I am writing this blog post at the invitation of Calvin and I am delighted to accept and to open a new channel of communication with you all. I am sitting at my desk while my kids play with water outside on this hot morning in Rochester’s Beechwood Neighborhood. I have a big smile on my face because I am day dreaming about my upcoming trip to Ecuador. I am thinking about the food I will eat and all the activities I will do with my family and some of my friends. Seeing my kids play with the abuelos and finally meeting my nephew who will be turning 1 year old in about a week. Having been born in Quito means that I have a deep connection with the mountains. All my childhood (and many adulthood) drawings started with mountains and a smiley sun. For me being in the presence of the mountains feels like being hugged by mother earth herself. Every time I go back I remember how much I miss being surrounded by mountains and my childhood scenery.
I know many of us are thirsty for human in person connection particularly after this challenging pandemic year and a half that has left us with many aggregated (accumulated) sorrows and pain. Many family members and friends will no longer be there and vaccines are still not accessible to the general population in Ecuador. Living in the limbo can be challenging particularly when I find myself feeling impotent in the face of the disparities and global inequality compared to the wealth of the US general context. My parents were finally able to get the Sinovac vaccine which does not have the best effectiveness rate but is already good since many people in Ecuador still have no vaccines at all, but at the same time it has been hard for me to comprehend that some US states have had to bribe people into getting vaccinated even having lotteries with millions of dollars spent while a lot of people around the world are still dying and waiting. I really wish that the US would suspend the intellectual property rights for the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, even if temporarily.
As a bicultural family we live our lives confronted with two or multiple different realities that sometimes clash. The uber racialization of peoples of colors* in the US is hard to navigate for me as a woman of colors, as an environmental anthropologist and even harder as a mother. Feeling constantly like the other and not finding a safe space to freely be has left a lot of scars in my soul. As I go through therapy and a workplace detox (I quit my toxic job a few months ago) I have been thinking a lot about my own identity and how my kids will embrace identity, especially now that my oldest one is transitioning from a Waldorf program into a dual lingual program in the public school system. I remember my mother telling me that I should not worry about what others say about me if I feel happy about who I am. I really believed her and it has been hard and painful to learn otherwise as an adult. The perceptions and stereotypes that people carry do have a tangible effect on people’s experiences.
My identity journey has been long, sometimes with happy moments, and sometimes with tears. I came to understand that I am part of many, many generations of different cultures and peoples and I have decided to embrace and celebrate my indigeneity with more prominence and more profusely since that was the part of my identity that was the most hidden or better said taken away from me growing up as a mestiza in Latinamerica. Reclaiming my indigenous self does not mean that I am against my European heritage but we eat and breathe Eurocentrism everyday in our society so I do not need to emphasize it but quite the opposite. In many ways the mestizaje was a whitewashing project and a failed attempt to homogenize the population. It served to invisibilize indigenous people and culture and negate the colonial past that created the racial hierarchies and categories that hunt us and harm us until these days. I see myself as an indigenous woman from the Andes that wants to simply be a runa, a human one day.
During this visit we will be self-quarantining for a few days and then we will embark into a journey, (with safety precautions) to the mountains, the cloud forest and the northern pacific coast. I will be partnering with my brother to take notes and create drawings for a book project called “The Adventures of the Magic River” inspired by my first son Mayu, which means river in the Kichwa language, and that tells the story of a river and its journey from its inception in the glaciers in the Andes until it encounters the salty waters of the Pacific Ocean. We will go up the region where my mother grew up about three hours south from Quito, next to the Chimborazo volcano (20,549 feet or 6,263 meters) which is the highest summit in the world measured from the earth’s center rather than sea level. It’s also the place where the river starts and part of my roots are.
We will then visit the region of “Los Bancos,” a subtropical paradise at mid-high altitude where my dad keeps a small farm with some fruit trees, coffee and cattle that he visits most weekends since he is still employed by the government. We will plant a few trees as a symbol of gratitude to the land and to offset the emissions from the plane ride. The Rio Blanco and the Love waterfall will accompany us during our stay. Finally, we will descend to the Esmeraldas province where we will stay at a rental house in the middle of the Galeras-San Francisco Marine Reserve where we might be able to see the humpback whales that migrate to the south to give birth. We would have completed the trajectory of the river and hopefully our family will have that important time to create new memories and prioritize our self-care and overall health.
My kids love to hear stories, invented and from real life. I hope that this exercise allows us to create our own stories and celebrate an important part of our family history. I know I am not the only one with questions about identity and the intersection with racism. The world is not perfect but at least we can sometimes breathe and feel alive. My wish is that my kids can feel proud and happy about their multiple heritages and that they can live in a world that is truly accepting and respectful of differences. Until that happens we need to keep advocating for equal representation, reparations to Black and Indigenous people, redistribution of wealth and power and a radical change in our perception of progress and productivity. This is a very personal project that has come at a time of necessary healing for my family and me and I really hope that as things keep improving with COVID you all will be able to reconnect with your loved ones from close or from far and that you are able to pause and appreciate yourself and the ones that came before you.
See you in a month Rochester!
With love and appreciation,
Paola
About Paola
Paola Macas Betchart (Paola/She/Hers/Ella) is an Environmental Anthropologist and a citizen of the world. She was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador and self identifies as a pan-indian woman from the Andes. Over the past twenty years she has researched and worked on issues related to human rights including worker rights, indigenous rights and the rights of nature in Ecuador, France and in the US. Paola is committed to creating safe spaces for healing, learning and nurturing empathy, and cooperation in her community.
Paola Macas Betchart (Paola/She/Hers/Ella) es antropóloga ambiental, educadora y emprendedora social. Nació y creció en Quito, Ecuador y se identifica como una mujer pan-india de los Andes. Durante los últimos veinte años ha investigado y trabajado en temas relacionados con los derechos humanos, incluidos los derechos de lxs trabajadorxs, los derechos indígenas y los derechos de la naturaleza en Ecuador, Francia y Estados Unidos. Paola está comprometida con la creación de espacios seguros para la sanación, el aprendizaje y el fomento de la empatía y la cooperación en sus comunidades.
