Abstract:
Sparrow, Kathleen R., Stories that Heal: Building Cross-Cultural Bridges Through Literature. Master of Arts (MA), May, 2008, 82 pp., references, 60 titles.
While master narratives play an integral role in the building of individual, cultural, and national identities, situations exist where the master narrative is detrimental to the emotional and physical well-being of individuals. Women, in particular, have been subjected to biases and limitations conveyed through the stories told within our cultures, sometimes by women living according to the dictates of the master narrative. However, healing and self-actualization is possible through the creation of a different story—the counter narrative. By sharing our stories, individual healing can be transmitted to those within our communities and perhaps across cultures. A literary analysis of Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue demonstrates this possibility.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Sitting around my grandmother’s kitchen table, in my grandparents’ two-room fishing cabin on the shores of the White River in Southern Indiana, a place they lived each summer, I witnessed a fast and furious card game, between my grandmother and my great aunts. It was there that these women––June, Joetta, Pansy, and Grace––became known to me. The details of their card game escape me––it was probably euchre or gin rummy––but the expressions of their faces, the intonations of their Hoosier accents, along with their stories of disappointments, illnesses, hopes for future employment, and joys of the birth of a new grandchild provided me with a greater understanding of what was important to them, and what sorrows weighed heavily upon their souls. Their words transformed them from two-dimensional characters––names and faces of people I rarely saw, save for a few weeks during summer vacation in my mid-childhood––into three-dimensional beings.
Reaching back into my memory, into their stories, I realize that our differences were significant. I was raised in New York, and while my father was a blue collar worker, who labored in a cement plant and later an asphalt company, I did not know what it was like to be the wife or daughter or mother of a coal miner or a farmer. Their education ended with high school graduation, and some did not even reach that milestone, forcing more than one of them to remain on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. By contrast, I have had the opportunity to further my education well beyond high school, and I now enjoy the privileges of a middle-class lifestyle.
On the flip side, however, my great aunts, my grandmother, and I share many of the same hobbies, which bridge our differences and allow me to honor our common ground. For instance, cooking and canning bring about a certain joy and satisfaction to all of our lives. Knitting provides us with a way to keep our fingers busy while visiting with friends or watching television, and in the process weave a little bit of ourselves into gifts for family and friends. A group activity such as a game of cards allows us to exhibit our competitive sides, as well as practice a well-placed humorous jab or two in the process.
The negative side of this memory––the one that makes me ponder the role of stories and the effect that narratives have on our lives––was my invisibility. As a ten-year old child, cradling a Barbie in my arms, sipping a soda, and not a Falls City beer as they were, I was invisible. No one asked me about my life, what I wanted to be when I grew up, or what I feared. In fact by this stage in my life, I had learned that my place was to be silent, that my words were not of importance or of interest to anyone else. Unfortunately, in many instances, the women in my life delivered this subtle mandate to remain silent. As Gloria Anzaldúa says, “Culture is made by those in power––men. Males make the rules and laws: women transmit them” (38).
When these women gathered they were outside of the realm of men. In my grandmother’s kitchen, they were allowed some freedom of expression. They could act with some sense of authenticity, albeit shrouded somewhat by the feared arrival of my grandfather or great uncles, or even their sons––and their demands for food or drink. To encourage my voice at such a tender age would likely cause some uncomfortable feelings, if they dared to even acknowledge them. They might have been forced to look at how my grandfather and great uncles’ expectations and beliefs were the pivot points on which their lives revolved. Instead, they maintained the hierarchal structures that had shaped their lives, and through their actions conveyed to me that I was expected to do the same.
