erin mae valdefiera san antonio
second generation immigrant settler
queer, non-binary, filipinx femme
creator
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warrior wanted made of mud and salt water's resistanceI am a queer, non-binary, Filipinx femme creator and ancestor in training currently residing on unceded Chinook land. Born and raised on what's better known as Clackamas, OR my roots reach all the way to the Luzon islands of Cavite City and Sampaloc, Manila. My creative works are often documented pieces of my own hurt and healing, emphasizing the connection between grief and growth as the youngest child of immigrants in diaspora. I recognize that in my own voice, in its many forms has been the basis of my survival and ability to thrive. Through creating, I explore my relationships with my identities while actively striving towards the cultural preservation and living traditions of my peoples. I dream of a world outside of ourselves that bridges both past and present that allows us to create access to archival knowledge and history that's been lost to our people through the forced and ongoing effects of colonialism, imperialism, and cultural genocides. These bodies of work are love letters written and waiting to be written: to ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, those who came before us and will come after us. Baring witness to these pieces, I hope to visualize and investigate what it truly means to embody the fullness of ourselves as people that are subject to marginalization.
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the purpose of this page
Undoubtedly this page was birthed out to fulfill my senior capstone requirement to graduate with my baccalaureate from Portland State University. However, being all that I am: a queer, non-binary, Filipinx femme, raised in one of the whitest cities in Amerikkka, and more, means that my concerns and purpose are less about fighting for more representation in mainstream media or shouting from the rooftops about marginalized monoliths (although they're both valid issues and inherent to my work), and more like knowing that my life's work must be dedicated to making sure my people and everything about us that is brilliant and special, not only survive through colonization, imperialism, militourism, forced assimilation, sexual, relationship, and gender-based violence, intergenerational trauma, and the list goes on.
My community is still dying as a result of the ongoing violence that we've endured having been past from one colonizer to the next. These realities are further stressed with covid-19 through the collective exploited labor and disposability politics of my community as frontline workers and "cheap" tourist spots for wealthy, remote workers. We're often described as a people and culture now "lost to history," but my existence is a direct testament to my people's survival. And the heavy erasure that occurs because of this notion of monetizing marginalized identities actively threatens our culture and traditions. In carrying my people's stories of survivance, I also hold our trauma. My presence in diaspora is a privilege and I know this. Nothing about our truth is palatable and that's why I create.
It is also important for me to note that Migrante Portland did not conceive any part of this work. From it's thought, creation, and process, I spearheaded this alone under the supervision of my mentor, a fellow Pinay warrior and scholar. Migrante's relationship to this body of work is an intentional and strategic connection that I made as a building block to bridge my work, something that is one-of-a-kind, to support and inform my community under our own collective self-determination in our process to collective liberation and healing.
My community is still dying as a result of the ongoing violence that we've endured having been past from one colonizer to the next. These realities are further stressed with covid-19 through the collective exploited labor and disposability politics of my community as frontline workers and "cheap" tourist spots for wealthy, remote workers. We're often described as a people and culture now "lost to history," but my existence is a direct testament to my people's survival. And the heavy erasure that occurs because of this notion of monetizing marginalized identities actively threatens our culture and traditions. In carrying my people's stories of survivance, I also hold our trauma. My presence in diaspora is a privilege and I know this. Nothing about our truth is palatable and that's why I create.
It is also important for me to note that Migrante Portland did not conceive any part of this work. From it's thought, creation, and process, I spearheaded this alone under the supervision of my mentor, a fellow Pinay warrior and scholar. Migrante's relationship to this body of work is an intentional and strategic connection that I made as a building block to bridge my work, something that is one-of-a-kind, to support and inform my community under our own collective self-determination in our process to collective liberation and healing.
MIGRANTE PORTLAND
Migrante Portland is a local-based chapter of a national alliance organization fighting for migrants’ rights and dignity against all forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse in the work place and in the community and resist all anti-migrant policies.
Core programs include:
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Caption: three photos of Migrante Portland's organized protests from 2019. Photos were taken from their Facebook page with faces blurred out to maintain as much confidentiality as possible. Visit "https://www.facebook.com/MigrantePortland/" for more.
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IN RECOGNIZING, RECLAIMING, AND RECONCILING OUR PAST TO RE-IMAGINE OUR FUTURES
INTRODUCTION
Storytelling has always been something that was present in my life since I was a child. In being the first American born child in my family to dig into our familial stories and reconnect to our ancestral roots, I have come to recognize that our ability to talk story has always been our method of maintaining our identity, and passing down our magic. It was through words spoken out loud, sprawled out calling cards, late nights, and whispers of Tagalog filling the empty spaces from across the Pacific, morning tsismis over baon, and sleepy eyes matching the sunrise. This is how I began to understand my own identity through familial stories as "personal narratives coalesce the past, present and future into a coherent narrative identity in order to create a sense of unity and purpose across time," (McAdams 2001). According to Fivush, Bohanek, and Zaman (2011), intergenerational stories may serve as a type of cultural transmission. Family narratives may be particularly signifiant avenues for cultural transmission of knowledge and values because their informal and interactive nature allows for learning to occur before formal schooling (Rogoff & Toma, 1997).
