Figueroa, J.L. & Sánchez, P. (2008). Technique, art, or cultural practice? Ethnic epistemology in...

ETHNIC STUDIESRESEARCFI

Approaches and Perspectives

EDITED BYTIMOTHY FONG

AUTAMIRA PRESSA Diuision of Rowman I Littlefeld Publishets, Inc.

Lanham. New York' Toronto'Plymouth, UK

AnaMrna PnrssA division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Litdefield Publishing Group, Inc.4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200Lanham, MD 20706wwwaltamirapress.com

Estover RoadPlymouth PL6 7PYUnited Kingdom

Copyright @ 2008 by AltaMira Press

AII rights reserued. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ethnic studies research : approaches and perspectives / edited by Timothy Fong.

P. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-I3: 978-0-7597-7141,-7 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN-IO: 0-7597-1,1,4t-3 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN-13: 978-0-7597-1142-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)ISBN-10: 0-7591-t742-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)t. Ethnology-Research. 2. Race relations-Research. 3. Minorities-Research.

I. Fong, Timothy P.

GN376.8753 2008305.80072-dc22 200704t402

Printed in the United States of America

@tt The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of AmericanNational Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed LibraryMaterials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-tgg2.

JULTE

+++fl1-

Technique, Art, or Cultural Practice?Ethnic Epistemology inLatino Qualitative Studies

L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCHEZ

HrLE MAr\-y scHoLARS oF coloR have often resisted the indoc-trination of the academy-in particular positivist trainitg in so-

cial science methods-we as Latina educational researchers have

had a difficult time findinga researcher who speaks to the positive process

of doing work with one's own communiry.l Though we are engaged withprograrns and departments that act as vital spaces of critical thought and

have provided in many instances appealirg alternatives to traditional re-

search methods, we have been unable to find more works that affirm an

ethnic epistemology when working in corrununities of color. In addition

to nor offering an affirmation of an ethnic epistemology, most qualitative

method discussions do not consider the ways in which scholars of color ap-

proach their research and what exactly may inform this approach. By this,

we do not mean to essenti altze researchers of color or contribute to the

"we vs. them" debate. Our interests are to more fully understand the role

of qualitative researchers and what embodies the enactment of that role

(..g., training, prior knowledge, cultural or cotnmunify resources).

While scholars define the nature and purpose of qualitative research dif-ferently, this difference often reflects the personal and political position

scholars have on the research question as well as the cornmuniry being re-

searched. In other words, qualitative research serves a variety of purposes,

depending on who conducts the research. To this end, we have found a

plethora of books used in graduate seminars and training that depolitrcuze

the act of conducting research by tikening it to doing "high art" or tradi-tional 'Western art that is often presented as apolirical. Often this rype ofconventional academic trainirg that proposes specific techniques does not

1

I

144 JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCHEZ

have the analytical power we need to study a cofiununiry (namely our own)that lies beyond the cultural understandings of the institution. Therefore,when we are presented a set of decontextuahzed research techniques, howdo we contextuiltze these in working within our conununities? In thispiece we articulate part of our experiences in doing research within a

Latino context and what this means to academics who see themselves withe lifetime trajectory of working within the Latino community. 'What

emerges is a. discussion on qualitative research and the differences in ap-proachitg this work as en " art" (.r expressed by several mainstream aca-

demics) and as women of color who rely heavily and unapologetically oncultural practice.

Our discussion begins by exploring the relationship berween the term"ert" and its use in qualitative research. We then turn to the contributionsof Chicana/o researchers working within Chicano/Letino communitiesand build upon the Chicana/o epistemolory voiced by our compafieras/os.

By sharing our own theorizirg on Chtcana/ o epistemolory, we present thebeginnings of a guiding metaphor for conducting research (la uitrina). Wealso attempt to define "cultural practice" in an effort to raise the importantbut often less-voiced issues of accountabiliry and reciprociry in academicresearch. In the closing sections, we develop the notion of "cultural prac-tice in action" by reflecting on experiences that occurred to us while in andout of the academy and in and out of "the field."

Research and the "Art of . . ."One of the initial conversations we had regardirg this piece was the preva-lent use of the term " arrt" in research methods textbooks and how-tobooks. We found it striking to see so many social scientists liken conduct-irg research to performing a special art form. A short list of such works in-cludes: Basic Research Methods in Social Science: The Art of Empirical

Investigation; Social Science and the Self: Personal Essays on An Art Form; Itarn-ingfrom Strangers:The Art and Method of Qualitatiue Interview Studies;The Artof Fieldwork; Qualitatiue Interuiewing:The Art of Hearing Data; The Art of Case

Study Research;TheArt and Science of Portraiture; and"Interviewing: The Artof Science," in Collecting and Interpreting Qualitatiue Materials.2 While space

does not permit us to anelyze each of these works' use of the art metaphoror fully address the analogies these authors create bet'ween social science

methods and art, we do glean several similar themes from this conventionand raise our own questions about the implications of using such a

metaphor in research. Several questions we hope to raise are: Is the use of

ETHNIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 145

the art metaphor part of a white or racially-biased epistemology?3 Do ac-

ademics of color share a conunon " att" or set of unspoken techniques inapproaching and conducting research? Or is this more akin to cultural prac-

tice? What then is the difference berween "art" and cultural practice?Perhaps the most salient theme that emerges in analyzing the art

metaphor is the authority or voice of experience that comes across several

of these works. It is impressed upon the reader or novice researcher thatthose who have developed en " ert" for conducting a particular kind of re-

search have mastered a set of techniques , prlctices, or skills with certainflur. There is an implicit message within some of these texts that is con-veyed to the emergirg researcher: F{ere are some words of wisdom, prac-ricil, advice, and strategies that you will not hear anywhere else; these may

help you in your pursuits, but remember that even after reading what Ihave written here, you still may not have what it takes to conduct research

rn an " art" -ful manner because that really cannot be taught, even thoughyou should strive for it.

One author we reviewed is actually rather explicit in presenting his

work and describes such methodological advice as "folk wisdom."Julian L.

Simon explains in his social science methods book:

This book is a textbook. Though some of the ideas in it are new most are

not. Like other textbooks it consdrutes a sort of folk wisdom; the folk are

the teachers, colleagues, and students who have discussed research with me.

Some of this wisdom seems never to have been collected or transcribedfrom the oral tradition . . . To collect and discuss this wisdom is the aim ofthis book.a

Simon points out ^

gep in the social sciences ber'ween what is taught andwhat is not written down in terms of research methods.s That empty space

or knowledge that goes unspoken is "folk wisdom" and its totaliry becomesthe " ert of empirical research."6 In addition, Simon points out that the"folk" from whom he has learned t great deal are teachers, colleagues, andstudents; yet, he does not acknowledge learning from the "folk" many ofus social science researchers turn to for data: the participants and corunu-nity members of our studies.

As Chicana researchers who have worked in the academy on numerousstudies pertainirg to the Latino corrununity-in fact, every research studywe have been e paft of was directly related to Latinos, whether it was oneducation, imrnigration, housing, or migrant farmwork-we both agreeand disagree with Simon. In our estimation, there is in fect a rather largegap in our social science training-perhaps more akin to a silencing-but

146 ' JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCI-{EZ

unlike Simon, we feel that which has gone unspoken is more than tech-

niques or an "art"-ful way of conducting research. 'What is not taught in

rh; majoriry of methods courses or textbooks are the epistemologies of

scholars of color who come from many of the same conurrunities in which

social scientists conduct qualitative research. For us, working with and

learning from "folk" in our Latino cornmunities happen both in and out of

research p-j.cts and overlap unconsciously during periods of scientific in-

vestigation and everyd ^y

prrctice. Voicing this realiry is part of our aim in

this fi".., as well as trying to unpack the discourse researchers use to de-

scribe speciali zedtechniques or methods that are based on "experience" (or

the use of certain qualitative research techniques over and over again).

part of the hidden discourse in the art metaphor is the distance it cre-

ates between those who are more experienced in a professional sense (ot

believe they are more experienced) and those of us who are emerging ac-

ademics (and rrray have more experience in e real-world sense). While

there are often seemingly sincere attempts to advise less-experienced col-

leagues, there is still a discourse embedded in this pracrical advice-giving.

When research methods are presented as an established art form, these be-

come difficult to replicate and c^n remain largely unobtainable. This dis-

course privileges the practice, flair, and " art" form that researchers develop

in the academy and perfect with trainin g, practice, and the use and re-use

of techniques in the field. We as Latina researchers have found this dis-

course to be at odds with our own epistemolory, which is grounded in the

corrununities that we both "research" and live in and return to after every

research project is completed.T In reality, as working-class Chicanas we

never leaue "the field." It may be the case that the Latino immigrant stu-

dents we "srudied" in an English-langu age learner studys are not much diG

ferent from our present-day English-langu ^ge

learner neighbors, cousins,

or siblings. While our cultural "trainirg" and communiry experience may

have been primarily forged prior to our entering the academy, some of us

who maintain close relationships to the same or same rype of Latino work-

ing-class neighborhoods, relatives, and friends, continue to develop this

cultural "training" in the form of every d^y pnctice and bring it with us to

the officially designated "research site ." Somos los que estudiamos-e This on-

going interaction with and understanding of our real-life communities is

much different than the social science methods and epistemolory tradi-

tionally espoused in the academY-

There are also several researchers who adhere to the art metaphor by

describirg their position as a painter or artist. In The Art of Case Study Re-


search, Robert E. Stake utilizes the art metaphor to represent numerous

methods that the researcher has before him; it is he who chooses which ofthese will best fit a particular study:

I will try to emphasize the arbitrariness of the methods from chapter tochapter, but I encourage you readers to be dert for tactics that do not fityour style of operation or circumstances. Before you is a palette of meth-ods. There are rnany, many ways to do case studies.lo

\Mith this metaphor, Stake creates a picture of the researcher almost liter-ally standin g et a distance, deciding how to customize her or his methods

to fit the "circumstances" of the impending research study (i..., art proJect)

while also selecting the most comfortable means of operatitg with the

chosen methods. There is a sense of the researcher working from a dis-

tarace, moving in and back out ag Ln, that portrays researchers with artist-

like movements able to judge with artful precision what is appropriate for

the study at hand. Again, the emphasis or pribriry here is the academy orresearcher who is in charge and not the "subj ect" or "researched." This begs

us to ask then, what is the most comfortable way for participants to be re-

searched? '\X/hat palette lies before them when a researcher suddenly ap-

proaches and asks them for their participation? The art metaphor helps the

artist or researcher maintain power and wield considerable conscious con-trol over those being studied while the entire process itself is veiled as e

depolitictzed act.tl Stake also offers the following confirmation of this re-

moved researcher-artist stance when he states:

