In the process of  creating this quote collection, I wanted to first and foremost, cement the basic points about decolonial thought, and then later apply this knowledge to the decolonial struggles, movements, and liberation methods of Mexico and Puerto Rico.

This particular “theme,” I’m going for is important to me personally, as I have never delved into decolonial thought like this before, and so these quotes are essentially what I learned throughout the way. These are the words that stuck out to me due to their simplicity, complexity, bluntness, non conformist, and overall liberating nature.

The first quote, one by Sandra Harding,  really bares the foundation as to what we have been studying this semester, and that is: that any form of colonization works because it appropriates control over women’s bodies and the reduction of power of Indigenous men. Bodies of women become the commodified objects that colonizers were looking for in the land itself, and thus, since colonialism and its internalization succeed by the interference and dismantling of gender the sexual relations of the Indigenous people, it is imperative that gender and sexuality is not neglected, but heavily emphasized in decolonial thought.

Since decolonization tends to refer to the region of Latin America, I thought it was important to emphasis that Abya Yala is the preferred name to refer to Latin America, meaning “land of full maturity,” in the language of the Kuna. Breny Mendoza’s article pinpoints how Iberian and British empires are tied in their imperialistic tendencies in the New World, and notices the exclusion of Abya Yala in world history, which fails to recognize the region’s impact on China, the U.S, Spain, Portugal, etc. The impact of the Iberian empire on the people of Abya Yala is also neglected in history, as only the British empires work on the United States is the focus of Western history. I personally learned an awful lot on the the intersections of Iberian and British colonialism, as well as Abya Yala’s position in a historical sense.

In learning about various regions, peoples, and their cultures, identities and so on, it is necessary to “travel” to each other world’s in the process, as well as listen, and give space. A decolonial lens means seeing others without arrogant perception, but with loving eyes, as to acknowledge and recognize someone’s perception of themselves in their world, and in ours. In doing so, Allison Weir points out that in listening, the two extremes of denial or romanticism should not happen because while it is important to learn, that particular knowledge remains with those who created it-essentially, we can only know what Indigenous people need or suffer through by them.

In using these methods and knowledge of decolonization, I applied them to Xicana and Puerto Rican feminism. The two nations are of course different, but both have obtained a “double consciousness,” a newly formed way of thinking that encompasses both the Anglo perception of being a colonized subject, and an identity formed by relationships with nation, gender, sexuality, language, race, and so on.

I emphasize this dual consciousness with Anzaldua’s quote, as well as Lugo-Lugo’s point about how Puerto Ricans have conformed or come to terms with their duality and deviance; of not being  a nation state or being integrated with the U.S nation-states.

I also found it important to emphasize that colonized subjects may engage in colonial practices as well. In reading “Settler Xicana,” Carrillo Rowe brings up a valid point, and that is that Mexicans have continued the legacy of colonialism by further marginalizing Indigenous communities, prioritizing whiteness and perpetrating stereotypes.

Finally, with the last two quotes, I wanted to call attention to how the various “worlds” of the colonized can actually be used as a form of resistance and rebellion. Since culture was stripped away from the colonized, since Spanish was deemed barbaric, practices, diabolic, or land seen as exotic destinations (as seen with postcards) to acquire, it is only right to reclaim what was was so often denied to us and to use it as a form of resistance (David Perez quote emphasizes this).

This concept of a dual identity as a revolutionary/survival tool is one that resonated with my own experiences. As I am constantly in between worlds, I may use the voices of these men and women to help me decolonize my thought, critically analysis my own culture/heritage and not simply accept what Anglo society or Xicana identity has given me, but have the ability to change what needs fixing.

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In Allison Weir’s, Decolonizing Feminism: Transnational Feminism and Globalization, Weir states, “It appears that Western science is just discovering what Indigenous scientists have known for many thousands of years” (265). Indigenous scientists, astronomers, etc, have known what Western philosophers and scientists have known all along, if not before Western civilizations. This continued erasure of Indigenous thought and culture persists, and often, when Indigenous thought or science is made known by the West, it is the West who takes credit for these ideas, who makes it “real” or acceptable, legitimate knowledge.

