I am ?

[thislooseleaf]

The dual, hyphenated, personality is an Anglo creation. According to this concept, there is no hybrid cultural self. It is part of the Anglo imagination that we can keep our culture and assimilate, a position that would be contradictory if both cultures were understood as informing the “real” fabric of everyday life. But in thinking of a Mexican-American, the Anglo imagination construes “Mexican” as the name for a superexploitable being who is a practitioner of a superfluous, ornamental, culture. Being “American” is what supposedly gives us (dubious) membership in that “real” culture, the culture of the ideally culturally-unified-through-assimilation polls illegitimately called “America.”

Maria Lugones, “On Borderlands/La Frontera: An Interpretive Essay (via thislooseleaf)

[xicanisma]

A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.

Gloria E. Anzaldúa (via xicanisma)

[xicanisma]

[reclaimingthelatinatag]

Because I, a mestiza, continually walk out of one culture and into another, because I am in all cultures at the same time, alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro, me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio

Gloria Anzaldúa  (via reclaimingthelatinatag)

[rpmfm]

First of all, I’m not a big fan of the term ‘reappropriation.’ I like to call it an active decolonization.

DJ Bear Witness of A Tribe Called Red | Toronto Standard (via rpmfm)

[thepeoplesrecord]

Today I wanted to share some quotes by several-decade-spanning American activist and self-identifying revolutionary Grace Lee Boggs. Here’s a near-release documentary which she is the subject of.

Grace Lee Boggs is a 98-year-old Chinese American woman in Detroit whose vision of revolution will surprise you. A writer, activist, and philosopher rooted for more than 70 years in the African American movement, she has devoted her life to an evolving revolution that encompasses the contradictions of America’s past and its potentially radical future.

More here: http://americanrevolutionaryfilm.com

These image quotes are all available to share on Facebook via The People’s Record Facebook page as well. 

[chaoticliterature-deactivated20]

use your position of privilege to call people out 

use your position of privilege to call people out

use your position of privilege to call people out

this how you be a good ally

use the security your privilege provides you to stop hateful speech and actions 

this is how to be invested in intersectionality 

[elblogcanalla]

Defiendo la escuela publica

Neuquén, Argentina

Photo by Walter Costich

[hendr685]

By understanding the past, Chicana historians hope that contemporary women will be better equipped to cope with the present and to determine their future…Some Chicano males, already in leadership and authority positions, challenged women’s participation in activities outside the home. Their claims were that “everyone knew”, and history, culture and tradition established that Mexican American women could/should only be homemakers and mothers. Chicano activists who acted differently were vulnerable to charges of being “Agringadas,” “Anglocized,” “feminists” and worst of all “anti-traditionalists.”

Martha Cotera, Diosa y Hembra: The History and Heritage of Chicanas in the U.S.  (via hendr685)

[lguti21]

These are some of the comments from a news story on 5 Eyewitness News. Apparently the mention of MN Dream Act at the end means all “Hispanics” at the U are “illegal”. We need to work on changing mentalities such as these. Here’s the link to the news story: http://kstp.com/news/stories/S3190712.shtml?cat=1 

[hellomadisonwi]

Love the color in this, so expressive. Picture by Adry del Rocio, who says “I paint to be reborn” “Pinto para renacer”, which is delightful. This is titled “Virgen Mexicana.” 

[sahaam3212]

I couldn't find one that I really liked on my own, but this one is definitely a beautiful piece. 

[sahaam3212]

Dr. Yolanda Broyles-González is Professor in the MAS department at the University of Arizona. Until fall 2004 she was Professor of Chicano Studies and German Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She studied at four German universities and was among the first women of color to receive a doctorate degree from Stanford University. She was the first indigenous woman to receive a doctorate in German Studies and later became the first woman of color to be tenured at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1985). In 1991 she became the first native Chicana woman to chair an academic department within the University of California system and was among the first native women in the nation to be promoted to full professor at a major research university. Under her leadership the very first proposal for the Chicano/a Studies doctorate degree in the nation was created.  In 1996 Professor Broyles-González made national news by legally challenging the unequal payment of women and minority professors within the University of California system. In 1998 President Clinton honored her at a White House ceremony marking women’s struggles for equal pay. Broyles-González first book, The German Response to Latin American Literature, was published in Germany. During her ten years of research/study in Germany, Professor Broyles-González also pioneered in bringing Chicano/a literature (and an interest in Chicana/o Studies) to a European readership. She was the first to translate a Chicano novel into the German language (published by Germany’s premiere literary publishers, Suhrkamp Verlag).  In 1994 she piloted the first Chicano Studies course ever taught at a Santa Barbara high school (San Marcos High School).

http://mas.arizona.edu/yjb

[telepathic-affair]

I have never met any kind of Latino who, although he may have claimed his family was very woman-dominated (“mi mamá made all the real decisions”), who did not subscribe to the basic belief that men are better. It is so ordinary a statement as to sound simplistic and I am nearly embarrassed to write it, but that’s the truth in its kernel. Ask, for example, any Chicana mother about her children and she is quick to tell you she loves them all the same, but she doesn’t. The boys are different. Sometimes I sense that she feels this way because she wants to believe that through her mothering, she can develop the kind of man she would have liked to have married, or even have been. That through her son she can get a small taste of male privilege, since without race or class privilege that is all to be had. The daughter can never offer the mother such hope, straddled by the same forces that confine the mother. As a result, the daughter must constantly earn the mother’s love, prove her fidelity to her. The son - he gets her love for free.

Cherríe Moraga

I remember the first time I read something Moraga had written and it really affected me, but this was the first time I read something so impactful, true and close to home that it made me cry.

(via telepathicaffair)

[maarnayeri-blog]

Don’t fool yourself. English isn’t inherently superior, or easier to learn, or more sonically pleasing. Its international usage comes from forceful assimilation and legacy of colonialistic injection. It isn’t a deed that one should take pride in.

my uncle left this comment on his friend’s Facebook status, a white British man who was bragging about how easy it is to be a native English speaker when trekking to different nations. (via maarnayeri)

[sahaam3212]

Gloria Anzaldúa writes in her book, La Frontera, "I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face."

When I was younger, I never really cared for Somalia, or being Somali. I was born and raised here and I never set a foot on my motherland so I never really had a connection with it. My parents would have taken my siblings and I there, but Somalia was, and is still, going through a tough time with the civil war and the aftermath. Even though my parents always told me to speak Somali at home, I never really listened, and instead spoke in English, but now that I am older, everything has changed. I have this strong yearning to one day visit Somalia, to speak Somali as well as I speak English, and to be a part of a country that is hurting and healing. As the years go by, I am carving Somalia into my being more and more. 

If I could ever thank my parents for just one thing, I would thank them for raising my as a Muslim. One thing that my parents have always instilled in me, even more than Somali traditions, is Islam. Being a Muslim has molded me into the person I am today. I breathe Islam. I love it with every cell in my body, and it is something that I am so proud of being. I never really had a choice in being Somali, it's in my blood, but I do have a choice whether to be Muslim or not. I have proudly carved and chiseled Islam into my face, body, heart, and soul and will continue to do so until the day I die. 

Being a woman, being an American, being a person of color, and many other things that I identify as are also other carvings on my being, and as the years continue, the intricacies of my different identities will be chiseled into me.