Written Testimonios: "Dude, What Was Up With the Poem? It's Messed Up!"

• In Event: 18.039 - Critically Engaged Educational Research: Leveraging Creative and Collaborative Pedagogies for Transformative Change

Abstract

Purpose
In the United States, families’ immigration status relationships are multidimensional (Fix & Zimmermann, 2001). The imposed Mexico/U.S. border has established anti-immigrant sentiments, marginalizing Latinx communities because of racialized assumptions of inferiority (Pérez, 2007). Racist nativism emerges, a discriminatory view tying race and immigration status (Perez Huber et al., 2008). These racist ideologies translate into educational practices impacting Latinx students. This study addresses the urgency of lovingly accompanying our students, honoring their various modes of linguistic expression.

Theoretical Framework
As a member of the Latinx community, I linked conceptual frameworks stemming from our community—including Chicana Feminism (Delgado Bernal, 1998), the pedagogy of acompañamiento [accompaniment] (Sepúlveda, 2011), love and care (Valenzuela, 1999), and nepantla (Anzaldúa, 2015)—to explore the emotions tied to racism experienced by students in the past and today. Specifically, I used the everyday cultural practice of pláticas y encuentros [informal chats], elements of Chicana feminism, to create welcoming and safe spaces for generating testimonios.

Methods and Data Sources
This qualitative, arts-based, and auto-historic study developed from my four years as a teacher of Latinx students from 2009 to 2013. I accompanied students from second to fifth grade at a transitional bilingual educational school. Eight students, now in high school, joined me in the summer of 2017 to remember 4th grade poetry written using artistic methods to produce critical discussions. These poems served as tools for generating testimonios, answering the research question: What emotions do bilingual Latinx students embody in their present spoken testimonios, individually and collectively, when revisiting written expressions from their past? The primary data sources included spoken and written testimonios stemming from individual and collective pláticas. I focused analysis on students’ emotional, temporal, and spatial discourses.

Results
Emerging discourse patterns revealed that Latinx students negotiate complex sociopolitical identities across time and space. Students embodied compelling emotions connected to how society positions them and their families as “not belonging” to the U.S. (Perez Huber et., 2008). What students expressed, through writing and speaking, offered a contextual understanding of the profound seriousness and marginality of their precarious lives (Delgado Bernal, Burciaga, & Flores Carmona, 2012). Some examples of embodied emotions include: fear for their families, the burden of protecting loved ones, and gratitude and love for their parents. These emotions were collectively negotiated, influenced by inner and outer forces of the experiences within their past and present communities.

Scholarly Significance
This study exposes the sociopolitical realities that Latinx students’ encounter in the classroom from elementary school to high school. Understanding the impact of racism on students’ emotions, especially in the current political times, has important implications for teacher preparation programs. Art and poetry can be powerful tools for honoring and understanding students’ lives. This research contributes to the need for more studies promoting artistic and longitudinal views of bilingual Latinx students’ experiences. As bilingual scholarship embraces more flexible understandings of bilingual students’ language expression, it is imperative to also consider artistic and literary expressions—and how they change over time.

Author

• Paty Abril-Gonzalez, University of Texas at Austin