A review by estefthechef
Diaries of a Terrorist by Christopher Soto

emotional reflective fast-paced

3.0

Identity poetry that didn’t add or push any conversation forward. This would have been it in 2018 but now I’ve felt and read more nuanced & challenging work that explored every one of these identities. Kinda bummed. Also, why terrorist?? ‘Terrorist’ is an oppressive Western designation to Arab + Muslim people. Soto seems to be co-opting the term to underline the US fear and danger around the Latine person, both as subjective experience and state designation. However, this conflation actually waters down what could be a very powerful reclamation, if ‘terrorist’ were a term for Latine people could reclaim. In this way, he invalidates both Latine and Arab/Muslim revolutionary struggle. Got into Soto through his abolitionist work tho and his first work was rad.