← New Books Network
New Books Network
Yolanda Aixelà-Cabré, "African Women’s Histories in European Narratives: The Afropolitan Krio Fernandino Diaspora (1850-1996)" (Leuven UP, 2025)
00:44:01
Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:00]
A
Transform your home during blinds.com's Black Friday Super Sale. Get up to 50% off site wide plus huge doorbuster deals on popular styles. Go DIY and do it all 100% online. Or choose White Glove service with expert design help and professional installation, Both backed by Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee. Blinds.com's Black Friday Super Sale is here. Save up to 50% site wide and get a free professional measure. Limited time offer rules and restrictions apply. See blinds.com for details.
- [00:30]
B
Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:37]
A
I'm Caleb Zakrin, Editor of the New Books Network. Today I'm speaking with Yolanda Aishela Cabre about her book African Women's Histories in European the Afropolitan Creo Fernandino Diaspora, 1850-1996. Yolanda is senior researcher at the IMF CSIC in Barcelona, where she has been Vice Director of Research. The Crio Fernandino people lived in what is now Equatorial guinea, an area colonized by Spain. Yolanda's work pays special attention to the social reality experienced by the Creo Fernandino women. This thoughtful analysis examines their social positions in relation to both the Spanish colonizers and other African groups and life for the Creo Fernandino in Santa Isabel in Spanish guinea and Barcelona. To explore this topic I'm pleased to speak with a leading expert on the Creo Fernandino. Yolanda, thanks for joining me today on the New Books Network.
- [02:28]
C
Thank you very much for your kind invitation.
- [02:31]
A
Looking forward to this. In part because it's on a topic that I felt like I didn't know very much about. And the more I learned about it through your book, the more just the, you know, reality, the just complexity of the reality unfolded before me. I feel like you address this topic in a way where you really are sensitive to just the diversity of experience that, that these women, the Creole Fernandino women, were experiencing. And I really think that for people that have some familiarity with, you know, African colonization will really find that they learn a lot more by engaging with your book. But before even jumping into the topic, I was wondering if you just introduce yourself, tell us a little about who you are.
- [03:14]
C
Oh, for sure. Well, I'm Jalande Shella, as you said. I am Catalan, I live in Barcelona. I work for. I'm anthropologist. But it's true that I have a special look also for history. So I do a kind of combination anthropology, but also historical anthropology and oral history. And I spend all my life to studying different societies of Africa. I started only doing research on Egypt, later I continue with Morocco. And it was in the 90s this and in the year 2003 that I started my research field work in sub Saharan countries, Sub Saharan African countries. And then I started my research on Equatorial guinea. But I also did field work in South Africa, Cameroon, etc. I had an international project with Niger. So it's true that finally I was always thinking in African terms. No, I'm talking, I'm living with African people. And this is something that really enriched my point of view and my, my, my way to do the research.
- [04:31]
A
This is probably my American parochialism. But I always feel like when I think of, of African colonization, especially in the 19th and 20th century, you know, I think of, of Britain, I think of the Dutch, the Belgians. I don't oftentimes think of the Spanish. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the Spanish experience of colonization, because as I was taught it oftentimes I learn about Spanish colonization of the Americas. So could you introduce a little bit Spain's role in Africa?
- [05:04]
C
Yeah, for sure. I think that your sensation and the knowledge that you have regarding the Spanish colonization of Africa is the general impression that has everybody. Look, if it is true that usually also in European Commission and European Union, people do not know a lot about which is the Relationship between Spain and Africa. So everybody knows very well the Americas imprint Hispanic imprint in Americas. But nowadays the African one. I think that this is important. It's very similar to the case to Italian colonization of Africa. That was also little but strong, in effect. And in the case of Spain, we colonized Morocco, sharing this territory with France. Also the Saharaoui, the Saharan country that you know that now. Well, always we have polemics regarding what is going on with the Sahara. But seems that now Ono accepted that Morocco could be responsible of the area. Although Spain promised to do an election for people to decide which could be their future if Moroccan or Saharawi. And also the guateral unit that is this. This country that was named Spanish guinea. And that was the center of also my analysis. And that has centered the research of Clea Fernandino. Regarding this Spanish colonization of Africa has not many differentiations. If we compare with the French or the Britain or the Portuguese that are also known. Because at the end they only wanted to exploit it the territory. Although it's true that if we compare to the British one, we promoted the colonization by population. So usually Spanish people were living in Morocco with Moroccans. And also in Equatragine with the Equatoraguideans. And this was something that not usually the British Empire, but yes, the France one, the French one. So. Well, if you start to compare, to compare, you always can find many things. But we were exactly. We produce exactly the same effects of other European empires. And so although that Spain would like to say that we were not so bad as the other empires, this is not true. So the effects were very bad as any other European colonization.
