Commentary by Carlos Barón
When I taught a storytelling class at SF State on many occasions I used, as examples, phrases that I heard from my parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents.
I had the good fortune of hearing many phrases from my ancestors. Ingenious, funny, loving, or even vaguely threatening phrases. Sayings that have richly accompanied my life.
In that SF State class, during an exercise called “Ancestral evocation,” I asked the students to close their eyes and imagine that, standing both left and right of them, they would have their ancestors.
Then, I would guide the class on a journey from generation to generation. On that journey, they would spend a little time with their parents, grandparents, or great-grand-parents. They would try to remember conversations, incidents, or phrases.
That trip through time ended on a site called “Original.” In the case of the U.S., where our class was held, that “original” place would most certainly be located beyond its borders.
On that journey, one principal goal was to “rescue” phrases that we heard from our ancestors. Phrases that had left an indelible mark on us. Words that perhaps we all have incorporated into our permanent logbook of phrases, in order to continue using them. Most likely, we will pass them to the new generations, as they are treasured oral traditions of our families.
Whenever I conducted the “Ancestral Evocation” exercise, the journey would sometimes provoke strong reactions. Just to imagine parents or grandparents standing next to the journeying students would deeply affect them. Some students had neither seen nor spoken with parents or grandparents for a long while. Perhaps some of them had died. Thus, to remember a phrase or a conversation with those who were far away or gone, could make some students cry or laugh.
Another aspect of the exercise was to share those “rescued phrases” with the rest of the class.
We discovered that, in a class including young people of diverse genres and cultures, coming from different migrations, who grew up listening to a variety of languages, many times some students would share the same phrase. I learned that, if a Chinese-American student, an African-American student and an Italian-American student evoked the same phrase, that surprising coincidence might allow them to see each other in a different light. A light that could illuminate the path to creative multicultural collaboration.
I called those coincidences “Positive Multicultural Experiences,” because they provoked a rapprochement among those who shared them. If those diverse ancestors had shared the same phrase, most certainly there would be other coincidences between their various realities. As an example, I will use a phrase which is universally known and repeated: “The way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.” Most cultures, all over the world, use that phrase.
In that class, unless a student was a direct descendant of pre-Columbian people, the exercise would also demonstrate that almost all who live in the U.S. migrated from somewhere else. The acknowledgement and acceptance of that fact is basic for healthy creative multicultural collaboration. According to my teaching and other personal experiences, creative multicultural collaboration is the foundation for a better understanding between the diverse ethnic and cultural realities.
To end, I will share a couple of phrases from my childhood. I still use them today. The first one is: “Pick all up and you shall find!”
Every time my sisters and I could not find something, with desperate tones in our voices, we would run to our mother for help. Our mother would not lose much time attending to our pleading urgencies and would simply say, “Where was it when you last saw it? Ah! Well … it should be there!” And she would end with that phrase, “Pick all up and you shall find.” We would feebly try to protest, but always ended up doing what she suggested. Generally, underneath it all, we would find what we had lost.
The second phrase is “Saint Mary, Saint Mary, loved sewing the most and never her needle lost!” That phrase (said in Spanish) was told in a sing-song style by my grandmother. It is also used when we misplace something.
I will explain. Many times, when we lose something, a kind of desperation surfaces. If there is someone close by, we might ask for help. Many times, that help does not come because that person simply ignores where that lost something is.
Flustered, we waste time and stop thinking clearly. At times, we search in places where we know the lost something cannot possibly be.
It is then when that folksy mantra can help us: “Saint Mary, Saint Mary, loved sewing the most and never her needle lost!” Repeating the phrase helps to better concentrate on the search. Mentally and physically, we feel that we are on the right path.
Although the last phrase has a religious tone (and I am not religious), it comes from my grandmother Margarita and she was very religious. And she loved to sew. She was always sewing. I can still hear her raspy voice, calling me, “Carlitos! Help me to thread this needle!”
I invite you to revise your memories and “to rescue” some phrase that you heard from an ancestor. If you have not conversed or spent quality time with your parents or grandparents, and you are lucky to still have them around, do not waste the opportunity to connect with them.