In the interest of exploring my own identity and deepening my understandings of my own unique personal stories, as well as those of my community, I centered this body of work to hyper-focus on the narrative of being an agent of development, a highly popularized belief reinforced by outsiders and those within the larger Filipinx community, and challenge this narrative by opening it up at it's core. As this narrative is deeply tied to stories of migration, it is imperative in de-colonial research to require active recognition of our roles as settlers even within our stories of migration and how our own stories of survivance are interconnected to the displacement and harm of Indigenous peoples within a nation-state. This requires recognition of ongoing colonization as foundational. Such a clear rendition of the bigger picture naturally sacrifices any notion of the innocence of people of color in projects of settlement and colonial relations, (Tuck & Yang, 2012). By adopting these narratives of being an agent of development as our absolute truth, we continue to invest in settler colonialism and uphold the very systems that enable our people's exploitation, whilst continuing to pass down our trauma intergenerationally. It is only through the honest reclamation of intergenerational narratives that healing begins.
Storytelling has always been something that was present in my life since I was a child. In being the first American born child in my family to dig into our familial stories and reconnect to our ancestral roots, I have come to recognize that our ability to talk story has always been our method of maintaining our identity, and passing down our magic. It was through words spoken out loud, sprawled out calling cards, late nights, and whispers of Tagalog filling the empty spaces from across the Pacific, morning tsismis over baon, and sleepy eyes matching the sunrise. This is how I began to understand my own identity through familial stories as "personal narratives coalesce the past, present and future into a coherent narrative identity in order to create a sense of unity and purpose across time," (McAdams 2001). According to Fivush, Bohanek, and Zaman (2011), intergenerational stories may serve as a type of cultural transmission. Family narratives may be particularly signifiant avenues for cultural transmission of knowledge and values because their informal and interactive nature allows for learning to occur before formal schooling (Rogoff & Toma, 1997).
In the interest of exploring my own identity and deepening my understandings of my own unique personal stories, as well as those of my community, I centered this body of work to hyper-focus on the narrative of being an agent of development, a highly popularized belief reinforced by outsiders and those within the larger Filipinx community, and challenge this narrative by opening it up at it's core. As this narrative is deeply tied to stories of migration, it is imperative in de-colonial research to require active recognition of our roles as settlers even within our stories of migration and how our own stories of survivance are interconnected to the displacement and harm of Indigenous peoples within a nation-state. This requires recognition of ongoing colonization as foundational. Such a clear rendition of the bigger picture naturally sacrifices any notion of the innocence of people of color in projects of settlement and colonial relations, (Tuck & Yang, 2012). By adopting these narratives of being an agent of development as our absolute truth, we continue to invest in settler colonialism and uphold the very systems that enable our people's exploitation, whilst continuing to pass down our trauma intergenerationally. It is only through the honest reclamation of intergenerational narratives that healing begins.
PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY AND THE RESEARCH QUESTION
The Filipinx community is heavily perceived and stereotyped as being agents of development - but for whom and at what cost? This study explores the ways in which colonial narratives have disrupted and manifested into intergenerational, lifelong sources of trauma as we become tools to white supremacy, furthering the colonial agenda. By tracing the generational kuwentos (stories) within a family unit, we're able to map out how our community has internalized these stories and both resists and props up the U.S. empire simultaneously through our stories of survivance via migration. Weaving across the generations, intergenerational narratives highlight the connections between our roles as both colonizers and the colonized, ultimately serving as a tool to re-imagine and re-define our ancestral futures. The research question is: How does the narrative of being an agent of development affect the Filipinx community intergenerationally across multigenerational families and the relationship between the effects of migrant work, transnational and diasporic families, and mental health
The Filipinx community is heavily perceived and stereotyped as being agents of development - but for whom and at what cost? This study explores the ways in which colonial narratives have disrupted and manifested into intergenerational, lifelong sources of trauma as we become tools to white supremacy, furthering the colonial agenda. By tracing the generational kuwentos (stories) within a family unit, we're able to map out how our community has internalized these stories and both resists and props up the U.S. empire simultaneously through our stories of survivance via migration. Weaving across the generations, intergenerational narratives highlight the connections between our roles as both colonizers and the colonized, ultimately serving as a tool to re-imagine and re-define our ancestral futures. The research question is: How does the narrative of being an agent of development affect the Filipinx community intergenerationally across multigenerational families and the relationship between the effects of migrant work, transnational and diasporic families, and mental health
DESIGN & METHODOLOGY
To lay out the foundation of which my research is built on, I draw from the theoretical frameworks of Albert Memmi (1965) and his book The Colonized and the Colonizer when analyzing the completed interviews of participants. Albert Memmi (1965) explores the dynamics of colonization from both a colonized and colonizer perspective with an emphasis on the psychological, social, and cultural losses that are namely, results of colonization. Applying this lens onto my research, Memmi's body of work offers a critical perspective in challenging what it means to be an agent of development within the larger Filipinx community across the generations while also providing a fuller story that begins to reflect our true realities.
