Let's Hear It for the Ladies Who Lathe
'I loved the idea of gender-specific furniture — making something that men could not possibly grasp or experience,' Ms. Maruyama, 73, recently said in an email interview. One of the few women in the American studio furniture movement, a cohort that combined fine woodworking skills with artistic expression, she went on to build larger versions that held menstrual pads and sex toys.
Last year, the Fresno Art Museum handed Ms. Maruyama its Distinguished Woman Artist award and hosted her first career survey. No furniture maker before her has received the honor, which has previously gone to the sculptor Ruth Asawa, the assemblage artist Betye Saar and the weaver Kay Sekimachi. In November, the Manhattan gallery Superhouse exhibited her prismatic tambour cabinets in 'Colorama,' a show that also included furniture by her friend and fellow woodworker Tom Loeser.
Ms. Maruyama is not alone in stepping into a gender-specific spotlight. With boundaries dissolving between craft and high art, and women in both areas enjoying a new wave of appreciation, woodworking — which has long been and still remains a male-dominated field — has become more interesting. It is filled with narrative content, social commentary and visually daring forms courtesy of its female makers. Path breakers of the American studio furniture movement who are now in their 70s and 80s are still creating new work, while younger generations of women who learned from them continue to advance the medium.
'Over the years, women are much more likely to be woodworkers or furniture makers or designers,' said Rosanne Somerson, 70, a woodworker who co-founded the Rhode Island School of Design's furniture design department in 1995 and later became the institution's president. 'With every generation, interests change. My generation had more of a lineage from high-level decorative arts, but women now are bringing in a lot more narrative interest and identity issues; it's less about the highest levels of craft and more about the highest levels of expression — and almost provocation.'
Because the material carries so many cultural and ecological associations, it is well suited to engage with contemporary issues. Joyce Lin, 30, a furniture maker in Houston, created her 'Material Autopsy' series of conceptual domestic objects to explore the impact of our industrialized society and how most of us are far removed from how things are made. For one chair in the series, which looks like it was grown from a single log sliced open to reveal its rings, Ms. Lin riffed on the decorative arts tradition of faux bois, or realistic-looking artificial wood.
'When I post photos of the piece online,' Ms. Lin said, 'I get people who think I actually grew the wood and then there are a lot of people who think it was A.I.-generated.'
For Kim Mupangilaï, 35, a Belgian Congolese interior designer in Brooklyn, N.Y., wood was a natural choice for her first furniture collection, introduced in 2023. 'I really wanted my furniture to come from me, kind of like a self-portrait,' she said. Her utilitarian objects loosely refer to archival photographs taken in central Africa and are made of materials common in Congolese crafts, including teak, banana fibers and rattan. Her Mwasi armoire, an hourglass-shaped piece with woven doors, is currently on view at 'Making Home —Smithsonian Design Triennial' at the Cooper Hewitt museum, and she recently exhibited chairs and stools that refer to Art Nouveau and the colonial history of Belgium at the Fog Design + Art fair in San Francisco.
Deirdre Visser, a curator and woodworker in San Francisco, said that speaking more directly about the role of gender in the field was important to welcoming new perspectives and creating more exciting objects.
Her commentary has taken the form of a recent book called 'Joinery, Joists and Gender: A History of Woodworking for the 21st Century.' It features women and gender nonconforming people involved with the medium: from medieval turners to the Shaker who developed the first circular saw, to contemporary artists like Katie Hudnall, who leads the woodworking and furniture program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yuri Kobayashi, who studied under Ms. Maruyama at San Diego State University and taught furniture design at RISD for many years. (Ms. Lin was one of her students.)
Ms. Visser, 54, rejects the notion that to be classified as a female woodworker rather than just someone working in wood diminishes the maker. 'All of us have identities we bring to making and that is, more and more, where the discussion is rooted,' she said. 'The most cisgender, straight white male is also bringing identity and a set of experiences to the wood shop, and so this perceived neutrality of their identity as a maker is foolish.'
Faye Toogood, a British designer, has become more attuned to the ways that her identity shapes what she creates. She used wood for her earliest works, but quickly shifted to industrial materials. 'I looked to my left and my right and thought, if I want to be taken seriously, I need to pick up bronzes and steel,' she said. 'I now realize that was because I felt like I was wacky in a male-dominated field of industrial design.'
