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Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing for Change

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Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing for Change Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing For Change Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing For Change Edited by Samantha Blackmon Cristina Kirklighter Steve Parks Research Associates Timothy Dougherty Nicole Gonzales-Howell LaToya Sawyer Ben Kuebrich Justin Lewis Kate Navickas Jennifer Sano-Francini Missy Watson New City Community Press Syracuse, New York Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 2011 New City Community Press Syracuse, NY 13244 Utah State University Press Logan, UT 84322 © 2011 New City Community Press and Utah State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Design by Jeannie Harrell ISBN: 978-0-87421-856-5 (pbk.) ISBN: 978-0-87421-857-2 (e-book) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Listening to our elders : working and writing for change / edited by Samantha Blackmon, Cristina Kirklighter, Steve Parks ; research associates: Timothy Dougherty ... [et al.]. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-87421-856-5 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-87421-857-2 (e-book) 1. National Council of Teachers of English--History. 2. English teachers--United States- -Societies, etc.--History. 3. English language--Study and teaching--United States- -History. I. Blackmon, Samantha. II. Kirklighter, Cristina. III. Parks, Steve, 1963- IV. Dougherty, Timothy P. PE11.N33.L57 2011 428.0071’073--dc22 2011014061 We dedicate this book to all the individuals and organizations who have struggled and succeeded in writing their diverse and complex histories into our classrooms, disciplines, and public spheres. Contents Introduction: Listening to Our Elders 9 Samantha Blackmon, Cristina Kirklighter, Steve Parks American Indian Caucus “We wanted to have an open and welcoming space” 14 An Interview with Malea Powell Cristyn L. Elder, Alexandra Hidalgo, Laurie A. Pinkert “Work to be done” 29 An Interview with Joyce Rain Anderson Resa Crane Bizzaro Asian/Asian-American Caucus A Career of Acting “Ill-Mannered” 36 An Interview with Jeffery Paul Chan Jolivette Mecenas Black Caucus A Conversation with James Hill 54 Kendra Mitchell Committee on Disability Issues in College Composition “I simply gave up trying to present at CCCC...” 66 A Conversation with the Committee on Disability Issues in College Composition Jay Dolmage, Samadhi Metta Bexar, Brenda Brueggeman, Susan Ghiaciuc, Patricia Dunn, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, Sushil Oswal, Margaret Price, Nicole Quackenbush, and Amy Vidali Language Policy Committee “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” 98 Interview with Dr. Geneva Smitherman Austin Jackson and Bonnie Williams Latino/a Caucus Chicana Trailblazer in NCTE/CCCC 132 An Interview with Dr. Carlota Cárdenas Dwyer Itzcóatl Tlaloc Meztli “When I came to the Caucus...” 144 Interview with Dr. Victor Villanueva Dr. Iris Deana Ruiz Progressive Caucus Combating Institutional Neutrality 155 Interview with Louise Dunlap Timothy R. Dougherty and Justin Lewis Queer Caucus Renaming Curiosity/Resisting Ignorance 165 Interview with Louie Crew Martha Marinara and Mark McBeth Working-Class Culture and Pedagogy Special Interest Group The Conflict with Class 185 Interview with William Thelin Pamela F. Roeper, The University of Akron Working-Class Culture & Pedagogy SIG and Bring-A-Book 199 Bill Macauley Editor Profiles 205 Introduction: Listening to Our Elders Samantha Blackmon, Cristina Kirklighter, Steve Parks “The real enemy is ignorance, and we can work together to combat ignorance with knowledge” Charlotte Brooks, 1976 Origins In 1979, J.N. Hook, Executive Secretary of National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) from 1954-1960, published A Long Way Together: A Personal View of NCTE’s First Sixty-Seven Years. His description of the new voices and identities in one of his latter chapters, titled “Human Equation, 1968-1978,” marked the early days when identity based groups and activists began writing, speaking, and working for change that not only changed the face of NCTE but the nation with their identity-based ini- tiatives and revolutionary ideas. As an identity-based collective, our “long way together” for the most part began in the ‘60s, and it has been a long, challenging, and uplifting historical road of heartaches and breakthroughs. In 2011, our “profession” will turn one hundred years old, at least if we mark our beginnings as the formation of NCTE. Still, it is probably more accurate to say that our profession is endlessly beginning, constantly changing its identity and purpose as new voices and identities claim their rights in our classrooms and in our country. The recognition of such claims, however, does not occur without a struggle, without collective work. Listening to our