On Encounters
How the Face of the Other Awakens the Heart
13 March 2024
Some time ago, dear compas, an hormiga by the name of Gloria E. Anzaldúa edited a book in 1990 called Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color. This was Gloria’s second edited book of writings by “women of color,” her first being a co-edited book called This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color in 1981 with Cherríe Moraga (another hormiga). What made Gloria’s second book so powerful was the concept from Nahua philosophy of “making face, making soul” (in ixtli, in yollotl). Yet, haciendo caras had much more to it than with Nahua philosophy. It was a world unfolding to the rest of humanity, which is to say, it was a life and its stories. For us, hormigas, stories are the power of the collective.
From time to time, my hormiguero reads Gloria. We sit around our kitchen table and have heated discussions, passion spilling out of our words. We usually talk about philosophy, lived experiences, the planet, resistance movements, and our world of hormigas at this table. We sit affectionately around our table, disagreeing and building on ideas, never trying to destroy each other. Sometimes, when we are talking about Gloria, we cry. We cry because her words touch us, move us, and provoke us. Making face is a practice of constructing a world. Making soul is that world inside of each and every one of us. To do this together is loving practice. Gloria helps us see beneath the appearances of radical theory or combative philosophies. She asks us to listen. When we listen to each other, we are practicing decolonial feminism. Our ceremony as hormigas brings us closer to realizing we cannot be without each other.
Our compa and fellow hormiga Gloria invites us to build across difference. We read and listen to her so that we might discover new ways of relating. Our stories of life and resistance would be nothing without her.
As an hormiga, I write because of Gloria.
_*_
Now, some in my hormiguero might say I am a Marxist, for having read the works of Marx and developing a materialist critique of political economy! Some of them might say I am an anarchist, critiquing the State-form and everything about authority and hierarchy! I am more willing to say I am something of a communist—a little “c” communist. Yet, compas, it is probably most exact to say I am, in the spirit of my theory and praxis, una hormiga struggling toward the horizon of Lead by Obeying in my hormiguero, which is to say, some version of a zapatista. In any case, it might not be a surprise, but some of us in el hormiguero read Marx as much as we read about the gato-perro or defensa zapatista. We read our lost ones, such as Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos or SupGaleano. We’ve been especially moved by El Capitán and SupMoisés. When it comes to someone like Marx, some of us take our time with Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Vol. 1, and we read and re-read, facilitating study groups to understand in collective. Study in el hormiguero is serious business.
To get to the point, I attended a very special gathering of Marxist students and professors from across the public research universities of California. This was a time when I decided to go on a tiny vacation in the woods, to encounter others in struggle. There were some encounters worth everything, and others I found complicated if not a challenge to my path of conocimiento. Yet, I won’t bore you with those details. I remember Gloria in those moments of interpersonal tension.
I preface now that the concept of time is a futile notion in hormiguero calendars. Our world bends and on occasion stretches. Our cosmic orientations are rooted in the heat of our passions. We experience the past, the present, and the future together, in a mesh of time—focused on the entropy of our words and actions. We are not seers, but some of us do see. There is no fancy magic to our calendars. We are of the dirt and water as much as the myths and prophesies which create us. So, when I ventured with a compañerx to the woods to encounter what I will call Marx Camp, time collapsed and flourished.
You see, Marx Camp was organized to teach historical materialism, a Marxist method of what some of these professors also saw as immanent critique. To explain historical materialism, I would perhaps have to organize a semillero, to discuss its scientific use and its common use by revolutionaries, but to put it plainly: historical materialism is a method to understand the historical context of economic activity that functions as a force for the other dimensions of our lives, such as the social, the political, or the religious. Not a determinism in the economic sense, but there is a mystical force here, at least from my perspective. (I might be wrong, but it's okay, take what I say with a grain of salt). In any case, we did a close reading of multiple chapters, such as “Chapter One: The Commodity” or “Chapter Ten: The Working Day.” We are taught how to teach Capital: Vol. 1. We make discourse. We have long days talking about Marx, Marxism, capital, communist theory, or even TV series such as Riverdale. Some of the participants are socialists. Some are anarchists. Some are (ultra-left) communists. Some, I have no idea. But we gathered and shared words. We converged to listen. And some of us, well, we couldn’t stop talking about Riverdale. Between whiskey and Mexican beer, our passions were lighted, and words were met with eager dispositions.
