By Dyana Delfin-Polk, Graduate Student in Public Policy at Mills College
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Belen Mendoza, UC Berkeley Alumna in Ethnic Studies
Dyana
Healing present participle of heal (Verb)
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There are many definitions that society has developed to define what healing is: modern medicine, therapy, holistic healing, yoga, proper nutrition. The list can go on. But what is missing (for me, at least) is community. In other words, what is missing from many discussions surrounding the active pursuit of healing is the idea and the ability to heal through communion with other individuals with similar experiences. This is what EWOCC has become to represent to me, becoming sound and healthy again through communion with other women of color.
My most memorable EWOCC was one I actually was unable to attend myself. Rebecca Walker was the keynote speaker that year and the theme was “Intergenerational Wisdom: Celebrating Our, Past, Present & Future.” Several years prior, I had read Rebecca Walker’s book Black, White and Jewish: An Autobiography of a Shifting Self, one of the few books that had ever brought me to tears.
“I am not a bastard, the product of rape, the child of some white devil. I am a Movement Child. My parents tell me I can be anything I put my mind to, that I can be anything I want. They buy me Erector sets and building blocks, Tinkertoys and books, more and more books. Berenstain Bears, Dr. Seuss, Hans Christian Anderson. We are middle class. My mother puts a colorful patterned scarf on her head and throws parties for me in our backyard, under the carport and beside the creek. She invites all of my friends over and watches over us as we roast hot dogs. She makes Kool-Aid and laughs when one of us kids does something cute or funny.
I am not tragic.”
-Rebecca Walker “Black White and Jewish: An Autobiography of a Shifting Self,” page 24.
Her experiences growing up in mirrored not only some of my own multiracial experiences but also my parent’s separation in many ways. This book was first introduced to me in a club I had joined at UCB called the Mixed Student Union. The community I felt with these individuals, with women at EWOCC and reading memoirs of multiracial/ethnic authors me on a path towards healing much of the pain, loneliness and sadness I had felt and to some degree, was still feeling. Previous EWOCC workshops had also allowed me to express some of these feelings in a safe space and in an empowering way. These discussions and the positive feelings I had at the conclusion of the conference added to my practice of active healing through community in a similar manner to how I felt when I read Black, White and Jewish for the first time.
Seeing that Rebecca Walker was to keynote the 2010 EWOCC made me that much more excited to be in this space, but as luck would have it, I was working that entire day. Needless to say, I was disappointed that I was unable to attend, but I knew that it was a conference that my very good friend Belen Mendoza would enjoy and having Belen there was the next best thing to going myself.
Belen
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. – Rumi
The first EWOCC I attended was thanks to my dear friend Dyana Delfin-Polk, in March 2010. I was motivated to attend the UC Berkeley conference in large part because Rebecca Walker would be delivering a keynote address, and Dyana had previously described to me her love and appreciation for her writings. I was present that day for the both of us. The Rumi quote represents to a great extent one of the most important lessons I took in during that Saturday afternoon.
My introduction to Rebecca Walker through this experience moved me and stirred in me a new sense of clarity. Hearing her words and perspective truly was life-altering and uplifting. So at the end of the conference I got in line to chat with Rebecca Walker during her book signing; I was grateful for the wisdom she shared and I wanted to thank her, because I had never before in my life been given such an empowering beautiful message quite like hers that day. I couldn’t wait to tell Dyana about the amazing keynote, and Rebecca Walker’s warmness when I briefly spoke with her. I was so deeply affected by the talk, I later continued to tell my friends about the powerful lessons I took away with me at EWOCC.
“There is no greater power a woman can have than to stand in truth, in the face of the angry and silencing forces whether they be male or female, black or white or yellow or brown, rich or poor, mother or father. When do you become empowered? When you feel empowered.”(RW)
I have a great appreciation for Rebecca Walker’s message about taking a deep look into ourselves and questioning the propaganda we have internalized in our psyches throughout the course of our lives. Propaganda within and outside of movements like feminism, propaganda about our selves, our bodies, the “correct” timeline about when to enter motherhood, the pressure to solely prioritize career and achievements at the expense of other innate wishes like nurturing a loving relationship, creating a family, having a child. Rebecca Walker, at once gently and firmly, urged us all to locate and release propaganda inside ourselves that no longer serves us or our needs. This bit in particular resonated and moved me in an amazing personal way. Gratefully, I continue to look within myself and around me through this lens, thanks to the heartfelt keynote by Rebecca Walker on this life-changing day.
