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November 28, 2004
Espejos y Ventanas: An Alternative Press for Writing Progarms
Recently the New York Times featured a front page story highlighting a new immigration phenomenon --families being separated by border police. Of course, this is not really that new of an event. For years, families have voluntarily split themselves into pieces so that some could travel to the United States and work "illegally" to support the entire family.
Recently, New City Community Press (which in the interest of full disclosure, I direct) published Espejos y Ventanas: Oral Histories of Mexican Farmworkers and Their Families. The book features nineteen oral histories of Mexican families and their struggle to cross the "border" and establish a life in the United States. Some speak directly to the issues raised by the New York Times.
Margarita Rojas states:
If I had the opportunity, I would tell the judge not to act as a judge, but rather as a normal human being with feelings. Think more about the well-being and rights of the children. Have compassion – we all have children. Don’t pay so much attention to what I did, violating this law by re-entering the United States – millions and millions of people do it, almost every Mexican who is here has done it. I am a proud person, and for me it’s very difficult to ask for forgiveness – it’s like I am stooping down and humiliating myself; but I will do it for my children. I would tell the judge, “Maybe I don’t show it, but my heart is broken. Now I no longer cry – for a very long time I cried, and I don’t want to cry any more. The only thing I ask is that you do not destroy my family.�
Others, such as Salvador Garcia, use his life experiences to talk about the need for political reform:
If the government is thinking about kicking out those illegal people, sending them back to Mexico… tell me, who will do the work? Who? Americans will not work for $6.50 an hour…I think the US government should do what they did with me and all of the Mexicans in 1986 – give us amnesty and residency.
Currently, the book is being used by numerous writing programs as a means to teach both ethnography, cultural studies, and academic writing. More importantly, the book will also be available to public school teachers, immigrant advocates, and Mexican diplomatic missions across the country. A
"publication party" for the book brought over 200 people together from across Philadelphia to hear Jimmy Santiago Baca and Enrique Cortazar read the worker's stories.
What makes this book of interest to progressive teachers is the means by which it was produced. New City Community Press emerges out of the Writing Program at Syracuse University/Temple University. Faculty and graduate students at both institutions partnered with community members and volunteers to generate the resources to interview individuals in Spanish, translate them into English, and produce a book which features both languages. Any profits from the book will be used to support future projects.
New City Community Press is not alone in such efforts. Still, at a time when many progressive teachers are attempting to formulate ways to respond to the onslaught of conservative politics, it might be worth considering how our experience in writing, ethnography, and language can be used to partner with local communities to insure that their political struggles are not forgotten. While it is true that mainstream media is dominated by corporate sensibilties, we can use our writing programs and writing classrooms to create an alternative space to build democratic discussions and coalitions.
Posted by sparks at 11:01 AM | TrackBack
November 17, 2004
De-skilling the Next Generation: The Truck Story and Graduate Education
Over the past several weeks, I have been talking with graduate students about the goals of their education. Many of them (but not all) have progressive beliefs and want to see their education as linked to efforts to create a more democratic and just public sphere. Many have imagined composition, literature, or the humanities as a site where such work can occur. The question I am left with is whether the graduate education they receive actually prepares them for such work. Having now been at three research-based institutions, I am increasingly pessimistic that they are being prepared for anything other than the most narrow visions of professionalism and scholarly production.
This led me to reconsider the “Truck Story� as related by Peter Levine on November 16th's entry. It is a story about universities and communities." Seems there was a large urban university that put together a meeting of community members and faculty. The goal was to link their expertise to community needs. When the community members stated that “trucks� were their major concern (traffic congestion, etc.), the faculty claimed to have “lacked the expertise� to take on such work. Levine then goes on consider what attitudes might have led the professors to take such a stance –he imagines everything from a professor’s humility about her own knowledge to a general sense the community might be able to correct this situation on their own.
His most compelling point, though, is that, in fact, “trucks� are easy to understand. The central issue in the “Truck story� is not street signs, but community power – creating the ability for the community to define the quality of their own life.
