Autobiography Pt. 6: Education

I recently have been asked by a few people about how I became interested in antiracism.  In helping myself move forward, I realize that I need to look back.  Also, I hope to convey the sense that I too am on a journey; I am a work in progress.  This is part of my story.

One day at the end of my first year as a graduate assistant, I found myself herding a group of Black four year-olds across the campus of a local university.  Preschool was one of those things on my “never going to…” list, yet here I was, talking about shapes and handing out juice cups and cookies.  It was one of the more adventurous tasks I had done so far in my volunteer work as a graduate student.  Since this local university partners with an urban elementary school, our team was responsible to host the annual “College for a Day” field trip for the Pre-K and Kindergarten classes.

The main emphasis of the field trip, as written in the objectives, seemed to revolve around identification of shapes.  I had sorted shapes for the shape scavenger hunt, compiled a shapes book with a song to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell,” and grouped the students by class with corresponding color-coded shape name tags.  However, as evidenced by the title, the overarching goal of the field trip was to familiarize children and their parents to the university.  This was not included in the written objectives, however.  I only became aware of the connection between the title of the field trip and the location of the scavenger hunt when the team leader commented as much.  

As I drove to university that morning, I had been thinking about the elementary school.  I had heard about the partnership all year, but I only visited the elementary school at the end of the year when I was asked to help with a parent night.  They needed another pair of hands to scoop ice cream for the banana splits given out at the end of a night of literacy activities.  I showed up with my team T-shirt and an ice scream scoop I had been instructed to bring.  As I walked in the door, I found my way to the cafeteria, where the university students were congregating.  Most of my night was spent splitting bananas, so I really didn’t have time to think about the parent night until the parents and the students made their way back to the cafeteria.  

All the university students also gathered around the ice cream to help with distribution.  It was at this moment that the whole scene hit me in Black and White:  all the people standing in line were Black, and all the people behind the counter handing out melting ice and browning bananas were White.  I suddenly had a feeling similar to when I had participated in mission trips to Mexico, except then we were a bunch of White people handing out plates of rice and beans with a donut on top to a large crowd of Brown people. I looked around at the other university students and wondered if they noticed what I did, but the ice cream was melting fast so I couldn’t ponder for long.  

The morning of the field trip as I waited in my car, I wondered how White education students were prepared to work in an all-Black school. Did they find it shocking that there was an all-Black school, as I did?  I knew I had only seen a few Black university students on campus, so I was pretty sure most of the students were White and from all-White schools and communities. Did they think about the fact that their schools had been all-White?  I knew that I hadn’t.  In fact, I would later find out that schools in our nation are almost as segregated now as they were in the "Jim Crow" era (Kozol, 2006).

Later in the day, as I helped guide the preschoolers and their parents across the university’s campus in search of shapes, I was keenly aware of “race” as we passed students, faculty and staff.  I started counting Black people that I saw, feeling almost embarrassed in front of the Black parents and children at the lack of people of color in the crowds.  The parents asked questions about the different buildings on campus, obviously more interested in the “College for a Day” emphasis than finding elusive shapes in the architecture.  The volunteer student who was acting as the group leader was indefatigable, however, keeping the group at a clipping pace in search of shapes.

Eventually, the group passively instituted a scenic break, which was facilitated by three Marines, two White and one Black, who were set up with a booth and a sit-up bar stationed in the center of campus.  The Marines were meant to recruit college students, but the Black Marine started chatting with the parents, as the White Marines stood back awkwardly. One parent attempted a few sit ups, and then the children wanted to try.  The Black Marine patiently hoisted four year-olds one by one up to the sit-up bar for the next twenty minutes, while the White Marines handed out the water bottles.  I wondered at myself internally at being so focused on “race” suddenly.

We made our way back to regroup as a team, where I finally relaxed from a long morning.  As we debriefed, we found out that one of the parents was mad because we hadn’t talked about going to college with the children.  One team member suggested that it wasn’t really age appropriate anyway. Now, I have a limited understanding of early childhood development and I don’t like to look foolish.  However, I thought about my own small child and what I might say to him about college.  I ventured, “I don’t know… could you say something about the ‘big kids’ school or something?  Like, ‘This is college and one day you can go here’?” Another person responded, “The children already know that!  The parents just don’t understand what we’re doing in our partnership with this school.”