Recently, Ms. Toogood, 48, returned to wood with 'Assemblage 7: Lost and Found II,' a series of monolithic chairs, tables and cabinets that includes pieces hand-carved from oak and covered in shellac, a finish popular in 18th-century England. 'It made the pieces really modern but feel quite ancient at the same time,' she said.
With all the leaps, woodworking can still be unwelcoming and isolating for women, and some makers are bent on building community and support.
Natalie Shook, 42, an artist and self-taught woodworker in Brooklyn, is one of them. After her products grew from stools to large-scale modular shelving, she opened her own workshop. This allowed her to 'completely insulate' herself from the hostility she had experienced at other shops, she said. 'There is not an energy or assumption that women can't do things in our studio.'
Alexis Tingey and Ginger Gordon, who founded their woodworking studio Alexis & Ginger in 2023, a year after graduating from RISD, experienced culture shock once they left the cozy precincts of their academic furniture program. At school, they were able to 'just focus on materiality and run full force into exploring and articulating our ideas,' Ms. Tingey, 34, said. 'And that hasn't always been the case since.' Sometimes they are the only women in their workshops. 'But at least we have each other,' she added.
Katie Thompson, 38, an artist in rural South Carolina, started a blog and Instagram account called Women of Woodworking in 2015 to connect with other makers. 'I felt pretty isolated as a woman woodworker at the time and wanted to help amplify the stories of other women and gender nonconforming woodworkers out there so more people could see themselves being a part of the field, too,' she said. The community has grown to thousands of members from around the world and hosts interviews on Instagram Live and virtual meet-ups.
Practitioners hope that this momentum continues. 'As much as I'd love to believe the next few years will bring more progress for women in these fields, the political climate doesn't give me much hope,' Ms. Maruyama said. 'But I'd like to be wrong. I've been pleasantly surprised before.'
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USA Today
11 hours ago
- USA Today
What is redshirting? The controversy for parents' rights causes stir in Washington, DC.
DC Public Schools officials said schools will more strictly enforce a policy disallowing parents from delaying toddlers' kindergarten start date. Jennifer Lilintahl said she knew her 5-year-old daughter wasn't ready to learn how to read with other kids her age in the kindergarten classes last school year at Lafayette Elementary School in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington D.C. Although her daughter was eligible to attend kindergarten due to her age, Lilintahl enrolled her daughter in a mostly play-based pre-kindergarten class at a local preschool for the third year in a row. This January, Lilintahl emailed the school's principal to say her now almost-6-year-old daughter is ready for kindergarten this fall. But the principal said the girl must enroll in first grade for the 2025-2026 school year, which begins on Aug. 25, because she'll be six-years-old in September. Lilantahl was dismayed. She thought it wouldn't be an issue because she knows other parents from the district who had previously delayed their child's start of kindergarten by one year. Several other parents made similar requests to enroll their nearly six-year-old children in kindergarten for the 2025-2026 school year. Their requests led DC Public Schools officials to say in the 2024-2025 spring semester the district is going to more strictly enforce an existing policy that disallows parents from delaying their children's kindergarten start date, said Evan Lambert, a district spokesperson. That means parents who don't enroll their kids in kindergarten when the district says they are supposed to will have to forego that year, he said. Typically, kids in states where kindergarten is required start when they are 5 years old before a certain cutoff date, which ranges from August to December. If their schools allow, parents can choose to delay their required kindergarten start date to the next school year, which is a practice in schools widely known as "redshirting." Opponents of redshirting often argue it creates inequities among schoolchildren because it gives older kids an upper hand when they enter kindergarten. Recent national test score data shows the achievement gap among the nation's highest and lowest learners in American schools has widened over the last several years. Those who support the practice often say parents are not trying to take advantage of the system, but that they are best able to determine whether or not they ready for the academic rigor of kindergarten, including the social and developmental expectations of those classrooms. Lilintahl is adamant that her family is not trying to give her daughter an upper hand by making her the older student in class. She said her daughter genuinely deserved and needed the extra year in pre-kindergarten and she consulted with the young girl's nursery teacher and pediatrician about her worries, who agreed with her. She has petitioned the district's decision and joined other parents to protest this enforcement of the policy. The school principal Katie Prall sent her family a final rejection letter, which Lilanthal provided to USA TODAY, on Aug. 4. In the letter, Prall says she and staff "reviewed all relevant evidence," including test scores, past education and input from parents before making its decision. Lilantahl said