A Convivir: Practicing Solidarity as Researcher through Chicana/Latina Feminist Testimonios

• In Event: Rooted in Relations: Tracing Connections Across Women of Color Methodologies to Reimagine Educational Justice

Abstract

Grounded in LatCrit (Espinoza & Harris, 1997; Pérez Huber, 2009; Yosso, 2005) and UndocuCrit (Aguilar, 2018), this study centered the voices Latine DACAmented educators as it explored the factors that influenced their decision to enter the teaching profession, the impact of their dual vivencias as Latine and undocumented individuals on their teaching practices and relationships with students and families, as well as the supports needed to persist as educators. Using Chicana/Latina feminist testimonios (Delgado-Bernal et al, 2012), this study captured the counter-narratives of six undocumented teachers while also honoring the collaborative data analysis process of Chicana/Latina feminist epistemologies through two plática sessions.

Testimonio has deep roots in the liberation, resistance, and social movements of Latino America and other Third World countries (Latina Feminist Group, 2001; Reyes & Currey Rodriguez, 2012). Latine have utilized this method to give voice, document, and bear witness to and denounce injustices while gaining an understanding of the often silenced experiences of oppressed groups (Booker, 2002; Latina Feminist Group, 2001; Pérez Huber, 2009).

This presentation emphasizes how the testimonios of the co-creators of this study were created in a space of convivencia. Trinidad Galván (2011) emphasizes that the intentional choice to share and be in the presence of others is what truly defines convivir as a state of coexistence and connection. I was acutely aware of my own vivencia, my own reality of privilege as a U.S.-born Latina and that which tied us together, our culture, and our parents' aspirations for us. Like the co-creators in this study, I am a Latina educator who has served her community for the last twenty years in the public school system. The daughter of Salvadoran immigrants, I am among the first-generation members of my family to have been born in the United States. Within my family, some live liminal lives due to their legal status in this country. I recognize the privilege afforded to me by my citizenship and the opportunities it has granted me, recognizing that many individuals are unable to access them.

In a sense, I as the researcher represented a dual vivencia of both the colonizer and the colonized, a living example of the complexities of the spaces I occupy and what I represent as a doctoral student from the academy, a space in which few undocumented occupy (Villenes, 1996). Yet, it was in conviviendo with the co-creators of this study that we shared knowledge and vivencias in an effort to dismantle systems of oppression, call in community, and my own growth. Their testimonios have much to tell us and teach us what it means to convivir with one another, to improve our public schools and move them beyond mere survival but strive for a sense of supervivencia, a state of beyondness (Trinidad Galván, 2011). I highlight how the testimonios of DACAmented educators and the process of engaging in convivencia creates openings for enacting critical solidarity through the praxis of research.

Author

• Ana Farina de Ramirez, Vacaville Unified School District