Sunday, March 31, 2013
Get a Life, PhD: How To Avoid Spending All of Your Time Teaching: S...
Get a Life, PhD: How To Avoid Spending All of Your Time Teaching: S...: Do you spend all of your time teaching? For all professors, teaching is an important part of our job. However, for most professors, it is ...
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Where are all the Mexicans? And/On Being ‘ChexMex’
People say I’ve always had a strong work ethic. Most attribute
this quality to how my parents raised me, but I think of this particular
ethic as more apart my genetic toolbox – apart of my Mexican-”ness.”
Anyone who knows me well knows that I am the last person to hammer down
an argument for Nature over Nurture – I believe we are more so the
products of our socialization. And anyone who knows me at least somewhat knows
I have always held down two or more jobs at any given time. No, I never
mowed lawns. I never did landscaping or worked “back of house” at a
restaurant or any other stereotypical Mexican occupations you may be
conjuring up right now.
I’ve been working since before it was legal for me to begin doing so – since the age of fourteen when my family members paid me “under-the-table” at a shipping franchise in Texas. It was in college when I began to feel guilty at being only a student and started serving at every restaurant from fine dining to overnight diners. Currently, I am contracted by Clemson University for a full-time course load, adjunct teaching two courses at a local community college, and once again waiting tables for extra cash in my pocket and side (work) thrills. I say all this because I think my pulsating need to overwork in order to feel alive may be in my blood – in my Mexican genetics.
The inspiration for this post comes partly out of my current work experiences – particularly when I started working at a fusion sushi bar in town and quickly noticed there was not one Mexican on staff. Let me be clear, I have worked in the service industry off-and-on for almost ten years and one thing I could always count on was seeing Mexican cooks in the kitchen and Mexicans washing dishes. In fact, living in Texas and California all my life meant not going a day without a Mexican (pun half intended). Then I started to look around campus – around my neighborhood – around town. Where were all the Latino/a students and families and workers? Where was Raza and mural paintings and breakfast tacos from local taquerías? As I looked around all I saw was Black and White but no Brown.
My recent move from the blue state of California to rural up-state South Carolina forced me to notice the sheer lack of racial diversity here, of diversity in general. From L.A. to the deep South, I went from city grid streets and gridlocked traffic to winding country roads – from neighborhoods flying rainbow PRIDE flags alongside American flags to neighbors on tractors and country folk riding horseback along the streets. I remember saying to a colleague just yesterday, “It’s like gay people don’t exist here. I mean, I know they exist but they aren’t visible like they were in Long Beach. In California, people are proud of their gayness. Here people hide it.” I went from having a Chinese best friend and knowing an impressive Asian population on the West Coast to only meeting Asian foreign exchange students at Clemson.
When I told a friend about my Clemson hire, it was the Fourth of July and we were gathered on the rooftop terrace of his beachfront condo in Long Beach watching fireworks ignite over the Pacific. I remember looking out at the coastline and seeing fireworks shows all along the distance – from Seal Beach to Huntington and all the way down to Newport – and he told me something that I remember taking too lightly at first – that South Carolina was the first state to succeed from the Union.
I remember him telling me that I should be prepared for deep South racism. I said, “No way. Deep South is Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia!” – nothing to worry about, I thought – surely growing up in conservative Texas had prepared me this experience. And when I moved here in the heat of the 2012 election, I remember driving through my rural neighborhood and bring surprised by Obama sign after Obama sign in a region that is an unapologetically Red one. Turns out, I live in the “hood” because the more I began looking around the more I saw only African Americans.
White-Washing Myself; Marking (My) Whiteness
Growing up in the upper-middle class suburbs of North Dallas always made me somewhat ashamed of my brown-ness. Try to envision a golf course community – a Starbucks every two-square miles marking the outer territory – and a community in protest for the building of a Wal-mart not for the ill treatment of workers but for the “types” of people it would draw into town. A childhood friend of mine – who remains one of my closest platonic friends today – would purposefully skip the bus so we could walk home together from middle school. She would joke with me, “My parents said your parents can’t afford a pool in your backyard!” And I would fire back, “My parents said your parents couldn’t afford a lawn guy and that’s why your brother mows the lawn.” Little did we grasp our keen understanding for irony and classism at the time. This has become a vivid memory of mine as well because I remember in that moment feeling ashamed that my two-story home was not as big as hers.
Growing up, I always felt naturally inclined to embrace an identity more on my mother’s end of the racial spectrum – my Anglo side. Do not misunderstand me: Spending family holidays with my father’s Mexican side was preferred and always something I more looked forward to. It meant never knowing which of my 30+ cousins would be there. It meant three generations gathering together on any given occasion and tamales every Christmas and piñatas on birthdays and a feeling of closeness – the feeling of familia – that went unmatched by my mother’s side. But I remember never feeling afraid to bring my friends around my mom’s side of the family. I now know the reason for this was because it was easier to embrace the idea of whiteness in a community where “Being White” meant being superior. White was the default. It meant performing yourself a class above the rest and looking down on others and being judgmental. I spent my whole life at the “borderlands” now even knowing it because I refused to locate myself here- or at least remained ignorant to the fact it was even a place inhabited – or perhaps was never allowed to see my brown face looking back at me in the mirror.
It wasn’t until my graduate work that I began to feel a sense of pride for my Mexican heritage. I took a Master’s level seminar called “Postcolonial Dimensions of Rhetoric” – which, oddly enough, was taught by a cooky elderly white woman who mistook my roommate/classmate Jesus for “Jose” or “Josue” every once in a while. It was in this challenging scholarly space that I was forced to confront my Latino identity and was ultimately allowed to genuinely embrace the concept of Chicano Power. I learned and internalized concepts like Victor and Edith Turner’s “liminality” and “communitas” as well as “Santa María de Guadalupe.”
Call me, “Chex-Mex”
Recently, our department has been conducting hiring for tenure-track professor positions – which, in academia, means flying applicant finalists out separately for several days and assigning a strict itinerary of dinners with the chair, meetings with the dean, brunch receptions, teaching demos, job talks, and research presentations. At one reception, I met a scholar where in our cordials we somehow began talking about my new puppy Dexter. When she asked me the inevitable question of what breed he belonged to – as they always do – and I didn’t know how to respond since explaining his origin is always time consuming and risks “tune-out.” My usual script is this: “Well, his mother is Hound and Labrador and his father is Boxer and Catahoula; but the Vet thinks he has Shar Pei and Pitbull in him. I don’t see it though.” But in this moment, I found myself swift and succinct:
“He’s a mutt. Like me.”
And the feeling that accompanied this response stuck with me because it struck me as oddly freeing. It was revealing in a sense because it felt “off the cuff” and honest. But also because I knew what I was doing in that moment. I was paving the way toward a discussion about my racial/ethnic identity. I was traveling the road less traveled – or the road I had always sought to avoid. When the conversation took this turn – although not immediately – I tell her what I tell many people who similarly ask me, “What are you?”
I told her, “I’m Chex-Mex.”
I mostly say this because I think it sounds catchy. And when I get the usual puzzled facial response, I enjoy the clarification: “Not like the cereal. Like half Czech, half Chilango.”
Chilango,
Meaning my abuelito was a native of La Ciudad de México
Who either legally or illegally immigrated to Texas and
Changed his surname to Castillo.
Castillo,
After the Castillian empire in Spain
As in Spanish royalty.
He had settled in Los Estados Unidos
Married a Texas-native in my grandma
Who was born to a Frenchman
Who fell in love with a Mexican woman
Where they had run away to Wichita Falls.
