For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts
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NOTES
My methodology for democratizing knowledge is storytelling, but in these stories lie theory and information I am not quoting but have been informed by through and through. What that means is that I have added those notes back here specifically, but my bibliography will have more extensive readings to understand the ins and outs of all these stories.
The majority of my references are from BIPOC, because citations are political. We can give power to some voices, and often the voices that are considered experts in their fields are white. In choosing to have mostly nonwhite sources, I am rejecting the racist notion that BIPOC thinkers, theologians, and scholars bring nothing to the table. We do bring a lot, and often we are speaking from lived experiences, which hold more value to me than “experts” who have no idea what they are talking about.
NOTES FOR VOLUNTOURISM CHAPTER
I introduce this chapter with an Audre Lorde quote from “The Uses of Anger,” Women’s Studies Quarterly 25:1/2 (1997), pp. 278–285. I have found that Black liberation theologians and feminists have informed my work, largely because my theological seminary had the largest concentration of Black faculty out of all the theological schools at the time when I was enrolled. I was radicalized by Black voices, Black scholars, Black feminists, and Black writers. The particular quote about anger resonates with me because there is this understanding of anger as a negative and unproductive emotional response, which I resent because my anger informs my work constantly. I write with anger, and I create with anger. This entire chapter demonstrates my anger, and my anger is generative. I utilize that same essay as a foundational text when I talk about white guilt by the voluntourists. Lorde refers to white guilt on p. 283 and says, “Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend of trees.” My indictment of voluntourists comes from reading Black thinkers like Audre Lorde who give me permission to be angry, and the language I use comes from reading Lorde extensively.
Another scholar and reference
I use often to inform my work on white saviorism is that of Paulo Freire. Freire is used throughout this book, as his theories can be applied generously. The particular quote I use can be found in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), p. 79. Freire’s work is a good theorical framework for how oppressed people overcome their oppression, and a lot of my own language is heavily informed by him.
I am also informed by Delores S. Williams, who makes a connection between conquered lands and conquered people, from a Black perspective but also an Indigenous one. Her work is found in Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993). The particular citations I am informed by for this section come from pp. 89 and 114.
A poignant secondary read in terms of language around colonialism and conquest is Patricia Seed’s Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). This book specifically talks about the European powers that had vested interests in the expansion of their empires. Through Seed, I understood the business side of colonialism, the greed that occurred during colonialism.
There are two poignant authors and historians that I read specifically to inform this chapter. One is Juan González’s Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, rev. ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2011). González has an entire chapter on Nicaragua. This is a recommended read for most of my readers. There are designated chapters on almost every Latin American country, and each chapter has exhaustive information in terms of American interventions. González is an investigative journalist and a cofounder of the Young Lords.
Through González, I found the work of Claribel Alegría and Darwin Flakoll. Their book touches on the Somoza family’s reign of terrors. Through their book, which details the assassination of Tachito from the perspective of his assassins, I gained a lot of insight into who this man was to the Nicaraguan people outside just my family’s perspective. Death of Somoza (Willimantic, CT: Curbstone Press, 1996).
Luis Rivera Pagán is a historian who writes about the political and religious conquest of the Americas with numbers and actual data like how large the population size was in certain larger Indigenous communities. Through Rivera Pagán’s work, I found ways to correlate colonialism in the 1400s to colonialism within American interventions from the 1930s to 1980s. For more on colonialism in the Americas, turn to Rivera Pagán’s book, A Violent Evangelism: The Political and Religious Conquest of the Americas (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992).
I get the majority of my knowledge about trauma from Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (New York: Penguin Books, 2015). This book unpacks the many ways that trauma manifests. It also explores neuroscience behind what happens to your brain during traumatic experiences and posits that trauma needs to be addressed directly to heal. Your body and your brain are made to keep you alive, and if you do not address the triggers your body has recognized through trauma, then you are destined to keep repeating patterns through trauma-fueled responses. Understanding how my parents’ unresolved trauma has become my own trauma has been instrumental for me, hence I weave that sentence throughout the chapter: trauma is inherited. I am writing from knowledge gained and treating that knowledge as important by centering it as matter-of-fact.
Finally, I quote Donald Trump when he referred to certain countries as shithole countries. That quote came from an article titled “President Trump Called El Salvador, Haiti ‘Shithole Countries’: Report,” Time, January 11, 2018, https://time.com/5100058/donald-trump-shithole-countries/. For me, highlighting the irony of this particular statement throughout the chapter takes power away from those words that hurt so many, without making this chapter about Trump. Rather, it is about what Trump’s words represent about the ignorance of the American people and their relationship to the worldwide harm they have been complicit in.
