by Maria-Jose Soerens
The immigrant experience is one of being caught-in-between. I am caught between languages, between countries, between spaces that are everything but defined. My heart is always on hold, floating, trying to grasp the voices of ancestors that are unknown to me…
In this space, this hyphen, memory becomes a crucial hook to anchor yourself while a river of discourses flows under your feet. I am not talking about memory as in remembering your first day of school–as important as it is, but of cultural, inter-generational memory.
Cultural memory is “the blood calling out to blood,” Jeanette Rodriguez says. It is those units of meaning passed orally from generation to generation. On her book “Cultural Memory: Resistance, Faith, and Identity,” Rodriguez poses the question: “What is the source of a memory powerful enough to carry a people even through attempted genocide?” In other words, what is the source of a memory that will carry us through adversity, trauma, and dramatic change?
In this sense, cultural memory is an identity compass, an atavistic referent that guides the experiences and behaviors of the members of that culture. For the Jews, this memory is based on the Exodus, for Mexicans, this memory lies on the virgin of Guadalupe.
We, immigrants, face the challenge of constantly reviewing and re-constructing our identity in light of converging cultural memories. As a Chilean, the story of Chilean militarism marks me as much as the story of the immigrants of this country. I am a Chilean woman, but increasingly I am also an American immigrant. I notice this on the instant connection I experience with other immigrants, no matter where they come from. It can be Somalis, Polish, Iranians… we just look at each other and we know we are living in the same existential space. After a few words, we understand what is going on, we often get teary, because we feel seen and understood in an encounter that can feel like a “rest stop” in the journey of the in-between.
Trying to find an anchor, I have desperately tried to understand my own cultural memory–what it means to be a Chilean woman. Chile, as a post-colonial country of the “new world,” is also a melting pot and my ancestors come from many places: Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, all wrapped around our indigenous Mapuche roots. But the truth is: I don’t know. And my longing for knowledge increases as I spend more time in “exile”.
There is something within me that truly desires to be rooted… Simone Weil says, “to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” And herein lies the conflict: we immigrants who come from hybrid and traumatized cultures, where warfare and tyranny have killed any form of collective narrative… where do WE find roots?
Unhooked from the axis of time and space, in the same way Lost’s character Desmond needed a constant, we try to find ours like orphan children; with no referents, nor mirrors to find our faces. Like the Traveler in Dulce Maria Loynaz’ Viajero:
I am like the traveler
Who reaches the port and no one awaits him;
I am the timid traveler who walks
Among strangers embracing and smiles not meant for him…
Like the lone traveler
Who raises his overcoat collar
On the great, cold wharf…
As we come into contact with brothers and sisters who have come to this country as refugees or victims of human trafficking, and as we engage in friendships and “after-care,” let’s be intentional about co-creating avenues where the immigrant can explore and re-create her traditions, re-constructing her cultural identity from the shattered pieces, into a narrative that will carry her through to a new life.