I fell silent, feeling out of my league.  I didn’t have experience teaching kids.  I had always said I didn’t want to teach kids.  Something about being a parent of a toddler gave me new confidence, though.  I was pretty sure someone could tell the children about attending a university one day in an age appropriate way.  Also, I sensed that the parent had a legitimate complaint.  I walked myself through the field trip again, remembering how most of the Black faces I had seen on campus had been maintenance workers.  Intuitively, I understood that if I were Black I would not receive an implicit message that “one day you can go to college here.”  If the children received any implicit message that day it was, “This is where the White people go to college, but maybe someday you can be a janitor or a cafeteria worker here.”  

I decided to try again, “I wonder if the parent would have liked to hear that message, that ‘one day you can go here.’ Otherwise, do the kids realize they could go here someday?”  Another team member responded, “Well, I do wonder if it isn’t a little bit cruel to have them here.  I mean, most of them won’t end up here.  And if they do, they will probably be athletes.”  

Again, I had no response, although I felt there was definitely some stereotyping going on.  Was it cruel to bring the families?  I thought about the parents I had met that day.  They seemed pleased to be on campus.  They spoke of how happy they were that their children were at this elementary school, and how happy they were with the teacher this year.   From what I could tell, they had high aspirations for their children’s education.  It is not a stretch to say that they may have perceived the field trip to be the equivalent of a campus tour put on by the university's recruitment office.  What had been communicated to them, I wondered?  Which goals and objectives had they heard?  Did the shape scavenger hunt seem patronizing, while the university students failed to include information about the campus and the university?  There did not seem to be satisfactory answers, but I suddenly knew my research focus had to change.  I had to answer these questions.  

Autobiography Pt. 7: Anti-racism

References

• Kozol, J. (2006). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (Reprint.). Broadway.

Autobiography Pt. 5: Protestants and Jesuits

I recently have been asked by a few people about how I became interested in antiracism.  In helping myself move forward, I realize that I need to look back.  Also, I hope to convey the sense that I too am on a journey; I am a work in progress.  This is part of my story. 

I had barely finished my first semester of teaching, when I found myself meeting with the director of service-learning at the Jesuit university where I worked.  I explained my idea for a service-learning ESL class, trying to determine if it would be eligible for the grant that had been advertised to faculty.  During that meeting, I got the feeling that I actually knew quite a lot about service-learning from my own experiences a volunteer.     

I intuitively sensed what needed to happen in order to make for a good experience.  I needed to go with my students and convey the idea that we were not “saving” the neighborhood.  In fact, volunteers often caused a mess for the cooperating organization.  Volunteers needed to be trained, they were unfamiliar with the neighborhood, and ultimately, they went back to their own neighborhoods at the end of the day, leaving community folks in the same circumstances as before.  Since the students were not the workers “on the ground” on a daily basis, the focus had to be getting to know people in the community, learning about the community’s needs, and then finding ways to partner with the community.   

I could see how much I had assimilated from my friends at a local, urban Presbyterian church over the years.  I had begun work with them as a know-it-all twenty year-old, but slowly they had been getting through to me.  Here I was, years later, quoting them almost verbatim.  I had told the service-learning director how my understanding of service was deeply shaped by my Christian faith.  For my friends at the urban Protestant church, faith was the driving force and underlying framework for all that they did in the neighborhood where they lived and worked.   

Unlike other Christians I had encountered in my life, these folks talked about “race” and racial inequality.  They were a racially and socioeconomically diverse congregation, and were committed to racial reconciliation, relocation into urban areas, and redistribution of wealth and resources.  They drew from a long tradition in the Christian church, including African American theology, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I only knew that the way they theorized about racial stratification and oppression was very different from anything I had ever heard before, and it had direct practical and moral implications.   

I had listened intently as the service-learning director explained how Jesuits had a similar mission related to service and education.  In fact, the grant was specifically targeted faculty who sought to connect their calling, or vocation, and spirituality with their work in education.  This was a new idea for me; up until that point, I had largely divided "career" and "ministry" into mutually exclusive categories.  I applied for the grant and was one of four recipients that summer, which opened the door to many other unforgettable experiences.

That next semester, I found myself leading a team of two teachers in the fall.  I had ambitiously planned five service projects per class, and I participated in almost all of them.  The next semester, and following semester, the service-learning component of the ESL program exploded.  There was a service-learning component on two levels, then three, and finally all five levels.  The program simultaneously experienced a surge of new students from mainland China; over the course of three years, the program went from thirty students to three hundred. Almost all of them ended up raking leaves and hearing the story of the good Samaritan on various Saturday mornings. 