she's "really angry" and said the principal and school district for "being so rigid and illogical." "This is not only setting her up for failure for first grade, but for her entire education as well as the rest of the classroom," Lilintahl said. "We're really angry, to put it bluntly, at this principal the school district for being so rigged and illogical." Lambert told USA TODAY that district officials cannot comment on the case, citing student privacy laws. The district "is committed to ensuring every student has access to a great education in our schools," he said. "DCPS assigns grade levels based on age to make certain students are placed with their peers and in alignment with district education standards," he wrote in an email. "In rare cases, school-based teams may determine—based on evaluations comprising observation and formal assessments—that a different grade placement is appropriate after enrollment. Families are encouraged to enroll and work with their school team." The controversy in the nation's capital over delaying schooling illuminates tension between schools that want kids to attend the grade they qualify for and parents who say they know best for their child. The debate is one of the latest issues for the growing parents' rights movement, which has been dominated by public school parents want more control over what their children learn and where they go to school. For them, deciding when their kids start school is now not up up for debate. Keeping them there: Why parents who moved kids to alternative schools amid pandemic Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the National Parents Union Center for Policy and Action, said parents should have the right to choose when their kids start kindergarten. Some kids need the "additional year of schooling" in pre-kindergarten and parents and their communities often know better than a school district, she said. She argues that not giving parents the choice will lead those who have the means and access to leave public school districts. "Kids will go to private schools if they're not allowing an extra year," she said. Public school enrollment is already on the decline and national data shows public school are expected to lose 4 million kids by 2031. The drop is due in part to declining birth rates and more access to other types of schools, including private and parochial schools, in regions with school vouchers and other choice programs. School districts often receive less money when students leave their schools because many state funding models are based on either enrollment and attendance. Though some principals have allowed redshirting in DC Public Schools in the past, that will no longer be the case, unless there is an exception in rare cases, said Evan Lambert, a spokesperson for DC Public Schools, in an email to USA TODAY. Lambert cited a local law that says all children who live in the region are required to attend school beginning the school year "in which the child is or has become five years old by September 30." At a June 23 news conference, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said "we shouldn't have a policy to say we want some kids to be advantaged to the disadvantage of other kids." Moving forward, the district will strictly follow the law by assigning age-centered grade levels, he said. As millions of kids skip kindergarten: The learning gap widens – and schools may lose funding Why redshirting draws both opposition and support About one in 10 parents said in a survey they delayed their child's kindergarten start date during the 2021-2022 school year, with a majority indicating their kids' weren't emotionally or academically ready or they were too young. The research, published by EdChoice, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for school vouchers, and conducted by Morning Consult, shows one in five parents surveyed were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. An older academic journal article, published in 2013, said about 5% of kids in the United States were redshirted each year. Redshirting sets up a clash between the parent who says they want to do the best thing for their kids and those who are concerned about inequity between kids from families of different means, said Deborah Stipek, a professor of education at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Wealthier families have more access to childcare, which gives them more flexibility to delay school, she said. "I'm sympathetic with parents who want to redshirt their child, but on a broad scale, the issue is that it does create some inequities, because parents who are able to hold kids back are able to provide more resources and have childcare resources," she said. "On average, kids who come from low-income families already start with fewer foundational skills than those with more affluent families. If kids with more affluent families come in at an older age, it creates a bigger gap." Parents often delay their child's kindergarten year when they believe they are developmentally behind or want them to have an extra year of schooling. Stipek pointed to research that shows boys from affluent families are more often redshirted by parents who think the delay could give them a competitive edge. "Boys tend to be a little behind girls on average," Stipek said. Stipek and others who've researched the effects of redshirting for decades call it a nuanced and complicated issue for parents and schools because there's not a clear "readiness" indicator for kindergarten. "I think we've decided to use age, because as imperfect as it is, it's reputable," Stipek said. "But the problem is there's