Silvana Paternostro's Authority as a Writer. And a Person.

            If someone were to offer me the chance to have coffee with a published author, I’d take it. If someone were to offer me the chance to have coffee with Silvana Paternostro, I’d thank them and then decline because, frankly, I’d rather bathe in a tub clustered with plugged-in hairdryers.

            A mere fifty pages into her memoir and I already have the urge to teleport into her brain and, very sophisticatedly ask, “What is going on here?” and “Would you please just stop.” Because trying to read this, being a Colombian myself, is hard. Trying to get through the words plastered on this memoir without cringing or questioning her authority is like trying to slide down dry concrete.

            Let’s begin with the fact that the story begins with Paternostro talking about how she left Colombia in 1977, when she was just fifteen years old, and how it felt to be tied down by the ‘green passport’ that weighed her down while traveling the world. Fine. That happens. And moving to the States when you’re young and not visiting for a while might even account for her blatant ignorance of Colombia. I myself moved when I was five, returned when I was fifteen and came back with the Spanish vocabulary of a 5^th grader (what an insult to fifth graders) and less-than-ample knowledge about the political happenings of the time.

But she moved when she was fifteen.  And that’s what makes the upcoming statements even more horrifying.

            She decides to do a story on Colombia with a photojournalist she meets named Max and ends their idea by saying “It was obvious we were curious and attracted to each other.” That comment itself already had me questioning whether her being a journalist derives solely for investigative purposes and not also the intent of acquiring a male companion. She later says “Finally we might do a story, together, in Colombia. Yay!” Notice how she singles out the ‘together’, putting emphasis on its overall meaning, adding importance to the fact that the story is with Max. And the ‘yay’ followed by the exclamation point was just borderline tear-inducing Mean Girls. But that’s just me.

            While talking about the possibilities of doing a story on Colombia, she gets the magical idea of doing a piece on la guerrilla. She mentions a family member’s farm and in her inner monologue says, ‘We would go there, to the region where the farm is, and talk to rebels and paras’ and then proceeds to tell Max, “I’m sure they’ll talk to us. We’re American journalists.” The careless manner with which she says this and the insinuation that being an American journalist as opposed to any other is a somehow almighty and impervious asset astounds me. It’s as if she really has no idea of the implications of actually talking to la guerrilla. In the same way it’s naïve, it is also a condescending. It’s annoying.

            When she talks about calling her dad for information, she says he was “happy and mystified by my sudden interest in Colombia.” Maybe it’s just me, but the phrasing makes it sound as if it is a real wonder that she is asking and that her father views her interest as something that he never expected. Which shows the extent of her lack of knowledge or interest in Colombia to that day. And so the sudden spark of curiosity is suspicious, and I wonder if she really became all that curious about her country, or if it was a means to climb up in her career.

           

            I don’t trust her.  And I’m sorry if her saying “I stared at the map and realized how unfamiliar I am with the geography of my birthplace. I had no idea half of it was jungle,” just doesn’t secure my opinion of her. Seriously? Just the last phrase itself makes me want to…Let’s not go there. She resorts to talk about Bogota as the ‘heart’ of Colombia. “The heart is selective, choosing to let inside only those with sophistication and connection to riches. The men and women that live in Colombia’s heart discuss matters in clubs that aspire to be like London’s. They would like to blackball the paisas, costenos,” etc. Choosing to let inside only those with sophistication and connection to riches? What are we, Gossip Girl? Her lack of accuracy is now taking a myopic look into a narrow aspect of the Bogota population.  In Bogota, 84.7% of the population is part of the “estratos” one, two, and three, and the only “estrato” that fulfils her idea of riches and sophistication is “estrato” six, given the statistical study by la Administracion Distrital done in 2010. And as for the the ostracising of other regions, where I live, people from other regions are widely accepted.

            When Max tells her that Bogota is more brain than heart, she says “I listen because, unlike me, Max went to Colombia after Zaire, and since 1997 he has been taking pictures of Colombia, traveling the roads I only get to see hanging on my kitchen wall.” She is writing this as a supposed Colombian and hasn’t visited since God knows when while she admits to seeing her country’s roads from kitchen photographs? And yet she is trusted to be capable of responsibly talking about Colombia and getting published? Oh, and “The Sierra is another thing I had forgotten about.” She didn’t remember the Sierra Nevada even existed. Enough said.

“I recall learning that they were not even considered states, which in Colombia are called departments, because they were not developed enough to be given such a ranking.” Does she recall Spain having provinces and not states for that same reason? Next time, please study Colombian history before stating such comments and leading people to assume them as facts. She also says “In Colombia, 99 percent of the crimes go unpunished.” Yes, a lot of crimes go unpunished. But 99%? The International Labor Rights Forum said that “The ITUC estimates that over 99 percent of the cases” (against crimes targeting unions) are unpunished. And there she is making an estimate about specific crimes into a generalization of the whole country.

On the plane coming to Colombia, she meets a marine that tells her he volunteered to come to Colombia. She responds with, “You volunteered to come to Colombia? Why would you do something like that? Colombia is dangerous.” After living your first fifteen years in a country, there is no right to sound like the typical naïve, ignorant foreigner who talks about Colombia as a mere dangerous cocaine jungle without ever having visited. That’s how she sounds. And that’s who all the foreign readers that have never been to Colombia are trusting to have a factual glimpse into its inner world.

This memoir has brought me to rethink my trust on everything I read. It is your responsibility to research every single thing that you happen to come across, and this memoir is a prime example of how trusting we are of other people’s works. If I were to read this same type of memoir but with context in Uganda, I’d probably believe every single thing she said. So while I might think this text is worthless in both accuracy and the author’s ability to make me like her even a bit, I am glad that it has made me notice the importance of researching things for myself.