Roaches, 7th Edition by Roacheszine

ROACHES

Issue Nº 7

Printed by Societe Nouvelle OTRAD Services

Published by The American University of Paris

Edition of 2024

Please send all inquiries to roaches@aup.edu

ROACHES

Spring 2024

The American University of Paris

6 Rue de Colonel Combes 75007

Paris, France

Gender, Sexuality, and Society Program

A U D R E L O R D E

Call Me your deepest urge toward survival call me and my brothers and sisters in the sharp smell of your refusal call me roach and presumptuous nightmare on your white pillow your itch to destroy the indestructible part of yourself.

Call me your own determination in the most detestable shape you can become friend of your image within me

I am you in your most deeply cherished nightmare scuttling through the painted cracks you create to admit me into your kitchens into your fearful midnights into your values at noon in your most secret places with hate you learn to honor me by imitation as I alter— through your greedy preoccupations through your kitchen wars and your poisonous refusal— to survive.

To survive. Survive.

Regina White Editor-in-Chief

Arianna Williams Editor-in-Chief

Lily Mildenberger

Graphic Artist

Clayton Wilson

Graphic Designer

Madison Ponder Editor

Emi Martinez Majdišová Editor

Aishwarya Nedungadi Editor

Lissa Lincoln

Faculty Editor

D I T O R I A L T E A M

8 PRINTED IN F.R. AUTHOR TITLE PAGE # BORROWER’S NAME 7 - 10 11 - 13 17 - 26 27 - 30 31 - 44 45 - 46 47 - 57

The American Univeristy of Paris Letter From Your Editors The Dog | Ani Gonzalez Ward Untitled | Hannah Turner 67 - 68 The Inheritance of Mourning | Anonymous Through the Lens of Color | Lily Mildenberger Dear Black Girls | Arianna Williams Breaking the Cycle of Othering by “Putting Down the Masters Tools” | Carolyn Franano Plastic Leis|Emma Sacayan Styles of Attachement and the Defualt of Nucleur Families | Madison Ponder Artist Spotlight| Donatella Jackson The Girl Who Burned Bright | Madison Ponder 15 16 Everyone 59 - 66

ROACHES

AUTHOR TITLE

ROACHES

The American Univeristy of Paris 74 - 88

- 70

- 71

- 73 90 - 91 92 - 97 98 - 99 100 - 112 113 - 120

What does it mean to be Latino to you? Everyone 121 - 122

La expereiencia | Emi Martinez Majdišová

fuego y agua | Emi Martinez Majdišová

la ceeiba | Emi Martinez Majdišová

Intersectional Self-Identity Through Language and Narrative | Emi Martinez Majdišová

The Colour Red | Aishwarya Nedungadi

How is White Supremacy maintainted through education? | Emily Gonzalez

A Silent Battle | Anonymous

Radically Hybrid | Carolyn Franano

Queer and Palestinian | Diana Sabbagh

9 PRINTED

IN F.R.

PAGE

BORROWER’S NAME

LETTER FROM YOUR EDITORS

From Regina,

Roaches

is a ‘Zine dedicated to those who reside on the margins of society, which are often places are seen as a location full of struggle, strife, anger, and dispossession. But Roaches was created for and by marginalized individuals to offer a means for those who are often overlooked to reclaim their power and agency. The contributors of this ‘zine, live on the margins, and offer unique perspectives and have been afforded the opportunity to exhibit a radical openness, that challenges dominant ideologies.

I chose to work with this publication because I was seeking an environment that did not require assimilation into a mainstream culture but embraced those seeking to clasp onto their marginality as ‘site of resistence’ and creativity. I found this location allowed those who existed on the margins, to freely and openly challenge societal norms and gave them permission to envision new possibilities for themselves and their communities. Roaches encourages its contributors to engage in critical dialogue, activism, love, and self-reflection; while advocating to dismantle systems of oppression and creating an equitable and just society.

I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the co-editor, editorial staff, and the vari-ous contributors, aAndour awesome advisor Professor Lissa Lincoln, for without whom this publication would not exist. I’m also grateful for the life I’ve led that has allowed me the freedom to fully expe-rience life as a student, a military retiree, a wom-an embracing her identity on the margins, and an integral part in the collective liberation from the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

From Arianna,

My journey with Roaches started last year when I was introduced to the 5th and 6th editions. Captivated by the personal poetry and thought-provoking essays that adorned the pages, it became apparent to me that Roaches was more than a publication. There was a powerful sense of community and evidence of a vital radical platform that resided at its core. And as a first-year university student embarking on a new journey in a new country - this resonated deeply.

At the center of my advocacy is an emphasis on community and radical love. Central to my personal mission of utilizing art as a vehicle for archiving the past and envisioning the future, I hope for Roaches to embody just that. The platform to encourage the expression of voice, opinion, lived experiences, and comradery - has become crucial to this publication’s legacy. The diverse personal narratives of our community members is the basis of our initiatives. It is in our hands to preserve this and maintain its momentum. It is our duty to amplify.

Throughout the creation of this edition, I have been privileged to witness the unwavering dedication and support of our editorial team. The collaborative efforts of this issue have been an absolute joy to experience. As we move forward and continue to grow as a publication and community, we hold dear to us the notion of seeking survival in community.

From the both of us,

Wewant to dedicate this issue to the collaborative efforts of marginalized spaces that use their marginality as a site of resistance. Roaches has become and is at its roots, that space where we utilize art, words, and collaborative creativity as modes of resistance. We invite you to read and enjoy this issue in hopes of igniting the same transformative change expressed in the works of bell hooks and Audre Lorde.

From us to you, thank you.

My parents gave me endless pieces of who I am, of what I know—fragments of knowledge ranging from how to tie my shoes and look both ways when crossing the road, to driving a car and sorting my lights from my darks. However, I also stole pieces they unknowingly left for me—stealing my mom’s love of gold for I wished to look as beautiful as she did when adorning it, stealing my dad’s humor, he was the funniest person I knew.

I swiftly became a diligent learner, a perfect student, silently observing every move they made. For they were my parents, my earliest teachers. So when my grandfather passed

and my mom concealed her tear-streaked face from me, perhaps revealing her grief only in the darkest hours of night, or when my father mourned his mother, never shedding a single tear before me, I stole that too. For I was a diligent learner, a perfect student, silently observing even the moments they didn’t want to teach me.

To this day, I remain uncertain of how to mourn. If it were an exam, I’d likely fail. Yet, I know there’s no prescribed method, no rules on expressing sorrow, but I know you must do something. You must feel something and allow your emotions to navigate you through the journey of healing. When I lost my aunt, three years after my grandfather, I felt nothing. Not borne of resentment but alike to numbness. I didn’t know how to feel, how I was expected to feel. It was a void, but one that didn’t produce sadness or engulf me, just a void

but one that didn’t produce sadness or engulf me, just a void. Yet I willed myself to weep because I cherished my aunt, and death had claimed her. But the tears never came. I then willed myself to scream because death didn’t deserve her. But my throat always seemed dry. I willed myself to rage because at least then I would feel something. But who was I really mad at?

I suppose in all the years my parents were teaching me, I became too good a student.

I wonder if I’ll be able to mourn them.

Tongue tangled in plum wine and pomegranates

Bloody and swollen they sit beneath the ink of my pupils pooling pits

Stretched into a leer

Wrapped in feral epiphany a vicious spell of consumption sings with the laughter tearing itself into A keening reverence taking me as I caress my throat with lovers devotion, feeding a plesant ache where my gums meet bone

Greed, my language and spear, I pour

Glutinous for my self seduction I swallow into my chest words of power I carve into my cheek with sticky fever Predatory with words drenched with a depravity I feed on in gleeful abandon I sink my teeth into soft Reveling in my reﬂection who dances through the stolen eyes of others and grins at me knowlingly

So well owned I am by myself So spoiled inpleasurable things play and Lothe me for it The warmth from my skin catches by Ani Gonzalez Ward

Untitled

I’ve experienced and received my answer

I can’t have the poison in my body any longer It tasted sweet at ﬁrst

But turned my insides black with ash And red with fury

Internal screams ﬂooded my chest with no way out

Silent tears were cried

My heart drowned in a toxin all too familiar

I felt as though no time had passed since I last enjoyed this process

Sorrow and self punishment ﬁlled the air the next morning

Nearly impossible to stop the sickness from spreading

I’m reminded of the saying once bitten, twice bitten

I decide right then and there I will never be bitten again

I received my answer and let it go for good

by Hannah Turner

Through the Lens of Color: Biases of Western Epistemologies

by Lily Mildenberger

In Western philosophy, the dominant tradition prioritizes the sense of sight as the primary tool for categorizing and understanding the body. The Western tradition of privileging visual perception leads to the categorization of bodies based on salient characteristics, which are considered objective. This emphasis on visual perception can be drawn in metaphor to the way color is often constructed as objective despite being subjective and context-dependent. Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí’s 2005

work, African Gender Studies, critiques this ocular-centric approach, arguing that it limits our understanding of gender and fails to consider non-Western epistemologies and gender structures.

The most common method of acquiring knowledge in Western philosophy, is through observation, particularly sight. Plato gave special importance to sight and even called it “divine” (Jütte 35). He preferred rational senses like vision and hearing over the “lower senses” such as taste,

touch, and smell, which he thought were more subjective and linked to bodily reactions (Schellekens). Aristotle also ranked the senses, with vision being the most important, followed by hearing, smell, taste, and touch. In the 15th Century, the “Gutenberg Revolution” marked a shift from oral and auditory culture to written and visual culture in Europe, making vision the most prominent way of acquiring knowledge, through written texts and visual representations (McLuhan). Even in modern Western museums, the artwork is typically protected by security tape and guards to be observed and explained by experts (Hutmacher 10), rather than touched or smelled. Rather than using touch to explore the intricacies and flaws of the art, we are expected to gain value and appreciation through visual analysis. These are just a few examples that illustrate how vision has remained the primary

means of acquiring knowledge in the Western philosophical tradition.

Not only is the emphasis on vision evident in philosophical history but it is also reinforced by the widespread belief that seeing is the most complex and significant sense. This ocularcentrism, as Martin Jay coined in the 1980s (Blundell et al. 3), is further reinforced in the sciences where “there are more studies on visual memory than studies on the memory of all other sensory modalities combined” (Hutmacher 4). Conversely, studies on auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and haptic memory are relatively scarce (4). This limited exploration of other senses may reinforce the notion that seeing is the primary way of observing and categorizing sensory information.

Our vision is not completely infallible, even the neurological mechanisms underlying our sight cannot always be trusted, particularly when

it comes to our perception of color. Despite its importance in our daily lives, color cannot be used as an entirely objective way of categorizing the world since objects themselves do not have inherent color. Instead, they reflect light wavelengths that our brains process and interpret as color. Color consistency refers to our brain’s ability to perceive colors as constant across different lighting conditions (Salowe 1). For instance, a banana will appear bright yellow under both dark and daylight conditions, thanks to our brain’s ability to adjust its perception of color based on the surrounding light source. Although the banana’s color appears constant, in reality, it is our brain’s interpretation of the light wavelengths that gives us this impression, rather than the object itself possessing a stable color. This example shows that even something as ubiquitous as color is not an objective visual fact.