We tout case study as being noninterventive and empathetic. In other

words, we try not to disturb the ordinary activity of the case, not to test,

not even to interview, if we can get the information we want by discrete

observation or examination of records. We try hard to understand how the

actors, the people being studied, see thin gs.12

Like a painter, the researcher here stands at a considerable distance from her

or his "subject" and remains discrete and removed from the object being"studied." There is e certain omnipresence then that the researcher, like a

master painter, rnay have in re-creating and transferring the observed worldonto the academic canvas. In our estimation, this rings of positivism cloaked

in humanistic aestheticism-the "truth" can be found with careful artistic and

distant obsenration. In this way, the removed-ness of the researcher from the

"researched" helps reinforce a severely imbalanced power relationship. There

is no co-construction of knowledge or qualitative human exchange here.13

748, JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCHEZ

In her prologue to Death withoutWeeping:TheViolenre of Eueryday Lfe inBrazil, Nancy Scheper-Hughes also describes the work of ethnographers as

artrsts:

The ethnographer, like the artist, is engaged in e special kind of visionquest through which a specific interpretation of the human condition, anentire sensibility, is forged. Our medium, our canvas, is "the field," a placeboth proximate and intimate ftecause we have lived some part of our livesthere) as well as forever distant and unknowably "other" (because our owndestinies lie elsewhere).14

ln her metaphor, the field is actually the painter's or ethnographer's canvas.

While this is an honest and reflective observation on the difficulry of rep-resenting the lives and experiences of others, it continues to portray theclassic dilemma of (white) researchers and their traditional entries and ex-its in the field. What happened to the strokes painted by Scheper-Hughesand her participants while engaging in the field or canvas? When she re-turned to the ivory tower to write up this brilliant ethnographic account,where were her artistic partners from the field she alluded to and their con-tributions to this written representation?

The art metaphor in this example continues to provide authoriry to thelone artist-researcher as well as less accountabiliry to research participantsbecause as Scheper-Hughes states, sometimes researchers' "destinies lieelsewhere." However, as Chi cana researchers whose destinies do rn fact liein the same communities we research, the practice of entry and exit is notexperienced in the same manner, nor is accountabiliry to the communitybeing researched readily dismissable. What pulls us to do research in Latinocorrununities are the same ties that bind us to the people and eI bienestar de

nuestra comunidad.ls Research in this way is hardly depoliticized and hardlya lone act.

In addition to using an art metaphor to describe qualitative methods,several researchers have literally used art or aestheti c erafacts-such as pic-tures of famous paintin5 or essays on pottery-making-in order to conveytheir unique approach to social science research and art. Such authors in-clude Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Jessica Hoffinan Davis, and Susan Krieger.In The Art and Science of Portraiture, Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis share theirparticular technique of ethnography-*hich they call "portralgsls"-andexplain how to replicate this methodology, often used to produce telling so-cial portraits; they provide a framework through their own reflecrion andportraiture examples, as well as through artwork created by children andadults juxtaposed with paintinS by famous artists such as Picasso.

r

INIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES I4g

For Lawrence-Lighfoot, portraihrre makes a strong attempt to breakfrom traditional positivist research by craftin g art and science together: "'With[portraiuurE, I seek to combine systematic, empirical description with aes-thetic e4pression, blending art and science, humanistic sensibfities and sci-entific rigor."r0 In fact, Lawrence-Lightfoot roots the development of thismethodology in her literal e4periences as an artist's subject-how she was"attended to, recognized, appreciated, respected, scrurinized" by thosepainten who captured her in both pastels and oils during rwo distinct sittingsin her lifetime. Based on these central encounters, Laotence-Lightfoot be-lieves that portraiture car, merge "good ethnography" with "the evocativeresonance of fine literature."lT Indeed, whil e The Art and Scierce of Portraitureprovides a broad range of techniques necessary in producirg "portraiture,"these techniques are not necessarily politically, socially, or historicallygrounded. In other words, Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis nray describe suchthits as creacitg a "central metaphor" or "shaping context," but they resistsituating themselves in reference to the community *hich they study.

In herbook, Social Science and the Sef: Personal Essays on anArt Form, Su-san Krieger uses the artistic lives and art of Georgia O'Keefe and PuebloIndian potters to exPress en epistemology grounded in the seff.ls LikeLawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, Krieger places

^ premium on aesthetic

(re)presentation. In addition, il three researchers discuss relying heavily onthe self or "f" in their research. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis affirm the"explicit recognition of the use of the self as the primary research instru-ment-"1e For Kriege\ t sociologist, infusing the "I" and self in her writinghas produced considerable polemic in her fiscipline while at the same timehas helped "free" some researchers to do more of this. Yet, the "I" that isincluded in describitg this type of social science research remains en-meshed with the same "f" as artist,"I" as pioneer in painting,"I" as creatorof this art project or research product. And unfortunately, this tends to re-produce the same "I" as in "'W'estern eye," which stems from an acedemicsocial history that has been largely Eurocentnc.

Scheurich and Young, in "Colorirg Epistemology: Are Our ResearchEpistemologies Racially Biased?" discuss at length research epistemologiesthat have dominated the social sciences. These epistemologies (posicivismto postmodernism/poststructuralism) are part of an academic and socialhistory built uPon a white, racially-biased, modernist civllization.Scheurich and Young refer to this as epistemological racism:

Epistemological racism means that our current range of research episte-

;:::::1o*lffi T$;":#i,:*:T":lli,il,:::1fi ,l:il:J:l


the social, historicd e4periences of whites, and, therefore, these productsand practices carry forward the social history of that group and excludeepistemologies of other social groups.2l

By examining the art metaphor, we have come to a similar conclusion as

Scheurich and Young. The art metaphor in social science research is in factpart of a larger racially-biased epistemology that obscures other ways ofknowing reality. In some ways, we can liken this to the "tools" of the "mas-ter's house"22: the art metaphor serves as a. qualitative research discourseveiled as sirnple and harmless techniques when rn fact this discourse pro-vides license to many (white) social scientists to approach research withoutcontextualizing their own social history or ways of knowirg. As a resulr,an "un-colored" dominant epistemology continues to permeate researchstudies, methods courses, and textbooks.

It is not difficult to discern then that for scholars of color it has been astruggle to bring forth our own research epistemologies. Part of this diffi-cuhy lies within a two-pronged dilemma: First, as scholars of color, some-trmes we a;te not aware that the different worldview we hold (incomparison to our white counterparts) will indeed aft-ect the design andimplementation of our investigations; often we are not aware of this beforeembarking upon research, and instead, we experience a serious disconnectfrom both our conununities and academia while immersed in the researchproJect or aftet completing the entire study. Second, even when we pro-foundly sense our misgivings about a particular research study that we arefully involved in, we lack the language or the ability to articulate thispredicament because of our indoctrination or training in the academy(which has severely omitted the incorporation of epistemologies of color).Gloria Ladson-Billings captures this quandary or "limbo" well and de-scribes it as a dilemrna faced by veteran academics as well:

This epistemological limbo-between the old discourse and shs ns\M-i5the place where many scholars of color find themselves. The mechanisrrufor scholarly recognition, promotion, tenure, and publication are con-trolled primarily by the dominant ideology. Scholars of color find them-selves simultaneously having been trained in this dominant tradition andneeding to break free of it.23

We have found that this "breaking free" of traditional epistemologes wouldenhance the work of scholars of color who study the human condicionwithin their own communities of color-corrununicies which may be largelyheterogeneous but are still sites of social injustice, economic instabfiry social

INO QUALITATIVE STUDIES

immobiliry and inequity. As two Chicana researchers speaking from lived ex-

perience, we hope to provide foresight to our compafieras/os who will also

o embark upon research with /rn their own communities. In the following sec-

don, we examine how other Chicana./o researchers have approached (and re-

flected on) working within Chicano/Latino cornmunities.

Chicana/ o Episternologies and

Qualitative ResearchWhile one of our aims in this piece is to contribute to the contours of a

Chicana,/ o epistemology-in particular, one that is expressed by academ-

ics working in educational research-we believe that our dilemmas as re-

searchers are shared across different disciplines and even by communitymembers in different professions.2a Thus, it is not our intention to omit the

contributions of other scholars in this important endeavor, such as Patricia

Hill Collins, Gloria Anzildfia, Richard Delgado, Norma Alarc6n, and

Chela Sandoval .2s In fact, we would like to point out that much theoriz-ing on ethnic epistemologies has come from scholars working in many diG

ferent fields and at different points in time. But, because our own research

experience has been primarily in the airea of educational studies, and be-

cause we come from a social history that is Chicana, bilingual, bicultural,working-class, second-generation immigrant, our focus in this piece re-

mains largely on Chicana/o epistemolory in Latino qualitative studies.

To this end, we chose to closely look at the work from the following ed-ucational researchers who primarily conduct research in Chicano/Latinocommunities: Concha Delgado-Gaitin, Sofia Villenas, Dolores DelgadoBernal, and Marcos Przarro.26 Their pieces highlight a Chicana/ o episte-

molory and the process of "discovering" this epistemology while in the fieldand articulating it within a reflective space. In contrast to some of the loneartist-researchers mentioned in the previous section, these scholars foundthemselves pulled in different directions while working in the communitiesthey were studying. Because these cornnrunities faced substantial marginal-ization and educational inequiry Delgado-Gaitin, Villenas, and Ptzarrowere either approached as a resource or offered assistance out of a cog-n:zance that they themselves have a stake in the bienestar of that cornmunity.From their experiences, we understand that the role of participant-observercan intertwine considerably with that of community member. While it is

clear that all four of these researchers were comrnitted to studying differentissues within the Chiceno/Latino cornnruniry their awareness and readiness

to move in and out of the role of researcher varied throughout different

Fi


stages of their research projects. From their experiences, we were able to

discern certain elements that constitute part of a larger Chic ana/ o episte-

molory as well as examples that support our notion of "cultural practice"(outlined in later sections).

