I feel like if this week’s readings were a tree, La conciencia de la mestiza would be the Chicana branch, The Combahee River Collective statement would be the Afro-American branch, and Carrillo’s poem would form part of the root. These women are asking to be seen wholly and entirely for what they are and for the freedom that they as different groups need. The Black feminists understand that sexism and misogyny is what erodes the bridge that could exist between Black liberation and Black feminism. The Chicana understands that the Chicano’s machismo prevents him from seeing every other woman besides his mother as a being worthy of true respect, and therefore, true love. Both groups understand how they are brutalized because the men of their community fear what could happen if they were to become empowered and self-actualized. It’s two pages from the same book. These women of color are trying to understand how their race and culture play a part in their pursuit of liberation, and then they are letting the white feminist know that her feminism won’t do much if she is not conscious of her race, and therefore her privilege.
Which brings up another idea that I found interesting and quite liked from the Combahee River Collective statement; the concept of having consciousness-raising sessions. The word consciousness also shows up in the title both in English and Spanish in the Mestiza reading. I think there is something to be said about the fact that these women don’t regard this social, political, and intellectual evolution as acquiring knowledge or intelligence, but rather they see it as becoming more aware, as simply being conscious. Something about that feels much more spiritual and wholesome, like the affirmation of our value and our worthiness will do more than heal just these institutions that have been built on white supremacy; it will heal much more than that. It makes me wonder what a consciousness raising session in the Combahee River Collective must look like or have looked like, and what can be classified as one.
On a personal note, as a Nuyorican (member of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York) I was able to draw so many parallels between the Chicana narrative and my own. When it is said that “this weight on her back – which is the luggage from her Indian mother, which is the baggage from the Spanish father, which is the baggage from the Anglo?” there is not a single difference between this person’s experience and my own. Being a mix of many things (and then a remix of that mix) allows for a lot of internal confusion and turmoil. In the same sense, it is extremely easy to be ambiguous. To belong to many places and none at all. Deconstructing and constructing is the most seamless of processes, and it’s due to the fact that that very process is engrained in our identity. Because of all these parts of the Chicana, and of me, that are both fragmentized and nuanced at the same time, it seems natural to “reinterpret history, and using new symbols, shape new myths.” There is no struggle in “adopting new perspectives towards the dark-skinned women and queers”, in strengthening our tolerance, our willingness to share. To make ourselves vulnerable to foreign ways of seeing and thinking, in surrendering all notions of safety, of the familiar. The Chicana, as well as the Nuyorican woman, as well as the Black woman, are able to do this; and I think that’s sisterhood.