The concept of “worldview” is often used to describe the cultural logic of a society, but according to Oyĕwùmí, using this term to describe non-Western cultures that may privilege senses other than sight is Eurocentric (3). Just as Western constructions of the body are often seen as universal, Western color conceptions are as well. In 2018, a study was conducted to examine how different languages code detailed stimuli into each of the five Aristotelian sensory modalities. The study investigated 20 different languages, including three unrelated sign languages, and found that smell was poorly coded in most languages. However, the study showed that there is no universal hierarchy of senses (Majid et al.). This demonstrates the ways in which visual primacy’s universality is not an objective fact and should be considered in philosophical and bodily work. In regards to color conceptions, the Candoshi tribe in the center of Peru doesn’t have a word for the concept of col-

or. In Surrallés’ work in the Amazonian tribe, he found that the Candoshi don’t have “reliable descriptors for the basic colors in the world around them. Candoshi children don’t learn the colors of the rainbow because their community doesn’t have words for them” (Jones 2). Previous cross-cultural studies have also found differences in categorical perception as a function of differences in linguistic categorization. One study on the Himba language suggested that the poor color memory displayed by participants reflects a lack of education and experience with man-made colors, rather than simply a lack of an extensive color vocabulary (Roberson & Hanley, 3). In essence, people’s exposure to different visual cues and colors can affect how color is categorized and associated.

Our ability to use visual cues, such as color, to distinguish between items

and infer their properties is incredibly useful in everyday life. For example, we can quickly determine whether a piece of fruit is moldy or safe to eat simply by looking at it. This ability to make judgments and associations through sight allows us to distinguish between different objects and materials (Fleming, 3). But occasionally, we may look at a perfectly ripe fruit and cut it open to find a rotten center. If we had felt or smelled the fruit this may have prevented a visual perception error. Moreover, the Western philosophical tradition’s emphasis on vision as the dominant sense may not adequately account for the ways in which we categorize objects based on their visible features, which can sometimes lead to erroneous categorization.

Our sense of sight plays a critical role in how we categorize and assign value to different materials and objects. Although cognitive scientists accept that sensory information can often be ambiguous

or incomplete, leaving us with an incomplete picture of external reality (Blundell et al. 3), visual features continue to dominate social and political value systems.

Fleming articulates: “Precious metals and gemstones are not especially useful, yet they command high prices, largely because of their lustrous appearance” (5). We spend large sums of money on precious gemstones not only because they are beautiful, but also because of the associations they have with wealth and high status. They have a pre-determined value based on their appearance, regardless of their actual functionality. This emphasis on visual appearance in assigning value is also evident in Western conceptions of identity. Oyĕwùmí examines this in Chapter 1 of the work

African Gender Studies: Visualizing the Body: “The reason that the body has so much presence in the West is that the world is primarily perceived by sight. The dif-

ferentiation of human bodies in terms of sex, skin color, and cranium size is a testament to the powers attributed to “seeing.” The gaze is an invitation to differentiate” (2). This raises an interesting question: If the entire world were blind, how would we discriminate against others? Would we discriminate based on the sound of their voice, the texture of their skin, or their scent?

This example demonstrates the significant influence of the Western gaze on social categories, which is a central theme in Oyĕwùmí’s work. She highlights how visualization can limit gender approaches, citing Chodorow’s argument that “We have begun from the assumption that gender is always a salient feature of social life, and we do not have a theoretical approach that emphasizes sex similarities over differences” (15). In pre-colonial Yorùbá society, males and females were not ranked according to anatomic distinction, and the body was not the basis

of social thought and identity (Oyĕwùmí 12). However, with the infusion of Western notions, the Yorùbá culture has assumed the Western construction as universal (10). Experimental evidence supports human observers’ ability to recognize and categorize materials (Fleming 1), but what about categorizing humans, who are arguably the same material? When creating cognitive schemas of organization, if two categories are perceived as different, such as men and women, this requires focusing on what sets them apart visually rather than what is similar. Without this automatic separation of the body, we may be compelled to acknowledge our similarities instead.

The act of differentiating gender based on prominent physical features lays the foundation for gendered power structures. Oyĕwùmí underscores the rise of patriarchy as a result of “a differ-

ence rooted in the visual, a difference that cannot be reduced to biology and that has to be understood as being constituted within particular historical and social realities” (15). This is exemplified by historical attitudes toward the female body. In the early 16th century, women were often labeled as witches based on bodily markers that were interpreted as signs of demonic practices by figures such as Kramer. “Any blemish, mole, wart, or other unusual traits, including protruding nipples or enlarged clitorises, could be designated as a “witches mark,” leading to the imprisonment and execution of many women by male inquisitors who deemed these markers as evidence of witchcraft (Cleghorn 5). Debord and Foucault have also critically examined spectacle and surveillance as long-term elements in an intensification of political and social control throughout history (Blundell et al. 4). This visual enforcement of power not only derives from the act of seeing but also

the authority bestowed upon those who hold the knowledge and pass judgment.

The Western judicial power is situated with the male gaze, which assigns value to all bodies except the viewers. Oyĕwùmí highlights this emphasis on the object and viewer through the nature of distance in seeing: “To get the proper view, we take the proper distance,” highlighting the passive nature of sight where the subject of the gaze is passive. They connect the distance of seeing to objectivity and the lack of engagement between the “I” and the subject, the self, and the other (15). In the West, male observations are the primary source of epistemologies for organizing gender and social categories. In Western conceptions of gender, women are often colored by male perception, and their bodies are defined and structured as objective facts based on observation, much like viewing colors

objectively. Ironically enough, the prevalence of color blindness in men is around 5 to 8 percent, while in women the prevalence is only 0.5% to 1.0% (Mandal). Thiscanbedrawninmetaphortothewaysinwhichmen’sperceptionhasdominated visual epistemologies despite being “errored” in many ways.

The Western tradition of prioritizing visual perception as the primary tool for understanding and categorizing the body results in the construction of salient characteristics as objective, which limits our understanding of gender. This ocular-centric approach is similar to how color is often constructed as objective despite being subjective and context-dependent. Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí’s critique of this approach in her work, African Gender Studies, highlights the need to consider non-Western epistemologies and gender structures for a more comprehensive understanding of gender and the body.

References

Blundell, Sue, et al. “Introduction. Visuality and Viewing in Ancient Greece and Rome.” Helios, vol. 40, no. 1-2, 2013, pp. 1–14. Spring/Fall.

Cleghorn, Elinor. “Chapter 2: Possessed & Polluting .” Unwell Women: A Journey through Medicine and Myth in a ManMade World, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2022, pp.1–5.

Fleming, Roland W. “Visual Perception of Materials and Their Properties.” Vision Research, vol. 94, 2014, pp. 62–75.

Hutmacher, Fabian. “Why Is There so Much More Research on Vision than on Any Other Sensory Modality?” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, 2019.

Jones, Nicola. “Do You See What I See?” SAPIENS, 9 Feb. 2017.

Jütte Robert. A History of the Senses. Polity, 2005.

Majid, Asifa, et al. “Differential Coding of Perception in the World’s Languages.”Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115, no. 45, 2018,pp.11369–11376.

Mandal, Ananya. “Color Blindness Prevalence.” News, 26 Feb. 2019.

McLuhan, Marshall, et al. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. University of Toronto Press, 2017.

Oyěwùmí Oyèrónkẹ. “ Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects.” African Gender Studies: A Reader, Palgrave, New York, 2005.

Roberson, Debi, and J. Richard Hanley. “Color Vision: Color Categories Vary with Language after All.” Current Biology, vol. 17, no. 15, 200.

Salowe, Rebecca. “R01 Grant

Investigates Color Constancy: Scheie Vision Annual Report 2019.” Pennmedicine.org, Penn Medicine, 2019.

Schellekens, Elisabeth. “Taste and Objectivity: The Emergence of the Concept of the Aesthetic.”

Philosophy Compass, vol. 4, no. 5, 2009, pp. 734–743.

Dear Black Girls,

love, arianna williams

Break-

ing the Cycle of “Othering” by Pu ing Down

“the Master’s Tools”

By Carolyn Franano

I. Introduction

“White” vs “nonWhite”, “Western” vs “non-Western”, “man” vs “woman”, “straight” vs “gay”, “upper class” vs “lower class”, “professionals” vs “workers”, “able-bodied” vs “disabled”, “neurotypical” vs “neurodiverse”: the dominant global epistemology organizes humans into normative and deviant categories. This is a practice known as “othering”, a postcolonial studies term which refers to the practice of classifying a person or people as substandard, creating a dominant “in-group” and a marginalized “out-group”. What makes “othering” such a powerful tool is its ability to create epistemologies which make difference oppositional. It socializes material bodies as a form of social control and domination, categorizing humans into opposing, binary, immutable categories codefined by each other.

“Othering” establishes

social constructs like race, gender, and class, and creates corresponding, intersecting, discriminatory epistemologies like racism, sexism, and classism by assigning value to people based on how separated their existence is from the normative category. This forms systems of oppression that reproduce “othering” by creating socially, politically, economically, and epistemologically dominant groups. The primary example of how “othering” leads to the production and maintenance of systemic oppression is the global racial empire whose power was established by racial “othering” and is preserved through epistemic injustice, a process which academia must counter with comparative political theory.

II. How “Othering” Produces the global racial empire

“Whatever be the characteristics of what we may call

savage life, the con trary of these, or the qualities which soci ety puts on as it throws off these, constitute civiliza tion”

-John Stuart Mill Civilization p. 35

The global racial empire is the world order constructed through slavery and colonialism which, through processes of “othering”, positions colonial powers and people of non-color as “more-than-humans” and Black, Indigenous, and people of color and colonized peoples as “less-than-humans”. It is the epistemological framework of structural oppression, which Iris Marion Young claims is “systematically reproduced in major economic, political, and cultural institutions” because “its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective

consequences of following those rules” (41). “Othering” is the cultural-valuational structure of the institutional social, political, economic, and ecological injustices of racism and colonialism. Young claims that “Groups are real not as substances, but as forms of social relations,” and similarly, Charles Mills writes that “Whiteness is not really a colour at all, but a set of power relations” (Young 44; Mills, The Racial Contract 127). Although social groupings apply to material bodies, the meaning the carry is a social fabrication meant to produce and maintain a system of power and domination. Charles Mills explains that the global system of “white” supremacy formed through slavery and colonialism was established according to the Racial Contract, a set of agreements between a subset of humans designated as “white” to “categorize the remaining subset of humans as ‘nonwhite’ and of a

different moral and inferior moral status, subpersons, so that they have a subordinate civil standing in the white or white-ruled politics” (The Racial Contract 11). The Racial Contract is based on a process of “othering” which positions “Whiteness” as the normative racial category, separating humans into “White” and “non-White”, rather than people of non-color and people of color. Mills argues that race is a social construct established by social, legal, economic and political institutions and “the corresponding habits of ‘self’ and ‘other’ categorization” which divide humans into “those deserving and those undeserving of equal treatment” (“Race and Global Justice” 99, 106).