Delgado-Gaitin, Villenas, and Delgado Bernal are mujeres in the field ofqualitative research that challenge the proscribed roles of researcher and"the researched."2T Each of their works questions the manner and method

of inquiry undertaken, the analytical tools used for data interpretation, and

the role of participants in the research process from inception to comple-tion of the srudy. More importantly, their work recognizes the transforma-tional experience that can occur for a researcher studying her owncorrununiry. Although each of the three researchers responded to theircorununities in a variery of ways, they each carne to understand that theirresearch was much more enriched when they were willing to become in-volved with the corrununiry beyond thet academic role.

Delgado-Gaitin's work with a parent group called COPLA (Comite de

Padres Latinos) in the ciry of Carpinlerra, California, helped her reahze

that ^

mutually beneficial partnership cen emerge when the researcher

moves beyond the non-interventive role of participant-observer. In her ar-

ticle, "Researching Change and Changitrg the Researcher," Delgado-Geitln articulates this: the more involved she becarne with COPLA, the

greater understanding she gained about how to go about interpreting whatwas unravelirg. It was her role as a community member rather than that ofa researcher that led her to decide to become involved. Yet, ironically, step-

ping out of that researcher role enabled her to becorne better informed and

to create a methodology that would be more aligned with what was htp-pening in that particular Latino conrmuniry. Because knowledge was co-constructed between the researcher and the researched, there was an

interconnectedness that generated a greater depth of understanditg as op-posed to the outcomes captured by traditional "objective" research meth-ods. Delgado-Gaitin elaborates :

Conducting the Carpinteria study taught me that a researcher can onlybe an outsider; however, with insight, the researcher can encourage and

foster the relational process berween researcher and researched. In the

Carpinteia, study, the reflective analysis between the parents and the re-searcher impacted the direction of the study; the researcher Provided the

communiry with specific data to develop their orgenrzation, while the

parents changed the researcher's perception of the meaning of their ac-

tivities.28


In other words, the researcher recognizes that as a lone researcher who works

from a non-participant-observer role, she will have a limited understanding

of the phenomenon she wishes to study. In this way, a researcher's episte-

mology informs her methodology. The way in which a researcher makes

sense of the world-the reality she has lived and comes to understand-

informs the ways in which she goes about asking questions.

Delgado-Gaitin also points out that "ethnography of empowerment"

allows the researcher to bridge potential disconnects that influence the way

we make sense of the lived realities of particiPants. She states:

In the dilemma of being a memb er/non-member of the ethnic group, I

recognizedthat I had to remain conscious of the insiders'perspective since,

even though I belonged to the same ethnic group as the subjects of this

study, I could not insure true understanding of the culturally bound prac-

tices of the parent group. My lack of understanding was due to both my

acculturation into the dominant culture and my acedemic trainrng.ze

Rather than objecti*ing the lives of the researched, Delgado-Gartin cen-

trally works with her participants to create a certain level of reciprociry.

And in this process, she becomes keenly aware that the cultural practice she

brings has suffered dilution because of her acculturation to mainstream

tI.S. sociery and time spent in the academy.

Villenas's work also demonstrates how a researcher becomes the

medium through which conflicting tensions get channeled, and unlike the

"free]'unaccountable artist-researcher, Villenas feels torn by t deep level ofresponsibiliry to the cornmuniry she works with. Villenas's article "The

Coloni zer / Colonized Ethnographer: Idendry Margin ahzation, and Co-optation in the Field" provides an introspective look et her work withworking-class, immigrant Latino families in rural North Carolina. This ar-

ticle rerninds us that as scholars of color, we are forcibly placed by our ac-

ademic institutions in the peculiar position of makitg research decisions

around issues of loyalry and credibiliry rather than accuracy. Villenas be-

lieves that her role as a researcher is co-opted not just by the comrnuniry

but more directly by the academic institution. Because of this, Villenas

stops to question the ways in which her acadernic training does not facili-tate a scope of understandirg but instead stymies her learning process by

suggesting that she continue working with the popular and negative dis-

course that depicts Latinas / os:

I was ready to learn from this Latino communiry but in the process ofseeking to reform my relationship with them, I failed to notice that I was

154 JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANC HEZ

being repositioned and co-opted by the dominant English-speaking com-munity to legitimate their discourse of "Letinas,/os as problem." In thecourse of working with Hope Ciuy's non-Latino school and service pro-fessionals, I discovered that while I engaged in a rethinking of my ow' pol-itics and the processes of empowerment with the Latino conununity, I washiding my own marginaliry in relation ro the majority culrure.3o

Villenas's positioning within the landscape of her embedded realities al-lowed her to recover a sense of seK as a Chicana, researcher, and corrunu-niry member. In opposition to the well-known research technique of"making the familiar stran gel'tr Villenas recogn ized, that to make the fa-miliar strange disempowered her worldview which is informed by thecombination of lived experience and academic training: "The inte rnaltza-tion of oppressive discourses in relation to oneself as a researcheq especiallyas a product of institutionalized education and universiry training, .r1 leadto a disempowerment of the researcher and research process."32

'W'hereas Delgado-G att6n and Villenas each come to realize thei r aca-

demic training does not speak to the process of conducting research incorrununities of color as scholars of color-after rnany moments of bothinternal and external struggle in the field-Delgado Bernal does not expe-rience similar tensions when conducting research in the Chican o/Latinocornmuniry. Delgado Bernal, in fact, had e highly positive experienceworking with eight Chicanas and their leadership roles in the t 6OOs andI970s Chicano movement. In her piece, "I-Jsing a Chic ena Feminist Epis-temology in Educational Research," Delgado Bernal outlines a Chicanafeminist epistemology based on this study. She asserrs:

A Chicana feminist epistemology arises out of a unique social and culturalhistory and demonscrates that our experiences as Mexican women are le-gitimate' appropriate, and effective in designing and conductirg, and ana-lyzng educational research. 33

According to Delgado Bernal, this Chicana feminist epistemology issuPported and guided by what she terms "cultural intuition." The four ren-ants that form cultural intuition are personal experience, existing literature,professional experience, and the analytical research process itse6. DelgadoBernal adopts this framework from Strauss and Corbin, who have the samefour tenants under their rubric of "theoretical sensitivi Ey."to According roDelgado Bernal, this newly revised framework "gives Chicana and Chicanoeducation scholars some freedom to interpret their research findings out-


side of existing paradigms, and hopefully develop and propose policies andpractices that better meet the needs of Chicanas and Chicanos."3s

While the articulation of this epistemology is one more important step

in encouraging Chic ana/ o researchers to reco grnze the ways in which theirepistemologies directly inform the methodologies of their research studies,

the essence of this framework is still rooted in a theoretical framework-grounded theory-developed within the academy. That is, the origin of this

Chicana feminist epistemology does not come from a framework organic tothe Chicana communiry (or any other community of color); instead it is

based on academicians' theory-making-the sarne colonizirg source manyof our Chicana/o predecessors fought against.Why,we ask, must our in-sights rely so heavily on frameworks developed within the very institutionwe seek to change and redefine? Is it possible to break free and give cre-dence to our own ways of knowing? In our estimation, in order for a frame-work, practice, or epistemology to truly become a platform for communirysocial justice, it must be steeped in the experiences, practices, and social his-tory of that conurlunity and its own knowledge-makitg practices.

Pizarro's article, "'Chicana/ o Power!' Epistemology and Methodologyfor Social Justice and Empowerment in Chi cena/ o Communities," presents

a closer approximation to a Chicana/ o epistemology grounded in the

Chicana/o corrununiry-much like Freire's work in Pedagogy of the Op-pressed, which grounds itself in improving the lives of margtnahzed peo-pl..'u Pizerco explicitly recognizes the political nature of research and

utfizes this as a means to achieving social justice. Influenced by Delgado-Gaitin and Trueba's notion of "Ethnography of Empowermentl'3t Przanoechoes their own words by stating "that not only do we need research on

empowerment but research as empowerment [his italics]."r4 Ptzzaro also

describes how his academic training weakens his abficy to think outside thetraditional confines of qualitative research to enrich his own methodolo-gies. Forced to search beyond his academic training, Pizzaro initiates a self-

reflective critique and learns that as researchers, we must ground "our workand its underlying method and epistemology on the epistemology of those

with whom we work."3e That is, we begin with the perspectives, position-ing, and social histories of the researched. For Przzaro, then, Chicana/ oepistemology stands

in dramatic opposition to the dominant epistemology innovative researchers

have been attempting to fight. I saw from my orwn experiences that love,

f.*ily, and social justice are not only embodied in our goals but are the

foundation to our epistemology itself. In addition, a central component of

156 ' JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANC:HEZ

this episremology is the oral tradition through which Chic ane/ o epistemol-

ogy is passed on in a context of respect and love.a0

Pizzero, therefore, begins to emb race and nurture the learning and experi-

ences he acquired in his corrununiry and uses these to inform his method-

ological approach rooted in social justice. Because of the persistent

problems challenging Chicanas/os, Przzaro believes it is important "'we

consider how a Chic ana/ o epistemology can help us redefine our roles in

the academy and reclaim our roles in Chicana/ o empowerment."4l It is

within this process that Przzero reminds researchers of 'color, specifically

Chicanas/os, that we can only initiate a social justice agenda by first figur-

i.g out our own positions relative to the predominant landscape.

Similar ro the Chicana researchers previously discussed but more direct

in his presentation, Pizano believes we must self-interrogate and explore

what informs our approaches and assumptions regarding the research we

are doing:

I suggest that we look at epistemology and the way that it actually shapes

most of our efforts at innovation. Researchers who are challenging the op-

pressive tendencies of education and research must be willing to challenge

their own approaches and assumptions if we are to move thought and ac-

tion in a new directio n.42

From this perspective, lived experience seems to serve as an important tool

for scholars of color to modify and transgress qualitative pedagogies and

methodologies. Like Przarco, w€ believe that the union of lived experi-

ences as Chicanas and our academic training is sorely disjointed. Through

our working-class backgrounds, we experienced and witnessed the injus-

tices that come from living that realiry. Yet somehow academic training is

meant ro catepult one into believing that to achieve legitimacy and credi-

biliry in academe, one must "check" that lived history at the door, as if that

lived history has neither place in the ivory tower nor abiliry to generate

critical thinking and a social critiqueOverall, all of these Chic ana/ o educational researchers and their exPe-

riences continue the articulation of e Chican e/ o research epistemology.

