Write 1 paragraph on something you learned about writing’s relationship to social change—perhaps using a favorite text as a guide, with the wisdom of hindsight.

The theme I’ve definitely been following throughout the course of the quarter – as I’m sure I’ve probably talked about once or twice in class – is the use of abstraction, or alienation, by a narrator in a story. This, in relation to what kind of empathy and closure the writer wants the reader to feel, becomes a technique to agitate readers. In not allowing for full closure, or perhaps leaving something missing for the readers, the writer allows for the reader to fill in the gap. Thus, the reader becomes active in the writer’s movement for social change. And yet, this relationship is certainly complicated by who the writer is, who the narrator is, who the subject/s is/are, and who the readers are. How does the writer consolidate their own social positioning with their narration of a story that may or may not be theirs in a way that acknowledges the social positioning of the story’s readership? There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s a tricky line to navigate. If the writer is to employ the tactic of alienation, what parts of the story does the writer make abstract, foreign, or difficult to relate to, so their audience cannot fully empathize, but isn’t just left confused? I’m certainly thinking of Keene’s piece in Counternarratives, where the narration of Carmel’s story feels ever so slightly cold and distant, and yet readers who certainly cannot completely understand her story are able to fill in those gaps to think critically yet sentimentally about Carmel’s story. I’m also thinking of Agee and the dilemma he actively struggled with in being a privileged, liberal white man trying to accurately yet powerfully portray the struggle of the tenant farmers. Perhaps his own self-conscious narration and thus self-alienation is supposed to have readers also feel self-conscious and alienated. And I’m thinking of Layli Long Soldier’s creative use of form. Her poems are alienating in two critical ways: their structures defy common poetic forms, and they tear up a government document, while maintaining familiar political/legislative language. “Whereas” comes to mean something different for us, because she takes what is such a formal word in government documents and forces us to think critically about what it is used for through alienation.

Write 1 question you have about writing and social change that emerges from your work in the course.

How do we, as writers, juggle the weight of implications in the story we are telling, while staying true to our personal stakes in the narration as well as closely monitoring what stakes our readers get to have in our work?

Bertolt Brecht’s piece On Chinese Acting brought me back to a theme of thought I’ve had throughout the quarter: the role of abstraction. Or, as Brecht calls it, the role of alienation. I have often thought the effect of art is to evoke feeling and sentiment, yet when it comes to art for social change (which, is all art for social change?) one must consider exactly what sentiments are being evoked. By depriving the audience of full fledged empathy, perhaps they are forced to process the emotional content more concretely. Through the alienation effect, the artists forces the audience to more actively project their selves into the character/scene/art. But I wonder if the role of Chinese acting is to really effect an active projection, or is it to really just portray a story for the audience to watch?

Peter Schumann then raises the point of the addictive quality of intimacy in acting, the false intimacy created by actors and movie makers to close the gap between the real world and the made-up world. This intimacy, where we are drawn in by strong feelings of either love and allure or fear of pain and death, plagues the art of the made-up world and detracts from its sincerity. While it is satisfying to the audience, what else does it really accomplish other than scratch an itch for that sensation?

Perhaps there’s something to be said for the art of mimicry, or comedy. Both authors above mention these arts. Currently, comedy seems to be one of the most politically pervasive forms of art and entertainment. Either comedy, such as stand up or talk shows, or satirical/bizarre alternate realities crated by horror movies such as Get Out or Sorry to Bother You. The abstraction made by comedy and satire presents traps for the audience to fall into, where they catch themselves laughing at things that shouldn’t be laughed at, and thus are forced to more sincerely process the emotion meant to be conveyed, which is actually conveyed through the alienation or abstraction.

“Breast cancer’s industrial etiology, medicine’s misogynist and racist histories and practices, capitalism’s incredible machine of profit, and the unequal distribution by class of the suffering and death of breast cancer are omitted from breast cancer’s now-common literary form. To write only of oneself may be to write of death, but to write of death is to write of everyone.”

