Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 19, No. 1 (2022)

Todos Estos Cuentos

Catalina Benavides
Long Island University
catalina.benavides@my.liu.edu

Abstract

With so many stories out in the world, not all stories have been encouraged to be told and shared.  The stories of BIPOC are still missing and not being heard as they should be especially in educational spaces. Our life experiences as we navigate a divided society and in education through a system that is not designed for us need to be heard, but how can we do this if we have been excluded out of the conversation most of the time? I encourage the creation of stories of experiences, mine inspired by memories, CRT, and Latina feminism, to reveal and validate our struggles in education and other societal institutions that are racist and discriminatory. Every story of experience holds value and should be given the space to exist and be shared. Greater change in homes, communities, and spaces of learning includes the need to validate BIPOC voices and not ignore them. We are here and we are ready to make change, bright and proud like papel picado.

En la Lucha

En la Lucha. Latina feminists have been en la lucha since the mid 20th century, if not earlier. It has been a long and hard fight for Latina and Chicana feminists to be heard. They have struggled to be acknowledged and taken seriously with their stories about the realities of being a woman in Latine culture and American culture usually ignored, silenced, and, in some cases, forgotten. Yet women like Sandra Cisneros, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Norma Alarcón have been able, with the help and support of one another, to create a space for themselves so that their thoughts, ideas, conversations, voices, and stories are heard. Their efforts, along with the efforts of other Latine writers, have allowed Latinas to be able to join the conversation and contribute to the fight for equality and respect in our culture and American culture through our writings years after their initial fight began.

I am present in this conversation as a storyteller who is inspired by these Latina feminists. The writings of Anzaldúa inspired me to weave stories of the women in my life and myself with the stories these Latina feminists have told because our voices and writing matters. As she once asked herself why she wrote in “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers,” I too ask myself this and come to a similar answer:

Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. . . Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it . . . I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you. To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy . . . Finally, I write because I’m scared of writing but I’m more scared of not writing. (168-169)

The writings and words of Cisneros inspired me to channel inspiration from not only the stories I want to tell but the stories that need to be told no matter how painful or raw they are. In an interview with the New York Times, Cisneros said, "I am a woman and I am a Latina,. . . "Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power” (Tabor). I embrace the painful stories that spring from memories along with embracing my identity as a Latina woman.

Just like these Latina and Chicana writers and women, I too have faced challenges and obstacles when writing about these stories and topics, from struggling to organize my ideas to struggling with the right words to analyze these stories and connecting them to the larger issues that oppress not only women but other BIPOC. I have taken on the challenge of writing about these issues that are still issues for Latines and BIPOC all over the country and greater world.

Since our memories have never been welcomed, included, or properly written about in white academia (Villanueva), I pose the use of stories of experiences, narratives formed from memories of my life. These memories come back to me as if I am reliving them the day they happened. They translate into my stories of experience which are strong and unapologetic recounts. I am writing because I want readers of color to feel and connect to what I am writing since the narratives writers of color create invite BIPOC to see themselves and/or to remember their own experiences in a new way. I want them to feel empowered in all the spaces they are in, but especially in the spaces where there aren’t many people who look like them (Villanueva). I want readers to be awaken and empowered to make change in white academia. We can no longer allow our memories to haunt and hurt, but instead we need them to inspire and grow from. Memories are not something we should repress. Memories should be embraced and channeled as inspiration and drive-- an inspiration and drive we must use in our professions, especially in our academic spaces (Villanueva). We, as BIPOC in white academia, need to use the memories which inspire our stories of experience to hope and to work on making changes that matter. Changes that tear down walls and rebuild them with space for all who want to write, think, teach, and fight.

I create stories out of my memories to process them into something positive. Memories/ stories of experience push me forward because they have pulled me back at one point in my life.  My stories of experience are my responsibility to write about and present to white academia (Dillard). First, I share in hopes of a change in education. Second, I encourage others to share their own stories. My research is my storytelling. I need to remind myself of where I am and support those who need to get to their destinations. I must use my stories of experience/memories to make change. I am responsible to do so.

