My family was an immigrant family to the United States of America from Guatemala. When they came over, it was not the ideal situation for them. Both sides of my family were very rooted in their communities with great prospects. Alas, the never ending civil war that carried on in quiet but still very violent ways into the 70's hit close to home and it was time to leave. I was one and a half years old when we first came to the USA. I heard the stories of what it cost my parents to get to the USA. They both lost quite a bit in status both socially and economically but were given a chance to move beyond the violence and threats and find a small sense of security. As a result of knowing this and
Sociologist Kai Erikson’s definition of collective trauma is a blow or tearing, “to the basic tissues of social life that damages the bonds attaching people together and impairs the prevailing sense of community." Those are strong words and yet apt for our world, and specifically, our American culture, today. These last few years the world as we have known it has been slowing changing, the social fabric most of us have known has been slowing tearing apart, and few of us feel as safe as we did not long ago and most of us can also feel how our sense of community, both near and far, has been slowly fragmenting. And this past summer has brought much of that to the forefront to our life here in
