blog :
CULTIVATED UNDER SYSTEMS OF OPPRESSION
PART X
Zines are objects that have originated within the margins. Having historically existed in that in-between space, creators through the action of making a zine are not only envisioning their utopia, but by distributing pamphlets that disrupt and invert they are challenging the ways that we normally acquire and distribute knowledge. Throughout the process of making this particular zine, Untitled, i was thinking a lot about the purpose of a zine in relation to the gendered violence indigenous woman face in both the institution and outside of it. i wanted to cultivate a space where archival and felt knowledge can exist. i recognize this particular thought process to have really influenced the artistic decisions made within the zine, like the idea of approaching the zine as an object that you can physically interact with rather than just read or view on a screen. Especially because i envisioned the zine being distributed to highschool and college students, i wanted them to have something colorful, and tactile for them to look through.
PART IX
sometimes it feels like I experience more bad than good in my day
they tell me ‘it will get better’ but it hasn’t
i just keep waiting
while the white sand mountains get bigger
and I see my community suffering
i can’t bounce back quick enough
i feel like I have to constantly be nurturing myself every minute
Or else I won’t make it
Keep going
Stay strong
You are resilient
You are beautiful
You are worthy
My list is growing of what I have to tell myself every morning
Breathe
Just breathe
Don’t cry
pinch your fingers together, hold back those tears
you can’t let them see you feel hurt
feel small
everyday counts though
because survival is what counts
you have survived
your ancestors survived before you
they found a way too
and now you must too
____
PART VIII
PART V
what do you do when an indigenous women in the course that you instruct confides in you that in another art class she felt threaten because a student said “natives don’t exist anymore”
what do you do when you hear that another indigenous women changed her major because she did not feel welcome in another art class taught in your department
what do you do when a white male student in a group brainstorming session in a course you do instruct states “why does everything have to be about race?”
what do you do when that same student tells you and the class that he does not see color on people but everyone as the same
what do you do when are told by another white male student that you are not a good instructor because you did not remain neutral
what do you do when you try to instruct students to acknowledge land for what it is and has become, but they think you are silencing their histories by making them think about who owned the land before their relatives arrived and colonized it
what do you do when a student takes over the conversation by talking about how other peoples traumas of sexual harassment, rape, and gender violence are an attack on his identity as a white male
“we are not all bad”
what do you do when you feel like you have cultivated a space of creative learning and expression for your poc sisters and you can see their white peers threaten by it
what do you do when you have to be an example to people
but you can’t because you are tired
What do you do when your students look up to you, because they need you, and they tell you that they have never interacted with someone like you
Part VI
today I was at working at the restaurant again
my white male co worker was providing service to two indigenous women
you could tell they were on a date, they were very cute
cuddling in the booth like that
it was a saturday
and we were really busy
i wasn’t supposed to close
but we were really busy
and my co-worker is still kind of new
they had only one drink
and my co-worker gave them their check
he thought he put their credit card back
but he actually hadn’t
the couple was very concerned and trying
to get his attention
telling him that he didn’t return the card
he ignored them.
until he yelled at them
telling him he didn’t have their card.
-----
at that moment I felt so heavy, I felt the weight of everything on me. I kept asking myself what can I do right now
explain to my co worker that his language and physical demeanor was making my body feel in danger - but he’s angry right now too
intervene and get a grasp of the situation and try to be helpful by talking to the women myself
get manager
nothing
how can we think about collectively changing our immediate community with the actions we take when we are witness to something like this ?
immediate action is necessary
PART VII
when i heard abut the three indigenous women at cibola high school I thought about my sister, who is only in 8th grade. She loves to wear her hair down and in braids. We are not indigenous but she has skin color and that is enough to make her a target.
Its normal that when facing any terror you not only think about yourself but about those that will surpass you
you think about what will the next generation have to go through if this is what is happening right now
the other day I had a student state “ I don’t know why we have to talk about race all the time, if we are the generation that is going to come into power next then why don’t we just forget about it all, create our own world”
I hate it when anyone tells me to reconcile, to come to terms with our current state of society, and just wait for things to change. If we wait do you really believe things will change? If we wait for change to happen who will the change happen for, and who will it not? Who will still be waiting ten years from now for their change still, for their rights to be recognized?
