What My Soul Sings

LenyDay 41 of our Lenten Journey beyond “Beyond Vietnam.”  From Leny Mendoza Strobel (photo right), Professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University, in her Foreword to Ethnoautobiography: Stories and Practices for Unlearning Whiteness, Decolonization, Uncovering Ethnicities (2013):

A long-time colleague asked me, for the first time the other day: Why did you become interested in the Indigenous?  My answer was an academic one: When I started doing research on Filipino Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices.

What I really wanted to say was: I have always been interested in the Indigenous worldview; it’s what my bones know and what my soul sings. Continue reading “What My Soul Sings”

Not Enough

lily“It is said that to awaken to critical consciousness, it is not enough to see and grieve what is wrong in the world; one needs also to fall in love.”

S. Lily Mendoza and Leny Mendoza Strobel in Back from the Crocodile’s Belly: Philippine Babaylan Studies & The Struggle for Indigenous Memory.