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sarita and the revolution decolonial imagination shifting and deconstructing
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The transcript discusses the book "Borderlands, La Frontera" by Gloria Anzaldúa, focusing on its significance and the banning of Mexican American studies in Arizona schools. It explores the interconnectedness of colonization, white supremacy, imperialism, and patriarchy, and the importance of challenging colonial perspectives. The speaker resonates with Anzaldúa's exploration of duality and identity and shares a quote about the violence of robbing people of their language. The connection is made to Jamaica Kincaid's book "A Small Place," which delves into similar themes of colonialism and language. The chapter "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is discussed in relation to the dentist's control over the speaker's mouth and the suppression of their expression. En esta parte del episodio me voy a enfocar en el libro Borderlands, La Frontera, de Nunez Tiza, escrita por Gloria Anzaldúa, and this is the fourth edition of the book. One thing that really struck out for me was in the introduction there was mention of Borderlands being one of the books, among other books, banned in Tucson Unified School System in Arizona, and this was a part of the enforcement of the new law banning Mexican American studies in its public schools. And so, despite the very politicized and violent banning of this book, I believe that when you pay attention to things that have been silenced, whether that is history and involved in that history, the voices of many artists, creators, critical thinkers, feminists, activists, when people or things are banned, it always reflects that there is sustenance and so much importance and vitality within what is being banned. We understand this because when we think about colonization, white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, the patriarchy, it all intrinsically, they all intrinsically are woven together to create this imagination, and this imagination is very much woven into our brains and woven into our ways of thinking, our reality, our perspectives, ever since we're so little. And so, when books and literature and art begin to shift something within us, within the collective, within societies, that is a threat. That is a threat to the collective consciousness. That is something that deeply interests me, and so that is the framework that I'm going to be working in as I analyze and as I speak about the work of Gloria Anzaldúa. And so, yes, that is something that really stood out to me in the introduction, and being that it was the first paragraph, I knew I would very much appreciate the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and this book. I have yet to finish the book, but I have read the introduction and the small biography included about Gloria Anzaldúa. I am going to be focusing on Chapter 5, which is How to Tame a Wild Punk, and before I start, I would like to thank Gloria Anzaldúa and wish her well as she has moved on to another lifetime, another existence. I thank all activists, all critical thinkers, creators, artists, that have fought for myself and others like myself to our right for obtaining an education and the right to liberation. And so, that is what's part, that's what's really at the top of my mind right now as I speak and as I think about why I am focusing on decolonial and a decolonial imagination and shifting paradigms within ourselves, deconstructing and understanding where our reality has been created, why that reality has been created, because it's very much been tailored to a certain type of thinking, and I am speaking in my own perspective, and I very much believe that I, myself, hold a lot of colonial perspectives and being that I was born and raised in the United States, in Westchester, New York, which is in the Hudson Valley, about 40-50 minutes from New York City, it very much shapes who I am, and a part of that being that my latinidad has never fully been embraced by the collective or understood by the individual and that individual being myself. So, as I read Anzaldua's work, I deeply resonate with this identity of duality, of dualism, I don't know if dualism is a word, but I'm gonna use it, and so it's really something that struck me and something that is so beautifully woven into their work and into their concepts, their ways of thinking, their ways of analyzing, their ways of being, and so I want to include a little, a little short, not a short sentence, a sentence included in the preface to the first edition, this book is the fourth edition, and so this is quite interesting, it's the preface that was included in the first edition, and Anzaldua says, living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an alien element, and so this is deeply profound, and despite myself not living on a border that divides the U.S. and another country, we all exist on certain borders, these imaginary borders that aren't so imaginary because they are highly politicized, they are very, they influence our social lives, many times our safety, and that's intrinsically woven into who we are, who we become, and how we understand ourselves both physically, spiritually, and metaphysically, and so this concept of trying