Conclusion

Abstract

While indeed this book has demonstrated how the poetry of Sexton, Lorde, and Anzaldúa teaches us to witness and heal from America’s traumatic histories, it has also shown that we, as a nation, are often not who we think we are. As Dori Laub so wisely observed, it is often the next generation who has the courage—or the audacity—to cry out that the emperor has no clothes. I have found this to be true—for myself, young enough to have had any one of these writers as my mother—and for my students, who could be my daughters.

As in the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” it has taken a new generation of “innocent children,” removed enough from the experience, to be in a position to ask questions.

—Dori Laub, “Truth and Testimony: The Process and The Struggle”