All I have are stories of my father’s father – and vague stories at that – about how he was a brick layer who did mosaics for a side living – about his alcoholism – and his punishments with the switch. I never had the opportunity of meeting my Mexican grandfather since he died in a fatal car crash on Route 66 on his way out to a job in California. The most vivid story I have about my Latino grandfather is my father’s memory of first hearing the news about his sudden death – of his mother screaming, crying, and pounding the walls in the next room of their small two-bedroom house shared by his seven siblings – Lupita, Olivia, Dolores, Elena, Candelaria, Ernesto and Alejandro – all of whom go by whitened nicknames to this day. In fact, my father told me they were not taught Spanish at home because the fifties was a time where many 1st generation and 1.5 generation children were instructed to only speak English as a way to more easily assimilate into American culture.
My mother’s familial lineage took an equally interesting turn of events. It seems as if Life just happens that way. I am coming to know that we can only be prepared for the unprepared. My grandmother was born full-blooded Czechoslovakian before the country was split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Her family came to America through Ellis Island during the early 20th century. I know this because, during a junior class trip to New York City, my mother made sure to have me look at their names permanently inscribed onto the walls at Ellis Island. I think it interesting how these markings of identity are allowed – as a way for governments to keep tabs – while certain markings of identity (see: Exit Through the Gift Shop) are considered illegal and subject to erasure. This reminds me of the subversive nature of Chicano Mural Paintings that mark Hispanic neighborhoods across the U.S. as a visual way for Latinos/as to (non)discursively stamp their existence onto white culture. To shout, “HERE WE ARE!” It was in my 11th grade year that I was becoming interested in filling out the branches in my family tree and – in some cases – raking up the dead leaves. My mother passed down a story to me that made me think about the power of memory and remembrance. And it is here in this space that I tell it again – perhaps not entirely accurately either since this is how I remember it told to me – which doesn’t make it any less accurate for me:
After making the long emigration voyage by boat, the Cvetkovich family had reached New York City safely and healthily. I imagine their arrival as something that happened right out of James Cameron’s “Titanic” – where Rose looks up at the Statue of Liberty with a blanket over her head as rain begins to pour – although much less traumatic than arriving in the wake of the S.S. White Star line Titanic sinking, I’m sure. When the family began to settle after the first few months, my great grandfather quickly became homesick for Eastern Europe. He was not coming to know America as the “land of opportunity” that had been told to him at home. His wife, on the other hand, loved the United States. One night, her husband abandoned her and her two girls (Sammie and Mille) and fled back to Czechoslovakia. He took only his son Nicky with him, who would later be reunited with his sisters years after his mother’s death. Nicky informed his sisters that his father did not take the girls because he saw their gender as a weakness. In hindsight, it seems Nicky’s male-ness made him the high-priced commodity of his family in his father’s eyes.
It is just now that I am coming to realize how perhaps my scholarly fascination with masculinity studies stems from the fact that I come from a combined history of absent fathers. But here I am focused on locating race.
This abandonment made my “Gram” and her sister intensely close growing up and I could see this strong bond as a child myself. In my teenage years, she would later tell me stories of how the two used to lock themselves her mother’s the bathroom as teenagers to smoke cigarettes. Even as a six-year-old, I remember how alive she was around her sister upon our visit to Flint, Michigan for my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary. And when my grandma moved to Dallas upon a stroke which left my grandpa blind – where he died shortly thereafter – and my great aunt Sammie flew down for the funeral – it was Gram’s sister who was her rock. I remember sitting in the car as we drove Sammie to the DFW airport and the silence from my grandmother as my aunt Jody pulled into the airport terminal. I remember seeing the two life-long confidants say their goodbyes, their subtle embrace, and my Gram seeming more sad for her sisters long-term departure than her husbands life-long departure. And when Sammie died a few years back, I know my grandmother took it really hard. As it turns out, my grandmother does not know the real reason behind her father’s abandonment. I think she speculates that the reason was because he had another family in Europe. But my Gram would meet an Ohio native of Irish and (I think) German decent which would later give me – her grandson – a Whiteness I could attach myself to – an “acceptable” lineage needed to grow up a “half-and-half” trying to pass for Anglo in a golf-course community.
Upon talking to a friend/colleague of mine at Clemson who is on an expiring student visa from Switzerland, I was schooled about the intense racism between Western and Eastern Europeans – for instance, Poles and Czechs – between lighter complexions and darker features. When I look inward, I have to face the fact that I have less Whiteness than I remembered I thought I had – or at least that I performed myself with all my life. I had spent a lifetime performing myself along a White mindset when my body was distinctly marked the opposite. I remember how people would ask me in high school if I was Mexican and I felt obligated to agree with them – for to outwardly deny such would be a blatant lie and downright disrespectful to my Mexican family – and I would counter it with something along the lines of “I’m mostly white.” This took so long for me to pin down because of the invisibility and elusiveness associated with whiteness. It is only when we, as Nakayama and Krizek remind us, demarcate and label whiteness that we can begin to comprehend its slippery and ubiquitous nature. People still mistake me for Italian or Middle Eastern and I now correct them by telling them, “No, no, I am Chex-Mex.”
“Performance Cartography” & Locating Latinidad
As my search for more brown bodies in rural South Carolina continues, I cannot help but be reminded of a brave essay I came across recently by Karma Chavez (Take a look at the piece for yourself). She puts forth a “performance cartography” as one empowering way for stamping her marginalized identity onto Latinidad. As a queer Latina feminist, Chavez takes the concept of maps – which have historically functioned as colonial tools to reinforce white constructions of space – and reconstructs it alongside storytelling and “theories of the flesh” (see also: Moraga and Anzaldua, 1983). Theories of the flesh are profound for how they bring forth stories we tell from/about our “homeplace” (see also: D. Soyini Madison 1993). I hope to have done one such thing here – to have used my personal narratives and memories to work through issues of identity and subjectivity as they relate to race/ethnicity/nationality.
Since Latinos/as have historically used embodiment and stories to navigate the present circularly with the past and into future, I advocate that we similarly adopt an “embodied mindset.” More so that we seek out spaces of belonging, put forth competing discourses that intersect and overlap, bring about new understandings of ourselves, and remain always in the process of “becoming.”
Refs (In Order of Appearance)
Turner, V. W. (1967), ‘Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage’, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 93-111.
Nakayama, T. K., & Krizek, R. L. (1995). Whiteness: A strategic rhetoric. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81, 291-309.
Chavez, K. (2009), ‘Remapping Latinidad: A Performance Cartography of Latina/o Identity in Rural Nebraska, Text and Performance Quarterly, 29: 2, pp. 165-182.
Moraga, C. and G. Anzaldúa. (1983), This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Madison, D. S. (1993), “That Was My Occupation’: Oral Narrative, Performance and Black Feminist Thought’, Text and Performance Quarterly, 13, pp. 213-32.
- By Ryan Castillo, M.A. - Lecturer in Communication Studies at Clemson University.
I’ve been working since before it was legal for me to begin doing so – since the age of fourteen when my family members paid me “under-the-table” at a shipping franchise in Texas. It was in college when I began to feel guilty at being only a student and started serving at every restaurant from fine dining to overnight diners. Currently, I am contracted by Clemson University for a full-time course load, adjunct teaching two courses at a local community college, and once again waiting tables for extra cash in my pocket and side (work) thrills. I say all this because I think my pulsating need to overwork in order to feel alive may be in my blood – in my Mexican genetics.
The inspiration for this post comes partly out of my current work experiences – particularly when I started working at a fusion sushi bar in town and quickly noticed there was not one Mexican on staff. Let me be clear, I have worked in the service industry off-and-on for almost ten years and one thing I could always count on was seeing Mexican cooks in the kitchen and Mexicans washing dishes. In fact, living in Texas and California all my life meant not going a day without a Mexican (pun half intended). Then I started to look around campus – around my neighborhood – around town. Where were all the Latino/a students and families and workers? Where was Raza and mural paintings and breakfast tacos from local taquerías? As I looked around all I saw was Black and White but no Brown.
