Critical Response 5: A Reframing of Definitions to Fit Today's Society

In reading Epistemology of the Closet, written by Sedgwick I found myself confused prior to even reading the work. My confusion stemmed from my lack of knowledge of the actual definition of ‘epistemology’. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, epistemology means “the study of theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge”. Once I understood the full definition I could decipher the point of the Sedgwick’s work, the point of this piece was to critically analyze the theory that developed from partial knowledge about ‘being in the closet’, mainly the ideas of sexuality. Sedgwick defined his purpose in the quote, “epistemology of the closet proposes that… thought and knowledge in the twentieth-century Western culture as a whole are structured… by… homo/heterosexual definition, indicatively male” (1). The ideas of sexuality in today’s society have been socially constructed in binary and in a male dominated world. And this theory of sexuality in today’s society lacks a critical analysis. Sexuality has been attributed to a category of homosexual and heterosexual, when sexuality isn’t meant to fit into a binary one and zero category. These definitions of sexuality are unstable as the stand in their binary nature. We are not just male or female loving, because gender itself isn’t binary. We cannot be just heterosexual and homosexual, because in biological definition, from where homo and hetero have dominance- homo means to be the same and or similar, and hetero means different. And sexuality is not biological, or current society has moved past the idea that sexuality is based on reproduction and producing offspring, sex in today’s society is about doing something that feels great and doing it because you can and it’s your own body. Because the ideas of sex have changed, then these outdated definitions and theories of sexuality also must change. These definitions are stuck in the days where we could not fathom the ideas of things not being binary, but in today’s society we can fully understand the complex dimensions behind individuals. We are not computer programs, where you put in a one of a zero for our sexuality, gender, race, hair color; whatever- genetics doesn’t even work this way. This reality of our sexuality stems from ignorance in our society today.

            My favorite part of Sedgwick’s piece was the comment, “knowledge is not itself power… Ignorance and opacity collude or compete with knowledge in mobilizing the flows of energy, desire, goods, meanings, [and] persons.” (4) In our world we value knowledge so much, and presume that this knowledge will lead us to power, but when we have this lack of knowledge from an obscure meaning we are held back from development. This lack of knowledge of sexuality due to the corrupted meanings withholds its mobility. Without fully understanding a subject and information how can we fight for its rights and power? This ignorance of society thinking sexuality is binary limits the development of comprehension and equality. For me, this is why I am enrolled in queer theories, I may have knowledge in neural sciences, but I am completely ignorant to society’s struggles of sexuality, I don’t have the background understanding of the histories of sexuality struggles, and the efforts made by the LGBT community to gain their equality. But instead of accepting ignorance, I am here to gain the knowledge so I am not lacking a grasp on reality and the efforts and struggles of society and the communities around me.

            It seems to me that society needs reframing, a good lesson in sexuality and gender. An outreach program that explains that we are no longer binary, but fluid creates in every aspect: gender, sexuality, class, race, etc. And maybe if our definitions and theories change to fit the current ways, maybe growth isn’t too far behind.

CR 2

Esther Rodriguez
Critical Response Week 3

April 14, 2015

Queer Theory 462

“Listening to Ghost Stories” was a very interesting piece, though at times it was a bit hard to keep up with or fully grasp Maleal Powell’s narrative. Nevertheless, I think it was very interesting how she shared that she writes like an academic/scholar but that in order to have meaning in her life she must also do the “alternative work” as well. She also adds that to be a scholar and write theory is to accede to the terms and hierarchies of the colonizers. This must be really hard to say, and I think very difficult to acknowledge in particular because she admits to partake in this work. For her character, I can see how this can be very difficult and possibly make her feel conflicted constantly. Nevertheless, it is also brave of her to admit this and bring attention to it. Despite, the oppressive work she might do, I see that she and/or academics are still at a lost or position of powerless/inferiority; I say this because they are not able as scholars feel/show emotion and/or include their own personal stories/narratives. They must be unattached to their work. To me this actually does not make sense for it can dehumanize the work and theory; thus dehumanizing lives and alienating the work from people and scholar themselves. More so, I feel that instead of building credibility, it makes the work seem less true, authentic or relevant. I believe, just as Powell, that Creating alternatives is powerful. I have always thought so; reading stories/narratives have always gave me a sense of empowerment and truth to my life. It can be very liberating, as when we read “Loving in the War Years” by Cherrie Moraga and “History of Diseases” by Patti Duncan. All this type of stories might resonate with us or bring ligth/truths to our lives; nonetheless, it is also very interesting when Powell says that even in alternative settings/work we use the language of the oppressor. I think this is something that has been in the back of mind, inparticular when I lack words to express what I feel is right or justice. However, after I read this more directly this makes a lot of sense and I can perceive the difficulty that is to move around that. It is also very empowering to hear her say that many have been able or that we become able to transformed the enemies’ language.