For many graduate students, the goal of their graduate work is to be able to be effective advocates and partners with the community at such moments – to see and engage effectively in the power struggle for community control. Yet they are given very little training in how to integrate their expertise into such concerns – how to see that the deeper questions of community power can be connected to their work in writing theory, criticism, or cultural study. (On a national scale, Rebecca Moore Howard has demonstrated some of these possibilities by linking her work “seemingly academic� work on plagiarism to the Bush Administration “documentation� about the Iraqi threat. See Plagarism and Fraud in George W. Bush's Foreign)
Speaking of my own sub-discipline, composition, I share the worry of many of my students, such as Derek Mueller, who state that graduate education simply does not create or foster the possibility of engaging in the “extra-curriculum�—the term Anne Ruggles Gere develops to speak of community-based non-academic writing – or to become worker-writers – a term used by the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers to indicate writing groups linked to attempts to change social practice. Instead, much of their time is devoted to learning “scholarly writing� as the ultimate goal and endpoint of their future writing careers. Classroom pedagogy subsumes other skills such as working across communities or developing coalitions which might impact actual community literacy practices. In short, they read stories about “trucks,� analyze student papers about “trucks,� but rarely stop traffic.
Perhaps it is time to reconsider the work students undertake. Is the academic-prose dissertation the endpoint today for graduate education when students themselves are imagining a much more varied readership? Are presentations to academic conferences the place to steer students, when they are imagining a much wider community? At least within composition, a field which has only just recently begun to imagine itself as a “full fledged� discipline, professional boundaries are not so established that a new type of professionalism might not yet emerge. (In fact, the only firm “professional boundary in composition seems to be that which separates part-time labor from the health, wage, and contract benefits of full-time faculty.)
Instead of continuing to professionalize in traditional ways and asking our students to take on such a straight jacket, perhaps something else is required. Perhaps, it is time to recognize the new generational mission of our graduate students. Living in a time of religious fundamentalism, economic elitism, and social intolerance, it might be time to provide them with the education that meets the unique historical situation of their generation – emerging progressives in an intolerant conservative world. We might consider refiguring graduate education so that it provides them with the tools to take on the work of social justice inside and outside the academy.
If as Collin Brooke argues, those who come to graduate school self-select into a field which leans toward the left (improperly biased, Nov. 11). What might it mean to restructure graduate professional education so that these leanings might turn into practices which not only link the university to the community, but professors to the larger work of social justice?
Posted by sparks at 9:07 AM | TrackBack
November 9, 2004
A Thousand Points of Blue: Breaking the Imaginary Mandate
Friends of George Bush will be pleased to know that he feels “liberated� after his election victory. Free from the burden of stealing the first election and the possible fate of his father as a one term president, Bush is enjoying his political “capital� and intends to spend it.
Not since….well his campaign…has the Bush media machine tried to put out such spin to justify his presidency. While the popular vote and electoral college went his way in the election, he hardly enjoyed a personal mandate. The margin of victory was just too small. Despite this, the dominant media likes to present a “sea of red states� blindly supporting Bush. (Leaving us in the Blue states geographically and politically marginalized.) As anyone who lives there recognizes, however, there are oppositional voices to Bush across the country – even in the heartland. Citizens from Ohio, Kansas, and Georga are equally worried about Bush’s ‘ownership society’ – no poll indicates strong support for privatizing social security, eliminating clear air acts, or denying couples civil unions.
As teachers and activists, we need to deny the Republican’s and Network media such simplistic geography. We need to puncture efforts to paint the middle of the country as solidly “red.�
Come Inauguration day, we should use our classrooms and campuses to sponsor “No Mandate: No Victory� teach-ins and protests across the heartland. The goals would be multiple. First, the events would protest the many ways in which communities have benefited by liberal and progressive victories in the past – such as clean air or worker rights. Second, the events should highlight the damage the Republican programs would inflict upon the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Third, these events would demonstrate that calls for social and political justice will not simply vanish – Bush should not expect a free ride over the next four years.