The dynamics of this Jesuit-Protestant partnership were complicated for some.  For example, anyone who had grown up in St. Louis, a Catholic town, could have mixed feelings about Catholic institutions, the big business side of things, Popes, and scandals.  Growing up as a Protestant, I had to shed my own bias about the Catholic church.  On the other hand, it was sometimes a challenge to explain why we were working with a Protestant non-profit organization.  The reason for me was pretty obvious—they were the only organization that would take more than fifteen ESL students at a time during a service project.  However, for some of my colleagues, evangelical Protestants were just as bad as Catholics, or worse.  To them, Protestants and Catholics might all be hypocritical, but at least Catholics didn't try to "convert" people.  

Over the years, these tensions have caused me to read and listen more widely in search of an authentic faith, a Christian identity that is not based on hostility towards others.  And I think it’s fitting that my roots can be traced back to two groups seemingly opposed groups, Protestants and Jesuits.  I find great inspiration from the tradition of the Jesuits, as they were kicked out of most countries in the world for advocating for the poor and the oppressed.  I love hearing what different Protestant groups are doing around the world in terms of reconciliation, relocation, and redistribution. These people are following the footsteps of Jesus, the rabble-rouser and revolutionary.  Jesus, who hung out with all the wrong people.  Jesus, who’s mission was to find the lost and uplift the poor.  I’m grateful for my Protestant and Jesuit friends who pointed me back to Jesus.  

Autobiography Pt. 6: Education 

Autobiography Pt. 7: Antiracism

I recently have been asked by a few people about how I became interested in antiracism.  In helping myself move forward, I realize that I need to look back.  Also, I hope to convey the sense that I too am on a journey; I am a work in progress.  This is part of my story. 

I think I’ve always wanted a message.  When I was very young, perhaps five years old, maybe so young I only remember because my mom told me the story, I told my mom, “I want a burden.”  I had heard people in church say very solemnly to each other or from the pulpit that God had given them a “burden” for this person or that cause.  It sounded exciting and important, so I decided that I wanted a “burden,” too.   

This would possibly explain my second ambition in life besides being Mexican, which was to be the President of the United States.  I eventually came to realize that not only was it unlikely that I would become the President, but I also saw that perhaps it wasn’t the only way to change the world.  I spent a few years in a non-profit prayer ministry, where I decided that prayer was the only way to change the world.  When circumstances forced me to get a paying job, I decided that I could do something, too.  I eventually trained to be an ESL teacher, and thought that it could be the mission I was looking for.  Teaching very privileged ESL students, however, didn’t feel like changing the world.  My boss and I often commiserated about our move away from social activism.  I think this is why the service-learning component became so important to both of us.   

Only a few short months after deciding to change my research focus in my Ph.D., I found myself standing in front of a small but attentive audience.  I could feel my face flush, and I was consciously taking breaths of air, but I plunged ahead.  I watched the audience respond as I spoke, sometimes with amazement, sometimes nodding in agreement, sometimes shaking their head with remorse.  In some ways, this presentation was the culmination of many years.   

Mostly, I wondered how it could be that I was educating people about “race” and racism, when I had only just begun this topic. To top it off, I was presenting in the building where I attended church on Sunday mornings.  I marveled at the turn of events.  For years, I had wanted to be the one teaching from the front.  However, I rarely saw women in this position, and if I did, they were much older than I was.  Now I was presenting as a doctoral student, which apparently meant I possessed the necessary credentials.   

I gave a historical overview of the social construction of “Whiteness” in the U.S.  At the end, people asked interested and concerned questions.   

“My husband is a White teacher in an all-Black school.  What can he do to be antiracist?”

“I go to an all-Black church.  The people say they have to ‘act White’ all week and just want a place to let down.  Is that contributing to segregation?”

 “So if people of color understand that racism still exists, but White people don’t, how can White people learn more about discrimination and racism?”

Everyone seemed to think I had answers, and to my amazement, I at least had opinions about all the questions they raised.

