Psychological Borders - Michelle Jahnke

We humans are incredibly complex beings. I know that sounds obvious, but I think we often forget it. In "mainstream" middle class white US society the tendency is to essentialize someone without papers as "illegal", indigenous culture as primitive or backward or underdeveloped, a Latina lesbian living in the barrio as underprivileged and a straight white middle class man as privileged. We have been systematically taught to divide up our society and our world, and, no matter what geographical and social part we belong to, we have been systematically taught to build psychological barriers and borders against others who are different than us. The system has taught us to fragment ourselves and we perpetuate this within our schools, social groups, neighborhoods, families, even our work to "change the world." What better way to break down the fabric of society and make us all rely on policies and ideas from above, instead of relying on ourselves and each other.

In Guatemala we met many wise and beautiful people who have helped me to think about the world in this way. One woman in particular, Maria Elisa, put it like this: "Al final tod@s vamos a salir afectad@s. Hay que romper con las fronteras en nuestras cabecitas." "In the end we are all affected by the situation in the world. We have to break down the borders in our own little heads."

Lately I´ve started doing a sort of silly thing and putting my thoughts and feelings into the form of haikus - those three line 5-7-5 syllable Japanese poems. I don´t really think of myself as a poet or anything, but the exercise does help me start thinking and writing about things I´m experiencing. I have written a bunch of them based on what different places we went and people we met in Guatemala made me think about and feel. I think they have a lot to do with the ideas I expressed above. Here are a few written in English, Spanish, and Spanglish.

The poor are so poor
Cus the rich don´t ask themselves
Why they are so rich

Mujeres mayas
Unidas en su lucha
Crean dignidad

Autonomia
Es tomar justicia y paz
En manos propias

Ya basta con las
Visiones importadas
Hay que unirnos

Take back our histry
Luchar to break the silence
We are all HIJOS
More info: www.hijosguatemala.es.tl/

Outsiders come in
Passports heavy with privilege
We are here with you
www.nisgua.org

Guatemalan dreams
Un desmadre hermoso
Roots deep as mountains
www.desgua.org