Storytelling
I recently read a very interesting and fascinating article by Trinh T. Minh-ha. It was entitled "Grandma's Stories" from her book Woman, Native, Other. Minh-ha addresses the importance of repetition and the responsibility of storytelling. According to ancient cultures and even some that remain today, women are the libraries of society. They are the only ones who hold the "truth" and they have an immense power. A woman could tell a story and it changes and influences the people who heard it and it is irreversible. The consequences of such stories can be used for either good or bad and some may have both consequences. Her perception of truth is even more compelling. She believes that, "there was no such thing as 'a blind acceptance of the story as literally true' "(Minh-ha 121). She also states that, "Literature and history once were/still are stories: this does not necessarity mean that the space they form is undifferentiated, but that this space can articulate on a different set of principles, one which may be said to stand outside the hierarchical realm of facts" (Minh-ha 121). Minh-ha discusses truth in a very different sense than is utilized in societal language. Truth is very different from fact. For instance, "if we rely on history to tell us what happened at a specific time and place, we can rely on the story to tell us not only what might have happened, but also what is happening at an unspecified time and place" (Minh-ha 120). History can give you facts and "civilized" truth, but a story tells a truth that has been experienced and told many times over and is personalized to the teller and the listener. She thinks that, "perhaps the story has become just a story when i have become adept at consuming truth as fact. Imagination is thus equated with falsification" (Minh-ha 121). Stories, nowadays, have been relegated to the teaching of children through morals and the "civilized" truth. She encourages all women to tell their stories and to continue the stories of their mothers and grandmothers and to do so in whatever way possible. Minh-ha uses her resources as a writer, filmmaker and photographer to continue to tell her grandma's stories. So, girls, take hold of those stories, and use them to affect others and instigate change!