Building Confidence Through Culturally Sustaining Spaces for Latinx Teachers

• In Event: Latinx American Scholars and Teachers Making the Decolonial Turn a Reality

Abstract

We share the testimonio of Linda, a Mexican American teacher that participates in and creates culturally sustaining schooling spaces. Linda describes these spaces as learning environments where her Mexican American students can safely share their cultural identities. Basing her knowledge on her own experience growing up as a Mexican American in the United States school system, she shares how culturally sustaining spaces build student and teacher confidence. The authors describe her testimonio as a decolonial Chicana theory that integrates culturally sustaining embodied and academic learning.

Chicana feminist, specifically mestiza perspectives on bilingual teacher education center on two important concepts. First, that teachers teach a subjugated community in a US school system (Delgado Bernal, 2001). Second, that schools impose a monocultural identity on all students instead of supporting students affectively and academically to have confidence in themselves, their diverse families and their individual abilities (Jackson, 2006).

This research was conducted using testimonio research methods (Ashmawi, Sanchez, & Carmona, 2018). As a method that privileges the lives of the marginalized, testimonio research asks participants to share their story as a political act that validates marginalized life experience and knowledge. As researchers, we developed a three-year collaborative relationship with Linda in Academia Cuauhtli before we asked a group of eight teachers, including Linda, to go through the tesimonio process of reflecting and sharing about their lived experiences as part of our research.
Academia Cuauhtli is a Saturday out-of-school education program in which Austin public school teachers use critical arts-based pedagogies to help Mexican American 9 and 10-year old children to explore their cultural identities, home cultures and civic activism. We are critical participant researchers whose aim is to collectively construct knowledge with community and educator partners to work together to facilitate the education of the students. Central to our relational research approach is getting to know program participants and to work collaboratively to use our collective knowledge and life experience in our work (Torres & Reyes, 2011).
The authors conducted Linda’s initial testimonios between October 2016 through February 2017. The purpose of the testimonios were to capture her personal and professional experiences as a bilingual/bicultural educator as well as any perceived impact Academia Cuauhtli had on her praxis. The findings from these interviews pointed to life experiences as a primary source of critical consciousness and teacher development. The data was analyzed using qualitative data analysis software using codes generated from testimonios, including community rootedness, schooling and identity. Linda then gave critical feedback to these findings during the summer of 2020. For instance, during her initial interviews, she described the importance of safe spaces in her teaching, but as we discussed this article, she clarified and defined these spaces as culturally sustainable spaces. Based on a combination of written drafts and shared conversations, we then collaboratively wrote this article.

Authors

• Christopher Milk Bonilla, Texas State University - San Marcos

• Brenda Rubio, University of North Texas

• Luz Alvarez-Sims, Austin Independent School District