Sunday, March 19, 2017

CCCC 2017: Cultivating Capacity, Creating Change; Portland, OR


This past week, I presented on a panel with Ana Ribero (Oregon State) and Genevieve Garcia de Mueller (UT Rio Grande Valley) at the College Composition and Communication Conference (CCCC) in Portland, Oregon. Below is a photo of my title slide, where I am introducing my talk on the first year writing class that I teach with my colleague Juan Velasco that is in Spanish the first quarter and English the second quarter when I teach it.

I draw connections between the dominant monolingual views my students have internalized in the context of the diverse geographic space that continues to reject diversity in terms of race, ethnicity and gender. (Silicon Valley Can't 'Hack' Diversity: CNN)



(Me, Genevieve and Ana; picture credit: Christina Cedillo)

I was particularly honored to present alongside Ribero who discussed DREAMer activism and was of reimagining activism, as well as Garcia de Mueller who discussed the B3 (bilingual, bicultural, binational) education that will be implemented next year at her university in coordination with the department of Education.

My department had a great showing of rhetoric/composition faculty with Simone Billings, Amy Lueck, Denise Krane, Trish Serviss and Julia Voss in attendance (not pictured).


The Latinx Caucus had an amazing workshop with first-time members presenting on really interesting topics and the caucus business meeting was a collection of energetic scholars at different points in their career with great news from folks who were on the job market. 


My Storify from CCCC 2017



Monday, March 6, 2017

Coverage of Bannan Roundtable on Racial and Ethnic Justice

Roundtable with Bannan Institute Collaborative Scholars

I have previously posted on the  Integral podcast and roundtable before the election that I did in fall for the Bannan Institute for Racial and Ethnic Justice, and this past week I had the privilege of speaking on a roundtable on racial and ethnic justice in relation to the current moment in which we find ourselves. 

Following the recent news of the travel ban (Washington Post story on revised ban), I discussed how the president has used Twitter as a means for communicating with the public, thereby circumventing news organizations who fact-check and mediate his messages that have not always been found to be true (FactCheck.org an Annenberg project).



From The Santa Clara:

“...Medina said. “If you Tweet it, does that make it a truth, right? That’s an important question.”
Medina said that the rapid influx of social media and other forms of mediated communication in modern society adds more facets to the controversy surrounding racial and ethnic issues.


Friday, March 3, 2017

Skyping on Poch@ Pop and Critical Media Literacy

Dr. Octavio Pimentel's Graduate Course in TSU-San Marcos

I had the exciting opportunity to speak with Prof. Octavio Pimentel's graduate students at Texas State University, San Marcos on my book Reclaiming Poch@ Pop. The students in his class had some great insights on the role of humor and its efficacy for communicating with sympathetic and unsympathetic audiences. We looked at some pop culture from Selena (starring J.Lo) as well as a couple Saturday Night Live monologues that approached the topic of race in the aftermath of the presidential election.


(Dr. Pimentel w/me in the corner)

I really appreciate how willing to engage with me on topics that can be difficult to discuss, not just in person, but also in the Skype interface. The class was extremely forthcoming about their own experiences teaching and how they have come to negotiate these topics that require deliberate thought.



(Graduate Students in Critical Media Literacy Seminar)

Some of the pop culture we discussed:

Through our discussion, the class decided that Chappelle was effective because most audiences know his humor and he concludes with a vulnerable call for coming together.



Regarding our discussion, Ansari's humor was perceived as less exclusive than Chappelle and Ansari leaves the door open for more audiences to see themselves on his side and not the subjects of his humor.