“Othering” forms the global racial empire by classifying anyone who is not “white” as “the other”, dividing material bodies into “natural” and “deviant,” “more than” and “less than”.

III. How “Othering” Upholds the Global Racial Empire by Reproducing Itself

“I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices”

- Audre Lorde “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

In order to maintain “white”, Western hegemony, “othering” reproduces itself through epistemic injustice. Hegemony serves not only to keep people under an oppressive structure, but also to keep them under an oppressive culture that supports the structure. Young

identifies 5 faces of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. She explains that different groups, and individuals within those groups, experience different levels, variations, and combinations of these forms of oppression, but she claims that almost all, if not all, oppressed groups experience cultural imperialism (Young 64). According to Young, “Culturally imperialist groups project their own values, experience, and perspective as normative and universal. Victims of cultural imperialism are thereby rendered invisible as subjects, as persons with their own perspective and group-specific experience and interests” (123). Cultural imperialism is a type of epistemic injustice, a concept theorized by Miranda Fricker which analyzes knowledge-related injustice by treating “knowers” as socially situated. In addition to

being socially, politically, and economically hegemonic, the global racial empire produced by “othering” is also a system of epistemological domination. “Othering” creates a hierarchical system of power which places certain groups in a dominant position which those groups then use to propagate narratives which preserve their position of power. Describing this process of cultural imperialism, Young writes, “Thedominant group reinforces its position by bringing the other groups under the measure of its dominant norms. Consequently, the difference of women from men, American Indians or Africans from Europeans, Jews from Christians, homosexuals from heterosexuals, workers from professionals, becomes reconstructed largely as deviance and inferiority. Since only the dominant group’s cultural expressions receive

wide dissemination, their cultural expressions become the normal, or the universal, and thereby the unremarkable. Given the normality of its own cultural expressions and identity, the dominant group constructs the differences which some groups exhibit as lack and negation. These groups become marked as Other” (59).

A world order built through “othering” is the antithesis of pluralism. Its power comes from making difference oppositional and hierarchical, and its dominance comes from its ability to use its power to reproduce and naturalize this constructed hierarchy of oppositional differences through cultural imperialism.

Cultural imperialism is perpetuated by epistemicide, another form of epistemic injustice which marginalizes the voices and stories of one group in

order to uphold the dominant group’s narrative. Epistemicide is a postcolonial studies term developed by Sociologist Boaventura De Sousa Santos which refers to the eradication, erasure, or devaluation of a knowledge system. Santos refers to the dominant groups of the world order as the “global North” and the groups they oppress as the “global South”. These categories are not geographic, but epistemological. As explained by Santos, “The epistemologies of the South concern the production and validation of knowledges anchored in the experiences of resistance of all those social groups that have systematically suffered injustice, oppression, and destruction caused by capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy” (Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire 1). The epistemologies of the South are the lived knowledges of the global struggle against resistance and oppression which Santos calls

the anti-imperial South, and they are produced in the geographical North and South. According to Santos, the global North commits epistemicide against the global South by producing the epistemologies of the South as nonexistent, “either because they are not produced according to accepted or even intelligible methodologies or because they are produced by absent subjects, subjects deemed incapable of producing valid knowledge due to their subhuman condition or nature” (Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire 2). “Othering” creates a dominant “in group”—the global North— and a marginalized “out group”—the global South. This creates a cycle of oppression by giving the global North the power to imperialistically propagate epistemologies which reinforce the global South’s position as the “other”. “Othering” provided the framework for the Racial Contract which

justified the oppression and domination of slavery and colonialism, which then created the global racial empire, leading to cultural imperialism and epistemicide like Eurocentrism, which then reproduces the “othering” of the Racial Contract, perpetuating further racial oppression and “white”, Western domination and the strengthening of the global racial empire, continuing the cycle of “othering”.

IV. Putting Down the “Master’s Tools”

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes

reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. F For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable

us to bring about genuine change”

- Audre Lorde “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

“Othering” is a powerful hegemonic tool because it creates a hierarchy of knowledge that allows dominant groups to render the oppressed, invisible and power relations, “natural”. The global racial empire’s hierarchy of knowledge is

exemplified by mainstream political thought’s exclusion of the epistemologies of the South. Santos and Mills have criticized dominant critical theory for being Eurocentric and “raceless”. Santos, for example, observes that the realities of the global South are actively “ignored or made invisible, that is, deemed nonexistant by the Eurocentric critical tradition” (Epistemologies of the South 44). He argues that critical theory often uses the framework of the oppressor to create theory to liberate those they oppress. Mills echoes this claim, writing, “the ‘whiteness’ of ideal theory draws a curtain over the past and focuses instead on the depiction of an ideally just order that supposedly has the potential for addressing everybody’s concerns” (“Race and Global Justice” 113). The majority of mainstream political thought is produced from a universalizing Western perspective by “white” authors

who uphold the Racial Contract by failing to address the global racial empire. The production and dissemination of knowledge is inherently political. The marginalization of post-colonial studies and critical race theory demonstrates that prevailing political thought reflects Northern epistemologies. In the words of Santos, “Herein lies the crucial role of the epistemologies of the North in contributing to reproducing capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. They conceive of the Eurocentric epistemological North as the only source of valid knowledge” (Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire 6). Dominant academia suppresses the epistemologies of the South by disproportionately placing value on the epistemologies of the North in order to quell the threat that the lived knowledges of the anti-imperial South pose to the preservation of the global racial empire. In her

essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, Audre Lorde writes, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable”. Controlling knowledge is a strategy for maintaining power. Epistemic injustice upholds the global racial empire, and its intersecting systems of oppression, by disempowering and discrediting oppressed people as knowers. According to Santos, epistemic injustice against the global South blocks “the possibility that such struggles contribute to expanding and deepening the global horizon of social emancipation—the very idea that another world is possible” (Santos, The End of the Cognitive Empire 9). The suppression of emancipatory thought is crucial to the continuity of the

the exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence perpetrated by the global racial empire. Dismantling the hierarchy of knowledge produced by “othering” must start by transforming the dominant approach to the critical theory of power relations.

Breaking the global racial empire’s cycle of “othering” requires putting down “the master’s tools” and amplifying the voices of the anti-imperial South by embracing comparative political theory. Melissa Williams writes that comparative political theory is “the inclusion of historically marginalized and ‘non-Western’ thought in the way we define the parameters of political theory” (1). The transition to comparative political theory Williams advocates for is characterized by its positioning of “non-Western” thought as a fundamental part critical theory rather

than an afterthought or subgenre. This task requires resisting “othering” by bringing the epistemologies of the South into the dominant public sphere. In Santos’ words, “The objective of the epistemologies of the South is to allow the oppressed social groups to represent the world as their own and in their own terms, for only thus will they be able to change it according to their own aspirations” (The End of the Cognitive Empire 1). Comparative political theory’s capacity to produce truly emancipatory critical thought is dependent on reaffirming the value of the lived knowledges of the anti-imperial South. According to Mellissa Williams and James Tully, it also requires reparochializing political thought which entails critically assessing “the thought that generated and sustains a now-globalized modernity, reproducing its systems of domination” by “recognizing that the truths we

hold to be self-evident and universal have arisen within a sociohistorically specific context” (7). Countering global systemic oppression requires both amplifying the epistemologies of the South and challenging the epistemologies of the North. This is a process that demands an epistemic break that can be brought about using Santos’ sociology of absences which proposes “turning absent subjects into present subjects as the foremost condition for identifying and validating knowledges that may reinvent social emancipation and liberation” (The End of the Cognitive Empire 2). The sociology of absences resists epistemic injustice by recognizing that the “non-existent” epistemologies of the South are actively produced to be invisible by the epistemologies of the North. The sociology of absences is a method of reparochializing political thought because it puts knowledge back in the place

it came from. Mainstream political thought cannot continue to reproduce “othering” and reinforce structural oppression by approaching political theory from a singular, unchallenged, universalizing Western perspective; comparative political theory must become the dominant theoretical approach to the study of power relations.

IV. Conclusion

The economic, social, and political inequalities and injustices of the global racial empire must be rectified through redistribution, recognition, and representation. However, because the foundation of the global racial empire is epistemological, this process must begin with recognition. In order to challenge systemic oppression, it must first be understood. Epistemic injustice like cultural imperialism and epistemicide renders the experiences,

knowledge, and realities of the oppressed, unintelligible. This preserves systems of oppression by blocking the emancipatory power of the anti-imperial global South. Recognition through comparative political theory does not aim to eliminate difference altogether, it aims to promote pluralism by challenging the framework of “othering” which positions difference as oppositional. Creating a truly pluralist society entails much more than toleration of difference; it requires using difference as an emancipatory tool. Racism, colonialism, misogyny, heterosexism, capitalism, classism, and ableism are all intertwined oppressive systems, and breaking these cycles of “othering” requires putting down the “master’s tools” and allowing the voices of those who have experienced systemic exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence to inform political thought.

Works Cited

Audre, Lorde. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, 1st ed., W. W. Norton and Company, 2020.

Mill, John Stuart. “Civilization.” The London and Westminster Review, Apr. 1836.

Mills, Charles W. “Race and Global Justice.” Empire, Race, and Global Justice, Cambridge UP, 2019, pp. 94–119. doirg/10.1017/9781108576307.

Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 1997.

Santos, Boaventura De Sousa. Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. Paradigm Pub, 2014.

Santos, Boaventura De Sousa. The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Duke UP, 2076, https:// doi.org/10.1215/9781478002000.

Williams, Melissa S. “Introduction: The Practice of Deparochializing Political Theory.”

Deparochializing Political Theory, edited by Melissa S. Williams, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020, pp. 1–24. https://doi. org/10.1017/978110863504.

Young, Iris Marion. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton UP, 2011, https:// doirg/10.1515d/9781400839902.

Social psychologists dating back to the early 20th century began theorizing about the nature of attachment between parent and child. They have since categorized the types of attachment and parenting and asserted an ideal type in each respective group. Later research has relied on these archetypes to identify familial variables affecting the formation of secure attachment in children. Most notably, social psychologists Chris Fraley, Quitaba Agbaraia, and Feyza Ucar Cabuk (among others) have asserted that the blood relation between parent and child as well as the number of people in a household are critical factors in understanding attachment. However, the validity of their conclusions can be questioned due to their omission of the cultural differences associated with these demographic groups and the push for heterosexual

Plastic Leis

By Emma Sacayan

Last summer as I was kicking sand on a Los Angeles beach

Looking out at the darkening sea, I skipped between beer cans to driftwood

And I caught myself in a trance at a family celebrating their newest graduate,

Where my eyes fell upon the plastic lei he wore while smiling with his diploma.

No grumble said by my professor

Could send me more instantly into the past.

A past where I sat a beach, On the island of Maui,

Overhearing my father’s plans for my grandmother’s funeral. I would remember the smell and sounds of the native flowers and birds, As they freely raced up dormant volcanos.

But I fear there are not enough synonyms in Webster’s dictionary To describe my embarrassment Of witnessing two haole girls walk past wearing leis with plastic flowers.