huge variability in kids' readiness for a more structured educational environment." Whether schools choose to allow for redshirting or not, they need to better prepare their kindergarten teachers to educate children from different ages and skill levels, she said. "I think the real issue is not should all kids be required to enter at a particular age," Stipek said. "The real question is how are we creating educational environments to adapt to kids differences when they want in the door." Kindergarten has changed over time. The first year of a child's academic career used to be more play-based, but now there's more of a focus on academics, said Christopher Brown, a professor of early childhood education at the University of Texas at Austin. That's largely because average reading scores have declined and there's more pressure on teachers to make sure kids are ready for assessments. "Elementary schools are worried about test scores and policymakers view it through the lens of academic achievement," he said. Even so, kindergarten teachers have told Brown that kids come into their classes with a range of foundational skills regardless of their ages. "Schools should consider how ready they are to support kids and families when they walk in the doors and helping them get where they need to be," Brown said. Historically, research on redshirting has shown that kids who entered kindergarten a year later than their peers "score a little higher," he said. "But that usually evens out in upper grades." Where is redshirting allowed or banned? Among the states where kindergarten is required, policies on the practice vary widely by school community. The option of choice largely depends on where families live, and some states do not require kindergarten at all. States and school districts largely determine whether or not students are allowed to start kindergarten at a later date than their peers. "Oklahoma, for instance, requires children to enroll in half-day kindergarten in the school year after they turn five (September 1 birthday cutoff), but parents are allowed to delay their child's kindergarten entry by a year at their own discretion by submitting a form," Richard V. Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, wrote in a commentary for the Brookings Institution. For parents who are questioning whether or not to delay their kid's kindergarten start date, Brown said to research what options and type of kindergarten classes their local school offers, to talk to other adults who may know what's best for the child, including a preschool teacher, and to consider those choices early. They should also consider whether or not they have the childcare resources to keep their kids out of kindergarten an extra year. "Then consider, do we think little Johnny's ready for school?" he said. "A lot of parents don't start thinking about it until their kid is four. Be informed, make a decision, and once you make it, support it." Brown said he's personally "always been an advocate that if you feel like they're ready, send them." No matter what parents choose, Brown said parents should be confident about their decision because kids can sense when their parents have doubts about their awareness of their abilities. That can take a toll on their self-esteem and academic and developmental skills. Lilintahl said she wants to avoid future learning setbacks for her daughter. The district tested her 5-year-old daughter on July 29 to determine her readiness for school, and she failed the reading portion of the test, she said. The mother said she'll continue to fight the district's decision, and has expressed her frustration with jurisdiction officials, but she's "lost a lot of trust in the school and principal." First grade isn't an option for their family. "She doesn't know how to read," Lilintahl said. Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@ Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
I toured the USS Silversides, a World War II submarine that sank 23 enemy vessels and earned 12 battle stars. Take a look inside.
The USS Silversides submarine sank 23 ships and earned 12 battle stars during World War II. Visitors can tour the vessel at the USS Silversides Submarine Museum in Muskegon, Michigan. The submarine was the site of a successful emergency appendectomy in enemy waters in 1942. Christmas Eve, 1942. The USS Silversides, a US Navy submarine, is surrounded by Japanese warships on a covert patrol in enemy-controlled waters. And George Platter's appendix is about to burst. Platter, a crew member on the USS Silversides, will die if he doesn't get surgery immediately. When the commanding officer gives the order, crew members spring into action. They fashion surgical tools out of utensils from the galley. They find an ironing board to prop up Platter's feet since the table in the wardroom is too short to lie him flat. They submerge beneath the waves to create more stability for the operation, even though the submarine's batteries are only partially charged. The pharmacist's mate, Thomas Moore, has never performed the surgery before. He keeps a medical textbook open next to him the whole time. Platter wakes up during the surgery when the local anesthetic wears off, so they sedate him with ether. It leaks into the rest of the submarine and sedates some of the crew, as well. After four hours, against all odds, the surgery is successful. Platter makes a full recovery and is back on watch six days later. It's extraordinary stories such as this one that are preserved at the USS Silversides Submarine Museum in Muskegon, Michigan. Visitors can climb aboard the historic submarine, which