A Woman Who Writes by Ha’åni Lucia Falo San Nicolas

“Writing is dangerous because we are afraid of what the writing reveals: the fears, the angers, the strengths of a woman under triple or quadruple oppression. Yet in that very act lies our survival because a woman who writes has power. And a woman with power is feared.” 

— Gloria Anzaldua, “Speaking in Tongues” from This Bridge Called My Back

What if I told you that we 

are all just stories, plot 

lines ground into our bones, 

metaphors cratered within

our stomachs, words drawn 

into voice boxes?

We are just the fabrics of

memory stitched into 

flesh, wishes and desires 

from years past flow 

within us. The generational

hurt bears its scars onto 

our pages.

As women, we are the 

stories that men refuse to 

recite, refuse to 

read to their babies at 

night, refuse to 

look dead in the eye.

Our bodies rendered

illegible, incomprehensible,

incapable of being 

understood or redeemable

to the masses. 

Like many of our oral 

stories, lost to time, colonial

violence, genocide, you aim 

to eradicate me— to erase any

fragment of my narrative. 

Yet, you forget that the best 

part of the book is the moment 

that you were least expecting:

If you dare, step up, peruse the 

story transcribed in my skin, 

written into my soul, for 

reading and seeing me may very well 

put an end to yours.

Ha’åni Lucia Falo San Nicolas (she/her/hers) is an Indigenous Chamoru and Samoan woman born and raised in Guåhan (Guam), one of several Mariana Islands. She currently resides in Oʻahu as a Ph.D. student at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa studying Indigenous Politics within the Department of Political Science. She is also a Graduate Assistant for the department teaching introductory level, undergraduate courses. Beyond the classroom, Ha’åni is the Associate Producer of Deep Pacific, a podcast that highlights Indigenous Pacific Islander views and voices, and is the Advocacy and Organizing Director for Famalao’an Rights, a reproductive initiative in Guåhan. Ha’åni’s research interests include Indigenous women of the Pacific, native feminist theorists, resurgence, and decolonization. She can be found @haanisn. Cover art is by Cynthia Lin, a Masthead member of CWC, and can be found on THE VISUAL.