“El pueblo que pierde su memoria, pierde su destino.” (The people that loses its memory, loses/forfeits its destiny.) Apply the Mexican proverb above to the history of the Anglo takeover of Texas and the U.S.-Mexico War. How does not learning this history from the perspective of the conquered contribute to historical amnesia, which in turn contributes to a “lost,” “stolen,” or “forfeited” destiny for the descendants of Guadalupe and Hidalgo? Compare what you learned in De Leon's book about the Battle of the Alamo and the U.S.-Mexico War with what you were taught in school. How did what you learned from the mainstream educational system make you feel about Mexicans and Anglos? Give one other example of how historical amnesia is enforced by mainstream U.S. culture and education.
Not learning about the history of the U.S-Mexico War from the Mexican perspective has definitely sugarcoated this war and has kept us from understanding that the U.S can be just as treacherous as they made the Mexicans out to be. This very one sided view of history has contributed to historical amnesia because it has made many Anglo Americans forget that this territory was once Mexican territory and has made many Mexican Americans (the descendants of the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo) feel that we are "illegal" immigrants when the truth is that many of us are not. De Leon's book, They Called them Greasers, looks at the racial tensions between Mexican Tejanos and Anglos and demonstrates how the Anglo's sense of superiority allowed them to justify the taking of Texas and later the taking of 55% of Mexico's territory. Of course when I first learned about the Battle of the Alamo, I never learned about the sentiments that Anglo's held against Mexicans, just as I did not learn about the loopholes that existed in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. I learned about Manifest Destiny and because I wanted to identify so badly with my American side I remember thinking, "Yeaah, God Did want us to have the land from sea to shining sea!" The history I learned made me think of the Anglos who believed in and spread the notion of Manifest Destiny as heroes and made me forget about the Mexicans who were horrendously betrayed. One other example of how historical amnesia is still enforced by mainstream education is by keeping the one-sided view of all history provided in our textbooks. People of color, or better yet children of color still do not relate to the history being told when they should and so they have incomplete notions of how history went down.
On a scale of 1-10, what is your level of historical amnesia, and explain how this has led to your own sense of a lost or forfeited destiny? Note: you don't have to be of Mexican descent to suffer from historical amnesia. This would apply to any "minority" race, culture, ethnicity, or group that is different from the dominant culture.
Now, my historical amnesia is at a 7, I'd say, which is way better than the 10 it was on from K-12. While my historical amnesia has lessened because of the Chicano and history classes I've taken at UCLA, I still suffer from some historical amnesia because I don't know much about my own family history. Having this historical amnesia has led to my own sense of lost destiny because I have wanted to rid myself of the things that make me Mexican, like my regional dialect, my nickname, etc. If this had happened I probably would have passed this on to my children, this internalized racism, and then my children would have lost a sense of who they were and believe that they are fully American when they share this wonderful Mexican culture. In class la Profe shared that we are all in the process of becoming something we are not, i.e. assimilating, and historical amnesia therefore works as a tool of conquering. We are conquered in the sense that we don't find an importance or see the value in passing the traditions that are our own to our children in order to be as similar as we can to the conqueror, then we forget who we are and don't question the injustices because we cannot, there is no memory for us to do so. While I do suffer from historical amnesia I will not allow for this historical amnesia to widen in the generations to come in my family. I have been told that knowledge is a responsibility and I hold myself responsible in teaching my children and grandchildren what I have learned so that my family does not lose a sense of who we are, where we come from and what we have been through. We will never be exactly like the conqueror, in fact the conqueror does not want us to completely be like them any how, so why attempt to rid ourselves of our cultura when we will never be fully accepted? The Profe mentioned that the conqueror needs us to strive to be like them (but never fully get there) so that the vertical structure of oppression is always in place, but if our generations to come know who they are and know our history they can inevitably take part in this structure, but hold on to who they are nonetheless.
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