Delgado-Gaitln allows us to think deeply about the role of reciprocity and

how stepping outside our roles as researchers supplernents our understand-

irg. 'Whereas Delgado-Gaitin focuses on her relationship with the re-

searched, Villenas gives us an introspective view regarding the ways in

which researchers of color can find themselves inadvertently caught be-

fween competing loyalties to the conununiry and academy. Villenas evalu-


ates her position and intentions with regards to the corrununiry she stud-

ied. In contrast to Delgado-Gaitiln and Villenas, Delgado Bernal offers a

framework-Chicana feminist epistemolory-to better consider what itmeans to be a Chicarra studying Chicane issues within the academy. Lastly,

Pizzarc speaks forthrightly about qualitative research being informed by

our own epistemologies as well as its politictzednature and how it can be-

come a vehicle for attaining social justrce.

Defining Cultural Practice'While we believe that the Chtcene/o researchers discussed in the previous

section respectfully serve as the beginning of the articulation of e coherent

Chican a/ o research epistemology, it would be naive to suggest that all Chi-ctna/ o or Lati na/ o researchers share these same experiences or epistemol-

ory. But, it is important to note that there is a growing number ofChican a/ o academics in the field of education who are choosing to do

work that does not leave their lived experience or commitment to their

corrununities "checked" at the door.a3 Many of these researchers enrich

their work and epistemologies with what we term "cultural practice."

Cultural practice originates from lived realities and therefore informs

and orients our approach to conducting research. From our perspective,

cultural practice 1) is constructed from the intersection of gender, class,

immigration status, race, and sexual orientation; 2) creates a system ofmeaning and understanfing of that intersected reality; and 3) positions

oneself in the world in a way that frames both personal and professional in-teractions. Culrural practice emerges frorr. a lived experience within e p^r-

ticular conununiry. We each possess a cultural pracrice that is couched inour social histories. Therefore, it seems hardly plausible that we as re-

searchers would somehow become disengaged from our cultural practice

when we suddenly enter the academy and conduct research. At some level,

we are either more or less aware of how cultural practice impacts the way

we proceed as researchers. 'When we closely look at the academy's empha-

sis on learning and masterirg a certain set of research techniques, the role

of cultural practice is often omitted. While we understand this omission is

not necessarily intentional, it perpetuates the notion that qualitative meth-

ods can be uniformly and universally applied without considering who the

researcher is and who the cornmunity being researched is. For us, invoking

cultural practice does not mean we discard our academic training, but

rather, we recognize its limitations. Because the corrununities of color we

choose to study are often located outside the cultural understandings of the

158, JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANC,IIEZ

inscitution, we must approach and conduct research in a way that utilizes

both the strengths of our academic training and the strengths of our cul-

tural practice-probably erring in favor of remaining loyal to our own

communities of origin. However, for some researchers, at the end of the

day, they easily step outside of their researcher roles and return to their

homes; whereas for others, departure or exit from the research site is less

self-evident or hardly possible because their own lives-famfies, friends,

and/ or neighborhoods-intimately resemble their research comnuniry.

The dividing line berween conununity member and researcher is not

always apparent. When researchers ue tctively engaged and invited to par-

ticipate in communiry activities as conununiry members, they have the op-

portuniry to continue developing insight into both the corrlmunity they

Lelong to and the one in which they may stake their research interests. As

Chicanas growing up in homes and neighborhoods that were different than

the "offi cial" knowledge transmitted to us (about us) in schools, we learned

a gre21t deal about who we were, where we came from, and what meaning

this gave us in our lives from the human agents in our conununities: our

families, neighbors, parenrs, grandparents, padrinos (godparents) , tlos (uncles

and aunts) , primos (cousins).44 In our "home" spaces-which included the

transnational experience of refurning to our parents'natal conununities in

M6xico-the repository of knowledge rested in the human resources ofresistance and resiliency. In turn, this climate of survival greatly impacted

the generous spirit of our cornrnunities, whether it was our abuelita (grand-

morher) sending us with an ollita of atole to a much older and widowed

u:ieiita who lived aloneas or the collecti.g of bag after b"g of clothitg and

goods at cheap Saturday yard sales-to be shipped with the first relative re-

iurning to M6xico-or the $400 loan for a distant primo (cousin) to be able

to cross and pay the coyote.a6 We learned about this knowledge or

conocimiento primarily through everyd ey pr^ctice and in the form of cuen-

tos, dichos, and consejos (stories, sayings, advice).

Today, this knowledge serves us well and has become the "cultural train-

irg" we bring to the academy. But it would be inaccurate to think that this

cultural training only happened beforcwe entered the academy.# As young

scholars still intimately connected with our conununities (it some cases

with the same ones we grew up in and in other instances with ones very

similar), w€ constantly develop cultural practice as we continue to live and

practice in these cornmunities. In our view, cultural pracrice is an ongoing

pro..rs; it is practicing everyday life in our cultural conunuttity, what we

lirr., experience, cherish, critique, and want to change. It also involves tak-

irg that cultural practice to our other communiries of work, the universiry

LOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 159

and so forth. Our embedded knowledge, or conocimiento, of the Chtcano/Latino conurrunity provides us with substantial insight into many of its

needs. Our research, then, combines this conocimiento with action that willaddress the cornnrunity" bienestar.

'While we hope that we are not essentiahzing working within commu-nities from which our cultural practice originates-nor do we mean tosuggest that researchers cannot be effective or gain understanding about

comrnunities that are not their own-we do want to acknowledge that

each of us is an agent in possession of a cultural practice that emerges fromliving within a particular culcural communiry and its social history These

culrural practices are embodied in the practices, intentions, and discourses

we use in the social practice of research. As an example of this, we offer

the followirg metaphor of la uitrina to further define how our cultural

practice influences our epistemology and methodology.

Toward a Metaphor of Cultural Practice:LaVitrinaWe began this piece by takinga close look at a common metaphor in qual-

itative research-the art metaphor that compares qualitative researchers toartists and their products (such as fieldwork or published studies) to arrwork.

If we extend this analysis, we also find that, traditionally, art in the Western

world has primarily been a privilege for those who belong to the dominantgroup. In fact, in the modern world, many aspects of art have long been in-accessible to those without the financial resources to take part in its pro-duction, dissemination, consumption, or enjoyment.48 As tn elite social

practice, 'Western art has been renowned for its exclusion of corrununities

and artists that come from different traditions of artistic elpression.

To disrupt part of this Eurocentric transmission in the arts and social

sciences, we have developed a different metaphor for the way we conduct

qualitative research in our own conununities. Through a discussion we had

early in the process of writing this piece, we found that we were both do-irg research in a very similar way that was not a part of our training (i.e.,

infusing cultural practice in the design and implementation of our research

prqects). During this conversation, we wondered if other scholars of coloroperated in the same way. As a starting point, we referred to Linda Tuhi-wai Smith, who calls for a decolorttzation of research methods; as a Maoriresearcher working with her communiry she carefully details t research

agenda that reclaims control over indigenous ways of knowitg and being.ae

This led to our creation of an organic research metaphor grounded in our

160 JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANC HEZ

experiences/ways of knowirg and in the homes of many families in theChican o /Latino cornnruoityr la uitrina.

A uitrina (vee-tree-nah) is literally a cabinet with glass doors and win-dows that showcases or stores a family's fine china. In creating thismetaphor, we recalled the uitrinas our abuelitas, t{as,so and mothers keep in-tact for years, and where they collect different memories from major fam-ily events. A uitrin4 serves as a space where many Latino families keep theirmost important and special memories in addition to their fancy dishes.

Each item in a uitrina tells a special story in a f.-ily's life-often celebra-tory and at times tragic. For example, the vitrina in one of our mother'shomes has the family's fine china; recuerdo.s from baby showers, weddings,bautizos, and quinceafierasst (the small physical mementos Latino familieshand-make and give to all attendees at special events); a plastic champagneglass from the first second-generation immigrant child who graduated fromhigh school; bwo little vases one child made out of plaster and painted inthird grade; a hollow Easter egg hand-painted by

^ German neighbor; the

small fl^g used in a naturahzation ceremony; decorative hand-crocheteddoilies; and unframed photographs of new babies, special moments, anddeceased loved ones.

Like the uitrina, we believe that people carry their tife stories withdlgm-sometimes "viewable" through transparent doors but often tuckedeway behind other objects. People and their life experiences and the ways

they make meaning are part of larger stories kept in a human vitrina. Whenwe speak with someone and ask them to "pour" their lives out to uS, weare in essence asking them to share the items in their human uitrina. Someitems are in easy view for them to bring out and others are carefully stoweddeep and out of view. For us, then, it is important that the keeper of theuitrina be the one that decides which item to share.

In keepirg with our beliefs about cultural practice and research, anotherset of questions emerges once an item is retrieved and shared from a per-son's uitrina. 'What do we then as "researchers" do with these special-often fragile-items our "informant" gives us? This special, individually sa-

cred life story they have passed on to us is like one of those unique, deli-cate recuerdo.s or vases in our tfa\ uitrina. In whi cLt uitrina do we now placethis precious gift our "informarat" has given us? What kind of yitrina do wenow create for its safekeeping and showcasing? Is this new vitrina as care-fully constructed as the one our grandma has in her own home? Is it cre-ated with as much care as hers? Or is the academi c uitrin4 we create and inwhich we place this item constructed with too much jargon, disconnect-i.g this gift further from its organic origins? And when it is placed in this


academic uitrina, how safe is it here? .Who will see it through these new

glass doors and will it be cherished as rnuch as it was by its original keeper?

How can we reconcile these difreren t uitrinas and create one that addresses

these multiple challenges?

Cultural Practice as Ethnic Episternologyand MethodoloryAs we saw in the metaphor of la uitrina, we strongly believe in and respect

the knowledge and lived experiences of those that become involved in our

research. Given the kinds of cornnrunities we have chosen to study

throughout our academic careers, we have also chosen to make reciprocity

and accountabfity arL unquestioned condition in cxrryLrrg out research.