But I fear there are not enough synonyms in Webster’s dictionary To describe my embarrassment Of witnessing two haole girls walk past wearing leis with plastic flowers

I’ve seen these girls before, overheard their conversations

About the astonishment of the paradise, they found on this little island.

I’ve been watching them happily sipping mai tais, shaking their hips, and skinny dipping in the Pacific.

Where do they think they are?

I wonder if they found in this paradise; A way to make the native families less melancholy, The Cancer less fatal, The Saddness less painful.

My cousins and I would eventually row canoes out into the illuminated sea; Dumping the ashes; Her brown eyes, Her thick black hair, And the rest of her body that only stood five feet tall. Then, finally, we removed our hibiscus leis, freshly picked and made the night before, And threw them into the ocean to follow her ashes into the currents.

When we brought out boats in, And I saw the haole girls again. And I watched them duplicate, As they threw their plastic leis into the Pacific.

Styles of Attachment and the Default of the Nuclear Family

By Madison Ponder

nuclear families as a norm in society. Social psychology, in its desire to increase control in experiments, has put the primary focus of analysis on the individual, rather than their societal context. In doing so, studies in the realm of social psychology are prone to perpetuating the narrative that certain demographic groups are more socially apt than others. The danger of universalist constructs becomes glaringly obvious when it comes to psychologists’ theory of attachment and the family unit.

The majority of literature surrounding the study of attachment has been based on the original studies of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Bowlby, in the late 1950s, first outlined the three categories of attachment: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Ainsworth later divided the final category into two

parts, dismissive-avoidant and fearful-avoidant (Cassidy, Jude, et al). The psychologists pointed to the level of anxiety and the degree to which people avoid relationships as the main factors deciding what category of attachment individuals fall within. They have concluded that the ideal attachment style possesses low anxiety and avoidance when it comes to forming new relationships and interacting with others (Cassidy, Jude, et al). Later studies on attachment have adhered to the four attachment styles that Bowlby and Ainsworth proposed.

Regarding the approach to forming attachments, psychologists have identified four main parenting styles: authoritative, permissive, authoritarian, and uninvolved/neglectful. The first three were proposed by psychologist, Diana Baumrind, in the 1960s.

Psychologists Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin added the final category two decades later (Sanvictores and Mendez). What differs between the various types of parenting is the degree of obedience demanded from the child and how much attention is paid overall to said child. Psychologists argue that the ideal parenting type to ensure the formation of secure attachments is that of the authoritative parent (Sanvictores and Mendez). This is because the parents following this method of parenting will instill a strong sense of responsibility within the child while still allowing them structured spaces for creativity and decision-making. As a result, psychologists push for parents to use this style.

Later research surrounding the theory has focused on how various familial traits affect attach-

ment, primarily blood relation and family size. Psychologists, in their advocation of secure attachment, have pushed the heterosexual nuclear family as an ideal in social psychology through their framing of these variables. The first factor, blood relation, is deeply problematic, as it labels certain types of parents as unfit. Psychologists Chris Fraley and Phillip Shaver argue that children are more likely to form secure attachment styles if their parents possess a high emotional attachment to their child. However, they claim that non-blood-related parents do not form as strong of connections with their children. Their evidence for this is that step-fathers are more likely to murder their step-children than their biological fathers (Fraley & Shaver page 140). There are two problems with this claim: first, the reliance on murder statistics as a

measure of a attachment and second, the characterization of adoptive parents as unsafe.

The first is that comparing murder statistics to characterize connections misleads the reader into seeing step-parents in a negative light. The comparison of murder rates is less convincing when shadowed by the knowledge that all murders are more likely to be committed by someone the victim knows than by a stranger (Smith). By the logic of the psychologists, it could then be argued that children are more likely to form a secure attachment with a stranger than with either their biological or step-parent. The psychologists’ characterization of this study becomes doubly problematic when it is considered how claiming non-blood-relation negatively affects attachment labels many groups of

potential parents as unfit. In doing so, psychologists instill social taboos about remarrying and adoptive parents. Fraley’s and Shaver’s main point in advocating for biological parents was a safety concern. However, stating that children are unsafe around non-biological caregivers gives the impression that some social groups (for example, many queer couples) will always be a danger to children because they cannot biologically reproduce. As a result, Fraley and Shaver reinforce the standard of heterosexual long-term coupling.

The propagation of universalist conclusions, like biological parents being more bonded to children, is a common act in the realm of social psychology. Eva Magnusson and Jeanne Marecek, in Feminism, Psychologies, and the Study of Social Life, explain that “psychologists’

explanations and theories are typically couched in language that suggests that they apply to all human beings everywhere” (page 27). However, in making such claims, psychologists obscure contextual factors and focus solely on the individual (Magnusson and Marecek page 23). In this perspective, the individual is conceived to be the determining factor in their life’s course and general well-being. This is problematic as an individualist viewpoint can lead to individuals being perceived as the cause of social inequalities as they have “freely chosen the circumstances they are in” (Magnusson and Marecek page 25). One good example of this is the framing of multigenerational families as a danger to the formation of secure attachment.

The heterosexual long-term coupling as a universal ideal is once again

pushed in the study attachment regarding the framing of family size as a variable.

Psychologists Quitaba Agbaria, Fayez Mahamid, et al in their study of multigenerational families in Palestine, and Feyza Ucar Cabuk, Serdal Seven, et al in their study of family structure in Turkey, have argued that smaller families, rather than multigenerational households, are more likely to produce children with secure attachment styles. Their reasoning is easier for the children to more deeply bond with the parents if they are not simultaneously forming bonds with other caregivers (Ucar Cabuk, Seven, et al, page 223). The psychologists further argue that parents in multigenerational households are more likely to be authoritarian in their parenting styles to establish their position in the home as the primary caregiver to their children (Agbaria, Mahamid, et al, page

4). They perceive this more aggressive parenting to be the cause for the lack of attachment between parent and child. However, such claims are garnered from an individualist perspective, and reframing the study from a contextual view may reveal more accurate causes for the lack of secure attachment in children from multigenerational households.

A closer analysis of the two studies reveals a variable that was not considered an obstacle to forming a secure attachment: wealth. In the study of Palestinian families, the wealth status of the families is not considered throughout the study as a factor. The Turkish study has similar problems, but

it at least provides an income breakdown of the families studied. The graph showed that there is a greater proportion of multigenerational families in the lower to middle-income bracket than for nuclear families (Ucar Cabuk, Seven, et al, page 224). The reason why this may be the reason for insecure attachments in multigenerational families because parents of a lower income status must dedicate more of their time to working and less to their child. This may also explain why children form less strong attachments, as parenting tasks have to be divided between more people whereas parents with a steady income can focus more time and effort on their children.

The characterization of multigeneration households as ill-equipped to raise secure children is a broader trend in psycholo-

gy of a lack of critical analysis regarding income status. Katy Day, Bridgette Rickett, and Maxine Woolhouse in their article, “Towards a Critical Social Psychology of Social Class”, explain that there is a tendency for working-class individuals to be blamed for their social position and health status in the realm of psychology (page 474). This is because social psychology sees the individual as being in control of their position rather than at the mercy of systematic factors. In the case of insecure attachment in the children of multigenerational families, psychologists attribute the poor development to the ineptitude of the parents, rather than the true reason of them not having the financial capability to dedicate their full attention to the emotional development of their children. Day, Rickett, and Woolhouse articulate that, “those from middle-class

backgrounds may have already acquired a level of financial security and material resources that enables them to direct their attention away from meeting basic needs towards ‘growth and self-expression’” (page 473). By ignoring this fact, psychologists give the impression that working-class parents produce ill-adjusted children because they have poor value systems, instead of being forced to sacrifice emotional development for the fulfillment of basic needs. Such characterizations are dangerous, as they can be used to justify government intervention in the family for the sake of the child. We see this justification in the Canadian’s governments immoral treatment of indigenous children.

The push for the nuclear family by psychologists is what led to the Canadian government sepera-

ting indigenous children from their families. Beginning in the 19th century, psychologists began asserting that the multigenerational families, which were commonplace in the indigenous communities, produced children ill-adjusted to Canadian culture (Choate and Torterelli page 4). Per the psychologists’ guidance, the Canadian government began “rehoming” indigenous children starting in the 1890s and lasting through the 1960s. As a result, over 200,000 indigenous children were taken from their families and forced into Indian Residential Schools or foster care (Choate and Torterelli page 4). However, rehoming the indigenous accomplished the opposite of the Canadian government’s intention. Both the Indian Residential Schools and the foster homes were found to ultimately disadvantage the development of the child-

ren and were known to have higher mortality and abuse rates than the indigenous families (Choate and Torterelli page 5). This would have been avoided if psychologists considered the importance of cultural context when raising a child, rather than uncritically labeling the nuclear family as the universal ideal. Because of the propagation of the nuclear family as the standard in Canadian communities, countless indigenous children lost their lives and homes.

The theory of attachment, as it has been presented so far in psychological research, has pushed the heterosexual nuclear family as a societal standard. Through the assertion that blood relations and small households are necessary for developing secure attachment, psychologists have characterized adoptive parents and

multigenerational households as ill-fit for children. However, such conclusions have largely been made from a universal individualistic perspective and inversely made contextual variables, like wealth, absent from understanding. By ignoring social barriers, psychologists are prone to falsely attributing social inequalities to individual choices. This is problematic as the reasoning of psychologists has been adopted by governments to justify intervention on behalf of protecting well-being. We have seen this in Canada’s treatment of indigenous communities where officials justified the separation of children based on psychologists’ claims of multigenerational families producing illadjusted children. Their actions ultimately undermined the development of the children, as the locations where the children were rehomed had

had higher rates of mortality and abuse. To avoid further societal pushes for adherence to harmful universal standards, future research on theories of attachment must be presented within their cultural context.

Bibliography

Agbaria, Q., Mahamid, F., & Veronese, G. (2021). “The Association Between Attachment Patterns and Parenting Styles With Emotion Regulation Among Palestinian Preschoolers”. SAGE Open, 11(1). https://doi.

Cassidy, Jude, et al. “Contributions of Attachment Theory and Research: A Framework for Future Research, Translation, and Policy.” Development and Psychopathology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2013, www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC4085672/.

Choate, Peter. & Tortorelli, Christina. (2022) “Attachment Theory: A Barrier for Indigenous Children Involved with Child Protection.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health vol. 19,14 8754. doi:10.3390/ ijerph19148754

Day, K. Rickett, B. & Woolhouse, M. (2017). “Towards a Critical Social Psychology of Social Class”. The Palgrave Handbook, 469-489.

Fraley, R.C., & Shaver, P.R. (2000). “Adult Romantic Attachment: Theoretical Developments, Emerging Controversies, and Unanswered Questions.” Review of General Psychology, 4(2), 132-154.

Magnusson, E. & Marecek, J. (2017).“Feminism, psychology, and the Study of Social Life”. The Palgrave Handbook, 17-35.

Sanvictores, Terrence, and Magda Mendez. “Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children - StatpearlsNCBI ...” National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls Publishing, Sept. 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov/books/NBK568743/.

