Saldívar Reflection by: Morielle Tolchin, Mekella McLeod, Jenny Yedid, Amber Khemlani

On The week of March 18, 2019, author Jose David Saldivar visited Brooklyn College as a scholar in residence. Among other events, he participated in a live interview and discussion session with students from various classes, including People of New York City, Puerto Rico and Latino Studies, and Latinx Remaking the U.S. The event was moderated by Professor Aleah Ranjitisingh.

The discussion began with a couple of general questions about Saldivar’s personal life and story, something he is seemingly asked to do often, since he responded with ease. Saldivar eagerly shared his journey into the academic world and specifically to discovering his passion for Latin American literature. He began his literature career at Yale as an English and Literature major. For his honors thesis, he studied Falkner and Borges, an Argentinian writer who translated Falkner’s “Wild Palms” into Spanish, introducing American slavery to Latin America. This research sparked a passion inside of Saldivar, leading to him to focus on how Latin America was “reading” America. What they knew about America was what they read in Falkner, the “doom of the south,” as Saldivar describes it.

Since he had grown up in Texas near the U.S and Mexican border, Saldivar’s focus soon shifted to the border- exploring it from both sides. His curiosities centered around comparing U.S and Latin America, the different voices, the perspectives, the similarities. He continued this research in his dissertation. He studied comparative literature of the U.S and Latin America. He wanted to know if “the Americas” share a common literature? He meticulously studied archives of Mexican, Caribbean, and American literature, and concluded there definitely is a common theme in the works. To him, the underlying connection was blatantly obvious. He wa shocked no one had discovered or explored this idea before. Historians recognize the shared history of the Americas, but the shared literature was untracked territory.

Prior to the event, most of the students had read excerpts from Saldivar’s book, “Trans-Americanity: Subaltern Modernities,” and had come eager to hear more about this concept. Before defining the term and answering questions about it, Saldivar explained how the term came about, what had inspired this concept. It turns out, trans-Americanity stemmed from the idea of Americanity, discussed in “Americanity as a Concept,” an essay by the Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein. The article explores Americanity as a structural concept made by two historical sociologists analyzing the coloniality of post discovery by Europeans. Wallerstein’s article, though titled “Americanity as a Concept,” in fact does not include the word America in its definition of what it means to be American.

At this point, Professor Aleah Ranjitsingh asked Saldivar to share how Americanity lead him to Trans-Americanity. Before elaborating on that, Saldivar took the opportunity to mention that he was the chair of the English department at Berkeley for many years. He talked for a few minutes about how busy he was during that time, so that is why “Trans-Americanity: Subaltern Modernities” took him ten years to complete. Eventually he touched on the question. He explained that from his perspective, Trans-Americanity and Americanity were not too different. Saldivar views his concept of Trans-Americanity as stemming from, and building on Quijano and Wallerstein historical idea. Saldivar did not change the historical definition of Americanity, but felt he needed a new term to define what it is that unites the literature of the Americas. Saldivar sees the Americas as a result of their joint history of colonization, and sees the literatures as reflective of this as well.

Saldivar was asked if he recognizes an American culture or is American culture a universal identity. Saldivar replied that he sees America as being part of a bigger picture. He sees the role of America within the Americas. He explained in further detail how the U.S is created by its history, which it shares with all of the Americas- a history of colonialism. From his perspective, the colonization of the Americas creates its culture, even today.

During the interview, Saldívar made sure to clarify that he doesn’t feel as though he needs to confine his nationality to checking a box off on a document. He described that as a minor protest, he willingly checks off “Other” because he simply feels as though that  this small demonstration symbolizes how he truly feels about being labeled as “Latino.” He mentioned in the interview that he personally identifies as Tejano.

Saldivar ended the discussion with empowering words about the power of the next generations, of the students sitting before him. He views teaching as playing an integral role for the future. He believes it is important to instruct the next generation and guide them to expand on what has already been accomplished. He sees the rise of ethnic studies in colleges as a huge step forward, and sees a great future in the exploration of that field.