Welcome to Phoenix

Flying into to the Phoenix-Mesa airport was a little surreal. At first all that could be seen as mountains and deserts, which were absolutely striking--it's been years since I've been near real mountains, and I didn't realized how much I've missed them until we arrived. Then, of course, we flew lower, over the farming areas outside of the capital. Enormous green rectangles and circles were spread out over the flat desert, with man-made poker-straight irrigation canals carrying water away from the distant Colorado river. It was unsettling, and it felt wrong. A simultaneous testament to man's ingenuity and idiocy to be sure.

After we landed, found our luggage (my mother's suitcase, a solid metal silver contraption that looks like it could survive a nuclear explosion, was brought out personally because of it's unique appearance,) collected our rental car and checked into a hotel.

Being absolutely starved, we decided to go in search of a meal. Not just any meal--we have decided that throughout the trip, every meal (except breakfast) we will endeavour to try something completely new. We got exactly that. We found a restaurant (Texas something or other) which not had a tacidermied armadillo drinking a bear as decor but gave us free peanuts which we got to throw on the ground (mum was horrified,) brought us fried pickles and about half a pound each of pulled pork. Needless to say, we'll be eating left overs for days--if it survives the heat.

The event of the day was going to the Desert Botanical Garden where we walked through carefully groomed trails detailing blooming cacti, wild flowers, a desert oasis, and even a small mountain of a rock.

It was stunning, but the best part was the wildlife. Birds everywhere, even some feeding their young in cacti, hares, lizards, butterflies, and small squirrel like creatures. As the night came on, bats appeared to swoop in and catch moths and other night insects above our heads.

Live flamenco music and dancers made the evening a complete experience. It was a lovely introduction to the landscape and the variety of life in the desert as well as the entertainment of Phoenix.

First day in Arizona was an overall success.

Crossing into the US

Since I just crossed the Canada/US border today, I thought that a post about the actual border crossing as I encountered it might be pertinent.

The border crossing itself is located between Thunder Bay and Grand Marais right near Pigeon River. Pigeon River used to be a portage route and later trading post for the first voyageurs in the area before they went a little farther North East to where Fort William was founded on the Kaministiqua river. Now Pigeon River is an abandoned conservation area where the remnants of a camp ground facility are slowly falling apart over time. It's a lovely place to go hiking, scenic views from the hill and a waterfall to boot, and I am forever tempted to swim across (which, of course, would be an illegal crossing). Not this time, though. We had a destination to get to. And a border to cross.

Passports at the ready, my mother, father and myself drove to the check point where all kinds of technological apparatuses are aimed at the vehicle, including a camera which flashed as we pulled up to the window. Names, passports, reasons for entering the United States, and the relationships between each other were all handed over. Because my father is a Belgian, he was forced to park the car and go into the small building to be finger printed. Since this trip was my idea, I went with him.

It was surprising how very oppressive the space was when we entered. Photos of the president alongside a bald eagle flying against the stripes and stars were on the wall. Warnings and threats of what is done to smugglers or illegal weapon carriers are everywhere. About seven officers all geared up with bullet proof vests, army boots and guns sat around watching as one officer questioned my father and I about the reasons for the trip while he filled out paperwork and took fingerprints and a retinal scan of my father's eyes. To go to Duluth. Overnight.

What was surprising to me (since I was merely the onlooker for this process- having had the option of not coming into the building at all) was the number of questions directed to me personally. "Why is it important for you to go to Arizona for your thesis?" because it's a creative thesis, I'd like to see a desert, and I've got a meeting with a graduate coordinator at the Arizona State University "Who is at the Arizona State University that you're meeting with?" The School of Theatre and Film graduate coordinator "Why can't you do this in Southern Ontario?" Because it is a specialized area of interest, and there are certain texts I can't access from Canada "Do you have copies of your correspondence with ASU?" No "Why is this trip necessary?" I'm checking out the university down there, doing some research and having a holiday with my Mum "You're doing your Master's in what?" English Literature "Why do you have to go to ASU?" Because it's a specialized program. "What school do you go to?" I'm doing my MA at the University of Guelph "Why were you in Thunder Bay?" My parent's live here, and I'm visiting right now "Why didn't you fly from Toronto?" We were already in Thunder Bay and the flights from Duluth were more practical "Who is this woman and why doesn't she have your last name?" That's my mother's passport and she just preferred her own

