A Place To Stand By Jimmy Santiago Baca

Oftentimes when reading texts about liberation, whether the liberation is physical, metaphorical, or otherwise, there is a tendency to expect an overcoming narrative of sorts. Namely, when presented with a figure that is suffering, an audience expects a clean ending. However, concerning memoirs, this isn’t always the case. If anything, overcoming narratives within autobiographical texts can flatten out the nuances and struggles that are presented within, making the arc of the text seem flat and unconvincing. This is far from the case with Jimmy Santiago Baca’s autobiography, A Place to Stand. Baca’s memoir strays from an overcoming narrative, establishing liberation as a multifaceted, uphill battle, and, more importantly, linking the acquisition

To seek out change, you must believe that you deserve to be heard. To believe that you deserve to be heard, you must value your existence. Therefore, language allows Baca the space to present himself as a human being outside of the dehumanizing number which he is allotted, language acting as “a resource that allow[s him] to confront and understand [his] past [… and open] the way toward a future that [is] based[,] not on fear or bitterness or apathy[,] but on compassionate involvement and a belief that [he] belong[s]” (5). During his incarceration, “reading books became [Baca’s] line of defense against the madness,” the monotony, and the isolation which prisons often use to stifle their populations (214). However, when recognizing Baca’s growing self-esteem, it is important to acknowledge that his personal development is invariably tied to his identity as a Mexican-American. In order for Baca’s self-esteem as a human being to develop, he must also recognize his worth as a cultural entity. Thus, it is vital that Baca’s self-education and thorough exploration of literature is not one that is guided solely by the white sphere of

“The more I read about my ancestors, the more significant I felt,” he clarifies as he explains his education in “Mexican history, Aztec poetry, and Mayan religion” (238). Figures such as Harry provided Baca with the tools of literacy that allowed him to explore such texts, but it is Baca’s drive towards resistance and self-expression that pressed him in their specific direction. Without an inherent belief that he is deserving of knowledge about his past, Baca would have never “read about [his] ancestors,” and without the drive to investigate Latino and Chicano cultural figures, he would never have found his humanity in time to be “forever changed,” and, perhaps, forever incarcerated, by murder (206-38). Baca’s self-education allows him connections in an environment which operates by inflicting isolation. The ability to find resources which connect you to other human beings, as well as to your past, is a resistive act and, furthermore, it is something which keeps Baca alive. In the words of Chelo, one of Baca’s primary cultural educators, “once they make you forget the language and history, they’ve killed you anyway” (224). Perhaps the most important connection that Baca’s cultural education allows him to make, however, is to his