What is a Chicano cycle-breaker
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance it’s YOU!
Ni de aquí, Ni de allá. We, the liminal people, know what it's like to hold complex identities. As Chicanos, we know our history is filled with pain and beauty. Our very bodies are the product of both the Colonizer and the Colonized. As is our internal understanding of religion.
Many of us have complicated relationships with religions like Catholicism, the culture of the church, and spirituality in general! Our grandmothers sang hymns in church, drank like sailors, and never shied away from a Limpia con huevo. We live with our messy heritage, taking daily steps to unpack & understand the complexities of our people.
We have inherited a beautiful tapestry of culture, identity, and faith - we've also inherited immense trauma. Trauma so many of us are working to undo every day. We are the cycle breakers.
We are the ones who can make a better future for our culture. We have the power to build one another up, to open our arms to all of our siblings, and to offer healing to folks of all backgrounds. We have to start with us, sweeping our own porch, communing with our many ancestors, and bringing peace to the warring identities bread into our DNA.
A huge part of that is facing down the barrel of catholicism and recognizing how it has affected us. Noticing harmful patterns of behavior, like forcing our women and femmes into subservience. Undoing the hateful ways we speak about the spirituality of our native ancestors. Admitting to and stopping the internalized racism we have toward our Indigenous & Black siblings.
We have a MESSY and MIXED history to accept, and lots of work to do here & now. I understand that learning about our heritage can be very difficult. Doing so through a specific lens may prove helpful. Religion was fundamental to our ancestor's colonization, and our recent relative’s survival, and likely, has become integral to your outlook on society.
Catholicism was used to strip out ancestors of their ways, their faith, and their practices. Yet, within catholic imagery like our Lady of Guadalupe, that stripped culture is preserved. Fragmented, repurposed, and gentrified - yes, but undeniably present.
When we begin to open our eyes to the folk-magic woven in our families, we have the chance to gaze through time and space. A weekend paranda followed by a Sunday limpa takes on a new context. The hushed tones we use to tell ghost stories take on new meaning. Even prayers, mumbled before a home altar, start to sound like an angelic chorus.
You're not alone. QCM holds space for you, your ancestors, AND your descendants. By developing a sustainable folk practice, you can find ways to honor your ancestors and the many ways they worked with the spirit world AND heal yourself. Colonization didn't happen overnight, and neither will our healing. THAT doesn't mean we get to avoid the hard work.
You've already committed to breaking the cycles of mental & physical abuse.
Commit to creating a pathway for those who walk behind you.
Let us be the ancestors we wish we had.
Let's break the cycle together.
Now, turn that music up we got some cleaning to do.