Thank god he didn't interrogate me on what my thesis was about. Can you imagine having to explain to a border guard who is already being overly inquisitive (and not in a pleasantly curious kind of way) why borderland theory, identity performance and illegal immigration is even remotely important? Or why several texts on my reading list are banned in the state I'm travelling to?

This is going to be an interesting trip. I was going to take photos while I was at the border, but considering I was already getting so much attention, I thought it would be prudent to avoid drawing any more attention to myself.

Stay tuned: tomorrow I have to get through airport security.

My apologies on not having posted in a while. Rest assured, I have not been idle during this break, but rather have been focusing my efforts on my "real" academic writing.

I will be travelling to Arizona and New Mexico on Friday where I hope to accomplish a few things, including sight seeing, visiting border towns, volunteer with Humane Borders, go to the Ancient Ways Arts Festival and Market in Zuni Pueblo, and meet with a few graduate coordinators at Arizona State University. Along with this, I intend to read Leslie Marmon Silko in public, and see if I can purchase a copy of Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years. This is, of course, in direct reference to the Tucson Unified School District's banning of texts (mostly by Native American and Chican@ authors), and I'd love to know how easy it is to find copies of these books in book stores, even though they were only officially banned in the school system.

I also am heading there to do some of what Monique Mojica would refer to as "body research". If I'm writing about the desert, the border, and the people who live in borderlands every day of their lives, I should really go and be there. Not to gain any sense of authority or authenticity, since that would of course position me in a colonial-tourist overseer kind of role, but to reconfigure my internal landscape that right now is based on the fiction I read, the photos I see, and the videos I watch.

I will be documenting the trip with photos, blog posts, and anecdotes (both theoretical and personal). It's about time I crossed some borders.

Violence on the Home Front

"Do you have to read all of that awful stuff? It's so depressing."

I was recently asked this as I sat hunched over a stack of books including Charles Bowden's Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future, Diana Washington Valdez's The Killing Fields: Harvest of Women, and Marjorie Agosin's Secrets in the Sand: The Young Women of Juarez. As can be inferred from the titles, they are indeed depressing and deal with horrific content, but nevertheless, I was surprised at the question. It is understandable, I mean, I could have found something far more enjoyable to do rather than watch Lourdes Portillo's Senorita Extraviada: Missing Young Women and nearly throw up at a description of torture.

Despite all this, I firmly believe it is important to read this information. I have the privilege (like the person who asked me) to ignore this information. I could very easily continue my academic career without actually letting accounts of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder bring me down. These are stories that happen to someone else, in another time another place. What can Thunder Bay and Juarez possibly have in common?

In December of 2011 Thunder Bay took on the title of Murder Capital of Canada, due to the number of homicides that occur due to the drug trade and gang activity. As a border town Thunder Bay shares many similarities with Juarez in terms of violence the publicity of said violence.  The Mayor of the city has argued that the issues plaguing Thunder Bay are unlikely to reach national headlines because of their origins in alcoholism and drug use...an interesting comment, to be sure. It makes me question how these origins somehow make the acts less publishable, and what (racial, cultural, age, economic) demographic is being stigmatized and therefore ignored by the media. While I attended high school in the city the number of suicides alone in young First Nations women of my age group was staggering. The number of rapes that I personally am aware of are equally so. Good luck finding any investigation on either of those problems.