To end the silencing, we can lead and continue to have important conversations about the things that matter to us through sharing our experiences/stories. Storytelling and using our voices to create awareness about the issues we face in our culture face is up to us. We can no longer fail one another anymore as Gloria Anzaldúa puts it in This Bridge Called My Back: “How many times do we fail to help one another up from the bottom of the stairs? How many times have we let someone else carry our crosses? How still do we stand to be crucified?” (231). We can no longer allow BIPOC of the past, present and future to be “crucified” by the oppression we face constantly. The sharing of stories of experience would help us have important conversations with one another and potentially support those who need more support. Support not saving—we don’t need saving.  So now I want you to join me in these stories of experience. I am not asking for help. I am saying that I am already present and am here to be heard by you.

CRT

I now invite you all to join in on the conversation about the importance of Critical Race Theory along with Latina feminism. Initially, I felt out of place and a bit confused by this giant, Critical Race Theory (CRT). I felt as if I had to read every article and book about this theory in order to contribute to the conversation. However, unknowingly, I had written a lot about what CRT is addressing throughout my graduate career and I am/had been an example/victim of the racism in education.

In “Critical Race and LatCrit Theory and Method: Counter-storytelling” Daniel Solorzano and Tara Yosso define the primary goal of CRT as/is “to develop a theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and pedagogical strategy that accounts for the role of race and racism in U.S. graduate education and works toward the elimination of racism as part of a larger goal of eliminating other forms of subordination, such as gender, class, and sexual orientation” (472).  I began to understand that CRT isn’t just one big giant (Solorzano and Yosso). It is a theory in education which includes “transdisciplinary knowledge base of ethnic studies, women’s studies, sociology, history, law, and other fields to better understand racism, sexism, and classism in education” (Solorzano and Yosso 473). I now understood how different knowledges connect and grow stronger in our addressing of racism in education when they are brought together instead of separating them into boxes. I look at that the same way I think of diversity. It’s easier for them to separate us into boxes and labels instead of us coming together in growing numbers as we embrace our identities created from diverse backgrounds and experiences.

Yet I will not be placed in a box or packed away. I will continue to climb up and over the colossal obstacles I have faced and will face. I will not forget to, as Solorzano and Yosso advise, hold on to the escalera with one hand, pero con la otra mano (“Critical Race and LatCrit” 485), I will reach down and pull as many people as I can up with me as I echo pa’ lante. I do not need to change or become complacent with a system I do not feel seen or heard in. I have endurance labor; a labor that “originates from the disempowered and moves toward equality through the creation of inner and collective strength that challenges the status quo’s power relations” (Solorzano and Yosso, “Critical Race and LatCrit” 486). Every story I have to tell of failure and suffering as a clueless individual has been converted into the drive, I have to fight them (Solorzano and Yosso, “Critical Race and LatCrit”).

And to fight them I pose the use of stories of experience. Why do we have to use counterstories? Why do I have to counter what someone else is saying? I (the self and the stories) are equally valuable. I can claim a regular narrative and the space to be seen too. While I understand the point of counterstories, I don’t want to write from a place where I am arguing with someone else or trying to prove a point that is already a valid point to me. I am already up against enough. I agree with the idea of counterstories as Aja Martinez defines them in “The Responsibility of Privilege: A Critical Race Counterstory Conversation” as a way “to empower the marginalized through the formation of stories with which to intervene in the erasures accomplished in “majoritarian” stories or “master narratives” (214), but I will be using the term stories of experiences to validate my stories. In this article, I am going to share with you/show you my papel picado, a collection made up of my own stories of experiences in the form of snapshots of significant moments ranging from vulnerable moments in my life as a student, academic, and WOC. The stories of experience I share now might be the the same as those told by others of the past, present, and future, but I storytell with the hopes that change in education and even in some aspects of society, big or small, may come from it.

Let the storytelling begin . . .

