Uncovering the Dark Secrets Beneath the Surface in Matthew Morris’s The Tilling
As a mixed race American, I deeply related to the explorations in “Pardo/Ghost Hand.” Morris is visiting Fort Worth when a fellow traveler, while standing right next to him, laments that she is “the only person of color” everywhere she goes. He writes, “like, damn, sometimes I wonder if others see mixedness in me even on occasion.” I immediately flashed back to a moment I was on a panel in grad school and a professor came into the space and commented it was unfortunate there were “no people of color” on the panel. I knew what she meant, and felt erased from the narrative. I too have tasted the euphoria of feeling so seen when others perceive me as mixed and/or Asian (an “unburdening” to use Morris’s words), coupled with the weight of needing/looking for this external validation in spaces and places of my life. Perhaps this is why I found myself wanting Morris to better transcend the need for this recognition by others, to find a quiet power in his own knowing; I want for him that which I have worked so hard (am still working) to carve out for myself. And there are several glimmers of his doing just this. As he says, “if I mean to do anything in my life besides write sentences, it is to puncture bubbles—for myself, for others.”
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