Although femicide, gang violence, substance abuse and the drug trade in Juarez is far more extreme than in Thunder Bay, it too is unlikely to reach national headlines for different reasons (namely, police and governmental corruption). It is so extreme and so horrific that it borders on desensitization. It is easy then, to say that life in the "first world" is different, less violent, etc. We assume that because we live in a location that we are aware of the problems around us, and if you are privileged enough to be safe from violence it is seductive to assume that there is no violence nearby. It's depressing and uncomfortable to even think about, so why not slip into something a little more complacent, like ignorance.

In Senorita Extraviada, the groups of family members of the murdered girls try to bring this information forward, in an effort to educate those around them and protect other women. Their argument is that "to remain silent is to acquiesce" and that it is entirely unacceptable.

So, to the person who asked me if I had to read all that awful stuff: yes, I do. Not just because I'm writing about it in my thesis, but because it's happening in my world, and what happens to others affects me. It's absurd to think that we are ever completely removed from other human beings in this world--especially when such atrocities are being committed. It's easy to ignore them, to turn a blind eye when looking at reality depresses us, but what this does is create a sterilized fiction for ourselves. And I refuse to perpetuate that.

Rights

The following was written as a response to someone who asked me what right I had to speak about the borderlands as a white Belgian-Canadian woman. 

What right do I have to speak? 

None, you say.

Yet I am compelled because there is a need here, 

an emptiness that drives me to speak.

I know it isn’t mine alone, 

but the only way I can feel it is to own it, 

so this hole in my chest belongs to me.

You might have one too, you might say yours is deeper

with jagged edges that prevent you from sewing the skin.

And you might be right because when I look at your emptiness, 

it eclipses everything that I’ve ever known.

Still, I ache. 

And you, because of your pain, your hurt, you negate me

saying my emptiness is irrelevant and my experiences white-washed. 

I am a façade and you the epitome of authenticity.

You might be right, but still, I ache. 

And it hurts all the more in our little community of emptiness

that includes by excluding, no praxis, no action, not yet,

where somehow experiences have become competitions.

But what right do I have to release these words into this world?

Are they wrong when they fall from my lips,

because my mouth is not shaped like yours?

Or is it because this body I own cannot produce the statement necessary

because my flesh is not strong enough, because I haven’t lived long enough,

because when you look in my eyes and see me, it’s easier to pretend that you don't.

It's easier to think that I am the ignorant gringa bent on capitalism, consumerism, 

destruction on every level, including spiritual ones,

that I am here to perpetuate a cycle of abuse spanning centuries.

What right do I have to speak?

Maybe none.

I am compelled, but I do not fit into the image of resistance that you have pictured for so long.

For you, I may have no right to speak,

but there is no right you have to silence me. 

Nepantla

Since the 7th century CE, 1.5 million people (mostly in Central Mexico) have been speaking Nahuatl, otherwise referred to as Aztecan. This makes it a fairly important language, some words of which you probably already know. Coyote, for example, as well as chocolate, avocado, tomato, and chili. My favourite is huitzil (humming bird), because its name sounds like their humming wings as they zip past you. I have a beaded humming bird from Guatemala (via the Toronto Texile Museum) perched above my computer monitor, watching me with glassy eyes as I type. 

In many cultures hummingbirds, as well as butterflies, have the ability to bring messages to the spirit world. Aztecs loved hummingbirds, often wearing them (either representations like my beaded version, or the bodies of dead birds) because they supposedly brought the wearer vitality, energy, and fertility. The patron god of Tenochititlan named Huitzilopōchtli had hummingbird qualities. Dead warriors sometimes came back from the realm of the dead in the form of hummingbirds and butterflies. 

The name of this post, nepantla, is a Nahuatl  term for the in-between or middle. It is the precursor to the borderland, and has at its centre an implication of conquest, invasion and violence. Gloria Anzaldua uses this term, explaining that “nepantla es tierra desconcida, and living in this liminal zone means being in a constant state of displacement—an uncomfortable, even alarming feeling”. She describes it as a threshold, or a space between worlds, which can then apply to both physical borders as well as supernatural divisions. 

