(Q: Did people in your family tell stories about their own lives?) A: Some of the stories had to do with animals. My father told about black ghost do… - Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incomparable frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision.

Perhaps like me you are tired of suffering and talking about suffering, estás hasta el pescuezo de sufrimiento, de contar las lluvias de sangre pero no las lluvias de flores (up to your neck with suffering, of counting the rainsof blood but not the rains of flowers).

We are not reconciled to the oppressors who whet their howl on our grief. We are not reconciled. (p. 171)