1. This too shall past. I have this phrase written on the back of my door just like this—  the way I hear it when I say it to myself. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I open my door to walk to my makeshift home workspace for yet another day as a result of this pandemic. I sit down in front of my laptop screen, a sight that causes me an anxiety and a frustration I have never known before: my master’s thesis has become a colossal task for me to complete— a project I was so excited about a near year ago has tested me as a student, writer, and academic of some sort. If I can even call myself an academic. This thesis, instead of being a culmination of my ideas and appreciation for literature, has become a giant concrete wall that I am expected to climb over with no rope or help. If I don't climb over by some miraculous means, then I am forced to believe it's my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s a gatekeeping function to keep us out (Martinez, “A Plea”).

I sometimes don’t even know what to call myself anymore when I find myself in any academic space that I have to prove myself in and climb over the everyday concrete walls. This thesis is just one big challenge forcing me to prove myself to gringodemia (Garcia). I don’t understand the logic of why struggles have become a normal part of "making it" in this country. Why must I struggle and barely make it to prove myself while others are already seen and proven with minimal, if any struggle, at all? Will this ever past? Will I ever feel like I have proven myself enough?

2. People are talking about a new virus spreading around the world but all I can think about is the annual MAWCA conference I am attending and presenting at with my writing center. It's the first day and the keynote speaker is going to address the crowd soon. I'm a bit tired but eager to learn about new ways to make the WC an anti-racist space, yet I am skeptical on how an auditorium of white people will do that. Not to dismiss their effort but given what I have seen and experienced it’s just hard for me to be open to these kinds of things.

I hear . . . Spanish? Is that right?  Para que sepas y aprendes. No te dejes. Así son las cosas. All phrases I have heard my mother say time and time again as she raises me in a country too different and unfamiliar to her own. These sayings and ways of looking at the world have also affected my being, seeing, and doing (Garcia) in a society that does not embrace a mind and heart that think in two languages.

Of all the phrases I hear No te dejes leaves me con un nudo en la garganta and tears in my eyes. No te dejes. I feel like that is the phrase that has kept me going for so long. Hearing the keynote speaker say it in perfect Spanish in front of this audience does something to me. No me voy a dejar. And I am going to make sure that in all I do academically I will help others learn a no dejarse. For too long we have had to dejarse but now it is time we use our stories of experience in academia to center ourselves. We are not going to dejar them to continue to perpetuate the racist and classist realities that attempt to erase us (Martinez, “A Plea”).

But how do I translate this saying into words that everyone could understand? No te dejes. Literally it translates to “Don't allow yourself” but what it really means is “Don't allow them to do what they want against your wishes. Stand up for yourself.”

3. “I still suffer from an acute case of imposter syndrome, not an uncommon affliction to those of us whose bodies are in spaces not traditionally constructed for us” (Martinez, “The Responsibility” 220).

I am starting all over again. Basically. This feels like a failure on my part for not knowing what to do or for not knowing how to prevent this from happening in the first place. It's mid-July at this point. I should've been done in May. That train has long left the station. I can’t seem to process my ideas about the novel Women Hollering Creek well enough to translate them clearly onto the pages. I rewrite the same name, Clemencia, over and over again. Page after page. Why don't I know how to do this? Should I even be here?  Wherever here is anyways.      

Is that what this is or always has been? I have always felt like I never know enough or that I don't know what I should know. This has always been the case ever since high school started (See Fig. 2 from my own social media). Yet here I am finishing a graduate program feeling defeated and deflated.  

4. Representation matters. I walked into a space and saw people that looked like me for once. Coming from a predominately white undergraduate institution I had accepted my fate of being the only POC in a classroom. However, walking into such a welcoming space that was diverse was refreshing and allowed me to put my guard down. I was excited to be a part of this writing center and to now welcome all students into this space as well. 