My recent move from the blue state of California to rural up-state South Carolina forced me to notice the sheer lack of racial diversity here, of diversity in general. From L.A. to the deep South, I went from city grid streets and gridlocked traffic to winding country roads – from neighborhoods flying rainbow PRIDE flags alongside American flags to neighbors on tractors and country folk riding horseback along the streets. I remember saying to a colleague just yesterday, “It’s like gay people don’t exist here. I mean, I know they exist but they aren’t visible like they were in Long Beach. In California, people are proud of their gayness. Here people hide it.” I went from having a Chinese best friend and knowing an impressive Asian population on the West Coast to only meeting Asian foreign exchange students at Clemson.
When I told a friend about my Clemson hire, it was the Fourth of July and we were gathered on the rooftop terrace of his beachfront condo in Long Beach watching fireworks ignite over the Pacific. I remember looking out at the coastline and seeing fireworks shows all along the distance – from Seal Beach to Huntington and all the way down to Newport – and he told me something that I remember taking too lightly at first – that South Carolina was the first state to succeed from the Union.
I remember him telling me that I should be prepared for deep South racism. I said, “No way. Deep South is Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia!” – nothing to worry about, I thought – surely growing up in conservative Texas had prepared me this experience. And when I moved here in the heat of the 2012 election, I remember driving through my rural neighborhood and bring surprised by Obama sign after Obama sign in a region that is an unapologetically Red one. Turns out, I live in the “hood” because the more I began looking around the more I saw only African Americans.
White-Washing Myself; Marking (My) Whiteness
Growing up in the upper-middle class suburbs of North Dallas always made me somewhat ashamed of my brown-ness. Try to envision a golf course community – a Starbucks every two-square miles marking the outer territory – and a community in protest for the building of a Wal-mart not for the ill treatment of workers but for the “types” of people it would draw into town. A childhood friend of mine – who remains one of my closest platonic friends today – would purposefully skip the bus so we could walk home together from middle school. She would joke with me, “My parents said your parents can’t afford a pool in your backyard!” And I would fire back, “My parents said your parents couldn’t afford a lawn guy and that’s why your brother mows the lawn.” Little did we grasp our keen understanding for irony and classism at the time. This has become a vivid memory of mine as well because I remember in that moment feeling ashamed that my two-story home was not as big as hers.
Growing up, I always felt naturally inclined to embrace an identity more on my mother’s end of the racial spectrum – my Anglo side. Do not misunderstand me: Spending family holidays with my father’s Mexican side was preferred and always something I more looked forward to. It meant never knowing which of my 30+ cousins would be there. It meant three generations gathering together on any given occasion and tamales every Christmas and piñatas on birthdays and a feeling of closeness – the feeling of familia – that went unmatched by my mother’s side. But I remember never feeling afraid to bring my friends around my mom’s side of the family. I now know the reason for this was because it was easier to embrace the idea of whiteness in a community where “Being White” meant being superior. White was the default. It meant performing yourself a class above the rest and looking down on others and being judgmental. I spent my whole life at the “borderlands” now even knowing it because I refused to locate myself here- or at least remained ignorant to the fact it was even a place inhabited – or perhaps was never allowed to see my brown face looking back at me in the mirror.
It wasn’t until my graduate work that I began to feel a sense of pride for my Mexican heritage. I took a Master’s level seminar called “Postcolonial Dimensions of Rhetoric” – which, oddly enough, was taught by a cooky elderly white woman who mistook my roommate/classmate Jesus for “Jose” or “Josue” every once in a while. It was in this challenging scholarly space that I was forced to confront my Latino identity and was ultimately allowed to genuinely embrace the concept of Chicano Power. I learned and internalized concepts like Victor and Edith Turner’s “liminality” and “communitas” as well as “Santa María de Guadalupe.”
Call me, “Chex-Mex”
Recently, our department has been conducting hiring for tenure-track professor positions – which, in academia, means flying applicant finalists out separately for several days and assigning a strict itinerary of dinners with the chair, meetings with the dean, brunch receptions, teaching demos, job talks, and research presentations. At one reception, I met a scholar where in our cordials we somehow began talking about my new puppy Dexter. When she asked me the inevitable question of what breed he belonged to – as they always do – and I didn’t know how to respond since explaining his origin is always time consuming and risks “tune-out.” My usual script is this: “Well, his mother is Hound and Labrador and his father is Boxer and Catahoula; but the Vet thinks he has Shar Pei and Pitbull in him. I don’t see it though.” But in this moment, I found myself swift and succinct:
“He’s a mutt. Like me.”
And the feeling that accompanied this response stuck with me because it struck me as oddly freeing. It was revealing in a sense because it felt “off the cuff” and honest. But also because I knew what I was doing in that moment. I was paving the way toward a discussion about my racial/ethnic identity. I was traveling the road less traveled – or the road I had always sought to avoid. When the conversation took this turn – although not immediately – I tell her what I tell many people who similarly ask me, “What are you?”
I told her, “I’m Chex-Mex.”
I mostly say this because I think it sounds catchy. And when I get the usual puzzled facial response, I enjoy the clarification: “Not like the cereal. Like half Czech, half Chilango.”
Chilango,
Meaning my abuelito was a native of La Ciudad de México
Who either legally or illegally immigrated to Texas and
Changed his surname to Castillo.
Castillo,
After the Castillian empire in Spain
As in Spanish royalty.
He had settled in Los Estados Unidos
Married a Texas-native in my grandma
Who was born to a Frenchman
Who fell in love with a Mexican woman
Where they had run away to Wichita Falls.
All I have are stories of my father’s father – and vague stories at that – about how he was a brick layer who did mosaics for a side living – about his alcoholism – and his punishments with the switch. I never had the opportunity of meeting my Mexican grandfather since he died in a fatal car crash on Route 66 on his way out to a job in California. The most vivid story I have about my Latino grandfather is my father’s memory of first hearing the news about his sudden death – of his mother screaming, crying, and pounding the walls in the next room of their small two-bedroom house shared by his seven siblings – Lupita, Olivia, Dolores, Elena, Candelaria, Ernesto and Alejandro – all of whom go by whitened nicknames to this day. In fact, my father told me they were not taught Spanish at home because the fifties was a time where many 1st generation and 1.5 generation children were instructed to only speak English as a way to more easily assimilate into American culture.
My mother’s familial lineage took an equally interesting turn of events. It seems as if Life just happens that way. I am coming to know that we can only be prepared for the unprepared. My grandmother was born full-blooded Czechoslovakian before the country was split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Her family came to America through Ellis Island during the early 20th century. I know this because, during a junior class trip to New York City, my mother made sure to have me look at their names permanently inscribed onto the walls at Ellis Island. I think it interesting how these markings of identity are allowed – as a way for governments to keep tabs – while certain markings of identity (see: Exit Through the Gift Shop) are considered illegal and subject to erasure. This reminds me of the subversive nature of Chicano Mural Paintings that mark Hispanic neighborhoods across the U.S. as a visual way for Latinos/as to (non)discursively stamp their existence onto white culture. To shout, “HERE WE ARE!” It was in my 11th grade year that I was becoming interested in filling out the branches in my family tree and – in some cases – raking up the dead leaves. My mother passed down a story to me that made me think about the power of memory and remembrance. And it is here in this space that I tell it again – perhaps not entirely accurately either since this is how I remember it told to me – which doesn’t make it any less accurate for me:
After making the long emigration voyage by boat, the Cvetkovich family had reached New York City safely and healthily. I imagine their arrival as something that happened right out of James Cameron’s “Titanic” – where Rose looks up at the Statue of Liberty with a blanket over her head as rain begins to pour – although much less traumatic than arriving in the wake of the S.S. White Star line Titanic sinking, I’m sure. When the family began to settle after the first few months, my great grandfather quickly became homesick for Eastern Europe. He was not coming to know America as the “land of opportunity” that had been told to him at home. His wife, on the other hand, loved the United States. One night, her husband abandoned her and her two girls (Sammie and Mille) and fled back to Czechoslovakia. He took only his son Nicky with him, who would later be reunited with his sisters years after his mother’s death. Nicky informed his sisters that his father did not take the girls because he saw their gender as a weakness. In hindsight, it seems Nicky’s male-ness made him the high-priced commodity of his family in his father’s eyes.
