Intersectionality: A Teacher's Testimonio on Using Testimonio Pedagogy in a College Writing Class

• In Event: Testimonios de Aprendizaje in Aztlán, Gran México: Located-Transnational Decolonial Options of Critical Curricular-Pedagogical Praxis

Abstract

Objectives

This paper provides an answer to the question: What will dual-credit students and I experience when we engage with testimonio and visual representations within the context an Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)? Through a year and a half of writing testimonios in my doctoral studies, I discovered my lived mestiza consciousness. This conscientization created an urgency to try testimonio pedagogy in my classroom. Rigoberta Menchú (1985) provides the collectivist orientation for testimonio: “I didn’t learn it from a book, and I didn’t learn it alone. I’d like to stress that it’s not only my life. It’s also the testimony of my people” (p. 1).

Theoretical framework

I work through a tripartite framework that includes autohistorias, testimonio research, and decolonial alternatives. Anzaldua’s (2015) notions of autohistoria of self-knowledge leads the theoretical framework and lens for delinking colonized curriculum in the classroom. In addition, testimonio as the framework and methodology offers an pedagogical space as a reflective practitioner, student, Latina, and person of color (Delgado Bernal, 2012). Finally, the notion of decolonial alternatives deepen race-based work in the classroom because it can work from a place of context and create a social community (Paraskeva, 2013).

Method

I offer a preliminary and emergent account in my testimonio here about what it was like to learn and teach through testimonio pedagogy. Critical narratives through testimonios (Delgado Bernal et. al., 2012) for students and educators provides, “understanding of theory, they feel that they have the ‘language’ to explain why certain things happen in the way they do…Hence, students who start doing philosophy begin to interrogate themselves as researchers as they transform their framework of thinking and challenge ideas they have taken for granted” (Kim, 2016, p. 3).

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials

The data collected from participants are: student feedback in an open-ended survey, their written testimonios, and pláticas with students. In addition, a field journal informed the narrativized testimonio. Finally, the author’s testimonios and “papelitos guardados” (Latina Feminist Group, 2001, p. 1) were added to students’ documents. Analysis of these documents included autobiographical thematic emphases in combination with students’ lived experiences.

Findings

Testimonio is creating a critical consciousness that disrupts educators and students alike. While utilizing the testimonio in my classroom is still an emerging study, I claim writing testimonios created a conscientization for teaching and learning. This praxis is empowering not only myself but my students too.

Scholarly significance

Students and educators who engage in testimonio writing are experiencing lived curriculum, and through an opportunity of self-reflection, a decolonization awakening is created. The use of the testimonio directly in the classroom provides an opportunity for further inquiry by educators, education research, and teacher preparation programs.

References

Anzaldúa, G. (2015). Light in the darkness. Duke.
Kim, J. H. (2016). Locating narrative inquiry in the interdisciplinary context. Understanding narrative inquiry (pp. 1-26). Sage.

Menchú, R. & Burgos, E (1985). I, Rigoberta Menchú. Verso.

Paraskeva, J. M. (2013). Whose internationalism is it? Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, 9(1), 1-5.

Author

• Amy Montoya, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley