Peace Corps Blog 1
Safe Space Guidelines/ Acknowledgements:
I am being vulnerable in sharing my reflections and experiences, however I would like to acknowledge that some of the things I write, and share can come from a place of judgement, privilege and ignorance. I ask you to take everything with a grain of salt and to give me compassionate and constructive feedback to help me understand and realize these things.
I would also like to say this blog is not a place for me to lecture, educate or inform the world or a people from. This blog is truly a safe space for me to deconstruct and digest my peace corps experience, solely.
Thank you.
P.S. Peace Corps loves using acronyms so be weary, I shall try to define and use them as little as literature-ly possible.
Post Apocalypse Reflection
I thought I knew coming into peace corps the preconceptions, stereotypes, and points of ignorance I would be confronted with and would have to address in myself. I hoped to have the appropriate and constructive methods for addressing them. Truth be told I imagined most of these point to be between myself and my community, Ugandans. To clarify, I imagined myself coming to Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer with the role of a teacher in a developing country.
I understood that with these dynamics came the danger of; being a "white savior" or "missionary" as a role but also as a preconception by Ugandans, a "moralizer" or "civilized" individual come to "educate" in a hierarchical sense, and the stereotyped interaction of helping a people and country in need versus interacting to achieve sustainability. I thought I had explored all of these dual dynamics that people wo do service abroad often encounter and hoped that my personal consciousness of them made me capable of addressing them. And so, I imagined this blog to turn into my personal encounter and unraveling of these stereotypes between myself and my Ugandan community.
I was wrong.
A month into my peace corps service in Uganda, all of the points of uncomfortableness, racism and microaggressions have been between myself and fellow U.S. volunteers. Throughout all of I have been asking myself how I could have been so naïve. First to broadly brush all peace corps volunteers as naturally progressive and liberal and secondly as generalizing them to be socially aware of diverse people of color, classism and sexism issues. I understand that I am relatively more progressive, liberal and socially vigilant than most, however I never expected to encounter such blasphemes ignorance in a place like Peace Corps.
In the last few weeks I have heard and experienced things like someone jokingly saying they don't speak Mexican, someone else explaining how "it isn't in Latino's culture to be academic" and how they understand what it means to be a minority and be discriminated against because they grew up as the only white person in a predominantly Hispanic community. These have all been statements said by white individuals. Sadly, these are only a few examples of statements that have been directly said to me and around me, a Mexican woman. There have been many other uncomfortable experiences for my fellow people of color (POC) volunteers. Experiences targeting intentionally and unintentionally their ethnic identity, gender, and class. There is no common denominator for these microaggressions. Regardless of age: old or young, lifestyle: city of country, region: north or south; individuals in my peace corps cohort have felt inclined to make offensive comments.
I have begun to ask myself why? What is causing people to feel propelled to say ignorant, offensive and racist things? What has influenced so many to be so culturally and socially unaware this far in life and still be in such a "noble" thing I perceived, like Peace Corps?
I must admit that unfortunately these same experiences are some that both myself and other POC have had in the U.S. both before and after President Trump's election. To simply write off as an outcome of Trump's dogma or an outcome of diverse regional ethnic exposure would be wrong. However, I must wonder of the racially contentious narrative in the U.S. has had an influence in emboldening individuals towards making statements they would otherwise have kept to themselves.
"Things are different, but the same"
Even as I sit in class writing this, there are two male volunteers sitting across from me agreeing amongst each other about how "men are naturally more inclined towards math and science versus women, because of the way our brains are."I am an optimist. I believe it s in no one's nature to be evil or cruel. I believe we are nurtured by our family, community and society to be a certain way. Our experiences inform and move us. I am also passionate, persistent and resilient.
However, there are days when I wake weary of the battle,
of the excuses and forgiveness
of being perceived only as a woman of color from a low-income background,
a first generation Mexican immigrant who has beaten the odds.
Sometimes it feels like I am treated as either a vulnerable victim of societies greed
or an angry overzealous protestor who preaches only for attention.
And some says I wonder if I am being hyper sensitive and stretching every look, statement and action as an attack.
But most days I remember and know that my cry is not for naught. My reaction is valid, and my response is necessary not only for survival but especially for growth.
Maya Angelou said, "The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature, at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power."
Leaving the comforts of home and coming to Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteers is reminding of this constant assault. I see the bruises of white imperialism both on myself and all of my peers regardless of color, and I am afraid of the scars they will leave.
Clarifications and Conclusion
No one is naturally bad or evil. And no one is simply, one dimensional, to be written off as just a racist, bigot, sexist or fool. I want to emphasize that although I have chosen to reflect and talk about my peace corps interactions with people who I at times portray as simply this or doing this, they, all of my fellow peace corps volunteers (PCV's) are amazing complex individuals who come from very diverse and distinct that have informed and moved them to think and act in different ways. Although I and other POC PCV's have had these experiences, we have also has many other happy, fulfilling and binding experiences that have outweighed and built our sense of community and family. And like all families there are many complexities and dynamics we must all face.
This blog will serve as my personal reflection of our United States government enforced/adopted Peace Corps family. I hope my reflections will give me light and perspective into how we can begin to mend these contentious relationships abroad and at home.
As promised here is the Taylor Swift (Peace Corps version) of "Look what you made me do"
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Technical issues have made this video unavailable. I will try again for the next post(:
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