SEGUNDA PUBLICACIÓN

In both classes, the BCC process was often experienced by students as surprising and transformative of their knowing about other perspectives. Table 5.2 (at the end of this chapter) offers a comparison of the phrases used to express these new insights and shows how greatly they differed in tone. The key phrases shown in Table 5.2 as used by Fourth Period showed more enthusiasm and emotional investment. With a few exceptions, the discourse that Sixth Period used to express similar perspective-taking realizations was more matter-of-fact. This difference seems to align with how resistance to BCC played out in the two classes as I will discuss later in finding 5 because Sixth Period showed more skepticism regarding social justice discourse. In both classes there was also widespread perspective taking by both frequent and infrequent contributors to the class which demonstrated transformation of knowledge. A few examples serve to illustrate how students interpreted and applied BCC as perspective taking. In Sixth, one girl wrote on the issue of immigration,

From our point of view it may seem like, based on certain media, that illegal immigrants are criminals and that they should be sent back to Mexico, but this movie showed that they are simply people trying to have a better life. I feel now

that I understand the Immigrant situation much better than I did before. I always knew that people came to America in search of happiness and opportunity but I had no idea how difficult and how terrifying it could be to get here and to even stay here.

Her discourse in bold suggests that the perspective-taking she did seems to have

catalyzed significant shifts in understanding—for example, who the “we” was when she said “our point of view.” She also wrote of another “bilocal culture crossing moment”:

Whenever Cuba came up I thought of it as a bad country. Once we learned about the people I realized it wasn’t Cuba that was causing the problems with America it was the leadership. Many of the people were miserable in Cuba and were not bad people at all. They were just like me but in another country. It also made me aware of problems in America that I had never heard about before.

She highlights her prior positioning of herself as part of an American community in opposition to “bad” countries like Cuba—a discourse rooted in the historical relations of the Cold War. Her taking of others’ perspectives is evident when she states, “Many of the people were miserable in Cuba and were not bad people at all” These “realizations” during class of Cuban people being “just like me” in another community whose

differences in practices were the site of international conflict disrupted this good/bad dichotomy. An infrequent contributor to Sixth-Period class discussions applied BCC in a way that similarly allowed him to take others perspective and disrupt negative U.S. discourses about Latin America.

It was somewhat uncomfortable, as we spoke of how the United States has been at times unkind to Latin America … previously I have been told of how the

citizens within these countries chose to have their current economy due to their personal actions. …this has taught me that the United States itself has been involved in the past in causing this… Through gaining this knowledge, it has caused me to develop a larger respect for what the people in these countries are experiencing…

As he added to his repertoire of knowledge about the structures of power and historical relations that involve his nation—Anderson’s (2006) original application of the concept

of imagined communities—he enacted an altered view of that community. Another example is from a relatively infrequent contributor in Sixth Period who wrote,

The kind of bilocal culture crossing [the makers of La Misma Luna] were trying to make us do was understanding how bad we are to Mexicans. The plan did work on me because before, I didn’t really think about how desperate some people are to get into the U.S., but I was already a United States citizen, so why should I care? But now, I see how much other people hate us for not letting them in. He too was attesting to a realization that transformed his view of the U.S. community of which he is a member. In this case, it was his interpretation of another community’s discourse about the U.S. that made him reevaluate what it meant to be a “citizen” and not to have to “care.” A last example is a rather infrequently contributing home speaker in Sixth Period who followed this pattern of applying BCC yet did it by making a more personal connection rather than a political one:

I never considered how it must feel like to lose your dad and you didn’t know what happened to him especially in devastating times like the cold war. I feel wrong and really uncomfortable Thinking about losing my parents because I don’t want my parents to die and thinking of them dead or they left me and never came back. I think this is a bilocal culture-crossing…

Yet in referencing the Cold War, this student shows he clearly did not lose sight of the political context and structures of power operating around this personal story.

In Fourth Period, one interesting way BCC was occasionally applied was to treat the perspective of the other community with interest yet without definite conclusions. Two examples were illustrative here. In my April 19th _{fieldnotes I wrote,}

The discussion went in the direction of what would you do if you were Carlitos and your grandma had just died? Call the godfather, the old guy who’s the family friend? “Carlitos no lo llamo, pero lo dejo una nota, no? llamarias al hospital, a la policía? [Carlitos didn’t call him but he left him a note, right? Would you call the hospital, the police?] [A student]: “no se, yo no tengo una madre en otro pais. [I don’t know, I don’t have a mother in another country.]”

incredibly BCC and wise about that response by [this student]: to honestly know you don’t know what you would do and that there’s something about the other’s situation that you really will never fully comprehend with certainty.” In an analogous way, an

infrequent contributor in Fourth Period wrote of the L.A. school walkouts:

The story of why and how they walked out was very thrilling to hear. … It makes me think about what it would be like to be where those protestors were and to do what they did. It would be interesting to take their point of view for a short time. I really enjoyed that documentary and hope we can do things like that again.

This application of BCC was also open-ended. There was more curiosity than conclusions about the other perspective being taken.

Overall, Fourth Period wrote more enthusiastically about seeing new perspectives. There were several instances where Fourth-Period students expressed surprise at the insights they had gained into other perspectives. They often enthusiastically increased their participation in the social justice discourse community I was attempting to form within the classroom. This suggested that some students took full advantage of opportunities offered by the curriculum to build their repertoire with new forms of knowledge and that the new perspectives that resulted had an agentic, empowering effect on them. One Fourth-Period student, for example, made a very simple but powerful statement about the power of new information that I recorded in my fieldnotes:

With the one minute left after it, I asked, “So why was what we did BCC, clase?” [Student]: “Cuz we’re understanding the situation of other American[s] who have to work really hard. And I didn’t even know anything about it before today.” (February 24)

I remember vividly that this student said the last sentence with evident enthusiasm. He saw BCC as perspective-taking that was able to offer eye-opening novelty and surprise. A very quiet Fourth-Period student wrote of the George Lopez documentary,

I felt very inspired by it. How he said he was always made fun of and treated bad, even by his own family, but he ignored everyone and … became an actor. … It really makes the bi local culture crossing stick out when you think about how if you went somewhere else people might treat you different even if you just look a little different. It’s so cool how far we have come from this.

His enthusiasm was evident in the phrases “very inspired” and “it’s so cool.” He applied BCC by imagining what it would be like to be in Lopez’ racial position. Another Fourth- Period student made a connection between an interview we did of a parent of students at the school who was from Venezuela and a previous discussion of how Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had once handed a politically-charged book to President Obama.

One of the most interesting bilocal culture-crossing projects that we have done, is when we interviewed [the parent]… When she talked about Venezuela and the differences of there and here, I was very fascinated. Although she did not talk about (at least I think) the arguments and relationships between the U.S. and Venezuela, covering those things in class were very interesting. It was also a great example of bilocal culture-crossing. I realized that although to the citizens of the U.S., we look like we are only trying to help and make the world a better place, to others we seem like a country that likes to go to others and take over. I had never really thought about how much of a threat we were to others smaller countries. It was great to get look at how others see the United Sates.

This student embraced the practice and the name of BCC and associated it with

“fascination.” She interpreted it as perspective-taking—of “realizing” or “never having thought about”—and applied it by understanding that there are discourse communities with quite different views of the international influence of the U.S.

Finding 3: BCC allowed recognition of and a speaking back