It is just now that I am coming to realize how perhaps my scholarly fascination with masculinity studies stems from the fact that I come from a combined history of absent fathers. But here I am focused on locating race.
This abandonment made my “Gram” and her sister intensely close growing up and I could see this strong bond as a child myself. In my teenage years, she would later tell me stories of how the two used to lock themselves her mother’s the bathroom as teenagers to smoke cigarettes. Even as a six-year-old, I remember how alive she was around her sister upon our visit to Flint, Michigan for my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary. And when my grandma moved to Dallas upon a stroke which left my grandpa blind – where he died shortly thereafter – and my great aunt Sammie flew down for the funeral – it was Gram’s sister who was her rock. I remember sitting in the car as we drove Sammie to the DFW airport and the silence from my grandmother as my aunt Jody pulled into the airport terminal. I remember seeing the two life-long confidants say their goodbyes, their subtle embrace, and my Gram seeming more sad for her sisters long-term departure than her husbands life-long departure. And when Sammie died a few years back, I know my grandmother took it really hard. As it turns out, my grandmother does not know the real reason behind her father’s abandonment. I think she speculates that the reason was because he had another family in Europe. But my Gram would meet an Ohio native of Irish and (I think) German decent which would later give me – her grandson – a Whiteness I could attach myself to – an “acceptable” lineage needed to grow up a “half-and-half” trying to pass for Anglo in a golf-course community.
Upon talking to a friend/colleague of mine at Clemson who is on an expiring student visa from Switzerland, I was schooled about the intense racism between Western and Eastern Europeans – for instance, Poles and Czechs – between lighter complexions and darker features. When I look inward, I have to face the fact that I have less Whiteness than I remembered I thought I had – or at least that I performed myself with all my life. I had spent a lifetime performing myself along a White mindset when my body was distinctly marked the opposite. I remember how people would ask me in high school if I was Mexican and I felt obligated to agree with them – for to outwardly deny such would be a blatant lie and downright disrespectful to my Mexican family – and I would counter it with something along the lines of “I’m mostly white.” This took so long for me to pin down because of the invisibility and elusiveness associated with whiteness. It is only when we, as Nakayama and Krizek remind us, demarcate and label whiteness that we can begin to comprehend its slippery and ubiquitous nature. People still mistake me for Italian or Middle Eastern and I now correct them by telling them, “No, no, I am Chex-Mex.”
“Performance Cartography” & Locating Latinidad
As my search for more brown bodies in rural South Carolina continues, I cannot help but be reminded of a brave essay I came across recently by Karma Chavez (Take a look at the piece for yourself). She puts forth a “performance cartography” as one empowering way for stamping her marginalized identity onto Latinidad. As a queer Latina feminist, Chavez takes the concept of maps – which have historically functioned as colonial tools to reinforce white constructions of space – and reconstructs it alongside storytelling and “theories of the flesh” (see also: Moraga and Anzaldua, 1983). Theories of the flesh are profound for how they bring forth stories we tell from/about our “homeplace” (see also: D. Soyini Madison 1993). I hope to have done one such thing here – to have used my personal narratives and memories to work through issues of identity and subjectivity as they relate to race/ethnicity/nationality.
Since Latinos/as have historically used embodiment and stories to navigate the present circularly with the past and into future, I advocate that we similarly adopt an “embodied mindset.” More so that we seek out spaces of belonging, put forth competing discourses that intersect and overlap, bring about new understandings of ourselves, and remain always in the process of “becoming.”
Refs (In Order of Appearance)
Turner, V. W. (1967), ‘Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage’, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 93-111.
Nakayama, T. K., & Krizek, R. L. (1995). Whiteness: A strategic rhetoric. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81, 291-309.
Chavez, K. (2009), ‘Remapping Latinidad: A Performance Cartography of Latina/o Identity in Rural Nebraska, Text and Performance Quarterly, 29: 2, pp. 165-182.
Moraga, C. and G. Anzaldúa. (1983), This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.
Madison, D. S. (1993), “That Was My Occupation’: Oral Narrative, Performance and Black Feminist Thought’, Text and Performance Quarterly, 13, pp. 213-32.
- By Ryan Castillo, M.A. - Lecturer in Communication Studies at Clemson University.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Conversations in light of sudden loss
In the afternoon on Jan. 8, just days before the spring semester started (at A&M and here at Davidson), I got a dreadful phone call from a grad school
friend to let me know that a beloved professor and mentor from our time at Texas A&M University, Dr. Jim Aune, had committed suicide on campus. Dr. Aune was the Head of the
Department of Communication at Texas A&M University,
the institution where I achieved my Ph.D. Needless to say, this sudden
and horrific loss has many in the academic community --especially rhetoric folks who worked closely with Aune, grad students still in the dept. and those of us not too far removed from our time there, faculty colleagues of Aune's and the staff members who helped to run the department smoothly-- absolutely stunned.There is no way to possibly make sense of such a sudden and seemingly senseless loss, though we certainly have been trying to do so. The funny, quirky, and more serious moments of interaction we've all had with Dr. Aune quickly arose as a means to process the grief and attempt to focus more on the positive legacy he left behind... despite the gaping hole of loss that is so painfully apparent.
(For a beautifully honest, hilarious, comforting and personal post from one of Dr. Aune's former advisees, see Dr. Thorpe's blog.)
The symbolism of a suicide that takes place on campus deepens the mystery for so many of us and makes for a unique set of questions that may never be answered. It is difficult to comprehend what sort of perfect storm would drive someone so accomplished, well-respected, loved and admired in his field to feel no other option or outlet from whatever his troubles were except suicide.
Aune's death has sparked many conversations about social support among colleagues at various types of institutions and academics in various ranks of faculty positions. Many feel an added layer of devastation in light of the now-famous and widely criticized Forbes article saying that professors have the least stressful jobs. The comments following this article online perhaps echo the knee-jerk reactions many of us feel are warranted to something in such poor taste. The backlash to this article has been intense and, to many, not at all surprising. One blog response in particular has gone viral among my network of academic friends.
Perhaps we might see these articles/conversations as two opposite ends of a spectrum that includes plenty of in-between gray area.
Of course, we should not take for granted the many luxuries that a professor's academic lifestyle includes. I, for one, enjoy not having to physically be anywhere on some days of the week, giving myself the option of working from my home office in my slippers and with a hot pot of coffee close by to boost my creativity and productivity. I marvel everyday at the beautiful region of the country I now live in. I have supportive, kind, and diverse colleagues, motivated, hard-working students, and resources available around campus that enable me further in many ways.
All of that is not to discount the intense stresses that come with this fantastic territory. Publishing is a necessary condition for tenure, even at a small liberal arts college. Teaching excellence is a top priority. Innovative ideas and the willingness to commit to service around campus, in the community, and broader discipline are highly valued attributes professors are expected to demonstrate. Juggling many things at once is a requirement of the job, as we all know, and undoubtedly is a part of many other careers out there.
But the perception that professors have it easy --once they get through course work and comprehensive exams, successfully complete and defend the dissertation, enter the somewhat unpredictable academic job market, and finally achieve tenure-track employment in the hopes of eventually becoming tenured-- is a gross discounting of the world we inhabit, despite all of its privileges. As many online articles have noted before, securing tenure-track employment is not a given once the Ph.D. is acquired. The opportunity to even work towards tenure is tough to come by for many Ph.D.s out there on the market, and as someone who was on the market twice (once ABD, once with my Ph.D. in hand) before securing tenure-track employment, I realize that there exists a whole other set of stresses to face on the tenure track. Again, there are also many beauties of the job that I am careful not to take for granted.
