I\u2019m Amanda Zo\u00e9 Lebr\u00f3n P\u00e9rez, a Creative Writing and Musical Theater double major, as well as a performer in multiple shows from Cornell College. As a woman born and raised in the tropic, Puerto Rico, I despise the cold with all my might, but find certain consolation in music and writing. As the semester unfolded, I got myself deeper into the Creative Writing major, taking as many writing courses as I could, joining the literary citizenship adjunct, and attending a variety of events that in majority aligned with literature. However, among those events, there was one that was not precisely related to writing, but made me reflect on things like true knowledge, ignorance, and what a true community should be. This event was called the Return of Statue ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On September 30, 2025, Cornell College returned a Mississippian Native American statue, which had been in the institution\u2019s art collection for decades, to its rightful owners, the Muscogee tribe. It took place in McWethy Hall, the building of the arts and art history department. Four representatives from the tribe attended, gave a small interview\/lecture on their culture, as well as why and how they were searching for that statue and many more \u2013 since there are hundreds of them scattered around the world. The answer: an act that would culminate with the burial of the statues in the land they were taken from, a symbolic gesture that would contribute to the tribe\u2019s healing after the desecration of graves and land caused by the US government. At first, I thought that the ceremony would simply be a public demonstration of attempting-to-repair the wrong doings of white ancestors, on the college\u2019s part. However, while it certainly had a bit of that, it went a step further, welcoming people from real Native American ancestry to pick up the artifact. Not only that, but the ceremony gave them the chance to speak openly about the history of their people, their beliefs, their mission to recover every lost artifact, and the origins of the returning statue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Essentially, the statue was a sacred object, hand-carved in stone with the shape of either a man, a woman, or a snuggled couple. These would be given to the new tribe chiefs on their first day as leaders or as birthday gifts, representing the status of chiefs and the love of significant others. Once the owners died, the statues were buried alongside them. Needless to say that when colonizers took the natives\u2019 lands and excavated in search of something to possess, they profaned thousands of tombs, extracting statues that were meant to stay beside their deceased owners for eternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was clear how important it was for the invitees to recover those sacred objects, their cultural heritage. They strive to recover them at all cost, to rebury them near their original tombs \u2013 since there is no way to bury them exactly at the same place after a century from their extraction \u2013 and bring a closure to the still open wound that those grave desecrations provoked. Overall, the whole interview and the return of such a significant piece made the ceremony a gratifying event to witness. In its entirety, the ceremony reminded me of an Intercultural Anthropology course I took two years ago, a class whose purpose was to educate about different cultures around the globe, race, ethnicity, and more. However, the time and material was so limited that I barely got to learn anything about Native Americans. The Return of Statue event made me think about all the cultures and history I have left to learn about, the many things I did not get to learn in that Anthropology course, and the many things people still remain ignorant of due to the relegation of the original residents of this land. From this, a desire to learn more from Native American cultures arose, something that will become a new short-term goal for me, a way of cleansing my remaining ignorance, probably through more anthropology subjects and\/or by attending other events similar to the ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the opportunity to learn things never taught in school nor even college, and the chance to break the barriers built by relegation, this event was truly interesting to witness. Bringing people together who have been long separated by social injustice, and contributing to the healing and education of next generations to prevent past mistakes is something to be applauded. Moreover, being in a gathering alongside people from different cultures\/upbringings, all as one sole community made me think about the writing adjunct, one whose purpose is to bring people together as this ceremony did, literary citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Literary citizenship is to be part of a community of writers that gets involved in literary events, mostly to stay active in the craft of writing or get inspiration, but this concept falls short on what I believe an adjunct like this should be. More than just going to activities, literary citizenship should be more about contributing to a community rather than just being a passive participant of one. As Lori May\u2019s quote indicates in The Wright Stuff<\/em>, \u201cLiterary citizenship calls on our acts of giving, of giving back to the ecosystem so that we may actively ensure its sustainability.\u201d Attending events, weekly meetings, writing together\u2026 These activities are about individuality, even when they are collaborative, because they are all about personal gain: improving skills, expanding connections, and reading for one\u2019s own amusement. Contrary to this, I believe literary citizenship should be associated with other types of events that involve a stronger sense of camaraderie and an active, significant, contribution to a community, even if these are not strictly related to writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ceremony encapsulates perfectly the idea of being active, intentional, knowledgeable, and giving within or towards a community. Showcasing genuine interest for the Native American\u2019s history, struggles, goals, and significance of their sacred objects is a way of literary citizenship. Acknowledging that past wrongs cannot be fixed but can be learned from is also a type of literary citizenship. Choosing collectively to do the right thing and make an act of giving, in this case returning, is in fact literary citizenship. So despite being unrelated to literature, the Return of Statue ceremony is not just what literary citizenship is but what it should always strive to be, a group of people giving and sustaining an ecosystem based in compassion and camaraderie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m Amanda Zo\u00e9 Lebr\u00f3n P\u00e9rez, a Creative Writing and Musical Theater double major, as well as a performer in multiple shows from Cornell College. As a woman born and raised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n