Medicine is supposed to be a neutralizing practice. We’re all human, we all have the same body, and medicine is there to help us all. Or so we think. In reality, especially the reality Boyer brings to our attention through her memoir, is that there are broad disparities in medicinal practice across multiple lines of socio-economic statuses. Medicine is not neutralizing, and there is no practice that we can really think of as neutral to the effects of race, class, gender. Boyer highlights this interwoven aspect, the fact that even her experience can speak for the experiences of everyone, especially by highlighting the privileges she has as well as the privileges she doesn’t have. What is neutralizing is the oppression we experience, although where and to what degree is always shifting. Capitalism, misogyny, and racism pervade all experiences, even those who seem to be in the most beneficial positioning from them. 

Memoir

Scars are a natural part of the healing process. They form when the dermis, a deep layer in the skin, has been penetrated. The body collects new collagen fibers to mend the damage.

Every Friday at 2 in the afternoon I go to therapy. I talk about my chronic depression and general anxiety disorder. I talk about my relationships, my friendships, not being able to wake up in the morning, not feeling motivated to do my class work, tensions with my family.

We don’t talk about my mixedness.

Therapy for that exists in solidarity.

When I was born, my mother wanted to name me Kelly. She thought I would be born white. As soon as she saw my skin and hair, she decided to name me Sofia. It was a better fit.

When I was five, my brother told all his friends I was adopted. They took one look at me and laughed, assuming of course. There’s no way someone as pale as him could have a sister as brown as me.

When I was nine, my parents friends debated over which of them I looked most like. Everyone assumed I was the spitting image of my dad. “If you look past her color, she has her moms face,” someone said.

When I was twelve, I was condemned for not being a Real Dominican. He looked me in the eyes, “you don’t speak spanish, and your mom is white. You’re not Dominican.” He was a Real Dominican, so he knew.

When I was fifteen, my mom called me a Black Irish. “Those exist,” she said, “we call them black Irish.” She wasn’t referring to Black people. She was referring to white people with black hair.

When I was seventeen, I sat in a circle at my high school during lunch with tears down my face. “I don’t know who I am. People keep telling me ‘oh, you’re this, oh you’re that’ but I don’t fucking know. Why can’t I be both? Why can’t one exist with the other? Why can’t I just be mixed?” My cheeks burned red as I rubbed the tears from my face. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to over share. It’s just overwhelming.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m mixed, too,” someone said.

Trauma lives in the body. For me, it lives in my face. These scars do not exist as raised discolored lumps of flesh that you can touch and feel. They exist in the brownish tone of my skin, in the shape of my eyes, in the texture of my hair, in the redness in my cheeks. They exist when you ask me, and I tell you the stories of how people see me and question me, from birth. When they question me, I question myself. Who am I when no one else can tell?

Process notes:

I really was unsure how to connect this memoir to STEM, so I decided to focus on a physical representation of pain. Therapy is a form of a doctor’s appointment, psychology is a science, and scarring is very representative. And yet, we don’t often consider the impact of emotional scars. The dermis in this case is my identity. These words have penetrated my identity through my face, because of how I look and how that doesn’t match people’s expectations of me. Maybe I should talk about my mixedness in therapy, but I find the most comforting aspect of it is relating to the shared traumas of people who have also experienced this scarring. A common theme of being mixed is an identity crisis, not know who you are or where you belong. The most soothing remedy for that is being in a space where you are not judged or questioned for your appearance because everyone around you understands the erasure of identity that occurs in that judgement.

The space of an open letter versus the space of a lecture.

The tones of the two products are entirely different, but I am unsure if it has to do as much with the writing as it does with he reading. Clearly, the tone of the writing has to shift, as no longer is the author addressing just one intimate person but a large range of people. When lecturing, or writing, someone has something to say. In effective communication, it is essential to know how to say what you need to say in a way that it will be perceived and heard correctly by the people you need to say it to. I want to examine the different ways this occurs in the space of an open letter versus in the space of a lecture.

