This semester, I began my first “official” year as a teacher of record. Though I’ve taught in organizing and community spaces, even traditional educational spaces as a co-teacher, teaching assistant, and student success coach, my experiences have never quite been validated by bureaucratic entities. As an educator coming from years of community work, a history of ethnic studies, critical race, decolonial, and chicana feminist studies, I have a particular lens to navigate our current moment of crisis and resistance. Serving at an institution that consists of over 90% students of color allows me the pedagogical transparency to be critical and thoughtful in my educational praxis.
We hear the words “Social/Emotional Learning” almost “half-assedly” trickled into schooling conversations like a leak in engine fluid making its way across town. The concept has an upward trajectory of buzzword, though it seems to be largely an after-thought in how we approach learning.
Discipline and rigor are two concepts prioritized in schools and educators who take the same “tough on crime” perspective as law enforcement have felt perplexed and in some cases enacted violence on our communities, even at home. Particularly for students of color, this violence has continued to be prevalent both in educational institutions and in virtual learning.
These injustices are making their way into student’s homes. In September, a woman in Colorado Springs called the cops on 12 year old Isaiah Elliott for holding a Nerf gun in his own bedroom. During the same month, a California middle school threatened to arrest Merek Mastrov after missing three 30-minute virtual Zoom meetings amidst a global pandemic. There are also very real implications of not having a space outside the home for students who experience different violences where they are sheltered, or for students who do not even have such a space.
The dispossession of students of color is promoted by educational institutions and is prevalent in the virtual space, however there are ways in which the framework of Querencia can maintain self-determination and hope in this new Covid reality.
The idea of Querencia was first given language by New Mexican scholar Estevan Arellano which he described as “The inclination or tendency of man and certain animals to return to the site where they were raised or have a tendency of returning to”. For our purpose it also means “affection,” “longing,” or “favorite place.” Through Querencia, young people are feeling empowered by their home spaces, and have cultivated a willingness to authentically show up. There is a consistent show and tell of pets, and rooms, and first languages, and favorite activities, and meals current and past, and the honest chaos of families navigating this moment all in one house.
In our first week of virtual learning, I noticed there’s something about being in a home space that allows students to share more freely. Being surrounded by loved ones, favorite things, and separated from the physical structure of the classroom, creates a bridge between the concepts explored and the power of their lived experiences. I also want to emphasize particular moments of what I feel must be transcendent magic—where students can be fully realized as both humans and students.
Organic experiences exist when class is disrupted by dogs barking at hot air balloons, cousins unmuting mics to say cochinadas, and baby siblings screaming in the background. However, it also allows for what I perceive as the potential for genuine growth, learning, and connection. In a moment of whole-group dialogue and collaboration around figurative language, a student interjects:
Miss! Can I show you my cat?
Have you ever owned any exotic pets? I have a ferret. She was the smallest one of her brothers and sisters. They say to always pick the small one because they live the longest. I researched for three months before we bought her.
During advisory, one student strums his guitar as we discuss the implications of the fires raging in the Redwood Forest and throughout the Southwest. One student shared his sister lives in Louisiana, where Hurricane Laura hit in August.
“Can I play for you all?”, the otherwise cautious student chimes into the chat. Since it’s advisory, I consider it a wonderful welcome back for his classmates as he stands up and belts out “All my Loving” by the Beatles while playing his guitar.
“Whoa! “Where’d that come from?” “How come we never knew this about you?!”His classmates chime in. He responds that his dad is encouraging him to perform more and he’s never felt like he’s had the chance.
For a shy person, the classroom is not always the most safe or inviting but to be surrounded by the power of the home, means not having to use differential consciousness. One doesn’t necessarily need to tap into the language of maneuvering when they can chip away at the barriers separating our authentic selves from who we are in formal spaces. Who we are with the gaze of bureaucracy. Students who feel terrified to speak aloud in the classroom can contribute in the chat and hear teacher validation without the full weight of the classroom body turning and staring at you, measuring themselves against your insight.
One of my students experienced a sudden and significant loss the same week Chad Boseman died. This necessitated a moment where I introduced plática in acknowledging a collective grief. We’re in a juncture unlike one we’ve felt before and there are ways to go about the healing process. Even as we sit in it. Even as catastrophes worsen. To brush the pain under the rug and expect students to function as if we can ever resume normalcy only causes further harm. It articulates that upholding capitalist and white supremacist power systems is more important than the possibility of children’s future. So we take the time to process, recognize our trauma, and cultivate the potential to move forward.
I’ve experienced some fairly low points since March. I’ve nearly fallen asleep showering because I can’t muster the strength to stay present. I’ve been on the verge of tears for days on end and it takes every ounce of strength to remain a steady presence in the lives of those who are depending on me. But the thing is, my students are healing, loving, forces to be reckoned with; spending my days watching them grow, and growing simultaneously, continues to be a driving force.
Something that has often disturbed me is this pointed, uncareful language that has manifested around young people. This likely stems from a very real violence created between generations: Those who feel bearing children is a non-negotiable occupation and life-destiny, and others who feel as if children are a burden further contributing to this late-stage capitalist reality we’ve inherited. There are those (much like myself) who fear bringing a child into this world when it’s difficult to conceive the environmental, ethical, and material conditions it may bring.
Many are so harmed and deceived by this white supremacist notion of overpopulation and entitled youth that they begin to demonize children. Youth becomes the scapegoat for all of the world’s ills, rather than people legitimately examining the systems that have brought about our present lived experience. Regardless of our reproductive desires and choices, children need to be validated as autonomous human beings worthy of respect.
I am honored bear witness to students showing up as themselves authentically, if only in moments where they find the motivation. As an educator, I can only commit repeatedly to being as transparent as possible, hearing them when they speak their truths, and introducing tools that encourage them to be critically conscious in understanding their lived realities. Querencia in the classroom has power and in moments of unrest, it enables genuine connection. Pedagogies of the home entering the classroom more authentically, might be the perfect moment for students to really bridge the self-fragmenting ask that formal educational institutions beg of us.
Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera” The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.
Arellano, J. E. (1997). La Raza Bioregionalism. New Mexico Historical Review.
Arellano, J.E. (2007). Taos: Where Cultures Met Four Hundred Years Ago. Taos Journey
Ávila, M. (2019) Toward a Nuevomexicana Consciousness: An Exploration of Identity Through Education as Manifest through the Colonial Legacy. University of New Mexico
Bernal, D.D. (2006). Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life: Feminista Perspectives on Pedagogy and Epistemology. Albany: State University of New York Press
Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York. Herder and Herder. Print.
Rendón, L. I. (2009). Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation. Sterling. VA. Stylus Publishing.
Mercedes was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Chicana and Chicano Studies, concentrating in Intersectional Politics and Social Movements in May 2016. She finished her Master’s Degree in Education, concentrating in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico in May 2019.
Mercedes grew up in Albuquerque’s organizing community, has worked with various nonprofits and grassroots organizations, and is devoted to affecting social change while emphasizing commitment to the arts as a mechanism in achieving it. Writing has remained an integral source of power and healing in Mercedes’s life.
Mercedes has worked as a writer for Popejoy, a performing arts venue in Albuquerque, NM, as well as supported in writing pieces for the National Institute of Flamenco. She published her thesis: “Toward a Nuevomexicana Consciousness: An Exploration of Identity through Education as Manifest through the Colonial Legacy”, through the University of New Mexico digital archives in May 2019.