Anzaldua also coined the term nepantlera, which denotes someone who crosses or lives in nepantla. I absolutely love this idea because not only does it connect with the trickster figure, but they serve as a bridge between the worlds. They are the border crossers, which Anzladua uses in a far more positive sense than the illegal alien or the coyote. 

"For nepantleras, to bridge is an act of will, an act of love, 

an attempt toward compassion and reconciliation, 

and a promise to be present with the pain of others without losing themselves to it” 

This quote by Anzaldua is so hopeful and yet realistic in its understanding of the pain and uncertainty of the borderland. There is possibility for growth, for change and adaptation through this act of love and reconciliation, but the violence of the borderland as designated by the term nepantla is ever present. Anzaldua perceptively reminds her readers however that even though "no bridge lasts forever" this shouldn't prevent us from building them. 

Nepantla has a variable terrain and fluctuating inhabitants, and for nepantleras (and maybe even hummingbirds) it is a location possibility: of bridging and border crossing. 

White Guilt

I finished reading Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony a few days ago. This is, of course, one of the central texts to my thesis and covers not only geopolitical borderlands but supernatural ones as well. For those of you who haven’t read it (you really should) here’s a mini synopsis.

The main character Tayo, a mixed-blood Laguna man, tries to heal from his horrific experiences in the Vietnam War. Haunted by the deaths of his cousin and uncle, he lapses into alcoholism and self destruction until his exhausted family members send him to a medicine man named Betonie. With the assistance of Betonie, Tayo enters into an ancient, ongoing ceremonial journey to prevent the Destroyers from completing their quest to bring about the end of the world. The Destroyers are evil forces which feed off of devastation, ultimately bent on destroying human kind.

The section of Ceremony which I’d like to focus on is one of the legends which Silko includes in the text, relates to the Destroyers. It’s the origin story of white people.

It begins with a witches conference, where all the witch people get together “for a context the way people have baseball tournaments nowadays except this was a contest of dark things.” All the witches show off their evil talents, until finally only one witch is left, who decides to tell a story.

“Caves across the ocean

in caves of dark hills

white skin of people

like the belly of a fish

covered with hair.

...

Then they grow away from the earth

then they grow away from the sun

then they grow from the plants and animals. 

They see no life

When they look

they see only objects.

The world is a dead thing for them

...

They fear

They fear the world.

They destroy what they fear.

They fear themselves.”

The story goes on for pages detailing the events of the “discovery” of the Americas. The genocides, the diseases, the widespread destruction. The other witches are horrified, saying that:

“We are okay without it

we can get along without that kind of thing.

Take it back.

Call that story back.”

But of course, stories can’t be taken back. That’s the powerful nature of stories, once released, who knows what they’ll do. And so, the story itself brings white people into existence to do the work of the Destroyers and bring about the end of the world. And to be honest, judging from history, it’s not far off. Of course, Silko explains that the Destroyers don’t solely work through white people, and can feed off of anyone. But the white people were created for it.

So how do I, a white person, deal with this kind of origin story? Surely I’m not like that--surely I’m not an agent of destruction bent on obliterating the earth through unspeakable acts of violence? Silko isn’t talking about me, is she? In academia we’re told, never to rely on authorial intention, so we have to find proof in the text. That proof could be that the main character is both indigenous and white and since the message of hope lives in him, perhaps there is hope for me.

I called this post “White Guilt”. Maybe that’s a mistake. Guilt, after all, is a useless emotion that is only self-serving and generally causes inaction. Maybe until we start acting against the violence and destruction in this world, we are working for the Destroyers.

Losing Names

I lost my name when I was young. Not my whole name, but pieces. A middle piece, in fact.

My last post--the story of my middle name, Retsilisitsoe--was used for a dramatic performance at the University of Guelph that centered around the topic of ghosts. What I did not mention was the border implications of this name. And believe me, there are some.

