Diagnosis a través del servidor web

Student engagement with issues of unfairness during BCC discussions was present in both classes. Most students seemed to reach conclusions that there was unfairness in the world by way of the perspective-taking they had done, and many chose

to make passionate critiques of that unfairness. There were moments of agency where students strategically used cultural tools and resources to attempt to disrupt structures of power. They demonstrated how students in this class were willing to enact membership in the social justice discourse community I was facilitating. A few students focused on environmental justice, such as a Fourth-Period student who wrote, “It was really cool, I thought… These foundations protect their habitat and make sure that trappers are not taking these beautiful birds and selling them as pets.” Some students focused on a discourse of economic and labor inequality, such as when this Fourth-Period student called for legal changes:

My opinion on the matter is that it is wrong that children should be unfairly forced to work on farms every day from sun up to sun down. And it’s not the family’s fault for being poor. When it comes to agriculture, there is no minimum wage. Because of this unfair law, families must all go out and work in the fields for days just to scrape by. This is unfair treatment, and I propose that a law be made that controls the wages for working in fields. Otherwise, it creates an evil cycle. Once they start working in the fields, they can’t stop. Because they get paid so little, they will never be able to remove themselves from poverty, ultimately being forever doomed to the hot, dusty farms on which they work.

This student’s passion is evident in his poetic language of “being forever doomed to the hot, dusty farms.” He attacks the discourse that the poor are to blame for their own poverty, embracing a discourse of raising wages to guarantee a certain standard of living and alter structures of power. Other students made clearer connections to race in their economic critiques. One Fourth-Period student, for example, made a similar economic critique of migrant farm work but that the workers’ “heritage has put them in that situation.”

I think these moments were interesting because it goes to show how we are treated compared to them, and their heritage has put them in that situation. … It goes to show how unfair we treat these people who are very helpful to our economy and [should] be recognized more.

Another Fourth-Period student employed a powerful discourse of “taking advantage of” or exploitation that was even more explicit about race.

It made me think that we should be crediting Mexicans and all Latin’s more and not assume they are unintelligent and can’t work an office job. It made me feel like Americans are just taking advantage of Latinos and making them work harder than us for less pay…

Both these students implicated themselves in the injustice by including themselves in the “we” that does the mistreatment. Another Fourth-Period student also spoke to structures of power by highlighting the racial division of labor while writing of the lack of

“sustaining jobs” in the Latin@ community:

From this topic I learned about the discrimination towards Hispanics during that time and how they made a difference by saying no more towards this treatment. … It made me think about the people around me and the little amount of

Hispanic teachers or people with sustaining jobs. And that we should become more diverse as a country and as people.

He also included a discourse of Latin@s empowering themselves in the face of injustice. Other students emphasized aspects of racism that were not strictly economic. One Fourth-Period student, for instance, wrote that learning about the L.A. walkouts “made me think about how right after we ended segregation with blacks, we moved on and then we were discriminatory towards Latinos. It is amazing how we didn’t learn our lesson about racial equality and how to treat others with respect.” Two other Fourth-Period examples showed students situating racism explicitly in the present as well. One student highlighted educational inequality that she implied was along racial lines:

They wanted to have every opportunity that the other children had to get a good education, but because of the racism that was in the country they did not have the opportunity to. … Although the schools are trying to become better and teach everyone, there are still student who do not get all the same opportunities. Another student responded this way to the George Lopez documentary: “It was amazing

that he was able to make such an impact and bring so much awareness of how racially discriminated against Latinos are in the media. He made me understand how racism still exists in our world, even in everyday actions.” All these students were experimenting with greater membership in the social justice discourse community that often does not penetrate world language classrooms very deeply.

Two examples written by home speakers of Spanish in Sixth Period are passionate critiques of racism. The less frequent contributor wrote,

The part that most stood out to me in the documentary was when George [Lopez] was talking about how White people liked to judge the Mexicans because we were a different color then they were. They thought that Mexicans are really stupid and it wasn’t f[a]ir because we came from a different place and in that place we spoke a different language and not being able to speak English was a huge disadvantage for the Latinos. This had in impact on me because at that moment that I too was being mistreated or misjudges just because I had a different skin color then the rest were.

Without knowing how much experience this student had had with voicing his thoughts on racism, it is difficult to say how much transformation of knowledge occurred via his crossing to the perspective of this Latino comedian, but the phrase “this had an impact on me” does imply the reshaping of knowledge toward a more empowered critique. The more frequent contributor of the two wrote,

When we were watching the video on the immigrants coming from Honduras because of the gang violence I thought oh they should let them come[;] what are they going to do that is wrong[?] there just going to come to stay safe here and then those people that where outside of the bus telling them to go back to Mexico they didn’t even know what they were saying[;] they were being racist[;] that was a bad moment for me[;] I didn’t like how they were doing that[;] … they would want to do the same thing and then what if we were telling them to go back were they came from[?] they wouldn’t like it either[;] they don’t know how it is down there[;] their not seeing it from the immigrants point of view…

applied BCC by crossing to the perspective of the Honduran immigrants and then used BCC discourse—“seeing it from the immigrants point of view”—to critique the

protesters as failing to do BCC. He reads the anti-immigrant protest as racism, and in the words, “that was a bad moment for me; I didn’t like how they were doing that,” we can read at least some transformation of knowledge about racism and the need to actively critique its presence.

