An Archaeology of "La Bamba": Countering Antiblackness With Culturally Sustaining Expressive Funds of Knowledge

• In Event: Digging in the Soil: Bringing Light to the Invisible

Abstract

The concept of soil work implies the deep, laborious, nitty gritty work of making visible the constantly growing and shifting complexity of our interconnected histories and identities. "Soil" conceptually draws our attention beyond “roots” discourses that tend toward monolithic, static, simplistic, and often limiting conceptions of personal identity and culture. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, as Alim and Paris (2014) point out, calls for complicating models of culturally relevant pedagogy which often miss out on the vast, nuanced, and complex resources that can be found in students’ cultural repertoires. Our goal in this presentation is to give an example of the meaning and power of this type of Soil Work specific to Mexican American, Mexican, and African American communities. By understanding the popular song “La Bamba” as an expressive fund of knowledge and performing an archaeology of its multiple histories and discursive constructions, we are effectively tilling the soil of "Mexican" history and identity to reveal a complex network of roots and nutrients that are jointly available to Mexican, Mexican-American, African-American, and Afro-Mexican identities, thus countering anti-blackness and establishing fertile terrain for the interconnected flourishing of Black and Latinx communities.

Author

• Joshua Sol Lewis
  Presenting Author