Smith, Erica. “Female Murder Victims and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2021.” Bureau of Justice Statistics, Dec. 2022, bjs.ojp.gov/female-murder-victims-and-victim-offender-relationship-2021.

Uçar Çabuk, F., Seven, S., Ildız, G. İ., Yeşilyurt, F., & Seven, Z. D. (2021). A study of the attachment stability of children living in different family types (A longitudinal study of children from the age of 6 to 11). International Journal of Psychology and Educational Studies, 8(3), 222-229. https://dx.doi.org/10.52380/ ijpes.2021.8.3.525

Donatella Jackson:

An Artist Capturing the Essence of the African American Experience

In the world of art, colors, dance, and emotions come together to create captivating portraits that reflect the African American experience. Donatella Jackson is a visionary painter who captures the essence of her subjects with unparalleled depth and authenticity. Her craft is rooted in her deep connection to her heritage and her innate sense of intuition. She draws inspiration from the rich cultural mosaic of African American history and her own experiences to create stunning masterpieces.

Donatella’s journey as an artist began in the world around her, not in the confines of a studio. During the pandemic, she discovered new ways to harness the power of her intuition and breathe life into her canvases. Her work is infused with vibrant hues that go beyond mere representation and embody the spirit of resistance, resilience, revolution, and activism. She aims to give young Black women and men positive representation through her favorite mediums.

Donatella is dedicated to amplifying voices from those who inhabit the margins of society, and her work beautifully embodies the Roaches theme in every way. Her extensive portfolio is a testament to the resilience and richness of African American culture, making a bold statement within the pages of a magazine dedicated to celebrating diversity and inclusivity. We are honored to feature Donatella’s work and are excited to share her vision with our readers.

The Girl Who Burned Bright

by Madison Ponder by Clay Wilson

Graphics

There was a girl who always smiled She told me cigarette-stained lies

And drew pictures with the smoke

Her messages were brief

Muttered in a single breath

And carried away with the wind

Her secrets were like ash

Discarded, dirty, despicable

A mark on the world

Flicked away before they fell upon deaf ears

She told me how the world burned red

Before it was reduced to grey

She welcomed the heat

Even if it scalded her skin

So when the embers reignited She eagerly lept into the ﬂames

And as she was consumed by the ﬁre She reached for me and asked Would I like to burn too?

La expereincia

For years you laugh—

At my eyebrows or my arm hair, self hatred etched into my heart with the same force as the scribbled doodles on my wooden desk.

And while you laugh, the voices fight for dominance: One charged with the nostalgia of the homeland, one defending the new home. Which one will lull me?

Does loyalty bleed through borders? The air feels different in this Western world, No smells invite themselves into the home of my nose, Dancing between the rich smell of meat or the sweetness of pan dulce.

Just the stale and uncomfortable American breeze, It leaves a taste in my mouth that makes me afraid that I will never taste again.

I am afraid, for I am not like them, I am an eagle in a world of seagulls. I fly as high as possible,

Hoping my solitude protects the orange moon in my chest. For eternity, I stood alone

Like a wolf at the top of a hill, Longing slicing its way through the tough skin I had grown myself—deeper and deeper until the crimson glint of my lost pride blossomed like the reddest rose of Jalisco. I start to see beauty in myself the way I see beauty in Frida.

Soy el nopal, I’ve come to realize.

The spines I’ve grown myself are for those who watered me long ago, pero por la raza,

My flowers will bloom for years to come. The differences we exhibit are beautiful. I am proud of my eyebrows and arm hair.

by Emi Martinez Majdišová

fuego y agua

oh you are the sun, the arms you raise to the earth every day guide us in our day’s journey. the burning smell of love (or is it familiarity?) crawls into my nose and forces its way into my throat. at every moment i long for your fiery warmth, i smell and taste and crave it— i do not know what to do with myself. the imminent loss of breath that comes with loving you can hurt, but if anything, it excites me. you are fire i am water how can we touch without me putting you out? oh but our souls, they defy all mortality and physicality. yes our souls, they can touch. they can intertwine, tangle, help me explore every square inch of the coal and wood that my liquid form cannot eat the way you do. like a sun you can burn me, but on the days that i need it most you fill me with incandescent happiness—a sunny, blissful, tropical day in which my feet are in the water (the minnows nibbling at my skin) and my hand is finally in yours. where are those days? when will we see them again? how long has it been cloudy like this?

by Emi Martinez Majdišová

La ceiba

When I say I am one with nature, I mean I am a tree.

Una ceiba.

A tall one, strong one, One that touches the sky and all her stars while grounded on earth, with all her creatures. But like others I was rooted in anger, frustration, mistreatment, isolation. The water my parched roots desperately lap up in moments of loneliness are poisoned with the toxins of the new world. I am a tree, rooted in the hatred of my colonizers, my soul washed away by the icy blues of their eyes. But my ancestors will not let me grow that way. They pull me by my tired branches, so high up that Huitzilopochtli kisses the bark of my skin.

Los elementos me limpian. I am overlooking my surroundings, face-to-face with the other ceibas spreading out every mile or so. How tall we are compared to the invasive weeds that infect la patria.

by Emi Martinez Majdišová

Intersectional Self-Identity through Language and Narrative: A Thematic Analysis of the Importance Bilingualism in the Mexican American Autobiographical Process

by Emi Martinez Majdišova

The first-generation Chicanos, as well as the Mexican-American naturalized immigrants who grew up most of their life in the United States, experience an assimilation process/ childhood much more difficult and much more stigmatized than their white, American peers. Latinos are some of the most likely populations in the US to have lower graduation rates, higher unemployment rates, and make up half of the working class population, as well as other people of color (American Center for Progress, 2023). To understand the Mexican American experience is crucial in order to make future progress in anti-racism, affirmative action in higher education, and social changes beneficial to the Latinx community. So how do we look at this select group of people and connect the dots on the factors that affect their assimilation?

The aspect I think is most imperative, and the one I will be looking at in this paper is how language and bilingualism allows Mexican Americans to

create a narrative identity through the cultural disparities, assimilation process, racist interactions, and their autobiographical process. I will be using Brockmeier’s narrative approach1, as this is the most recent culturally inclusive model for memory recall and sheds new light on the interrelations among memory, self, and culture.

In her study examining the autobiographical writing and interviews of Lupe, an Indigenous Maya Mexican immigrant, Saskias Casanova finds that acculturation can occur under three different pathways: one that assimilates into the host culture completely, one who denies their host culture, and one who has exposure to both, (Casanova, 2012). It goes without saying which one of these pathways can be the most beneficial to first-generation Chicanos as well as Mexican immigrants. However, how does this interplay of languages shape the life

styles and psychology of Chicanos?

Looking at the autobiographical process of Mexican Americans can offer a more cultural understanding of the effects of bilingualism, while also making sense of the chicano/immigrant experience in regards to racism, social disparities, xenophobia, and other constructs. As someone who has written multiple papers on the Mexican American experience, I am excited to be focusing on language as a main factor because I find it to be more vastly misunderstood than nonexistent.

Language isn’t just how we speak, it is how we interact with others in literature and colloquially. It is a form of expression and it is how we create our autobiographical identity to make sense of our lives and the objective world. Hence, it is a crucial aspect in research pertaining to first-generation immigrants,

their assimilation process, and understanding their unique experience.

I want to disclaim that reading through the literature I had chosen filled me with an immense sense of pride, for myself, for my family, and for people like us. The narratives I had chosen were mostly from Chicanos (Mexican Americans) with the exception of a few Mexican immigrants. I find that the recurring themes in the texts analyzing the autobiographical writing and/or interviews of Mexican narratives include: 1) the discrimination and racism endured by the individual or their community, 2) various sources of support, and 3) the resilience process and the individual’s outcomes (Casanova, 2012) ; (Márquez, 1987). In these three themes, we see the cause, the creation of a solution, and the effects. Mexican Americans have proved to be very family/community-oriented, as the collectivist culture from Latin America follows them

to their host country. This is another abundant theme. In Lupe’s writing, she confesses that she had thought multiple times about dropping out of college to find a job and provide for her family (Casanova, 2012).

In order to understand the nuances around the bilingual Mexican American community, I I believe it would be wise to use a narrative approach (Brockmeier, 2015). Autobiographical narratives are verbal elaborations based on conscious remembrances of self-experience. Narratives based on personal experiences are one of the most widespread cultural, cognitive, and linguistic resources used to construct, communicate, and transform autobiographical memories. It is imperative for us as researchers, especially if the researcher isn’t a part of the social group being studied–which is not the case for me luckily–to conceptualize the individual

we’re studying through their self-expressed narrative. Since Mexican culture is collective as opposed to the Western spread of individualism, it is also slightly easier to assume same-community applicability with studies such as this one because other Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants are able to come together and collectively agree on their unique experiences. I will also be using the narrative identity theory, which postulates that individuals form an identity by integrating their life experiences into an internalized, evolving story of the self that provides the individual with a sense of unity and purpose in life. It is inevitably important to keep an open mind, and to connect this Mexican Americans’ hardships with not just bilingualism and intersectionality, but with other social constructs that institute power dynamics and social hierarchies like racism, class, and the educational systems (Casanova, 2012).

BILINGUALISM

IN MEXICAN AMERICAN NARRATIVES

A gap in the literature I found was the lack of concise connection between bilingualism and the Mexican American narrative. Most argue that Chicano narratives are built around bilingualism, but by reading more and more I’ve found bilingualism, rather, is a factor that affects the narrative identity. There were chicanos in the literature I read that were second and hird generation that didn’t speak Spanish, so their self-identities differed from those that were bilingual in the sense that the pride, family-values, imposter syndrome, and resilience process didn’t carry over in the same way. Bilingualism is an aspect that, like being first-generation/immigrant, experiencing racism, most likely living in poverty or working-class conditions, etc. that come together and create the autobiographi-

cal identity. Circling back to Casanova’s three pathways of acculturation, it is interesting to see the difference between them and how that acculturation affects the child’s development and upbringing. There is:

1) ethnic flight–where the immigrant/1st generation child completely merges himself into the host culture, and denies the native/home culture, 2) adversarial stance–where the adolescent only focuses on his or her native cultural values with little interaction with the dominant society, or 3) transcultural identity–when the youth interacts and transitions between the native and the host cultures (Casanova, 2012). Lupe moved to the US not speaking English and experienced much culture shock; however, she tried her best to learn as much English as she could to move up higher in academia. This can be seen as a transition between the adversarial stance into the transcultural identity, and seeing as she ended up being a teacher and an advocate, we can confidently assume the third path-

way can be more beneficial to young Mexican American children.