In “History of Diseases,” Patti Duncan shares about how she is Korean and American. Her mother is Korean and her father is white. Though, I don’t have a white parent, I am a Chicana that has had similar experience or feel that I can relate to many of her experiences. I too remember having and continue to translated for my mother, and how the individual would/does not acknowledge my mom. Also, there has been times where she is treated disrespectfully. Nonetheless, in the world of discrimination and racism, I too remember my mother suffering and her continue suffer. I see and remember her suffering of sexism she is and has experience from my father and the rest of the world. However, just as Duncan shares I can also say that there are many sides to the stories and it does not begin nor end there. I can paint my mother as victim but also as a hero.

The Diseases of Stereotypes and the Ghosts of Our Pasts

“Because the pain is old, so is the cure…”, “Relieve the pain because she remembers.” In the essay written by Duncan it felt like the mother the entire time was never actually suffering the pain of her disease, but the pain of her identity and history. The mother was always constantly reminded of her difference, and the opinions and biases that others hold of this mother’s difference; talking to her like she is a toddler because they assume she doesn’t speak good English, presuming racial stereotypes, and only remembering the story of her ‘rescue’ and the wars. The disease this woman suffers isn’t what seems to be Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia, but the disease of stigma and stereotypes. The disease of stereotypes even exists outside of racial prejudices; it can be applied to gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class, etc. This disease stereotypes individuals based on surface values, and the disease causes us to treat them accordingly to these prescribed standards and stereotypes, where you cannot escape them, even if they do not hold true, it is just as how you appear (just as how the mother actually spoke English, but no one would accept, or let her speak English because they had prescribed this stereotype, and this stereotype was to be held constant once it had be assigned). This mother’s disease went deeper than a simple diagnosis and prescription of drugs, the true disease lies in society, where we treat others poorly based on prejudices, stereotypes, and history, even when none of these may hold true.

In Powell’s essay history was spoken about in the aspect of the ghosts of past people, not in the literal sense of ghost like the blood curdling horror movies like Paranormal Activity, but the remnants of the people who once lived where we do now; the lives that these people lived, the languages that they spoke, and their overall way of lives with their individual stories. Colonially speaking, ‘Americans’ came and overthrew these ways of lives, and histories, and what was left was ghosts, the ghosts of the Native Americans. These histories and ways of life were lost and are not recognized in education, the educations we receive in schools are lies; we do not receive the honest truths with the implementation of the ghost stories. In the Powell’s essay I really liked the quote, “tattooing…[is] a way of rewriting trails across the signifying space of my body.” Tattoos are a permanent way to mark your body with the stories, histories, and ghosts that you want to tell. I personally really liked this because I too have the ghosts of my own stories and trails marked on my skin. I have stories of my grandparents in Yugoslavia, and I have my own personal struggles marked on me. Overall I think these ghosts need to be remembered, these stories are lost (making them this ghostly figures), but I want an honest education (in which Powell suggests), I want my education to be fully rounded with the multidimensional sided stories that aren’t swayed by the lies of our ancestors.