Papel picado— the colorful and vibrant Mexican decoration used to brighten a variety of celebrations for Latine families across all borders (see Fig. 3). My mind immediately goes to making this kind of decoration when I’m asked to decorate the writing center for Hispanic Heritage Month. I’m overly excited to do this because I realize that I’ve never really celebrated this— not in high school or college. The spaces and buildings are not designed like us or named after us. This practice of plastering pasty whiteness all over campus, as Aja Martinez argues, is “demonstrated through the naming of campus buildings as an act of instituting whiteness, . . . further demonstrating the institution’s history did not include you (POC) or folks who look like you” (Martinez, “The Responsibility” 225). The whiteness blinds us so much so that we are disoriented and unable to see what we want to see, and instead we see what we are forced to see. The papel picado breaks through the whiteness for me. However, this is bittersweet because of the fact that no other space has allowed me to embrace and celebrate this occasion— an occasion to celebrate los logros of my culture.

Isabelle Allende. Sandra Cisneros. Gabriel García Márquez. Guillermo del Toro. Roque Dalton. Sonia Sotomayor. These are some of the names of the faces I see as I cut them out to create a collage of them on a wall under the colorful papel picado I have hung up with my fellow Latina tutor. Here I am beautifully grouping the faces together for all the right reasons— admiration and respect— opposing the overwhelmingly negative generalizations of my culture that they ignorantly make of us. I am defying them and their overwhelming white space one piece of paper at a time. As Martinez reminds us, white academia and its pasty buildings, the ones that consume my campus, are “not ours, it is not our space, and we are welcome, tolerated, maybe even served, but it is never ours” (“The Responsibility” 226). However, I believe that the papel picado will make it ours— maybe just temporarily right now but one day permanently.  

5. I'm from a border town too (Garcia). A different kind of border town. One that is not defined by its literal geographic positioning or proximity to México, but a border town that is surrounded by certain people that reject us— the brown people. Collectively rejected by some of the most racist and segregated towns in America for a myriad of reasons but rejected, nonetheless (Lambert; News12 Long Island; Winslow). As we grow up, we are naive to the rude reality that awaits us outside of our town borders/classroom walls. Our schools are filled with kids who all speak, think, and dream in both Spanish and English.

But one day, I met this rude reality head on and felt an embarrassment like no other for being a brown girl from this border town. I now knew what it felt like to be “othered.” Yes. I knew racism exists but, as my mother says, es una cosa verla venir y otra cosa es hablar con ella, so experiencing it is a completely different thing. 

I loved playing softball. It made me feel American because it wasn’t soccer and my dad loved baseball, so it was basically the same thing. Each game was met with excitement and nerves because no one wants to lose, you know? But today was the day we played one of the best teams in the area and not only were they good, they were rich and prepared. They had been playing softball since they could walk and hold up a bat. Not us.

We were playing on their turf. As the bus pulled in, I felt uneasy; I could see from the bus their nice softball field. It was nothing like our field that would always flood at the slightest bit of rain. As we stepped off the bus, we lugged all of our old looking equipment in a dusty bag towards the dugout. From a distance, we could catch side glances from the parents and full on stares from the opposing team. Man, they had some nice equipment. Everything matched and looked new. We were almost embarrassed to go onto the field with our faded jerseys and gloves that were probably older than each one of us. I remember our pants were boy pants and they wouldn’t fit us right. When I would run around bases I’d have to tie them with a shoelace around my waist to keep them up—I still felt so proud of wearing the uniform though (See Fig. 4).

We always knew that these towns weren’t always excited to play us. It was a waste of time to them. We were bad because were poor and brown and they were good because they were rich and white (Solorzano and Yosso, “Critical Race Methodology”). To this day, I vividly remember losing. Badly. I remember wanting to cry mid game, holding back the tears until my face grew hot, as I ran after a ball that was hit into the parking lot. I could feel the weight of the gazes. Their gazes. This is so embarrassing. I’m being humiliated for sport while playing a sport. I feel like in life I keep running the bases round and round and I score each time, but I never score enough to win. I can’t even enjoy softball or baseball or anything they consider American-like in this moment. I still hear their parents cheer and scream as I run and run. They wanted us to know, as if we didn’t already know, that they were better than us. I didn't even want to throw the ball back towards the second basemen because I felt like my arm had lost all of its give—I had lost all my give.  Defeated and deflated again. 

6. From a young age we are programmed here to understand that we are poor and not that bright. If you’re bright, it’s rare. Because not everyone is bright here. But who decides who shines the brightest? They do.             

