The Pedagogical Affordances of a Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Praxis

• In Event: Exploring Creativity as Community Cultural Wealth, In and Beyond the Classroom

Abstract

Objectives
The art of letter writing stands as a hallmark of communication and learning between individuals, and within communities across time and space. Beyond providing a glimpse into the lives of everyday people, letters (sometimes called epistles) shed light on events, intimate feelings and pedagogical processes guiding an epistolarian’s understanding about the world (Chávez-García, 2016). When Writers of Color engage very explicitly with letter writing as a creative act, they forge deeper connections with the self and they develop more complete understandings about the worlds they make (Anzaldúa, 1981; 2012; Cisneros, 2018). In short: letters teach us something about our place in the world and we come to learn about the intricacies of those worlds when we activate the pedagogical affordances of letter writing. Building on the liberatory tradition of creative writing prominent in Ethnic Studies (Lorde, 2012; Mckenzie-Mavinga, 2003) and leaning into the transformative potential of letter writing as pedagogy (Moore & Seeger, 2009), this paper details how letter writing can be used as a Critical Race Feminista intervention in higher education. This paper posits the following questions: (1) How can faculty nurture critical creativity in the higher education classroom by using letter writing as a pedagogical intervention? And (2) How, if at all, do Students of Color (SOC) reclaim their agentive capabilities when engaging in a Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Praxis?

Theoretical Framework
This research couples Chicana Feminist Theories (CFT) with Critical Race Theory in Education (CRT) to form a Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Praxis (CRFEP; Escobedo, 2024). A CRFE is a writing-based intervention that uplifts opportunities for Individuals of Color to communicate, through letter writing, their understanding of and resistance against the historical legacies and contemporary manifestations of intersectional oppressions. Working from a CRFEP in the classroom means uplifting opportunities for Writers of Color to transform textual spaces into creative spaces of pedagogical possibility.

Methodology & Data Sources
This study takes a qualitative approach to examine patterns of responses in handwritten and digital letters produced by undergraduate and graduate SOC enrolled in Ethnic Studies and Education Studies courses. Qualitative data presents in the form of 60 handwritten and digitally produced letters.

Study Findings & Scholarly Significance
Findings reveal that a CRFEP empowers SOC to negotiate their positionalities as change agents uniquely equipped to enact social transformation in education. In addition to documenting experiences of educational exclusion in their letters, epistolarians who lean into a CRFEP learn to write back to systems, structures, and individuals that have systematically perpetuated their disenfranchisement. They also foster historical redress when their blueprinted lessons for social change and (re)imaginings of social justice become forever cemented in a letter format (Escobedo, 2024; Lorde, 2012). Thus, in their creative processing, SOC began to reap the transformative potential of letter writing as pedagogy. In line with the AERA 2024 call to leverage creative ways of activating, “knowledge and wisdom rooted in communities and the traditions of learning and care,” this scholarship demonstrates how educators can employ epistolary-rooted pedagogical intervention in higher education teaching and learning.

Author

• Cindy R. Escobedo, University of California - Los Angeles