In creating this photo essay, I sought images of Mexican Indigenous thought, history and representation that has been erased by colonization, and how Mexico’s art has sought to decolonize or at the least, have noted the brutal process of colonization and its effects in Mexican history. Images 1-4 are ones that I took while in Mexico this past summer that I believe speak of Mexican history and recognition of Indigenous erasure.

The first image is the Aztec calendar. The Aztecs formed various astronomical, scientific, and mathematical advancements that propelled them to become a grand civilization.  However, in regards to how Aztec culture is spoken about, their achievements are viewed as secondary and their religion/spirituality is deduced to myth and deemed as strange. As Weir explained, Indigenous knowledge can often be written off as either primitive or romanticized, beautiful but not realistic. In Mexico, Aztec, or Mexica culture is placed in a period of past, not present, placing indigenous peoples in a far away land, when in reality Indigenous populations and practices are alive in Mexico (Image 4). Indigenous history, therefore, is one that needs to revisited and placed in a present context so that we may learn about them and their current struggles.

In understanding indigenous Mexican history, it is important to recognize how and when they have been erased by colonization. El Castillo de Chapultepec in Mexico City (Image 2) is a good example. The castle, situated upon a hill, was originally a sacred place and strategic site for the Aztecs due to the springs that supplied drinking water to the capital of the empire. During the time of viceroyalty, however, it became a place of rest and for the viceroys. Its use changed throughout the years, from military academy, to imperial residence, presidential home, and now as a museum. While the museum briefly speaks of its past as an indigenous site, it is its murals that speak of the erasure of the indigenous people. In the third image, I show a small detail of Juan O’ Gorman’s “Retablo de la Independencia” which displays Mexico’s history from 1784-1814. Below the image of a man who is tied to a column lies a paper which reads “It seems that the Spanish brought Christ to America to crucify the Indians.” In the mural, images of crucified Indigenous people, of violence and brutality show the reality of colonization in Mexico. In displaying this mural, Mexicans and other Latin Americans may visit and know how this relation connects to their descent-how their way of knowing (epistemology) has been shaped by this colonization and how we may serve to decolonize our spaces and not let entities situate themselves on indigenous land any longer.

The last image is of Yalitza Aparicio, an indigenous (Mixtec and Triqui) woman who starred in Alfonso Cuaron’s film, Roma, the first time in a long time, an indigenous woman was cast in a lead role and to be on the cover of Vogue Mexico. Unfortunately, she was the subject of racist attacks in Mexico due to colizationion’s legacy of racial hierarchy and colorism. Parodied by brown face, and called a “damn Indian” by a male Mexican actor, Yalitza’s fame placed Mexico’s racism front and center. In the media, she is portrayed like a Cinderella story: a famous white passing Mexican director “discovers” an indigenous Oaxacan woman, and is now enjoying the riches and fame of Hollywood. It is as if she was saved by Cuaron, when in fact she is a college educated woman working towards being teacher. She did him the favor of being in the movie, (not the other way around) and of halting her life to star in a movie about a domestic worker’s story in Mexico, in order to give indigenous people the representation they deserve in film, one they have long been neglected.   

Therefore, these images, represent Mexico’s path of ingenious history, its erasure, and the dialogue Mexicans must have in regards to how they continue to treat their indigenous population with a white, colonial gaze.