They don’t get it. Whoever they is. They just don’t get it. I remember sitting in my high school English class my senior year and feeling set up. This is a set up. All of this. My AP English exam was a week away and I was nowhere near prepared. When we all refused to take the exam that year, I remember being told by my teacher “How dare you all think you can do this to me. I can’t have my entire class opt out from taking it. How would that make me look?” But what about us, the students? We wouldn't have paid $90 to take the AP exam had we known we wouldn’t be prepared to pass it. Did these teachers have any idea how hard it was for us to get $90 from our parents? Or how hard our parents worked to make $90? No. They didn’t.

Apparently, it wasn't the teacher’s fault, as they reminded us every chance they got. It was our fault. We were the empty shells of students that they were supposed to have information dumped into (Freire). These teachers told us—constantly—they were Ivy League graduates. I would say they ended up here by accident. Maybe some Ivy League people aren’t that smart after all, they might just act smarter than everyone else. Regardless though, we were the poor kids from this brown bordertown who needed saving since we were so helpless and clueless. We were the ones who rejected their gracious teaching and remained empty shells of nothing. We were already poor, but they increased our deficit— they continued to take away more of our confidence and leave us in the red. 

7. Listening. I find myself listening now more than ever in this job as a writing center tutor. I have been able to listen to what is really the issue behind the writing for the students who come to us. I hesitate at using the word “issue” because sometimes it’s not an issue but just another unfair professor expectation/demand. It’s challenging for me to explain to students that there isn’t anything wrong with them. Their accent or educational experience is different than those of their classmates, but professors usually ignore that reality. Instead, they pounce on students for not knowing or for even asking a question. Students come to the WC frustrated and confused— a feeling all too familiar to me. This last year of graduate school has tested me, but it has allowed me to use my own frustrations to be sympathetic with the frustrations of students with their own writing.                                                  

Most of the students I have the pleasure to work with are non-native English speakers including a beautiful array of languages from Creole to Swedish to Spanish. When they tell me what it is they are trying to say in their writing. I am at awe at the complexities of their ideas that are too often dismissed for not being written in “correct standard American English”— whatever that is. All Englishes are still English at the end of the day (Young et al.); it is up to the reader to value and appreciate the ideas that come served in the various Englishes. These students have come to a new country and are determined to learn a new language while they also learn how to be the professionals they have always dreamed of being.

I have learned that as a tutor here I am more than a person who edits or “perfects” papers. I have developed relationships with these students since this WC is a meaningful space that provides students with encouragement and guidance. A WC has the power to be the source of comfort for those in need, but also of resistance towards gringodemia (Garcia). We answer all their questions. The questions that they ignore. We encourage them to keep going when professors are making them feel less of themselves or that they do not deserve to be here. No one else should feel defeated and deflated if we can help it.  

8. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong too. Go back and check. Check the MLA. Do you not know how to do this? You are a graduate student. If I ever did this, I would be thrown out of my program.

Okay. I get that it may be wrong but how do I fix it I thought to myself? I kept hearing that what I had done was not right— apparently it was never right. I had resorted to silencing myself once again as the best strategy to survive this rejection (Martinez, “A Plea”). I had become a part of their power games. I was now complacent to this treatment. This is what I get for being a BIPOC in white academia, I thought. Why am I even here and do I deserve this degree if everything I do is wrong? (Garcia; Solorzano and Yosso, “Critical Race and Lat Crit”).

But you see, that’s the thing. It’s so easy to call out what’s wrong—or wrong to some that is. They label some of us as incapable of. . . too lazy to . . . not responsible enough . . . not mature enough. . . . In reality they are the ones not capable of seeing behind/beyond their gold colored lens. Gold— not rose as the saying goes— Gold because they set the golden standard, their own standard, a made up standard. A standard that the rest of us can't afford. So easy for them to make us feel less than for not knowing how to reach that supremacy or how to mask ourselves to survive the white language supremacy (Inoue).