- [08:01]
A
Right? Yeah. And you explore that through the book. And you pay special attention to the Creo Fernandino, especially the women of the Creofinondino. Could you introduce this people, their sort of ethnic origins and their position among other groups in the region?
- [08:21]
C
Yeah, because the Creo Fernandinos were a people that was liberated. They were free thanks to the British intervention after the prohibition of the slavery. So the British people start to stop the ships that bring these slaves to America. And when they capture the ships, they take these people, these African people, and they liberated in different places. One was Sierra Leone and the other one was Fernando Po. That was the island of the Spanish guinea in those times. No. So these people has different origins. It's multi ethnic origin. Because they were coming from Nigeria, from Cameroon, from many Sierra Leone. So when these people settle in Fernando Po and these people found the city of Santa Isabel that later will be the capital of the country. Nowadays it's named Malabo. These people were seen by the equatorial people as somebody that was a stranger because they were not part of the country. And this explains why for many years, many decades, the has not many complicity with them. Because they thought that they were coming from other countries. No, but he says if you go now to Spain and you settle there after 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, or your life spent there, you maybe could be understand that you, if you want, you are Spanish, no? Because you have the nationality, you, you have your children there. Well, this is also to explain this special perception that some equatorial people have had around this Creo Fernandino that sometimes consider some of them like black colonizers. And I think that this is interesting because I think that is very complex. We cannot reduce to say that these people was black colonizer, because there has a lot of power and money. And there were other high horje as the Catalan one or the British one. This is a little bit more complex. No, because it was not something that is that people that has a very strong European imprint. Really, they were African. And this is because I talk about them as Afropolitan people. No. So but it's true that this way to label them as black colonizers was a way to say these people is not like us. They have their own interest and they will do their own life without us. No, maybe exploiting us like the European people.
- [11:31]
A
You examine some of the influential families, various people. For example, Amelia Barleycorn Divivore, which is just an incredible name. Could you introduce her and talk a little about some of these families?
- [11:47]
C
Yeah. Yes, yes. Amelia Barricon. It was for me, I think it's the best present that I never had in research in my life, because I was reading a colonial journal, doing research, and I found three lines regarding somebody that died in Barcelona. And the news say Amelia Barlicon, the aristocratic Amelia Barlecon Fernandina woman died in Barcelona. And the news was in 1920. And I said, this is not possible, she's aristocratic, so she was rich. She died in Barcelona, and she didn't die in Quadrigen. I have to know more. And then I started to research how if I could find her in the list of the passengers traveling by ship between Equatorial guinea and Spain. And this was the way that I found not Amelia Barlicon. Amelia Barlicon and the whole diaspora, because these influential families were honest. Kinson Barlecon, Bibor Balboa. There were very rich people living between Africa and Europe, living Between Santa Isabela and Barcelona. And these people really, they were owners of different plantations. They had cocoa, also olive palm. So oil. Oil. Palm oil. Sorry I said it in the. In a different way. So they were very rich. And they started at the beginning they were doing the. They sell their products to the British people and later they start to commerce with the Catalan one. And this is because it's interesting because it was the times that Spain lose Cuban Filipinas 1898 but the Catalan people was moving to Equatorial guinea trying to find another place to continue their business that could not be possible with America, but could be possible with the Africa. And this also is a way to understand better why these Catalan people were neighbors of these Creo Fernandino families. As Amelia Barlecon not only in Equatrio guinea, also in Barcelona also. Well, it's a very surprising history. And I think that this is because I feel very happy to found because it's the first African Diaspora documented of 19th century documented in Europe 19th century and 20th century.
