Testimonio as a Bridge Toward Conocimiento Among Chicanx and Latinx Youth

• In Event: Encrypted Storytelling in Fugitive Learning Spaces: Disseminating Educational Research When Your Pedagogy Is Secret

Abstract

As part of this symposium on storytelling in learning spaces, our proposal explores the relationships between testimonio and Chicanx and Latinx high school youths’ process of self-awareness. The genre of testimonio, a form of storytelling, is most recognized for its roots in Latin America as a way to voice the struggles for liberation and sociopolitical activism. Used as a pedagogical tool, testimonio can serve as a critical, collective intervention that speaks to marginalization and overlapping systems of oppression (e.g., race, class, gender) (Cruz, 2012; Delgado Bernal, et. al., 2012; Elenes, 2013). Moreover, the use of testimonio can facilitate what Anzaldua (2002) refers to as a process of conocimiento. Méndez Negrete describes conocimiento as “ “a process…of unearthing knowledge in relationship to the daily life we engage with others as we come to Self-knowledge.” (2013, p. 226).

Scholars studying the educational experiences of Chicanx and Latinx youth have documented the various assimilation policies in public education that devalue and/or negate Chicanx and Latinx home and community knowledge and practices. Assimilationist policies and practices can lead Latinx youth to a state desconocimiento or alienation, lack of awareness of oneself and community within a broader historical context, and a lack of vision for the future (Cervantes-Soon & Carillo, 2016; Sepúlveda, 2011; Valenzuela, 1999). Chicanx and Latinx youth rarely have opportunities to explore their own migration experiences, family narratives, and ancestor’s histories in formal schooling environments in ways that can facilitate a process of conocimiento. Therefore, we explore Chicanx and Latinx high school students' use of testimonio as a springboard to embark on a journey of conocimiento within a summer academic and cultural enrichment program known as Aquetza. In Nahuatl, Aquetza roughly translates to “lift your chin up.” The name was selected by the program’s originators to embody a sense of perseverance, cultural, and ethnic pride.

Our study aligns with an ethnographic approach that privileges the social organization of learning and local meanings and actions from the vantage point of participants (Erickson, 1986). Through sources that include field notes, recordings, and a post-program interview, we construct two vignettes. These vignettes showcase moments within the Aquetza program that situated students’ voices and lived experiences to make sense of inequities in their worlds, contest larger negative social narratives, and re-narrate their lives in ways that build on their agency and conocimientos.

We conclude our segment of the symposium with implications describing the powerful role testimonio can serve as a path towards decolonial and transformative ends as well as areas for future research.

Authors

• Enrique Lopez, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Jason Romero
  Presenting Author