<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Friday, January 29, 2010

thank you, howard zinn.

i'm teary eyed as i listen to Amy Goodman's tribute to Howard Zinn. my thoughts take me to this question: how have i honored the Filipino intellectual geniuses who have liberated me from colonial consciousness and made me proud to be who i am? how have i grieved for the ones who did not write books but whose lives should have been part of my archive of oral history...and aren't because my schooling didn't include them? how do i try to recuperate these losses now that i no longer have as much time left to do so?

on facebook, friends were citing jim zwick, daniel schirmer as among the likes of zinn -- historians of US imperialism. i owe them a great debt, too. plus glorial anzaldua, paulo freire, audre lorde...

i'm also thinking of the intellectuals that i have felt privileged to know in person - ver enriquez, nvm gonzales, helen toribio --whose work is all the more precious to me because of this personal connection. and because this connection extends beyond time, i still feel the power of their presence not only through the pages they left for me to read but the imprint of their physical presence. in moments like this, i still hear their voice, i see the glint in their eyes, i feel the lightness of their being. and they make my tears flow. tears both sad and not. tears of gratitude. perhaps they are speaking now and i need to hear.

what is their question?

# posted by Leny Strobel @ 1:26 PM
Comments: Post a Comment
links to this post

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?