Several ways this has influenced the way we "practi ce" research can be

found in our notion of "incentives," our comrnitment to a research process

that brings immediate social change, and'our belief that participants are

knowledge creators outside of research p-jects.Often a remunerated exchange benveen a traditional researcher and par-

ticipant is carried out in the form of an incentive. This formal practice does

not reflect the spirit of the exchange that happens in much of our work.s2

Participants in the studies we have led were not given incentives in direct

relationship to the experiences they shared with us. Exchanges, instead,

were faclhtated by the realiry of meeting corrurrunity needs and improvi.grts bienestar. Our connectedness to these communities and the accountabil-

ity we felt in oflbring and sharing, at times, our social capital was motivated

by ^

deep sense of reciprociry. We recognize this as teniendo buena uoluntad

(having good will), which means consistently oflering good will from the

beginning to those around you to acknowledge the formation of a rela-

tionship ber'ween rwo parties. This is not a discussion about incentives inexchange for information. Buena uoluntad embodies the enactment of being

mindfully courteous at all times to those around you to demonstrate your

persona and intentions. This demonstration of good will allows the sur-

rounding communiry to decide the value of your presence and the degree

to which they would like to include and involve you in their everydty lives.

Sometimes this involvement may entail a rarrge of activities, such as helpitgsomeone's father create and rype a r6sum6, looking for the best airfare via

the Internet for a daughter to travel to M6xico, accompanyittg a mother to

sign up for cell phone service because she does not have the proper form ofidentification, or showitrg sorneone's cousin how to use an ATM because he

or she just opened a bank account.

162' JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCIHEZ

One of the tenants of our epistemolory is that we are researchers because

we believe research can be a vehicle for social change. More specifically, we

believe that the actual process of conducting research can be a direct way to

address immediate educational and social needs of our participants. For ex-

ample, in a research p-j.ct one of us has led, three Latina youth were at the

center of desigrung and carrying out the entire research.s3 This collaborative

process included over three years of weekly meetings, a field research trip

with the three youth and adult researcher to M6xico, as well as analysis,

write-up, and presentation of data at several research conferences where the

youthwereintegra1.5aTheinvestigationoftheparticularphenomentransnationalism-was not the sole purpose but the vehicle for other areas ofchange, such as breaking the isolation of Latina youth in urban communi-

ties, co-authoring a bilingual and bicultural children's book, engaging "ordi-

n^ry" people in the process of research which is usually left to "professionals,"

and creatin g ^n

impact in the usually stagnant (or culnrrally exclusive) cur-

ricula of these girls'middle schools and high schools. While the art metaphor

in research tends to promote and encourage a "free rein" of sorts in re-

searching any topic within arny cornmuniry culrurd practice actually makes

you seriously consider how the work you do will benefit participants and the

conurlunity. Its utility is different from thinking how it will get you bener

date or advance your professional career. In other words, cultural practice

embodies genuine comrnitment to your cotrunuruty.

As discussed in the previous two sections, we see members of our com-

munity as knowledge creators. It does not take their participation in a study

for their lived experience and expression of it to become "knowledge"-though academia often does not consider corrununiry knowledge valid un-

til it ends up as a transcribed quote in a published paper. It is profoundly

disturbing that unril a corrrmunity member's knowledge is filtered through

a professional researcher it isn't considered worthy or official. Even pro-

gressive researchers use language such as "sharing data with participants" oriin roLrittg them in data interpretation" to bestow participants as creators ofknowledge. In our belief system, conununity memb ers cfie knowledge cre-

ators long before we interview them-

Cultural Practice in Action:Motnents in Acadernia and "in the Field"In trying to theorize cultural practice, we have provided our analysis of

other Chicanas'/os'reflective experiences in conducting research as well as

a frarnework, metaphor, and approach to research based on our cofiunu-

NIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 163

nity experiences. However, we also recogni ze thet one of the most effec-tive ways to continue to define culrural practice is by providing extendedexamples of this dynamic. The first-person testimonioss| written below aresome of our personal experiences that best capture moments of culturalpractice in action.

VI/hot Does It Mean to be Chicana?Real Conuercations with Real WomenThis example comes from my first qualitative course in graduate school ate prominent public university in northern California. The course wastaught by e well-known anthropologist who had years of "experience"conducting educational research in immigrant cornmunities.

It was my very first qualitative course. While the first part of that se-mester required we understand the principles of observation and inter-views, the second half of the semester required that we conduct a researchproject using what we learned. For my topic, I chose to explore the ques-tion: "'What does it mean to be Chicana?" I arcanged to interview eightself-identified Chicanas with college degrees. I also decided to choosewomen with whom I had good rapport. I arrive d at each of our meetingspaces with the same set of questions.

The interviews themselves never began right ewey. The first fwentyminutes were spent exchanging saludos. Saludos encompass more than a

greeting and are more similar to a conversation in which people catch upwith each other's lives and exchange current events happening within therespective farnily, neighborhood, ciry aind/ or state; this process often takesplace over something to eat or drink. Dando saludos was to be expected andto do othenvise would be considered rude. So, for me, this made inter-views a very comfortable experience since the interviewee and I beganwith a famfiar and common cultural practrce.

I met with each of these eight women after work and mostly over din-ner. At the time, I was trained to use a tape recorder and take field notes.And although I cannot explain why I decid ed against audio recording ourconversations, to me, it seemed to compromise the integriry of the mo-ment. In my mind, it seemed highly inappropriate to record our naturaland genuine conversations over dinner. It was more than cornmon cour-tesy; it was about payrng respects to someone's living history (the preciousand carefully

^rrenged pieces inside of their uitrina).

Each woman was interviewed for approximately two hours. I jottednotes when somethitg interesting was said that responded to or confirmed


something in the existing literature on Chicanas. After each interview, I

made a committed effcrt to immediately sit at my computer and type up

all the interviews in a narrative fashion. I shared the interviews with par-

ticipants to make sure that our conversation was accurate, which also

helped me unpack their experiences if they felt that the discourse used to

narrate their experience seemed to be inaccurate.

As part of the course's requirements, we were to submit weekly write-ups of our research interviews or as they took place. About four interviews

into the rycle of submissions, I read a commentary in blue ink on the last

page of my fourth interview: "Are these interviews real?" "Real?!?" I

thought to myself. I finally went to the professor's office hours, and I asked

what she meant by "real." She basically pointed to the fact that it was my

first qualitative course and the quatiry of the interviews exceeded her ex-

pectacions and my training. I responded by saying that these interviews

were indeed real and that the renditions came from real individuals.

Throughout the rest of the quarter, I continued submitting my interviews

in the same format, but I was deeply skeptical about this professorb abiliry

to train and work with someone like me because my aPproach to qualita-

tive interviews was beyond and unlike her own academic trainitg.To this day, that particular conversation and experience lingers in my

memory whenever I am conducting qualitative methods in my conununity.

It lingers because I remain undecided as to whether this professor's com-

ments were compliments or expressions of skepticism. Either way, one ofthe things that became clear to me then is that my cultural practice helped

me conduct those first interviews. Yes, of course I also kept in mind cer-

tain qualitative conventions such as rememberittg to probe and making sure

to pose questions that create building blocks to establish knowledge. But itwas the manner in which the interviews were mediated through my un-

derstanding about what it means to be a Chicana corirmuniry member that

made a huge difference.

I grew up with a father who was an active storyteller, conveyitg all ofhis knowledge and wisdom in the form of real-life cuentos.s6 My father

imparted to us our family history with its origins in Michoacin, M6xico;

Mexican history related to Jiquilpan, Micho ac6n; his personal migration

history to the United States; how he met our mother; and what it was

like for him to become a father. My upbringing was largely influenced

by this tradition of oral history and cuentos My father taught us through

this storytelling to be active listeners, which immensely influenced me as

a researcher to view the act of askirg questions not as a device for ac-


quiring lived experience but as a way to build understanding and appre-ciation about the lived experience. As children, we were not allowed toask questions for the sake of asking questions. My father taught us to ask

questions to gain greater depth of understandirg and to be cognizant thatnot all questions have answers or should be answered. In this sense,

knowledge and its power are maintained by the one telling the cuento orsharing his life storli knowledge remains sacred, intimate, and valued at

all times.In my familia, cuento.s5T were offered and shared to serve the purpose of

remembering life experiences of the past to inform the decisions thatneeded to be made in the present. Cuentos imparted life lessons and out-lined guiding principles that were to increase the well-being of my familia.Cuentos articulated experiences that highlighted life challenges and tri-umphs; they were meant to exemplify self-respect, digniry and strength.For me, interviewing has always been foremost about gathering cuentos forthe purpose of inserting greater clariry and gdining a closer approximationabout a lived experience. I approach this work in much the same spirit as

I was taught throughout my life: with a. strong sense of reverence. Thislived experience does not replace the fact that it is important to learn theconventions and practices that define qualitative research. Rather, culturalpractice helped to compensate for the shortcomings in my academic train-irg to help me understand lived experiences in their respective culturalcontexts. ss

I embraced and saw my cultural practice as being an asset to conduct-irg academic work. It was the first time I rcahzed that I had something tobring to my education that could not be taught in academia but only livedand learned from my communiry. 'With time, I realtzed I would never be

complimented or acknowledged for bringing this contribution to my re-search. Nor would I be taught how to incorporate this insight into my ac-

ademic training. Regardless of what my professor thought at the time, Inever stopped to consider my f.-ily and community lessons outside of the

academy to be less legitimate or credible: my academic training was en-riched because of my outlook on cuentos. Upon taking my last course inqualitative research in graduate school, I maintained that who .[ was greatlyinfluenced how I interviewed, analyzed, and represented data. In fact, years

later when I found myself collectirg data, I found myself understanditgthat what I knew about the world and my realiry helped to inform mymethodology. I had developed a greater sense of insight to ask the deeper

questlons.

166 .JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCF{EZ

Crazando la Linea Otra Yezse: VVho Really Benefits

fro* this Information Anyway?When my advisor invited me to attend a binational research colloquium on

immigration between M6xico and California, I was flattered and excited to

meet the many scholars working in this area. In particular, I was lookingforward to meeting those who worked at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte(College of the Northern Border). This conference took place in the

spring of 2002 during our university's spring break. Immediately before

the colloquium, I spent four days of my academic recess visiting my par-

ents and f"-ily in El Paso, Texas.

What happened at the fwenty-five-person colloquium is somethitg Ihave a difficult time explaining. The nvo-day event was full of informative

and interesting presentations; the researchers in attendance were predomi-

nantly on the "Ieft" on issues of M6xico-U.S. immigration; the size of the

group was small enough for good follow-up discussion during and after

each presentation. There was also a great deal of famfiarrty (and I would

even say long-standing friendship$ among participants, as well as e paid

pair of highly trained translators that bridged the language barrier when

necessary The weather was sunny and pleasant those rwo days, the food

was catered and actually very good. So why did I have such an adverse re-

sponse to incorporating to this event and its dynamic?