Perhaps Dr. Aune's sudden suicide on campus is, in part, a testament to the stresses that many academics face. It is truly mind-boggling that someone so accomplished would be driven to this act. Especially for those interacting with him daily around the department, it is hard not to think about what could have possibly made things turn out differently. Could I have seen something that indicated this was about to happen? Could I have done something to stop this? Did I just not pay close enough attention to his demeanor that day (among any number of days prior)? As the article talking about suicide among professors in recent years states, and as Bernadette and Vincent have blogged about sudden loss, devastation, and mentorship recently, I think this simple statement sums up what is so difficult to accept:
I hope you've all had a restful holiday break. May our new semester be positive, productive, and peaceful. Let us remember that we are not alone in our chosen life path as academics and all that that process entails.
(For a beautifully honest, hilarious, comforting and personal post from one of Dr. Aune's former advisees, see Dr. Thorpe's blog.)
The symbolism of a suicide that takes place on campus deepens the mystery for so many of us and makes for a unique set of questions that may never be answered. It is difficult to comprehend what sort of perfect storm would drive someone so accomplished, well-respected, loved and admired in his field to feel no other option or outlet from whatever his troubles were except suicide.
Aune's death has sparked many conversations about social support among colleagues at various types of institutions and academics in various ranks of faculty positions. Many feel an added layer of devastation in light of the now-famous and widely criticized Forbes article saying that professors have the least stressful jobs. The comments following this article online perhaps echo the knee-jerk reactions many of us feel are warranted to something in such poor taste. The backlash to this article has been intense and, to many, not at all surprising. One blog response in particular has gone viral among my network of academic friends.
Perhaps we might see these articles/conversations as two opposite ends of a spectrum that includes plenty of in-between gray area.
Of course, we should not take for granted the many luxuries that a professor's academic lifestyle includes. I, for one, enjoy not having to physically be anywhere on some days of the week, giving myself the option of working from my home office in my slippers and with a hot pot of coffee close by to boost my creativity and productivity. I marvel everyday at the beautiful region of the country I now live in. I have supportive, kind, and diverse colleagues, motivated, hard-working students, and resources available around campus that enable me further in many ways.
All of that is not to discount the intense stresses that come with this fantastic territory. Publishing is a necessary condition for tenure, even at a small liberal arts college. Teaching excellence is a top priority. Innovative ideas and the willingness to commit to service around campus, in the community, and broader discipline are highly valued attributes professors are expected to demonstrate. Juggling many things at once is a requirement of the job, as we all know, and undoubtedly is a part of many other careers out there.
But the perception that professors have it easy --once they get through course work and comprehensive exams, successfully complete and defend the dissertation, enter the somewhat unpredictable academic job market, and finally achieve tenure-track employment in the hopes of eventually becoming tenured-- is a gross discounting of the world we inhabit, despite all of its privileges. As many online articles have noted before, securing tenure-track employment is not a given once the Ph.D. is acquired. The opportunity to even work towards tenure is tough to come by for many Ph.D.s out there on the market, and as someone who was on the market twice (once ABD, once with my Ph.D. in hand) before securing tenure-track employment, I realize that there exists a whole other set of stresses to face on the tenure track. Again, there are also many beauties of the job that I am careful not to take for granted.
Perhaps Dr. Aune's sudden suicide on campus is, in part, a testament to the stresses that many academics face. It is truly mind-boggling that someone so accomplished would be driven to this act. Especially for those interacting with him daily around the department, it is hard not to think about what could have possibly made things turn out differently. Could I have seen something that indicated this was about to happen? Could I have done something to stop this? Did I just not pay close enough attention to his demeanor that day (among any number of days prior)? As the article talking about suicide among professors in recent years states, and as Bernadette and Vincent have blogged about sudden loss, devastation, and mentorship recently, I think this simple statement sums up what is so difficult to accept:
"One needs time to accept that one could not have done anything, to accept that even people who you admire and who seem very together can do that.”Though I've been keeping in close contact with my Aggie family as we all try to accept this loss, this blog has been therapeutic for me to write. It also serves as a prompt to reiterate what Robert blogged about in November.
May we continue to be here for one another as social support, near and far, via technology and in person (even if once a year at NCA). May we continue to make use of this
blog space to facilitate our sense of solidarity as academics in various positions and at various stages in our careers, as
Latino/as, and as human beings who may feel overwhelmed at times yet
grateful to do what we love.
I hope you've all had a restful holiday break. May our new semester be positive, productive, and peaceful. Let us remember that we are not alone in our chosen life path as academics and all that that process entails.
Rest in peace, Dr. Aune.
Monday, December 17, 2012
We Are Sitting Here And We Are Together.
It is my favorite question to ask: why do you do what you
do?
As an educator, artist and ethnographer I am interested in the
intersections of communication, education and resilience. I am also interested
in what inspires those within academia to do what they have chosen to do, day
after day. I have asked this question to hundreds of students, faculty and
staff within varied educational settings. No one answers with similar
reasoning, and their answers are as unique and vivid as the fresh faces that
pack our classrooms each new semester and school year. But recently I have started to wonder
if I am asking the wrong question. After the recent mass shooting at Sandy Hook
Elementary School in Newtown, perhaps I should be asking how – how do we do
what we do especially in response to difficulty and tragedy? How do we pick up
the pieces? How do we persevere? Is everything really, truly, a teachable moment?
We gave thanks.
This year’s Thanksgiving holiday was to initiate a season of
firsts for our family. It was to
be the first time that my parents Christine and Frank were able to spend
Thanksgiving at my home. For the last 14 years my parents were the sole
caregivers to my mother’s parents, my grandparents Paul and Charlotte. My
grandparents lived wonderful long lives, free of major illness and disease. My
parents were able to fulfill my grandparents’ wish that they be allowed to live out their
final years and days in the home they had worked all their lives to establish.
“Mija, I don’t want to die in the hospital,” my grandfather would repeatedly
say. My parents helped my grandparents pass in peace, free from pain and fear.
This meant daily, 24-hour care provided by my parents with little room for
anything else, including taking care of themselves. As you can imagine this
type of care is usually quite overwhelming and exhausting for the caregiver,
but it was something my parents both wanted to do. I still don’t know how they
survived.
This Thanksgiving was to be the first time in 14 years that
my parents would be allowed to exhale and relax without a care in the world.
The idea was that they would travel from their home in East Los Angeles to ours
in San Francisco so that we might spoil them beyond their heart’s content. And
we did just that. We giggled, talked, gave thanks, cried, ate and drank
together during a massive feast that lasted over 10 hours. In this way, I
thought, I could begin to sufficiently honor my parents and the legacy of my
grandparents. We had a truly beautiful day together, that is for sure. But the
next day, things changed.
At approximately 5:03 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving we
receive the call. My sister-in-law has died. Diabetes. She was 41. She leaves
behind her husband, my big brother Franklin, and their two young girls. And
then a few days later, Franklin’s mother-in-law dies. My sister-in-law and her
mother were inseparable, of course. Many joked they seemed partners in crime.
Over a period of time our family gingerly discussed what some of us had started
to realize but could not voice. Franklin’s mother-in-law suffered from advanced
diabetes as well, but things we discovered began to point to a potential
suicide in response to her overwhelming grief.
Words fail at sufficiently describing these last few weeks.
The confusion, the weight of it all, but also a celebration as during this very
same time my mother successfully defended her dissertation, thus demonstrating
what her father had always announced, “My mija is smart!” The severe
simultaneity of emotions seem meant for other, more
robust creations than I. When unimaginable grief visits with such accumulation
there is nowhere to escape and even sleep becomes only an easily entered into
regret, as you will soon have to wake and remember and remind yourself once
more.
