The following are selected quotes from the 4th and 5th chapters of a PhD candidate's dissertation:
Chapter 5214: How does the
trauma of war affect communities of color that have
endured the trauma of internal colonization in the U.S.?
215: Novels such as Jose Rodriguez's Oddsplayer (1988), Charlie Trujillo's Dogs from Illusion (1994), Michael W.
Rodriguez's Humidity Moon (1998), and Elena Rodriguez's
Peacetime: Spirit of the Eagle (1997) call into question
the history of discrimination against Latinos in the
U.S. These novels then intertwine that question with
stories of trauma endured while serving in the US armed
services. In this manner, narratives of war expose how
the trauma of discrimination in civilian life affects
how trauma is processed during war; conversely, they
also explore how wartime trauma affects the way Latino
soldiers process traumatic instances of discrimination
as veteran civilians.
219: The three intertwined stories in the novel work
collectively to express a familiar complaint soldiers of
color often voice regarding their Vietnam experience:
they were drafted to fight against people resisting a
U.S. colonial domination that they personally as
minorities in the U.S. should be resisting.
220: War lasts long after the last bullet is fired, into old
age and death we go carrying a secret knowledge
that no one wants to know about. War is the
opposite of sexual prowess. War is desire stripped
of humanity. -Alfredo Vea
221: Violence represents a male's rite of passage, a natural
development that turns boys into men— a tool
intentionally used by the State to legitimize its
control over the population. Violence as a tool for
intra-colonization is one of the reasons Mexican
Americans such as Jesse can be turned into "agents" of
the State even after being colonized by it.
224: The fear had been overwhelming, suffocating,
completely debilitating. The fear had been
bestial. He had been paralyzed by the desperate,
selfish need to survive. Even hours afterward, his
muscles were still quaking spasmodically, coming
down from a deluge of adrenaline. The muscles of
this jaw were swollen from clenching, his teeth
hurt, and his intestines ached from the internal
pressure. [fictional account from Vea's novel]
229: what Vea seems to suggest is that the
experience of trauma is self-perpetuated when it goes
unrecognized.
230: According to Freud, a person can escape a horrific event without any visible physical wounds, but the mind
registers the trauma and it remains imprisoned by the
initial shock until released as "traumatic neurosis." In
this manner, the trauma endured in one location
manifests itself in another place and in another time.
234: America had fully expected to win without
suffering, without loss. The boys on the hill
knewdifferently. The American Dream—the two
bedroom house with a white picket fence—had always
been built on a graveyard. It had always been built
at the expense of the Huron Nation, at the expense
of the bison, and the expense of the Vietnamese.
238: The shattering of Minnie's world coincides with
what Caruth calls the moment of "realization," when
trauma becomes recognizable, and the assumed reality of the contemporary can no longer co-exist with new
knowledge.26 Minnie can never think of her father in the
same way again—precisely in the same way that citizens,
after the experience of war trauma, cannot think of the
nation in the same manner.
241: Vea seems to suggest that the nation's history of racial colonization of people of color creates a perverse
inclination to self-destructive behavior even among
those it intends to privilege.
261: In Charlie Trujillo's Dogs From Illusion the characters work themselves up to such
a pitch because of repetitive trauma that the narrative
transitions into depictions of surreal violence where
trauma itself becomes the norm and peace becomes
abnormal.
262: Vea's polyphonic text is not content to narrate the
story of an individual in relation to the events of his
or her own past, but moves beyond this to the way in
which individual trauma is always tied up with the
trauma of a nation.
Chapter 4
137: But what is one to make of his
emphasis on being remembered not only as a dignified
soldier, but as a dignified male soldier? Why the
emphasis on masculinity? Lt. General Sanchez is a
first-generation Mexican American, and his concern about his male legacy as a soldier has an historical genealogy among many Chicano Veterans and Chicano soldiers. Lt. Gen. Sanchez is a Vietnam War Veteran and his concern over his legacy and masculinity reflects a major theme in the autobiographies of what scholar Ben V. Olguín has dubbed "Mexican-American soldier authors."