Several students in Sixth Period responded to the topic of the L.A. school walkouts with powerful critiques of injustice. A Latino student with some experience with Spanish at home wrote,

Its interesting to see what happened in the past because we are like whoa that happened? Why would they treat them like that? It made me feel better that they got through with it. We are in school and we don’t have to walk out. Treat everyone the same.

The question, “whoa, that happened?” suggested that this student experienced a powerful transformation of knowledge that helped build his repertoire of sharable discourses surrounding racism against Latin@s. A White student in Sixth Period wrote that the students involved in the walkouts had

had enough of racism. I am surprised racism is still alive today because I think it’s crazy for someone to judge another person based on their beliefs, race, or ethnicity. That movie really spoke to me because many of my close friends are a different race than me, and I can’t understand why some people in our country think less of non-Whites.

This student reacted to the historical event in question without locating racism only in the past. That the movie “really spoke” to him suggests that learning about another event of the Civil Rights movement confirmed his knowledge of unfairness and strengthened his outrage at the existence and effects of racism.

Finding 4: BCC as a disciplinary technology to enforce seeing others’ perspectives

A pattern developed in the BCC discourse community I was trying to develop of using the BCC term as what Michel Foucault would refer to as a disciplinary technology, a form of power used to regulate people’s behavior which in this case took the form of the admonishment of individuals who were viewed as not seeing the other perspective. For example, on December 18th I fieldnoted how a frequent contributor in Fourth Period had stayed behind after class to tell me a few things: “Then she said, ‘And you’re always accusing me of making fun of [another student]. I was just saying good job in the

orchestra.’ Me: ‘it was your tone of voice. I guess I misinterpreted.’ [The student]: ‘yeah, bilocal culture-crossing.’ And she shut the door.” She applied BCC as a stand-alone utterance to admonish me for not seeing it from her perspective. On April 20th I

fieldnoted that I had said to the Fourth-Period class that a particular student “dice que el personaje del hombre del baño es un estereotipo. Es posible? [says that the character in the bathroom is a stereotype. Is that possible?] several: si [yes]. [A frequent contributor]: ‘es [it’s] BCC.’” Here the admonishment was directed at the movie for not seeing the perspective of those who might feel stereotyped.

A few examples will demonstrate how it tended to occur during Sixth Period. On November 10th _{I documented these events:}

Someone connected this to BCC, [a frequent contributor] probably, who’s often bringing it up … when there’s some sort of disrespect issue or dismissing or simplifying of a perspective or identity. … A prime example was when someone mentioned that Clemente had insomnia. … [Another frequent contributor]: “it was the Romans, not the Greeks. The Greek god of sleep was hypnos.” I said, “oh como hipnotizar [oh, like hypnotize]” I said the last word with a hypnotizer voice and extended my arms as if performing magic. Suddenly there were more

making fun of the names of other people’s gods. Lo siento [I’m sorry]…” On April 10th I fieldnoted that a Sixth-Period frequent contributor said the term BCC during a movie scene. When I asked why, he responded, “They said gringo.” He was using BCC as a stand-alone term to critique the movie for not seeing the perspective of those who might be offended by the word “gringo.” On March 16th _{I fieldnoted this}

exchange between two Sixth-Period frequent contributors: “[Student 1]: ‘that makes no sense that a country could have different minutes on their time. How could they do that?’ [Student 2]: ‘They’re just trying to express their individuality. Gosh. Bilocal Culture Crossing.’” The term stood alone to admonish the first student for failing to see the other country’s perspective.

Finding 5: Resistance to BCC

The main themes that emerged from the data on resistance were students opposing perceived “one-sidedness” of certain instances of social justice discourse and resisting the BCC term itself. There was some resistance by students to social justice discourse in Sixth Period. It followed a pattern were those who voiced it were arguing against what they saw as a one-sidedness to what we were discussing. In most cases it was evident that the students shared identities with the groups such as “White, American” being critiqued by the social justice discourse in question. These students who spoke out struggled over their belonging to the social justice discourse community I was organizing around the concept of BCC. They were selective in what discourses they were willing to engage with and adopt into their repertoires because some of these discourses were coming into conflict with other discourses of fairness they identified with.