I still cannot fathom from where my big brother draws his
gentle-strength and capacity for tenderness. We speak on the phone alternating
between tears, laughter and silence. I am not an optimistic person and I speak
honestly with him about pain and loss and he does the same with me: we are
brothers. But when I find myself lacking in words he takes hold of the
conversation and of me and says:
This is the hardest thing I’ve
ever had to deal with. I see her everywhere I go and I don’t know what I’m
going to do. But my girls – I need to make it ok for them. I have to get up and
put one foot in front of the other and keep doing what I’m doing so that my
girls will know that mom is always with them: she will never leave them and I
will never leave them. To be honest I just have to make sure they are taken
care of and that they are close to me. Nothing else matters. I see that. I want
them to feel what they are ready to feel. And when they are ready, I want them
to talk about whatever they want to talk about. And I want them to be back in school, because that’s what
their mother would want for them. Their friends and teachers know what happened
and they are asking for my girls. They want to be together because they want to
help.
“We're going to be safe, because we're sitting over here
and we're all together."
As information pours out from Sandy Hook Elementary I learn
more about the teachers that acted quickly, locked down their classrooms and
gathered their kids in a safe space as they all had been trained to do. "If they started crying, I would take their face and tell them, 'It's going to be ok.' I wanted that to be the last thing they heard, not the gunfire in the hall," said first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig. Roig’s comments illustrate the most basic tenet of
teaching, to the best of your abilities keep your kids safe and prevent harm.
Many are calling these teachers heroes (and they are) but many of these
teachers are clear to say through tears that they were only doing what a
teacher is supposed to do for their kids.
It is not an easy thing to be a teacher, no matter the grade
level, even in lesser trying times. Politics, policies and people seem to
increasingly encroach upon and threaten any holistic approach to educating and
education for reasons that we are not always meant to understand. Sometimes we
aren’t listened to when it matters most. And even as many of us are asked to do
exponentially more with significantly less, we do it. We show up. We do what we
do not because it is easy but because it is fundamental, necessary work. Being
present and facilitating a classroom when all things are attempting to pull us
apart is what makes the teacher necessary in a time of doubt, disagreement and danger.
Violence, power, privilege and access intersect with all things and suppressing
these conversations leaves us all in peril. The teacher is a facilitator, not a
saint. Moreover, I believe they are something better. Teachers are wonderful,
fallible, capable human beings and at their best they are weavers of critical
thought, comprehension and reasoned action. Simply put, teachers help people to
help themselves. And sometimes when things become too dark to comprehend, they may even hold a hand or two.
Where do we go from here?
Sadly, there is a national script for what to do after a
mass shooting. Televised news and social media repeats itself with similar
calls to action, arguments and posturing. I needed a break.
This past weekend my partner and I stood in line for two
hours to secure the best seats in the house at an IMAX 3D showing of The
Hobbit. I was giddy with anticipation at the thought of revisiting this
franchised-fantasy. As the crowd swelled in a minuscule holding area and as the
indoor temperature increased, I began to panic. My mind replayed the news and I
began to (for lack of a better phrase) freak out. The teacher in me emerged and
I began to talk to myself. I took myself through a series of questions meant to
ground and alleviate my immediate apprehension; Where are you? Who are you
with? What do you know about your surroundings? What do you feel? What do you
know for certain? Are you deep breathing right now? After a few minutes my
pulse slowed and my apprehension lessened. My partner asked if I was ok, “I
can’t stop thinking about things.” He offered a loving smile and nod, absent of
any words because we both knew there was absolutely nothing that could be said.
We stood silently as I thought to myself how I would get
through this, all of it. What happens next? I have absolutely no idea. Then the doors to the massive theatre opened and everyone turned
and faced the same direction. No one pushed and no one yelled. Instead,
everyone was giddy, too. The line began to move and as I slowly began to walk
the thoughts of my brother popped into my head – just put one foot in front of
the other and keep doing what you’re doing.
We go on, together. We go on together because we must.
Vincent Chandler is a doctoral candidate in international and multicultural education at The University of San Francisco. He is a lecturer in composition and communication studies and has taught at San Francisco State University, Berkeley City College and at The University of San Francisco. He has also taught at the charter high school level and for programs in Upward Bound. He may be reached at vrchandler@usfca.edu
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Reaching Out to the Other, or A Performance of Striving
Walking to where my husband said he would pick me up, I consider my new role as a student-teacher at a private university. "How important is identifying with students? How does it affect your teaching?" (Hernandez). My husband smiles at me from our new vehicle purchased specifically for the snowy winters in Colorado and tells me that we need gas ("How will we pay for gas? Why did we take the risk of buying this car?"). It is Tuesday September 4th, 2012, and earlier that morning, I had already gotten lost on my way to my department's convocation event, which welcomes new doctoral and masters students. I'm depressed and sweaty, and before I get picked up, I have decided to again walk alone towards a building that I have never seen or heard. You see, Frank Tuitt, an Associate Provost of Inclusive Excellence, is giving a talk today on bell hooks' Teaching to Transgress: Education as a Practice of Freedom entitled "Education for Social and Political Change: The Continued Search for Education as the Practice of Freedom," so although I am emotionally and physically drained, I am determined to experience this lecture. In this blog posting, I weave my reflections of my first week as a student-teacher at a private university alongside my notes from a lecture on teaching to strive for a performance that urges my fellow Latin@ communication studies scholars to reach out to each other throughout the year. Utilizing an autobiographical performance as a response to some of the blog entries on this AcademicZ website, it is my belief and argument that an ongoing analysis of our blog entries and comments to each other should continue in order to strengthen our alliances as a Latina/o Communication Studies discipline.
As I walk, I am not quite used to the humidity, so I roll up the sleeves of my button-down turquoise dress shirt. I bought it at a Marshall's clothing store (it was on sale) before I left my California home to start my doctoral program in a new state. I'm depressed because I am alone and lost and my funding has been stalled by a bureaucratic system that doesn't seem to understand that I am the closest I have been to poverty in a long time. However, I am hopeful because this talk on bell hooks and the state of education has me excited about the possibilities of reaching out to the Other. About fifteen minutes later, I find my building by following a gaggle of freshmen undergraduate students, and I sit front row center eager to hear a female voice that has pushed me to strive for freedom many times before.
However, something is wrong. The male voice is saying all the right things ("This is the most diverse freshman class we have had since I have been here"), but I cannot quite connect because I am in a sea of whiteness. I am reminded by Bernadette Calafell in a recent blog posting that "this may be a red flag. Sometimes a department has had a history of problems around race, gender, and sexuality, and they naively think the way to change this is to hire a person of color (as if we magically transform a space with our presences like unicorns) or the university puts the pressure on them to do so." Although Calafell is discussing faculty positions, it feels like students are being used in much the same way. My notes are covered with critical questions like "isn't the classroom the 'real world'?" and "Citizens? Is that the only goal of education?" Again, I am feeling alone and lost and I'm remembering Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas' recent AcademicZ posting: "When I became a citizen, I was expected to forsake my country for the United States. But how can they not understand?" I stop building my bridge to the Other and write disappointedly in my notes that "this is not a conversation with bell hooks." The male voice is saying all the right things, but shouldn't the institution change because of this diversity? Students of color are not just a quota on a piece of paper.
Leandra Hernandez's struggles discussing the realities of academia with her female Mexican-American student perhaps comes closest to how I felt in the moment: "Was it even my place to divulge such information about how I’m very saddened at times by the unwelcoming culture here? Should I put on a straight face and pretend that racial/ethnic differences are not a problem here?" Like a random bolt of lightning on a humid Denver afternoon, Tuitt brings me back into the space by attempting a performance where he dialogues with bell hooks on how to care for the souls of our students. He says that teaching and learning comes easiest for those who focus on the soul within the mind-body-spirit matrix of a person. He professes that "everyone can learn" and that as teachers we have to "be exciting." Is this really what bell hooks would say? Should it be my goal as a teacher to simply entertain?
