<Begin Segment 29>

AI: Well, in fact, I think I remember one of the things that you mentioned in your book was the feeling of feeling like an outsider, and it sounds like you've... an outsider in almost every situation that you found yourself. An outsider within the organization itself, an outsider when you went to visit in other countries, an outsider when you saw, at a village level, something being done with one of the programs.

PJ: Yeah. You know, sometimes I think that I have this... I don't know whether to call it a curse or a benefit, but part of it is that I'm not necessarily perceived as an outsider as much as I feel like an outsider. So it always has been very difficult for me to see that I'm "acceptable" as a person of color, as a woman of color, because I can, if I want, "speak the right language." And I'm putting all of that in quotes, but I can do the old boy network thing, I mean, I have a lot of contacts that I can bring up and raise if I want to. And it's actually a struggle for me, often, to... sometimes I will go the other way, and do exactly not that, because I don't like that I can do that. Because I can be acceptable so easily, you know, 'cause I've had the right education, and I've, I'm articulate, I can speak, and all of those things that make me -- I don't have an accent, all of those things that kind of make me "acceptable" are sometimes feel like nemesis, you know, my nemesis, because I have to speak so loudly for the pieces of me that aren't as visible. So I think that was true at PATH, too. I was kind of a golden child there, and then I created all this trouble with diversity and -- [laughs] -- questioning, even though I was in the "accepted elite," people would say, "Well, why, why are you complaining? You're here, you're the president's favorite and you're, you're doing all these things and you're leading this and you get this and you get that." And I said, "Yeah, but it's not for me. It's, what about everybody else? What about, what if I wasn't like this?" And so that was always very hard to explain, and so yes, outsider, insider, I don't know which one I am, really, 'cause I don't really like feeling like the insider, either, because I think, to me, it gets to issues of power and access, and who has, who has that power or access, and what do you have to do get it. And I feel that often in the work I do now.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.