A LITERATE WOMAN

A poem By Lourdes Brazil Argueta

In a distant periphery, where I was taken, in a succession of expulsions, I lived, nurturing a dream, built by black women, in a web of ancestral desires: to be literate! I wanted to learn to read. It was enough to know how to read.

In Africa, I was literate, but after the great crossing of the blood-red ocean, my ancestors and I ceased to be literate, at least that was how we were considered.

But all of us possessed centuries-old wisdom, with which we handled the secrets of botany with vast knowledge of herbs and their powers. In the field of cooking, we knew how to prepare exquisite dishes and mastered preservation techniques.

But the great wisdom lay in medicine. With teas, ointments, and prayers, we healed everything!

We knew how to bring babies into the world and, when it depended on us, all survived!

All this knowledge that we built and accumulated for centuries, since Africa, was considered witchcraft, devil's work! Or worse, worthless, in a brutal epistemicide. It was almost destroyed, or worse, appropriated by others.

Writers are bringing this knowledge to light. I appropriate what remains, along with other knowledge, and thus achieve my dream of being literate. Together with black women, I announce my knowledge.

Find out more about Dr. Lourdes Brazil Argueta and her work, click here