I could say, ^cademically,

that there were a few k y things that produced

this result: 1) [ was a graduate student and the majoriry of speakers were

experienced scholars in their field, instillin g et times an unspoken hierar-

chy;2) I was technically an outsider to this grouP because I was invited to

the colloquium to hear and discuss and not to present my own work on

immigration and transnationalism; and 3) there was a,large conference table

in the middle of the room where all the presenters sat, with a ring of chairs

outside this table for non-presenters like myself, creating a feeling, some-

what, of "not being at the table." But I think the greatest challenge for me

was actua\ trying to decide where I fit in: as an academic or as a member

of the population being studied.

I am the daughter of immigrants from M6xico (the often-studied"second-generation"). I was raised along the M6xico-U.S. border, where

our home often served. as a stop for family members ("undocumented la-

borers") along their U.S.-immigration journey. My entire life is steeped

with this experience both personally and professionally, as my work in-volves issues of education and the Latino imrnigrant conurruniry. Immedi-

ately before this colloquium on imrnigration, I had been in El Paso where

NIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 1,67

fwo k.y things were underway: My mothert relatives whom she had peri-tioned for U.S. residency fifteen years ago were about to be called for theirinterviews. I helped my father fill out the laborious paperurork for thisprocess and repeatedly called the Imrnigration and Naturali zation Service(INS) helpline for clarification. In addition, that same week, a cousin waspreparitg to cross into the U.S. via Texas but had undergone severalthwarted attempts.

On a local front, my partner and I had just finished our interviews atINS for the processing of his green card, where we were grilled about theveriry and legitim^cy of our marriage. A close friend of ours was also inthe process of bringing her three children across the border after not see-itg them for over three years; this was going to cost her upwards of $3,000,let alone the emotional and psychological costs of entrusting their safery tostrangers. Dealing with all of these personal stories involving U.S. immi-gration policy was not new to me or exactty difficult. But working throughthese issues while simultaneously hearing two consecutive days of abst ract,distant presentations on phenomena that I was person"Uy living was ratherdisconcerting. How could I engage in this intellectual exchange? Everypresenter's findings were one more famfiar and personal story to me.

I scribbled on my conference agenda, "'W'ho's really crossing the bord.erhere?" There were studies on entry points and the beefed up border patroland how this pushed migrants to cross at less safe points (such as the ex-pansive and deadly hot desert); the protests by binational groups on thismfitarization; elections won and lost by transnational candidates; theunionizing efforts of certain imrnigrants and how organizingwas more ef-fective in their natal corrununities in M6xico than in the U.S.; the resultsof a questionnaire given to migrant workers in the grape fields of NapaValley; the participation of the second generation in hometown associa-tions in the U.S.; the healthcare of imrnigrant families; and the role ofyouth in transnational events in small rural Mexican corrununities. I coul,Cnot help but feel as if I were crossing in and out of multiple worlds as Iheard data' that was literally collected about members of my imrnigrantf.-ily. Many d*a points in a set could have easily been someone I knewor even me!

At one point during the colloquium, a policy andyst showed us a map ofthe most dangerous areas to cross along the M6xico-U.S. border as well as

the erea least patrolled by the border patrol or la migra: Marfa, Texas. Ithought to myse[ "This is close to Ojin ege. I better call my mom." I calledmy mother during one of the breaks and asked her if our cousin had already


crossed into the U.S. because if he hadnt, maybe he could try at Ojinaga.

My mom said, "No te preocupes.Ya cruz6 la lfnea otra uez." (Don't worry. He al-

rcady crossed the line again.) Our cousin had successfully gone through some

agricultural fields at another entry point, carefully lodged himself inside the

back of an unknown, large truck carrying used tires, and poked his head outat every freeway exit sign to see where the truck was taking him: Phoenix,

Arizona. Though his intended destination was really elsewhere, he did nothave a problem getting there because his U.S.-gringo boss personally drove

two days to Phoenix to pick him up. For a moment, I just chuckled to my-self. My cousin had beaten the stats.

";Por qu6 no vienes a comer?"60Blurring Lines, Strengthening the Ties That BindIn numerous decisions I made during the collection of my dissertation data,

I chose to cross the boundaries of my researcher role despite feeling uncer-

tainabouttheconsequenceS.Fromecofiununirystandpoint,inc1usinot distance as in "making the famfiar stran ge"6r-felt more contextually

appropriate when I was conducting a study on the educational experiences

of three Chicano undergraduates attendirg a four-year institution.I remember it was my plan to attend a conference on Larino teachers and

teaching in San Jos6, California, and then head on over to drop off a gift formy brother at rny parents' since they would be going to Arizona to spend

time with him. Days before the conference, I finished interviewing Anto-rtto62 and he asked if I was attending the conference in San Jos6. I said yes. I

asked if he was attending also. (At that point I remembered that Antonio didnot have e cer, and was probably going to be seeking transportation. FIe was

the kind of person that reserved the number of Personal requests he made

of people until he really needed help.) Antonio said that he was going to at-

tend if his friend was still going to offer to take him. I asked Antonio to call

me if his friend did not follow through. About rwo dtyt later, Antonio called

me in the evening and asked if the ofil'er for a ride was still on the table.

Without hesitation, I said I would gladly take him to San Jos6. I also let himknow that I needed to stop by -y parents'house to drop off a birthday giftfor my brother. In that same breath, I said he was not obligated to come withme. I had planned to step out during the conference lunch break to drop offthe gift at my foll$'house. He said he would think about it. The next day I

picked him up and we headed down to San Jos6.

Our drive down became his opportunity to "interview" me and ask

what it was like to be raised in San Jos6. I shared my own history with him

HNIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 169

and what brought my parents to the ciry after so many years of working asmigrant farm workers. We soon arrived at the .onf..ence site. 'When

thelunch break arrived, I checked in with Antonio to see if he wanted to stay.I let him know that I would gladly come back to pick him up and thenmake the return trip back to our homes north of San Jos6. He said that hepreferred to come have lunch with me at my parents,house.

As we drove through the sffeets of San Jos6, Antonio asked me wh at rtwas like to come home as a graduate studen t at one of the world,s mostprestigious universities. As we sat in rny car waiting for the red light rochange to greetr, I responded by t"yt rtg, "Look ,rorrrrl you. No one exceptyou knows that I have such an education. We look like the people who arein the cars that surround us. There are no visible markers that would letpeople know I am college-educated." For the next couple of minutes, I re-ahzed that I really had no concerns about Antonio meeting my parentsgiven that he spoke Spanish and that I considered him to be

" ,.r[y nice

person based on our interviews. I parked the car and my parents came outto greet and welcome us. I exchanged hugs and kisses with my parents andintroduced Antonio to them. My mom welcomed him and said, ,,

lpor qi6no uienes a comer?"-she had just finished making " unas sabrosisimas,,,chicken enchiladas. He smiled. We proceeded to sit down for lunch withmy parents.

It was not long before my father asked him if his fr*ily was from M6x-ico and whereabouts in M6xico. Much of that lunch was spent witnessingthe mutual exchange of ft*ily histories between my parents and Antonio.My parents gave ,tntonio a tour of the house and shared family photos inthe home where I spent my childhood. Prior to leaving, my parenrs packedfood for us so that we might have somethirg to eat later on the drive home.

I remember driving eway from my house thinking about the numerousways I was led to believe (from my academic training) that I might havecompromised my research because I chose to blur the lines of researcherand researched. Flowever, I now reahze that moments like these lend them-selves to building reciprocify as well as a foundation of trust. Just as I cameto know Antonio, Antonio also came to know me. This leveied the powerimbalance of the researcher who usually "extracts" information from in-formants and shares nothing of her own life or background. The end re-sult of this groundwork would inevitably better inform the means bywhich I could understand Antonio and his life history. Not only did he un-derstand more about my history and intentions with the research I wasconducting, but I also gained holistic insight into his outlook and partici-pation in the world.

170 JULIE L. FIGUEROA AND PATRICIA SANCIHEZ

Continuing the'Work in Our Cornmunities(as "Researchers")As Chicana researchers who live, work, and study (itr) our corrununities,invoking an epistemology grounded in cultural practice means doing re-search where the stakes are high. Not only are we accountable to the aca-demic machine, but also, and more importantly, we are accountable to thecorrununities who have shaped us our entire lives, as well as to other aca-demics of color who hold similar epistemologies. It is unfortunate that ac-ademia rarely creates a space where the researcher cen openly discuss all the"home knowledge" that she brings to the field. Instead, in our experience,we have found that the spaces in academia too often try to diminish whowe are and our lives. That is why we have come to believe that academictraining alone does not always give a researcher the entitlement (or the bestpreparation) to examine the lives of communities like ours-though manyacademics feel othenvise. As Chicana scholars, we have taken "traditional"practices and discourses in qualitative research and transformed these tomake them culturally responsive to and respectful of the conurrunities weplan to spend the rest of our lives in. While we do not completely dismiss

ouracademictraining,ourhopeistoconVeythataSwomenofcolowith particular social histories-we use a combination of academic train-itg and cultural practice to transform and enrich our qualitative work,which most often happens (and will continue to happen) itr our own eth-ruc corrlmunrtres.

For us, then, cultural practice embodies recogrtrzing the knowledge andlived experiences of our community members and seeing the same humanrichness across different Chicano/Lattno communities (which works to in-terrupt the transmission or reproduction of the cultural deficit theory).63Because of this, we feel that practicirg research in the same traditional, ob-jective way further fragments communities that are already torn and scarred

by many existing injustices and social inequalities. Our cultural practice,therefore, does not allow us to be immobile, distanced, non-interventiveparticipant-observers when we see and know that our cornmunities are

struggling. Instead, we attempt to create research projects that pay attentionto multiple issues and meet some of the cornmutrity t immediate needs be-cause traditional methods rarely address (or condone) this in their process.

A question that arises for us, then, is "FIow do we work through theselimitations in an authentic way that expands the existing conventions usedin qualitative methods?" We believe that cultural practice holds part of thesolution. Cultural practice becomes that missing tool that helps us fill the

NIC EPISTEMOLOGY IN LATINO QUALITATIVE STUDIES 17I

gaps of understanding that cannot be addressed solely by our academictraining- Given the dynamic process with which knowledge is socially con-structed in researched communities, the demands in the field should moveresearchers to not simply rely on techniques found within the latest how-to article- We believe that cultural practice stands to expand, enrich, andinform the traditions of qualitative methods.

