Personal, Emotional, Political: The Transformative Influence of the Pin@y Educational Partnerships (PEP)

• In Event: Narrowing the Distance: Critical Praxis With Asian Pacific Americans and Education

Abstract

The Pin@y (Filipina/o American) Educational Partnerships (PEP) is a pioneering educational leadership program that fosters Pinay/Pinoy urban educators through teaching critical Filipina/o American studies through K-college levels. PEP focuses on the experiences of Filipina/o and Filipina/o Americans founded on the principles of education as a form of memory, imagination, self-determination, and social justice. This paper provides a critical hermeneutical exploration of identity and the expanding discourse of Filipina/o American Studies and the larger field of education. Articulating the historical legacies of colonialism through the creation of curriculum, lesson plans, mentorship, and the promotion of Filipina/o Americans entering the fields of education are potential spaces in developing a new praxis of Filipina/o American Studies. PEP provides critical insight on how Filipina/o American identity, curriculum, and pedagogy are oriented in creating new narratives in education.

Through an interpretive anthropological and participatory inquiry serves as praxis of unraveling narratives based on the recollection of memory and conversation. The narratives of former and current PEP teachers, students, and board members will surface in conversations and will shape the basis for reflection through the theoretical domains of: mimesis, narrative identity, and communicative action. This paper contributes to the larger conversations of Ethnic Studies and critical pedagogy by uncovering how the PEP program has transformed people’s motivation towards civic engagement and critical cultural work.

Author

• Roderick Daus-Magbual, University of San Francisco