We cannot “hold out that a dominate culture will magically transform if we educate its consumers on our ‘difference,” if we just ignore what is going on right now. “I think indigenous cultures might represent the only living models for different economic and social systems on the planet, ways of life that have the power to challenge capital cultures even when they are not pure or untouched.”
PART VI
“how my body is marked and read in another epistemology is a threat, and it is because of that reason that I am left without access to an alternative meaning
-the healing stories are sometimes triumphant, a rich peoples account of how they regenerated their own ways of life from an utter void. Still, their expectation is that they restore their cultures to govern themselves as indigenous, with their governing reflecting these knowledges and ways of life. There is where the big disconnect is. The healing narrative within reconciliation and the nation-states actual agenda do not coincide. “
i’ve been reading and rereading this quote I wrote down from Brendon Hokowithu’s article. Thinking about how my body fills with goosebump cause I feel his strength in writing down these words.
I read Leanne Beataspoke Simpsons words
“Extraction and assimilation go together. Colonialism and capitalism are based on extracting and assimilating. My land is a seen as a resource. My relatives in the plant and animal worlds are seen as resources and my children are a resource because they are the potential to grow, maintain, and uphold the extraction-assimilation system. The act of extraction removes all of the relationships that give whatever is being extracted meaning. Extracting is taking. Actually extraction is stealing- it is taking without consent, without thought, care or even knowledge of the impacts that extraction has on the other living things in that environment. Thats always been a part of colonialism and conquest. Colonialism has always extracted the indigenous-extraction of indigenous knowledge, indigenous women, indigenous peoples. “
and I fill up with anger. Not the anger that is destructive, but the kind that make you want to take action to go to and do something, I love that feeling. And sometimes I need this, I need to remind myself that I have been systematically silenced, systematically used.
PART III
it's friday night
and i am taking tables at a fine dining restaurant
i need to buy two media players
tonight i served an old white couple
whose skin was the color of the white sand
and they asked me,
“Honey You’re So Beautiful, What Are You?
My Husband Said Middle Eastern But I Think Something Caribbean”
what are you? i asked
_______
i feel like this is not an
uncommon question
that humans who have
skin color hear. the other day when this
happen, i just started to think about how is it exactly that i can find a way to make these people think differently, without being rude? (its not that i don't mind being rude, i feel like their question was rude, but its just that i dont want that to be my goal) i was nervous returning the question back to them, but it also felt so right. my hands got sweaty because i was like yes, yes! this is what creating grounded normativity looks like, challenging language.
PART II
i am in Pueblo Territory
what today has been renamed and reclaimed as albuquerque, new mexico
i flew from Meskwaki Territory to Chumash Territory
and then drive through the Kitanemuk Territory, Serrano Territory, Southern Piautes Territory, Chemehuevi Territory, Mojave Territory, Yavapai Territory, Apache Territory, Zuni Territory, and Navajo Territory
to be here
PART I
i was given the first name of hazel and the last name of batrezchavez i am the product of two humans, one born in Tampico, Mexico, the other born in San Marcos, El Salvador i choose to perform my biological gender, that being
female, and according to the united states census I am categorized and raced as latina.
i was born in Shawnee Indian Land what today has been claimed and renamed as Ohio.that land was not mine to be born in that/this land is not mine to live in that/this land is not mine to plant seeds in that/this land is not being rented, or borrowed that/this land was stolen i have participated in a history of colonial resettlement with my presence
on this land for 24 years the humans that birthed me are refugees on this land pushed from their homelands to claim another this land is not their land this/their land was beautiful once, untamed as they say
this/their land fed its people and that was enough for them as they say
this/their land was not being used to its fullest potential as they say
this/their land will be turned into something better they say
however
this/their land is stolen we say