“Maintaining this wartime morality where being queer and female is as warrior as we can get” (Moraga, 24). In Loving in the War Years, the author Moraga expressed her struggle of being Chicana, yet appearing white, and also her struggles with her own sexuality (in the sense of self acceptance, and oppression). I personally really thought the book was beautiful, I have never read a literature written about a woman who is lesbian’s personal experiences, let alone the struggles of the race/culture influencing this. When reading the book, I thought it was enlightening to see how see feels about women, for years society has projected to use that if you are not heterosexual you love differently, but reading Moraga’s words, I realized that society is wrong. We do not love differently, we all get the same rush of the same feelings when we see or hug the person we love (in Moraga’s case this was Joyce). I also thought Moraga’s words about her struggles of being both a lesbian and mixed race was interesting, for me being neither I scarcely think about the struggles of both. I have a close personal friend who is both mixed race, and bisexual, and when she spoke of the difficulties it was hard for me to understand what she was explicitly talking about. But from reading Moraga’s novel I understand that in some instances a culture has it’s own ways, and then they being of a different race you are treated differently because of this, but in Moraga’s case looking white, she got to witness her family being treated differently, and struggled with wanting to accept her race, or ignore her race so she too would not have to suffer. Moraga also did this with her sexuality; she repressed and internalizes the pain without expression due to the fear. My close and personal friend, who is bisexual and mixed race (though appears white), has talked about her siblings looking more African American than her, and always being treated differently, and not wanting to talk to her family about her sexuality because of the fear of not being accepted. Hearing Moraga’s words had me understand the reasons why my friend wouldn’t be expressive of both her race and sexuality, and internalize the pain of not expressing these, it actually touched me that someone could be in so much pain for thing that are so much themselves. 

critical response: moraga, duncan & powell

            In response to this week’s readings, I am thinking about one of the threads I see connecting each of the texts, namely the way each author articulates the relationship between bodies, material experiences, memory, theory, and systems of hegemonic power. In particular, I feel like the authors express the way that hegemonic epistemologies do not speak to or make room for embodied ways of knowing. In history of disease, Duncan describes racist experiences with her mother’s doctor. She writes, “He checks her blood pressure as though her arm is not attached to a body” (161).  I think that this gives insight to some of the ways that racialized bodies become compartmentalized in particular discourses, as though our relationships to trauma or memory do not affect our bodies. Duncan describes a relationship between memory (forgetting or remembering) and the narrator’s mother’s pain and disease. During this part of the text, I was thinking about my grandmother and the way alzheimer’s affected her ability to remember and to know who her family was, and what it means that my memories of her are only of her forgetting. I think about what it would mean for me to be able to speak with her today, and to have her perspective and her own account of our family’s history and her experiences as a Black woman living in the south and in Detroit in the 60s and 70s. Most of the stories I know about her have been told to me by other people, mostly men. Duncan writes, “The girl has been told that the disease will affect her mother’s memory, her mother’s ability to remember. Yet she is not prepared to be forgotten. She is not prepared to be misnamed” (159). I think that the narrator taking on the task of remembering for her mother reflects the how wellness and wellbeing is connected through time and kinship. I am especially interested in the urgency with which the narrator takes up this project of remembering for her mother.  Although the narrator is speaking about her mother, who is ill but living, this reminds me of Saidiya Hartman’s work on the Middle Passage, wherein she asks what our responsibility to our dead is. Similarly, while attending the Otherwise Worlds conference last week, I was struck by Andy Smith’s similar evocation of what it would mean to center the dead in our frameworks and analyses. I am interested in thinking about what it means to understand memory (familial, historical, ancestral, etc) in terms of responsibility. I think that of course, there is a sense of emotional responsibility to remember, but also to think about how we are still in relationship with our dead. 

