It's been awhile

....since I've written. And I mean really written. Needless to say, graduate school has zapped a significant amount of my creative energy. I feel as if I am recuperating, though. Somehow, the flow is returning.

I definitely have some loyal readers on this blog and I thank you for your continuous feedback and advice. Many have asked what I am doing, why I'm not publishing my oral histories, what exactly I am spending all my time thinking about. The truth is, I wasn't so sure until just a few weeks ago.

This year, I spent quite some time thinking about Germans and German Jews in El Salvador, specifically pre- and post- WWII. Max Paul Friedman, noted historian, scholar, and professor at Florida State University, published an incredible monograph on this very topic, highlighting the treatment of Germans (both Jewish and non-Jewish) during the war. I highly recommend it "Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II." Most importantly, Friedman wrote, explained, and explicated the black-listing of Germans (again Jewish and non-Jewish) by the United States government. Convinced that Hitler was assembling a "Fifth Column" in Latin America, the United States led a massive effort to purge and cleanse Latin America of all suspiscious German agents (including quite a few German Jews), placing many in detainment camps throughout the United States and offering the option of repatriation to others. A fascinating topic to say the very least. I spent months digging through memoirs, speaking to people in El Salvador whose family was black-listed, speaking to my own mother about the black-listing of my Jewish, German-born grandfather Ernst Reich.

Fascinating, yes. But did it grab me? Cannot say it did. Must also admit that a phenomenal job has already been completed by Professor Friedman and in academia...there is no room for repeats (that is, if I could even aspire to produce such an exquisite monograph as his). So the search continued, what to study......what can be original....gripping.....yet scholarly? This may not seem to important to you, but to me and my advisors, it is the world.

Everyone said it was a bit premature to "stress" about dissertation topics but for a kid who started planning her high school course schedule in the eighth grade, stressing about the future, needless to say, was second nature.....