JE#8: "to write poetry after auschwitz is barbaric"

Apparently (this is still a huge surprise to me!), Chican@ Studies classes in high school is super rare! Like, really rare! Even in LAUSD where the majority of the students are brown (and poor). I have never met anybody else here at UCLA who had Chican@ Studies in high school. (Ugh, do my privileges ever end!?) This is where i learned about the Juarez Murders, in high school. Tragically/ fittingly it was no surprise learning that the U.S./ Mexico border is a site of horrific violence. I learned they are, seemingly, unexplicable. They are also relentless. And mysogynistic. And ongoing. 

(It's a cold night as i sit here in my apartment typing away on my hp laptop, which was probably built in a maquila as the profit for hp goes on to support the U.S. and Palestine occupation of land that does not belong to them. somewhere in a seemingly nameless land walked a womyn on her way from work, and she did not make it. who built this laptop and this keyboard for me?)

I did not know about the Border's history of targeting and marginalizing womyn who seem to pose a threat to white, patriarchal heterormativity: or, what belll hooks has poetically termed white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy (that phrase rings so eerily tonight, it must be what the wind whispers as it brushes itself over the border walls). This created a political and historical context for my ongoing understanding of the Border and of misogyny because it acts as a backdrop to the murders of these random women. It is just another example of systematic exclusion of women who pose a threat to capitalism, heteronormativity, and all its intersections. There was not a specific chapter that moved me per say, but learning about the Page Law was startling because of its bluntness: "Chinese women are dirty and prone to be prostitutes, we need to protect ourselves!".

Desert Blood pushed things closer to the heart though. Reading about the oppressive and sexist laws that led to the foundations of the border, and inevitably to the murders of the women in Juarez, is one thing, but when the images become painted inside our heads is a completely different experience. The first chapter which starts off with a gruesome description of a tortured body violently being thrusted into slow death... we have no idea what it feels like to be in Juarez. To be slaughtered like a wild animal for no apparent reason. To be a quasi-religious human sacrifice to patriarchy and capitalism.

Theodore W. Adorno's words echo over a Mexican womyn's lifelessness: "to write poetry after auschwitz is barbaric".

Movie are definitely not my thing. Even though, because it is a visual medium, it can be a better way to get a message entwined with something as brutal as murder across, they do not usually aid me in the learning process. So, the movie did not really help me in my consciousness regarding the Juarez murders. However, what did build a critical consciousness was the fact mentioned in class that the movie was booed when it was shown to American audiences. This shows an aspect of America's historical amnesia: when the historical blood that stains Amerika's hands and foundation resurrects in front of its face under the guise of entertainment, it tries to pray it away with disapproval and 'boo's. Boos become amnesiac mantras. What are you trying to boo away Amerika?

Writing this post made me reflect on my place on this planet and on this side of the border. As I type out my silent outrage over the death of innocent womyn, I face the fact that I will probably never have to go through such a living nightmare. It's scary, there really are monsters in the world, and they were never under my bed or in the closet. On the contrary, it's one big long fucking wall that gains its powers from the sacrificed corpses of young Mexican mujeres. And more sacrifices. More and more sacrifices. denial... denial. 

Tonight, I'll be sleeping with a silent shiver that cold winds cannot reproduce.