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.