Monthly Archives: March 2024

Bruce Albert is Not Like the Other Girls

Posted on by under Yanomami

This book has taken us in an interesting turn, and I see why it’s last on the syllabus. It parallels almost every. other text in a very intriguing way, opposing Guaman Poma and mirroring Rigoberta Menchu. What is most interesting to me, though, is the conversation about translation. Specifically, how Bruce Albert wrote the book by listening to Kopenawa and translating all of it into French. As my late French immersion didn’t do me much good, I read the book in English, and hence lies another layer of translation. In this way, I’m reminded of the Popol Vuh, and questions are raised about the complete authenticity and accuracy of the writing. Based on how blatantly anti-white people it is, there is a sense of the faithful meanings and proper translation being done. As well, it is reminiscent of Yawar Fiesta in its use of words in their original language to convey their exact meaning.

Another thing to consider in this book is how Albert’s background as an anthropologist influences his research. There is a deep-rooted history of anthropology looking at Indigenous people as damaged individuals to solve and document, ignoring their own agency. The ‘story of Indigenous deficiency’, as Daniel Heath Justice calls it, implies that Indigenous people’s beliefs and traditions have led them to a state of moral lacking, and that is what causes all of their distress. This ignores, oh I don’t know, colonizers colonizing. Often anthropologists come at oppressed cultures with a damage-based research lens. What’s interesting here is how Albert learns to use a desire-based research lens, documenting what Kopenawa wants to pass on to the white world. He even goes so far as to adamantly distance himself from other anthropologists, claiming this is no longer his work but really his way of life. He is not like the other anthropologists, he’s so different.

This ties into something Kopenawa talks about, which is how white people need their knowledge written to be passed down and remembered. This contrasts greatly with Yanomami culture, where their knowledge is ingrained in their thoughts and their speeches. This means that Albert is then coming in as a knowledge translator, taking the white man role to write down his white man words. As much as this accomplishes Kopenawa’s goal of spreading knowledge, how effectively does this contribute to the continuation of needing to—for lack of a better term—Westernize Yanomami life and Indigenous knowledge in general?

I Want to Sue Subcomandante Marcos for Emotional Damages

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In the second half, Marcos becomes a storyteller. Don’t get me wrong, he was one before, but the tone turns more conversational for a while and we hear a metaphorical laughter through stories like his tales of sleepless solitude. It’s an interesting change, and I liked getting to hear more personal details about Marcos. Did it also shatter my heart? Completely.

In the letter to Eduardo Galeano, Marcos writes about his time on Children’s Day, and how the children chose to spend their time in the midst of all of the conflict. It makes you empathize with Marcos in a completely new way (as if I didn’t already). Maybe I’m just not immune to propaganda, but it’s truly deeply touching.

In portions 47 and 48, he is vulnerable, his personal information and experience with death spread out on a table. For me, this book becomes something that only further cements, in a scripted way, Marcos’ legacy as an essential character in the rebellion.

I think that the storytelling is such an interesting turn for him to make, mostly because they are written as they were most likely told to children, and so much humanity and personality is read through it.

It genuinely hurts my heart. Does this become no longer a conversation of Indigenous voice, but instead of Marcos’ personal life? For me, I’m finding it hard to bring my head out of the specificity of his stories and life back to our general class discussion. This is, weirdly, the first book that has done so. Interesting, because Marcos, in his anaphora and his references to the Popol Vuh, is trying to always bring the reader back to the main idea. He talks of his own life, and he turns to his audience and he says we don’t have to choose this. The government is lying when they say we have to live in this pain.

I think that the format of this book—that is, that it isn’t completely chronological—contributes to this mountain of heartbreak that I’m feeling. He talks of his hike up a steep hill, stars rejuvenating him. This is in 1999, but later comes the story of the interrogation of Subcomandante Marcos, though it is from 1995, it hurts all the more to know that “since having been born, he has conspired against the shadows that darken the Mexican sky” (p. 233). In complete truth, it’s a brilliantly written and arranged piece, and I’m really appreciating that we got to read it.

