Postcolonial Love Poem

Diaz is a registered member of the Gila River Indian Community, which is a part of the Akimel O’odham tribe. The reservation is in an area that consists of what is now central and southern Arizona and the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. The O’odham are matrilocal and family groups tended to include extended families.

After the Mexican-American War, the Akimel O’odham had more contact with European and American peoples. The California Gold Rush also brought more contact with colonizing forces. The land the Akimel O’odham lived on was purchased by the Americans in 1853.

The Indigenous peoples of America have survived attempts at genocide since the arrival of the first Europeans, including war, illness, and assimilationism. The ongoing nature of this erasure is a feature of settler colonialism, and it plays prominently in “Postcolonial Love Poem.” Despite the ongoing erasure from what the poem labels “white culture,” Diaz is in a relationship with a white woman. She imbues their relationship with the trademarks of this larger struggle, commenting on the nature of violence and love and how history informs both these things. Ultimately, Diaz finds growth and even restoration in the woman she loves. She transforms her lover through the act of love, and her lover also transforms her through love.

Settler colonialism describes a type of colonialism in which Indigenous peoples are permanently displaced by settlers who stayed and formed a society. This structure continues the eradication of Indigenous peoples and their cultures to replace them with the colonizer’s culture. America, Canada, and South Africa are examples of settler-colonial countries.

Due to colonialist policies, the Akimel O’odham soon began to struggle to support themselves. The San Carlos Project Act of 1924 further compounded their difficulties as the project stopped the Gila river waters and they no longer had a water source for farming. This policy began a years-long famine, which many consider an attempt at mass genocide.

The US government continued to promote assimilation, a sort of genocide by cultural erasure. In the years after World War II, the Akimel O’odham have pushed for an increase in tribal sovereignty and economic development. The community has regained the right to self-government and have federal recognition as a tribe.

This historical legacy of violence and assimilation informs the poem’s themes as the speaker tries to heal from the generational trauma of this historical legacy and from the ongoing cultural erasure she still experiences.