On a special night, our last, we stared at the stars, listening to music. A meteor shower was happening right before us on full display, as the trees, winds, and cosmos revealed a new relationship: our desire for another world. There was a beautiful moment listening to each other sing corny or cringey songs. There was convivencia. I wished it never ended. Between Creed, corridos tumbados, and old nineties songs, one could live here forever.
Yet, as ends go, there was some tension. My compañerx and I from the same hormiguero made friends. We also, perhaps, made enemies (not in a rigid sense). Despite this, it was not us nor them but political difference. It was not seeing the same order of things. It was an ambivalence or ambiguity. Some political lines should reveal themselves. I learned it is not enough to call oneself Marxist or have a Marxian critique of the world. Marxism for our hormiguero means struggle. To us, it meant the real horizon of communism. Communism, as a friend put it, was treason to the species. It is the abolition of the (Human) world that made us into hormigas in the first place. Yes compa, we are hormigas by decision, by choice. We build hormigueros because we are Marxists, as much as we are communists, as much as we are anarchists, and as much as we hold in our hearts: because we are zapatistas.
So, if you find yourself at Marx Camp, learn to sit back and have fun. Talk about Riverdale because the stakes are worth it. No long-winded discussions on the financial crisis will prompt you into action. Our friendships with fellow travelers are what matters, in the end. And maybe, there will be a moment to build a new hormiguero. ¡Adelante!
_*_
As encountering others in struggle goes, there was an encounter after Marx Camp I had the pleasure to attend and participate in. It was the one organized by Sexta Grietas del Norte, called “Struggles for Life in the Global Storm.” This was back in September in the lands of many Indigenous nations, such as the Pueblo. My hormiguero had prepared to attend this encounter and the tiny delegation we had sent, including yours truly, experienced the possibilities of connecting hormigueros in times of intense polarization and genocidal wars. Only a few weeks after this encounter, on October 7, the world stood still as the Palestinian resistance in Gaza broke the siege (if only for a few days). Truth be told compas, it took me time to collect myself, and my hormiguero took time to mourn as much as we did our planning and conspiring. We retreated to build analysis. We marched on the urban streets outside our hormiguero to bear witness to the thousands of people/hormigas demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In reflecting on the Sexta encounter, many of the experiences there proved instructive if not inspiring.
Many who were adherentes a la sexta or not adherentes at the “Encuentro” in Albuquerque shared space, food, and words. Hormigas from across the US, Mexico, and Indian Country came to the encounter. Our tiny delegation was one of many. The presence of beautiful people, incredible struggle, and the spirit for liberation, could make any hormiga take a moment to cry. It wasn’t so much the gatherings themselves within the encounter that moved me but the willingness of many to listen to each other and see each other’s faces (although many in our tiny delegation wore masks). I am constantly reminded of Gloria; her words follow me everywhere.
Spending time and energy with lxs adherentes a la sexta—or the not-adherentes-yet, but the curious, those who need convincing—was to share palabra and stories of our struggle. We listened to voices speaking on the “nuclear colonialism” in New Mexico, the Indigenous struggles in Mexico, the Pueblo protection of land/territory, the movement against Cop City to save the Weelaunee forest, and much more. Throughout the encounter, mesas de trabajo were the instrument to build on conversations and build new networks. These mesas became the concrete site where words and action melted into each other.
On our last day, we watched the premiere screening of La Montaña in the United States. The Zapatista journey for life and the boat they embarked on to reach Europe was a culmination of practices inspiring many of us. To see the Escuadrón on their journey was a portrait of what is possible in our fucked up world (excuse my language!).
Compas, go out and encounter each other: to awaken the heart. Travel to each other’s worlds. Build worlds together. Conspire. Study. Construct your hormiguero. Become hormigas. As the compas/hormigas in Chiapas say: let us make the pains of the Earth our own. As a wise hormiga and fellow traveler taught me, “Another world is in our midst.”
More from my notebooks will come. Lento. Lento. Lento. Con tiempo. Ahorita.
And never forget compas:
Free Palestine!
Long live the intifada!
Long live Falastin!
Long live the resistance!
Contigo,
La Hormiga.