Retsilisitsoe is an unwieldy name. It took me years to learn to spell and pronounce properly (which makes it a great prank: "I'll give you 5 bucks if you can spell my middle name right on the first try, or else you owe me 5"). It's also very long.

The first time my name was removed off of my documentation was in Bolivia. We were having our photos taken at some government office and had to hold up a little plackard with our names constructed out of little white plastic letters. Initially I was worried there wouldn't be enough space for me to fit my whole name. My mother assured me there would be enough room- that we would squeeze the letters together. We started spelling it out together: two first names for each of my grandmothers and then....
There weren't enough letters. Not enough to complete my middle name and my last name, so just like that, it was gone.

The later disappearances of my name were similar to the first and all bleed into one another. There wasn't space on the form. No option for a second middle name. First and last name only, please. The school didn't care, the driver's licence used a file with only my first and last name, the health card didn't have the option. It was a hassle to fight with the paperwork.

Finally. One last chance. I applied for (another) passport 3 years ago so that I could go on a trip to Belgium to meet my father's side of the family. I walked up to the desk. Lo and behold there were enough boxes to fill in my entire name. I was excited--finally, I'd have proof of my middle name beyond that of the crumpled birth certificate my mother hangs onto--I started to fill it in. My father, who was with me, stopped me.

"Do you really want to do that? You'll be hassled at borders for having that name. It's easier to only be English. You don't want trouble at the border--no one does."

And there it went. The last chance. Gone, because of a fear that when I got to a border (a hypothetical border on a hypothetical trip I haven't yet planned) it would be contested. Better for it to vanish and sneak across border spaces unnoticed. It didn't feel different, maybe a little discouraging, but not terribly different. I still feel like an imposter when I tell someone what my middle name is because, without the paper work to prove it, is it still mine?

Names and Ghosts

I don’t really see ghosts or haunting the traditional way I suppose. No life like forms appearing out of thin air, vanishing into a spooky house. I don’t even really believe in ghosts. Spirits, maybe. But not the traditional “haunting” spectre that must be expunged with an old priest and a young priest. That being said, I often find objects misplaced in my room, and have woken up to a figure at the edge of my bed- always my right side of my bed, no idea why. It’s never frightening at the time, although afterwards I always feel a bit spooked, but at the time it’s reassuring, calming even. I don’t recollect having told many people about this, because quite simply, I don’t think I thought of it as odd when I was younger. Not that it happened frequently, mind you.

My mother claims she’s seen it. We were in Winnipeg. My cousin had been in a major car accident, killing the other passenger, and leaving him paralyzed with a single digit chance of ever walking again. We had travelled to visit him in the hospital and were staying at a hotel where the only view from the window was a thrift shop. She says she woke up in the middle of the night, looked over at me, and saw a figure hovering protectively over me. I could ask her for more details, if you like.

I’ll give a little bit of background about myself, which may or may not be relevant to you, but I find has an interesting connection.

My middle name, Retsilisitsoe, is Sesotho which translates into “we are consoled”. The other translation for it is “the child that came after the child that died”. I was given this name because my mother had a series of miscarriages prior to my birth and was told numerous times to stop trying to have children. I was born with a double crown, which in that culture is a sign that I was supposed to be twins.

Now, there are practices in other parts of the world to specifically join the spirits together in order for there only to be one baby born, and avoid twins. Twins are often seen as bad luck, you see. A double crown, within this context, indicates that somehow I’ve ended up with two souls.

So, you can put the pieces together, if you like. The idea of having two souls, possibly a twin (or at least multiple siblings that didn’t make it) combined with a protective spirit of some kind makes for an interesting examination. For me, the haunting part is the idea of my name. That somehow, I’m supposed to be the consolation and make up for “the child that died before”.

The Waiting Place

Customs, bus terminals, hospital waiting rooms.

These waiting places- the in-between borderlands on the most minute scale—are all the same.

Where the carpet is always the same: strange splotches of colorless shapes.

Ambiguous art, if any. Nature-less.

