The minefield known as mom.

Women are obsessed with their mothers. Dear momma can be the source of annoyance, inspiration and dread. Onto them, we pin our needs, hopes and often our rage.

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Labor activist and attorney Lora Jo Foo's new book Earth Passages: journeys Through Childhood bravely enters this minefield known as Mother.

Juxtaposing compelling nature photography with short vignettes, Foo creates a multilayered memoir about her relationship with her mom in the projects of San Francisco's Chinatown. A vignette about her mother serving just bread and mayo for lunch runs next to a photo from Costa Rica of tree roots and small, lush green leaves. The effect is an emotional contrast in which the imagery makes it easier to read about the poverty that Foo is describing, but ultimately renders it more heartbreaking. In other parts of the books, the images dramatize the writing--as when Foo describes how girls feared certain old men in her neigborhood. The image of kelp and seaweed next to the text appears menacing and underscores the threat of sexual violence.

Foo became a union organizer to fight for and alongside women like her mom. But it seems that this photographic memoir finally gave her what she needed--both to grieve the poverty, racism and sexism that curtailed her mom's ability to mother and to celebrate the refuge Foo found in nature and social justice work.