Remembering and Forgetting

Text: "Narratives of Struggle" by bell hooks

"Remembering makes us subjects in history. It is dangerous to forget," (hooks, 54).

When I studied abroad in Chile, we did some focused study on the topic of remembering and forgetting in context with the Coup d'etat and the dictatorship that formed. A lot of what happened during the dictatorship was intentionally meant to be forgotten by the Chilean citizens by way of eliminating details from history textbooks (much like in the U.S.), censoring the media, and invoking fear for those who talked about the history of the dictatorship. Chile was forced to forget in a lot of ways. But those who lived it, who experienced it, who made it through that period of time, are forced to remember just by way of having lived and having those experienced burned into their minds. One museum remembering all those who were killed during the dictatorship resides in

Santiago. To walk through the museum is a very tragic, emotional, and humbling experience, and I can't imagine how triggering it would be for the individuals who lived it, and can't forget.

I feel as though this is very much the point that hooks is making in her piece. That history is lived, experienced, and can't be forgotten no matter how hard some may try. Besides remember, our minds can do this other miraculous thing, which is to imagine. However, hooks makes the point, and a very good one, that our thoughts are not just a blank canvas, but colonized, corrupted, and influenced by our lived experiences.

This is such a real thing. I don't know why I always thought of my imagination as such a wide open space where anything could happen, where I could create anything. In some ways, yes I can, but I can only create based off of what I already know. I can only describe a new smell based off of smells that I already know how to describe.

So to me, critical fictions seems like such an important concept, and one I am really glad to be learning about for the first time. You can dig so much deeper into literature and writing when you think about writing in this way because there has to be something subconscious in every fiction that is based on truth. Mindblown. Of course I knew there was a lot of truth in fiction, but for some reason writing it out just makes my mind feel like it's exploding.

Going back to my Chile example, now that I am putting this all together, I have read a lot of Roberto Bolaño and Isabel Allende. Two fiction writers from Chile. Their writing, now that I look back on it, reflects the dictatorship quite a bit, and that makes a world of sense because that is something they experienced, that they remember. It lives in their minds and even if not consciously, it is very possible that these traumatic lived experiences would find their way out into their works of fiction.

Okay I don't need to ramble about my epiphone with Chilean authors and my own imagination any longer. I really cherish this piece by hooks and I want to carry it with me forever into my teaching career.

"Writers in exile speak about the struggle to come to voice in alien tongues. Those writers who hold to the language that most connects them with home, work to maintain ties," (hooks, 57).

***During the Pinochet Era Isabel Allende was exiled. Her book Long Petal of the Sea takes place in Spain during a civil war and the two main characters flee to Chile as exiles...Just sayin.