Riffing off Daddy Bush’s “thousand points of light,� then, we should sponsor a thousand “consenus breaking moments� which highlight how W’s policies have damaged the heartland – hurting families and farmers. Let’s send a signal that his ‘victory’ did not mean our defeat.
Marches in New York city only affirm Republican attempts to cleanse the heartland of progressive ideas. It’s time to move the battle to the heartland.
Posted by sparks at 9:47 AM | TrackBack
Gay Bashing in the Lone Star State
Hardly surprising that soon after Bush’s gay-bashing election, such moments as below are already occurring:
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - The Texas Board of Education approved new health textbooks for the state's high school and middle school students Friday after the publishers agreed to change the wording to depict marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The decision involves two of the biggest textbook publishers and represents another example of Texas exerting its market clout as the nation's second-largest buyer of textbooks. Officials say the decision could affect hundreds of thousands of books in Texas alone.
On Thursday, a board member charged that proposed new books ran counter to a Texas law banning the recognition of gay civil unions because the texts used terms like "married partners" instead of "husband and wife."
After hearing the debate Thursday, one publisher, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, agreed to include a definition of marriage as a "lifelong union between a husband and a wife." The definition, which was added to middle school textbooks, already was in Holt's high school editions, Holt spokesman Rick Blake said.
The other publisher, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, changed phrases such as "when two people marry" and "partners" to "when a man and a woman marry" and "husbands and wives."
"The board expressed an interest in having us" make the change," Blake said. "We thought it was a reasonable thing to do."
But Blake said the publisher does not plan on adding its definition of marriage in books that will be sold outside Texas. A spokeswoman for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill did not immediately respond to questions.
A list of the books that were approved by the board, as well as those that were not, are sent to school districts for guidance when they choose books.
Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a Democrat, asked the panel to approve the books without the changes, but her proposal was rejected on a 10-4 vote.
"We're not supposed to make changes at somebody's whim," Berlanga said. "It's a political agenda, and we're not here to follow a political agenda."
Board member Terri Leo, a Republican, said she was pleased with the publishers' changes. She had led the effort to get the publishers to change the texts, objecting to what she called "asexual stealth phrases" such as "individuals who marry."
"Marriage has been defined in Texas, so it should also be defined in our health textbooks that we use as marriage between a man and a woman," Leo said.
Texas lawmakers last year passed a law that prohibits the state from recognizing same-sex civil unions. The state already had a ban on gay marriage.
Neither publisher added all the changes Leo initially pushed for. For instance, one proposed passage in the teacher's editions read: "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use, and suicide."
Randall Ellis, the executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, said the board overstepped its bounds in suggesting and adopting the new wording.
"Their job is to review for factual information and instead what we see is the insertion of someone's ideology and agenda into the textbook of middle-schoolers," Ellis said.
The board's approval caps months of debate over health textbooks. Much of the debate had centered on how much sex education should be included in high school books.
A controversy arose last year in Texas when the board approved new biology textbooks that contained Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, brushing aside opposition from religious groups.
Posted by sparks at 8:57 AM | TrackBack
November 5, 2004
Down and Out in Jesusland
Since Bush’s re-election a steady stream of argument has emerged questioning the intelligence of the conservative voter. They are out of touch with reality. How else to explain their voting for a president who has clearly failed on the economy and the war. Michael Berube jokingly argues that we should respond by giving up on reality as a political tool:
It should be clear by now that progressives cannot win the presidency by being reality-based. The reality-based appeal works only in isolated areas of the country with high population density. Reality-based campaigning draws in highly educated voters, voters who are likely to consult a wide variety of news sources inside and outside the US, and voters who tend to be swayed by demonstrable empirical evidence about the age and the current disposition of the planet and its resources. These voters are, however, a fringe element of the electorate that we must now cast aside.
Instead, we must devise a “wedge issue� that is as powerful and compelling as the campaign against gay marriage. And just as the campaign against gay marriage draws its deepest support from conservative rural areas hundreds of miles away from the nearest actual cohabiting gay couple, so too must progressives-- especially urban-identified, “metro� progressives-- seek to mobilize an energetic Democratic base by inventing a chimera that none of us have actually ever seen and cannot imagine anyone actually caring about.