was awarded 12 battle stars for its service in World War II, and explore its battle stations, cramped bunks, and even the operating table where Platter received his appendectomy. I toured the USS Silversides in May. Here's what I saw. Commissioned in 1941, the USS Silversides sank 23 ships over its 14 war patrols, making it one of the most successful American submarines from World War II. The Gato-class submarine measures 312 feet long and weighs 2,410 tons while submerged. Its standard crew consisted of eight officers and 72 enlisted men. After it was decommissioned in 1946, the USS Silversides was used as a teaching submarine and became a National Historic Landmark. From 1947 to 1969, the USS Silversides was used as a training vessel for the Ninth Naval District in Chicago. It was then moved to the Naval Armory and Navy Pier before arriving in Muskegon to serve as a museum in 1987. It was also used as a movie set for the 2002 film "Below." The submarine is now the star attraction at the USS Silversides Museum in Muskegon. The USS Silversides Submarine Museum is open seven days a week from April through December and operates Thursday through Monday in the winter months of January, February, and March. An all-inclusive ticket to the museum costs $17.50 for adults, $15 for veterans, and is free of charge for active-duty service members. Tickets can be purchased on the museum's website. Like the USS Cobia in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the museum also offers visitors the chance to spend a night on the submarine. The USS Silversides is docked outside the museum in the Muskegon Lake Channel, which leads into Lake Michigan. The Lake Express ferry passes by the USS Silversides Submarine Museum on its route between Muskegon and Milwaukee. As I began my tour of the submarine, the ferry honked its horn as passengers waved at me from the upper deck. The deck featured weapons such as a 4-inch, 50-caliber deck gun, a 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun, and a 20-millimeter surface-to-surface gun. The 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun had the longest range, capable of shooting targets up to 22,800 feet away. A plaque on the deck memorialized the crew member Mike Harbin, who was killed by enemy fire while manning the deck gun. Harbin was 19 years old when he was shot in battle on May 10, 1942. He was buried at sea. The torpedo loading ramp was made of a wood called lignum vitae, which gets slippery when wet. Lignum vitae is Latin for "wood of life." The rest of the deck was made of teakwood, which is impervious to water, fire, and termites. It also doesn't float, which was crucial to maintain the submarine's covert operations if a piece broke off. Decals on the side of the submarine indicated its many wartime accomplishments. The USS Silversides featured stickers showing it sank 30 ships, but that number has since been amended to 23, Bethann Egan, the museum's executive director, told Business Insider. The USS Silversides also damaged 14 ships, cleared 16 enemy mines, and rescued two American paratroopers. The first stop on my tour was the forward torpedo room, where crew members loaded torpedoes into the six torpedo tubes. The room slept 16 crew members on bunks that unfolded alongside the torpedoes, which measured 22 feet long and weighed 3,000 pounds. Lockers above the bunks were used to store personal possessions. All of a crew member's personal items had to fit into one small locker. Colored lights were used to help crew members' eyes adjust to the dark to prevent night blindness. If the submarine was too bright inside, crew members wouldn't be able to see in the dark if they went up onto the deck at night during an attack. The lights used to be blue and then switched to red, which is why the light fixture said "blue" on it even though the light bulb was red. The shower and bathroom in the forward torpedo room were used by the officers, whose bunks were down the hall. Flushing the toilet on the USS Silversides was a 12-step process. One wrong move would cause the toilet's contents to shoot back out. Meals were plated and reheated in the officers' pantry. Officers ate the same meals as the rest of the crew but dined in the privacy of the wardroom instead of the crew's mess. The pantry also stocked snacks and coffee. The table on display in the wardroom was the original table where George Platter's successful appendectomy took place in 1942. "The pharmacist's mate who actually performed it did not technically have permission from all the way up, but the commander made the decision that this needed to happen or else the sailor was going to die," Egan said. "So he stood up for him and made sure that he was not court-martialed after." The wardroom also served as the officers' dining room and lounge. The higher an officer's rank, the fewer people he had to share a room with. Junior and senior officers served as administrators on the submarine, while the executive officer, known as the "XO," was second-in-command to the commanding officer. Officers' quarters included foldout desks and sinks. The rooms also came with storage areas where they could hang their uniforms. The commanding officer enjoyed the only private room on the submarine. His stateroom featured a depth gauge and a compass above the bed so that he could tell how deep the submarine was and which way it was facing at all times. Chief petty officers slept in a room nicknamed the "goat locker." According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, the nickname dates back to the 1890s, when chief petty officers took care of the goats kept on ships