"Once again, we are referring to a discussion of whether or not we subvert the classroom's politics of domination simply by using different material, or by having a different, more radical standpoint" (hooks, 1994, p. 148). I cannot care for the souls of my students alone. It takes a village. I am resistant to pedagogies that ask the instructor to turn education into entertainment or to strive for success alone without a community to draw strength and guidance from. I write in my notes: "What is the students' responsibility for a pedagogy of freedom?" As if to answer my question, Tuitt urges his audience to "resist the temptation to present oneself as an all-knowing expert." I nod appreciatively because I am beginning to hear my literary hero's voice again. He continues by stating that a "democratic setting is created through sharing of personal experience" and "students must enter the classroom ready to be active... they must want to learn." Maybe, I am beginning to build a bridge to this African-American male. Why did I hesitate before?
Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas writes passionately about how "the difference as I have come to recognize vividly in grad school comes from life and lived experience, in moments, emotions, relationships and people." Like the blog entries on AcademicZ, Tuitt and hooks place a significant value on voice and its power in the classroom. Tuitt emphasizes that we must "teach with multiple pedagogical styles" and that we must "build a community of learners" by "modeling how to use voice by using and sharing [our] personal experience." Maybe, there is something here that we can use to survive this academic space. Maybe, there is something here that we can use to connect to Others.
"Coming to voice is not just the act of telling one's experience. It is using that telling strategically--to come to voice so that you can also speak freely about other subjects" (hooks, 1994, p. 148). The talk ends, and like a good audience member, I stand and applaud. As I walk to where my husband said he would pick me up, I am suddenly proud that I know what it is like to not have the money to pay bills, gas, groceries, and entertainment. I am proud to be Xicano and queer because these histories of colonization and oppression have placed me (and Others) on a very different trajectory. I am proud because I realize that I do deserve to be in this privileged space. However, like hooks, Tuitt mentions how "learning and knowing is not enough. We must take responsibility to do something with it." In other words, now that I am here--what will I do?
In the tradition of queer scholarship and women-of-color feminisms, such as in Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader or Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader, I want to offer this performance as a response to three blog entries on the AcademicZ blog for Latina/o Communication Studies. Specifically, this is a response to "Excuse me, Perdón. And other translations" by Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas, "Being Honest to One’s Students and One’s Self" by Leandra H. Hernandez, and "Post Tenure Blues" by Bernadette Marie Calafell. To me, these blog entries are already in discussion with each other, and as a chorus, these blog entries highlight the importance of striving towards a practice of freedom for Latin@s in academia. What will I do? Given the harsh realities of being Latina/o in the academy, I will urge everyone to respond to the blogs on this AcademicZ page and to write whenever you feel alone or depressed. Somehow, I made it through that first week, but I can't help but wonder if things would have been better if I would have reached out to you all instead. This space to voice my experiences has given me the courage to fail, and collectively, our experiences on the margins have given us all the strength to get up and fail--and get up again. I find hope in this striving towards freedom. Will you take up my challenge? Will you be the community that reaches out throughout the year? I humbly ask for a response, because with others who understand what is at stake, we have a better chance of doing more than just surviving.
References
As I walk, I am not quite used to the humidity, so I roll up the sleeves of my button-down turquoise dress shirt. I bought it at a Marshall's clothing store (it was on sale) before I left my California home to start my doctoral program in a new state. I'm depressed because I am alone and lost and my funding has been stalled by a bureaucratic system that doesn't seem to understand that I am the closest I have been to poverty in a long time. However, I am hopeful because this talk on bell hooks and the state of education has me excited about the possibilities of reaching out to the Other. About fifteen minutes later, I find my building by following a gaggle of freshmen undergraduate students, and I sit front row center eager to hear a female voice that has pushed me to strive for freedom many times before.
However, something is wrong. The male voice is saying all the right things ("This is the most diverse freshman class we have had since I have been here"), but I cannot quite connect because I am in a sea of whiteness. I am reminded by Bernadette Calafell in a recent blog posting that "this may be a red flag. Sometimes a department has had a history of problems around race, gender, and sexuality, and they naively think the way to change this is to hire a person of color (as if we magically transform a space with our presences like unicorns) or the university puts the pressure on them to do so." Although Calafell is discussing faculty positions, it feels like students are being used in much the same way. My notes are covered with critical questions like "isn't the classroom the 'real world'?" and "Citizens? Is that the only goal of education?" Again, I am feeling alone and lost and I'm remembering Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas' recent AcademicZ posting: "When I became a citizen, I was expected to forsake my country for the United States. But how can they not understand?" I stop building my bridge to the Other and write disappointedly in my notes that "this is not a conversation with bell hooks." The male voice is saying all the right things, but shouldn't the institution change because of this diversity? Students of color are not just a quota on a piece of paper.
Leandra Hernandez's struggles discussing the realities of academia with her female Mexican-American student perhaps comes closest to how I felt in the moment: "Was it even my place to divulge such information about how I’m very saddened at times by the unwelcoming culture here? Should I put on a straight face and pretend that racial/ethnic differences are not a problem here?" Like a random bolt of lightning on a humid Denver afternoon, Tuitt brings me back into the space by attempting a performance where he dialogues with bell hooks on how to care for the souls of our students. He says that teaching and learning comes easiest for those who focus on the soul within the mind-body-spirit matrix of a person. He professes that "everyone can learn" and that as teachers we have to "be exciting." Is this really what bell hooks would say? Should it be my goal as a teacher to simply entertain?
"Once again, we are referring to a discussion of whether or not we subvert the classroom's politics of domination simply by using different material, or by having a different, more radical standpoint" (hooks, 1994, p. 148). I cannot care for the souls of my students alone. It takes a village. I am resistant to pedagogies that ask the instructor to turn education into entertainment or to strive for success alone without a community to draw strength and guidance from. I write in my notes: "What is the students' responsibility for a pedagogy of freedom?" As if to answer my question, Tuitt urges his audience to "resist the temptation to present oneself as an all-knowing expert." I nod appreciatively because I am beginning to hear my literary hero's voice again. He continues by stating that a "democratic setting is created through sharing of personal experience" and "students must enter the classroom ready to be active... they must want to learn." Maybe, I am beginning to build a bridge to this African-American male. Why did I hesitate before?
Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas writes passionately about how "the difference as I have come to recognize vividly in grad school comes from life and lived experience, in moments, emotions, relationships and people." Like the blog entries on AcademicZ, Tuitt and hooks place a significant value on voice and its power in the classroom. Tuitt emphasizes that we must "teach with multiple pedagogical styles" and that we must "build a community of learners" by "modeling how to use voice by using and sharing [our] personal experience." Maybe, there is something here that we can use to survive this academic space. Maybe, there is something here that we can use to connect to Others.
"Coming to voice is not just the act of telling one's experience. It is using that telling strategically--to come to voice so that you can also speak freely about other subjects" (hooks, 1994, p. 148). The talk ends, and like a good audience member, I stand and applaud. As I walk to where my husband said he would pick me up, I am suddenly proud that I know what it is like to not have the money to pay bills, gas, groceries, and entertainment. I am proud to be Xicano and queer because these histories of colonization and oppression have placed me (and Others) on a very different trajectory. I am proud because I realize that I do deserve to be in this privileged space. However, like hooks, Tuitt mentions how "learning and knowing is not enough. We must take responsibility to do something with it." In other words, now that I am here--what will I do?