The chairs are never comfortable, the magazines are out dated.

You are there, waiting for something to occur, but you are not existing in that moment because the next moment will be different, better, meaningful to you and only you.

The people who share this space drift past. 

These are people you will never remember, people who are forgotten before they have left your line of vision.

They mean nothing to you, nor will they ever.

You think, “This is not me. I am aware of my surroundings. I care about people. I am different.”

You assume that what I am telling you is a fiction- a version of reality that is parallel to you, but changed enough that it is irrelevant because you are not in a perpetual state of in-between like I am.

You assume this, suspended in the moment, waiting for my next point.

The waiting place.

You embody this space but you have not yet arrived.

Nor will you.

The waiting place is a place designed for departures, not arrivals.

A Few Poems and a Dream

The first poem I've decided to share was inspired in part by Gloria Anzaldua's chapter of Borderlands/La Frontera called "Tlilli Tlapali: The Path of the Red and Black Ink", and in part by a dream I had.

the red and black lines

like veins have reached me

among others

they crawled here over the earth

over their mother who has become unkind

they have bled here

and elsewhere

they have pulled me

onto the path of red and black ink

sinking into my legs

mixing the blood

telling stories of terrorized landscapes

which will spill onto the pages

The second poem I'm posting is one written about my home in Thunder Bay, which coincidently is a border town. My family owns over a hundred acres of field and forest far enough outside the city that you can see the milky way lit up like a pathway in the sky on a clear night. 

the spirit of this place haunts me.

it follows me down the path,

past the poplar and the birch.

hiding just out of sight in the pine,

it jumps and shines behind the moon,

reaching for me like whispers,

or smoke, or memories. 

I'll include more poetry every now and then when I get the chance. Till then, let me share an anecdote. 

I mentioned that the first poem was based, in part, on a dream. Most of my writing sparks from dreams, which is largely because I dream so frequently. Chronic nightmares plague me, perhaps stemming from the materials I've been reading or perhaps I simply need to eat more vegetables. Either way, a few months ago I  was hardly sleeping because of them and running myself ragged. One night (when I did actually sleep) I dreamt I had a green ring. The dream stuck with me and I couldn't stop thinking about the ring. All I knew was that it had a silver band and a green stone, and that for some reason, I needed it. 

After a few weeks of having the idea of this ring stuck in my head I went to the local hippie store and found one that suited the description. The label said "Malachite" which meant nothing to me at the time.


Malachite

When I got home I thought I'd look up the stone's meaning, just for a laugh. You can imagine how surprised I was to find out that Malachite supposedly helps to rid nightmares. I found this eerily suitable and read on. Looks like it's also meant to protect travellers, which is also incredibly suitable because I made the final decision to go to Arizona this coming spring a few days after my dream. I read on. The most notable place in North America to get this stone (which one assumes is the source of the rind itself) is the South Western region of the United States of America. Notably, Arizona. 

I'll have to start taking my dreams more seriously.

Research through the body

I had the opportunity to meet Monique Mojica on February the 9th when she came to the university campus and even did a reading of selections from Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots. I was, of course, thrilled to see her performance (brief as it was) because it confirmed several suspicions I had regarding the internalization of borderlands in her work.

One of the first comments she made upon entering into the discussion was that her work was a means for "becoming whole," piecing together different facets of identity like river stones one after another. In this process is a discovery of history and of the stories which we are all comprised of. When I asked her how this she worked through this fragmentation she explained that it was a form of healing.

Could it be said that the internalization of the borderlands is thereby a healing experience? Not exactly. It conflicted nature of the border is stress point which screams 'choose' even though there are no options available to be chosen. This is fragmenting, not healing, and it shatters the sense of self immediately. What is healing, however, is the reconciliation of the pieces and the realization that one can, as Guillermo Verdecchia states, "call off the border patrol".

