A reflection on creation

1. What specific genre you intend to craft

For this project I intent to write in a multi-form genre one that may include poetry, song, memoir, autobiography, creative non-fiction, 1st person narrative and autohistoria. The overall genre of this piece will be memoir; I will be reflecting on my experiences on campus and at home through memories. I will also be drawing conclusions about these memories and what that means for me. I also want to reflect on what my placement in society is and how that placement has affected these experiences. A writer who used writing in different genres as a rhetorical tool is Gloria Anzaldua in Borderlands. She uses her interweaving of multiple genres as an expository example of living with multiple identities.

There are many features and rhetorical strategies used in the genre of memoir. For example the option to write in a liner narrative or non-linear narrative is a rhetorical tool; in this piece I would like to attempt to write a circular narrative. My goal is to start the reader/audience in an experience or a place – I would like to end my audience in that same place but with a different perspective. A writer who does that beautifully for me is Octavia E. Butler. Butler has the ability in her novel Kindred to engage the reader in her family’s history and experiences by traveling through time into memories told by her ancestors. She defines her place in society through her history and her genealogy. In her novel she ends at her beginning – that expresses the crippling effects of slavery on a woman in the 1970s; she makes no clear distinction between past and present because the atrocities of the past are still alive in the present. Also I have read rhetoric’s of resistance in memoir that use flashbacks as a rhetorical tool; for example the author is writing in the present – talking with the audience but flashes back to experiences that has shaped their life or influenced the conversation the writer is now having with their readers. A writer who exemplifies this in my eyes is Bell Hooks. In many of her writings she challenges topics like race, class and gender but through flashbacks. I enjoyed reading a piece where the author is talking directly to the reader. Jamaica Kincaid also does this very well in her book, A Small Place; she challenges her readers by directly questioning and talking to them.

I have chosen to write in and explore these genres because they are genres that interest me and because they are genres that I enjoy reading. Similar to Anzaldua, Kincaid, Butler and Hooks are all very boisterous, independent and explosive female writers. They are all writers that I aspire to be like and all write in genres that not only excite me but ignite me. I think a rhetoric of resistance is a text that defines a truth; a truth that has been ignored publicly, privately and historically. I think that any genre has the ability to inflame that truth, and I plan to explore multiple genres to explain my own.

2. What audience you intend to target

It is hard for me to clearly define who my audience is at this particular point in my writing. I haven’t truly begun to write and craft the story that I want to tell or how I plan to tell it. I will be writing about my college experience at Syracuse University. One of my audiences would be the Syracuse community and other college communities like it. I would also want to talk to the community of education and educators; the institution of learning itself. What does it mean to educate? How can you educated in a place that hierarchies embody and encourage mis-education. I want to speak to education in the United States and the bodies that run the education institution.

I am also speaking to an audience both for and against social justice. I hope that my rhetoric of resistance will encourage social justice in the United States and the re-education of those justices and injustices in the histories of the United States. I have chosen these audiences because they are both the audiences that can change and re-define what history has mis-defined or mis-interpreted both from the top and the bottom.

My goal is to not make assumptions about my audience. I know it is inevitable not to assume but I want to write first and have my writing define my audience instead of writing for a particular audience. I feel that in writing this way it will encourage a more authentic work.

Again I want to caution myself from researching a particular audience because I do not want to limit myself in either my creative liberty or authenticity. One of the audiences that I know I will be writing to is the Syracuse University community and other university communities. Since I am a part of that community I plan to write in – I can write in a way that is understandable to all sub-communities in that community. I think that experience is the most effective research, and many of the communities that I would assume would be the audience of this piece I am already a member of that community.

The biggest goal here in regard to audience is to write in and with experiences that everyone can relate to. If I write in a way that refers to specific events I may exclude certain members of my audience. But if I try to write about an experience that is relatable to a wide audience my piece will be more effective.

3. What identities you are resisting and what identities you are crafting

It is hard to define which identities I will be crafting exactly because I haven’t crafted them yet. But my main goal in this piece is not for me to craft a “new identity” but it is for me to define myself through the identities that have been crafted for me. I will talk about the positive and negative effects of having a society that crafts an identity or categorizes a person without that persons consent or input. I plan on challenging the ideal of identities as a whole. Who makes the identity? Me or Society. If I make my own identity will society accept that identity? Do I have power over what my identity is? These are some questions I will be asking and in asking these questions I hope that my readers will ask the same questions for themselves. In asking those questions I also hope they will challenge themselves and their identities. Do they need to craft a new one? I don’t think so I just think there is a need to understand where identities are derived from and what that acceptance of those identities mean for oneself and for society at large.

I don’t know if I’m crafting a new identity or a project identity as much as I am reclaiming an identity that was stolen from me; the identity of the individual. I hope the challenge the ideal of individualize and categorize. What was first the individual or the category? In today’s society I would argue the category people are born into categories; we are defined from birth. The individual is an identity that has been lost; and I hope in my writing to reclaim it for myself and challenge others to reclaim it as well.

