Abstract
This chapter examines narrative persona and voice to explore how “enfleshment” is enhanced by awareness of cellular memory and the importance of how memory is recorded within the flesh. This chapter considers research in cognitive development studies and neuroscience to identify how experiences of trauma are recorded at the cellular level and the ways that cells and physiological reactions adapt for purposes of survival. This chapter focuses on ways that violence manifests within the home. It also considers how Latinas survive this violence and maintain their sentience. It examines how María Luisa Arroyo depicts the flesh as recording knowledge of this violence in juxtaposition to victim-blaming narratives and the distortions of reality that these narratives create. This chapter argues that honoring how flesh records violence holds a key understanding for why a nuanced understanding of Latina experience is vital for moving away from narratives of victim/survivor.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ALIANZA. “Fact Sheet.” DVAlianza.org. 2009. Web. 11 Jan 1014. http://www.dvalianza.org/images/stories/ResourcePubs/fact_sheets/factsheet2010.pdf.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 3rd edition. Aunt Lute, 2003.
Arias, Arturo, ed. The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. U of Minnesota P, 2001.
Arroyo, María Luisa. “Still Bedwetting at Nine.” Gathering Words/Recogiendo Palabras. Bilingual, 2008, p. 46.
Beverley, John. “What Happens When the Subaltern Speaks: Rigoberta Menchú, Multicultarlism, and the Presumption of Equal Worth.” The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias, U Minnesota P, 2001, pp. 219–36.
———. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. U Minnesota P, 2004.
Chaby, Lauren, et al. “Does Chronic Unpredictable Stress During Adolescence Affect Spatial Cognition in Adulthood?” PLOS One, vol. 10, no. 11, 2015, 1–12.
Collins, Patricia Hill. “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation.” Hypatia, vol. 13, no. 3 (1998), 62–82.
Comas-Díaz, Lillian. “Puerto Ricans and Sexual Child Abuse.” Sexual Abuse in Nine North American Cultures: Treatment and Prevention, edited by Lisa Aronson Fontes, Sage, 1995, pp. 31–66.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, vol. 43, no. 6, 1991, 1241–99.
Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process, Volumes 1 and 2. Translated by E. Jephcott, Blackwell, 1994.
Fried, Susana. “Violence Against Women.” Health and Human Rights, vol. 6, no. 2, 2003, 88–111.
Gosnell, John. “Enuresis: The Cause That Dares Not Speak Its Name.” British Medical Journal, vol. 315, no. 7105, 1997, 435.
Hadorn, Ernst. “Transdetermination in Cells.” Scientific American, vol. 219, no. 5, 1978, 110–14.
Howson, Alexandra. The Body in Society: An Introduction. Polity Press, 2013.
Latina Feminist Group. Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios. Duke UP, 2001.
Levine, Peter. The Body as Healer: Transforming Trauma and Anxiety. 1992.
———. Trauma Through a Child’s Eyes: Awakening the Ordinary Miracle of Healing. North Atlantic, 2007.
Lugones, María. “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” Hypatia, vol. 25, no. 4, 2010, 743–59.
Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, Verso, 1983.
Mirandé, Alfredo. Hombres Y Machos: Masculinity and Latino Culture. Persues, 1997.
Page, Linda. How to Be Your Own Herbal Pharmacist. Healthy Healing, 1997.
Patai, Daphne. “Whose Truth? Iconicity and Accuracy in the World of Testimonial Writing.” The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Edited by Arturo Arias, U Minnesota P, 2001, pp. 270–87.
Purvin, Diane. “At the Crossroads and in the Crosshairs: Social Welfare Policy and Low-Income Women’s Vulnerability to Domestic Violence.” Social Problems, vol. 54, no. 2, 2007, 188–210.
Ringrose, Leonie, and Renato Paro. “Epigenetic Regulation of Cellular Memory by the Polycomb and Trithorax Group Proteins.” Annual Review of Genetics, vol. 38, 2004, 413–43.
Rothschild, Babette. The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment. W. W. Norton, 2000.
Sneider, Allison. Suffragists in an Imperial Age: U.S. Expansion and the Woman Question, 1870–1929. Oxford UP, 2008.
Stoll, David. “David Stoll Breaks the Silence.” The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy, edited by Arturo Arias, U Minnesota P, 2001, pp. 118–20.
———. Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Westview, 2007.
van der Kolk, Bessel. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and the Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin, 2015.
Vásquez, Enriqueta. Enriqueta Vásquez and the Chicano Movement: Writings from El Grito Del Norte. Edited by Dionne Espinoza, Arté Publico, 2006.
Warner, Sam. “Constructing Femininity: Models of Child Sexual Abuse and the Production of ‘Woman’.” Challenging Women: Psychology’s Exclusions, Feminist Possibilities, edited by Erica Burman, et al., Open UP, 1996, pp. 36–53.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hurtado, R. (2019). Flesh-Memories: Bearing Witness to Trauma and Survival. In: Decolonial Puerto Rican Women's Writings. Literatures of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05731-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05731-2_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05730-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05731-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)