JE#2: Historical Amnesia
One of the most painful aspects about historical amnesia for
me; is knowing that entire communities were displaced and erased forever. This
wound that does not heal and continuously aches is a direct result of the
constant attempts to remove communities from their truths. The inaccurate
events that took place throughout history are an example proven wrong when
presented from the conquered perspective over the Battle of the Alamo. The
Battle of the Alamo and many other sad truths that I never knew about until I took my first community college course in Chicana/o studies.
The
public schools I attended growing up only discussed what they deemed “special
events” such as the forth of July, Christmas, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving and,
sometimes Cinco de Mayo. They failed to mention that the U.S.-Mexico war was
initiated by U.S. troops and that it was not bought “fair and square” as many
remark. It was the second bloodiest conquest for the Southwest of the United
States, since Christopher Columbus lied about discovering the Americas.
The
messages linked to these commemorated days every year for over twelve years set
the tone on how I viewed my self and others like me. I wanted really wanted to
be an American but I wanted my community to be a part of that American
acceptance. I constantly struggled to not give up my language, to listen to
music in Spanish and take any opportunity I could to go to Mexico. Our weekend
drives down to Tijuana every weekend helped balance this goal of mine and also
in many ways contradicted what I was led to believe in the United States. My parents strict
establishment of speaking Spanish only at home helped open the door to these
other stories. When my family and their friends would get together, many would
share history stories about Mexico and the United States. Which at the time did
not really make a great impact on me as I thought. My lighter skinned friends,
whom I would sometimes secretly wish I had their names; “Kathryn”, “Samantha”
or “Natalie” would have been perfect to replace “Claribel” with at any given
moment, had a greater influence in my school/social life.
In
many cases it wasn’t so much the name, but the looks, friends, intelligence and
things that came with those names. Although the demographics of my school were
more on the darker shade of brown, all but one or two teachers looked like me.
My parent’s efforts to maintain my Spanish came to be one of my biggest
educational pitfalls in school. The mainstream language spoken in the classroom
and halls was not in Spanish. It was my Spanish that got in the way of me
reading and writing in English at grade level. The brown words coming out of my
mouth, were the cause for me to be excluded from the regular classes “Kathryn”,
“Samantha” and “Natalie” were in; year after year.
As
every year past by, the more I tried to patch together my identity with parts
of both worlds. Some of these cultural patches have stayed in tack today, but
many have been removed from my identity but not from my warped sense of who I
am and who I should be. In my higher education career, many courses have
served as a cure to much of these traumas of historical amnesia. A trauma,
that at this present moment is at an 8 almost 9 out of 10. It is in the
continual process to finding new ways to recover from this amnesia that makes
my future visions of myself and my community stronger and clearer. Yet, this amnesia fluctuates at any given
moment due to the present circumstances of our society today.
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