CHROMATIC

1. Some historical context

Now, before we proceed i think it's important to clarify something, the guys who chased Alma and Pedro out of their home were not colonizers, they were either guerrilla, paramilitary or even Colombia’s own military (although i don't think Disney is that bold) the reason why i think it's so important to clarify that, it's because if these were colonizers that would mean this event took place over 2 hundred years ago, and although many Latin American countries still suffer the effects of colonialism, as far as generational trauma goes, i think the most affected are the indigenous peoples.

instead, when we place the time of the events where it belongs it means it could've even happened in the last 10 years, this war has been going on for the last 70 years and it mostly affects people from rural areas, they are either forced out of their homes by guerrillas and paramilitary, or their children are taken by the army to continue the string of young guys send to die in the front lines, the guerrillas even take the girls, you are killed if you refuse.

The generational trauma is alive in the Colombian people today, it's a thing that keeps happening and it is unresolved, worsened by the fact that politicians bank on it to get votes from the people in the big cities who have never in their lives have to run out of their homes in terror.

2. My own experience as a Colombian

Now with that gruesome fact out of the way, let's talk about Hispanic family dynamics, and disclaimer, Hispanic people are not a monolith and our experiences are not universal so this may not apply to every his panic family out there, but it does to most. Also when i say some things are cultural, i don't mean they are okay because of it, it just means it’s not going to go away because the younger gens are realizing it or gringos on the internet are shaming us about it.

For a culture with so much machismo, most of our families are pretty matriarchal, either because the father figure was killed, like in Encanto, because he just left or maybe he had more than one family so he wasn’t around much, or simply he went out every day to work leaving the woman as the authority figure in the house, this, paired with the fact that many countries suffered from US imperialism in the XX century means many of us know the stories of everything our parents or grandparents (single mothers or not) had to go through to support the family.

This may also apply to you if your family migrated in the last three generations.

My grandmother wanted to be a model, there is a single picture from that time in the house from a photo shoot she did when she was 17, she says she was going to send that shoot to a magazine for a Model of the Year award, however since she was still a minor she needed permission from my great-grandparents to do it.

they had to leave the country that same year, she came back some 20 years later with two daughters and the money she, working as a secretary, and my grandpa, working as a bus driver, had saved to buy a bus back here and put a down payment for a house, she stayed a housewife when she came back and I’ve never known why they had to leave or why i don't know anything about my great-grandfather, but everybody in my family and my extended family talks fondly of my great-grandmother and respect her memory despite all the stories of her "disciplining them" when they were children, i don't remember her much, but they tell me i had it easy with her because i was always a well-behaved child.

i think of my great-grandmother as Alma. She had 4 children when she had to leave for another country on her own, my grandma being the oldest at the time. Over the years as I’ve gotten older and discovered more stories about the time they spent with her and the family’s return to Colombia many things about the way our family dynamics work have become clear to me, some have been really bad and the result of the generational trauma being passed along and some are great, like that fact that she managed to turn every one of her children into successful adults despite the fact that i don't think she even finished elementary school.

There is no place in our family for a nuanced discussion about my grandma's and her siblings upbringing or how my great grandmother later raised the entirety of my mother’s generation (more than 10 boys and girls) while her sons and daughters went out to work, because for them everything that we have today it's thanks to her, and any mention of any wrongdoing would be tainting that memory.

And it is true, my great grandmother was an exceptional woman and what she did for her children and grandchildren is remarkable and required an immense amount of will and strength on her part but that doesn't mean she hurt the family as well. So many people complain about Abuela Alma being forgiven so easily when...it's realistic and i don't think you have put yourselves in the shoes of everybody in the family.

3. Finally, let’s talk about Encanto

Alma says it herself, she isn't the woman she thought she was going to be, I’m sure she wasn't this bitter controlling woman when the triplets were growing up, they probably got to experience a warm, understanding mother, that helped them understand the magical powers they got at an age as young as five. I'm sure they saw her change as timed passed and all those fond memories they had and the knowledge of everything she had done for them kept them from reaching a point where their relationship with her was broken beyond repair.

I’ve seen many head canons of "oh, i bet Abuela Alma didn't like Felix" or "i bet she thought Agustin was below Julieta" but, didn't you guys see her entire sequence with Pedro?, I’m sure it was HER the one to say to her daughters to never accept anything less than royal treatment, they have wonderful husbands because her mother had one and taught them what a good marriage should look like.

So it's really funny to see all of you go in the complete opposite direction and strip all the nuance away from Alma to turn her into this monster villainous woman who has no regard for anybody in her family, when all she wanted from the beginning was to keep a safe place for them.

Something that called my attention during Dos Oruguitas is that as she walks in the hallways passing the doors and they age her, her facial expression never changes, is the same sadness and emptiness she had right after Pedro was killed and it's because she never got to process her trauma. It happened and she was immediately trusted into a leadership role and given immense responsibility, so she HAD to keep it away, there was no time for her to dwindle on it.

Even with the way she retells the story in the beginning is all mystified like a fairytale, she doesn't let them see how it truly affected her because if she did she would have to deal with it, and in her mind even all these years later she still can't afford to.

the entirety of Dos Oruguitas is her finally beginning to process the trauma that she suffered, I’m sure it’s the first time since it happened that she has allowed herself to feel everything she felt back then, it’s the first time she has realized that they are safe, that her family won’t get taken away from her, and her world won’t shatter again the same way it did all those years ago.