no matter how many times they target a Van Jones, or whoever is next since they can't get to Obama. This country is changing, for the better, whether they like it or not, so they might as well accept it and find something else to do. The Republican Party can only make a fool of itself for so long before it completely implodes. And no attempt to put a Black mouthpiece like Michael Steele in front can disguise the fact that the Party is losing control of itself and some of these formerly disguised racists that pretend they are not anti-Black. No just anti anything from an African-American who dares actually have the gumption to call himself President and dare to do what he promised he would do when the country duly and fairly elected him.

I know President Obama is in a tough place and he can't really call these people out. He has to be "Presidential." But we can speak up. The issue is not health care reform or President Obama being too far left, because we have had people on the left run this country before. And we have had battles over health care, social security and other issues before. What we have never witnessed, at least when it came to the respect afforded our country's leader, whether it was former Presidents George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, is this level of disrespect and overt vitriol directed at a President. All Presidents have had their opponents. But when you think through what has been directed at Obama, and his family for that matter with some of the truly low things that have 'slipped out" of people's mouths, like the South Carolina Republican activist, Rusty DePass, who said an escaped gorilla was probably Michelle Obama's ancestor, there is no denying this is beyond civil disagreement.

But I for one am not going to be intimidated into silence and I will call these racists what they are. I can accept and respect differing viewpoints, but what President Obama, and the rest of us, don't have to accept is racism disguised as patriotism. Let's call it what it is, racism born out of a fear that those darker skinned people have taken over. This is just not the America they expected, at least not so soon.

Just Another Sunday?

So my husband, Earnest, calls an important executive meeting today and informs me that we need to meet to discuss critical issues and matters that will affect the day, and I'm thinking, "Oh great! It's Sunday. What's this all about?", I'm racking my brain trying to figure out, "What could be so crucial?"

I rush to get to the meeting. As I sit down and prepare myself, my mind starts racing and I'm wondering, "What could be so important?"

"Could I have forgotten something?", I'm wondering. "Was I supposed to take care of something that I let slip through the cracks?"

"Oh dear, what could it be?", I'm thinking.

For the life of me, I cannot come up with anything.

So Earnest opens the meeting and with a straight face and not skipping a beat mind you, my husband looks right at me and asks in a very serious tone, "So...what's for dinner?"

"I don't know.", I answer.

"You know what we haven't had?", he asks.

"What?", I ask.

"Burgers.", he replies.

"Burgers?", I ask.

"Yes, Dianna's famous hamburgers.", he states.

"Okay, we'll have burgers.", I respond.

"With french fries?", he asks excitedly.

"Yes!", I answer.

"The crunchy kind?", he asks.

"Yes, the crunchy kind.", I say.

"But not too crunchy for Maria. And burn mine," he replies.

"With ketchup?", he inquires.

"We are out of ketchup, but I can pick some up from the store if you'd like?", I ask.

"With lots of cheese on the burger?, he asks sounding like a kid.

"Yes, lots of cheese!", I reply.

"What kind of cheese?" he wants to know.

"What kind would you like?, I ask impatiently, trying to sound like I'm not.

"What kinds are there?", he asks.

"Ooh que la...", I'm thinking to myself. (Ooh que la is Spanish slang used mostly in the Mexican-American community that means..."I don't believe this!"

"American, cheddar, pepper jack...", I start naming off.

"Pepper jack!", he exclaims excitedly.

"Is that the kind that's spicy?, he interrupts and asks before I can reply.

"Ooh yes...put a lot of that on my burger!", he continues not allowing me to get in a word edgewise.

"Hunk it!", he exclaims raising his voice. (Hunk is another word for load it up.)

"And make my burger thick!", he demands before I can respond.

"And burn it!", he adds.

Then a moment of silence passed and we both looked at each other awkwardly.

"Is that it?", I ask hesitantly. Uncertain if I should. Not really wanting to open THAT door.

"Yes.", he answers.

Meeting adjourned.