for fresh milk. Another explanation is that chief petty officers served in the Navy for more than a decade to reach their positions and were known as "old goats." In the yeoman's shack, the yeoman handled the submarine's paperwork. In addition to managing personnel records, the yeoman also kept logs of the submarine's changes in direction, speed, and depth. In the control room, crew members managed the USS Silversides' vital functions with numerous technical instruments. The bow and stern plane wheels pictured above controlled the submarine's depth and angle. The commanding officer would give commands such as "2 degrees right rudder," which the crew would repeat and execute. The ship's inclinometer worked like a carpenter's level to show if the submarine was tilting to one side or the other. Keith Gill, the museum's director of curatorial services, told BI that staff members use this inclinometer "every day" to check on the submarine. "It's almost never centered, and that's because we have some leaks in some tanks that we're monitoring and adjusting air pressure to keep water out," Gill said. The hull opening indicator light panel was known as the "Christmas tree" for its red and green lights. A green light indicated that a vent or hatch was closed, while red meant it was open. The submarine could only submerge when the board was fully lit up in green. The helmsman's wheel steered the submarine. On some World War II submarines, such as the USS Becuna, the main helm was in the conning tower above the control room. On the USS Silversides, the main helm was in the control room itself. The control room also housed the compressed air manifold and trim manifold. The compressed air manifold distributed compressed air throughout the submarine, which was used to start the engines, fire torpedoes, and surface the vessel. The trim manifold showed how much weight was in different tanks on the submarine and moved water between them to maintain the ship's balance as it used up fuel or fired weapons. In the radio room, crew members could communicate with vessels up to 12,000 miles away. Most communications happened in code. Cooks prepared all of the crew's meals in the galley. Cooks were also trained to operate the deck guns and perform other technical tasks around the submarine. Gill noted that during World War II, Black crew members were often relegated to roles in the kitchen and weren't allowed to advance beyond serving as stewards because of the Navy's segregation policies. "One of the negative sides of our past is how we treated African American citizens," he said. "They were in the military, but they were segregated somewhat. On a Navy ship, on a sub, you really can't segregate, but you can control what they're doing." The kitchen featured a piece of equipment I'd never seen on a submarine before: a soft-serve ice cream machine. The kitchen also included a deep fryer. Crew members ate meals in three shifts in the crew's mess. Submarines were known for doing some of the most dangerous work and having some of the most difficult living conditions in the military, but the Navy ensured they received the best food. Submariners also received hazard pay, the highest in the Navy. The enlisted men also slept in shifts in the crew's quarters. Newer crew members slept on the bottom bunks, which could also occasionally be used as food storage early on in a patrol. "Supposedly, they called this the honeymoon suite on top," Egan said. "I don't know if that's 100% accurate." The mattresses in the two middle bunks were placed so close together that they essentially functioned as one bed. Regular crew members showered only every 13 to 15 days in the crew's washroom. Officers showered every three to five days, while the cooks showered every day since they were handling food. The forward and after engine rooms each contained two 1,600-horsepower diesel engines manufactured by Fairbanks-Morse. At top speed, the USS Silversides could travel at 21 knots, or about 24 miles an hour. The forward engine room also contained two evaporators that distilled ocean water into fresh water. The engines are still operational. The USS Silversides' insignia was painted on one of the aft engines. The logo depicts a silverside fish smoking a cigar and holding a torpedo. The maneuvering room was crewed by two electricians who controlled the propulsion of the submarine. At full power, the USS Silversides used 4 million watts of electricity. The last stop on the tour was the aft torpedo room in the back of the submarine. The aft torpedo room was smaller than the forward torpedo room, with four torpedo tubes and room for eight torpedoes. The room displayed a real demilitarized Mark 18 electric torpedo. Electric torpedoes such as the Mark 18 didn't leave a wake, or trail of waves, behind them, making them more difficult to detect. After I finished my tour of the submarine, I visited the museum itself, which featured photos and artifacts from World War II and beyond. I particularly enjoyed an exhibit about the appendectomy that took place in the wardroom, featuring photos from the procedure. Preserving the aging submarine is no small task, but the USS Silversides remains a fascinating testament to the dedication of American service members in World War II. After running its engines in an annual Memorial Day tribute, the museum hopes to give the USS Silversides its first oil change since the 1950s this summer. Eventually, the entire vessel will have to be removed from the water and dry-docked because of leaks in its tanks. The museum applied for federal funding through the Save America's Treasures grant program, but Egan said during my May visit that they might not end up receiving it because of sweeping cuts made by the White House DOGE office. "They have not officially cut that funding source yet, but it's not looking good," Egan said. When the submarine was on active duty, the entire 80-person crew worked tirelessly to maintain the ship, and the Navy financed all necessary repairs and upgrades. The USS Silversides Submarine Museum's preservation efforts, however, are privately funded and largely volunteer-driven. "We're just poor museum people who are trying to honor the commitment that these guys made over 14 war patrols to protect our country," Gill said. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
