LEARNING TO SEE A TRANSLINGUAL PAST

Abstract

L. S. VYGOTSKY AND M. NOURBESE PHILIP SUGGEST THAT words— even a single word— lie at the center of memory, like atoms to a universe. Words, it is often said, are what make the United States exceptional: it was the first modern nation to be founded by virtue of written documents rather than evolving history. These documents contain the words that Americans cling to: “truth,” “happiness,” “selfevident,” “created equal,” “We the people.” They are words subject, necessarily, to both the initial and ongoing work of democracy. They are invoked, argued over, lamented, deconstructed, cried about, revered, worshiped, cursed, rejected, doubted, prayed over, and entrusted with faith. They are used to bring people in and to shut people out. But there is something about these words that has not often been considered, a fact about them so obvious that it seems strange to notice: these words are in English. What if we imagined a United States of America not in English? What words would we discover that are also a part of the founding of the country? How would these words change our memory, our understanding, of what was going on when the country was founded, and thus our understanding of what has been since then? As Philip (1989) suggests (as she writes from the Black Caribbean experience, linking the theft of language with the theft of culture, history, and family that came with the slave trade), some words