Zapatista narrative epistemology, Latinx-American Students

• In Event: Experiences of Latinx, Indeginous Latinx, and Mexican Students with Arts and Community Education

Abstract

This essay describe how a group of Mexican American and Mexican female middle school students in Mexico wrote poems to share their reflections with some other students from the Academia Cuauhtli in Austin, Texas. Since the goal is disrupting the mono-lingual and mono-cultural perspective on narratives, I incorporated Zapatista narrative epistemology as a method of grasping epistemological knowledge from poetry in education. Specifically, I created a connection between the Zapatista metaphor of La Defensa Zapatista girl and the Mexican-American and Mexican girl’s poems to bring out how important is for those middle schools students growing up without fear as La Defensa Zapatista states. This essay addresses the importance of incorporating the Mexican American and Mexican students as Latinx-American peripheral creators of knowledge that the Western canon does not validate due to epistemological racism in the logics of inquiry.

Author

• RAUL OLMO FREGOSO BAILON, West Chester University of Pennsylvania