- [14:49]
A
As far as the Spanish colonization of Africa in Equatorial guinea is concerned, what were the relations like? You know, as you. You said it was quite brutal. You know, how did they enforce enforcement rules there? And you know, obviously, you know, you focus on particular elite groups too. But what was the general treatment like?
- [15:13]
C
Yeah, this is a very nice question too, because they were. The Creo Fernandino tried to maintain very good relations with the Quadrillene people, but also with the Spanish and the European ones. No. So they were in the middle. They do the commerce with the Catalan and people of other nationalities, European nationalities. And they live between Africa and Europe. But at the same time they have the notion that they have to take care as possible of the quadrille people. That has not the same lack of than them. And this is because I found interesting documents in the archives regarding how they defend in many occasions the Equatorial people. That was with past treatment of Spanish people. So this is because they try to maintain a certain Kidistan. Because it is true also I haven't mentioned that they were Protestant in general, not Catholic. It was when the Spanish people start to settle in Spanish guinea, then they started to change from the Protestant to the Catholic religion. And this also was easier for them to have good relation with the missionaries, the Spanish missionaries that were there, because they know that they have to maintain a good relation with the Spanish. Given that although I didn't say also that although the island was a Spanish colony, the first to arrive there were the British. This is because these people, the Crea Fernandino talk perfect English. And the creolo, that is a language that has a lot of British influence. And they had. They used to send their children to study to Sierra Leone in English or to London or Bristol or many other British cities. So for them, it was necessary to maintain good relation with the colonizers if they were British or later if they were Spanish or Catalan.
- [17:41]
A
Right. Something that I was interested in too is, as we've sort of mentioned a little bit, that Grio Fernando had a presence in Barcelona. What was life like for them in Barcelona? How were they treated? What was the sort of the impetus for establishing, setting up in Barcelona and also kind of commuting back and forth between Barcelona and Santa Isabel?
- [18:09]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very interesting because you have to imagine that, because you have read the book, that people cannot imagine that the Fernandino people live in very big houses with the best things and the best materials, with the best dresses, with the best food imported from London or Barcelona or other countries, usually drinking the champagne all time. So they were really special people. So the kind of. The level of life that they had in Equatorial guinea, in Santa Isabela and Barcelona was like this. Like princes, no, like the family of monarchy. For example, when Amelia Barlicon died, It was in 1920, it's true, she died in January. And it's true that the news didn't arrive very fast to the island, not to Africa. But finally it was September that people start to say, oh, Amelia Barlicon is not coming back from Barcelona because she died, no. And then there were two people entering in her house to stall everything they can. And, well, there is a news appearing also in a colonial journal that explains. The journalist explained what he said he saw when he goes, when he went with the police. That has to do the Renaults, no? Well, they say that when they entered to the room of Amelia Barlicon, that it was very big, it was very beautiful, with the best dresses, everything. Because it was the people that stole, start to move everything from one place to another. But there were different. I don't know the name of Baol, but it's a place to put your clothes, no? Or everything you like. And they say that found a lot of money, gold, jewelry, that these people has no time to bring with them, showing that she has money from different countries, France, Belgium, Spanish, lot of coins, of gold coins. She was living like a queen. So we know all of these things later, because with reconstruction, we can obtain this information. So really, when she live, for example, in Barcelona, she Always rent the best houses in the most rich areas of Barcelona that also are now the most richest areas too. And so this is what's the level of life of living they have that has very high status is because I think that the research is very interesting to see how race, class and gender cross themselves because they really break all the constraints that had the race in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. So I'm sorry, only let me also to say, for example, they imagine the kind of life they have in Barcelona. All the weddings of the families were in the cathedral of Barcelona that was restricted only for the most influential people. The best hotels where they do their dinners, their meetings, the weddings. And they also appear in the newspapers talking about the social life. So they were really, really bus. Ordinary checking a $300 head start on checking. Ordinary savings high yield savings that grow your money. Ordinary mortgage A mortgage with a rate that drops when the market does. Why settle for With Oregon State Credit Union you get all sorts of welcome to human to human banking Oregon State Credit Union insured by NCUA equal housing lender $25 minimum balance required Subject to change terms and conditions. This holiday discover meaningful gifts for everyone on your list at K. Not sure where to start. Our jewelry experts are here to help you find or create the perfect gift in store or online.
