In Chicano studies 10A I’ve been able to go through different learning and transformative experiences. I’m proud to say I’ve gone through 1.Concientización, the change from a colonized mind to a decolonized one. The process is complicated and starts with a person that is colonized and goes through a crisis that leads to a change of mindset. To have a 2.colonized mind means that the colonizer has forced a mindset that emphasizes inequality among humanity and empowers only certain groups. People who have/had colonized minds (like myself) don’t even realize they have the mindset until they go through a crisis. Thanks to Concientización, I’ve been able to steer away from a subconscious way of thinking that supports oppression and inequality. Being a Chicano born in the US to two illegal immigrants from Mexico, I never imagined myself being one to have a colonized mindset. I was raised with Mexican customs and traditions while continuing to live in the US, but It was during this part of my life that I unknowingly began to adopt a colonized mindset.
It was in school that I thought I had begun to learn about the history of our nation that included things like The Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, US-Mexico War, and The Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo. I say that “I thought” I learned because it was all based off the Great White Origin Myth, in which history ignores the fact that our country was actually built on genocide, enslavement, and imperialist expansion. The myth not only dismisses the truth but also glorifies/idolizes a racist manifesto. In school, textbooks always taught me that topics like Manifest Destiny, The Monroe Doctrine, US-Mexico War, and The Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo were all acts that happened for the sole good of this country. Textbooks did an excellent job of failing to mention that these events came at the expense of thousands of innocent lives.
The 3.Monroe Doctrine which was a document coined by President James Monroe in 1823 basically stating that Europe was to no longer colonize any land in the Americas. Similarly, in the way that the European Wizard Prospero took over your Island, this was US’s attempt at trying to keep Europe out of their affairs and possible conquest of the land. The Americans did this out of their personal greed for the land. Soon followed 4.Manifest Destiny, a term coined by Newspaper editor John O’Sullivan in 1845 to describe how it’s the God-given right for the Americans to expand west, Yet what was purposely left out in textbooks was that the process was to kill/displace hundreds of thousands of native Americans and tens of thousands of Mexicans already present in the land that “God gave way” for the Americans to take. I was able to learn truths by studying and looking at history from the point of view of the colonized rather than the colonizers. through readings such as Albert Memmi’s The Colonizer and The Colonized, I learned Mexico was a rather tough brute that had endured centuries of genocide, slavery, and discrimination. My blindness to these facts revealed how brainwashed I was, but with Memmi explaining the real sentiment that dehumanized those who were colonized, I began to look more into the past and question. The quote that shows this tells “ What is left of the colonized at the end of this stubborn effort to dehumanize him? He is surely no longer an alter ego of the colonizer. He is no longer a human being. He tends more rapidly toward becoming an object,” (Memmi 86). The colonized mind becomes numb and transparent by forgetting what it originally knew, so it could fit in. The memories had been lost and the future was being forfeited without knowing. Mexico had gone through 2 conquests, which led to a lot of issues.
The takeover began with the First colonization of Mexico occurred when the Spaniards came to Mexico in the 16th century and colonized the indigenous people who were already settled in Mexico. The second colonization was the 5. Mexican-American war, which occurred during the 19th century. It first began with the US offering Mexico a poor offer of $15 million for huge amounts land they occupied which included present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. When Mexico rejected the terrible offer, the US decided to declare war against Mexico over a “territory dispute” in Texas. The Americans used this dispute to declare full-on war to forcibly take the land they sought and in the process taking almost 25,000 Mexican lives. In Martinez’s novel, De Colores Means All of Us, she points out the Great White Origin Myth and explains, “The massive extermination of indigenous peoples provided our land base; the enslavement of African labor made our economic growth possible; and the seizure of half of Mexico by war… extended this nation’s boundaries,” (Martinez 43). Similarly, it can be said that Prospero took your Island from you, but the only difference was that instead of killing you, Prospero enslaved you.
Ultimately, The Mexican-American War came to an end on February 2, 1848, with the 6.Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This was a one-sided treaty that ended the war between US and Mexico after nearly 25,000 Mexicans were killed. In the terms of the treaty, Mexico lost 55 percent of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, to the United States, and left Mexico the embarrassing $15 million. Mexico also had to relinquish all claims to Texas and recognize the Rio Grande as the southern boundary with the United States. This is known as the second colonization of Mexico or 7.Double Colonization.