A key theme in the Mexican American identity is code-switching. Using both languages allows the space to create an identity that Chicanos are more confident in (Bishop, 2006). By switching between both languages, Chicanos are able to use words or phrases in either language that make more pragmatic sense or give a more pragmatic intensity to them. In a recent paper from Professor Gao on Chinese immigrants, a new term was coined that I believe has applicability in my context–double unbelonging (Gao, 2023). In Spanish, there is a phrase many Mexican-American immigrants and first-generation Latinos/ as use to describe themselves and their lives, “ni de aquí, ni de allá”. Nor from here, nor from there. It is used to describe the sense of double unbelonging that they feel in

their native cultures and their host cultures. In the United States, they are too Mexican. But in Mexico, they are too Americanized and Western. Not falling under any category or label can be frustrating and degrading, which is why the creation of a third identity–the Chicano identity–can be helpful for many individuals battling the same constructs. Choosing which word to say in which language is a psychological process only applicable to people of color and immigrants, because their style of speech has been undermined and disregarded as “less-civilized”.

An example of this is the Spanish word for mother and father. In most of the literature I went through, the Chicanos interviewed would say “papá”, “mamá”, “papi” or “mami” as opposed to “mom” or “dad”, even when the language used in the sentence was mostly English. (Nericcio, 1988) ; (Casanova, 2012) ; (Nuñez et. al, 2020). Addi-

tionally, when Lupe decides to call Mexican Americans/ Native Mexicans la raza (the Mexican race), because it is her conscious decision to emphasize the connotation of a Mexican identity, even when the rest of the sentence was in English (Casanova, 2012). The usage of raza is also seen in the Chicano literature analyzed in Marquez’ article, in a poem written half in English, half in Spanish. Furthermore, when discussing host culture and the White American peers of our Mexican American subjects, I, myself, as well as the authors and scholars whose narratives I’ve read, as well as almost all Chicanos and Mexicanos use the word “gringo” (Márquez, 1987). Many Americans find it offensive or threatening, simply because Chicanos use this word as opposed to “white people” or “White Americans”. The fear of the unknown can fester and as a result, people of color and immigrants become

the scapegoat. What it really means is “Foreigner, especially English-speaking, and in general speaking a language other than Spanish.” The Spanish word carries a different cultural connotation, and so is used more often as a conscious reference to their identity.

IDENTITY

CONSTRUCTIONS IN LANGUAGE

Bilingual Mexican American identities are intricately woven through the dynamic use of language, representing a complex negotiation of cultural heritage and contemporary influences. The interplay between Spanish and English in autobiographical narratives, daily conversations, and cultural expressions becomes a powerful tool for individuals to navigate their dual identities. Code-switching allows Mexican Americans to seamlessly transition between languages, reflecting the multifaceted nature of their experiences. Hence, language serves

as a bridge connecting heritage and the broader societal context, enabling individuals to express the richness of their cultural identity while adapting to the linguistic diversity inherent in their multicultural environment. Through this linguistic dexterity, bilingual Mexican Americans construct narratives that reflect the synthesis of their cultural roots and the evolving dynamics of their lived experiences.

In a study on bilingual Latino/a teachers that I thought was quite helpful for contextualizing the connection between bilingualism and identity, the findings of this research concluded that bilingual preservice teachers (a) narrated Spanish as a significant part of their remembered identities, (b) struggled to maintain their bilingualism and biliteracy, and (c) reconnected and reclaimed their bilingual–biliterate identities through their experiences in their teacher

preparation program (Nuñez et al., 2020). It is crucial to note that in a world where studies have shown the benefits of representation for people of color, studying how teachers maintain bilingualism and the connection to their home/native cultures while living in the US and being American is a progressive and holistic choice of topic that will inevitably open doors to more future research. In this study, we see the same themes as in Casanova’s, Márquez’s, and Nericcio’s texts: the interconnectedness of language and the Mexican American identity.

The fluidity of code-switching becomes a powerful expression of the multifaceted nature of their identities, seamlessly blending the linguistic threads that connect heritage and the broader societal context. This linguistic dexterity not only reflects the richness of their cultural identity but also underscores their adaptability to the diverse linguistic landscape of their mul-

ticultural environment. As echoed in the findings of the study on bilingual Latino/a teachers, the connection between bilingualism and identity remains a significant aspect of the Mexican American experience. Understanding how individuals navigate and reclaim their bilingual–biliterate identities provides valuable insights into the complexities of maintaining cultural connections within the context of American society. As we explore this dynamic interplay, it becomes evident that the study of bilingualism among Mexican Americans opens avenues for broader discussions on representation, cultural preservation, and the evolving nature of identity in an interconnected world.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

As the population of immigrants and children of immigrants increase in the United States, profiling such stories as Lupe’s can influence a shift away from the negative labels placed on immigrant students. The United States is a country made up of immigrants, from its roots, to its most recent inhabitants, and multiculturalism constitutes its core. Understanding the diversity, needs, and resilience processes of our multicultural and multilingual students will be the only way to change the discrimination and inequalities prevalent not only in institutions such as the education system but also in the daily lives of these students (Casanova, 2012). Language is a powerful vehicle for the expression of identity, culture, and personal narratives. In the context of Mexican American autobiographies, the intricate use of bilingualism emerges as a cen-

tral and dynamic element that shapes the storytelling process. Recognizing the significance of bilingualism in these narratives not only deepens our understanding of the individual experiences but also has broader implications for cultural understanding. Bilingualism in autobiographies becomes a lens through which we gain insights into the complexities of the Mexican American experience. The interplay between Spanish and English serves as a reflection of the dual cultural identity of Mexican Americans, capturing the nuances of their heritage and the influences of contemporary American society. By acknowledging the linguistic dexterity present in these narratives, we uncover the layered stories that contribute to the rich mosaic of Chicano/a identities (Martínez-Roldán, 2003). They also serve as bridges between cultures, allowing readers to traverse the linguistic and cultural

landscapes of Mexican Americans. The insights gained from these narratives contribute significantly to cross-cultural understanding. We are provided with an opportunity to engage with the cultural nuances embedded in language choices, facilitating a more profound appreciation for the diversity and complexity of these narratives. Through analyzing this autobiographical process, individuals from different cultural backgrounds can develop a richer understanding of the shared human experiences that transcend linguistic and societal boundaries.

As for educational and societal implications, incorporating bilingual autobiographies into curricula fosters linguistic diversity and cultural awareness, promoting a more inclusive learning environment. Additionally, societal appreciation for bilingualism contributes to the dismantling of linguistic biases and the celebration of diverse linguistic practices. Valuing bilingual

narratives not only enriches cultural representation but also challenges monolingual norms, fostering a society that embraces linguistic diversity as a cornerstone of its cultural tapestry. Furthermore, educators and mentors alike should be encouraging first-generation Chicanos/ as and Mexican immigrants as opposed to automatically assuming their intelligence level is lower and underestimating their cognitive and academic value (Casanova, 2012). It is time there was more Latino representation in educational faculty, and more acceptance and anti-racism implemented in the curriculums of the systemically racist institutions making it harder for people like Lupe and her brother to navigate American life.

CONCLUSION

In unraveling the intricate interplay between language, narrative, and identity in the autobiograph-

ical process of Mexican Americans, this research has underscored the profound impact of bilingualism on the construction of cultural identity. My study, grounded in Narrative Identity Theory and Brockmeier’s Narrative Approach (2015), delved into the thematic analysis of literature focusing on bilingualism among Chicanos, shedding light on the dynamic ways in which language becomes a powerful tool for expressing cultural heritage, negotiating bicultural identities, and articulating the complexities of the Mexican American experience.

Bilingualism emerges as a crucial dimension in shaping the cultural identity of Mexican Americans, who deftly navigate between languages, strategically employing code-switching and language alternation to convey a nuanced and authentic representation of their lived experiences. The fluidity of code-switching serves as a powerful expression of the multifaceted nature of their identities, seamlessly

blending linguistic threads that connect heritage and the broader societal context. As evidenced in the narratives explored, bilingualism is not merely a linguistic phenomenon but a profound factor influencing the autobiographical identity of Mexican Americans. Code-switching becomes a psychological process, a conscious decision in linguistic choices that reflect pride, family values, imposter syndrome, and the resilience process. It transcends language itself, forming a bridge that connects cultural roots and the evolving dynamics of lived experiences.

The research also delved into the acculturation pathways of Chicanos, highlighting the potential benefits of a transcultural identity that involves interaction and transition between native and host cultures. This resonates with the broader implications of the study for cultural understanding, as

recognizing and valuing bilingual narratives offers profound insights into the diversity, needs, and resilience processes of multicultural and multilingual students. Educationally and socially, the findings advocate for the incorporation of bilingual autobiographies into curricula, fostering linguistic diversity and cultural awareness. Moreover, societal appreciation for bilingualism challenges monolingual norms, contributing to the dismantling of linguistic biases and celebrating the diverse linguistic practices inherent in Mexican American narratives.

In conclusion, the exploration of bilingualism in Mexican American autobiographies not only enriches our understanding of individual experiences but also contributes to broader discussions on representation, cultural preservation, and the evolving nature of identity in an interconnected world. As the population of immigrants and children of immigrants continues

to rise in the United States, recognizing and embracing the significance of bilingual narratives becomes an essential step toward fostering a more inclusive and culturally aware society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Center for Progress (2023). What Policymakers Should Know About Today’s Working Class, Cap 20.

Bishop, M.M. (2006). The role of language code switching in increasing advertising effectiveness among Mexican-American youth, The University of Texas in Arlington.

Brockmeier, Jens (2015). Beyond the Archive: Memory, Narrative, and the Autobiographical Process. Explorations in Narrative Psychology, Oxford Academic.

Casanova, S. (2012) The stigmatization and resilience of a female indigenous Mexican immigrant. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 34(3), 375-504.

Gao, Z. (2023). The politics of Chinese immigrants’ double unbelonging and deglobalization. Theory & Psychology, 33(2), 266-283.

Nericcio, W.A. (1988) Autobiographies at La Frontera: The quest for Mexican-American narrative. The Americas Review: A Review of Hispanic Literature and Art of the USA, 16(3-4).

Nuñez, I., et al. (2021). Sustaining Bilingual–Biliterate Identities: Latinx Preservice

Teachers’ Narrative Representations of Bilingualism and Biliteracy Across Time and Space. Journal of Teacher Education, 72(4), 419430.

Márquez, A. C. (1987). Self and Culture: Autobiography as cultural narrative. Bilingual Review /La Revista Bilingüe, 14(3), 57–64.

Martínez-Roldán, C. M. (2003). Building Worlds and Identities: A Case Study of the Role of Narratives in Bilingual Literature Discussions. Research in the Teaching of English, 37(4), 491–526.

Ramsdell, L. (2004) Language and Identity Politics: The Autobiographies of Latinos in the United States. Journal of Modern Literature, 28(1), 166-176.

Javier, R.A., Barroso, F. & Muñoz, M.A. (1993) Autobiographical memory in bilinguals. J Psycholinguist Res, 22, 319–338.

The Colour Red The Colour Red

Aishwarya Nedungadi

I was once confronted with the question “how do you describe the colour RED”. I sat, pondering this question and I realised, I have many ways to describe it.

Red is the feeling of home, when he envelopes you in a hug so tight, after a difficult argument. Red is the warmth of the sun on your face as it sets for the night. Red is the sound of your favourite song when it rains outside.

