Mexican American Studies and Scholar Activism in a Decolonial Enactment of Citizenship: From Testimony to Testimonio

• In Event: Discursive Moves in the Racialization and Education of Latinx Students

Abstract

Objectives: This paper captures Mexican American Studies scholar-activists performing a decolonial act of citizenship through testimony against a racist textbook presented to the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) in 2016. This study examines the rhetorical and enunciative shifts of scholar-activists as they engage theories of the flesh (Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981) in their testimony, giving voice to a collective experience of oppression–renaming, rewriting, and “represent’n’” it as a means of envisioning alternative futures in pursuit of a decolonial consensus (Blackwell, 2011). Our findings have implications for scholar-activists seeking to bridge research, community, and policy, as well as for academics looking to advance the production of decolonial knowledge within political arenas.

Frameworks: Our work draws from critical, Chicana feminist, and postcolonial scholarship (Beltran, 2009; Blackwell, 2011; Mignolo, 2007; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981; Negrón-Gonzalez, 2015) to examine the rhetorical movida enunciated by scholar-activists through their testimony (Espinoza et al., 2018). Additionally, we distinguish proceduralism from political engagement, as well as politics from the political (Honig, 2009) to make visible how the “bureaucratic rules of the game,” are treated honorifically, while other modes–such as those “entering from the streets,” are disparaged and disavowed within spaces of politics like the SBOE (Honig, 2009).

Modes of inquiry: We make novel use of public testimony by analyzing it through the lens of testimonio (Pérez-Huber, 2010). Motivated by a deep sense of urgency to both name and struggle against political oppression and violence (Cervantes-Soon, 2012, Prieto & Villenas, 2012; Yúdice, 1991), testimonio tells a story of one, though it is often built from collective memory and serves as an instrument of solidarity towards group liberation (Beverley, 2005; Latina Feminist Group, 2001; Lopez & Davalos, 2009). We honor the theorizers, practitioners, and activists who define and are defined by testimonio, and explore the ways public testimony can be decolonially generative when examined through a testimonio lens.

Data sources: Data were gathered through the Texas Education Agency’s publicly available database (2016a, 2016b). We analyzed the transcribed testimony of twelve scholar-activists, utilizing a hybrid coding process (Miles et al., 2013), which included codes drawn from the existing literature as well as codes and constructs generated from conversations about the data We then watched the testimony, allowing the sounds, pacing, and affect of the speakers inform our analysis.

Results: The scholar-activists who testified situated their expressions in their collective centuries of scholarship, drawing from their lived experiences and flesh, weaving testimony into testimonio, speaking the collective experience of oppression and renaming, rewriting it, represent’n’ it, as a means of envisioning alternative futures. Their testimony put up a roadblock for this textbook, which could have represented a harsh and prodigious continuation of colonial power. The scholar-activists parried with power–tussled with(in) the colonial matrix of power, and then worked to deconstruct it, advancing the decolonial consensus and furthering the decolonial project in schools. Scholar-activists must command the discursive norms and social practices of high-stakes decision-making bodies like the SBOE if they are to extend agency through testimony.

Authors

• Angela Valenzuela, The University of Texas at Austin

• Eliza Epstein, University of Texas at Austin

• Maria Unda, University of Texas at Austin