Ousia

I spent Sunday drinking mate, shelling beans, being quiet and writing. Last week was full, especially the nights, passed in many cobblestone and well-worn spaces.

I went to Santiago on a bus by myself, followed wheat-pasted signs on the walls which lead me to an Anarchist book fair where I spent the day meeting people and discussing the education system, the Chilean student movement, queer visions of anarchy and Mapuche political prisoners on hunger strike against discriminatory dictatorship-era laws (like the so-called “antiterrorist law” which unfairly deals significantly greater sentences to Mapuche people for being “terrorists” for crimes like arson, or alleged arson). I ate free vegan food and spent all of my spare change on interesting propaganda and literature and art and took the bus home at night to celebrate my friend Alejandra’s 22nd.

On Saturday I participated in a Critical Mass. (For those who don’t know, Critical Masses are big group bike rides practiced all over the world). This ride was in opposition to the Hinzpeter Bill which, if passed, will effectively prohibit all forms of protest or demonstration, including blocking traffic and covering your face. Most of us in the ride covered our faces as we took the streets of Valpo and Viña, including my favorite participant; a 12 year old who came on his own and lead chants about the fascist state and the fucking pigs and cordially waved goodbye to everybody at the end as he biked off alone. I will be getting my own bike soon and begin a whole new relationship with these streets.

Despite everything that is filling my life here, my thoughts are often with my friends back home; all of the gorgeous young people about to graduate from Beloit and take strides along their paths, my little sister Maya who’s the coolest 13 year old I know, and everyone else in my life that I am so proud of.

I take myself on dates. Movies, walks, to read at the beach. Often I run into people I know, which is sort of astounding to me given I’ve only been here for two months. I think I’m dating this city.

I’ve been paying special attention to the moon. Tomorrow it will be full. It is becoming fall; the ocean wind is chilling even in the day and I crunch the big brown leaves that fill my neighborhood sidewalks when I walk home. The nights here are textured and filled with new people, smells, music. Valparaíso in the dark is a twinkling labyrinth of colorful alleyways and mystical hills. The longer I am here I am able to see more and more of its layers and textures.

Since two months ago when I chatted with a cleaning guy with a Dominican accent at O’hare and debated with myself whether to switch or not to switch to Spanish, I have been navigating and discovering my identities as I navigate and discover the contours and flavors of America. This reflection is the beginning of reflecting on this process.

Since so much baggage is attached to being from Gringolandia in Latin America, I sometimes try to hide. It doesn’t usually work. If it’s not my light eyes and skin that give me away, it’s a mis-conjugated verb or my accent or my gate. I’m never anonymous; I am always qualified.

On days when I’m not feeling prepared to, say, explain Guantanamo Bay and both Iraq wars to my International Law class because I’m the token Gringa, I yearn for the privilege of anonymity that being white and middle class in the States allows. On afternoons when I don’t feel like being invariably cat-called by the construction workers on the way to class or leered at by men of any stature or honked at by cars, or groped on the bus or on nights where I clutch vigilantly at my drink, I dream a metallic body suit that plates my curves in steel, eyes with lasers and poison spit. But only on those days.

(My hips are happier anyway accompanied by my boxer briefs, loose fitting jeans, carried by my mom’s big black boots).

I hear a lot of generalizations when people explain to me why they know I’m foreign, or why somehow my national or ethnic identity doesn’t make sense. My nose isn’t a gringo nose, it’s a french nose, they say. It doesn’t make sense that I have dark hair if I don’t have Latino heritage. I shouldn’t be able to speak Spanish if I’m a gringa. Sometimes they guess correctly where I’m from, for a similarly absurd list of reasons.

Differently placed, as I have chosen to be, I have access to a new view of me. I also realize that same me I speak of has changed as a result of her placement, an in some ways I am uncomfortable with. Since when do I sacrifice my balance on the bus instead of lifting my arm and showing off my flowing pit hair? Since when to I feel compelled to shower more than every other day for no good reason? Since when to I semi-consciously change the pronouns of exes mentioned in passing so as to not bring up questions of my sexuality? Grimace nervously or even smile sometimes at leering men instead of spit my poison in their eyes? Raise the pitch of my voice and soften my tone when speaking to men, or when speaking in Spanish?

Passing as more-or-less straight makes it easy to slip into hetero performance, but it’s not comfortable, and I feel like I’m committing a form of self-violence by doing it. (***Note to extended family that didn’t know I’m queer: consider this a coming-out).

I’ve been sneaky with myself, omitting truths about my identity that are harder to express here in Chile with people I do not know. No more! I have the opportunity to perform myself in every interaction and every setting I place and find myself in. Along with this fresh opportunity of being in the extranjero (similar to the word for the Strange), I have an obligation to perform myself truthfully, instead of assimilating or hiding. I must locate both the linguistic and emotional vocabulary to answer categorizations people make of me with my own.

At a bohemian bar called El Gato en la Ventana (The Cat in the Window) I met more international gems and, while listening to the lovely harmonies of the acoustic duo and the deep mystical sounds of the five piece pan-pipe group, realized how much I’ve missed live music.

The Valparaíso Bohemian Theater Troupe busted in with painted faces and everybody listened as they spit some biting Easter-related satire about sin and desire to the crowded room. I’ve found a place where people smell like humans and many have stringed instruments on their backs. Feels homey.

Went to the beach the other night with one new ukulele-playing friend from France (who I speak to in Spanish) and shared tunes, wrapped in the sound of waves.

Here’re one:

Other highlights of this week include watching a mom and grandma teach a little son how to pee on the sidewalk, running into some horses on the street in the middle of the night and again on the way to the bus stop, studying with fried chicken, a delicious salad, and beer at a bar full of guys watching a soccer match and experiencing the sunset over the ocean from the Concon dunes last night while singing.

Can’t wait for more music and friends to wander into my life.