JE #2

Arnoldo de León's They Called Them Greasers was an enthralling read for me. When thinking about historical amnesia and what which side of the Border we've experienced, I came into this reading from a very unique vantage point. I grew up in central Mexico, and did not experience the U.S. educational system until the age of ten. I attended middle school and high school here in Southern California. I experienced U.S. history in a very diluted 7th grade kind of manner. In regards to how what I learned made me feel about Anglos and Mexicans, 

I noticed right away that history was being told from the viewpoint of the conqueror. The week spent on the Mexican-American war in my seventh grade U.S. history class was filled with depictions of heroic Anglo soldiers and fathers of progress. I remember coming home and commenting to my mother how  quickly they glossed over a war that I learned about in my Mexican schooling for a whole year. I realize now that what happened in the classroom and in my own psyche was an act of erasing the past, an act of cultural amnesia. 

My own sense of cultural amnesia on a scale of 1-10 would have to be a 3. I have worked very hard to honor and remember my past. At times I feel that I my actions don't reflect what i've gone through, what my collective community has gone through. It is very strange to live and breathe within university walls for so many hours of the day. As a student it feels that this is the place where we do the most growth yet where most of the cultural amnesia takes place. In essence, we are all nepantlero/as, living with contradictions and floating through different worlds, past and present.