- [22:56]
A
Book your appointment today and unwrap love.
- [22:58]
C
This season only at K. You also.
- [23:01]
A
Look at her interactions with the Spanish government. A request that she lodged that helped grant her and other Equatorial Gideons rights. And then you know, also related to religion as well, the freedom to practice Protestantism. Can you talk about this request that she lodged and the result of it?
- [23:22]
C
Yeah, well, in fact, Amelia Vardico I think that what you can imagine that was a woman of lot of character. When her husband died, it was 1890 and when he died, she was the most rich person of the whole colony, including all Europeans, Spanish people, et cetera. The most rich woman. Okay, so for the Spanish people wasn't comfortable that she fell and want to be Protestant and not Catholic. So there the Spanish government did many pressures trying to make it sure that the Crea Fernandino convert to the Catholicism. It was not the case of Amalia Barlecon. And I suppose that you are asking in an indirect way about what was going on in 1920 when she present the first denounced to the Spanish government that never an African did against the Spanish colonization. Because the Spanish colonizers say, okay, she's very rich, we want her money. How we can do it to Obtain her money. And the only way they think was okay, she married as a Protestant. So if we said that we cannot recognize her wedding and her marriage with William B. Borg, we can say that she has not the right to have all this money and we can take it for Spain. Well, you can imagine that she take the most famous lawyer of Spain and that she did a very strong, well, fundamental action against this intention of the Spanish government. And she won, and she won. And the Spanish government has to recognize that she has right to marry in the Protestant Rita Ritos. And then, well, finally, this was very nice for all the equatorial people, also the Fernandino, because the law also recognized that every person that was in the island before 1911, that was when the case was closed, has the right to have the Spanish nationality if can demonstrate to stay in the island only five years. So, and this legislation is the same that we have not today for the people that is coming from other countries and wants to have the Spanish nationality, that has to wait five years and then you can ask for. So Amelia Barlicon has a box of surprises because she did a lot of things that I never could imagine that a black woman can do against a government that was colonial, a Meropean government.
- [26:33]
A
It's quite remarkable how you explore it in the book and unexpected. And I'm wondering, you know, oftentimes in the examinations of colonialism and like looking into the colonial archives, there's a focus on the men, typically, obviously focus on the European men. Can you talk about, you know, what you were sort of setting out to do, and what you feel like is the importance of centering a person like Amelia Barleycorn. You know, how that helps us actually make more sense of what the reality was, the complex reality, instead of, you know, this oversimplified narrative that is oftentimes taught.
- [27:17]
C
Yes, yes, thank you very much. Because I'm completely angry that, for example, I really love a researcher that is named Stephen Small that has a lot of research because he was from Biddistal and he decided that he cannot continue living there. And he moved to Berkeley, where until I know he's doing his research there and the classes. And he was very nice because he always say, okay, you cannot imagine how difficult is to. To do a history of black people in Europe in 19th and 20th century. And I thought, okay, you say how much difficult is to do the history of the black people. Imagine if you want to do the history of black woman, African black woman in Europe. So I think that, yes, all the book is a challenge. The Research itself. But it's true that it is very nice that we can offer. It's true that these people was exceptional. We cannot say that this was the typical diaspora of other countries, other nationalities. But it's very important to have a precedent that can break this idea that all the black people in Europe were slaves. This is not true. And we have the case of the Creo Fernandino. And we are not talking about amelia Barlicon and 100 people. We are talking about thousand people that was living there, that started living in Barcelona and after the 1950s, something like this start to live not only in other places of Spain, also in Europe and Latin America. So I think that these kind of cases allow us to do a different story from a gender perspective that allow us to talk about women, but also to talk in the same terms that we can use for the Catalan. The woman. The Catalan woman, the bourgeoisie, the woman. Borgiasi. I'm sorry, I start to move the words, but I suppose that you understand what I mean, that we know how is the people of the white people have the story of the white people. We want to know the story of this black woman, African woman in Europe.