138: Jorge Mariscal, Ramon Saldívar, Ben V. Olguín, Jose Limón, and Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez are the few contemporary scholars exploring issues of race, and
national identity associated with veteran authors
139: This is unfortunate, as
scholar Jorge Mariscal writes, "during the Vietnam War
Chicanos constituted seven percent of the U.S.
population and twenty percent of fatalities, taking the
highest rate of casualties of any ethnic group," and "in
WWII and Korea, Chicanos were the most highly decorated
group."
142: The drive to assimilate through military service is
exacerbated by one of the most pernicious legacies
of Mexican culture: warrior patriotism. The idea
that masculine behavior must include a readiness to
die for "la patria" is powerful in Mexican
nationalist ideology. When transferred to the
Chicano context it is especially dangerous since
the Mexican male's rhetoric claim that he is
willing to die anytime anywhere becomes a fatal
reality once it is linked to U.S. imperialist
projects.
150: In this manner, Benavidez' autobiography is very
much a Horatio Algier story except that in his case he
does not go from rags to riches, but rather from rags to
manhood. For Benavidez, a successful Mexican American
masculinity is one of visible upward mobility, and the
military makes an ideal institution for such
evaluations.
150: In one of the more
memorable discussions Benavidez has with Uncle Nicholas,
he is told, "We will not give up our heritage, but we
won't let it hold us back either. We will be judged by
the way we act and by the respect earned in the
community." Such advice seems straightforward: if
Benavidez conducts himself in a manner that is "worthy"
of respect, then he can expose the duplicitousness,
immorality, and flawed social practices of
discrimination.
157: In this
passage, Benavidez positions himself as the loyal, war
tested soldier—the "epitome" of the type of citizen the
nation wants during war time. He is strong, patriotic,
dutiful and willing to defend his dignity when insulted.
Accusations such as "baby killers" strike at the heart
of soldiering for they remove all honor from duty, and
reduce a soldier's activity to mere plundering.
163: Even after
being racially insulted by an officer, Benavidez trusts
in the wisdom of the command. His commitment
reverberating in the phrase he repeats throughout the
text: "I am a good soldier. I go where I am ordered."
In war time, especially, unquestioned allegiance to such
a motto ensures a code of conduct for soldiers on the
battlefield. The reversal of the motto, however, may be
one way to understand the sense of emptiness Benavidez
felt before joining the military, the feeling of lacking
a purpose, of being unappreciated, of not belonging.
"Honor, Duty, Country" provides him with a code that if
he succeeds in following will lead him to an externally
validated sense of honor and masculinity.
170: Much like Roy Benavidez' Medal of Honor, Alvarez'
Chained Eagle is a story of social ascendance through
public displays of masculinity. Both men, for instance,
ascend from farm working boys to nationally recognized
military heroes. Both men envisage the military as an
institution that allows them to prove their masculinity
without having to deal with the "racial barriers" found
in civilian life. Arguably, Alvarez and Benavidez both
feel military service has the potential to legitimize
them "as men" in the eyes of other men and the general
population since military service functions as the
bedrock for a masculine code of conduct that holds
currency both in the military and in a civilian life.
187: While this is one of the few places in the text where
racism at home is directly addressed, he easily
dismisses it as another person's problem and not as a
ubiquitous social ill that continued to limit him and
other peoples of color during the late '60s. In doing
so, he reduces the racist practices of the 1960s to a
personal issue between individuals and not as part of a
systemic structural problem.
189: Comparatively, if one thinks of Vietnam POWs and POWs of
other wars such as the Korean War or WWII, the number of
soldiers captured during Vietnam was much smaller but
received the largest amount of media attention. Vietnam
had only 800 American POWs, while American soldiers
captured in Korea amounted to 7,140, and American POWs
in WWII numbered 130,201.
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