Songs of Resistance

Open Mic to Benefit Raza Studies
I believe that as a part of a Raza Studies student's senior project, she organized this open mic--I don't know any educators who wouldn't want a program like this in their school given the amount of student involvement in not just the school, but also the community.

On this past Cinco de Mayo, I was able to see a Tucson High Raza Studies performance at the UA. Supporting these efforts by students is really important because it validates them as agents of change.

And like Nas said, "All I need is one mic."

Tutoring Center Video

Dedication to the Cause
As a TA and writing tutor while earning my Master's at Chapman University, I took part in a training video that was scripted and put together by students at the Dodge film school.
It's been a while since we did this, so I was surprised to find it on youtube with all of the other writing center/tutor training videos that I was going through because of the potential writing center work with Gear Up (the peer model proved successful this past year).

I noticed that most tutoring videos teeter between dry and informative, or humorous and speaking to a younger audience--this is the latter. And keep in mind that I'm no actor.

Jimmy Baca, Pedagogy of a Poet

UNM College of Education Professor Diane Torres-Velasquez discusses teaching style of Jimmy Santiago Baca

So I was watching the 'Making of' East Los Angeles gang epic Blood In Blood Out and I realized that it was written by Jimmy Santiago Baca. Here I'd taught some of Baca's work in my First Year Composition course and I wasn't aware he'd written the only film that has a 'Cruz' as a main character.

This is neither here, nor there, but this realization led me to find this video from the University of New Mexico, in which Diane Torres-Velasquez asks Baca about his ability to connect with students young and old, free and imprisoned. Accountability and making the students 'more than when they came in' are key:

New Start Summer '09

My New Start class
It's been a few weeks since the end of the summer bridge class I taught, but I remembered I had a few (blurry) pics from the last Pan Dulce Thursday of the semester (which happened to fall on a Friday). Like a junior high dance, the boys gravitated toward one side of the room and the girls to other.

I apologize that these pictures came out looking like they were taken on a camera-phone. I don't think the institutional white of the classroom walls helped the light balance.

The boys...

...and the ladies:

Never too late for good Summer reading

Latino Superheroes

...No, not another post about Edward James Olmos or Sotomayor

Finally got a little bit of time to catch up on my summer reading in my fortress of solitude, and I'm really enjoying Frederick Luis Aldama's Your Brain on Latino Comics.

There are a couple great lines that reminded me of the South Park & Dave Chappelle posts regarding the ethical responsibility of readers (which I couldn't help but post).

Try as we may to lead students to conclusions about representations with consciousness of social justice:
"[T]he reader's range of experience can lead him or her in any direction" (28).
What is it that readers/viewers find lacking in Latino characters that their 'careers' are often short lived?


Aldama also accounts for the cognitive dissonance experienced when watching this kind of material; the misreadings of satirical material "show how racism can prevent a reader from recognizing a narrative blueprint that uses devices and signposts to satirize contemporary society as well as to poke fun at identity politics generally" (29).


Believe it amigo...

The Existential Dilemma

Purgatorio

So I'm in that state of academic limbo after having finished New Start with GEAR UP and the fall semester on the not too distant horizon.

Drafting a reflection for the semester helped me transition out of teaching mode, and outlining the presentation that I hope to present at Cs this year should hopefully get me through Terrace 1 & 2 of Dante's Mountain.

I checked 'Wrath' off the list when I submitted grades.

Avoiding Sloth might actually be what it is I'm doing in the exercise of blogging, but I should more than likely resume my research of successful outreach programs. The first tip I received: high school students respond well to non-fiction. Perhaps the less abstract material speaks to them--I believe this is in keeping with what is said about book sales.

It's a good thing tangential thinking is only a venial sin in teaching.

Academic Outreach

GEARing UP

This fall, I'll be taking part in the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs here in the Tucson and Sunnyside school districts. The program is in the 5th year of a 6 year grant, so it's 'go time' to get these students ready for college writing.

There's so much for me to learn about methods and approaches to outreach, so I imagine I'll be periodically posting new concepts that I encounter, as well as the activities that I'll find myself taking part in/organizing on behalf of the U.S Department of Education.

Stereotype Threat

New Start Academic Conference

The summer bridge program I'm teaching in had an academic conference this week and I hope to have some pics to post from it in the next few days.

It was a great opportunity to expose students to the wide range of subject matter that a conference with a theme like "Stereotype Threat" can encapsulate. One of the Mexican American students focused on the representations of Mexicans in South Park, showing this clip:


(In another episode, there a more direct criticism of Mexico as a child-like, unintelligent country)
It was a bit disheartening that the student barely scratched the surface about what was at the heart of this satire--on the face there are the racial issues that are incendiary, but I think it speaks the issue of entitlement in education, and the entitled generation of students who don't understand that the immigrant work ethic has helped define and strengthen the U. S.

The question also arises 'who's watching these cartoons'? Small children don't generally have someone there to explain the significance of satire, and yes, cartoons do perpetuate these stereotypes that are rooted in much deeper institutional/cultural systems of oppression.

Critically Conscious Pop Culture

Rage Inside the Machine

In my on-going pursuit of integrating popular culture into curriculum that addresses critical consciousness, I showed my summer bridge course a couple minutes of a Rage Against the Machine concert-doc.


There's a nice summary of the impact NAFTA had on Mexico, and in the preceding video marked pt.1 on Youtube, I showed the last few minutes narrated by singer Zach De La Rocha which give background to who Zapata is.

Funny or Further Perpetuation of Negative Stereotypes?

Latino Comedy Project

So I'm probably just opening myself up for an 'academics can't take a joke' criticism, but a Mexican American student in my class showed me this video parody of the movie 300 done by the Latino Comedy Project that seems to do more harm than good.



I am not extremely familiar with the work of the Latino Comedy Project, so I can't say for sure what kind of message that the rest of their comedy troupe sends. Just for the fact that the migrants in the video are making animal-like growls, I would say that the message isn't a move in the right direction when it comes to the on-going dialogue about immigration reform. Based on the comments posted below this youtube video, I can say that the dialogues in the virtual realm are not generative in nature, and degrade into racist name-calling and vulgarity.

It might be the LCP's stance that they are making fun of these stereotypes to somehow make them less powerful, taking away from the strength of these kinds of generalizations. This was Dave Chappelle's initial explanation for his use of the n-word on Chapelle Show, although he came to the conclusion about his flippant use of the n-word on his show, explaining in this clip from Inside the Actor's Studio that "people aren't responsible enough."

Support Sotomayor

The Common Touch
Okay, so the selling point for Sotomayor has some negative connotation to it, but I guess we need to focus on the connotation that she possesses the "double consciousness" of not only race and gender, but also class.

Check out the site Presente.org to see the petition that's been put together.

Buenos Aires 2009

Back From Vacation

So I'm back from a week in San Diego and a week in Buenos Aires. Getting so syllabus kinks worked out for the summer bridge program I start Monday.

But I can't help posting a pic from the Borges Cultural Center...