a day ago
- Business Insider
After living in a dozen cities across the globe, I finally settled down in the coastal city where I grew up
I spent most of my life moving, never living in a single place for more than a few years. In fact, I attended five different elementary schools, each in a different part of the globe. When I tell people how often I've moved, many assume one of my parents was in the military. However, each move was voluntary, as my parents are Chinese immigrants who left the motherland in search of better opportunities in America. I spent my childhood in several different cities I was born in Nanjing, China, where I lived until I was 5. We moved for the first time after my dad was accepted into a Ph.D. program in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which he mistook for an American state. I immediately fell in love with the city's turquoise beaches and creamy flans. However, I had to white-knuckle my way through kindergarten because I knew neither Spanish nor English — a frustration that left me silent and sullen most school days. After a year in Puerto Rico, my dad decided to pursue his postdoctoral fellowship, this time in Ames, Iowa. The transition from spending long Caribbean days at Catholic school to attending public school in a small Midwestern town surrounded by cornfields was a culture shock, albeit not an unwelcome one. Being the only Asian kid at school meant that my classmates couldn't pronounce my name and questioned everything about me, from what I had for dinner to whether my black hair was real. But to this day, Iowans remain the nicest folks I've ever met. We stayed for nearly two years, just long enough to make my first American friend and be heartbroken when my dad's fellowship ended, forcing us to move once again. I spent a longer stretch of two-and-a-half years in College Station, Texas, where my dad found another postdoctoral position at Texas A&M. After spending most of our time renting apartments and student housing, my folks could finally afford their first house there, a little duplex with a gooseberry tree. However, I was once again the sole Asian student in school, and I longed for a place where I felt like I belonged. Our time there was cut short when my dad's postdoctoral position wasn't renewed, and we had to move again — this time, to California for my mom's new job. I spent my formative years in California Next, we settled in Torrance, a beachside suburb in Southern California, where I spent all of middle and high school. Moving here was a game changer: it had glorious beaches, people I could call friends, and perfect weather to boot. Plus, Torrance was much more diverse than other places we lived. I finally felt at home because it was the first place (outside China) where I didn't have to look for fellow Asians or assess the likelihood that my ethnicity was going to be a liability. In my high school, the homecoming queen and captain of the football team were both Asian. I had groups of friends at church and in school, and we bonded over AP classes and checking out local boba shops. Being settled in one place with people I loved was a thrill. College and graduate school led me to live in different parts of the state: the Bay Area, where I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad, and the Central Coast, where I went to UC Santa Barbara for graduate school. In Santa Barbara, I even met the man who'd become my husband, and we had our first child together. We then spent years living in different cities across the state, but none of them truly felt like the right long-term fit for us. After a brief period of living with my parents in Rancho Palos Verdes, an affluent hillside community full of retirees in Southern California, I left the West Coast for Cambridge, Massachusetts, to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. As much as I loved Cambridge's proximity to Boston, buzzy energy, and easy public transportation, my family couldn't stomach the brutal winters. So, after three years there, we once again headed back to California. Now, I'm finally settled and happier than ever We spent several years bouncing around different California cities for work, but by 2020, I was ready to settle down in a place I could call my permanent residence. Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to relocate to Torrance — where I'd spent my formative years — and move back into my childhood home. The whole family fell in love with the city's beaches, diverse food options, weather, and spectacular public schools. After two decades away, I was delighted to reconnect with my old high school friends and teachers. I love that my children go to the same schools I did and even have some of the same teachers. Living in all the cities that have marked the different chapters of my life has given me a newfound appreciation for this coastal suburb — something I wouldn't have if I had stayed here all along.