In our experience, we were able to work through the traditions thatbind us to academia and make our qualitative research a much more posi-tive and organic process. We ask others who find themselves facrnga sim-ilar situation to have the courage and seek the support to do the same.64Through our endeavors, we embraced the efforts of many scholars of colorwhose work encouraged us to think deeply about our responsibilities as re-searchers working within our own comnrunities. We encour age all of ourpeers to think past methodological debates and instead think criticallyabout two very important things: 1) the cultural practice that informs yourresearch epistemolo gy and 2) the kinds of communities you hope to workin during your "research" life's trajectory. In this wzf, qualitative researchbecomes more than the sum of techniques or art: qualitative research holdsthe rich possibiliuy of being infused by cultural practice.

Clositg Dicho6sFollow your epistemology even if it goes against your training (becauseyour trainingnLay not be enough to work within your own comrnuttity).

Notes7. Often what is most circulated or cited are reflective pieces by scholars of

color who have had a difficult time conducting research within their own com-muniry. For example, see Patricia Zevelh, "Feminist Insider Dilemmas: Con-structing Ethnic Identity with Chicana Informants," in Feminist Dilemmas inFieldwork, ed. Diane L. WoE @oulder, Colo.: Wesffiew Press, 1996), 1,38-1.59;John L. Agtilar, "lnsider Research: An Ethnography of a Debate," in Anthropolo-gists at Home in North America: Methods and Issues in the Study of One\ Own Society,ed- D- A- Messerschmidt (New York: Cambridge tJniversiry Press, 1988) , 1,5-26;Sofia Villenas, "The Colonizer/Colonized Chicana Ethnographer: Identity, Mar-grnelnation, and Co-optation in the Field," Haruard Educational Reuiew 66, no. 4(1996):7It-731;Brackette F 'Witliams, "skinfolk, Not Kinfolk: Compararive Re-flections on the Identiry of Participant-Observation in Two Field Situations," inFeminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork, ed. Diane L. WoH @oulder, Colo.: 'Weswiew

Press,1996),72-95.


2. Juhen L. Simon, Basic Research Methods in Social Sciences:TheArt of EmpiricalInuestigation,2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1978); Susan Krieger, Social Sci-

ence and the Self: Personal Essays on an Art Forrc (New Brunswick: Rutgers (Jniver-siry Press, 199I); Robert S. 'Weiss, I*arning rto* Strangers: The Art and Method ofQualitatiue Interuiew Studies (New York: Free Press, 1994); Harry E Wolcott. TheArt of Fieldwork flValnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 1995); HerbertJ. Rubin andIrene S. Rubin, Qualitatiue Interuiewing: The Art of Hearing Data (Thousand Oaks,Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995); Robert E. Stake, The Art of Case Study Research

(Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1995); Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot and

Jessica Hoffinan Davis , The Art and Science of Portraiture (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1997); Andrea Fontana andJames H. Frey, "Interviewing: The Art of Science,"inCollecting and Interpreting Qualitatiue Materials, ed. Norman K. Denzin and YvonnaS. Lincoln (London: Sage Publications, 1998) , 47-78.

3. James J. Scheurich and Michelle D. Young, "Coloring Epistemology: AreOur Research Epistemologies Racially Biased?" in Anti-Racist Scholarship: An Ad-uocacy, ed. James J. Scheurich (Alb any, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2002), 57-73.

4. Simon, Basic Research Methods, 10.

5. Though not a contemporary of Simon's, 'V/illiam t. B. Beveridge also points

to a similar gap in his book, The Art of Scientfic Inuestigation (New York: 'W \M Nor-ton, 1,957). And while we offer our apologies for including in this discussion an

adamant positivist from the mid-nventieth century we think his conunents makean interesting point about the way natural scientists have also connected scientificinvestigation to the art metaphor. Beveridge explains: "It is Erue that much time and

effort is devoted to training and equipping the scientist's rnind, but little attentionis paid to the technicalities of making the best use of it. There is no satisfactory

book which systematizes the knowledg. available on the practice and mentalskills-ghg 311-of scientific investigation" (p. viir). Beveridge, professor of animalpathology, goes on to say that he apologizes for even writing this book: he feels ter-rible for proposing in essence an epistemolory. Flowever, he euphemizes such an

epistemology by calling it "the psychological aspects" of research, ?s if these "as-pects" can be measured precisely by another science-the science of the mind: psy-chology. Beveridge also apologizes for not being formally trained in psychology andfor using his own experience as a source of information in his book (xr).

6. Simon, Basic Research Methods.

7. Miguel A. Guajardo, Education for ltadership Deuelopment: Preparing a NewCeneration of ltaders, unpublished doctoral dissertation, LJniversiry of Texas, Austin,2002, refers to this as "coming home" after a research p.oject (53).

8. Emma Fuentes, Daniel Liou, Patricia Sinchez, and Andrea Dyrness, "In-terim Report from the English Language Learner Committee," Diversity Project,universiry of California, Berkeley, Spring 2000.

9. 'We are who we study. Please note: we use Spanish words throughout thispiece not with the intent of excluding any readers but rather to reflect the every-day discourse that frames the communities we belong to. The Spanish terms writ-


ten in this piece reflect the actual discourse used to think and discuss rhe topic be-ing engaged' Just as it is the cultural practrce to use academic language to discussresearch issues, we see our use of Spanish as a part of our everyday practices thatare at the root of our own cultural practrce.

10. Stake, The Art of case Stuity Research, xti.1I ' For a keen example of this, see James J. Scheurich, "The Destructive De-

sire for a Depoliticized Ethrrographic Merhodotogy, Response ro Harry'Wolco*,,,rn Anti-Racist Scholarship:AnAduocacy, ed.JamesJ. Sche,rrich (Albany, N.y.: SUNyPress, 2002), L53-1.57 .

12. Stake, Case Study Research, 1,2.

73' Fontana and Frey, "Interviewing," 4T-78. Fontana and Frey of['er a morehumanizing approach toward interviewing, one where we as researchers .,nolonger remain objective, faceless interviewers, but become human beings and mustdisclose ourselves, learning about ourselves as we try to learn about the other [orthe researched]" (73).

74' Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death withoutWeeping:The Violence of Eyeryday Ltfein Brazil (Berkeley Catif.: [Jnitersiry of California press, 1,gg2), xii.

15. The well-being of our conununiry.1,6. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, portraiture, 3.17. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, portraiture, 4.18. Krieger, Social Science and the Srf.19. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, portraiture, 1,4.20' John H. Stanfield, "Epistemological Considerations," rn Race and Ethnicity in

Research Methods, ed.John H. Stanfield and Rutledge M. Dennis (Newbury park,Calif.: Sage Publicarions, 1993), 16-36.

2L - Scheurich and Young, "coloring Epistemolo gy,,, 61.22' Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master,s

House," in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing press,re84).

23' Gloria Ladson-Billings, "RactahzedDiscourses and Ethnic Epistemologies,,,tn Handbook of Qualitatiue Research, 2nd ed., ed. Norman K. Den zin and. yvonnaS. Lincoln (London: Sage publicarions, 2000) , 267.

24' On numerous occasions, we have heard about the same rype of disconnectexperienced by Latino peers working as lawyers, engineers, and social workerswithin their own cornmunities. What made their work more effective was a com-bination of their professional training and. their forms of cultural practice.

25' Patricia Hill Collins, Black FeministThought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and thePolitics of Empowerment, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledg., ZOOO;; Gloria Anzaldia,Borderlands/I-a Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute,1987); Richard Delgado, Critical RaceTheory:The Cutting ndgilvhiladelphia: Tem-ple University Press, 1995); Norma Alarc6n, "Chicena Feminism: In the Tracks of'the'Native'Woman," in Liuing ChicanaTheory, ed. Carla Trujillo (Berkeley, Calif.:Third'Woman Press, 1998); and Chela Sandoval, "MestizeJe as Method: Ferninists


of Color Challenge the Canon," in Liuing Chicana Theory, ed. Carla Tfujillo(Berkeley, calif.: Third'woman press, 199g) , 352-370.

26- Concha Delgado-Gaitin, "Researching Change and Changing the Re-searchet," Haruard Educational Reuiew 63, no.4 (Lgg3):389-411; Vi1.rr.r,..Colo-nrzer/ Colonized"; Dolores Delgado Bernal, "L/sing a Chicana FeministEpistemology in Educational Research," Haruard Educational Reuiew 6g no. 4(1998): 555-582; and Marcos Przano, "'Chicana/o Power!' Epistemology andMethodology for Social Justice and Empowermenr in Chic ana/ o Communiries,,,Qualitatiue studies in Education 11, no. 1 (199g): 57-g0.

27. Delgado-Gaitln, "Researching Change"; Villenas, "Colo nrzer/Colonized";and Delgado Bernal, "chicana Feminisr Episternology."

28. Delgado-Gait6n, "Researching Chan gel, 14.29. Delgado-Gaitin, "Researching Chan ge,,, 14.30. Villenas, "Col onizer/Coloni zed,,, 4.31' - George Spindler and Louise Spindler, "Roger Harker and Schonhausen:

From Familiar to Strange and Back Again," in Doing the Ethnography of Schooling:Educational Anthropology in Action, ed. George Spindler (Prospect Heights, Ill.:'Waveland

Press, 1983) ,27-43. The Spindlers' concept about "making th. familiarstrange" does not always resonate in particular research settings. In our view, weare tied to conmunities by virtue of f"*ily, friends, spouses, p?rtners, t{os, tias,abuelos, and abuelas. How can we make the familiar strange when we live in thatspace of strangeness that makes sense to us?

32. Villenas, "Col onizer/Coloni zedl' 7 16.33. Delgado Bernal, "Chicana Feminist Epistemology," 55g.34- Anselm Strauss and Juliet Cobin, Basics of Qualitatiue Research: Grounded

Theory Procedures and Tbchniques (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publicarions,1 eeo).

