Chelaficionada
Chela: Chela Sandoval Aficionado: amateur
I am an amateur at love. I am also inventive.
Conversations with Gus Merchant about Chela Sandoval’s Methodology of the Oppressed, 2/9/2016, Lincoln Nebraska
Gus: Why do the oppressed need a methodology?
Me: It's a way of thinking to get to a liberated life.
Gus: You have to learn how to think? Like obedience school?
Me: Sort of. It's learning disobedience through love.
Gus: Like when I eat fast food bags and their contents? You get real mad.
Me: Well yes, but that's just disobedience.
Gus: Right, but eventually you scratch my head because you remember I'm a dog and that's what I do and that I'm not going to remember why you were mad and I love you, mad or pleased.
Me: Uh huh.
Gus: Scratch my head. That Sandoval, she got a dog? She thinks like a dog person.
(Augustus Ramos Merchant, Presente!)
(Linda) So if I take what I see at face value (existential data), I may not notice there’s a problem with what I see as it effects my life (the empirical position of the subject).
(Rhea) I’m a 1950s secretary in an office where my boss says I’m qualified to run the office, but I can’t because the salesmen won’t listen to a woman, much less a beautiful one. Maybe, as I sit seething and typing up quarterly reports (that I produced one afternoon when my embezzling boss was out on the golf course with a client) at my IBM Selectric, I start to think this is not okay because I could do his job blindfolded (unlived abstract conceptions of the geographic totality). It isn’t until 20 years later, at a table of men unwilling to challenge the political status quo of my town, I agree to run for political office (two coordinated dimensions) and begin to see the inventiveness of my decision as empowering.
(Martha) I know that the history of Chicanas has existed as long as the history of man. It has been passed down from my mother’s mother’s mother, to me, but since these stories have never been written, they’re stories without validity. My world says words on paper matter, because paper and ink qualify as a record of forever—no matter how much care has been taken in the retelling of my thousand years old story. The men in my political world, conscious of our collective oppression, have no sympathies for the issues of women that have no record of forever (unlived abstract conceptions of the geographic totality). I will take my chavelitos to the local fast food franchise with the oversized playlot where they will play for hours. I will watch them from the bench next to the monkey bars, where I will write by hand, those stories as carefully as they were given to me. I will spend my own money to get them published (two coordinated dimensions) and begin to see the inventiveness of decision as empowering.
(Margaret) I’ve never turned away from my responsibility to helping any human being protect their dignity. I will agree to work with Chicanos in my state to start a political organization that represents our needs. I will challenge the men in charge of this organization to represent the needs of both men and women (unlived abstract conceptions of the geographic totality) and when the time comes, I will campaign to become president of this all men’s political organization. I will receive death threats for my campaign and respond with prayer (two coordinated dimensions) and begin to see the inventiveness of decision as empowering.
(Linda) I knew getting kicked out of graduate school was the worst thing that could possibly happen to my life—what was I going to do next? I wanted to learn how to film stories about latinos for latinos. Stories carefully handed down to me by my mother’s mother’s mother (unlived abstract conceptions of the geographic totality). I am told these stories make no sense—this is not the way good storytelling is done. Will I ever be able to tell another story? Will I ever be able to make another film? I will accept the invitation to film the stories of Chicanas, working with another daughter of the legacy (Maria) in community, to build an online virtual repository on Chicana Feminism (two coordinated dimensions) and begin to see the inventiveness of decision as empowering.
