A Critical Narrative Inquiry of Ancestral Computing Para El Vivir Comunitario En El Sereno
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Mesoamerica Heals Our School: A Critical Narrative Inquiry of Ancestral Computing Para el Vivir Comunitario en El Sereno A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval 2012 © Copyright by Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval 2012 Suggested Citation: Cueponcaxochitl (2012). Mesoamerica Heals Our School: A Critical Narrative Inquiry of Ancestral Computing Para el Vivir Comunitario en El Sereno. Unpublished Dissertation, University of California Los Angeles, Westwood, CA. ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Mesoamerica Heals Our School: A Critical Narrative Inquiry of Ancestral Computing para el Vivir Comunitario en El Sereno by Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Peter McLaren, Co-chair Professor Ernest Morrell, Co-chair People of Mesoamerican descent are the fastest-growing population in the U.S., yet public schooling institutions continue to push for the erasure of Mesoamerican historical knowledges through present-day colonialism. Public schools reproduce a raced, gendered and economically stratified academic pipeline. This pipeline is especially evident in computer science (CS), one of the most segregated fields in education that promotes an unquestioned digitized approach to living, learning, and dying, primarily for capital gain. This Critical Narrative Inquiry centers Mesoamerican epistemology by describing student activism and adult support through the lens of Itzel, a high school junior, in three organizational tiers: a student-led organization, a CS classroom and a larger schooling community. ii The foundational framework of this study stems from Critical Theory in a Xicana Sacred Space, a method of reflexivity that relies on critical discourses and material practices through a focus on decolonial scholarship. I include auto-ethnography as I draw upon empirical observation, inquiry and analysis of my experience as a unique ‘insider’. The central question that guides this study is: How may Mesoamerican academic cultural practices provide a foundation for a positive learning ecology of cultural academic identities in three organizational levels of a public high school, especially in spaces that have been historically segregated, like computer science education? Over the course of three years (2009-2012), and using a Grounded Theory approach to data collection and analysis, I highlighted the interconnections between the themes that emerged to build a Critical Narrative Inquiry. I begin with the narratives that develop within the microcosm of a student-led organization about ancestral computing for food justice. Itzel’s participation details how a student-led initiative of promoting ancestral praxis interacts with computing for social change. With collaborative adult support, Itzel navigates several dimensions of her identity in her cultural academic journey developing critical consciousness for collective action while healing the neoliberal sickness in public schooling as a continued movement for educational excellence entre el vivir comunitario. This empirical study reveals Mesoamerican academic cultural practices as a Figured World (FW), a socially constructed cultural world that Itzel and others create. This world exposes ancestral computing (AC) practices—a critical approach to situating computing, or digital activism, from a familial historical perspective of communal vision—and reveal that social relevance can foster positive cultural identities as academic practices in schooling, even in the most barren sites of diversity. The scholarly significance of this work is threefold; it: 1) reveals how Mesoamerican familial practices motivates positive cultural identities as academic practices; 2) spawns a counter-culture that promotes critical thinking for collective agency and responsible technology production towards el vivir comunitario; and 3) illustrates a model that bridges student-led initiatives to classroom and neighborhood- wide spaces. iii The dissertation of Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval is approved. Antonia Darder Angela Valenzuela Jane Margolis Thomas M. Philip Peter McLaren, Committee Co-chair Ernest Morrell, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv DEDICATION PAGE Para el cuidado de la Tierra que me han enseñado mis dos abuelitas, who together add up to one hundred and seventy-seven years of life at the time of the completion of this dissertation. Your song and dance, sus carcajadas, sus pláticas, los frijoles recién cocidos, el estafiate calientito en las mañanas y los nopalitos en cebolla con chile rojo have armed me with spirit, intellectual merit, physical strength, and passion para seguir en sus pasos y vivir entre la familia comunitaria. Profundamente les doy gracias por haber dado a luz a mi mamá y a mi papá. Ellos me sembraron en La Colonia Benito Juárez, Jerez, Zacatecas. Son mis primeros maestros. Me enseñan a vivir. Con mucho corazón les dedico este trabajo para que su ejemplo camine con mis pasos y transcienda a las siguientes generaciones. Para mi familia extendida por todo el condado de Los Ángeles, México y Estados Unidos. To the young people that stand up in honor of their creative intelligence: Dinah, Gabriela, Cynthia, Josué, Elisa, Xochitl L., Jason, Xochitl P., Karen, Kim, Vanessa, and Ivan. And to their teachers, defenders of educational excellence, who exercise the labor of love, Rudy, Kevin, Ambrocio, Bob, Lesly, Mariela, Álvaro, Albert, Andy, and Xochitl P.,…. En especial para la familia Asunción Palomera Edais and the general schooling community of Lomas High School whose palpitating resistance stems from the hearths of homes for miles. I dedicate these pages to our collective walk in beauty of hope en el vivir comunitario. v Contents ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION............................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION PAGE................................................................................................................................................................ v LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES .................................................................................................................................ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................................................xi VITA/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ....................................................................................................................................xv 1. Uprooting Systems of Colonization .................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Statement of the Problem: “If We Don’t Know Our History, How Can We Imagine Our Future?”..6 1.1.1 Identity formation under colonialism...............................................................................................................9 1.2 Explanation of the Study............................................................................................................................................ 14 1.3 Scholarly Significance/Rationale............................................................................................................................ 18 1.4 Research Questions...................................................................................................................................................... 19 1.5 Structure of the Dissertation ..................................................................................................................................... 20 2. Returning to Ourselves ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 2.1 Ancestral Praxis: The Rooted (r)EVOLution of Mesoamerican-Descent Identity Formation ........... 23 2.2 Identity Formation Under the Coloniality of Power......................................................................................... 26 2.2.1 Challenging epistemologies of human knowledge ................................................................................... 30 2.3 Decolonizing Our Cultural/Academic Identities................................................................................................ 31 2.3.1 Creating social transformation by embodying an indigenous identity and worldview ................ 38 2.3.2 Advocating for indigenous localized and transcultural community-based inquiry in urban schools................................................................................................................................................................................ 40 2.4 The Figured World of Ancestral Praxis as a Framework for Understanding Identity and Agency.. 41 2.4.1 What is ancestral praxis?................................................................................................................................... 44 2.5 Ancestral Praxis in a Computer Science Classroom......................................................................................... 51 2.5.1 Computer science and indigenous pedagogy, a description of historically separate worlds...... 54 2.5.2 When indigenous ways of teaching and learning challenge traditional computer science teaching and