Duncan elaborates on memory in her piece, writing “It is by small acts that change occurs, through a process of critical remembering…We begin to alter history. Growing up, I heard to many Asian and Asian American women tell stories of wars and deaths. So often, this is all America wants to know or will believe about our lives. The stories they demand are constant and unchanging; the images of us silent, fixed, and suffering” (164). I am interested in what Duncan describes as ‘critical remembering’ and notions of representation and suffering, particularly the way that images of suffering are consumed depending on who is suffering and who is the audience. Moraga also writes extensively of suffering and of the question of representations and visibility of suffering. In her poem What Does it Take?, she writes, “Women do not coagulate into one hero’s death; we bleed out of so many pores, so constant that is has come to be seen as the way things are” (57). This poem reminded me of the way that systems of violence and biopower attach meaning and values to various lives and deaths. I am thinking especially about representations of black suffering and death, and whether or not the consumption of black bodies that have had violence inflicted upon them are ever even allowed to be suffering within the consumer’s imaginary. I am wondering about how discourses which make particular bodies unhuman normalize violence, while at the same time reserving perceived victimhood only for particular kinds of people who experience violence.

            Another aspect that stuck out to me at the academic and activist conferences I attended last week was the notion of creativity and imagination is liberatory.  Several scholars articulated the way that neoliberalism strips us of the creative, noting that imagination has to be central to liberatory scholarship and activism. Moraga suggests a complex relationship between bodies and the academic industrial complex.  She writes, “If the academy, in its very mission, denies the body, except as the object of theoretical disembodied discourse, The Body with a capital “B”, then what is the radically thinking “othered” body (the queer, the colored, the female) doing there?” (175). Moraga argues that art (the meeting of mind and matter per her definition), cannot exist within the academy, as an explanation for the academy’s inability to consider bodies and embodied experiences. I think that this connects to Powell's point about ghosts, particularly the ghosts of knowledge that are not recognized within academic discourses/stories. 

CR #2 Dakota Bloch

I was particularly moved by the two essays we read this week. Each writer described their experiences and the experiences of their people so vividly, it struck me. It struck me how much each writer was crying out for their heritage to be redefined in the western world, how they fought and are continuing to fight the hegemonic powers that govern our theories and discourses, that govern what is right and what is wrong. When did one culture become “right”? I was interested in language and the importance it played in both of these writers lives and work. I had never thought about it before; how important language is. By forcing cultures to adapt to a certain language they are being forced to leave behind the most essential part of their culture: communication, story telling, discourse. This became evident to me when Powell wrote,

“More than once during these forty minutes the listeners in this room have been moved to tears. We are crying in a conference room in a multi-nationally owned Denver hotel. The simple knowledge of Native people speaking our languages again makes us weep with joy and with sorrow”(14).

I had never felt the emotional breadth that this passage had made me feel. It was guilt, it was sorrow, and it was want. A want to write this wrong caused by my over-bering, unaccepting, cruel society. Why does our society “other” or “also” people? To stay in power? WHY do we need power over people, countries, the world?

    Patti Duncan’s essay made me think of the savior complex that the United States has when it comes to the middle east. It seems that this isn’t a new idea, it’s been transcended through political pedagogy for many generations.

“My father likes to tell stories about how he rescued my mother, helped liberate her people… my mother would be a frail but beautiful doll-like creature, carried away by this white man who had traveled so far from home to find her and even risked his life to save hers” (159).

This would seem like a truth to me if I hadn’t taken the intensive courses in WGSS that widened my global feminist lens. I would have continued to believe that the Bush administration was doing the right thing. That these women, who were being brought back from “war torn” countries were coming to a better life. But it isn’t a better life. It’s a life filled with oppression, marginalization, and hatred. Our discourses and theorists tell us we must be wary of the “other”, we must oppress them and be sure to take away as much power as possible, just so we can maintain the control. Our society hides behind the facade of acceptance but if we look past the “advertisements” we find the fine print; “leave your heritage, culture, and language behind in order to be accepted”. That’s not a society I want to be apart of, but where do you start? Where do you start the subversion? That is the question I am constantly struggling with.

    When I read Moraga’s narrative, it really drove everything home. The stories of feeling fake or missing part of her heritage were forced upon her by her mother, just wanting Moraga to have a better life. Is it really a better life if you feel like you’re missing a part of yourself? These essay’s and this book have something in common; narratives and storytelling. The sharing of cultures, narrating, and drawing attention to the power structures that are in place to marginalize people. These narratives create a source of Bio-Power, they are deciding who lives and who dies, and are deploying power in non-linear ways. I thoroughly enjoyed this weeks reading as I feel as if I have learned of an entirely new way to subvert patriarchal, hegemonic, western societies.