But red is also the bruises on your body after a fight so horrible, you couldn’t face the mirror. Red is the feeling between your legs when you are being forced to

keep them apart. Red is the raw pain in your throat from screaming and crying for countless hours. Red is the feeling of your racing heart when you see that positive test. Red is the sting in your eyes when you don’t hear a heartbeat. Red is the warmth of the blood trickling down between your legs, a reminder of everything past and everything lost. Red the sound of your mother’s voice, broken, when she hears you on the phone.

Your past demons staying in the past. Red is the cut across your belly, and oh, red is the sound of her first cry. Red is the sound of your heartbeat, racing, excited, but peaceful.

Red are the roses on your grave and red is the sound of your mother’s quiet as she sees your beautiful face one last time. Red is the colour of your strength, a queen, a fighter and oh my dear, red is the colour of being loved and lost.

How is White Supremacy maintained through education?

by Emily Gonzalez

When reading Charles W. Mills’s The Racial Contract, it is clear that the American philosopher is advocating for the implementation of critical race theory in American classrooms. What is less clear are the ways in which white supremacy, and its ally of white ignorance, are woven into the education system. Mills highlights a quote from Edward Said, “we must not see culture as antiseptically quarantined from its worldly affiliations,” (27), meaning that in a racist society, racism engrains itself in every branch of that society. Regarding education, white ignorance is instilled through the manipulation of language, poor and biased historical education, and the ubiquitous dehumanization of “inferior” races.

The first way white ignorance is instilled through education is through manipulating language barriers. Historically, this process of exploitation came into

play with the Requerimiento, a legal document justifying the intruding authority of the Spanish Monarchy on indigenous lands (Mills 22). It was to be read, in Spanish, to the indigenous people, offering them a choice: to assimilate or die (Cook 522). Similarly, in modern times, even after Black Americans were amended suffrage in the late 19th century, their constitutional voting rights were still infringed upon through literacy tests (Ray 12). In both instances, the colonizing force used their monopoly on language to exploit communities they deemed inferior. While the example of the Spaniard’s justification for the slavery and eradication of indigenous people is a clearer deception, the latter example is just as nefarious. By segregating schools and monopolizing learning spaces, white America was able to exclude black voices under the guise of ignorance rather than ill education.

Following, white ignorance was also embedded in

coded language. Mills opens his historical analysis of the racial contract with a summary of European colonialism. He expertly refers to these events as, “the voyages of ‘discovery’ now increasingly and more appropriately called expeditions of conquest,” (20). This somewhat antiquated phrasing shines a light on the recent shift to using accountable language when referring to colonization, and on the impact that these phrases have on the general perspective of the described events. Correspondingly, when Mills discusses African Slavery in the Americas, he uses the term “new world,” (21); though in actuality, the American continent was no new world at all, for the indigenous population had been occupying the land for at least 20,000 years (Rutherford 2). Lastly, when Mills touches on the subject of white settlement in what is now the United States, he clarifies, “Washington, Father of the Nation,

was, understandably, known somewhat differently to the Senecas [an indigenous group in North America] as ‘Town Destroyer,’” (28). This further highlights the use of coded language, for George Washington is remembered as a founding father of a great nation, while his lived actions were those of a pillager.

Subsequently, to further justify white supremacy over other races and the European rise to power, it was necessary to infuse three sub-contracts that instilled white ignorance. They are as follows; the Expropriation Contract, where Native Americans merely had a right of occupancy on their lands rather than property ownership; the Slavery Contract, which allowed Europeans to revive the dying practice of slavery in Europe through the dehumanization of Native Americans and Africans; and the Colonial Contract that places white people atop the hierarchy of race and civilization (Mills 24-25). These

sub-contracts have weaved their way into the grain of society, allowing white people to live in a dream world without injustices; at least, without injustices that they perpetuate. Mills elaborates by saying, “most whites don’t think about it as the outcome of a history of political oppression but rather as just ‘the way things are,’” (30). There have been numerous attempts to encapsulate how the Europeans were able to dominate the globe, and they generally tend to portray Europeans as uniquely equipped to command society. This line of thinking disregards the Europeans’ inhumane reliance upon invasion and enslavement.

To regain focus on the infiltration of white supremacy through white ignorance in the education system, it’s important to discuss the White backlash against black inclusion in the classroom. In his book, On Critical Race Theory, Victor Ray

focuses on a parallel between the response to the physical desegregation of schools in the 1960s and changes to school curriculums following the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s (Ray 6). He explains that the way, after the civil rights movement, white parents protested advancements of desegregation aligns with the manner in which white parents are protesting the current acknowledgment of social justice movements in the classroom. Both groups of parents were upholding ideals that they believed were inherent nature to society, but the regime of white supremacy is only made possible with the support of ignorance and biased laws. The reaction from conservative American policymakers regarding affirmative action in universities shows how white members of the government advocate for this regime to continue.

Racism has been made into an integral aspect of American life, culturally and

legislatively, and through education, it is imprinted on impressionable students. It has become a cycle of taught ignorance, at home and in the academic sphere. Mills summarizes this perfectly, “…de facto segregation remains sufficiently entrenched that even today, forty years after Brown v. Board of Education, two American sociologists can title their study American Apartheid,” (Mills 28). The acts of entangling language, education, and racially charged ignorance allow for racism to be dispersed formally, in schools, and informally, among peers. While education isn’t the only tool used to enforce this cycle, it is one that targets young people in a crucially impressionable time in their lives. The inclusion of Critical Race Theory in schools and higher education would lead to a generation disciplined in a vastly desegregated manner, allowing all students to make informed decisions on their future biases.

Works Cited

Cook, Noble David. “Requerimiento.” Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, edited by Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer, 2nd ed., vol. 5, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2008, pp. 522-523. Gale eBooks.

Mills, Charles. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 1997.

Ray, Victor. On Critical Race Theory: Why It Matters & Why You Should Care. Random House Publishing, 2022.

Rutherford, Adam. “A New History of the First Peoples in the Americas.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 18 May 2021,

The Silent Battle anonymous

In the motion of existence, you were the absence.

A blank silhouette in a world where chaos prospered and glowed.

You never lived, yet you survived in the shadow’s embrace.

It enfolded you in a blanket and translated the muffled whispers of the outside.

Like a mother singing soft lullabies of comfort.

For the pleasures of the world, told secrets you couldn’t comprehend.

You never lived.

Yes, you were alive, and you breathed, a rhythm fragile and thin,

The thump of your heart, delicate and gentle.

Echoing in the hollow grounds of your desolate chest.

A gift bestowed from God, they said,

But one without a receipt and lingering with debt to be paid.

The rhythm was just a reminder of the unspoken weight you bore,

One that only the haunting grace of the shadow seemed to exile.

You toed the line of life and death often, uncaring and brave.

You moved undefined and haunted, a dance unchoreographed.

But, you never lived.

The colors of your soul muted, you were sure you were defective.

A mistake in the process that was overlooked and ultimately forgotten.

You wandered the maze of life hopelessly, For hope was something you couldn’t afford. And in the most silent of moments, When the shadow was too busy with her other children, you pleaded.

A plea for understanding, a plea for absolution, a plea for forgiveness.

You never lived, yet within your soul existed a story to be told,

A folktale to be passed on through generations.

Your end, now a muse inspiring others to persevere. So may empathy be the hand that reached you and guided you to solace.

May it be the final embrace you found yourself in.

Radically Hybrid: Dismantling the Cis-Heteropatriarchy

By Carolyn Franano

Queer lives are under attack right now globally. In particular, the U.S. is experiencing a massive wave of anti-queer legislation. Although laws discriminating against and oppressing queer people are not new in America, the magnitude of the recent legislative attempts at queer eradication is unprecedented. During the first 4 months of the 2023 legislative session alone, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently tracking 467 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the U.S. attacking civil rights, free speech and expression, healthcare, education, and public accommodations. Given that around half of these bills target transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, this heterosexist legislative movement can be understood as at least partially a reaction to increases in trans visibility. Efforts to make trans and gender nonconforming lives intelligible have informed and inspired a shift in the strategy

of queer liberation movements from affirmative gay-identity politics to transformative queer politics, bringing the perception of gender and sexuality as fluid and socially constructed into the dominant public sphere. By erasing and devaluing queer knowledge, experiences, and realities, heteronormativity and heterosexism serve to maintain the socially constructed binaries of the cis-heteropatriarchy that the deconstructive hybridity of transformative queer recognition threatens to destabilize.

In the West, gender and sexuality are social constructs developed to create a social structure that is based on immutable, binary categories. Although gender and sexuality apply to material bodies, the meaning they carry is a social fabrication. Referencing renowned philosopher of gender and queer studies Judith Butler, Kim Hall, the author of Queering Philosophy, explains, “Butler doesn’t deny the existence of the material

body but, rather, focuses on the fact that its meaning is not a transparent fact legible from its surface. Their work on how bodies matter is about the meaning of bodies and the real material implications of that meaning in people’s daily lives” (29).

Analyzing the act of socializing the body as a form of social control and domination comes from critical race theory. Charles Mills writes that, “Whiteness is not really a colour at all, but a set of power relations” (127). Like “Whiteness” was constructed in order to establish a racial hierarchy, “straightness” was constructed in order to establish a sexual hierarchy. Mills claims the West established “White” supremacy by structuring society around a racial contract which, “explains how society was created or crucially transformed, how the individuals in that society were reconstituted, how the state was established, and how a particular moral code and a

certain moral psychology were brought into existence” (10).

Using Mills’ work, the cis-heteropatriarchy, a Western construction which positions heterosexual, cis-gendered men as “superior and normative in their expression of gender and sexuality,” can be understood as constituting a sexual contract (“Cis-Heteropatriarchy”). The cultural-valutational structure of the sexual contract is heteronormativity, which Hall defines as, “the presumption of natural and thus normal heterosexual desire and erotic practice founded upon natural and thus normal binary sex and gender” (34). Heteronormativity denies that gender and sexuality are socially constructed and enforces gender binaries and heterosexual practice by naturalizing them. Hall writes that, “Heteronormativity straightens all desires and identities, training them to be contained within the confines of binary, oppositional conceptions of difference” (36). Heteronormativity forms the cis-heteropatriarchy

by using socially constructed gender and sexual binaries to classify anyone who does not adhere to heteronormativity as “the other,” dividing material bodies into “natural” and “deviant,” “more than” and “less than”.

Heteronormativity and heterosexism are forms of epistemic injustice; a concept theorized by Miranda Fricker which analyzes knowledge-related injustice by treating “knowers” as socially situated. According to Hall, heteronormativity “works to exclude queerness from the realm of possibility, intelligibility, and reality” (34). This is a form of epistemic injustice called epistemicide, a postcolonial studies term developed by Boaventura De Soussa Santos which refers to the eradication, erasure, or devaluation of a knowledge system. By positioning heterosexuality and binary gender as natural and superior, heteronormativity is an epistemicide which de-

nies the existence and value of queerness. In order to uphold the cis-heteropatriarchy, heteronormativity is weaponized by individuals and institutions into heterosexism: the marginalization and oppression of queer people based on heteronormative assumptions.