In the tradition of queer scholarship and women-of-color feminisms, such as in Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader or Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader, I want to offer this performance as a response to three blog entries on the AcademicZ blog for Latina/o Communication Studies. Specifically, this is a response to "Excuse me, Perdón. And other translations" by Bernardita Maria Yunis Varas, "Being Honest to One’s Students and One’s Self" by Leandra H. Hernandez, and "Post Tenure Blues" by Bernadette Marie Calafell. To me, these blog entries are already in discussion with each other, and as a chorus, these blog entries highlight the importance of striving towards a practice of freedom for Latin@s in academia. What will I do? Given the harsh realities of being Latina/o in the academy, I will urge everyone to respond to the blogs on this AcademicZ page and to write whenever you feel alone or depressed. Somehow, I made it through that first week, but I can't help but wonder if things would have been better if I would have reached out to you all instead. This space to voice my experiences has given me the courage to fail, and collectively, our experiences on the margins have given us all the strength to get up and fail--and get up again. I find hope in this striving towards freedom. Will you take up my challenge? Will you be the community that reaches out throughout the year? I humbly ask for a response, because with others who understand what is at stake, we have a better chance of doing more than just surviving.
References
Arrendondo, G. F., Hurtado, A., Klahn, N., Nájera-Ramírez, O., & Zavella, P. (2003). Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University.
Hames-García, M. & Martínez, E. J. (2011). Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York, NY: Routledge.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Hispanicism, Catholicism, and the Presidential Vote of 2012
If
and when your children and your grandchildren ask you about what role,
as an electorate, Hispanics and Catholics played during the Presidential
Election of 2012, what will your response be? Will you mention the
importance of demographics? Many might wish to describe to their
children how it is that Hispanics came into being when, according to
Zvi Dor-Ner’s account in his now-famous book: Columbus, they first landed on the island of Hispaniola. The crews in Spanish ships he captained: the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta prayed giving thanks to the Almighty and sang the Angelus
in praise of God for having delivered them from the dreadful sea
monsters of the deep and their hellish, dark domain. Many times during
the voyage the men were on the verge of mutiny! Flash forward: Our
nation is voting to see which candidate will be the best Captain of our
mythical flagship, the USS America. Will America vote for
change, Mitt Romney, or will they avoid a mutiny and vote for the
current highest officer, President Barack Obama?
In
either case, they will be required to have the support of both Latinos
and Catholics. While “Latinos” is used more to describe the peoples of
Mexico, Central America, South America, including Brazil, and the
Caribbean, “Hispanics” has a broader connotation to include Spain and
Portugal, as well. (One ought to remember that at one time in the
historical past the Iberian peninsula was united under one power.) For
speakers of both Spain and Portugal, it becomes easier to learn each
other’s languages than is the case for other neighboring countries.
Historically, both Spain and Portugal have been rivals due to their
domination of the sea lanes before the naval ascendency of England.
Today, Brazil is the engine that drives South America! In an
energy-dependent world, Mexico’s petroleum is much sought after. In
1983, less than 30 years ago, Argentina proved they could stand up to
Great Britain in a quest to retake the Falkland Islands to restore its
original name: Las Malvinas. Venezuela with their mighty oil
reserves, of course, has also attempted to challenge the other nations
of Latin America for leadership of the southern hemisphere!
Why
this mini-discussion of past and recent history vis-a-vis the
Americas? Perhaps, it is well to comprehend the wars between the
nations of the Americas as each claimed hegemony of its region.
Certainly, the United States of America’s claim to Manifest Destiny gave
the nation a self-proclaimed right to dominate North America. The
early wars with Canada, and later with New Spain, i.e., Mexico, and with
Spain, itself, at the close of the 19th Century enabled the US to
expand far beyond the Louisiana Purchase from France, to include half of
what was previously Mexican territory. While most of what is related
here is “old hat,” the fact that many of the people of Mexico became US
citizens overnight is seldom mentioned, especially when there is so much
todo about so-called “illegal Immigration!” Who are these
swarthy-complected people that are invading our borders? Why, they are
all of the aforementioned and the peoples--for the most part--of the
Caribbean as well, that’s who. Small wonder, then, that they comprise a
population in excess of 55 million people within the US!
In
the election of November 2, 2012 hearsay language coming from political
pundits state that the US Presidency cannot be won unless one of the
candidates is able to amass more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote
(CNN, October 6, 2012)! No such comment is made about any other
political electorate! Upon closer scrutiny we find that Hispanics are
not necessarily a monolith, since the US census has determined that
there are Black non-Hispanics and White non-Hispanics. What does that
mean or imply? Does it mean that some Hispanics are Black and others
are White. Yes, that is the connotation. If you are a member of that
group, you need only declare Hispanic on the census form. Some, no
doubt, check both: Hispanic and Other, as may be offered on the form.
Are Filipinos Hispanic? If listed as Asian Pacific, then perhaps it is
time they be listed “Asian Pacific Hispanics” or just Hispanics. Their
language consists of three stems: Chinese, Indo-Malaysian, and
Spanish. Their food and clothing and dances reflect the culture of
Spain. Whether or not they might be listed as Hispanics in future
census depends, at present, with the census bureau. If they were mixed
with the potpourri of those who make up Hispanics, then the Hispanic
electorate would be substantially augmented. Take into account that
last year Asians and Hispanics had the largest increase in the US
census. Thus, the old adage that where there are numbers there is
strength. That’s why Hispanics make a difference! Where do they
reside? Most anywhere in the US, in the territories, in the
commonwealth of Puerto Rico, in the US Military, and on and on! They
live in the Southwest, the Southeast, and the Northeast, by and large.
Pick our largest states and you will find them living in the largest
cities: San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Antonio, Houston,
Atlanta, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City,
Denver, and you name it! Winning is all about numbers!
What
about the Catholic vote? Yes, Latinos are their most sought-after
group, because of their birthrate and their religious-cultural heritage
that began with the conversion of native-Americans to the Faith.
Certainly, the vast majority of Hispanics are Catholic. Hollywood, in
every war film I have seen, goes out of its way to have a terrified
Latino soldier make the Sign of the Cross before hitting the beach! The
Evangelicals, of the religious right, have aligned themselves with
Catholics to defeat Obama! Unlike past years, however, moderate
Catholic bishops have cautioned against allowing priests to threaten
their parishioners with moral consequences, if they vote for the
President. In the past and in the present, attacks on Wade versus Roe
have been a no-starter for some Catholics who prefer that they, and not
the government, decide whether a pregnancy ought to progress.
Certainly, Catholics do not subscribe to the use of abortion as a means
of birth control! The central issue is one that pertains to a woman’s
health and well-being. (No attempt is being made here to speak for the
Church; rather, the attempt is to convey the sentiments of the many with
whom the writer has spoken.) In the future, the Democratic Platform
may wish to modify Roe versus Wade to appease the Catholic Democrats
within their ranks who view abortion as an abomination, except in cases
of a woman’s health, rape, and incest! Hispanic Catholics are,
oftentimes, hard-pressed to vote for the best candidate when religion
may become a barrier.
Separation
of Church and State is more of a myth than a reality. Just look at how
often the name of God is invoked in the printing and minting of our
currency, in our swearing upon a Bible before presenting testimony to a
judge and jury, and when commending a soul to his/her Maker, a fallen
soldier. What makes this election more dramatic is the presence
of Hispanic youth who are now eligible to vote. From where I stand,
these new arrivals have greater power than they may realize. If they
vote for the Democratic ticket, they could add to the Hispanic bloc and
help the incumbent, President Barack Obama, win a second term.
Nevertheless, the pundits agree, along with the majority of polls that
Republican Governor Romney won the first Presidential Debate. The
President will have to overcome his lackluster performance to win the
second debate! The Vice-Presidential Debate could also make an
incredible difference. Both speakers are evenly matched: while
Vice-President Joseph Biden has 40 or more years of political
experience, his opponent, Paul Ryan, chairs the powerful House Budget
Committee in the US House of Representatives! The debates, I believe,
will have an impactful effect on the election; nevertheless, as of this
writing the polls favor the President for a second term.
See
you at the debates and, please, encourage your colleagues and friends
and those of La Raza Caucus and La Raza Division to vote!
Con carino,
A. Anthony "Tony" Oseguera, PhD, Professor Emeritus
International Broadcasting
Eastern Illinois University
Anderson, SC 29621
October 7, 2012
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