Sunday, November 15, 2009

"The Imperialist Complex"

I am suffering right now from a bad case of what I have come to know as “the Imperialist Complex.” It’s not the first time this has happened to me—the thought first came up when I was sixteen or so. I’ve talked about it the back of Nicaraguan trucks, at restaurants in Holyoke, and in a ruka in Temuco not too long ago. But my ISP begins tomorrow, and it’s hitting me harder than ever before. I don’t know if I even have the right to do this—go into a random Chilean school of almost completely Mapuche students, and bring in western ideas of women’s rights and gender equality, essentially telling them that the American Way is better than what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years. It doesn’t matter if I do believe that the American Way is better than what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years—who am I, as some white girl from Westchester County, New York, USA to come in to their school and talk to them about how women should get out of the kitchen and go to school?

Over 25% of Mapuche women don’t complete primary school (roughly grades K-8 in the States.) That number rises to over 40% when only looking at Mapuche women who live in rural areas. About 4% of all Mapuche women finish university or tecnico, (where they would receive the equivalent of an Associate’s Degree.) When you add the rural factor, that number drops to less than 1%. (Rapiman, F. ¿Donde está la Mujer Mapuche en las estadísticas chilenas? Local Development and Gender, 2008.) Is it just my ethnocentrism, or is this completely unfair? Is it strange of me to think that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or location, deserves at least a primary school education? (Not to mention one of quality, or equity…)

For my ISP, I’ll be visiting two schools in the Temuco area: Liceo Pablo Neruda, a municipal school in the city of Temuco, which has an almost 100% Mapuche population (many of the students from rural areas outside of Temuco go to this high school), and Liceo Guacolda de Chol Chol, a municipal technical school that focuses on Mapuche culture, and is one of the best high schools in the Araucania region. The population there is about 90% Mapuche.

It’s 1:58 PM the day before my project begins, and my advisor still has not contacted the first teacher I’ll be working with to tell him I’ll be taking over his or her class for 45 minutes tomorrow and every day for the rest of the week (I was told not to contact the schools myself; to leave that to my advisor—who, as a Chilean, has a better grasp of the Spanish language and Chilean school system than I do.) My advisor’s name is Wladimir, and although he is nice, intelligent, interested in my project, and very well-connected in terms of schools and women’s rights organizations (as well as an anthropologist who focuses on gender…perfect for interviewing) he has kind of dropped the ball on this very, very, important aspect of the project. He’s had my proposal now for two weeks, and has known what schools I need to be at for that long, but we weren’t able to meet until yesterday (due to location) and he didn’t call before then (even though I asked him to, multiple times, in e-mails and phone meetings.) I called him this morning, reminded him how imperative it was for me to get to the schools tomorrow, and he said that he was going to call the school and tell them that I’d be there tomorrow—not ask, just let them know that this gringa girl was going to be taking over one of their history classes for the week. This isn’t something I’m okay with—I feel rude and imposing, and wish I had time to talk to the teachers before I stormed into their classrooms. I also recognize how being white and American affects the situation—I’m just another imperialist, and a disrespectful one at that! Charging in unannounced to bring my western ideas of women’s equality to an indigenous community that is trying to preserve its culture. How American of me.

But, don’t they deserve to know? There are girls who don’t go to university just because they don’t think they can. There are girls who don’t speak up in class because it’s simply not expected of them. There are girls who don’t realize that there is opportunity outside of the kitchen; that it’s okay to put off having kids until they’re older so they can live for themselves first.

And it’s not like I’m going to be telling them straight-up that “girls can” or anything—I’m asking them to examine the roles of Mapuche women in past, current, and future generations, and draw their own conclusions about the future. But, the fact that we’ll be having this conversation still says something, and I’m sure that my bias will show through.

I can’t do much about this; it’s inherent in pretty much all the work I’ve been doing, and all the work I’m planning on doing in the future. But I can’t help but feel like it shouldn’t be me leading these projects—that it should be someone from inside the community instead. I guess the question is: if no one from the inside is able to encourage these changes, is it okay for an outsider to do so?

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