A reminder that I was locked out of this tumblr from my computer (and can only post from my phone) and so my new more active blog is at www.oralemija.tumblr.com ----- As I approach my 2 year mark as an English teacher in a predominately Chicanx social justice high school in my neighborhood, I am reflecting on what informs my teaching practice. Constructivism? Sure. Indigenous healing practice? yep. Restorative justice and transformative justice? Ok. But more than any set of ancient practices, or theory of metacognition, or any book I’ve read on critical thinking, or article I read in my teaching program, or– even, gasp, Bell Hooks’ Teaching to Transgress, more than any of the above, it is what I experienced and what I know and what I continue to know about my father that has profoundly woven itself into my practice. This semester was one of the most emotionally charged semesters I’ve had, in the sense that we covered so much ground. Our inquiry traversed a vast emotional landscape: anger, revenge, hate, rage, bloodshed, loss, grief, forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation. I say our inquiry because as a collective class, students developed their own guiding questions as a class community. Using one of our essential questions, “How do our relationships influence our actions” as a frame, some of their guiding questions included: Do you think it would be possible to unify gangs in present day? Why do you think that Luis said it was a “wonderful time” when the gang violence stopped, when at one point he was the one causing violence? How does someone overcome OR give in to being at war with themselves? How does living on the streets / drifting between homes affect you later in life? How can being open to someone change you/them? What defense mechanisms do people use when put in difficult situations? How long does it take to reflect and realize that you have to change? Why is it so hard to disprove the labels/stereotypes? How are we capable of forgiving and/or forgetting? We grappled with these questions through dialogue and discussion. It took time to build the skills to critically question, to truly hear each other. There were moments where it was clear how we’ve been socialized to tune each other out. There were moments where I was worried no one was listening to each other. In the last few months of school, I have witnessed my students be fully present with each other. I have witnessed them tear up during discussion, as memory hits them. I have seen students slide over to console these students. This understanding, this empathy, this ability for our souls to connect is what inevitably carved the path for us to engage with the text Always Running. In this book, about a former gang member-turned-poet/youthworker, there are situations of physical and sexual violence. The main character is hesitant to stab a man with a screw driver, but does so to show his homies he is down. In another chapter, his homeboys invite him to ravage and assault the body of a young girl that is intoxicated. He declines, but does not intervene on the girl’s behalf. In these parts, we struggled to make sense of the humanity of those who cause harm. Discussions arose that had us reflect on our own responses to harm. Of losing someone to a bullet. of Assault. The room would go quiet, and a student would ask: Can you move forward if you haven’t forgiven? Many times it was my students who are gang members themselves who were asking these questions. It was so evident that they saw themselves within these stories, as both the trespasser and survivors. I remember when my one student asked that question about forgiveness and moving forward, another student immediately responded “No. I have not moved on. I cannot move on. I am trapped in my rage.” She was speaking of her partner who had been shot and bled to death in her arms. On a different accord, I had a student who is affiliated jokingly tell me that every time he stays in the crib he is saving the world from himself. Duality. How is this connected to my father? It is so deeply tied to my father that I am just learning to unravel the knots. My father was both trespasser and survivor. I will forever remember the story my father told, the type of story where you could see the guilt just seeping out of his eyes, about back in Los Angeles when he went to collect money from a girl he had been selling heroin to. When he got to her house, her mother burst out of the front door yelling at him in a rage, yelling “You did this to her! Because of you, she is dead!” The girl had overdosed on my father’s product and left behind an infant daughter. There are other stories. My father could not confront certain things directly. For example, he would not tell me he had killed people, but he would tell me he had “been around when people’s lives were snuffed out”. I know for certain that my father is responsible for the loss of someone’s child. I know this. And this is the same man who diligently braided my hair before school. The same man who woke me and dressed me, and drove me to school while having me practice reciting the spelling of my last name. The same one who told me that I am Mexican and Indian and I damn well better be proud of it. The same man who, after my mother told him about her difficult students, told her, “Marjean, whenever you have one of those really bad kids– you are looking right at me.” This is the same man who was fiercely protective of me, and upon finding out a kid had been following me into the bathroom in preschool, he drove to the school and told the whole staff that if anyone lay a hand on his child he would slice their head off. This is the same man, who in the photo above (on the left), is embracing his step-father, the man who taught him how to fight, taught him how to sell heroin, taught him cursive. The same man who told my father he was going to get his mother killed and in the same day sold my father enough heroin for him to overdose. And my father did overdose, and was miraculously brought back to life after having been pronounced dead in White Memorial hospital. This is the same man, whom my father is embracing, who offered my father the position of an international hitman. His friend was retiring, so he figured my dad might as well— told him he was going to die int he barrio anyways, might as well get to travel and see the world. They had a most complicated relationship, and after not being able to speak authentically for much time, after a lot of pain, they were able to reconcile fully and embrace each other. In that photo, Hector (my dad’s step-father) was on his death bed. He died that same day. So then, what is it of reconciliation? I am living proof, a walking vessel where seeds of reconciliation and redemption are grown into me, coded into me, from my father. From his choice to reconcile, for his ability to hold both the experience of both trespasser and survivor. of warrior. of healer. And so this is the deepest, most sacred aspect that has set the foundation of my teaching practice. Luis Rodriguez writes about how teaching not about what you know, it’s about the type of human you are. Your willingness to dive into the deepest unknowns, the questions, to seek what it means to humanize those who have dehumanized us. This is my teaching epistemology at its rawest.
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