While Berubue is clearly being satirical, this is clearly a widespread opinion about the conservative vote. I think, though, it misses the mark on how to begin to rebuild a democratic majority across the South and Southwest.
It seems to me that conservative voters clearly understood that the war in Iraq was not going well (even if they believed the connection to Al Qaeda). Many of the voters also had direct experience of unemployment, lack of health benefits, and increased tuition costs. Despite all these “real� concerns, they voted against their immediate interests because of faith – faith that condemns homosexuality, abortion, etc. etc. They felt these issues as a real and immediate factor in our lives as we do when people attack gay rights.
Progressives also act on faith. Our faith has lost widespread credibility, however. In response, the liberal left (what’s left of it) argues from facts to mask the belief system which assembles those facts in a certain order. Instead, in addition to presenting facts, it seems to me that we also need to move beyond reality and re-establish a faith in a civic discourse which is secular and progressive. To do this, I think, we will have to follow the advice of Mark Kleiman’s moderate Republican friend and recognize:
Democrats are cowards. "Moral issues" is just crazy-ass right-wing Republican talk for bigotry. Democrats need to call them on it and capture the moral high ground again. Preventing women from exercising control over their bodies and gay couples from enjoying the same basic rights as everyone else is not moral, it's wrong. Hideously wrong. Rosa Parks-level wrong. And helping poor kids get an education and basic medical care is not "big government." It's the right thing to do, especially when you live in the world’s richest country.
What I think this means is we need to stop nominating politicians who refuse to take on the label of “liberal� or “progressive.� Or at the very least, we need to nominate candidates who can speak morally about the need for equality, civil rights, and social justice. And like the Right, perhaps we need wedge issue – a mobilizing force to unite folks morally across facts which may or may not always support elements of our total agenda.
What might are moral ‘wedge’ issue be? Probably not surprising, as a teacher, I would argue at least one could be education. There’s pretty widespread acceptance that everyone deserves a strong education. Yet the funding system is clearly corrupt and biased to the wealthy. In response to Republican attempts to argue “It is not the governments money, it’s your money,� I think we should argue “It’s the children’s money and they need it. You don’t deserve a swimming pool because you underpay your workers and stop them from providing basic rights to their children.� We need to make clear there is such a thing as collective responsibility again.
We should just come out and state our support of gay marriage as a civil rights issue.
We should argue that social justice means some folks pay more than others.
We should demand that affirmative action be extended not just mended.
This is not just delusional leftist day dreaming. Over 55 million individuals voted for this moral system in the last election. I have to believe for many undecided voters a secular faith based reason to vote against Bush would have tipped them into our camp.
If we don’t want to remain down and out in Jesusland, we need to find our own faith-based initiative.
Posted by sparks at 1:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 4, 2004
For Progressive Teachers, Now What?
The Progressive Caucus started this blog to provide a forum to discuss the work progressive teachers should undertake both within their classrooms and within the larger culture. Tuesday's results give an unfortunate immediacy to such discussions. As I talked to friends and colleagues across the country yesterday, everyone was in a state of "shock and awe" as the conservative right had effectively been given control of the presidency, house, senate, and judiciary. Folks spoke of feeling like foreigners in their own country -- feeling damaged by overwhelming support of harsh anti-gay and anti-immigrant propositions and offended by the fundamental conservative Christianity which has so effectively taken control our our democracy.
It is hard to know what to do in response. Clearly, as teachers, we imagine our classrooms as a site of both education and activism. At this moment, it is perhaps time to shift our primary professional identity away from a particular disciplinary interest. Perhaps it is time to use our classrooms to model both democratic action and critique the distortions and harsh social policies being propogated by the conservative right. Yet, clearly more is also required. Perhaps it is also time to re-align our relationships with professional academic organizations or even to begin new ones.
It is hard to capture the anger and sadness which this moment marks for many of us committed to a progressive education and a tolerant country. For those of us who have tried to link their professional lives to progressive politics, the question really becomes, "What now?"