WGSS CR #2

I think that there's a power that comes from language- what people see and feel is severely limited by their language and the definitions that come with it. What Powell's "Listening to Ghost" really hits on is this idea of power in language.

For example, some languages (like Spanish) have many different types of words that describe different types of affection whereas English primarily uses the word "love" for things, even things that DON'T  fit that definition. I think that the use of language is important in discerning what people mean- differentiating expressions and translating that into a form other people can understand- but it also limits the types of feelings that can be expressed as well. It puts emotion into boxes and tells us "this is what it is." Even contextually, the overuse of these words that used to hold such extreme meaning now sort of distances them from the way their definition meant for them to be. When you tell a person you love them, does the over-use of this word for other things take away from its deeper meaning? I think yes. Louis C.K. puts it best:

As humans, we waste the shit out of our words. It’s sad. We use words like “awesome” and “wonderful” like they’re candy. It was awesome? Really? It inspired awe? It was wonderful? Are you serious? It was full of wonder? You use the word “amazing” to describe a goddamn sandwich at Wendy’s. What’s going to happen on your wedding day, or when your first child is born? How will you describe it? You already wasted “amazing” on a fucking sandwich

I think that the opposite can be true, too. Weight can be put on words and definitions, such as "gay" or "queer." Society artificially elevates certain words and lowers others through their context- having a name for an identity boxes a person in, I think, instead of letting that person be.

Part of it comes from this need-to-know in society about anything queer- for some reason, cis straight people get anxious when people deviate from their internalized "norm" and causes anxiety. This leads to names and definitions for sexualities that box people in instead of allow people to feel the way they feel. Freely.

WGSS 462 Critical Response #2

Words and languages exist everywhere. Graffiti, chatting, classes, actions, bodies, books, words and languages exist to let you understand what is going on around you. Words act like a two-faced demon, it’s simplistic, but at the same time there may have different meaning into it, it may convey envy, hatred, happiness, jealousy, and discrimination. All these emotions and meanings are filtered, good or bad, by the constant happening of event throughout our lives.

 Back when I was in primary school, my results are top of the class, I believed that by achieving the best result, will bring happiness and it can lessen the burden of my parents, and gain more time with them. My parents were always out to work, that they have to, in order to earn more money, in order to ensure our growth, in order to secure a good future for their son. I believed in their words, that by having a good result, I would be able to help them. So I did not hesitate, I did it.

 Among the wide variety of emotions, discrimination arises from the simplest form of things, and once you can differentiate good from bad, then you can judge. Judging, in definition, is to evaluate a person or item through its nature, action and background, and to decide whether the judged is good or bad. In every school, there will be good kids and bad kids, including my school. Back then, the lecturers were always telling us apart by our results, students that has good results and behavior, they will adore more, talk with more, neglecting the students with bad results in the process. I was scared, scared that I will be ripped away my prize that I have won, the warmth from the lecturers. So I did it, I scored.

 What happens in the past stays in the past? A wise word from my parents whenever I make a mistake, told to make me feel better. To me, it is an excuse to run away from the pain, humiliation, and hatred. The past can never escape from you, even if you try to, you will face great dismay, it will always be with you, in your memory. Memory is a saving point. Anything that had happened, what you feel when it happened, it is all stored inside your head. Joy, childhood, sakura, peace, shame, guilt, anger, pain, you will be surprised what memory can do to you. There were times when me and my family would have a great weekend; when I have gave my best but my results just decided to fail me; when my parents were so frustrated they vented their anger on their children; there were good times and bad times, and all of it are a part of the memory that I have stored in my brain, and those were memories that I will never forget, because those were the mold that shaped me who I am now, those are the reason that I move forward.