Elders attempts to capture the history of those collec- tive moments where teachers across grade levels and institutions of higher education organized amongst themselves and sometimes with other orga- nizations to insure that the voices, heritages, and traditions of their stu- dents and colleagues were recognized within our professional organizations as a vital part of our classrooms and our discipline. As will be detailed in the chapters that follow, this recognition was not always easily given. Instead, whether the issue was race, gender, sexuality, language, class, or disability, committed activist organizations have often had to push against the existing limits of our field and its organizations to insure that a broader sense of common responsibility and humanity was recognized. In part, then, this book records those moments when the field did not live up to its highest ideals—those attitudes and practices which acted to exclude the insights of its broad disciplinary membership: • Louie Crew tells about openly homophobic comments made at a session of the Conference on College Composition and 9 Listening to Our Elders: Working and Writing for Change Communication (CCCC) and the emergence of a “queer identity” in the field. • James Hill discusses the history and formation of the Black Caucus, highlighting its work on such issues as the “Students’ Right To Their Own Language” among other accomplish- ments. • Jeffery Paul Chan talks about how textbooks companies failed to represent the diversity of Asian/Asian American experi- ences, leading to a manifesto being delivered by himself and Frank Chin—the classic “Racist Love.” • William Thelin and Bill Macauley speak to the ways in which working-class teachers lacked place to develop progressive pedagogies, research agendas, and outreach projects to sup- port working class writers. • Geneva Smitherman speaks to the ways in which language rights at NCTE and CCCC were enmeshed in national movements for political, educational, and economic rights, highlighting moments such as the “Students’ Right To Their Own Language” and the California “Ebonics” debate. • Malea Powell and Joyce Rain Anderson speak to the need to develop strong support networks for young scholars com- mitted to expanding the scope and range of American Indian scholarship. • Jay Dolmage, Patricia Dunn, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, Sushil Oswal, and Brenda Brueggeman write about how the profession has struggled to see issues of access and disability as a central part of our institutional, pedagogical, and profes- sional work. • Louise Dunlap reminds us how space needed to be created to insure a working-class politics that reached an alliance with non-academic workers in the struggle for economic justice. • Speaking across distinct time periods, Carlota Cárdenas de Dwyer and Victor Villanueva’s work reminds us how our field has failed to create systemic supports to insure a diverse teaching and research faculty in our field. Yet what is most important about these individual stories is how they initiated a collective response, how they led to special interest groups, cau- cuses, and task force committees designed not only to study but to change the very conditions described above. These individual examples, that is, are not meant to represent the lone individual against the “machine.” Rather they represent the labor of these individuals, in concert with many others, 10 Introduction to form the following collective efforts which have so benefitted our field; efforts such as the Asian/Asian American Caucus, the Black Caucus, the Committee on Disability Issues, the Language Policy Committee, the Latino/a Caucus, the Native American Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Queer Caucus, and the Working Class Culture and Pedagogy SIG. To a great extent, then, this is a book about the value of such collective organizations within our national organizations, NCTE and CCCC, and, more broadly within our profession. It is about the importance of their legacy to our field’s emergent and continually developing commitment to and struggle for social and economic justice Putting Listening to our Elders Together In putting together Listening to Our Elders, we recognized a responsibility to insure the individuals and organizations represented had final control over what was published. Too many of the individuals and organizations have a history of “others” telling and interpreting their stories for them that was oftentimes inaccurate and misrepresentative of their histories and experiences grounded in their identity based collective visions. With that in mind, we established a process where each special interest group, caucus, and taskforce was asked to provide the names of key founders who would be interviewed about the political and disciplinary context out of which their organizations emerged. In all of these identity based groups the admiration and recognition of their
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