Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá: Reflections on Trying to Fit Into a Box

• In Event: Reimagining Dialogue: A Qualitative Methodological Shift in Unraveling the Intersections of Identity, Language, and Power

Abstract

As three multilingual and minoritized women, who identify as Boricua, Chicana, and Kenyan Muhindi, we decided to explore our lives through dialogue. In these dialogues, we sought to answer how we experience language, culture, and power.

Our personal, professional, and communal identities intertwine in what Delgado Bernal describes as trenza (braid), and “we are often stronger and more complete... at the same time, weaving together them is fraught with complexity and tensions” (2008, p.135). With this in mind, we analyzed our dialogues through intersectionality, raciolinguistics ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015), and the community cultural wealth model (Yosso, 2005).

Through dialogues, we engaged in collective testimonios (Cervantes-Soon, 2012; Delgado Bernal, 2008). Testimonio focuses on oral, written, and digital narratives involving participants in critical reflection “within particular socio-political realities” (Delgado Bernal et al., 2012, p. 364). Through sharing and reflecting on survival and resistance narratives, testimoniantes (those telling experiences) can critically assess them to reclaim, transform, and emancipate from oppression. We also drew from Espino’s et al. (2012) reflexión “to analyze and interpret our testimonios as part of a collective experience that reflects our past, present, and future, thus moving us toward a collective consciousness” (p. 445). With reflexión, we (re)told our dialogic testimonios as a collective experience.

On the surface, we look different, but we found through dialogue and reflexión that language, identity, and power play significant roles in our personal, professional, and communal experiences. Language, identity, and power affect how we move around, teach and interact with family, colleagues, and communities. We are ni de aquí, ni de allá (neither from here nor there); our accent is too different, or ill-fitting boxes must encompass our intersectional identities. We witnessed one another’s testimonios and sometimes got angry by what the testimoniante shared. Simultaneously, our communal cultural wealth showed how we are “part of a legacy of resistance to racism and the layers of racialized oppression” and become “empowered participants, hearing their own stories and the stories of others” (Yosso, 2005, p. 75).

Sharing our testimonios through dialogues made us grow as friends and scholars to gain the strength to continue our journeys while sustaining our identities. We believe dialogue and reflexión can be transformative for others and confirms what other scholars have experienced

References

Delgado Bernal, D. (2008). La trenza de identidades: Weaving together my personal,
professional, and communal identities. In K. P. Gonzalez & R. V. Padilla (Eds.),
Doing the public good: Latina/o scholars engage civic participation (pp. 135-148). Stylus.

Espino, M., Vega, I., Rendón, L., Ranero, J., & Muñiz, M. (2012). The process of reflexión in
bridging testimonios across lived experience. Equity & Excellence in Education,
45(3), 444-459. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2012.698188

Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing appropriateness: Raciolinguistic ideologies and
language diversity in education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149–171.
https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149

Yosso. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community
cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006

Author

• Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo, University of Nebraska - Omaha