I think most of the texts we have read this semester resonate in some way to the identity of the individual. Said was challenging the category of the oriental. What is ortienalism? Why are Middle Eastern peoples automatically thrown into the category of the oriental by western perspective? Anzaldua was challenging the idea of identity itself. She was embracing identity and the categories that embody it. Anzaldua was making the conscious choice to choose her own identity. Kincaid challenges the idea of identity stemming from place. Similar to Anzaldua they were both defined by their places of origin – that was their identity. I think all of these writers are grappling with the same idea; overall the question is where do these identities stem from? Who created them? And why do they continue to be prominent? These are the same questions I aim to ask.

4. What kind of research you will do for this project

The main research that I would need to do for this project is to research the ways that others craft and use rhetoric’s of resistance. For example one of my main influences for this project will be Bell Hooks. She does a wonderful job of using memoir to define her placement in society as she learned to define it herself. That understanding is important to me. I am in a stage in my life where I am just learning that placements in society exist and are implanted by hierarchies that have been in place since the founding of this country. It is my personal experience that makes this act of resistance authentic and it is that authenticity that makes it relevant, relatable and readable. Bell Hooks uses her experiences to educate a wide audience; one that may already understand her experiences and another they may not even know that experiences like this exist. I also plan to analyze some rhetorical strategies that some of the authors I am interested (Hooks, Butler, Anzaldua and Kincaid) in researching used to keep their audience engaged while simultaneously resisting.

5. Why you intend to embark on this project

Honestly, the topics this semester have not particularly influenced my reasons for wanting to create a rhetoric of resistance. My passions, influences and inquiries have always rested in a genre of this nature. I enjoy writing and when I think about what I want to write about I want to write something meaningful about my life, my experiences, the experiences of family and people I have known. I want to educate and encourage people through my writing and write a piece that is both timeless and malleable. I think that this assignment allowed me the opportunity to express myself and write in the genres that interest me. It also allowed me to explore some of my favorite writers that are already writing in the genres that I indulge in and we have discussed this semester in this class.

I want to write. I have always wanted to write about my experiences in a way that would educate people and help them. I feel as though this assignment has allowed me a space to do so. I have many concerns when writing anything and I never feel that anything I write is “good enough”. But that is all in the process of writing and the process that I choose to write in. I hope that I can craft my writing in a way that is both understandable and relatable to my readers and a wide audience of people. My writing should be meaningful, thought provoking, eloquent and pungent. I believe in the beauty of writing and flow of words; I don’t think that because I am writing a rhetoric of resistance. My main goal is to express and educate – I hope that my writing will accomplish that.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue in 1492... (a reflection)

When asked to research, construct and lead a class in a college classroom I viewed it as a challenge to educate and inform rather than a challenge to lead. Leadership in all settings has never really been an issue for me but what I discovered in this project in particular is that power dynamics and presets can hinder education and information in a greater way than the lack of leadership itself. This understanding of power dynamics and hierarchies draws a direct correlation between similar dynamics in the texts we have read in class and the societies in which these texts where derived from. After completing this project I was both satisfied and dissatisfied. I think with any project when a goal is set there is always a possibility for failure. In this project in particular I viewed failure with an open mindset; failure is a space for improvement - a space for education and a space to inform.

For example, Anzaldua is struggling with a clear power dynamic of her society and other personal dynamics derived from her community, her family, and herself. In creating a rhetoric of resistance Anzaldua was seeking to create a rhetoric that resist but in resisting creates a new identity for herself and creates a space where new identities can be safely formed for others as well. Similar to how both Tupac Shakur and Fredric Douglas are both writing in spaces where conflicting dynamics and identities exist. Some dynamics differ in both Shakur’s and Douglas’s pieces because of the era and time both were writing in. Both Douglas and Shakur was similar to Anzaldua in creating a space where personal identity is being created and in that creation of personal identity it is creating a space where new identities can be accepted and infiltrated into society.

One of the points that my partner and I wanted to the class to understand was the link between Aunzaldua, Shakur, and Douglas – they were all crafting a new identity, and were all crafting a rhetoric of resistance. But in this instance and in many instances these rhetoricians (Anzaldua, Shakur, Douglas) messages can be easily overlooked or misunderstood either because of the genre they are writing or because of the reader’s personal dynamics that over-complicate their messages. That representation of misinterpretation of messages or overcomplicating messages is reflective of the reactions and discussion that developed and evolved during out class project. In many instances the discussion and the topic of discussion was not exactly what my partner and I had expected it to be, and in many instances were not as deep or meaningful as my partner and I wanted it to be- it was still a positive learning experience.

As the class discussion continued I began to realize that in many settings, in classrooms, or anywhere personal histories, ideologies, and prejudices can hinder teaching and education. One of the larger points of our project was to show the complexities and immensities of colonization. My partner and I presented the class with two texts both written almost a century apart and both writers writing after slavery ended. Even though Douglas and Shakur were a century apart their struggles with family, identity, power and literacy were all the same. Why? What are the implications of very little to no positive change in society for African Americans in America in 100 years? The United States and African Americans are products of colonization. The implications of colonization go far beyond conquering, killing and murdering a generation in order to colonize. Colonization is an act that has the ability to (and in this case did) infect, belittle, and dehumanize generations upon generations on human beings. Colonization is more then a history term; it is an act, an act that could potentially diminish cultures, races, and traditions. The act of colonization of the Americas supported and propelled Eurocentric views and ideologies worldwide. We wanted to challenge the class to think about how we got to where we are today? Have we really moved that far from the original views and ideologies implanted during colonization?

