A Querencia Framework as Counternarrative and Resistance in Ethnic Studies: Place-Based Pedagogies for Liberation

• In Event: Ethnic Studies Access, Considerations, and Cultivations in Times of Uncertainties Across State and District Contexts

Abstract

Objective
Within a matter of days, the Supreme Court ruled that the State has a right to regulate a woman’s body, but not a gun. Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association, expressed, “[This order is] another example of how, over the last few years, we have seen the same faction of politicians working overtime to reverse decades of progress on racial justice, on women’s rights, on worker’s rights, on LGBTQ+ rights, on voting rights, on our right to privacy, and on our students’ freedom to learn in our public schools” (Schwartz, 2022). For two years, our team has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in diverse ethnic studies (ES) classrooms in the Southwest. We examined how these teachers navigated the pandemic and blowbacks against equity by creating classroom communities where all students can thrive and become connected to their culture, histories, languages, and traditions. Thus, we ask: How do ES teachers affirm students’ identities, lived experiences, and community knowledge?

Querencia
Querencia is the “love of home, love of place” (Anaya, 2020, p. xv). However, it moves beyond this idea because querencia encapsulates the desire and love to reconnect with one’s language, culture and history–to be no longer separated from ancestral teachings, wisdom, and knowledge. Furthermore, querencia explains how through our “stories, songs, poetry, alabados, fiestas, the joy and suffering of our ancestors” (p. xx) contains the source of our inspirations, aspirations, dreams, and hopes. Moreover, querencia describes a resolana (Anaya, 2020) where we come together as a community to discuss our challenges. Therefore, querencia is an apt framework to discuss and analyze how ES teachers create spaces where critical thinking and dialogue is nurtured, and students’ lived-experiences, community knowledge, and ancestral wisdom is affirmed.

Data Collection and Analysis
The main sources of data for this study were virtual and in-person classroom observations of five ES teachers at five different high schools in a large urban school district in the Southwest. Each teacher was observed three to four times a week through ethnographic field notes. Semi-structured individual interviews were also conducted. Inductive analysis and the constant comparative methods were utilized to systematically code data, develop categories, and address issues of connectedness (Saldana, 2016).

Findings
One striking observation was the rich classroom environments: the posters, images, and art (“Defend the Sacred”) created a space where a students’ community/ancestral knowledge was highlighted. Another essential feature was expressed by Joaquin, a Chicano teacher, who discussed querencia, “It comes out of being able to see themselves in the curriculum…they get language in the class that sounds like what’s happening in their homes.” Lastly, each teacher embodied this cuento in the classroom, con el corazón abierto, la cultura cura–with an open heart, the culture cures–because students’ whole selves were cherished.

Conclusion and Significance
In sum, these classrooms emphasized criticality, community engagement, intersectionality, the dynamics of power, cultural freedom, and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Sleeter and Zavala, 2020). Querencia is part and parcel of liberatory pedagogies that affirm students’ humanity and sense of self.

Authors

• Shiv R. Desai, University of New Mexico
  Presenting Author

• Nancy López, University of New Mexico
  Presenting Author