By Kate Fernandez
The collective cultural amnesia experienced by Indigenous, Latinx, and Chicanx individuals in California is an experience of suffering, a suffering which continues as those peoples reconnect with their roots, says Cherríe Moraga, a UC Santa Barbara Distinguished Professor in the English department.
Moraga, an internationally recognized poet, playwright, essayist and activist, stressed this reconnection in a recent event hosted by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC)
“Imagine This: The (Re)generation of Place,” was the inaugural talk of the IHC’s Imagining California series. In it, Moraga tackled the inherent struggle to define one’s cultural identity in the aftermath of — or rather, the ongoing process of — hundreds of years of degradation and mistreatment.
UCSB English professor Cherríe Moraga interacting with the audience after her inaugural talk for the IHC’s Imagining California series. Moraga is co-director of Las Maestras Center.
“It is impossible to imagine genocide. But this is that task at hand when one is required to imagine California,” Moraga said, describing the decimation of native peoples in California.
As a Latina woman myself, I felt particularly drawn to Moraga’s talk, which applied to North and South America. While I may not be Chicana or have indigenous ancestors from California, her words spoke to my Dominican heritage, to the suffering my indigenous ancestors underwent, and to the generational scars they left behind.
Even if there remained a few ancestors to pass on their heritage, the cultural suppression that followed mass killings meant these murders effectively amounted to genocide, said Moraga, who is co-director of Las Maestras Center for Chicana and Indigenous Thought and Art Practice at UCSB.
To understand the collection of cultures that make up my identity, I must carry out this work of imagining the past. To understand what it means to be both Dominican and white, to understand what it means to have no recorded family history just a few generations before me, I must face this history of suffering head-on.
Moraga began her talk by acknowledging the pain in simply recognizing one’s familial history of suffering.
“That's where I'm going to begin,” said Moraga. “Showing up. Sometimes it's hard to show up. It's really, really hard to show up. This is one of those times.”
In keeping with the IHC theme of Imagining California, Moraga spoke of redefining the state, but her words reached beyond the state’s borders. By giving voice to indigenous people who died at the hands of colonizers, she addressed all indigenous people of the Americas, and beyond. In urging them and others to reconnect with the complexities of California heritage, she was encouraging a reconnection for the whole diaspora of individuals with native history.
UCSB professor Cherríe Moraga, internationally recognized poet, playwright, essayist and activist spoke as part of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s “Imagining California” series.
When I was finally old enough to wonder about my own history, my father told me of my Taíno ancestors who were almost successfully eliminated as a people. He told me that it is important to remember them and that we are lucky to have what little blood of them remains.
But, there is an inherent resistance to this journey of remembrance, Moraga said, pointing out that those in power benefit when the people of the past are forgotten.
“Those who do make it must promise to forget who they are,” Moraga said, referring to Latinx people who request entry and refuge at the United States border. “[But] nothing remains buried forever, not even memory. Especially not memory.”
Moraga’s words will stick with me. In spite of suffering that comes along with a shared painful history, memory prevails. With this memory, Chicanx/Latinx/Indigenous people will continue to reconstruct their cultures and redefine the very identities that history has tried to erase.
I will not forget my family’s history, because I cannot. I consider that I must not forget the beauty of that past culture, because I have no choice but to remember. I cannot forget the suffering I’ve heard tales of or the pain I know to be true, and I do not wish to. It is an undeniable part of my Dominican heritage — the brutality of genocide, the horrors of oppression, and the short-lived glory of independence. These things, imbued with an aching longing for what could have been, are all parts of my identity.
“I dream a borderless globe,” Moraga concluded.
Inspired by Moraga, I imagine a new world, unencumbered by the burden of prejudice. In this world, I remember my ancestors with the utmost clarity, their wisdom not lost on the ignorant. Their traditions are passed on, even to me, the pale Dominicana so far removed from her heritage that these traditions feel like myths.
In this search of clarity, I bring this world from my imagination into the present, reconnecting with my roots, and redefining my identity as a Latina woman.
Kate Fernandez is a fourth-year English major and a Professional Writing Minor in the Journalism track. She wrote this reflection on a recent HFA event for her Digital Journalism course.