 After reading Duncan, 'the history of disease', and Powell 'Listening to Ghost', I was interested by how they portray their ideas about how words and memory would affect people. In my opinion, both words and memory are an excuse, an excuse to avoid, and to move forward. You cannot run from the past, but you still have the future, to what you have to, but remember to look behind, look at the pain that are caused, and use that, as an excuse, to move ahead, to pull the distance between yourself and the past.

Critical Response #2

As Moraga states "I am a Chicana lesbian. My own particular relationship to being a sexual person; and a radical stand in direct contradiction to, and in violation of, the women I was raised to be." Through the poetry, prose, and personal stories in Loving in the War Years. This book shows how Moraga was struggling between her identity and family community. I felt the word “war” emphasis the conflicts and battle of Moraga. It is a war that Moraga or any one facing our stories, choices, and identity. When the phrase “queer” still not recognize by the society, also means that people do not have many choices to express themselves. Be seen but still be loved, is the deepest desire of LGBTQ communities. Moraga examines the collective sexual and cultural wounding suffered by women since the Conquest. Moraga examines her own mestiza parentage and the seemingly inescapable choice of assimilation into a passionless whiteness or uncritical acquiescence to the patriarchal Chicano culture she was raised to reproduce. By finding Chicana feminism and honoring her own sexuality and loyalty to other women of color, Moraga finds a way to claim both her family and her freedom.

Gender is an idea that is based on what we socially believe. Am I a woman because when I was a kid my mother wanted me to play with dolls? These social cues are what mainly divides men from women. Men are supposed to be tough because society made them that way. Women are weak because society made them that way. We're not born this way, we are made this way. Gender is our obligations to history and society. Gender is constructed as evident through the cross cultural differences both temporal and spatial. Gender is not what you think of who you want to be. Gender is what people around you look who you are. What is gender identity? Identity is performativity constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results. In other words, gender is a performance; it's what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are. Judith Butler argues that we all put on a gender performance, whether traditional or not, anyway, and so it is not a question of whether to do a gender performance, but what form that performance will take. By choosing to be different about it, we might work to change gender norms and the binary understanding of masculinity and femininity. This idea of identity as free-floating, as not connected to an essence, but instead a performance, is one of the key ideas in queer theory. Seen in this way, our identities, gendered and otherwise, do not express some authentic inner core self but are the dramatic effect rather than the cause of our performances. While this is not to negate biological categorizations of sex. Sex is not gender and as most people confuse. Our identity is not to be equated with gender.

Additionally, these are categories that are culturally constructed since they are fluid. What it means to be a man and woman have changed in the last 50 years alone. There is no denying gender roles changed and thus accept that these are things that societies construct. While sex is pre-determined, even though that can change, gender changes.

Critical Response #2

In high school the hardest assignment in preparation for college admission was the essay. In order to prepare, the students were asked to write and essay with the topic of “Who am I.” My first response was to go about this in a snarky manner. I am a set of molecules, or simply my name. It is not an easy question, and its often a question that people avoid. The need to identify objects, people, and oneself, is innately human. the tendency to categorize has created a multitude of problems with societal institutions. In order to discriminate, one must first be placed into a category.  Perhaps the reason that I had such difficulty with the essay  is that I don’t necessarily agree with all the imposed characteristics and traits in a  given categorization. To make things more complicated when these traits and characterizations are not followed there is an attempt to categorize into the “best-fit” category. This doesn't always work, but imposed identities are given nonetheless. Not all of these categories are mutually exclusive (in reality none of them should be), but many are viewed as such. In the end what it boils down to is self-identity.

In each of the pieces for this week, there is an expression of dual identities. For Duncan this duality exists as being both American and Korean in descent and cultural aspects. Powell express this dual identity as Academic and Native American. In society cross-cultural boundaries are often strictly set up. It is not easy to cross such boundaries making a dual identity difficult. Duncan explains this well by using her mother’s disease experience as an example. She wasn't able to play the role of both daughter and caretaker through this process. The doctor’s elevated her to caretaker and made her solely responsible for the enacting of any particular treatment, appointments, or instructions. This also emphasized her american identity over her Korean. When the doctors ignored her mother and only talked to her it was essentially the same as denying her Korean identity.

