my ancestry is colonization.
tales of captains and colonizers, generals and doctors interspersed with …
question marks.
i trace my father’s side to the 1600s and beyond.
there are family books
that narrate the bravery of each soul to cross seas, willingly
By Choice.
to lands they will steal.
what is it that makes it ok to take lands? i put myself in their place, and know that i can feel
the socialization that says
there are not People there
i see through our eyes what they rationalized in the name of
Freedom.
i feel it. i do. i know i could perpetrate inhumanity, injustice, because i continue to.
my mother’s side is
Latin America.
the names that appear are generals, senators that upheld
white supremacy.
in the name of a civilized honduras.
i imagine they held their noses at the incivility of this land they would conquer.
my abuela’s side is blank, save for the names
captured
by the catholic church.
further obscured by anti-blackness, anti-indigeneity, the family lore erases
our tribes, our people, our culture.
i know we wriggled, we squirmed into unnatural garments to survive, because i still do.
i don’t know any of us that did not conform.
i do not know any of us that did not shapeshift to survive.
i have no stories of resistance.
my family is proud of its whiteness.
until me.
what grows in me is a seed planted generations ago, a secret slowly revealed. it is no mistake. we are ready family. to acknowledge truths. to stand fully in our radiance.
i am colonizer and colonized. an impossible truth. an impossible existence.
i will not hide. i don’t know what i am. i succumb to unknowing and truth as it is revealed to me.
Andrea Atkinson
Andrea Atkinson directs One Square World, supporting community-led processes towards equity and sustainability. She has a degree in International Relations with a focus on sustainable development in Latin America and Africa from Boston University and a graduate certificate in environmental management from Tufts University. Andrea is a Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.
