nepantla as a point of departure.
photo credit: wendy barrales, lima perú
excerpt of From Sí se Puede to ¡Pa’lante!: A Meta Analysis of Ethnic Studies Research by Wendy Barrales
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Recent appreciation of Ethnic Studies aims to challenge and decolonize traditional forms of history and yet it fails to include a critical lens of intersectionality. Current approaches in Ethnic Studies fall short in privileging narratives about women of color that interrupt the hegemonic beliefs of our experiences and histories. Courses cannot simply include literature written for and by women of color, but rather include pedagogical approaches that interrogate these beliefs from a woman centered approach. Scholars have interrupted these pathologized narratives through a critical lens of intersectionality to show a complexity that was previously absent and in naming the pedagogical moves of Third World Feminist classrooms (Crenshaw, 1989; hooks 1994). However, scholars and educators in the K-12 setting have still fallen short in centering around women and girls of color within Ethnic Studies, let alone in mainstream curriculum.
Ethnic Studies is not solely based on the content provided in classrooms but also in the pedagogical moves a teacher makes within the classroom. How are teacher training programs ensuring that Ethnic Studies is being approached through an intersectional lens? In what ways are teacher education programs ensuring that gender and specifically women of color are at the center of the curriculum --- not simply tacked on as a token unit or book? How are we ensuring that WOC educators are leading the fight for Ethnic Studies where their ideas are valued and they have permanent and pivotal presence at the table? And more importantly, what does all of this mean as our youth continue to push us to think of gender beyond the binary -- where visibility of nepantla is not solely in our ideas of being from two cultures but also in the borderlands and in betweenness of gender, pronouns and gender spectrum.
Women of color have long been the backbone and catalysts of social movements in the United States. From Dolores Huerta’s groundbreaking organizing with the United Farm Workers, to the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, Alicia Garza Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, women of color have been and still are essential key players needed to mobilize communities in challenging social inequality. Despite the critical roles & contributions they have made, women’s histories and experiences are persistently silenced, overlooked, and rendered virtually invisible. The tenets of Ethnic Studies have the potential to foster the kind of space that can finally increase the visibility of WOC. Now it’s a matter of all stakeholders to uphold the intersectionality embedded within this framework.
References
Barrales, W. (2019) From sí se puede to pa’lante: a meta-analysis of ethnic studies research. (In Pub.)
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 14, 538-544.
hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
