Jesus Land (45 page)

What are your religious leanings today?

Devout hedonist . . . agnostic . . . secular humanist. Seriously, I hate labels. Having been brainwashed from birth as a Calvinist, it took me years to shake my religion entirely. Until recently I still prayed on airplanes, more from rote habit than a belief that a supreme being would protect the tin can I was flying in. I lost my religion by degrees. The first step was witnessing the hypocrisy of the Christians around me as a child. The second was escaping the rigid subculture I grew up in and meeting secular folks who were much more moral and trustworthy than the Christians I was told to revere. Subsequent steps were being excommunicated from my church, and then shunned by my childhood community when I dared to show up for Sunday services during a nostalgic trip back home.

Your experiences in the book notwithstanding, have all your experiences with devout Christians been bad?

No. My two sisters are powerful examples of laudable Christians. They adhere to the New Testament’s gentle-Jesus love-one-another philosophy and don’t ram their beliefs down people’s throats.

Is Escuela Caribe still open?

Yes, and it’s thriving. The school continues to be a dumping ground for the problem teenagers of rich Evangelicals. For $3,000–$6,000 a month, you can buy your kid a cot in a cramped dormitory, a lousy education, and PTSD nightmares for the rest of her life. (But at least she won’t get knocked up.) When I returned to visit the school in 2001, there were several more student homes, so between the high tuition and the staff’s missionary wages, the owners must really be raking it in. Although the administration told me things were “less physical” than when I was there—i.e., students weren’t body-slammed as much—the accounts of recent alums refute this claim.

Did you keep in touch with any of your Escuela Caribe classmates?

I haven’t been able to locate my former housemates, but I have connected with other alumni using the Internet. We started a Yahoo group to discuss our experiences with New Horizon Youth Ministries as well as a website to expose the truth about the reform school empire at
www.nhym-alumni.org
, which includes accounts of physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of the staff. Given that we didn’t dare criticize the school while we were students there and were unable to confide in our classmates due to a system that rewarded narcs, these forums have been tremendously cathartic for many people.

What has the reaction to your book been? What was the best response you have gotten? What was the worst?

I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from readers who identify with
Jesus Land
because they, too, felt like outcasts as kids because of their race or beliefs. I guess the best responses I’ve received are from people who knew David and regaled me with funny anecdotes about him that made him come alive for me again. Worst response—one Canadian reader was angry with my depiction of my Canadian housefather at Escuela Caribe. I called him some choice words that she found offensive. She failed to understand that
Jesus Land
is written from the perspective of a tempermental seventeen-year-old American girl. Really, I have no bone to pick with Canadian people in general.

What was the writing process like for you? Was it hard to deal with all the memories from your childhood?

There were times when I had to go cry in my pillow after writing down a painful scene. There were days when cleaning the cat box was more appealing than sitting down at my desk. I grew quite sick of my seventeen-year-old self by the last draft of
Jesus Land
. But there were also nights when I had amazing dreams about David, about adventures we had together—real or imagined—and I felt incredibly close to him the entire time I wrote the book. Unfortunately the frequent dreams stopped once I turned it in.

Since the book’s publication have you met a lot of people who have had similar experiences?

If you consider e-mail and online encounters real, the answer is yes. Especially alumni from Escuela Caribe.

What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to deal with their own upbringing?

Hang in there. Someday you’ll turn eighteen and your life will be your own. That day may seem far off now, but when it does arrive, you’ll have decades to live freely. Try to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, find someone—a sibling, friend, teacher—to confide in. This will help you keep your sanity. Speak out if you’re being emotionally, physically or sexually abused; protect the sanctity of your own body above all else. If you don’t stand up for yourself, no one else will. And always stay true to your own values, no matter how disorienting or overwhelming the forces around you. Adolescence is just a blip in the span of a lifetime. Your future is wide open. Use it wisely.

1.
Throughout
Jesus Land
, Julia oscillates between close identification with David (referring to “our color,” for example), involuntary alienation from him (as when he and Jerome are pitted against the rest of the family), and intentional attempts to separate herself from him (as she does during high school). How does her perception of her relationship with David affect her perception of herself?

2.
Julia and David have very different concepts of “family.” What does it mean to be a family? Is Julia’s cynicism about it belied by any of her family relationships? Are any of them a source of strength for her? Does David’s enduring hope for an accepting, united family harm him? Is his faith in the concept ever justified?

3.
Why do you believe Julia’s parents adopted Jerome and David? How do you view those motivations in light of the outcome?

4.
Throughout
Jesus Land
, how do social appearances effect different characters’ decisions? In what ways do social appearances influence how the family members treat one another, both in private and in public?

5.
Julia has a number of very different sexual encounters in her memoir. How does each of them shape her views about sex? Why do you think she doesn’t tell David about Jerome?

6.
Julia and David encounter a great deal of talk about faith. What do they have faith in? How does their faith differ from that of the adults around them?

7.
After David is publicly abused at Escuela Caribe, Julia says, “It makes me wonder if he hates my whiteness and if I can be a true sister to him without sharing the trauma of his skin color, if we can ever be more than black and white, more than the surface of our skin.” How would you answer Julia? Across their story, how does skin color separate and unite them?

8.
What are Julia’s attitudes toward race and how do they affect David? If
Jesus Land
took place today instead of in the mid-80s, would the siblings’ experiences be different?

9.
Why do you think David and Julia have such a fascination with graveyards? How are graveyards a theme throughout their lives?

10.
Julia, David, and Jerome endure a great deal of emotional and physical abuse in
Jesus Land
. What are their individual coping mechanisms? How and why do they vary?

11.
How is Christianity used to enforce the status quo in Indiana and Escuela Caribe? Does the rigidity of the Christian culture of Escuela Caribe ever make it easier to subvert?

12.
From early on in the book, it’s clear that religion plays a significant role in the lives of Julia’s parents. What roles does religion and spirituality play in Julia’s personal identity? Would you describe her as religious or spiritual?

13.
Throughout the book, Julia describes and names the music she is hearing. How is music used by Julia, her mother, and the people at Escuela Caribe?

14.
Julia’s mother believes David suffered from attachment disorder syndrome, which caused him to not fully integrate with their family. Julia disagrees. Where do you stand? What factors do you believe affected David’s relationships?

15.
Toward the end of the book, Julia rhetorically asks, “Is it wrong to dislike your parents? What if they disliked you first?” How would you answer her?

16.
Jesus Land
is written as a memoir focused around the relationship between Julia and David. How does the form affect your reaction to the story? How would you respond differently if it had been written as a novel based on real events, an exposé of Escuela Caribe, a documentary on racism in Indiana, or some other format?

17.
What was your immediate reaction to the title
Jesus Land
? How did your reaction to it evolve over the course of the book?