Link to story: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu3_yymAb3v/

The lack of knowledge that I (and I believe many others) have on Indigenous Pacific Islanders goes to show how their identities and overall cultural, historical, political and social histories have been erased from mainstream academia. In grouping Indigenous Pacific Islanders and their various identities into Asian/Asian American feminism, entire cultures and regions are disregarded and presumes that Pacific Islanders have some inherent connection to Asia when they do not. It is stated very early on that Pacific Islanders are not Asian/Pacific Islander. To group the two together and to assume they have the same suffer from the same issues is incorrect and stems from colonization of the Islands (the presumption that they are the same and thus can lumped into the same criteria/are of study). Furthermore, the reading makes a valid argument in pointing that Asian Americans are often complicit in this practice, as many tend to believe they have some connection to the Pacific Islands when they do not and use Indigenous Pacific Islander language/custom as some sort of safe haven and commodity. This connection reminded me of Latin America, in the sense that many Latinx people have internalized colonial mindsets (colorism, erasure of indigeneity, gender and sex dichotomy) and thus further the degradation of their respective nation’s cultures and peoples. It is important then, to recognize the differences between Indigenous Pacific Islanders and Asian/Asian American areas and acknowledge the non-settler/colonial history of the Pacific Islands.

Another interesting part of the reading to me was about how outsiders view Pacific women and reminded me of the “coloniality of gender” by Lugones and reminded me of the exoticized and sexualized women in art history, especially in Paul Gaugin’s art which displays hypersexualized nudes and whose art while in Tahiti portrayed it as a space fantasy and freedom with sexual access. I think an important point is when it is stated that this representation through European and American colonialism is different than the ways Asian women are figured as representative of sexual excess rooted in Orientalism, again, emphasizing that Asian and Pacific Islander colonialism and feminism are two separate entities and should be studied as such.

In using the word colonial in this context, it encompass one nation’s dominance and rule and authority over another through the use of brutal violence and exploitation, and essentially tactics of dehumanization to create subordination and subjugation. I found it particularly helpful when  “colonialism” and “coloniality” were defined separately in Mendoza’s paper. In referring to “coloniality” Mendoza states that it refers to “long standing patterns of power that emerge in the context of colonialism, which redefine culture, labor, intersubjective relations, aspirations of the self, common sense, and knowledge production in ways that accredit the superiority of the colonizer.” By this explanation, I define colonial as not only the subjugation of one nation over another but the lasting power dynamic that stays permeated within the colonized nation, it may be matters of race, gender, sexuality, region, theory and concepts, as well as the power structures that have remained and continue to shape colonized nations.

Anticolonial theories and concepts and projects works to question the structures imposed and implemented by colonization and strives to challenge its practices. Two schools of thought emerge out this- postcolonial and decolonial theory and feminisms.  From my understanding, postcolonial theory aims to understand colonization through the eyes of the colonized, it seeks to examine the effects of colonialism and coloniality to challenge what is known from what it is only Western history and perspectives. Postcolonial thinkers want to address the racism and Euro centrism within colonized nations and analyze their effects in socioeconomic and political policy as well as society and culture as a whole. It is a study of colonial history usually in reference to India and other parts of South Asia . I could not exactly pinpoint as to why that is, but I believe that while India’s overall cultural and societal culture was not exactly colonized in the same sense as Latin American and Caribbean areas, but rather it was more of a economical and political imposition which is why the reading heavily focused on political freedom, capitalism and class structure.

Decolonial theory and feminism however, is one that primarily revolves around the analyses in the Spanish and Portuguese colonization of the Americas.  I believe it is different from postcolonial in the sense that it provides or presents ways in which to overcome or dismantle the practices of coloniality that has spread and formed Latin America after the conquest. According to Mendoza, it also argues that “colonialism is what made capitalism happen,” contrast to the thought that capitalism existed in Europe prior to colonization. Furthermore, although colonialism itself is not apparent in the ways it once was, coloniality of power is still maintained. Decolonial theory and feminism acknowledges the European implementation of racialization, gender construction, and sexual exploitation that has rendered people of color as non human and barbaric. Decolonial feminism wishes to recuperate the history of colonized peoples and dismantle the current coloniality of power that still holds to this day through intersectionality.

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