These two colonizations led to the creation of a mix of several races and ethnicities. Since the native Mexicans were as savages and lower class people, these mixes of white and indigenous blood led to a creation of mixed people. Sadly, It made these people who had mixed blood to feel superior to natives and Mexicans. This encouraged assimilation and led more people to pursue the idea of being 8. Off-White. In Laura Gomez’s novel, Manifest Destinies, it is stated that “whiteness operated as a palliative to soften the sting of changing from colonial subjects to colonial objects,” (Gomez 90). This gave way for a cheap feeling of superiority, while unknowingly supporting political oppression. The idea of off-white was a term used to keep anyone who wasn’t white, oppressed. It also allowed for these people who had some European blood to place themselves higher in a higher social class over those who didn’t have European blood. You Caliban went against this as you saw your mixed blood as a curse and hated the colonizer even more. Prospero forced you to assimilate by teaching you his language, which inevitably led to you partially assimilating as you had no choice. This exemplifies the 9.pyramid of petty tyrants, which was a tool that the colonizers used as a way of constant oppression towards those who weren’t like them. It’s an idea that the more “white” an individual is, the more superior they are. For example, an individual is half white and half indigenous is more white/powerful than someone who is of full blood indigenous blood. Therefore the person who’s more white can oppress those who aren’t as white.
These people of mixed blood/races never knew how to identify themselves. This led to an issue that is still present to this day. This indecisiveness is known by the term 10. Cultural Schizophrenia, which is the uncertainty of how one self-identifies. In the novel Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua asserts the significance of understanding oneself and one’s body. Anzaldua explains, “The Catholic and Protestant religions encourage fear and distrust of life and of the body; they encourage a split between the body and the spirit and totally ignore the soul; they encourage us to kill off parts of ourselves,” (Anzaldua 59). Gloria Anzaldua tells us how it is key for one to be in tune with themselves spiritually and physically, while also taking into account one’s soul.
Caliban, you are an excellent example of this since you had mixed blood and also had adopted some of the colonizer ways. You didn’t know what you identified yourself as. You didn’t want to see yourself as anything close to your colonizer, but you knew you had some of the same human blood. You had an internal conflict of who you were and didn’t how to go about it. You learned and adopted the ways of the colonizer, but didn’t want to think of yourself as the person you despised the most.
In Song of the Hummingbird, Graciela Limon touches on how Huitzitzilin’s story led to Father Benito’s concientizacion and emphasizes how people should always look at both points of view when she explains, “He [Father Benito] now saw that he had resisted her because he misunderstood her words and that he had thought that they were an assault on his religion. Looking down at the city that had been the mirror of Huitzitzilin’s world, the monk regretted his angry response and rude departure,” (Limon 216). You of all people can agree with that Caliban. When hearing a story, people should always look at both POV’s as there are always 2 sides to every story. In your case, if I were to look at you from Prospero’s point of view I’d see you like a crazy and heartless savage, but if I looked at you from Sycorax’s point of view then I’d probably see you as a colonized human slave who learned to speak. These all touch on how most things are subjective, so people will only what they want to see. This is why even when Ariel attempts to assimilate and please Prospero, he’s still seen as subhuman ghost slave. He may be a ghost, but even then he was still colonized without realizing it.
The people who are being colonized learn the ways of the colonizer, from forgetting their mother tongue to adopting the colonizers’ language as their own. It doesn’t happen by choice but happens to a colonized mind. This is where the quote “El pueblo que pierde su memoria, pierde su destino” begins to become more prevalent. Forgetting a lot one’s native heritage, beliefs, and culture is part of being colonized and is why the quote translates to “The people that forgets its past forfeits its future.” and I was guilty of this, I had a colonized mind. I did begin to adopt the ways and culture of the colonizer. Caliban you as well were colonized. Though you did your best and fought back as often as you could, you succumb to the colonizer. Actually, We succumb to the colonizer. We lost our memory, and let the colonizer take control of us. By doing so, we forfeit our futures when our mindset followed a colonized one. We went through crises and went through concientización. It’s essential for a people to never lose sight of where they came from, and also never be afraid to go against the status quo if we know it’s not right. By doing this we can secure the futures that we set for us, and not let ourselves get brought down by anyone who thinks otherwise.