to swim in a new element, and this element not even being an element but is known, is so beautiful, and I just had to read that sentence because it really stood out for me, and I'm sitting here looking at this sentence, and I'm deeply grateful, I'm so grateful for writing, and for expression, and for those who have fought for my expression before me, who I may never even know their names, and I think that's the importance of activism and decolonization, and understanding ourselves and our community can shift outside of a colonial perspective, a colonial imagination, because then we free ourselves, and we are able to liberate our own understandings, and grow into something that perhaps we've never experienced, or we've never known, and that shift is deeply scary, that shift comes with a lot of curiosity, and intimidating feelings, because ultimately there's a lot of unknowns, there is so many unknowns, but that is the beauty of it, that is the beauty of it all, that is the beauty of it all, all right, so yes, that is a sentence that I wanted to share that's included in the preface to the first edition, now we will continue, thanks for listening, and so to include a little bit more about Gloria Anzaldua, and the physical border that she is referring to, both spiritually, physically, and metaphysically, throughout her work, is the actual physical border of the Texas, U.S., Southwest, and Mexican border, and Mexican border, and so throughout her work, this is also included in the preface, throughout her work, she allows us a different understanding of psychological borderlands, of the sexual borderlands, and the spiritual borderlands, and as her story particularly has to do and relates to the Southwest, she is coming from that perspective, but her work allows for anybody, anywhere, to have an understanding of how borderlands influence people, and perhaps themselves, depending on their identities, and their experiences, and where they grew up, where they are living, and so that is something that really stands out to me, the work of artists, and creators, and critical thinkers, who really just grab you, and have you like thinking, imagining, while reading, while reading, or while looking at their work, while interacting, while dialoguing with their words, or their creations, whether that is visual, or auditory, or another sensory, another sensation, and so yes, I welcome you to my analysis, and my understandings of Gloria Anzaldua's work, creation, art, beauty, and yes, overall abundance, abundance of imagination, of vision, visions for the present, but also visions of the past, and how visions of the past and the present mold our visions for the future, and vice versa, so I welcome you to this section on Chapter 5, How to Tame a Wild Turn by Gloria Anzaldua. Alright, so, introducing How to Tame a Wild Turn, Anzaldua is taking us through this experience that she had at the dentist's office, and she is lying here, while this dentist picks, and pulls, and is, has a lot of control over a very intimate part of herself, her mouth, her mouth being her means of expression, of talking, of eating, of drinking, um, I'm thinking about it almost in the way that our eyes function, our eyes being these deeply sensitive parts of ourselves, of our bodies, um, allowing our senses to process through our minds, and allowing us to interpret what is around us, for those who can see, and so, she is taking us through this experience, and as the doctor is pulling out the metal that's in her mouth, he tells her that her tongue is uncontrollable, and that her tongue needs to be mellowed down, her tongue needs to be quieted, and she follows with a quote by Ray Gwynne Smith. Ray Gwynne Smith says, Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war? How profound is this question, because it is asking, how can we even begin to understand violence before understanding the language that we speak, and why we speak it? This has me making so many connections, so many, so many, and so, a couple months back, I read the book, A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid, and throughout the book, Jamaica Kincaid is talking, and is very much having a conversation with white tourists, white tourists who live in the West, and who have many privileges being from and living in the West, and coming to Caribbean islands, such as Antigua, Antigua being her homeland, where she was raised, where she was born, and where she holds many relationships to her family and the land, but also has many conflicting ideologies of who she is and where she belongs, because of colonialism, because of imperialism, because of dominating systems, such as the ones that Gloria Anzaldua is walking us through and is thinking about, and is the basis of her creation, and really is the basis of all of our beings, because all of our beings are a byproduct of colonialism, and so without understanding colonialism, we cannot understand ourselves. And so, something that brings me to Jamaica Kincaid's work is this concept of language, and robbing people of who they are, and their connection to themselves and their communities, by robbing them of their culture, by robbing them of their customs and their languages, and the ways of expressing themselves, and so I think that even just the name of the chapter, How to Tame a Wild Tongue, is