Tag: Chicana/o Studies

Capstone Project Gone Blog

This is part of a longer blog series, which you can find links to the previous as well as the next blog posts at the bottom of this blog. 

For those of us that are not too familiar with how we major or minor in Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, let me inform you that aside from taking a particular amount of required classes, we must also complete a capstone project which is an independent research project one is required to do as final piece for our undergraduate degree.

As a recently declared Chicana/o Studies minor, after figuring out what the focus for my capstone project was going to be, the birth of the Chicana/o Studies department, I was given the option to opt out of the traditional 25 page thesis I’m suppose to produce and instead embrace the social media my class was participating in. I decided to turn my capstone into a blog series because of it accessibility and the opportunity for intertextuality it carried with it.

In our current society, we are the children of technology, with the possibility of having the internet at our fingertips thus access to information is as simple as snapping our fingers. I found that blogging my findings brought a sense of urgency to my topic given the current uproar around the ethnic studies programs around the nation. I felt my project was reminding the LMU population of the value behind the department. And when this is put out to the public with the use of the internet, it provides some evidence for those departments that need support or answers to those who question the importance of ethnic studies programs. This opportunity to access my paper outside of the department walls was a huge motive to blog.

Also with blogging my capstone project it gave a new dimension to the project that a 25 page paper would never get. It allows for links to be placed within the text as well as tags to bring similar topics to it. This idea of intertextuality gives the reader the opportunity to fill in gaps as they read without doing extra work in looking at footnotes, bibliographies or the likes. Plus with the tags associated with the blogs it gives a diverse audience the opportunity to come across it and run into it when searching for similar things. This new dimension opens the accessibility of it and breaks barriers of understanding since questionable language can be defined by just clicking on it.

Blogging my capstone project allowed itself to be accessible to anyone with internet connection and gives it a new dimension as links and tags bring extra information and a greater audience to it. Hopefully more projects start turning towards this venue in the near future.

Picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_computer

Read more:

The Birth of the Chicana/o Studies Department, Setting the Stage, Students Propose a New Program, From Chicano Studies Department to Mexican- American Studies Degree Program, So You Want to Take Introduction to Chicana/o Studies?,  So Let’s Put Some of the Pieces Together

The Chicana/o Studies courses at LMU have empowered me as a Feminista, Chicana y Mexicana

As I embark in a new journey I will take with me the tools I have gained through my Chicana/o Studies courses. I clearly remember the first day of my CHST 116 introductory course becoming more and more excited as the professor introduced us to the various kinds of readings we would be engaging in. We began the course with The Broken Spears: The Aztec account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel León-Portilla. The conquest of the indigenous people of Mexico and South America was something I had heard of before but not to the point where it became the area of study. Taking this course opened my eyes to see things from a different point of view. It invited me to become more critical and question the powers of dominance. I began to see the hidden message in commercials, adds, billboard signs, etc. How the education system in the United States continues to oppress minorities coming from working class backgrounds. I also became aware and informed about Los Angeles’ history and activism during the blowouts.

In my Chicana/o Studies literature and feminist courses I acquired the tools necessary to engage in the text through close readings. I constantly found myself in the position of the Chicana subjects in the stories we read. Reading into narratives and poetry made me eager to write because many times the word choice in the narratives described perfectly some of my experiences. In these courses I read Gloria Anzaldua‘s Borderlands: La Frontera / The New Mestiza and the idea of a third space through the new consciousness acquires as someone in between two worlds. Through Anzaldua’s work, I became empowered and no longer felt alone; it meant a lot to me to know that someone else had written about Chicana oppression within the family and culture.

Reading and analyzing the work of art of La Virgen de Guadalupe enhanced my relationship with her. As a fresh[woman] at LMU my first year I remember going to mass often, but as I began taking more and more Chicana/o Studies courses I grew apart from the Catholic Church. Patriarchy within the church is what caused the separation, and Our Lady of Guadalupe was a reminder of the conquest of the indigenous people in Mexico. I was so close to her before but all of a sudden it seemed like I had divorced myself from her presence. I lacked religion and spirituality my sophomore year, hence the reason why I had a rough year overall especially the second semester. In my junior year I took a Chicana/o Politics and Performing Arts class in which I developed my visual analysis skills and for the first time saw Guadalupe reinvented as a powerful woman. Guadalupe no longer became the submissive, virgin, and obedient goddess I grew up with; she was a hard working woman, she was young, old and beautiful, she represented the women in my family and myself, a college student with goals and dreams.

My Chicana/o studies courses have provided me the tools to utilize them as I begin my career in the field of primary and secondary education. One specific example i which I can utilize these tools is in fourth grade, under the California State standards students are to learn about the missions in California. The way this unit is taught is usually by glorifying the Spanish for establishing the mission system and providing work for the indigenous people in the area. Unless a teacher is conscious of the horrors of the Spanish conquest and how much indigenous women, children and even men suffered from this system, this is not taught in schools. My Chicana/o Studies History course provided me the opportunity to learn the depths of the mission system and the violence indigenous women suffered. I argue this unit can be taught in the elementary (fourth grade) level in a way that does not glorify the missions. This other way will provide the tools for children to question what the dominant narrative describes and what the response to that through counternarration.

I consider myself una Feminista, Chicana, y Mexicana and am proud of who I am! I know I will make a difference in the lives of people whom I come in contact with. I have learned the power of language and the power I have as a mujer. I want to thank the Chicana/o Studies department at Loyola Marymount University for existing and for being such a welcoming and loving space.