In an open letter, the dialogue is between one person and another, while others get to look in. Because the dialogue is intimate, the tone of the writer will be different. It will be laced with all the emotion and memory of the relationship between author and receiver. The reader, the open audience, will perceive this from an outsiders perspective, and thus maybe it will be more impactful to them. To perceive the emotion without having it directed to them. Then, they can process it more happily, they have an escape because it is not about them, but it is relevant and moving to them.

In a lecture, on the other hand, the speaker is dealing with a range of emotions and people and relationships, from student to stranger to peer to mentor. The speaker needs to withhold certain emotion that is directed towards these people, because when people feel attacked they will shut down. People don’t want to listen when they feel like they need to defend themselves. Rather, the speaker must be tactful so as not to enact these systems of defense within their audience.

But ultimately, all of this is about being wary of the reader’s emotions. Were one not want to allow the reader the comfort of guiltlessness or being removed or not being spared, what medium would they use? How would they trouble that space of an open letter or of a lecture in a way that is effective?

To my white mom:

You think you’ve built a bridge. With the impact of sperm and egg, twice, sweat balled on your forehead twice you pushed out the perfect duo, one white one brown, to save the world. What weight we carry on our shoulders, with you and your world walking across them.

Mom, I am not a bridge. My existence does not cure you of the disease, it does not connect you to the other side, I do not fill the void between black and white, Light and Darkness. You have work to do. You cannot cross the bridge.

The work lies in the way you talk to Dad. Do not belittle him. Do not isolate him. Do not pretend you don’t speak Spanish. Do not pretend you don’t know how to pronounce arroz con habichuelas, mangú, aquacate y ensalada. You surround him with your white friends, spewing racist rhetoric, elitist rhetoric. You capitalize off his assimilation. You married a brown man! You hardly see race!

But I see you. I see you shrivel when reminded of your whiteness. I notice the nod when Grandma talks about how the Irish had it just as hard. I see you smirk with white supremacy if Abuela struggles for the English word.

I am Latina when convenient to you. A great candidate for college! A Latina who can actually afford her education! With your grades, you won’t be rejected anywhere! And yet you divide us whenever possible. We are white white white when we go through the airport and you gladly leave Dad behind as he is “randomly” searched by TSA, leave him in the long line while we zoom through with our Irish passports. He is other in our family. I am other when you want me to be.

So, Mom, I am not a bridge. I do not bridge the racial divide between you and dad. I do not excuse your whiteness. I am not a bridge. You do not get to walk over me.

Love,
Sofia

A lecture for white moms of colored children:

I cannot begin to assume that I know all the complexities of motherhood. I am not a mother, nor do I intend to become one. I am too close to my own childhood, still too entwined with my own mother-daughter relationship to even begin thinking about switching roles. But perhaps that makes me fit to give you all a quick lecture, just on my perspective, or on the perspective of the child.

Perhaps you are too far removed from your childhood to understand your child. I assume when you look down at the fresh, beautiful new life you have cultivated the love you feel can be overwhelming. You have just grown a human, how could you not know what is absolutely best for them?

But, moms, when you look down at the black, brown, or just non-white face of the child you just grew, remember that you won’t know. That child’s existence will be fundamentally different from yours, and you and your child will be perceived differently wherever you go. Neither you nor your non-white co-parent will truly understand that kid’s experience, how they will struggle through their muddled identities, and how the world does not want to accommodate for anything between a binary.

It is your job, then, as mothers, to be best prepared to prepare your child for the wrath of the world. It is your job, not your child’s, not your co-parent’s, not anyone else’s, to prepare yourselves. As white mothers of non-white children, pick up a book. Attend a lecture. Read some articles. Listen to podcasts. Listen to your children.

Your experiences will be different. Your child will exist on a spectrum of color, one that you have actively muddled, and your whiteness will be intrinsic to their identity. So will the coloredness of their other parent. Your child will have to grapple with something you have never had to grapple with, in a more complex fashion than you can imagine.

