My husband Peter and I live in Seaside, CA, on the Monterey Peninsula. We have a son, two daughters, three wonderful in-loves (as opposed to in-laws), and six fabulous grandchildren. Family has always been, and remains, the main focus of my life. I also love gardening organically, especially drought-tolerant plants and edibles, and am currently starting a garden from sand in the backyard of the house we bought in October 2009.
Over many years in Georgia and Florida, I have been inspired to work collectively for practical change in a variety of local issues important to me:
- In 2000-2006 Panama City, FL, as part of the Bay County Conservancy, I fought a legal battle with like-minded people to save vulnerable, marsh-bound pine islands on the St. Andrews Bay from development (we lost).
- In the 1990’s I helped make Suwanee, GA, a Tree City by coordinating planting of trees by scout troops, paid for by donations in honor of a loved one, with a plaque at city hall listing honorees.
- In 1973 I organized and led a chapter of the League of Women Voters in Griffin, GA, focusing on equal rights for pregnant girls to stay in high school as mandated by state law but ignored locally (the fathers were allowed to stay, of course).
- In the early 70's I worked for a federal title program during the first year of public school student integration in Atlanta, GA's Morris Brandon elementary school, coordinating special programs and teaching.
We enjoy traveling now that we are retired and I am very happy to have been to India with Kim and Mark three times over the past 15 years. I look forward to more time there with our many friends. I have never wanted to impose our American idea of how people should lead their lives but rather to support grass roots efforts. Following the growth of the empowered single women's organizations and witnessing what they are continuing to fight for has made me want to support their efforts half way around the world by organizing a grassroots effort to raise money to make their dreams come true. The idea of showing the government that these strong and brave women mean business and need land in each district of the state has spurred me on to coordinate the raising of $50,000 to buy the land for the demonstration project. I hope you will join us.
Kim Berry is Louise Berry’s daughter. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1997, and currently serves as Professor and Program Leader of Women's Studies and Co-director of the Multicultural Queer Studies Program at Humboldt State University in northern California.
Kim, her partner Mark, and their sons Anson and Devon travel to India every two years. They live in an adobe cottage in a rural village in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. She has been conducting research on rural women's movements in northwestern India since 1992. Her current research—on single women's collective demands for land rights and an independent identity—began in January 2005, extending through that July, with return visits in the summers of 2007 and 2009. This project has been supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship administered through the American Institute of Indian Studies. Her prior research on rural women’s organizations (mahila mandals) was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation Fellowship and the Fulbright Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship.
She has published the following articles and book chapters on her research in India:
“Disowning Dependence: Single Women’s Collective Struggle for Independence and Land Rights in Northwestern India” forthcoming in 2011 in Feminist Review.
“Good Women, Bad Women and the Dynamics of Oppression and Resistance in Kangra, India” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations special issue on Oppression and Resistance, March 2007.
“Lakshmi and the Scientific Housewife: A Transnational Account of Indian Women’s Development and Production of an Indian Modernity.” Economic and Political Weekly, 38(11): 1055-1068.
“The Group Called Women in Himachal Pradesh.” Himalayan Research Bulletin, Volume 21(2): 62-69.
“Developing Women: The Traffic in Ideas about Women and their Needs in Kangra, India.” In Sivaramakrishnan and Agrawal, eds. Regional Modernities. New Delhi : Oxford University
Jenn Erickson
Website/Blog Design for A Family of One's Own
Jenn is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in the History of Art. Her background includes a successful run as a professional pastry artist, a colorful stint with the Candid Camera television show, and owning an old fashioned country store in "America's Last Hometown". She currently resides on the Monterey Peninsula with her husband and two daughters and is pursuing a multiple subject teaching credential. She writes the popular creative lifestyle blog, Rook No. 17, which features recipes, projects and inspirations for creative living. Jenn was honored to have the opportunity to volunteer her time to design a blog highlighting Kim and Louise's efforts on behalf of the single women of India.