White. Language. Supremacy. We must call is what it is—white supremacy—even if you feel uncomfortable reading that word, saying that word, or feel a part of that word. We must label it what is (Inoue) because we have gone too long allowing that thing/word/concept to tear us down, to make us feel less and less capable, to keep us out of spaces of learning. Pero ya no más.

9. I look to the door to a familiar face. A warm smile and shy student standing at the doorway waiting for me to acknowledge them. I smile a big smile and I get one just as big in return. I've worked with this student ever since I started at the WC. She calls me "Miss Cat" which warms my heart but also makes me feel old in a way. She's an adult student in the health sciences school and English is her second language. She comes to me today to express her anxiety at being placed in an independent study course where she must write a long research paper. I too feel some anxiety at the task because I know how hard it is for her to write in general. She talks about how she doesn't feel cared for on campus and how they think she is dumb for asking any question and because of her accent. Unfortunately, she knows, as well as I do, that she really is alone in this, or that she would be alone. But she comes here to the WC because she knows that we will help her. I've tried my best to help her because in her I see my mom and others I know who are dismissed because they speak English con accento. I see in her the struggles of BIPOC navigating college. She wants to succeed so badly and to know that her writing is what is in the way of her success is unfair. No one else should feel defeated and deflated.

Don't worry we will meet every Tuesday for the rest of the semester. Each session you will bring the draft you have, and we will talk about the sources and then the ideas you want to write about. The way I try to help this student is the same way we should help all students in education. We shouldn't decide who can and can't get helped based on race or socio- economic background. They can't do that to us. They cannot continue to deny that racism does not haunt the spaces we try to navigate in academia (Garcia). We know it exist. We see it. We live it. But we are here to share our stories of experience in response. We might be “outsiders”, but they cannot deny our existence and our will to rebuild the way we do things in our communities, especially in our spaces for learning (Solorzano and Yosso, “Critical Race and Lat Crit”). No es justo. Ya no es justo.

Conclusion

One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to hold me here forever. One day I will go away. Friends and neighbors will say, “What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all those books and paper? Why did she march so far away?” They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot [get] out. (Cisneros 110) 

So why am I writing all of this? Who is going to read this? Who is going to care? What will my writing and sharing my stories of experiences lead to? I ask myself this as I tie it all together for you. Honestly, all I care about really is who is going to feel after reading this? Not what are they going to feel. I don’t know what I want them to feel. I just want them to feel something. I hope that my/yours/theirs/our stories of experience may be the vehicles to help in whichever way we want to—to change whatever we can in homes, communities, and spaces of learning.

And like Esperanza I too will use my “bags of books and paper” to do all that I can to make us seen and heard. And actually, that wasn’t my original plan. Initially, I thought the more I distanced myself from what caused me so many challenges—what made me so different—would lead me to be happier. To feel like I made it. I’d be a rich doctor or lawyer in the city like everyone wanted me to be. I would never come back home, home wasn’t for me so I thought.

Yet it took me leaving home. Leaving helped me to understand where I was really meant to be was where I was fleeing from. Home is where most of my memories come back to life to empower me. My original plan wasn’t to come back. But now it is. I’m coming back and staying back. I’m climbing up the escalera and trayendo me los que puedo, todos.

Let’s not forget that I am still collecting stories of experiences. I am still creating el papel picado, mi papel picado. I am the collection of colorful papers creating a longer and longer garland as I learn and live more. I am being cut out and formed in various patterns and shapes but all still beautiful. They might all look different but that’s okay. I will be the bright papel picado in all rooms and spaces that I walk into; nosotros crearemos nuestro propio papel picado una historia a la vez. 

Works Cited 

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Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 4th ed., Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

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---. “The Responsibility of Privilege: A Critical Race Counterstory Conversation.” Peitho Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, 2018, pp. 212-233. https://cfshrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/13_Martinez_The-Responsibility-of-Privilege_21.1_Final.pdf

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Tabor, Mary B. W. “At the Library With: Sandra Cisneros; A Solo Traveler In Two Worlds.” The New York Times, 7 January 1993, https://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/07/garden/at-the-library-with-sandra-cisneros-a-solo-traveler-in-two-worlds.html

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