My maternal grandmother was one of the first messengers of the mandate prescribing my acceptable behavior––to be seen and not heard, to be silent and unassuming. As I will repeat later, Lisa D. Chávez reminds us that “silence has always been a tool of the oppressors…Keep silent, keep secrets, keep the peace (5). My grandmother had several occasions to get this point across. During my childhood my mother was in and out of the hospital, giving birth to my two siblings, and undergoing a number of surgeries. I remember on one occasion my father left my brother and me at my grandparents’ house, their permanent home in upstate New York, so that he could go to work. I was apparently deeply affected by my mother’s absence, and upon seeing my father leave the house, I erupted into a mournful wail. I was unresponsive to my grandmother’s reasoning that everything would be fine. I continued to cry, and at some point, she reached her breaking point. She picked me up, turned me over her knee, lifted my dress, and promptly gave me a spanking that apparently I have not forgotten.
Years later in my early teens, during a time when I was taking organ lessons, likely at the prompting of my parents, I was sharing a new 45––Chicago’s Color My World––with my teacher. My mother stood to the side as I played the song on the record player, crooning and swaying along with it. I noted the frown on her face and knew later I would pay for her obvious disapproval of my actions. Mr. Niver smiled, and after the song was over said that he would try to get the music so that I could learn to play it. When he left the house, my mother chastised me for wasting his time. The message was clear that what I felt, and what I enjoyed, did not matter. I had also embarrassed her, because my behavior strayed outside the parameters of how a “good” girl conducted herself. The only way I was to be heard in this particular context was playing scales and the devotional hymns that were standard in the music books available to me. From this experience, I learned to keep my dreams and my fears locked within myself, or within my journal––especially away from her.
Again as I entered high school, another incident reminded me that my voice was inconsequential. I had always longed to be a writer. I spent most of my time reading Nancy Drew novels and Marguerite Henry’s works on the Chincoteague ponies. I wanted to create my own stories. When it came time to decide my course of study during high school, I told my guidance counselor that I was interested in writing and also in the theatre. He flatly told me that I would never be a writer, totally ignored my remark about acting, and subsequently designed a business track for me that would prepare me for the socially accepted role of a secretary. My mother witnessed his arrogant dismissal of my goals and remained silent. Needless to say, typing and shorthand bored me to tears. But Mr. Stones’ English class, where we analyzed Jefferson Airplane’s song about Alice falling down the rabbit hole, was the highlight of my day. I should have known that when the administration fired him, I was likely doomed to a life of boredom in the insular community in which I was raised and expected to stay. Sonia Saldivar-Hull had a similar experience in South Texas where her mother and her guidance counselor imposed limitations upon her because of cultural expectations. Her mother admonished her “forbidden passion of reading,” referring to it as “laziness” and insinuated that her comadre’s nervous breakdown was the direct result of “reading the Bible in its entirety” (Saldivar-Hull 8). The senior counselor advised her “not to apply to a college” (Reading Tejana 10).
I’d like to say that the suppression of my voice ended when I left high school, but by this time, the master narrative of the culture in which I was raised was etched into my psyche by father, mother, grandparents, and other adults within the community. My dreams of being something different were dashed by their disapproval and their limited expectations of my role in life. It was a weighty burden to fend off alone without a mentor or role model. I had one supporter––a neighbor whom I called Aunt Veen. She was the head teller at the local bank by day. But by night she bowed to her husband and son’s demands. While she praised me for my intelligence and privately encouraged me to pursue my dreams, her behavior at home was the conveyor of the dominant message. Ultimately, I too succumbed to the pressure to conform.
In my late teens, I worked as a secretary to a lawyer while attending community college, and married a man with a strong will and an equally strong view of the place of the women in his life. Soon after I gave birth to two beautiful children. My priorities were constrained by his traditional views. My role as wife and mother came first, and I was to have little or no contact with my friends, particularly those with whom he disapproved. Even the money I earned and the benefits I provided for my family were deemed insignificant. My work, then managing the district office for a United States Congressman, was the only place where I had some identity with “power” attached to it. As it was for my Aunt Veen, things were different at home. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, a physician and psychiatrist who has studied the power of narratives to heal by investigating indigenous use of storytelling, suggests that I was a minor character in other people’s stories (Narrative Medicine 147). My identity was bound to the role I played in other people’s lives. To expect anything different would be an act of selfishness.
