Zine-making as Praxis: DIY in Ethnic Studies Classrooms and Beyond

• In Event: (Re)Engaging Ethnic Studies in American Studies: The Possibilities of Creation, Solidarity, and Student Organizing

Abstract

Zines are often used in community spaces and radical organizations to disseminate information in an accessible way. In an Ethnic Studies classroom, zines and zine-making can be used as tools and visual methods to shed light on subversive histories that challenge power and hegemony. This reflective paper focuses on a creative pedagogical approach, zine-making, in an Introduction to Chicana/o Studies course and an Environmental Justice: Race, Class, and Gender course at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and UCLA. Moving beyond traditional papers as a final project, students in these courses were tasked with creating zines that visually and descriptively underscore an idea, keyword, and/or theme discussed in class, such as third-world liberation front, settler colonialism, environmental racism, and place-based ecological knowledge. In both classes, the final zine assignment asked the following: How can your zine be used as a tool to understand a theme or course concept in the class? How can your zine help someone not taking this course understand a theme or course concept and, perhaps, encourage them to engage in a liberatory struggle and/or movement? Drawing from my observations as an instructor and lecturer in these Ethnic Studies courses, my students’ zines, and reflections, this paper demonstrates how zines and zine-making provide students at the margins the opportunity to see themselves as producers of knowledge and connect localized struggles with global liberatory struggles. Further, this paper highlights how zine-making reinforces the role of the Ethnic Studies classroom as a space of radical possibility and praxis, where liberatory education is about producing tools of resistance and envisioning just futures.

Author

• Rocio Rivera-Murillo, University of California, Los Angeles