What did I learn? That you’re actually supposed to like the courses you take in your degree.

Taking Indigenous Studies as your major, while a fantastic way to deconstruct the colonial world around you, does focus very much on the world around you. Conversations about Indigenous groups in other parts of the world as not nearly as prominent, and I think that was the main reason I took this class. I wanted to hear Indigenous in a context outside of the land now called Canada. Well. I’m glad I did.

I think that I learned so much about Latin American culture, especially in and around the treatment of Indigenous peoples, but also how to link together domestic conversations of Indigeneity and international conversations of Indigeneity. What is Indigeneity? The ultimate question. This course did leave me with a lot more questions than answers, but I think that’s what a good Arts course is meant to do. If I was leaving CHEM 101 with questions, I’d be pissed. But I’m not! So… Yahoo! Anyway, a course like this is meant to make you think, to discuss and I think the format of this class worked well for this reason too. I enjoyed squinting at the board to make out words that are indecipherable in the middle of those beautiful mind maps.

I learned so much about voice. More specifically, the possibilities that voice holds. It exists outside of the idea of orality, and out of individuality. Voice can last years, and it can reflect upon person and person, and it can represent in a way that we may not picture a tangible voice doing. Voice carries agency, and identity, and personality. How do we find a way to healthily and ethically create a voice-partnership like Burgos and Menchu, or Marcos and the community? I’m not saying those are healthy or ethical, I’m also not saying they aren’t…. No comment. Anyway.

I genuinely just really enjoyed this class. I learned how to be brave and talk in discussions, and that not all blog posts need to be formal. I kind of learned how to form my own voice and not use cuss words in blog posts too. Apropos. I also learned that I may have a knack for really stupid blog post titles, and I should look into that. I don’t know how many jobs there are in that department now that ChatGPT exists, but anyway. I’ve really enjoyed this course, and I’m really glad I took it. Congrats to those graduating 🙂 and I hope I see the rest of you around!

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.