Yet by sharing the early details of my life, I am no longer invisible, and I am obviously writing. I have countered the master narrative of my family and community, in which I was expected to remain silent and obedient. As my reader, you know more about me than is apparent through the mere observance of the outward details of my life. Perhaps my words have transported you to a childhood memory of your own, around your grandmother’s kitchen table, where you glimpsed a side of her you didn’t know before through something she said. Or perhaps the chastisement I received for sharing music that interested me, or crying because I missed my mother, has dredged up painful memories of your own. Perhaps your dreams and hopes were dashed, as well, by someone’s unconsciousness, arrogance, or embarrassment.
While the details of my stories may be far different than my readers, whether he or she is white or black or brown or red, or male or female, the resonance he or she may feel is common ground with which we can bridge our differences, perhaps form a common alliance, and share psychological and emotional healing. The sharing of stories is an important element of Demetría Martinez’s Mother Tongue. The stories of Mary, Soledad and José Luis serve to bond their relationships with one another, and later as Mary writes her own within the novel, then using the name María, she experiences the healing effects of her own counter narrative, which are then shared with her son for his eventual healing. By listening to stories of transformation and change, many find the courage to make changes in their lives. Mehl-Madrona says, “Stories contain the hidden secrets of transformation, the alchemist’s formulas for turning lead into gold. If we hear enough stories about profound transformation, we find ourselves transforming, even in spite of ourselves” (Coyote Wisdom 9).
I have also become aware that through listening to other’s stories––or by reading them––many of us share similar disappointments and dreams. When we take away many of the outer trappings of our lives, we are possibly more alike than not. Mehl-Madrona suggests that there are universal themes in all stories, shared across cultures. And yet, I would never have become aware of this concept had I not moved to deep South Texas, and experienced life as a minority in a Mexican American culture, something my “whitebread” upbringing in a rural farming community in Upstate New York did not provide. There, I had little contact with people of color, except for one black family who attended my church, and one Mexican American family whose children were my classmates.
The formal structures of school and church limited our contact and prevented us from getting to know one another on a more personal level. While I can still see Mary Rodriguez’s smile, her big brown eyes, and her long pigtails, I knew little of her family, how many brothers and sisters she had, or what brought them to our community. I did not know what toys she liked to play with. We shared time only on the playground, hanging from the monkey bars and pumping the handles on the merry-go-round. Something held us back from becoming more intimate with one another––something subtly instilled into my psyche by my parents and teachers, who like many of the dominant culture, were highly suspicious and fearful of anyone who was different. Similar to my experience in my grandparent’s cabin, I allowed Mary to occupy space with me on the playground, but I did not ask her the questions that I longed to be asked at my grandmother’s table. To this day, she is little more than a two-dimensional figure in my memory, a memory that saddens me.
Like many monocultural communities, individuals within my childhood hometown resisted change and shunned outside ideas infiltrating their traditional values, particularly feminism or any other ideal that was too liberal for them to even consider, let alone digest. Luckily, destiny led me from the Hudson Valley to a variety of other locations until I reached the Rio Grande Valley, decades after Mary and I spent time on the playground. I have been given a chance to reach beyond my upbringing to explore other cultures and ideologies. In between, I have been exposed to people from all walks of life, many whom have become dear friends and associates.
While the weather in deep South Texas is extremely different, the community in which I was raised and the community I now live are not. Traditional male-dominated values prevail. Most of my female classmates back home were channeled into traditional career tracks, such as nursing, teaching in public schools, or simple bookkeeping or secretarial tasks. The primary goal was to get married and have children. Many of my high school classmates still live, in the words of the Dixie Chicks, “in the same ZIP codes where their parents live”. An education was merely an insurance policy against financial disaster should the male head of the household become disabled or die; or to provide personal spending money.
