This volume, which is largely the work of scholars who actively and presently work with Latino students, is of value because it represents the everyday observations of concerned, activist teachers who have at their center a desire for the success of their students as literate human beings. Most of the essays collected in the volume represent observations and reflections, not new theory. The book is based on scholarship presented at the Texas A & M University Literacy Symposium titled “Literacies and Literary Representations: Posing Questions, Framing Conversations about Language and Hispanic Identities.”
As detailed in the introduction, one of the first cultural debates the editing team had was about labeling and the use of the terms Hispanic and Latino. The dilemma of self-labeling is further explored in the first essay by Juan Guerra. The notion of labeling and whether it occurs inside or outside of a group is one of the many, varied topics relating to identity this anthology explores. Most of the other essays investigate notions of identity and expressions of that identity through discursive practices. The contributors are ethnically and racially a diverse group who utilize the work of other diverse scholars in field.
Guerra’s essay, “Emerging Representations, Situated Literacies, and the Practice of Transcultural Repositioning” is more a historical survey of the problems and trends that accompany a minority group’s ascendance into the public sphere of discourse, than a revelation of new theory. All the major pedagogy/literacy players are mentioned here: Freire, Macedo Heath, Ong, and Gee. The problem of self identification is Guerra’s focus and especially the implications for self identification in the problematic circumstances of a country like the U.S. at this particular place in time. The challenging aspect of how to name (or if naming should occur at all) a group that has been misunderstood, omitted, and linguistically terrorized with all the misrepresentional tools of the western world is a difficult one to say the least. Although Latinos will comprise about one-quarter of the population of the U.S. by 2050, questioning the idea of ‘self representation” and what that will look like is far from over. The population numbers alone are what make this effort so important.
In this discussion Guerra cites media representation, the music industry, publishing (popular and academic) as sites in which what it is to be Latino is mis-read, distorted, and subject to consumerist models of how to be. Guerra concedes that even academics who seek to explore the issues of Latino identity are also at the mercy of their mandate to succeed both “professionally and economically” (p. 12).
One mode of thinking which Guerra offers as a beginning out of the malaise is the notion of “transcultural repositioning” (p. 8). In an effort to search out “ a better understanding of how our multifaceted self-representations and our multiple ways with words can be used to enhance rather than restrict our ability to move fluidly in and out of the porous communities that currently comprise our nation,” (p. 8) Guerra offers up transcultural repositioning. Guerra acknowledges in his concept the writing of Vivian Zamel and Min-Zhan Lu, as well as the idea of “continuously changing consciousness” offered up by Stanley Fish (p. 17). This is not a concept that is in any way an ultimate way of viewing oneself, but rather an ever evolving concept for self-identification. The struggle over who represents whom is always a battle when a group has been compromised for centuries by a dominate culture.
Michelle Hall Kells’ essay about her failed attempt to analyze code-switching in a group of Latino graduate students speaks to the strength of insider vs. outsider intimacies. Even when she grants her subjects a limited “collaborator” status they will not reveal that inner dual language which they use only among intimate family and friends. We see how the notion of class and the theory of primary/secondary discourse is tied to this reluctance. Code-switching is a form of communication which these graduate language students have left in their private sphere and it is clearly acknowledged by them that it is considered part of a lower class discursive practice. Standard forms of English and Spanish have become part of their primary discourse over the years of their education. One of the students admitted to using his “teacher’s Spanish” with Kells “so [she]could follow along” (p. 33).
It isn’t that the group doesn’t engage in code-switching, it is that it is not something that can be performed (in the theatrical sense) or recreated for an outsider. And it seems naïve of Kells to think that with such short physical contact (3 weeks), as well as the differences in ethnicity and culture, she could assume a role in their lives as an intimate observer. Because of their education, they view the world with a double consciousness, with each form of language (Spanish/English/Code-switching) occupying its own solidly walled sphere (family, colleagues, friends/colleagues, friends, family /intimate family, intimate friends).
Realizing that Hip Hop has reached outside of the African-American community into other cultures including the world of Latino youth, Jon A. Yasin’s essay, “Keepin’ It Real: Hip Hop and El Barrio,” chronicles his work to find common ground between the discursive practices within Hip Hop rhymes and teaching standard composition. Hip Hop is considered in this work to be part of the student’s primary discourse. Yasin’s first task was to find the similarities in the process of writing both. In Hip Hop it is not surprising that he identifies similarities in planning: “identifying and developing an idea: identifying specific, detailed information into a coherent message,” and, organizing the message: “continuously revising that message for clarity as one writes” (p. 57).
Yasin’s ideas aren’t new. At the end of the paper he lists other instructors who are using Hip Hop as part of their pedagogy in a variety of disciplines. But his essay does clarify some of the issues that arise when a teacher decides to bring an alternative discursive form into the classroom on par with the dominant standard. Along with the new language practice, alternative ways of thinking about the world must also be acknowledged. Any instructor who wants to reach students using a methodology such as this must also be willing to stumble upon the counter-messages within that new text. This is the additional value of this essay; Yasin’s reflection on the other cultural variables which will be outed when a teacher tries to reach students using structures embedded in their primary discourse.
An interesting essay that explores language, literacy and culture with implications for visual literacy is Ralph Cintron’s “Valerio’s Walls and the Rhetorics of the Everyday.” In this work Cintron confronts the Learning Disabled label as it is meted out in the school system of one Chicago suburb. When his subject Valerio is labeled LD by the school system and his parents, Cintron examines Valerio’s desire to escape the label that surrounds him both at school and home. Valerio constructs a “wall of dreams” in his bedroom - pictures of marines, cars and baseball players that connote strength (normalcy, agency) and it is through this wall that Cintron discerns the future that Valerio is imagining for himself. Valerio’s wall is a site of resistance to, and subversion of the inequities he experiences at school and the lack of hope at home.
There is a shameful political question that Cintron articulates in this essay and that is the application of the LD label to begin with. He problematizes the distinct power differences between the examiner and the student at the point of testing for LD. And he hypothesizes the idea that LD “may be created in the moment of dialogue between participants who are unequally powerful … [and] that LD may be less in the tested subject and more in the sociopolitical contexts in which the testing occurs” (p. 73).
Ways to empower students to articulate their cultural literacies seems to be the goal of all of these instructors. Daniel Villa’s essay about students who wanted to reclaim their Spanish-language heritage for personal and professional reasons shows us about resurfacing pride in Spanish, and resistance to the notion of English-only models for success. Diana Cardenas relates her personal odyssey through the corridors of the dominant and bigoted education system and her commitment as a teacher today to use political and cultural activism in her classroom to educate and empower her students. Indeed throughout this book there is hope that there are some creative answers to many of the most pressing problems in minority education today.
If one is seeking new theoretical ideas in the field of literacy this is not the volume to read. There are no cutting-edge essays here. All of this ground has been covered by others with perhaps sharper acumen. However, if an account of the successes and failures of working teachers who are attempting to bring new pedagogies into their classes in the real world, not the ivy league or the ivory tower, is of interest, some of the essays in this anthology may be worth the time.
Pages: 127 Price: $19.00 ISBN: 0-86709-544-X
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