the meaning of legacy

“Ultimately, as all people of progressive politic do, we wrote this book for you- the next generation, and the next one. Your lives are so vast before you- you whom the popular culture has impassively termed “Millennials.” But I think the women of Bridge would’ve simply called you, “familia” – our progeny, entrusting you with the legacy of our thoughts and activism, in order to grow them into a flourishing planet and a just world.”

– Cherríe Moraga

my grandmothers in august 2017. this was taken after my senior speech.

The past few months, I have been thinking a lot about my own history and how this has informed who, what, and where I am today. Some of this has taken a very literal sense, such as trying to uncover the names of my enslaved ancestors. In a more abstract sense, I’ve also been trying to understand more of the histories of people who may not be related to me by blood, but are connected to me through culture, tradition, and spirit.

While reading the new introduction to This Bridge Called My Back, I almost laughed at Moraga’s excerpt she included from a letter she wrote to Barbara Smith. In it, she talks about how uncomfortable her own experience was listening to Shange present her work, and how it caused Moraga to realize that in her “development as a poet, [she has], in many ways, denied the voice of [her] brown mother” (26). Neither this, nor the conversation about her physical discomfort was necessarily funny to me, but it seemed ridiculously ironic that this is not only what I was feeling at the beginningof the semester when reading Shange, but it is also how I felt going to Moraga’s talk at Barnard a few months ago.

This to me only emphasizes the solidarity and commonality that Moraga, Shange, and the other folks that contributed to Bridge write about. Our struggles, love, and consciousness can come from different places and times, but are ultimately united. Those Shange learned from brought her to influence Moraga, who both influence me. I will never actually know them, just like I will never know those in my personal history that have influenced me too. Now, I believe that literally knowing them is not what constitutes our relationship, but it is hearing their stories, remembering their legacies, and carrying their work forward to grow the “flourishing planet and just world.”