At the end, a Black man approached me, “Would you be interested in giving this presentation at the school where I work?  I don’t know if I would get away saying the things you said.” He hesitated, “I mean, you can say it, but if I say it…” I interjected, “Then you're the ‘angry Black person.’”  He nodded in agreement.  “I would love to come.  Just let me know,” I found myself saying, feeling a mixture of excitement at the speaking opportunity and frustration at the dynamics of privilege and oppression. 

My friends who had organized the conference posted their encouragement later on Facebook.  It was really thanks to their foresight and support that I had the chance to talk about what I had learned over the summer.  They had shared some of their own story at the conference.  For my friends, an interracial couple, the antiracist message was very personal. 

With the conference, I saw myself shift from insecurity to resolution as I was surrounded by people who also felt strongly about racism and segregation in this country.  The criticisms I had received slowly faded into the background, no longer the dominant voices in my head.  This was a message that could sustain me over the long-haul, through a Ph.D., into a career and beyond.  In my view, it is the critical message for this generation.  Racism has shaped our society in ways that many of us are unable to see.   This is a work I must undertake.

Autobiography Pt. 4: Sociolinguistics

I recently have been asked by a few people about how I became interested in antiracism.  In helping myself move forward, I realize that I need to look back.  Also, I hope to convey the sense that I too am on a journey; I am a work in progress.  This is part of my story.

I somehow managed to not take a linguistics class in my undergraduate or graduate studies.  As I attempted to join the professional world of ESL teachers, read scholarly journals, and discuss grammar with colleagues, I was often aware of my lack of terminology.  So one year into a doctoral program in I decided it might be a good time to fill in the gaps in my knowledge by taking an introductory linguistics course.   

The first few weeks of the course were mostly uneventful.  I reveled in the new terms revolving around morphology and phonology.  I drilled myself on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), something I always felt was missing over the years, especially when my ESL students all knew it and I didn’t.  But my favorite topic of them all is sociolinguistics.  

I think I should mention at this point that while the professor was once at the top of her field, she was at this time having some short-term memory issues.  So sometimes we got the same PowerPoint presentation three days in a row, for example.  By the time the professor launched into the sociolinguistics portion of the course, I was a little frustrated, to say the least.  One particular incident stands out in my mind that revealed my deep commitment to sociolinguistics, as well as an underlying antiracist streak that surfaced with unexpected passion. 

During the second half of the semester, we arrived at the part in the textbook which dealt with dialects.  There were several activities that asked students to “translate” British English into American English; the phrases were all Harry Potter excerpts.  On the next page, students were asked to “translate” similar phrases from African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to Standard American English.  These phrases were almost indistinguishable from popular slang as seen on TV, with a few example of AAVE grammatical structure thrown in.  

I didn’t pay much attention to these activities, but our instructor was fascinated. During one particular class period, we spent the majority of the time going over the answers.  She spent several minutes reveling over the different idioms from British English, asking us if we were familiar with each phrase.  “Do people really say this?”  The students seemed a bit confused by her questioning.  “Um… Mrs. Weasley does?”  

After spending a few minutes trying to explain to her the differences between the British phrase “to knock something up” and the American phrase “to get knocked up,” we moved on the AAVE phrases.  Again, the instructor repeatedly asked if we had heard these phrases and whether Black people really talked like this.  

After several rounds of this game, I finally commented, “I don’t know if we are the best people to ask about this, since we are all White.  I mean, we have heard these phrases, but…” 

“Oh, yes,” she replied, “You probably don’t really hear this kind of language since you are at this university and most people at this university are very educated.”

I felt slightly ruffled.  I should have known to take it easy on the arguing, since the turns of conversation would soon get lost in her fading short-term memory, but I went on, “Well, I don’t know if it has anything to do with education.  I mean, like the textbook says, dialects have to do with group solidarity and identity.  And every dialect is a fully comprehensive language, capable of any thought possible to humans, right? It’s only that some dialects are afforded more power than others" (Smitherman, 1985). 

“Oh, yes, that’s true.”

She didn’t seem very convincing, so I kept going, “And someone who is educated could use this dialect. In fact, most Black people who use this dialect code-switch to Standard American English.  That actually requires more mental resources than just speaking one dialect. 

“Oh, yes, code-switching, that’s right.  But of course, it’s mostly less educated people who speak this way.” 

At this point, I was having a hard time listening to what she was saying.  I was becoming agitated, mentally contemplating how to respond as the words came out of my mouth, “You know, I am finding your comments to sound really racist.”