35. Delgado Bernal, "chicana Feminist Epistemology," 575.36. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, revrsed 2Oth-century edition (New

York: Continuum, 1993).37 - Concha Delgado-Gaitin and Henry Tfueba , Crossing Cultural Borders: Edu-

cation for Immigrant Families in America (London: Talmer Press), 1991,.38. Pizarro, "'Chic ana/ o power!',, 67.39 - Pizerco, "'Chic ana/ o Power! ", 64.40. Ptzarro, "'Chic ena/ o power! "' 65.47. Pizerro, "'Chic ena/ o Power! ", 65.42. Pizano, "'Chicana/o power!,,, 72.43- Delgado-Gaitin, "Researching Change,"; Delgado-Gaitin and Trueba,

Crossing Cultural Borders; Delgado Bernal, ,,Chicana Feminist Epistemology"; Do_lores Delgado Bernal,"Learning and Living Pedagogies of the Home: The Mes-tiza Consciousness of Chicana Students," Qualitative Studies in Education, 74, no. 5(2001): 623-639; C. Alejandra Elenes, Francisca E. Gonzillez, Dolores DelgadoBernal, and Sofia Villenas, "Introduction: Chicana/Mexicana Feminist Pedagogies;


Consejos, Respeto y Educaci6n in Everyday Life," Qualitatiue studies in Education 14,no' 5 (2001): 595-602; Eugene E. Garcia, Hispanic Education in the (Jnited States:Raices y Alas (New York: Rowman & Littlefield,,2001); Francisca Gonz1lez,,, HA-ciendo que hacer-Cultivating a Mest iza Worldview and Academic Achievemenr:Braiding Culrural Knowledge into Educational Research, policy, pract ice,,, euali-tatiue studies in Education 74, no.5 (200 1): 641456; Norma Gonzd,ez, ,,1 Am MyI-anguage": Discourses of Women and Children in the Borderlands (Tucson: Universityof Lttzona Press, 2001); Guajardo, "Education for Leadership Development,,;/dda Hurtado, "Plenary Session on Chi cena Positioning," National Association forChicana and Chicano Studies Annual Conference, Los Angeles, Calif., April 5,2003; Enrique Murillo,Jr., "How Does It Feel ro Be a Problem?: 'Disciplining, theTransnational Subject in the American South;' in Education in the New l-atino Di-aspora: Policy and the Politia of ldentity, ed. Stanron Wortham, Enrique Murillo , Jr.,and Edmund T. Hamman 0Mestport, Conn.: Ablex Publishi ng, 2002), 21,5-239;Pizerro, "'Chicana/o Power!"'; Luis lJrrieta , Jr.,.,Las Identidades Tambi6n Lloran,Idencities Also CY: Exploring the Human Side of Indigenous Letina/o ldenti-ties," Educational Studies 34, no. 2 (2003): 1,48-168; Ang.i, Valenzuela, SubtractiueSchooling; US. -MexicanYouth and the Politia oJ Caring (Albany, N.y.: SUIrI-y press,1999); Villenas, "Colonizer/Colonrzed"; Villenas, "Reinventing Educaci1n rnNewLatino Communities: Pedagogies of Change and Continuigy in North Carolina,,,in Education in the New l-atino Diaspora: Policy and the Politics of ldentity, ed,. SrantonWortham, Enrique Murillo, Jr., and Edmund T Hamman (Wesiport, Conn.:Ablex Publishirg, 2002), 17-35.

44' Delgado Bernal, in "Learning and Living Pedagogies," calls this "pedagogiesof the home," where knowledg. or educaci6n foi fatinorl, passed on in p1".., out-side of a school context.

45 ' Our grandma sending us with a very small ketrle filled with a popular Mex-ican drink made from warm milk, corn starch, and sugar to a widowed elderlywoman living alone.

46' The person many undocumented immigrants pay ro help bring them acrossthe M6xico-U.S. border.

47 ' Margaret E- Montoya, "Academic Mestizaje: Re/Producing ClinicalTeaching and Re/Fra-itg 'Wills

as Latina Praxi s," HAruard l-atino l-aw Reuiew 2(1997): 349. As a Latina/o critical theorist, Montoya addresses many Latino ace-demics who moved "out of the barrio" and how this distances thern from the ac-ademic work that they are trying to do. Our argument here is that sometimessome academics do not move comPletely out of the barrio but remain stronglyconnected to it on a daily basis, which informs both their research and culturalpractrce.

48' Flowever' we do recognize that art in some conununities of color can beaccessible and political because it is presented in a difbrenr venue and for a differ-ent purPose' such as the murals in the Mission District of San Francisco and Chi-cano Park in San Diego. This art is not usually found in mainstream galleries.


49 ' Linda Tbhiwai Smith , Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and IndigenousPeoples (New York: St. Martin,s, Iggg)50. Grandmas, aunts.51' Baptisms and the fifteenth birthday perry for areenage girl. For a broaderdefinidon of this second ritual, see Patricia Slnche z, " euinceafiera,,, in Mexico andthe united states, ed' Lee Stacy Leney and Gordon Leney (Tarrytown, N.,.: Mar-shall Cavendish, 2002).52' See Julie L' Figueroa, "out of the Neighborhood and Inro the Ivoryfbwer: trnderstanding the Schooling Experiences of Ladno Male Undergraduafesas a Process of Negotiation and Navigation," unpublished dissertation, Universiryof california' Berkeley, 2oo2; Patricia S6nc hez,"(Jrban Immigrant students: Howtansnationalism Shapes Their world Learn ing," (Jrban Reuiew 39, no. 5 (2007):489-5 77; Patricia S6n chez,"cultural Authendc"rry and Transnarional Ladna youth:constructing a Metanarrative across Border s," Linguistics and Education 1g, no. 3_4(2007): 258282; Kysa Nygreen, Soo Ah Kwon, and parricia S6nche z, *L)rban

Youth Building communiry: social change and parricip atory Research inSchools' Homes and community-Based orgrnlzations, " Jo,rnal of community prac-tice 74, no. 1-2 (2006): L05_121.53' This rype of research is referred to as parriciparory (action) research. Formore detailed renderings of this Eype of work, ,.. orlando Fals-Borda andMuhammad Anisur Rahman, Action and Knowledge: Breaking the Monopoly with par-

ticipatory Action Researcft (New York: Apex press, iggl); Budd L. Hall, ,.From Mar-gins to center? Development and Purpose of particip etory Researc h,,, Americansociologist 23' no' 4 (1992); Patricia Maguire, "challenges, contradi*ions, andcelebrations: Attempting Particip atory Research as a Doctoral Student,,, in voicesof change: Participatory Research in the united states and canada,ed. p. park, M. Bry-don-Miller' B' Hall, and T Jackson ('wescport, conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1gg4),157-778; and Rebecca S' Atg.y, "The use and Abuse oiparticipatory AcrionResearch," chronic Disease of canoda rg, no. r (1997).

54 ' See Tomasa Duefias Tovar et al. , " Recordando Mis Raices y viuiendo Mis Tiadi-ciones [Remembering My Roots and Living My Tradirions]: The Making of aTransnational Bilingual children's Book," p-.1 "r

tt. Reading the world con-ference, L/niversiry of San Francisco, Mar ch2003; Ticmasa Duefras Contreras et al.,"Transnacional Latina Youth and Low-Intensity conflict: Tempering the Forces ofAssimilation"'paper presented as part of aprn.l, "Internal 'wars in Education: Lle-gaste aJugar Entre l-as strawberry Fields y Nada-yor: walked into a Minefield,,,Na_tional Association for chitana and chicano Studies (NACcs) Annualconference' Los Angeles, calif., April 2003; Monrse rreE L6pez er al., ,,No mequiero ir pero no me quiero quedar trrrrrr"tional Latina youth ,rrJ participatory Re-search"'panel at the center for Popular Education and participatory Research An-nual conference' Berkeley, c"tir., February 2002; patricia S6nchez er al.,"Promoting the Life Experiences and Funds of Knowledge of Transnational Fam-ilies: 'lVriting

ourselves in(to) the Research and childrenls Literature,,, panel at the


California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) Annual Conference, LosAngeles, Calif., February 2003; Patricia Sinchez et eI., "Achieving Equiry in'Other' Educational Sites: Re-distributing the Power of Knowledg. throughYouth Activism, Social Change, and Participatory Research;'panel at the Ameri-c^n Educational Studies Association (AESA) Annual Convention, Kansas Ciry,Mo., November 2004.

55. For a broader example, discussion, and use of testimonios, see the LatinaFeminist Group, Tblling to Liue: Latina Feminisl Testimonios (Durham, N.C.: DukelJniversiry Press, 2001) .

56. Elenes et al., "fntroduction." The authors in this piece speak to the impor-tance of education in the home and how cuentos (stories), advice, respect, andmoral education form an inte gral component of Latino family tife.

57 . Cuentos in my home during these times seemed to resemble what are oftenreferred to as testimonios in qualitative research. Cuentos, much like dichos, are ele-ments that comprise testimonios.

58. Bringing cultural practice into the academy is not that dissimilar from theconcept of bringing "funds of knowledg." to the classroom or to the concept of"p.d"gogies of the home" used by Delgado Bernal in "Living and Learning Ped-agogies" to describe what Chicana undergrads bring with them to get through col-lege. For a more detailed discussion on funds of knowledge, see C. Mercado andLuis C. Moll, "The Study of Funds of Knowledge," Centro 9, no. 9 (1997): 26-42;Luis C. Moll, C. Amanti, D. Neff, and Norma Gonzllez, "Ftrnds of Knowledgefor Teaching: Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms,"

Theory into Practice 31, no. 2 (1992): 132-741.59. Crossing the line agaLn.

60. Why don't you come over and eat?

67. See note 37 above.

62. This is a pseudonym.63. Richard Valencia, ed. The Euolution of Defcit Thinking: Educational Thought

and Practice flil/ashington, D.C.: Falmer Press, 1997).

64. A very special and humble gracias to the following gente who influenced,supported, and guided our growth in this aree: Aida Hurtado, Gene Garcia, Patri-cia Gindua, Miguel Guajardo, Juan Yeledez, John Hurst, and the Center for Pop-ular Education and Participatory Research (Berkeley, Catif.).

65. In Spanish-speaking corununities, e dicho is a memorable saying embody-ing an importtnt fact of experience.

Figueroa, J.L. & Sánchez, P. (2008). Technique, art, or cultural practice? Ethnic epistemology in...

Documents

Transcript of Figueroa, J.L. & Sánchez, P. (2008). Technique, art, or cultural practice? Ethnic epistemology in...