Tell Me a Story Once We Return: Storytelling as Praxis for Decolonial Reclamation Through Familial Memory in 19th Century Mesilla Valley

This thesis explores the intimate and transformative power of storytelling as a decolonial praxis, drawing on the works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, Alex E. Chávez, and various scholars in the study of storytelling. It examines how storytelling can serve as a bridge between the past and the present, the individual and the collective, the spiritual and the political. This thesis posits that storytelling, when approached with intentionality and presence, can become a site of erotic decolonization, bringing reclamation and recovery to self and to community despite narratives that ask for fragmentation. This process is approached through the story of Philetus M. Thompson, a story that had been long fragmented within our family history. His life was set during the U.S. acquisition of Mexican land in 1853, a period that reshaped the borderlands and the Sáenz family. This paper is a tracing back to this story, a recovery, a reimagining, a living narrative which actively engages with the complexities of identity, belonging, and resistance. This thesis contends that storytelling can be a radical act of reimagining and re-membering, opening a path towards recovery through active participation. This work seeks to illuminate the nepantla – or liminal spaces – where we are present to tensions and fears, and we continue to stand still to embrace. Storytelling, when approached as a decolonial praxis, thus becomes a form of engagement with what is deepest, strongest, and richest within each of us.

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