« De-skilling the Next Generation: The Truck Story and Graduate Education | Main | Rotten Fish: Living off the Labor of Others »
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 November 28, 2004 11:01 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.progressiveteachers.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/13