They Don't Love You Like I Love You

The term postcolonial is usually applied in the context of nations which were colonized by European powers and continue to be affected by the legacy of colonization. These nations are typically located in Africa or the Indian subcontinent. Thus, postcolonial is not a word Americans would associate with their country or culture (or Australians with theirs), but the truth Diaz brings to light is that the history of America is that of violent colonization. Postcolonialism is the legacy of America as much as it is that of any nation in Africa or Asia. However, the colonization of Native Americans is a fact that has not been acknowledged enough in American or world history. As Emily Perez notes in her interview with Diaz for The Guardian, “the myths of equality and freedom peddled by US founding fathers were a white settler fantasy projected on to a wound stretching from sea to shining sea.” In “They Don’t Love You …” Diaz demolishes this very fantasy. America’s history and its maps are described as processes of whitewashing and falsification, associated with flaky, mysterious, and white objects such as clouds, ghosts, and maps. Underneath the layers of these white lies is the bloody truth: white settlers systematically eradicated the population, language, and culture of Native Americans to make room for themselves. Historians now consider the violence against Native Americans a genocide, a crime which attempts to destroy an entire community, race, or national group. It is estimated that ever since the Spanish began to colonize the countries of South America in the late 16th century, millions of Native Americans died across the Americas of disease, starvation, and violence. By 1900, the population of Native Americans across North and South America had reduced by at least 80 percent. Native Americans were also displaced from their territories, enslaved, and infected with diseases such as smallpox and cholera to which they had no prior immunity.

The process of colonization continued unabated even after America itself became free from British rule in 1776 and enacted a constitution based on equality. As America became a free land and settlers began expanding their base, it was at the cost of the enslavement and murder of another populace. The genocide doesn’t just comprise of the many large-scale atrocities carried out against Native American tribes, such as the Sand Creek Massacre (in which a 700-strong army battalion wiped out an entire village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory because they refused to vacate their territory; most of those killed were women and children). It also includes cultural genocide, such as when generations of Native American children were separated from their parents and forced to attend boarding schools that allowed no Native languages. The loss of Native Languages is very much part of the whitewashing project explored in the poem.