- [29:38]
A
Right. And this book you cover about 150 years or so of this history, looking at the experience of women. And of course there's some. The actual legal status of this region. It changes a few times in the years after Amelia Barley Corn's death. And then in 1968, it be. It becomes actually independent of Spain. So could you talk about this process, what that was, what this was like, how this occurred, and then just the impact that it had on Spain and its own sense of its. Of its grandeur and declining grandeur. Obviously this is an experience that a lot of European countries went through as well.
- [30:25]
C
Sure, sure. Thank you very much. Because you know that there is a. A big vindication from the post colonial cultural studies, post colonial studies and the colonial studies that we have to rewrite history, including marginal voices, people that is not there, mineralized people, et cetera. Spain was not different from other European countries. You know, the European countries like France and Britain. What practiced was the amnesia, colonial amnesia. And Spain did the same. So this is because I really felt very angry because I was reading from the 1860, 70, 80 news about the Fernandino people that also continue from the 20th century until 1940, 1950, 90, 60, and in one moment arrived independence. And these people disappear. And I say, okay, what is going on? If they were in the clonics, in the social clinics of the Diaries of the newspapers all time. Why they disappear? Well, it was this colonial amnesia that really was the interest to wash the face of these European countries that had different places occupied during a lot of years, no, And Spain was not different at the same time. It's true. That did not help the fact that when after the Catalan and the Creo Fernandino start to commence a lot between them, the Spanish state from Madrid, that always has been very centralist, said, okay, we have business there and the Catalan people move from Cuba, they doing the business, but we want the business for our people too. So which was the strategy of Madrid? They say, okay, we are going to send people this colonization of population that I say at the beginning, we are going to send people. And also we are trying that this plantation that these people has the permissions to avoid the permissions and to give the permissions to the people from Madrid and other areas. But not exactly Creo Fernandinhos and not exactly, if possible, Catalan, because they have done a lot of business until now. And then this is because this is something that this loss of influence and money and influence, political influence is producing in a slow way. At the same time that the Spanish government tried to reduce their influence. And so when arrived the 60s and the 70s, these people, the majority, lose their money. They have no money. They have the prestige, they have the knowledge, but they have no money. Not only in Africa, also in Europe, also in Barcelona, a lot. Some of them, as they were very rich, still has some money, but they lose the majority of the money. So at the 80s, started the racist attacks, not only in Barcelona, in many European countries, against black people or people that were different in terms of racial terms of the phenotypic appearance. And it was in the beginning, at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s, that appeared a news in the newspaper La Vanguardia that always reproduced the social life of during the first half of the 20th century, where they say that a black person was attacked by a skinhead. That's all these black people. This black person has no name, nobody. There was no importance to know who was him. And it was near one or two years later, two years later, that the news continued with this case. And then I can read that these people was Balboa Talos, was a son of two of these very important and great Fernandino families in Barcelona. And I say, I cannot believe it. This newspaper that was always thinking on these people has an amnesia too, because do not talk about them, do not know who is his person that has this racist Attack. And this allowed me to close this circle of how this people start to have a very intense relation with this Catalan Burgessi going together to the places. I have images and photographs where, for example, the Crea Fernandino were married in Barcelona. All the people that attend to the wedding were the Catalan. All the people very well dressed, very happy, smiling, really enjoying of the place. But there were the Catalans. So they really had a very intense relationship. But this was based on the interest to commerce and the money. When this money disappeared, this influence and this relationship also finished. And I think that this Russia attack was a very nice metaphor about how was the end of this diaspora in terms of integration in Barcelona and in Spain. That there were in no place and nobody knows who they were.
- [36:16]
A
What is the. The ultimate, you know, not necessarily conclusion, but what happens to the descendants of the Creo Fernando's in the 1990s? What did. What.
