SoClose
With a hand that is not dark enough to be Mexicana but not light enough to be American,
I am reaching over the fence for a country that is not mine and no longer considers me it’s
I have two tongues, forked, like the serpent Quetzalcoatl,
Earliest European depiction found on a wooden slab, a “stela”
I am climbing, reaching, searching, for something that may or may not be mine
Pero voy, because my memories are older than me,
And so is this fence
Pero Que Mas? Just like Cherrie Moraga, Xicana feminist, storyteller, activist, and author of A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, I too see the power and wonder in writing- except Moraga uses it to teach and to publicize. Moraga came to this realization that she was a Xicana feminist …show more content…
This is followed by the short story of a boy who broke down onstage after having an act of breakthrough. He named it therapy and Moraga corrected him, saying it was not. She says this is because “therapy” would mean that your problem is individual, when it is not. As part of a colored community, you are part of a larger thing. We can use the Daniel’s story to try to find out what she meant by “liberation lies in the embodied rendering of our prisons”. Prisons can be things like racism, machismo, homophobia, etc. And so theater can be a big part of us liberating ourselves from these. I was tasked with the question “What is liberation?” this summer, and I’m trying to figure it out myself but I have a clue. Through theater, we can bring history and what we re-member back to life. We can “re-member” the historical details and facts that have been kept from us- hidden. And, once we do this, just like Daniel, we can feel a small sense of liberation. We can feel that we are freer through the art of acting and through the art of storytelling. And this, is why I believe Cherrie Moraga writes. As she explains earlier in the chapter, something is itching and begging for her attention, and it is her thoughts that need to be transformed into …show more content…
I had to pull back the blinds on something my family, and a lot of Mexican families, do. In my memoir writing class in high school, we had to tell a true story of something that was important to us. I told the story of me remembering a blurry childhood event. This story shows the reality of some Mexican families and the unhealthy customs they share.
My family’s close. So close that the second I told my aunt about getting my period, she told my aunts in Mexico. So close that I used to take baths with the five other girls I grew up with. So close that they make 10 year olds wash dishes even if they don’t do it well because, shame on you for being disgusted by the germs already in your blood and system. So close that when they do have to keep something from one another, they do it pretty darn well. My cousin was 13, I was about 8. I had been having glimpses of things that felt like memories for as long as I had remembered. I finally asked my mom about them and her eyes got watery as she said, “Sometimes it’s better that you don’t know mami.” I continued the next day and told her it was something that had been bothering me-what had happened in that
With a hand that is not dark enough to be Mexicana but not light enough to be American,
I am reaching over the fence for a country that is not mine and no longer considers me it’s
I have two tongues, forked, like the serpent Quetzalcoatl,
Earliest European depiction found on a wooden slab, a “stela”
I am climbing, reaching, searching, for something that may or may not be mine
Pero voy, because my memories are older than me,
And so is this fence
Pero Que Mas? Just like Cherrie Moraga, Xicana feminist, storyteller, activist, and author of A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, I too see the power and wonder in writing- except Moraga uses it to teach and to publicize. Moraga came to this realization that she was a Xicana feminist …show more content…
This is followed by the short story of a boy who broke down onstage after having an act of breakthrough. He named it therapy and Moraga corrected him, saying it was not. She says this is because “therapy” would mean that your problem is individual, when it is not. As part of a colored community, you are part of a larger thing. We can use the Daniel’s story to try to find out what she meant by “liberation lies in the embodied rendering of our prisons”. Prisons can be things like racism, machismo, homophobia, etc. And so theater can be a big part of us liberating ourselves from these. I was tasked with the question “What is liberation?” this summer, and I’m trying to figure it out myself but I have a clue. Through theater, we can bring history and what we re-member back to life. We can “re-member” the historical details and facts that have been kept from us- hidden. And, once we do this, just like Daniel, we can feel a small sense of liberation. We can feel that we are freer through the art of acting and through the art of storytelling. And this, is why I believe Cherrie Moraga writes. As she explains earlier in the chapter, something is itching and begging for her attention, and it is her thoughts that need to be transformed into …show more content…
I had to pull back the blinds on something my family, and a lot of Mexican families, do. In my memoir writing class in high school, we had to tell a true story of something that was important to us. I told the story of me remembering a blurry childhood event. This story shows the reality of some Mexican families and the unhealthy customs they share.
My family’s close. So close that the second I told my aunt about getting my period, she told my aunts in Mexico. So close that I used to take baths with the five other girls I grew up with. So close that they make 10 year olds wash dishes even if they don’t do it well because, shame on you for being disgusted by the germs already in your blood and system. So close that when they do have to keep something from one another, they do it pretty darn well. My cousin was 13, I was about 8. I had been having glimpses of things that felt like memories for as long as I had remembered. I finally asked my mom about them and her eyes got watery as she said, “Sometimes it’s better that you don’t know mami.” I continued the next day and told her it was something that had been bothering me-what had happened in that