“Oh, no, I'm not racist.  You are misunderstanding me.  I am just trying to explain… it’s just that these people don’t really make it to this university.”

I was now shaking.  Almost in an out of body experience, I saw myself packing up my books even as I thought, “Am I really going to walk out of the class?”  The instructor was still talking, but I was no longer contained within myself.  As if in a dream, I was up and walking across the room, as I mumbled something like, “I’m sorry… I’ll come back when I calm down.” 

I was across the lawn, walking fast before I realized I had actually left the building.  As I walked into the other building, the adrenaline let down but I was still shaking, my teeth chattering slightly.  I must have looked upset because the two instructors in the copy room stopped talking and asked what had happened.  I recounted the incident quickly, still shaking. The instructor shook their heads, “Wow, she is really losing it.  You know you don’t say those things.”  

“Right…” But there were questions looming in my head.  Wasn’t what she said wrong to believe, too? And why wasn’t anyone else upset at all?  Was I going crazy?  I felt crazy, but I also remembered the feeling I had in class.  What if there had been a Black student sitting there listening to the instructor go on and on?  How would that student feel?  And why did I feel the need to defend this hypothetical Black student?  

A few days later, I sat in the department chair’s office.  I had met with the chair a few times this semester to talk about how the class was going.  This time, I explained to him that I had walked out and why.  I wasn’t officially reporting this instructor, since I knew she wouldn’t remember what exactly had happened; in fact, a week later she didn’t recall the details of the incident.  As I finished the story, the professor leaned back in his chair, folded his hands and looked pensive. 

“Well, now, let’s think about what she actually said,” he intoned. “Nothing she said was factually wrong... but you were upset, in any case.  In my experience, the African-American students who have come to this university have been… well, deficient in their education.”

“But that has to do with the education system.  There are fewer opportunities in poorer neighborhoods and fewer schools to choose from… and discrimination…” I was fumbling for arguments that weren’t formulating clearly or quickly in my mind. 

“Yes, but everything you just said were reasons why they might be deficient. You haven’t disproved my initial statement.  Now, I know that that there are physical differences between the races, like a wider nose and lips.  I don’t know if there are mental differences,” he paused and stared at me intently. “I don’t think you do either.” 

I was painfully silent.  I didn’t know.  I couldn’t argue against him, even though his logic felt instinctively wrong to me.  The arguments were elusive and slippery.  I was surprisingly calm this time, as I felt resignation wash over me.  

Later someone congratulated me on walking out.  But I really felt inadequate and helpless.  I didn’t really feel proud of verbally sparring with an aging professor who was really very sweet and confused.  At the same time, I wondered why the other students in the class weren’t upset.  I also felt that there had to be some way to refute the argument that the department chair presented, but I just couldn’t work it out.  It wasn’t until much later, after several courses on racial identity, discrimination, and the social construction of racial difference that I started to put things together.

While I had a good foundation laid in sociolinguistics, I was sadly ignorant about the way racial difference is constructed socially.  Over the next summer, I saw Race: The Power of an Illusion, which documents how new genetic evidence has completely debunked the premise of essentialist racism, the idea that different "race" are biologically distinct and hierarchical.  As it turns out, only about 2% of our genetic make-up accounts for the way that we look, or our phenotype.  "Race" has been and is socially constructed through daily interactions and laws that determine who fits into which category.  Those categories are essentially arbitrary and have changed over the course of history, affording privileges to White people and denying privileges to everyone else.  So in this way, "race" has real consequences in terms of opportunities and life outcomes. 

That day, I was kind of like an untrained cannon firing wildly.  I didn’t have a plan of action to refute those kinds of comments in a more effective, less accusatory way. Sometimes it’s hard to anticipate those very physical and emotional reactions, though.  Maybe it was good for the other students to see my reaction to those comments, even though they didn’t seem to understand why I was upset.   The biggest lesson, though, was that I needed to get educated, so that next time--because there will be a next time--I will have something to say when it matters.

Autobiography Pt. 5: Protestants and Jesuits

  
References

• Herbes-Sommers, C., Strain, T. H., & Smith, L. (2003). Race: The power of an illusion [Television Series]. San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel & Independent Television Service.

• Race: The Power of an Illusion Website. (2003). PBS. Retrieved August 14, 2012, from http://www.pbs.org/race/   

• Smitherman, G. (1985). Talkin and testifyin: The language of Black America. Wayne State University Press.