Harlow's Monkey has moved to harlows-monkey.com. Please update your links and bookmarks. The new site features more information and resources for adoptees, adoptive parents and professionals but maintains its transracial/intercountry adoptee perspective. Continue reading

If you are in the Twin Cities area this weekend, you are invited to the book launch of HERE: A Visual History of Adopted Koreans in Minnesota at Intermedia Arts. and sponsored by the Council on Asian-Pacific Minnesotans. Correction: The date is April 17, not April 15, 2010. The book is available at Yeong & Yeong and of course, there will be copies at the book launch. Continue reading

African Gender Studies: A Reader edited by Oyeronke Oyewumi Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from the Colonial Times to the Present by Mimi Abramovitz Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and Community Change Edited by Shawn Ginwright, Pedro Noguera, Julio Cammarota Continue reading

Hines, Keaton & Small (2009). Black Europe and the African Diaspora. Oyeronke Oyewumi (1997). The Invention of Women Dorothy Roberts (1998). Killing the Black Body Karla Slocum (2006). Free Trade and Freedom: Neoliberalism, Place and Nation in the Caribbean Jacqui Alexander (20060. Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred Anne McClintock (1995). Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest Oyeronke Oyewumi (2005). African Gender Studies: A Reader Patricia Collins (1991) Black Feminist Thought Gunning, Hunter & Mitchell (2004). Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality, and African Diasporas Harriford & Thompson (2008). When the... Continue reading

Public Affairs - The Search for Youth Policy "Does the US have a comprehensive youth policy or set of policies? Do we have a common understanding of the rights and responsibilities of youth in our society and is this reflected in the policies that most impact young people? This course will explore these questions as we grapple with the impact of youth policy (or lack thereof) on questions of economic development, formal and non-formal learning, health and human services, housing, immigration, juvenile justice, national security, and youth engagement." The text is "Beyond Resistance! Youth Activism and community Change" by Ginwright,... Continue reading

I'm currently at the SSWR conference in San Francisco. I am fortunate enough to have friends in the Bay area, so I came a few days earlier and was able to spend some time with my friends. Then, another woman in my doctoral cohort arrived on Wednesday and we checked in to the conference and hotel. The two of us are the only two in our cohort, although there are several other students here (a few on the job market, they defended or are ABD) and some faculty. Social networking via facebook and twitter and the like is easy for... Continue reading

I've been blogging now since 2004 but the first years were pretty spotty. Since 2006 I have been regularly blogging with a few breaks in between. I was finishing up my MSW when I began my other blog, and it was a personal blog at first. I was writing about all the things that I cared about - what I was reading, what I was doing in school, my thoughts on my profession, being a parent, what I cooked and ate. It really started to change focus and became directed towards a specific topic (adoption) after I found out that... Continue reading

From here. Continue reading

For a little while, I thought that maybe this year things wouldn't be so crazed. I'm taking one less class this semester, although I traded that extra class for a 20-hour research assistant position, which I am absolutely loving. I think I got a little lazy, which was not so smart. A few weeks ago I realized that I need to get my rear end back in gear. A big part of my self-induced laziness happened because I wasn't being very good about structuring my time and using my thoughtfully created "to-do" list. I had to blow the cobwebs off... Continue reading

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. - F. Scott Fitzgerald. Continue reading

The learning curve in my research practicum is pretty steep. I feel like I am flailing wildly. Not so much in the sense that I don't understand what I am supposed to do, but that there are so many components to doing a big research project like the one I'm currently part of, that it's kind of difficult to remember all the things that go into it. There are several people working on this research evaluation project. My responsibility is to head the fidelity portion of the evaluation. In all my courses and in reading the texts for both of... Continue reading

I found out about this interview with Nickel and Dimed author Barbara Ehrenreich through the Jezebel blog and thought the analysis by Jezebel (and Racialicious) blogger Latoya Peterson was really interesting. Now, I've always been a half-glass-empty kind of gal and have had to try and stretch myself to be more positive. Mr. Harlow's Monkey says I'm really an optimist at heart and that is why I get so down when I see injustice. But whatever, he's just being kind (see why I love him? He's the ying to my yang). Anyhoo, Ehrenreich's newest book is Bright-Sided, which delves into... Continue reading

I've been thinking a lot about social work burnout, and how even the best intentions can go awry after years of working as a front-line worker. Today I had a conversation with some fellow social workers, and it was remarked that the average child protection worker quits after 3 years, for whatever reason. A few of us postulated whether the bad ones get out after 3 years or the good ones. There's no way to know, of course, or even take an educated guess. For every really great CP worker I've met, I've also had the displeasure of working with... Continue reading

I spent some time yesterday being a good social networker. In other words I spent a few hours in the morning when I should have been reading and doing homework on looking at social work blogs and following some on twitter and facebook. I came across a UK site called Help Give Them A Voice. From their website, Help Give Them A Voice is a campaign supported by the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health, and their mission is “to recruit more social workers. They give a voice to many people across all ages... Continue reading

Part of the process of being in an accredited social work program is internships, and journaling (or what is sometimes called writing process notes) about our feelings and experiences in this field placement. For me, this is a natural thing since I have been keeping formal journals/diaries since I was thirteen years old. Part of social work practice is reflexivity and reflectivity - things I tend to do naturally and tend to write about naturally. I had an old private blog, unavailable to the public, where I wrote pretty freely about my reactions and thoughts being in practice and in... Continue reading