According to Gillian Branstetter of the ACLU, “The end goal of anti-trans legislation is denying transgender people the words to describe our experience, the means to express it safely, and the community and support we all deserve” (“Mapping Attacks on LGBTQ Rights in U.S. State Legislatures”).

Speaking on anti-trans legislation, Libby Gonzales, a 12-year-old transgender student in Texas, told the Human Rights Campaign, “It really feels like my legislators want everyone to believe that kids like me don’t really exist. They keep trying to convince everyone that I’m some kind of scary monster, or that I have

something wrong with me” (HRC Staff). The common heteronormative claim in the West that being transgender or gender nonconforming is not real or is a symptom of mental illness is a form of epistemic injustice called testimonial injustice. Testimonial injustice, an identity-based form of prejudice, describes when one’s credibility as a witness to an experience or event is discredited, disqualified, or minimized by the hearer based on their identity. According to Miranda Fricker, who coined the term, it describes a situation, “in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower” (20). The acknowledgement that one knows their own gender or sexuality is only denied to queer people, simply because they are queer. Heterosexist rhetoric classifies the voices and experiences of queer people as uncredible, the pain of gender dysphoria or compulsory heterosexuality as not real, and this testimo-

nial injustice is caused by the cis-heteropatriarchal positioning of queer people as deviant and inferior. Heteronormativity and heterosexism are forms of epistemic injustice which serve to make the queer voices and realities which challenge the cis-heteropatriarchy invisible.

The recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is reactionary: the hybridity of emerging transformative queer politics movements threatens to destabilize the cis-heteropatriarchal separation of the private and public sphere and bring the entire Western structure of society into question as socially constructed. According to York University, “Western epistemology would have us classify, sort and rank all living things into immutable categories…This system of classification perpetuates a myth of separateness and of static identities that deny the fluid, messy, complexity of our humanity and our connections to self and others”. Through

“othering,” the practice of classifying a person or people as substandard, creating a dominant “in-group” and a marginalized “out-group,” the West understands the world in terms of hierarchical end categories. For example, “White,” “straight,” and “masculine” are co-defined and made normative by their devalued opposites, “non-White,” “queer,” and “feminine”. However, queer identities vary and cannot be universally defined; they are intrinsically hybrid and therefore challenge binary Western epistemology. According to Geeta Patel, author of Home, Homo, Hybrid: Translating Gender, by viewing gender and sexuality as hybrid, “Queerness then becomes a way to make the center ambivalent, hybridize it, so that hybridity and queerness no longer sit in for ‘otherness’” (134).

The hybridity of queer theory is post-structuralist; it aims to counter “othering” by deconstructing the his-

torical way of thinking about gender, sex, and love so that bodies are no longer placed into a naturalized hierarchy based on fixed, opposing social categories. Reviewing Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race by Robert J. Young, Anil and Vinay Lal claim that “The practice of ‘hybridity,’ as it were, constantly seeks to undo binary oppositions that structure authority and unpack fetishized identities” (72). Queer politics is a hybrid practice which aims not only to deconstruct heteronormative beliefs, but also to challenge the structures of power that form and enforce them. Patel explains that Western gender narratives, “parceled off men from women and separated masculinity and femininity into two oppositional poles. These gendered binaries reproduced themselves in spatial terms, the standard demarcation into public and private with the ‘outside’ streets and political economy given over to men and the domestic ‘inside’ to women” (135).

By examining the cis-heteropatriarchy using a Marxist perspective, heteronormativity can be understood as a tool of capitalism which naturalizes socially constructed gender and sexual binaries in order to confine “female” bodies to the private sphere where their reproductive capability and unpaid domestic labor can be harnessed to produce economic growth. Patel observes, “In bringing queer home, home and queer become necessarily hybrid, and gender refuses to stay in its allocated places” (135). The existence of queer families subverts the gendered cultural and economic structure of the West. In families where gender and sexuality are fluid, bodies function outside of cis-heteropatriarchal social relations and therefore cannot be controlled. For example, if a woman and a nonbinary person form a family, who is the head of the household? Who takes on the domestic

labor, and who participates in the labor market? In the West, the patriarchy is based on the heteronormative nuclear family, so queer families subvert patriarchal gender norms.

Transformative queer recognition can help build a society where bodies are not heteronormatively socialized, and therefore cannot be exploited under the cis-heteropatriarchy. Queer theorist Sarah Ahmed explains, “Those who are not quite at home—in a body, a discipline, a world— have much to teach us about how things are built” (qtd. in Hall 27). Queerness represents a way of being and living that opposes the sexual binaries which structure Western society, and that is why it is a threat to institutional powers. If queer politics applies the sociology of absences, which De Soussa Santos developed to reveal what is “ignored or made invisible, that is, deemed nonexistant by the Eurocentric critical tradition,” to heteronormativity, what other “natural”

parts of life will be revealed as socially constructed? (44). In Patel’s words, “Hybridity brings with it ambiguity, and with that possibility threatens the orderliness of schematized reality. No wonder it is often labeled anomalous or deviant” (136). The transformative recognition of queer politics challenges the heteronormative belief that gender and sexuality are fixed and oppositional, allowing for a deconstructive queer hybridity which destabilizes the entire Western gendered structure of society. The initiation of a nationwide flood of anti-LGBTQ+ bills into the U.S. 2023 legislative session reflects the Western fear of hybridity and is an attempt to maintain the status quo by rendering queer experiences, realities, and politics unintelligible.

The cis-heteropatriarchy is a system of oppression based on socially constructed, heteronorma-

tive gender and sexual binaries and is threatened by the deconstructive, hybridity of queer knowledge, experiences, and realities. The recent wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in America has demonstrated that now more than ever, the social and epistemic injustices of heteronormativity and heterosexism must be challenged through transformative queer recognition. It is important to note that the conceptualization of the cis-heteropatriarchy in this paper is discussed only as it applies to and functions in the West. European critical thought tends to be universalist in that it often falsely assumes that the way to liberate the Western world is the way to liberate all societies. Attacks on LGBTQ+ individuals are a global phenomenon which cannot be attributed to or solved with a single universal explanation because gender and sexuality function differently in different societies. The explanation of the factors, motives, and strategies of the construction and maintenance

of the cis-heteropatriarchy laid out in this paper are a culmination of knowledge stemming from queer theory, gender studies, marxism, postcolonial studies, and critical race theory. They are particularly informed by postcolonial studies and critical race theory as the processes which form and maintain the Western cis-heteropatriarchy parallel those which create and uphold the global racial empire. Just as socially constructing cis-heterosexuality as the normative sexual category is essential to forming the cis-heteropatriarchy, socially constructing “whiteness” as the normative racial category is essential to forming the global racial empire. Just as epistemicide is deployed to maintain the cis-heteropatriarchy, it is used to maintain the global racial empire, making the sociology of absences an essential part of dismantling both systems. It is not a coincidence that since 2021, there has been

a massive, nationwide wave of legislation criminalizing discussions of both race and queerness in the U.S.; academic freedom is a defense against power and domination. Kim Hall’s call to action to “queer” philosophy can be directly compared to Charles Mills’ call to integrate critical race theory into mainstream philosophy and Boaventura De Soussa Santos’ call to challenge the epistemological dominance of the Global North. In addition, though the racial contract has a far more substantial economic dimension, both the cis-heteropatriarchy and the global racial empire are intertwined with capitalism, and with each other. The cis-heteropatriarchy must be understood as a White cis-heteropatriarchy because racism and heterosexism are intersecting forms of oppression. In any discussion of heterosexism, it is important to recognize that queer people of color are statistically one of the most susceptible groups to violence and marginalization. This paper focuses on

queer politics and the Western cis-heteropatriarchy, but leaves much to be explored in terms of how in addition to heterosexism, “othering” can also be understood as the underlying framework of racism, colonialism, and capitalism.

Works Cited

Santos, Boaventura De Sousa . Epistemologies of the South: Justice Against Epistemicide. Paradigm Pub, 2014.

Fraser, Nancy. “From Redistribution to Recognition? : Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Postsocialist’ Age.” Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition, Routledge, 1997, pp. 11–40.

Fricker, Miranda. “Testimonial Justice.” Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford UP, 2007, pp. 9–29.

Hall, Kim Q. “Queer Matters.”

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What does it mean to be Latino to you?

Being Latino means being the inheritors of a a legacy of over 500 years of struggle against colonialism and oppression from struggles of independence, revolutions, civil and labor rights, the Latino identity is one of an ongoing fight for justice and reconciliation.

- Matteo Perardi

Growing up in Miami, I was constantly surrounded by Latino culture. It’s the kind of city where knowing Spanish is apart of daily life. Being Latina has always been a huge part of who I am, as I was constantly being reminded of it by my family members. My beautiful skin is from Nicaragua, my love dancing and music from Cuba and Puerto Rico, and my passionate spirit from my grandparents’ bravery and parent’s resilience. Practicing the slang, listening to the music, hearing the stories of my beautiful countries, and most of all spending time will family keeps me connected to my culture. Now having gone away for college, I learned how unique Miami is as a city and it inspires me to constantly celebrate the traditions and people who shaped who I am today.

- Ava Castañeda

Celebrating my heritage and connecting to my Mexican and Puerto Rican roots has become extremely important and almost essential ever since I moved away from home. Although it was hard to find footing and find a community in Paris in the beginning, after 5 years of living here I have managed to make Paris my home with the help of other Latin American friends who share my experience and by doing things that remind me of life in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Cooking traditional dishes, celebrating my country’s festive holidays, and finding people to speak Spanish with in a sea of French and English are those small things that help bring PR and Mexico closer to me, even when they’re miles away. After all, there’s nothing better than a good mofongo con arroz mamposteao.

- Paulina Trigos

BeingLatina means having a family, no matter which country you are from - you will have support. It is feeling blessed to be a part of a culture filled with strength and resilience, while witnessing first-hand the sacrifices made by those I love for me to accomplish my dreams. I owe everything to my Dominican family, who has taught and given me everything. For that I am grateful every day and it serves as a reminder that my future is also theirs.

- Yamilett Suarez

Tobe a Latino in the current world to me is being proud of my roots, my food, my music, and my family and friends. But also it means being loud, happy, dancing, singing, and that may annoy others, because we can be obnoxious and proud (in a good way). Being a Latina in Paris has helped get in touch more and more with my culture since im far away from Mexico City. I carry my culture in the back of my mind constantly, could be by cooking comfort Mexican meals, or listening to music in Spanish, or watching old telenovelas. it really varies on my mood, but i always try to stay in touch with my culture as well.

- Mayka Escutia

QUEER AND PALESTINIAN

by Diana sabbagh

To be queer and Palestinian is to feel lost

Like you don’t fit anywhere

Like you are not even human

You are merely a pawn for the west

Who pretend that they care

So that they can villainize your people

As if your queerness exists separate from Palestine

As if you do not exist as a whole person

As if they are not the reason why you can not exist authentically in your own home

To be queer and Palestinian is to also be incredibly powerful

As much as they try and erase us, we will always exist

As much as they want to hate our home, we will always love and cherish it

As much as they want us to give up on our home, we will always fight for its liberation

Because at the end of the day, we will always be queer

Palestinians with all the beauty that it holds