Abstract
This chapter explores how the intersectionality of identity becomes a vital component of teaching and learning. Pedagogy infused with practices to include the background and understanding of the student can serve as an empowering approach of critical consciousness. Drawing from the work of Paolo Freire and Gloria Anzaldua, the author weaves the fundamentals of their theoretical perspectives with personal experiences and stories to provide insight into the foundational approach of educational purpose and philosophy.
TopCultural Identity: Roots And Realizations
I am visible—see this Indian face—yet I am invisible. I both blind them with my beak nose and am their blind spot. But I exist, we exist. They'd like to think I have melted in the pot. But I haven't. We haven't. (Anzaldúa, 1999, p. 108)
My great-grandparents and their siblings were part of the recruitment efforts to bring people from Mexico to work on the Santa Fe railroad in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This relocation flow created an ethnic enclave in the middle of south-central Kansas, the railroads’ main artery in the United States’ heartland. Growing up in Kansas, my entire extended maternal family lived within a square mile. These circumstances enveloped my childhood with many family members’ love and their watchful eyes. I could not appreciate this experience then, but now I realize the incredible gift it was to have so many relatives contributing to my upbringing.
Growing up in small town Kansas, the forces of assimilation were intentional, and it made my family and I oblivious to the realities of the world beyond its comfort zone. Simply put, I grew up in a cultural “bubble” in which various mechanisms existed to keep me impervious to the world beyond our real and imagined borders. These circumstances kept us not only ignorant of our surroundings, but functioned to silence the voice we did not know we had. As a protective self-preservation mechanism, my family embraced assimilation’s powerful expectations. The white washing of my identity left me unaware of how culture, tradition, and historical context had influenced and contributed to who I was. Absent of many traditions and the Spanish language, my extended family thought it be best to blend in and to work to “fit in” with the dominant white culture. The melting pot’s intoxicating dogma left many in my generation unmindful of our heritage’s beauty, rich complexity, and the Mexican culture that once was a deeply cherished part of our familial identity.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A pedagogy grounded in educators' displaying cultural competence in their curriculum.
Pedagogy: The methods and practices of teaching.
Curriculum Design: Course outline that includes content and learning objectives.
Intersectionality: Overlapping of social categorizations of identity.
Assimilation: To resemble or become blended into the major culture of a society.
Latina: A woman or girl of Latin American decent.
Chicana: A woman of Mexican-American decent. A term coined during the Chicano Movement to establish social, cultural, and political identity for women who identified as both Mexican and American.
Cultural identity: Aspect of a person's identity related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality, or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture.
Praxis: The practice of a particular method or skill.