These points were central to our project and our goal. As we tried to unpack these ideas in class I felt that they were skipped over and misunderstood by many of the people in the class. The question for me isn’t why that happened – because I have seen it happen before in this class and other classes. It is fear or guilt. It is the same issue that in my opinion hinders Pratt’s ideas about “contact zones”. I truly find it hard to believe that there is a space where human being can leave their moral beliefs, ethical beliefs and life histories aside to talk in the present moment about a particular issue. That is one of the reasons why I have chose to move forward with the experiment about Pratt’s “contact zones”.

Overall I think the project was satisfactory - not because we got to all the points and ideas that we had hoped to discuss, but because I began to discover the roots to why it is hard to get to those points in public spaces. Is that a bad thing? No. I think that it is merely a reflection of society and the beings (humans) that operate within it. It is human nature to feel, to remember and to experience. To ask humans to walk into a space and to ask them hostile questions about race, gender, religion, sexual orientation how could one expect them not to feel, to reminisce, and to experience that moment?

The truth is that Columbus did sail the ocean blue in 1492. The forgotten truth is that he got lost, landed on the Americas, slaughter hundreds of Native Americans, then invited his friends to come and live with stolen humans from Africa treat them like animals and use the blood of there ancestors to fertilize the seeds of dehumanization for generations to come.

How can I expect a class to have meaningful conversation when they and the generations preceding them have been taught a misguided truth?

Pushing through Dominant Borders

“Culture forms our beliefs. We perceive the version of reality that is communicates. Dominant paradigms, predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through the culture. Culture is made by those in power – men” (38). It is hard to combat ideas that have been imposed and imperialized on generations of peoples, but combating those ideas is exactly what Anzulada does in her text, Borderlands: La Frontera. Anzulada uses numerous rhetorical strategies to use and enact her writing as a form of resistance against the white-male- paradigms that have imperialized and is slowly diminishing her culture. One strategy that was extremely effective for me was her use of Spanish-English in her text. Anzulada’s book is an autoethnographic text; this text is a representation of the Mexican “border” culture. Because of invasions by European explorers and the massive loss of Mexican land after the war in 1846 at the hands of the United States, Mexico and its Us-Mexican border has become a representation of these merging cultures.

Anazulada argues that the US-Mexican border has become a faded line between two merging cultures. That line has become more then a border; it is now a country of its own, a “border country”. She comments that “The convergence has created a shock cultures, a border culture, a third country, a closed country” (33). This “border country” is a representation of two cultures the US and the Mexican; two cultures that as Azuluada argue are very much defined by their language and dialect. That precisely is why Anzulada’s use of English-Spanish and Spanish-English is such a strong rhetorical tool. Anzulada comments that, “Ethnic identity is two skins to linguistic identity – I am my language” (81).

One of Anzulada’s main arguments is a call for a shift in history. It is the claim as human as an individual – one that is not defined or molded by dominant-white-masculine paradigms but to be an human begin that creates oneself and is not confined to “absolute despot duality” (41). She comments, “… that human nature is limited and cannot evolve into something better. But I, like other queer people, am two in one body, both male and female. I am the embodiment of the heiros gamos: the coming together of opposite qualities within” (41). Anzulada’s main challenge is for humans to become a participant in humanity, in society, to think and create, instead of to follow. “… yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and out participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and to planet” (103).

It is precisely the merge of these two cultures the Mexican and the American, the male and the female, the individual and the society that Anzaluda created her identity; a self-created identity that she is challenges other to self-create. In Anzaluda’s self-created identity she challenges the foundations of both languages and dialects; she refuses to choose one over the other and instead merges and created a new dialogue between the two languages, the two identities. Anzulada’s choice to create is a rhetorical tool, and he choice to write within that creation is a rhetorical strategy; a strategy she uses well and very effectively.

Similarly to Dussel and Mignolo, after defining the problem or fallacy in history Anzulada proposes an innovative way to create and develop a new history. Similar to ideas of transmodernity or colonization Anzulada is calling for a shift; a shift in the way history is drafted, in its creation itself. She comments, “Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe to distinguish us from the. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge” (25). Anzulada is calling for the fading of divisions in history. History is compiled of borders; nations crossing borders into other nations, dominant cultures imperialized, conolonization – these words are the borders. Similar to Mignolo’s discussion of historical terminology and the redefining of those dominating terms – Anzulada is calling for the redefining of culture and history itself.

Culture defines history; but who defines culture? Dominant paradigms do. How do you change those definitions? How do you change those borders? ASSESS AND COMMUNICATE.

“Her first step is to take inventory… She communicates that rupture, documents the struggle. She reinterprets history and using new symbols she shapes new myths” (104).