Pro Ventriloquist Marcos Reveals His Secrets

Posted on by under Our Word is Our Weapon

Through Subcomandante Marcos’ voice speaks the voice of the Zapatista National Liberation Army. This is a sentiment repeated time and time again throughout chapters, and it harkens back to a conversation we had at the beginning of the year that relates to the dead and the weak talking through someone else. Marcos himself is an anonymous figure, one with only a name as a public figure. In this way, he can be compared to Votán Zapata, the one for who the Zapatista National Liberation Army is named after, who “took a name in [their] being nameless, [and] took a face in [their] being faceless”. Zapata is considered everything and nothing, the guardian and heart of the people, and Marcos conducts himself in a way that reflects his want to continue this sort of leadership and legacy.

Well that’s cool and all, great, he wants to lead the people to democracy and is doing so in a Batman vigilante secret hero way. Fantastic. What’s new?

In the prologue of Our Word is Our Weapon, writer Jose Saramago describes how when Marcos originally travelled to Chiapa, he had very little success communicating with the Indigenous people of the area because they did not understand him. He wanted to launch a proletariat revolution, but the Chiapanecans saw land not as property, but as the heart, and had a different opinion from him. Still Marcos, not Mayan himself, came to be the leader of the Mayan revolution, and it is said he “penetrated the mist, learned to listen, and was able to speak.”

This asks a plethora of questions about Indigenous voice, as these books always do, but I think that it’s especially interesting in comparison to our conversation in class last week, in which we theorized that maybe there is not such a thing as pure and impossibly perfect Indigenous voice, as our hearing it fundamentally guarantees its non-existence. Marcos, whether Indigenous or not, pioneered the Zapatista uprising in Southern Mexico, and while his identity remained masked (ha.ha.), it was more important to acknowledge that he had an entire community in support behind him, choosing him as their spokesperson.

Marcos himself has something to say about this, commenting on the struggle of the rebellion: “But the colour of the skin does not define the Indigenous person: dignity and the constant struggle to be better define him. Those who struggle together are brothers and sisters, regardless of the color of our skin or the language we learned as children.” Is this where he finds the reasoning behind using the “we” pronoun in his speeches?

If this is how Marcos sees himself, as a member of the constant struggle to be better, it would make sense that he steps into Zapata’s shoes and aims to be a speakerphone for the Zapatista National Liberation Army. Even if he admits he knows he “should not have been [there]”, but instead it should have been the Indigenous people who were oppressed, he wants to act as a mirror to look towards tomorrow.

Source: Confía en Mí

Posted on by under I, Rigoberta Menchú, Uncategorized

While reading the second half of I, Rigoberta Menchú was just as interesting as the first (and I’m not Andrew, so I mean that sincerely), what I am more interested in is how it pertains to wider conversations of the book’s commentary on Menchú’s agency in her testimonial. In class, we talked about whether or not Burgos’ introduction properly articulates the dynamic between herself and Menchú, and the possibility of Menchú’s playing up her Indigeneity for Burgos. Obviously, one way she does this is through her clothing, and it can be argued that it’s furthered in her keeping of certain secrets.

However, after watching the two lecture videos and learning more about Stoll’s criticism of I, Rigoberta Menchú, lots of more questions pop up. The first of which assumes sincerity on Menchú’s behalf. If truly, this was her story, and she kept out certain conversations for the peace of her community, that means that she held up her half of representing her community while not opening themselves to further hurt from colonial communities. If so, she must have expected the doubt that then followed (from scholars like Stoll), and may have been prepared to use Burgos as a patsy to place the blame on.

Conversely, if Stoll’s criticisms are perfectly valid, it is possible that Menchú was not entirely telling the truth, and that her agency was understated in the original brief look of the book. It opens up further questions: how much might she have fabricated that Stoll didn’t catch? What was the purpose of these fabrications?

When talking about secrets, she impresses that it is an effect of the community traditions and practices as well as experiences with colonial acts of theft. Not included in this is the conversation of trickster behaviour, which can be commonly found in many international Indigenous communities.
By keeping secrets, she may have found it more entertaining or amusing to then tell tall tales, unbeknownst to Burgos (who had very little knowledge of Guatemala). A question remains: how does this affect the general reader? The average reader is probably in a similar position to Burgos, and as Menchú was able to fool Burgos, it follows that it would then be assumed to be truthful testimonio.

There’s another nuance: where did Menchú draw the line between testimonio as truth and pseudo-testimonio (as John Beverly calls it)? These questions will probably forever go unanswered, but examining them helps us as an audience read more critically into the lines of Menchú/Burgos’ conversation.

Also apologies if the title is not actually grammatically correct, I took one term of SPAN 101 and did 200 days on Duolingo, so my credentials aren’t exactly buffed.

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