NOTES FOR COLORISM CHAPTER
I introduce this chapter with the primary text I used for research in this particular chapter, which is JeffriAnne Wilder’s Color Stories: Black Women and Colorism in the 21st Century (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015), p. 6. Wilder writes about colorism not being contained within the Black experience; rather, it is an insidious and prevalent part of the experiences of people of color. The second quote from Wilder is found on p. 47. The term “everyday colorism” is coined by her on p. 58. I’ve had extensive conversations and attended entire panels on colorism, as well as read about it as authors mention it, yet this is the only full-length book that I have read about colorism that felt exhaustive. I am sure there are other texts, but this is still my primary text and I am informed by it the most.
In terms of understanding the construction of mestizaje, and how it is rooted in the erasure of Blackness specifically in my context, I read Lowell Gudmundson’s chapter “What Difference Did Color Make?: Blacks in the ‘White Towns’ of Western Nicaragua in the 1880s,” which is found in the anthology Blacks and Blackness in Central America: Between Race and Place, eds. Justin Wolfe and Lowell Gudmundson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), p. 211. On p. 210 there is a snapshot of the racial categories that were included in a census and instructions given to census takers to misidentify people for the purposes of boosting mestizaje as the preferred national identity. Nicaragua is written about as an extreme case of erasure, so, whether I know it or not, I am shaped by that reality as a Nicaragua citizen by birth. When writing about any given topic, I seek to find solid footing in readings that talk about my specific context, which can be place of birth, gender, race, sexuality, class—the list goes on. But as a light postmodernist, I find value in contextualization. As a reader, finding your context-specific texts will unearth a series of explanations you did not know you needed for questions you were not even asking—which is a beautiful thing. So I implore you to find what is being written about your communities, by your communities.
In terms of understanding how race-based community formations came into existence, I read Justin Wolfe’s “‘The Cruel Whip’: Race and Place in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua,” which is also found in Blacks and Blackness in Central America, pp. 177–207. An understanding that the construction of mestizaje was a concerted effort of centering whiteness demands that my reader engage with that entire book.
To understand how facial features and hair types resulted in skewed racial categorization, I recommend reading Mauricio Meléndez Obando’s chapter, titled “The Slow Ascent of the Marginalized: Afro-Descendants in Costa Rica and Nicaragua,” found in that same anthology (pp. 334–354). Terms like blanqueamiento are further explained, and a look into how Spanish pure blood was guarded and honored is given.
Additionally, I utilize the term eugenics in this chapter. When people think of eugenics, they think of the early twentieth century. However, eugenic beliefs have existed since before they became popularized and socially accepted, and then rejected. This is not about the contemporary understanding of eugenics. Rather, it is about a system of beliefs around who is worthy of humanity and who is inferior, and the actions that followed based on those beliefs.
This chapter, much like the voluntourism chapter, uses a lot of the knowledge gained from Juan González, specifically when he talks about the conversion of Indigenous people in Harvest of Empire (p. 13).
Finally, I mention Gloria Anzaldúa in this chapter, briefly. Unfortunately, Anzaldúa perpetuates the “raza cósmica” stuff that feels equally problematic to mestizaje. In an attempt to reject blanqueamiento, Anzaldúa claims Indigeneity that simply is often inaccurate and blanketed. Claiming Indigeneity, as a mixed person, erases it from those communities in our countries that are still practicing Indigenous traditions and speaking their Indigenous languages. Unless we are willing to learn the languages of our Indigenous ancestors and relearn their traditions, we have to acknowledge that there are privileges in being mestizo within our particular borders. Understandin
g that we can revere our Indigenous ancestors without erasing and co-opting traditions that are not ours to co-opt is the work of liberation. Anzaldúa’s work has unfortunately emboldened too many mestizos who are not willing to do the work of actually divesting from mestizaje but who only claim Indigeneity in passing, as if that has been optional for actual Indigenous people in our countries and here.
Nevertheless, Anzaldúa’s work planted a seed for me, when otherwise I would have not fully understood the severity of the anti-Indigenous sentiments that I experienced. I use her quote from Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2012).
NOTES FOR IMPOSTOR SYNDROME CHAPTER
The quote that opens this chapter, although not about impostor syndrome, points at the difficulties and self-silencing that students of color experience. This quote is found in Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, 3rd. ed. (New York: NYU Press, 2017), pp. 50–51. Delgado, like Freire, is a primary voice that informed this entire book, so you will see this particular text in various chapters.
I am the founder and owner of Latina Rebels, and this chapter is the first time I mention this organization. For understanding the value of creating spaces for us, by us, through the Latina Rebels perspective, read Kaitlin E. Thomas, “Latina Rebels Turn to Memes, Humor to Rethink Media on Hot-Button Issues,” The World, April 16, 2019, www.pri.org/stories/2019-04-16/Latina-rebels-turn-memes-humor-rethink-media-hot-button-issues. Finding our communities in white spaces can be the difference between dropping out and graduating. Sometimes our communities will not be physically present but rather exclusively online, and that is our new normal.
In terms of the pervasiveness of impostor syndrome, I read Jaruwan Sakulku and James Alexander, “The Impostor Phenomenon,” International Journal of Behavioral Science 6:1 (2011). P. 75 specifically gives statistical evidence.