deeply profound and is deeply connected to all of what Anzaldua is sharing, and all of what Anzaldua was thinking about. And so, throughout A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid criticizes and critiques very much the colonizer, as well as having the reader critically think about their decisions and their understandings of tourism and sustainable tourism, and if there is such a thing. And so, throughout the book, Jamaica Kincaid mentions libraries, mentions schools, mentions certain statues in Antigua that very much have a deep colonial history, and oftentimes isn't considered by people who are not from Antigua, who simply come to Antigua for the warmth, for the beauty, for the clear, blue, sandy beaches, and who don't have to consider the deep-rooted racism and sexism and domination that has led to Antigua being Antigua, to Antigua having the demographics that it has, and Antigua holding the economic forces that it does. Why is tourism so heavily depended on in Antigua? What does that imply? What does it imply when a community needs people from more privileged and wealthier places to visit their land, despite the destruction that it causes, for them to sustain themselves? What does it mean when people in communities are now serving people outside of their communities in order to have some type of life? And I am not saying this is a good or bad life, but I am saying, ask yourself this. What does that mean? What are the implications of that? How do we continue without critically thinking about our privilege, our identities, and how they have become? And so, as Jamaica Kincaid takes us through their understandings and their perspectives, as well as inviting us to a conversation about our own privileges, many of the readers being from the West, from Europe, from the US, from Canada, and oftentimes benefiting from these systems, benefiting from tourism, while also having us critically think about why tourism exists. Why do we feel the need to take two weeks off? Why do we feel the need to take a break? What if our life wasn't so demanding and dominating and exhausting that we didn't need a break? Every day felt like a break and we were able to just relax and be. And so, something that Kincaid beautifully poses and beautifully explains and examines is English and how the English and the British had a very big influence on Antigua and the Caribbean as a whole. And what does it mean when you express yourself, when you think in the colonizer's tongue? Where does that leave you? And so, tying this back to the quote by Rayquan Smith, who is to say that robbing the people of its language is less violent than war, has me thinking, well, how do we even begin to critically think about what the two things mean? Robbing of a language, violence, and war. All three are intrinsically connected and we cannot talk about one without the other. Language. Language has been a very, very much used as a mechanism to strip people from themselves and their communities. We see that in many shapes and forms that have taken place, the many shapes and forms of colonization that have taken place all around the world. And how dominating people and stripping them from their customs and their languages, you create this confusion, this very deeply entrenched confusion that then allows the colonizer to control aspects of these people's lives. And so, when thinking about Jamaica Kincaid and other Antiguans who live in Antigua, or other displaced Antiguans who have diasporic identities, thinking about their relationships to themselves based on the language that they speak and so for Antiguans who speak English, and for a lot of us who speak English in the U.S., critically thinking about why that is. If we are not from England, why do we speak English? Understanding that our lives, our beings, are not so... How do I say this? Our lives are not special and are not magical and are worthy because of colonialism, but our lives are deeply intertwined with colonialism because of history. Because of the way that history has continued and continues to perpetrate systems of domination. And that is not to say that we are not working and dismantling as we speak right now, because there have been so many beautiful creators and artists and intellects and activists who have stood up not only for themselves, but for people who they may never even see, for their own communities and their own families. And that is what I hope to do with this episode, with this podcast, let's say, because I sometimes don't even know where my thoughts are going or how to bring my thoughts back to a grounded space and a grounded feeling, but I feel that at times not trying to find that peace at all times is something that has brought me a lot of peace, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? I don't really know. Okay, so as I read this quote, I was making a lot of connections to literature and specifically Jamaica Kincaid's book, A Small Place. I highly recommend the book and as we think about language, I hope we can sit with those questions and reflect on that. Why do we speak the languages that we do speak? And how does that allow ourselves or isolate ourselves from ourselves and from our communities and from our understandings of ourselves? And so I leave you with that and I continue. Thank you for listening.