In the same way, Powell was forced to ignore her Native American identity many times to remain “unbiased”. In order to fold the boundary between Native American and Academic, it is necessary to create a completely new medium of discourse. By using the languages of specific Native American groups, one is able to ignore this boundary and become a Native American Academic. Only by working outside of the traditional role of an academic can the two identities merge.

In Moraga’s case the identities are even more complex. she simultaneously attempts to appease the contradictions in her Chicana and English-speaking heritage, as well as her Lesbian and Catholic identities. Even if she no longer maintains her Catholic identity it lingers with her connections to her family. her lesbian identity also clashes with the imposed gender roles taught to her by her mother. By narrating via separate stores the true separation of each of these society-imposed or self-imposed identities can be seen.

Overall each of these pieces expresses the clashing of multiple identities. The reason for this clash is caused by the social construction and thus constraint of these categorical identities. The imposed identities are themselves the cause of the problem. It is ridiculous however, to assume that people fit into neat categories that never intersect with contradictory identities.

Critical Response 2

In “Listening to ghosts: an alternative (non)argument,” Malea Powell problematizes the notion that the subject of color should engage in a theorization that is an alternative to dominant academic theory. Powell critiques Barbara Christian’s assertion that there is a distinct theory outside of white hegemonic dominant theory that people of color have access to for if people of color create an “alternative discourse” then there must be something that this discourse is an alternative of (15). In other words, Powell is critiquing the binary that can be created if we position white dominant theory as superior and “alternative” people of color theory as always rejecting this dominant theory. I think that this essay was useful in thinking about ways to theorize Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years: lo que nunca paso por sus labios. In some ways Moraga falls into what Powell critiqued as binary opposing imaginaries; however, I think that the bigger point of Moraga’s book is that she herself is theory.

In other words, I think that Moraga’s book helps to work in different types of theory, but that her poems and thoughts of herself and her own life not just create an “alternative” theory but helps us as readers to imagine other possible pasts and futures. An example of this is at the very beginning when she and her mother are having drinks and her mother discloses her suspicions that her father might be “just like her.” This vignette is not meant to follow the dominant narrative of a person in the closet who is married and continues to engage in sexual practices outside the heterosexual practices within the marriage, but instead if we look at the narrator of this story, it is the daughter who is meant to talk to him about his “nature,” it is the daughter who is meant to educate him about himself (of course assuming that he actually does in fact feel the way that he is being read). In this way, what the shift in perspective does is not just queer the normative closet story of married man, but also acknowledges that there are other stories that are intertwined with his, that there are other perspectives from which this story is being addressed and told. 

Patti Duncan does something similar in “History of Disease,” where she retells the story of migration of her mother while simultaneously questioning the sources from which this story is coming from. In this regard, Duncan is able to not just provide an “alternative” story to the typical trope of migration to the U.S., but also questions the reasons why this migration needed to happen in the first place, the “assimilation” or lack thereof that her mother and she are able to actually partake in, and the idea of memory that is intact from societal influences. In this way, Duncan’s narrative facilitates a conversation that is not just an alternative to dominant forms of theory, she creates a theory within which she and her family are within and outside U.S. imaginaries as always outsiders. In other words, her narrative functions as a form of dismantling of dominant forms of theory by the mere fact that her theory is in the lived experiences she recollects. Additionally, the questioning of these remembrances destabilizes the idea that any theory is created without societal influences. 

Another aspect that Moraga questions in similar ways to Duncan is the notion of looking back. While Duncan actively throughout her piece questions memory and the factors that affect it or distort it, Moraga looks back, as she does in her talk in New York toward the end, as a way of finding self within systems that continually erase her. While somewhat alternative to dominant forms of theory, Moraga’s notion of looking back is also about reclaiming a history that has been stolen and erased. Additionally, I think that in looking back critically the possibility of expanding theory not just as the binary that Powell outlined, but also as the manifestation of more complex ideas and creations self that are always fluctuating can be imagined and therefore realized.