“The traumas associated with colonization that lasted almost 400 years scarred us all, regardless of our nativity, language, class, or gender. Trauma fragments and fractures the essence of our being and self-knowledge; it disconnects us from each other.” Regardless of your nativity, your memories are colonized. You are born into trauma without an initial understanding of or hermeneutic for your fragmented self and you must work diligently just to explain your own life—to recognize and name your scars, to educate
yourself about your specific cultural history and uncover its connections to your subjectivity. The ideologies of your family are colonized, and even your own thoughts and actions are colonized, despite your initial unawareness of the systematic forces at work in the simple procedures of your daily life.”