it's been dawning on me lately that the semester is almost over. that i was down to my last few lectures. that i would only have a few more class periods to talk about mexican american culture.
it was easy to begin. i gave them historical context for the "culture" that we would be examining. i've thrown in some expressive culture--art and poetry. given them a school ethnography. we've read a novel for its ethnographic content. all of these things that i hope have pointed to a mexican american cultural trajectory.
but now it's the end. today was my last lecture (friday is the test; next week they will present projects). and i felt like i needed to say something profound.
the point of the class is _______________________.
contemporary mexican culture is ______________________.
i realize that i have no idea how to fill in either of those blanks.
my last couple of lectures, i have floundered. i have not known what to say.
culture is a mess. mexican american culture is a mess. we're too diverse to pin down. we are of different immigrant generations, different socioeconomic backgrounds, from different regions. some of us are spanish-dominant; some are english-dominant. though most of us continue to lean to the political left, some of us have jumped to the right (ugh).
but somehow we are all mexican american. and we have a culture, ever-evolving.
what can i do but confess that i don't know the answers? but then to tell them that not knowing the answers is the point. it is the reason why i research. and the reason i write. it is the reason i assign them research. the reason i make them write.
because i think we can slowly fill in the gaps. we investigate what is happening in our schools. we critically observe what occurs in our neighborhoods and churches, our organziations. we can provide small understandings of culture that eventually amount to something bigger. and maybe that understanding and knowledge can be transformative.
a teacher can only hope.
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