Data collection and analyses is rooted in kuwentohan, or to talk story in Tagalog, through annonymous interview surveys that follow the transmission of mental health implications across multigenerational families. It was important for me to model my study to incorportate my own cultural knowledge with the understanding that storytelling has always been about legacy work for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. It is through our intergenerational narratives that we are able to begin to understand who we are, challenge the link between one's story and the construction of knowledge and understanding of history in dominant culture, and heal from our own colonial stories. The use of kuwentohan to re-imagine narratives of Filipinx histories and communities allows us an alternative way to seeing and being seen in the world, creating a new archive of knowledge, one that has always been present in our people's stories of survivance and resistance.
To lay out the foundation of which my research is built on, I draw from the theoretical frameworks of Albert Memmi (1965) and his book The Colonized and the Colonizer when analyzing the completed interviews of participants. Albert Memmi (1965) explores the dynamics of colonization from both a colonized and colonizer perspective with an emphasis on the psychological, social, and cultural losses that are namely, results of colonization. Applying this lens onto my research, Memmi's body of work offers a critical perspective in challenging what it means to be an agent of development within the larger Filipinx community across the generations while also providing a fuller story that begins to reflect our true realities.
Data collection and analyses is rooted in kuwentohan, or to talk story in Tagalog, through annonymous interview surveys that follow the transmission of mental health implications across multigenerational families. It was important for me to model my study to incorportate my own cultural knowledge with the understanding that storytelling has always been about legacy work for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. It is through our intergenerational narratives that we are able to begin to understand who we are, challenge the link between one's story and the construction of knowledge and understanding of history in dominant culture, and heal from our own colonial stories. The use of kuwentohan to re-imagine narratives of Filipinx histories and communities allows us an alternative way to seeing and being seen in the world, creating a new archive of knowledge, one that has always been present in our people's stories of survivance and resistance.
RESEARCH REFLECTIONS AS AN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT
What started as a passive idea from a 20-year old Filipina, has become a critical pillar of my own growth and healing as a now 22-year old Filipinx femme. Throughout this research journey, there were were times in which I referred to it as a "a lost love letter waiting to be written." I fell in and out of love with this process multiple times, and reaching this part of the destination took longer than expected. This body of work is undoubtedly an extension and offering of my own labor of love for the larger Filipinx community and a step into reconciling the harm we've imposed and that has been imposed on us. In completing this study, it was important for me to root myself in my own truth and honor my own journey of growth and healing, especially because this meant re-learning who I have become, and will continue to be.
In learning how to honor my own process, it was even more important for me to be able to cultivate a space for participants to feel comfortable sharing their stories in a culturally relevant way, outside of colonial ears and eyes. My parent's, my original storytellers, were the first to teach me how powerful kuwentohan is, and why it is critical our stories are passed down from generation-to-generation. The self-determination and autonomy of participants were fundamental and stressed throughout this project as participation offered a platform for others to re-define their own narratives outside of the colonial gaze for collective Filipinx and self-empowerment. Historically, research has focused only on "documenting the damaged," in support of and for whiteness (i.e. White folks, white supremacy, etc.). As a researcher and a second-generation Filipinx immigrant settler, I hold a position of power on the space between being an insider and outsider. It was important that I be aware of my own positionality in relation to my research and my participants so as to not reinforce harmful research practices that have historically been enacted onto my community.
In learning how to honor my own process, it was even more important for me to be able to cultivate a space for participants to feel comfortable sharing their stories in a culturally relevant way, outside of colonial ears and eyes. My parent's, my original storytellers, were the first to teach me how powerful kuwentohan is, and why it is critical our stories are passed down from generation-to-generation. The self-determination and autonomy of participants were fundamental and stressed throughout this project as participation offered a platform for others to re-define their own narratives outside of the colonial gaze for collective Filipinx and self-empowerment. Historically, research has focused only on "documenting the damaged," in support of and for whiteness (i.e. White folks, white supremacy, etc.). As a researcher and a second-generation Filipinx immigrant settler, I hold a position of power on the space between being an insider and outsider. It was important that I be aware of my own positionality in relation to my research and my participants so as to not reinforce harmful research practices that have historically been enacted onto my community.
GET IN TOUCH
CONTACT: [email protected]
IG: @kasamamade
IG: @kasamamade