Reflections on Social Justice & Culture
January 2020
In memory of Martin Luther King Jr., who is now a symbol of peace and racial unity. However, we must remember that during the Civil Rights Movement he was disliked by 75% of the public and assassinated for speaking up against war, economic disparities, and his dream of equality. We must continue to speak truth to power.
August 2019
[...] By the seventh season of Orange is the New Black, RJ became a leit motif in the narrative, but the show failed to portray RJ accurately. [...] The show, however, did conclude eloquently with the theme that all people deserve a chance at redemption—an important idea in RJ, but not the starting off point.
September 2017
This article explores postmemory and the themes of transgenerational trauma and resilience in La teta asustada/The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa (2009), a film that suggests that the Peruvian internal conflict of the 1980s and the 1990s created a primal scene in collective memory, but departs from conventions of trauma narratives.
Traumatized by the story of her mother’s rape, Fausta struggles to commemorate her dead mother’s experiences and bury her during a time meant for weddings. With help from her community, Fausta learns to cultivate resilience and develop personal agency.[...]
The use of song and the potato and pearl metaphors demonstrate how Fausta honours her mother’s memory and breaks from her mother’s narrative in order to formulate her own identity. Thus the film represents the cultural resilience of the postgeneration in renegotiating their identity after fleeing from mass violence.
In winter
Nature likes to hide herself
Olive tans
peel down the drain
Terracotta chips
pink
[...]
October 2015
The impromptu field trip was to see Tz’utu Kan perform hits from the album, Jun Winaq’ Rajawal Q’ij: Tribute to the 20 Nawales. Tz’utu is an artist, educator, and social-environmental activist from Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.