Remember, white moms, that your child’s color does not excuse your whiteness. I’m sure you’ve heard by now of systemic racism, of white supremacy. Your whiteness is a privilege that your child will not have, but will have to grapple with. You will also have to grapple with it. Your child is not the medium through which you excuse your complicit benefit from a system of white supremacy. Your child is rather the medium through which you become even more introspective, even more careful, even more confident. Because your child will need your guidance, and your guidance cannot be riddle with white guilt and insecurity.

So, go forth moms! You can do it! Parenting is full of tasks and challenges. This is just another one that you can handle, you must handle. Good luck!

Writing Process:

I found it rather difficult to do this assignment. My mom and I have a tense relationship, so I felt anger radiating out of my letter to her. But I had to change my tone into something more optimistic and inclusive when addressing mothers in general. I think there’s a really interesting relationship that white mothers can have with their mixed children, but its definitely something I need to unpack more. I think that white mothers can often try to compensate for their whiteness through their mixed children or their non-white partners, or fail to try to understand the differences in their experiences.

The way Layli Long Soldier writes, I get lost in her words. It’s not until towards the end of the poem that it really hits what the subject matter of her poetry is, very real life events with massive impact. But the way she writes, free of structure and punctuation, the way her words flow into one another, allows for the reader to just get lost in the poetry and rhythm of it. But then, the subject matter is equally striking, from her thought processes regarding hunting to her experience with a miscarriage to her experience as a Native American woman. She strategically uses white space to create an effect on the reader that only emphasizes either apparent structurelessness or very intentional structure. My favorite poems from the book include Three (p. 8) in which she manages to construct the box in which she is kept through the various phrasing of the same words. I also enjoyed the effects of Tókhah’aη (p. 34), Left (p.37-39) and Talent (p. 41). These poems I read aloud to some of my friends and noticed the blurring of words prominently, but additionally the impact of their content.

I’d be curious to talk more about the effect of spacing between words in the same sentence. I think I understood more about her writing process through the poem Wahpanica (p.43-44) and how “When we speak comma question marks dashes lines little black dots don’t flash or jiggle in the air before us comma in truth it’s the rise and fall of the voice we must capture to mean a thing in writing.” But I’m curious what effect she intends with the radical spacing of her words.

To Be In A Time Of War accomplishes something incredible, which is it reaches in to not exactly the mind and the process of thought, but in to actions accomplished through pure emotional or physical or subconscious drives. It traces the actions, point by point, one goes through, while taking care to note the actions of thought. The character in the poem goes through a tragic internal conflict of dealing with the realities of war and with the reality of their daily life. They notice a burning hatred within, while all to often going outside to notice the beauty of the natural world around them. In this matter-of-fact, dogmatic kind of tone which makes the word “to” start to look funny to the reader, the author manages to make obvious that we all go through certain actions, and somehow the intermix of the typical turns and movements of human life with the burning emotional reactions to the outside world manages to draw my eyes to the fact that we seemingly appoint importance to certain actions over others. However, is it arbitrary?

The Last Times

The last times are anticlimactic
a subtle finish
a slow burning build
unnoticed deep under chest
always comes back for the next one.

Like the last time I saw my favorite boss;
the last time I heard the special inflection of his voice say
“What’s up, kid?”
The last time I left the city.

The last time I wore pink knee pads,
five years old all bundled up
for the last time I fall
hard wood floor.
The last time I rode a scooter.
five months ago
on a bridge in Paris.

The last time I wore a monochromatic outfit.

The last time I called my dad.
The last time I hung up mid sentence.
The last time I felt a rush
suspended in time.

The last time I was left hanging.

Process notes:

I feel like this is not my best poetry. Not that I can really write good poetry, but when I do try it’s always in the heat of a moment. It’s always an attempt to capture a singular feeling I felt in the moment, but this time was more difficult. I was trying to capture something fleeting, kind of in the style of picture captions. Minimal sentences with just enough descriptive detail to reinforce an image, but nothing really visual. I was trying to create this sense of the last time, which we always think is so finite, and yet they happen and re-happen all the time. It feels really complete when it happens, but it always happens again. I think its an attempt to casually look at the bigger picture, to remove oneself from now just enough to acknowledge that the now will come back in another way.