- [36:28]
C
What becomes these people? Really? They. They were lucky because their parents were very rich and very influential. And all of them have houses that they have bought in Barcelona or in Madrid. And they were part of the middle class, if you like. And those that were more lucky, that had studies could continue with more or less comfortable life. And some of them also married to Catalan people or with people of other. If they were in Madrid, with people of Madrid, no. And this mixing that was so difficult until the middle of the century, really start to grow up more. But the prize to be Rio Fernandino that always was there only continue in the case of Equadrilo Guinea. Because it's true that the cuadril guinea in 1968 arrived to the independence. But they failed in one. First in one dictatorship of Matthias and Gemma, later with the second dictatorship, until today of young Engema. So the people of the country knows who they are, knows that the first lawyers were Crea Fernandino. All these people has very good studies from the end of 19th century, when the other Quadrigener really do not know what is a school, no. Or were starting to know what is a school. So this tried to be from Cleo Fernandino always was there. But it's true that they lost their influence, so. But life is like this. Nothing arise later go down and you have to learn to live with your specifications. Although I can say that the publication of the book I think that was very useful to reinforce the need of the community to really feel that they were important in the past and they can continue being important in the future. So I have to say that I received a lot of Congratulations, everybody. Love the work. Because I always try to return all the things that I learned because I think that we have this obligation, the researchers, we are paying. I'm paid by a public salary, so I have to come back to return to the society the things I learn. And I think that also with this work, this obligation, really, I do it. No, really, these people feel that I returned everything I learned.
- [39:28]
A
I want to ask also about part of your experience doing the research. This is. Is still, you know, in a certain way. It's. It's recent history. And you were, you were able to speak with and, and learn from the descendants of. Of Amelia Barleycorn. What was that process like? Actually getting to talk with people that, you know, had the, you know, their own personal stories, but also their, you know, their, Their family records of this, this woman?
- [39:55]
C
Yeah, yeah. Well, it has been impressive. And I can say, I can tell you that my colleagues are very impressive with my work and with me, because they say, cannot believe it. You read a little news in a newspaper in 1920 and you find the descent of this woman that has the same name, that is Amalia Barnacles. And they cannot believe it. No. So it's true. That was something amazing. But it was very nice because also she knows and her family knows, the Barlicon knows that the Amelia Barlicon was very famous and very important in the family. So for them to have this book, this research is to have a mirror, to find themselves in the past is a kind of project. And for example, I was very worried. You know, researchers always want to have everything. And I have design of Amelia Barlick, lot of documentation, but I didn't find a photograph of her or a picture. No. And, well, I was very sad because as usually happen in a Cuer guinea, and luckily there was a house, a very big house of wood that were there all the documents, legal documents, the photographs, everything, and was burned in one accident. So there was no photograph. No, But I remember Amalia Barlikon, this direct descent of Amelia Barlicon. And she told me, yolanda, no matter, we don't need an image of her. She's in our imagination. She's part of us. No. And she was true. And I say, okay, it's fine, I don't need. I can close the book with no photograph of her. No. And it's true that I have photographs of other very important Creo Fernandinos, also other families and essence parents from her, but not from herself. But, well, this is life. Sometimes we have to close and to accept that there is no image of somebody. Probably this is because she was a woman, because I have images from her brothers, all of them, but not from her.
- [42:16]
A
Right. And obviously this makes. It. Makes it difficult, as, you know, can make the research difficult, though. I think, you know, you paint quite a important picture of her. And I think that she. She ends up being like a great way for you to explore this. This history. Not only the history of Spanish colonization, but the history of the region. History of the Creole Fernando people who really. Fernandino people who really just are fascinating and I think, you know, disturb some of the oversimplified understandings and narratives that people might have of the region and of the history. So, yeah. Yolanda, I just wanted to thank you so much for being guest on the New Books Network. It was really wonderful to get the chance to speak with you about your book.
- [42:58]
C
Also, thanks for you, Khaled, for your time. I know that all this work that you do is very important because the books need to have life, and this life is to talk about them, no? And then this work that you do is important to promote this research as others and to talk about books. So perfect. And thank you very much for your kind invitation.
- [43:21]
A
Thank you so much.