Walled Women

One issue I’ve really been struggling with in class is the question of “who is allowed to represent who?”  I contemplated this in my post after reading the article by Dimitriadis in our class on Silence, and during our discussions of Anna Deveare Smith’s acting in our class on Voice.  In jhunter’s reply to my post, she raised some important points about who has the authority to speak for whom, and how characteristics beyond race and culture may impact this authority.  I want to push back on this idea though, and demonstrate why I believe race and culture alone are such important factors.  I want to display this by attempting to represent Uninhibited’s paper, which she titled “I Choose to be Silent You Don’t Make Me Silent”.

            Uninhibited and I grew up in the same town (although she was born in the Dominican Republic).  Though we have never actually discussed how much money our father’s make, I believe we are of a somewhat similar socioeconomic status, at least in simple terms of finances and what is deemed “working class” in America.  Both of us are currently being raised by a single father and both of us have experienced the death of our mother’s.  We met in December of 2008 when we were chosen to be members of Bryn Mawr Posse 9.  We are both interested in social justice issues.   We are close friends.  I believe it is safe to say we have a good amount in common. 

How can you grow as an individual in a family that has defined your role even before you begin to walk? How do you strip yourself of inhibitions because of whom you are told you are or need to be in order to keep the family together?  What do you do when your responsibility to the world, to your family, and to yourself stand in opposition, ready to battle for the crown? My life since coming to the United States has been a constant push and pull between reaching for new opportunities and holding on to traditions. It has been a constant imagining and reimagining of how I can use voice and silence to define who I am in relation to others.

You'll find here the photos I took during our visit to Eastern State y'day. Very evocative…and troubling.
So much to think through (for me as a Quaker, especially....), about a vision gone wrong in so many ways…

I didn't take any photos during the mural tour, though--in part because I found it hard to see, and assumed I could find better images on-line than I could take from the trolley. But there's lots more I'd like to discuss about that whole experience--from what it means to ride around on a trolley through poor neighborhoods (while being urged to "wave @ everyone!"); through getting off the trolley and viewing murals, while the neighbors are making music across the street; to what it really means to "make art that represents a community."

I'm hoping that Jody, Sarah and Uninhibited will be able tell us something about the process that went into making the mural about women's education, which they helped to create in the first 360°. I attended one of the early concepting sessions; saw Jody, Sarah and Jomaira and Sharaai posed @ work on the front page of the Alumnae Bulletin...

“When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.”

                                                                                                                ---Adrienne Rich

I live in the walled community of Haverford College but also in a second institution—the hospital.

I don’t know why I haven’t spoken of these experiences in class.  Or maybe that’s a lie because I know exactly why.  At any given moment I am either in searing pain, trying to discretely smother the flames burning down my arm, or else I am using all my mental capacity to follow discussion while my brain is hazy from pain medication.

Webpaper 2

Lately, I’ve left our class with anger nipping at my heels as I trudge back to Denbigh. Thoughts, complaints and unspoken words swirl through my already over-full mind and I just want to scream. But I don’t. Instead, I shut myself in my room and wish I had splurged for that journal I saw in the bookstore a week ago. It seems wrong, but out of desperation and lack of proper medium, I’ve turned to this essay to help me sort out my thoughts regarding my own role in our class, and also the role of silence.

I am exhausted when I leave our class. I feel the weight of my unpacked thoughts making me so heavy. My silence, I will readily admit, is self-imposed, but I won’t take all of the responsibility. I feel silenced because I just need space to think. Such heavy topics deserve a response that has been thought out. But there is no time for silence. For it seems that we would much rather talk about it than observe it.

For most of my life I was brought up in a household where my father thought he could control us. I stayed pretty quiet when I was younger and followed my mother’s lead. My mom had plenty of opportunities to speak up and say something to him but I believe she stayed silent because she didn’t want to cause any problems. After a long day of work, the last thing she needed was an argument with my father. But as my siblings and I grew older, we also grew tired and angry of having to keep our mouths shut just to make him happy. I don’t even think that I kept my mouth shut because of my dad. I think I did it to make my mom happy.

Looking back at this experience, I see silence as being equal to obedience or even fear. Even if I were walking down the stairs to get out the door to run to the bus stop, my dad would yell at me in Khmer to “keep it down” and point his finger accusingly at me. His booming voice and index finger made me feel so small and helpless. It made me feel like I couldn’t ever do anything right, like I was a disappointment. He wanted me to walk around quietly and conduct myself in an unobtrusive manner, like all the other Asian women he had come across. Even if I were quieter walking down the steps, I knew that if I did what he said then I would be reinforcing his control on the rest of the family. His controlling ways were unbearable and unhealthy for my family and I had to find a way to stop him.

To break the silence

is murder! (of sorts) and a thousand liberations- but also

I have no idea what you're talking about

Maybe if we weren't silent, we would understand?

Said the teacher to the class.

Then She looked out the window

Her words brought the class to its full attention, they wondered if they could keep going.

She did.

Hi. What?!

I love sitting in silence with you guys. Love it!

I love sitting in silence, but I did get more and more anxious as the paper moved around

She exuded privilege.

Her language spoke to wealth dating back as far as the eye could see in her lineage.

But what kind of wealth was it? She felt rich of possessions, yet lonely and empty.

I feel a kind of turmoil I cannot clearly articulate or define but the need for expression of this turmoil is so overwhelming

I just want to know what's going to happen next,

but please tell me in silence.