Centering Pinxy Narratives: Kuwentos and Kuwentuhan in History Education

• In Event: Redefining Asian American Success: Kuwentos of Radical Filipinx Pedagogies

Abstract

This paper centers Filipina/x/o kuwentos and kuwentuhan as radical tools within history education. Filipina/x/o kuwentos bring forth perspectives that are often marginalized or omitted from white, colonial narratives taught within history education. We recognize that there is no universal way of teaching or passing down history/knowledge and that history education is constructed in such a way that reproduces and maintains dominant ideologies within society. Therefore, we engage in the questions: How can kuwentos act as a form of resistance to universal ways of learning? How can engaging kuwentos and practicing kuwentuhan disrupt linear models of historical inquiry and recognize Pinxy students as active agents in history-making?

We draw from the three elements of kuwentuhan: (1) collective storying and memorying, (2) co-producing knowledge through Filipino talk story, and (3) a generational language (Gutierrez et al., 2023). These elements foreground how kuwentuhan can be utilized as both a pedagogy and a praxis, especially with Pinxy students in history education. When we engage in kuwentuhan, we embody the counternarratives that have been and are often omitted and misrepresented in education.

Jocson (2008) asserts that kuwentos are necessary for Ethnic Studies, multicultural, and antiracist education because they are used to provide counternarratives to dominant understandings of the collective history one typically learns within traditional history education spaces. Kuwentuhan (Francisco-Menchavez, 2022) is a form of Filipino talk story that “incorporates other people’s experiences as an individual conveys one’s own story” (p. 1528). Kuwentuhan allows for storytellers to embody kapwa, the Tagalog word that unifies “self” and “others,” thus recognizing a shared identity (Enriquez, 2004). In this paper, authors share their stories of how they have utilized kuwentos and kuwentuhan as pedagogical tools within history education. They expand on students’ kuwento projects and their experiences as educators engaging in kuwentuhan as a research method with colleagues and community practitioners.

Findings indicate how kuwentuhan is a tool for Filipina/x/o students to reclaim their history and identities in educational spaces. This Filipina/x/o cultural practice allows us to historicize who we are, where we come from, and how we resist the dominant narratives that try to erase us. Because kuwentuhan allows for the weaving of individual stories, storytellers are able to collectively build a shared identity that has the potential to create counter possibilities of learning, being, and doing, which speaks to the theme of remedy and repair.

While kuwentuhan has existed as a form of exchanging knowledge for generations in what is now known as the Philippines, the process of storytelling has been adopted within social science classrooms in the United States, particularly within Ethnic Studies. Kuwentuhan can be a strategy for knowledge exchange in the classroom and can also be used as a method of inquiry when collecting and analyzing data for research. Kuwentuhan allows students and teachers to engage in relational interaction to place their own and their families’ experiences within a larger socio-historical-political context when learning history.

Authors

• Lauren Arzaga Daus, University of California - Los Angeles

• Jocyl Sacramento, California State University - East Bay