Clemente, which mentioned he had often organized baseball clinics for poor children in Puerto Rico. On November 18th I fieldnoted this translanguaged exchange:

In the midst of the write up when we got to Clemente’s final service/activist phase, some[o]ne brought up that he gave clinics. Me: a quien? dio clínicas de béisbol a los niños ricos? [To whom? Did he give baseball clinics to rich children?] [Student A]: Si, dio clínicas a todos los niños porque no es discriminación. [Yes, he gave clinics to all children because it’s not

discrimination.] Me: okay, okay, okay. I stand up. [Student B]: oh, un momento de [a moment of] BCC! Yo: si [Me: yes]! I proceed to give a speech in mostly Spanish… Clase, es equal treatment? No, pero es un resultado igual. [Class, is it equal treatment? No, but it’s an equal result.]

Moje and Lewis (2007) argue that agency can entail “the strategic making and remaking of … histories” (p. 18). By asserting the opposite of what the documentary asserted, student A remade history in an agentic move to disrupt my local micropractice of teacher power, that is, my constant drawing of their attention to the social justice aspects of what we had watched. He also strategically employed the term “discrimination” to instantiate the discourse that equality is superior to equity. Essentially, student A was

communicating that both Clemente and I were being “one-sided,” to borrow a term from the next example, and therefore not fair. By declaring this to be a “bilocal culture- crossing moment,” student B identified even before my “speech” that what was being struggled over were the social justice discourses I had been attempting to connect to the term BCC.

The same two students—both frequent contributors—were involved in this next example as well. This exchange came in the midst of the discussion of a video called The Panamanian Way of Life that included a discussion of the conflict over the U.S.

ownership of the Canal Zone and a discussion of the U.S. invasion of 1989. On January 5th_{, I fieldnoted,}

[Student B] asked, “puedo usar ingles [May I use English]? Why does the video make only the U.S. look bad? It’s one sided.” [Student A]: yeah. Me: “good topic. Let’s consider that issue.” … I sort of took a defensive tack of well, the video also gave this perspective. Me: “Well the other kid that was interviewed said nothing bad about the U.S., she said bad stuff about her own country because it was relying too much on the U.S.” [Student B]: “but they still want the U.S. out. So it’s a one-sided video.”

Student B objected to the video because it showed perspectives that were negative toward the U.S. nation—the imagined community—that he had membership in. He agentively resisted legitimizing these perspectives because that would have meant having to reshape his version of history in ways he was not prepared to do. By calling the video “one- sided” he strategically implied that had the video also represented perspectives closer to his own, he might have been more open to considering opposing perspectives.

The next example also involved student B and occurred during La Misma Luna. On April 10th I wrote in my fieldnotes,

at the point where [the character] Paco gives his [first they screwed the Native Americans, next they screwed the slaves, now they’re screwing the Mexicans] summary of US history, [student B] said, “I don’t feel comfortable with that.” Me: “okay, we’ll talk about it.” [Student B]: “good.” About a minute later the scene was over and I say, “…you said you didn’t feel comfortable during that scene. Why?” [Student B]: “I don’t agree that it’s as simple as we screwed everyone who isn’t White.” Me: “Okay, well this is a moment of bilocal culture crossing… Your summary of US history would be different. (Yes.) But can you see his point? Can you put yourself in his shoes for a second?” … [Student B]: “Jess.” (as in yes with a Latino accent).

Similar to the video on Panama, the U.S. and its history were cast in a negative light— this time even more starkly. Student B, who is White, held to a version of history that does not centralize exploitation in the same way. What is interesting to note is how this moment of resistance was less thoroughgoing than the previous one, suggesting that perhaps over time student B had opened up more space to hear perspectives critical of his own. For him to say “I don’t feel comfortable with that” was a much more specific and

localized disagreement than his accusation that the entire Panama video was one-sided. Moreover, he did not directly disagree with the idea that racial exploitation is part of U.S. history; he merely disagreed that it was the central thread to which the history could be simplified. Lastly, the pronunciation of the word “yes” with a Latin@ accent suggested an effort to reconcile contradictory perspectives, one that could see the character’s viewpoint and one that resisted through mockery the erasure of a traditional U.S. nationalist viewpoint.

Many other students critiqued La Misma Luna in their final journalings and the ambivalence of student B was echoed by others: There was acknowledgement of

perspective-taking but also refusal to accept aspects that seemed overstated or one-sided. An infrequent contributor wrote that the point of the movie was

to cause the audience to understand these people and the challenges and difficulties that they have faced in their lives through working to live in the United States… However, this did not work on me, as the movie did not have accurate examples of how Americans treated them at times, and insulted those in authority through their songs and describing the history of the United States. One stance seemed to cross to the perspective of the immigrants in the movie while another refused to be more empathetic because there was a sense of being insulted by Paco’s version of U.S. history and by the portrayal of the characters who are U.S. citizens. A frequent contributor in discussions explained this point in more detail, displaying the same ambivalence:

They show a perspective of immigrants from Mexico and how they struggle to make it with all of the things against them. … I think, however, that this movie doesn’t show bilocal culture crossing as well as it could because it really only shows one point of view. It shows the immigrants as being valiant heroes … and