Hybridity is the confluence of two (or more- let's not be exclusive) identities in one body, and it is the body which can be the site for this internalization. Mojica explained in her discussion with students that for her, "information is carried in the body and then brought into the studio for 'deep improv'" which then in turn become her works. This form of research through the body is a fascinating way of looking at the borderlands, particularly since so many borders are themselves inscribed upon the body- consider race, sex, gender, etc. For her, the body comes before the words, because the body is where the pain, the history, the trauma, the joy is located.

It was clearly evident that this kind of internalization worked its way through her physically as she performed Marie, Margaret and Madeline who are "three faces out of the hordes of Cree and Metis women who portaged across Canada with white men on their backs and were then systemically discarded". Her body contorted, her voice changed for each character she transformed into. The body was the performance of these identities which Mojica claims, "I carry in me".

I have given some thought to this notion of body research and have decided that before I can effectively tackle my subject, I have to go and experience physically the spaces of which I'm writing. I have to carry the information in my body so when I go to write I am doing so not as an ivory tower academic or a voyeur. Of course, I will be a voyeur in many ways; on account of my skin, my privilege, my nationality, my bank account, I will be a voyeur. I cannot internalize the borderlands in the same was as the illegal immigrant from Central America does when he swims across the Rio Grande with a garbage bad of supplies tied to him. I run the risk of being a tourist, of oversimplifying, of simply not understanding. But, I think, this body research will solidify those risks and make apparent my own perspective while still allowing me to learn and to grow in this field.

I am not Indigenous, Native American or First Nations. I will never truly know what it is like. I am not you, whoever you are. But I am willing to learn, to experience, to bear witness. I am an ally.

Article

I know it's been a while since I've updated my blog. To be fair, I do have an awful lot of scattered notes jotted down here and there which will be turned into numerous blog posts once I have the chance. Until then, here is an article I've written for a local bookstore here in Guelph on the subject of book banning.

Disappearing books, disappearing voices.

Earlier this year, the Tucson Unified School District in the state of Arizona went through their curriculum and banned approximately 50 books from their schools. The rationale included inappropriate content and age appropriateness, although most of these explanations were generally without basis. This act has received international attention, causing all kinds of questions to rise to the surface, particularly since most of the books were written by minority authors.  The TUSD has rephrased their decision due to public outcry about racial censorship, and now claims that many of the texts have not been banned but merely confiscated—as though this somehow lightens the blow. Through this process many of these texts have now become “disappeared books” that are neither explicitly condemned nor condoned, instead quietly slipping out of sight. Because of this new status they will be erased from book lists (banned and not banned) making the sheer idea of disappeared books disturbing. 

For there to be a need for censorship there is often a fear of stories which provoke thought. Stories which talk about oppression and liberation often stand as open threats to authoritative systems of government. This incident proves that not only is knowledge power and the control of books fraught with politics, but that free thinking and critically engaging with books can also be an act of empowerment. 

Removing free access to books which support alternative ways of thinking reasserts a hierarchy where those in power can rewrite history without resistance. By not including certain texts to be available or taught in schools, their content and their voices are forcefully silenced.  This is a colonial tactic of enforcing authority by removing any opposition that it faces. It is an ideologically based act of violence against narratives that conflict with power structures—structures which have long ignored the social injustices of which they are a part. In the case of many Mexican-American and Indigenous texts included on this list, the oppressive silencing is all too familiar. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire is one of the most popular books regarding critical educational practices and social equality, and yet it too has been confiscated. It has been removed even as it speaks against this form of social control. Freire states in his book that: 

“any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.”

Banning, censoring, even confiscating books is an act of violence enacted upon those who are denied the opportunity to access information. That this occurs within educational systems intended to support critical inquiry demonstrates a movement from education towards selected indoctrination. It perpetuates the oppression and social injustice of minority groups, robbing them of their voice and encouraging their disappearance along with that of the books. There must be some other way of teaching readers how to engage in critical thinking without simply removing books from shelves, as well as a way of reclaiming the power of books to protect ourselves from this kind of violence.