Divorce, because of my Catholic upbringing, brought shame to my family, regardless of my husband’s infidelity or abuse. The patriarchal authority of my community, supported by the dogma of the Church, defined the rigid gender roles, which were perceived as necessary and unquestionable. These roles that were imposed upon me are similar to those operating within the Mexican American culture. In The Moths and Other Stories, Chicana author Helena María Viramontes addresses “the social and cultural values which shape women’s lives and against which they struggle with varying degrees of success” (Yarbro-Bejarano 10). The Church, as she notes, plays a large role here, as well. In “The Long Reconciliation” the protagonist, fourteen-year-old Amanda, struggles with accepting her role as a married woman. Viramontes writes:
It is so hard being female, Amanda, and you must understand that that is the way it was mean to be, said the priest in the confessional. But this is pain, Father, to sprout a child that we can’t feed or care for. Pray, pray, pray, said the priest... (89)
I witness similar struggles in the women I come into contact with personally, women mostly of Mexican heritage in South Texas. One woman confessed that she had never left the city limits of Edinburg and feared driving all the way to San Benito for job training. Another desired to go to law school in San Antonio, but knew her parents would be crushed by her desire for a different life. In my classroom, I watch as my young female students struggle to attend class regularly and to complete their assignments because of the expectations to have dinner on the table for their husbands or to drop all private (academic) concerns and tend to extended family matters. Some have babies to care for as well. Their experiences trigger memories of my own struggles to maintain a traditional household, work part-time, raise two children, and further my education. Despite our obvious differences, the master narratives and experiences of our lives contain similar themes. Yet, our differences must be acknowledged because as AnaLouise Keating says, “But these differences don’t go away because we reject them. They grow stronger as we seek refuge behind stereotypes, monolithic labels, and false assumptions of sameness” (520). She reminds us that the contributors to This Bridge Called My Back advocated that difference can be used “as a catalyst for personal and social transformation” (519).
My experiences––and the wisdom I’ve gained over the years from a great deal of reading and contemplation––have provided me with a broader foundation from which to reflect upon the master narrative of my upbringing and the similarities contained within the master narratives of those who differ from me in culture, color, or class. The same can be said of our counter narratives. While our differences are significant, particularly since I have not been the object of discrimination because of my skin color, I am able to resonate with stories, whether oral or written, of women and men of varying cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Additionally, recognizing the differences within our stories has also provided me with the opportunity to acknowledge the privilege I am afforded as a member of the dominant culture––a gift that I had not considered before entering this project, a gift that has strings attached to it. Gloria Anzaldúa says: Though many understand the racism perpetrated by white individuals, most do not understand the racism inherent in their identities, in their cultures’ stories. They can’t see that racism harms them as well as people of color, itself a racially superior attitude. (This Bridge We Call Home 564)
Yet we are all capable of entering this conversation, of building bridges between cultures, if we’re willing to risk being vulnerable, being exposed, and at times appearing naïve, at other times rigid. Many of the barriers between cultures, race, gender, and class can be ameliorated through sharing our stories––whether sitting around a campfire, the kitchen table, or through our literature. Sharing our narratives is a way of bonding and supporting one another in change, change that may indeed have a healing affect not only upon individuals, but communities––both local and global. Stories of all oppressed need to be shared––especially those of women separated by the labels of first and third world in order to form an allegiance that may one day change the course of history. Storytelling comes naturally to us, and because we have been silenced, we understand the need to create the space for oppressed individuals to tell their own story. Demetría Martinez displays this in Mother Tongue the testimonio and journals of José Luis, the El Salvadoran refugee, is the space where his own voice is heard rather than have his story told only through the eyes and voice of the protagonist.
While the context of our lives may be different, many of us at one time or another have been subjected to the dominant discourse that has silenced our voices and attempted to confine us to roles determined by those in power in our families and communities. If we are able to address these issues through telling our stories––in essence, countering the master narrative meant to keep us in our place––then, perhaps, change will seep into divisions between gender and class as well. If women of the world can bridge their differences, then perhaps our male counterparts will be willing to do the same. Anzaldúa’s vision of El Mundo Zurdo––the “visionary place where difference functions not to exclude but as a catalyst for community building and change” (Keating 522)––further attests to this possibility. Keating adds, “Sharing our differences through open-hearted listening, we can seek commonalities” (522).