By solely learning the history of the U.S.-Mexico war from the perspective of the white American victors rather than the conquered, the progeny of our Mexican forebearers are denied access to their narratives and experiences during this period. As a consequence to the aftermath of war, the conquered’s perspectives are often forgotten. These are the stories that will never be written into our textbooks for history class. If these existences are not remembered they are effectively destroyed, giving the conquerors free reign to rewrite entire narratives from their eyes. There are no contesting accounts that challenge or undermine a narrow, partisan historical record.
Time is thus literally made biased towards a male-centric, white supremacist perspective. In turn, these narratives then inform us of false or incomplete truths of ourselves, leading to a form of mental colonization. This contributes to a forfeited destiny as we learn to not protest what had belonged to us. We do not challenge the colonial destruction and conquest of our lands. Because In the colonizer’s story we are the enemy. The war is not remembered as a time when Mexico attempted to defend its land from belligerent usurpation, but about how Mexicans ignited a war by shedding white blood on white soil. We come to learn that we were the enemies. We come to learn that there were no brown heroes in this story. “Truths” are constructed so that we learn that we deserved our lands to be stolen. We deserved to be colonized. Because of this brown absence from (or a brown treachery within) white history we not only lose what had been and but we also lose our the potential of our future by not challenging this loss.
I don’t remember in particular when first read about the U.S.-Mexico war. What I do remember is feeling a hidden sense of shame. That we were not strong enough to win. Embarrassed that we initiated a fight and lost so much territory as a result of our own foolishness. Maybe what I felt was a deserved sense of shame for something we never began in the first place.
Another example of historical amnesia was the genocide of indigenous tribes by Americans. For the longest time, I did not know that the trial of tears was essentially an institutionalized genocide. I recall the words and phrases such as relocation, colonization, “died as consequence of war”, “a lack of immunity to European diseases”. I don’t believe that until my high school years or early college years that I began to look at this as government sponsored genocide in America.
It is difficult to gauge my own level of historical amnesia. I feel that it is impossible to measure the depths to which I have forgotten because what I have forgotten has never existed in the first place. What I can measure is the extent to which I know of my own culture from a historical perspective and how much I have learned from a conqueror’s perspective. I would have to rate myself as a 6-7. I do not know much about my history. This has lead to a sense of personal loss because of this I imagine that what I do know about my communities and about my histories (and as an extension myself) have not been written (or for the most part taught) by those who have actually lived these experiences.
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