About Fe

Born Fe Liza Ramone Bencosme Benjamin in New York City to Caribbean immigrants from the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic and St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, Fe grew up moving among three cultures and around the world.

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After a childhood blissfully unaware of skin color and racial conflict, Fe entered high school in the US. Through a series of negative experiences, she was forced to be aware of skin tones and “race” categories during her adolescence. Today, Fe is concerned by an ideology that foists a racialized worldview on children—robbing them of their sense of wonder and free lives, and jeopardizing the promise of a fully flourishing society.

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Travel has afforded Fe a broad perspective of the world and its variety of peoples. She has traveled around the world several times, mostly on her own initiative, but also as part of her first career as a publicist for an international hotel corporation. Her travels also include a long sojourn in the Middle East following the events of 9/11 to learn more about the culture and its peoples during that time of conflict.

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She began a second career as a teacher, and it was during her teacher preparation experience at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in the early 2010s that she encountered and was troubled by progressive theories in higher education. She would later encounter similar ideas at a doctoral program in Pennsylvania. Eventually, after a controversy over race and identification with a teaching colleague, Fe left teaching altogether.

 

Today she lives in Houston, Texas, where she continues to encourage others to eschew racialized identities by “not checking the box.”