Cherrie Moraga: "Estamos Perdidos Sin Memoria" — Transcript

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1. 0:08no memory is
2. 0:10everything it's everything you know I
3. 0:12mean I think if there's anything that
4. 0:14has you know prompted all of my writing
5. 0:17it's always been memory and and for me
6. 0:20it it's actually memory even that that I
7. 0:23believe you know that that sort of like
8. 0:25sometimes I feel like when I'm writing
9. 0:27that who's writing are my ancestors this
10. 0:30not even me you know that I really feel
11. 0:32like that the process of being a writer
12. 0:34really has to do with opening yourself
13. 0:36in such a way where you get information
14. 0:39it comes to you by kind of you know as I
15. 0:42tell my students to get their ego out of
16. 0:43the way and then maybe much more
17. 0:45profound truths and stories can pass
18. 0:47through you and that's how I feel about
19. 0:50memory I mean it's you know my mother in
20. 0:54her later years and she died of
21. 0:55Alzheimer so to have a that quentia lose
22. 0:58her memory you know really made me also
23. 1:01it just seems like that theme
24. 1:03keeps I have to keep confronting that
25. 1:06theme over and over again that we are um
26. 1:09you
27. 1:10know I don't know in in a deeper way it
28. 1:13also made me also realize for myself
29. 1:15that that that this life you know is is
30. 1:18also very um ephemeral you know very
31. 1:22transitory so that it's really really
32. 1:23important to be present to be really be
33. 1:26present and the being present doesn't
34. 1:28mean forgetting you know because I I
35. 1:31feel like when we forget then we're like
36. 1:34cultur cultural AMCs you know that we
37. 1:36have in fact the the book book I'm
38. 1:39working on now has was kind of inspired
39. 1:41by my mother's um loss of memory and it
40. 1:44really is talking about the what happens
41. 1:47in terms of a Cultura when we when we
42. 1:50forget you know and so I talk a lot
43. 1:51about even my own Familia Generations
44. 1:54now as we proceed like looking at some
45. 1:57of my you know like you know third and
46. 2:00fourth cousins by you know like as as as
47. 2:03the generations go on and and seeing how
48. 2:05some of them have no relationship to
49. 2:07being
50. 2:09me
51. 2:14know you know it's like I just feel like
52. 2:17it's such a great they don't even know
53. 2:18what they lost you know and and the and
54. 2:21the US culture you know for it is a
55. 2:24culture always a future future future
56. 2:27it's always Progressive plotline look
57. 2:29atad head don't look back and because of
58. 2:32that you know they've R havic you know
59. 2:35their you know US policies R havoc on
60. 2:37you know people in color cultures all
61. 2:39over the world it's always about you
62. 2:42know profit and moving forward and the
63. 2:44best technology and I'm all for
64. 2:46technology but you know there has it's
65. 2:49only by having a a memory you know that
66. 2:51you really that kind of Consciousness
67. 2:53about about sort of balance you know and
68. 2:56to know that to have a sense to be able
69. 2:59to see what what you may be destroying
70. 3:00along the way you have to look back to
71. 3:03realize what was behind you to know what
72. 3:04got just got lost by moving single
73. 3:07single-mindedly head ahead and I think
74. 3:10that's very much the culture of of Anglo
75. 3:13America has a lot to do with
76. 3:14individualism and profit and future and
77. 3:17you know and I think what I've always
78. 3:20loved about being Latino you know is
79. 3:22that you know um that we look back you
80. 3:25know and it and it's often times um
81. 3:30uh dismissed as being nostalgic you know
82. 3:32and my mother was very nostalgic I me
83. 3:34she very romantic and all that but
84. 3:36that's not that's not um how I see it I
85. 3:40just really see that the that the past
86. 3:42is the only way for us to to sort of
87. 3:44unlock what we need to do now you know
88. 3:46particularly with the condition of our
89. 3:48globe and you know and so much
90. 3:51transnational migration happening and
91. 3:53you know definitely was going on with
92. 3:55mexicos you know this kind of espresso
93. 3:58that I've never never in my life what I
94. 4:00have seen this kind of um you know real
95. 4:03hatred against Mexican immigrants Latino
96. 4:06immigrants that are indigenous people
97. 4:09you know they are long perceived you
98. 4:11know the arrival of the Gringo here you
99. 4:13know and it just really it
100. 4:16has uh shocked me I don't think I think
101. 4:19cuz I was born in a much more
102. 4:21Progressive time to see that we've
103. 4:23gotten to this place where everybody
104. 4:25looks at you know you not everybody but
105. 4:28the popular culture looks at un
106. 4:29immigrants like like a disease you know
107. 4:33and um it's kind of like the new you
108. 4:35know they always say the new one crow
109. 4:37now you know cuz it is like a new form
110. 4:39of slav you know indentured certitude
111. 4:42this kind of disenfranchisement that
112. 4:44these you know people are having you
113. 4:47know
114. 4:57so