Between Worlds: a Personal Journey of Self-Reflection While on The

BETWEEN WORLDS: A PERSONAL JOURNEY OF SELF-REFLECTION WHILE ON THE

PATH OF CONOCIMIENTO

EDMUNDO MARTIN AGUILAR

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Department of Teaching and Learning

JULY 2017

The members of the Committee appointed to examine the dissertation of EDMUNDO

MARTIN AGUILAR find it satisfactory and recommend that it be accepted.

Paula Groves Price, Ph.D., Chair

Pamela Bettis, Ph.D.

Brenda Barrio, Ph.D.

ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This dissertation is dedicated to my family: Maria, Jesse, Patricia, Luis, and Cassandra, whom have supported my journey both emotionally and financially. Also, to my four legged creatures,

Charlie and Delilah—their persistence in wanting to go on constant walks turned my dark days into possibilities.

iii BETWEEN WORLDS: A PERSONAL JOURNEY OF SELF-REFLECTION WHILE ON THE

PATH OF CONOCIMIENTO

Abstract

by Edmundo Martin Aguilar, Ph.D. Washington State University July 2017

Chair: Paula Groves Price

The purpose of this research project is to catalyze systemic social change through a documentary film that critically interrogates identity and oppressive experiences through Gloria

Anzaldúa’s framework: Path of Conociemiento. In this autoethnographic documentary, I utilize the seven stages of awareness/reflective consciousness within the Path of Conociemiento to ground participants’ experiences into practice. The documentary film serves as a pedagogical instrument to educate, inspire, and inform communities subjugated by systems of oppression created and sustained by white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy ideology; furthermore, also providing readers/viewers, from privileged communities, an opportunity to re-connect with the disenfranchised by bridging our differences. This form of activism will create an opportunity for healing, transformation, and positive social change by building bridges over physical and psychological walls.

Within this autohistoria (coined by Anzaldúa: a personal narrative, testimonio, factual accounts, cuento, and poetry that transcends the status quo) the documentary film shares the stories of several people living in the state nepantla. The stories of those living in-between

iv cultures, lost and forgotten by the rest of the world, will unselfishly create a humanizing bridge for those living on each side of the normalized us/them binary. As a result, the findings in this research support Gloria Anzaldúa’s framework: Path of Conocimiento and reveal the experiential evidence in the film. The participants’ decolonizing journey brings insight to the major transformations and shifts in perception and belief systems that support and perpetuate systems of oppression. Consequently, through self-reflective dialogue, critique and resistance, this project is designed to dissolve the demarcations that divide us, and in turn create a common culture, while still celebrating our differences.

v TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii

ABSTRACT ...... iv

CHAPTER

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Now let us Shift ...... 3

Systems of Oppression/Intersectionality ...... 8

Why I choose Gloria Anzaldúa for this Project ...... 9

CHAPTER TWO: EAST-NEW BEGINNINGS/WEST-PLACE OF WOMAN ...... 12

Research Questions ...... 19

Theoretical Framework ...... 21

Methodology ...... 35

Role of Researcher ...... 37

Data Collection Methods ...... 39

Methods...... 40

CHAPTER THREE: NORTH-PLACE OF ELDERS/SOUTH-PLACE OF YOUTH

Between Worlds ...... 46

The Film ...... 46

Film Analysis ...... 47

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ...... 65

APPENDIX

Documentary Script ...... 70

vi REFERENCES ...... 84

vii

Dedication

For those who don’t belong, but are eager to bring people together.

viii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Almost every element on earth is made from the heart of a star. Living, breathing, and with a pulse, we are particles of stardust. Ultimately, we are descendants from a wondrous, dark, mysterious universe, forced into migration. Fractured from what we once were, only to form again, into a creation so wildly complicated. It is clear, by this understanding, that we are no longer citizens of the universe; we are now citizens of division. We are divided by social demarcations such as, race, gender, nationality, and sexuality. This harmful systemic hierarchy impacts people’s lives in devastating ways creating psychological and physical borders.

However, despite having lost our way on this journey, we realize that we are alive and ever so radically interconnected, and in the heart of another star—earth. It is on this planet we recognize our interrelatedness with all that is life. And because of this, it is important that we acknowledge the Four Directions, an Indigenous understanding of the world, because they represent the particular life energies and elements that makes us who we are. According to Lara & Facio

(2014), “the East represents ‘New Beginnings’ and the energy of sun or fire. The West represents the ‘Place of Women’ and is associated with water. The North represents the ‘Place of Elders’ and the energy of wind. And the South is the ‘Place of Youth’ and associated with earth” (p. 13).

It’s important to note, these four directions structure not only this written dissertation, but are also a main component of the documentary film that accompanies this research project. This paper and film captures the energies and elements from an Indigenous perspective, and illustrates that they are part of this phenomenal planet that represents the female principle of creation, shattering any preconceived notion that women are the downfall of humankind. For example,

Eve and the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or La Malinche-- a

Nahua woman who aided Spanish Conquistador, Hernán Cortéz, in defeating the Aztec empire

(Anzaldúa, 2003), both women shamed, disgraced, and blamed for the demise of civilization.

However, if we unpack this dominant historical hegemonic narrative, we come to the understanding that from both a biblical and western patriarchal point of view, it is our matriarchs whom have given us, once again, the opportunity of a new beginning. Meaning, that the deconstruction of the dominant discourse allows for liberating perspectives, in contrast to these myopic ways of knowing; which in turn, challenge an oppressive system designed to benefit the elite few. The film component of this project is a tool that brings these images of dominance and liberation to the forefront for viewers that have been limited in their perspective and gain conocimiento (an awareness of ways). This epistemology is laced with theory and praxis and allows for a more responsible social justice way of seeing the world. Here, Anzaldúa discusses the interconnectedness and interdependence of people to the earth that is larger than labels that are often used in society to oppress and divide.

With awe and wonder you look around, recognizing the preciousness of the earth, the

sanctity of every human being on the planet, the ultimate unity and interdependence of all

beings—somos todos un país. Love swells in your chest and shoots out of your heart

chakra, linking you to everyone/everything. . . . You share a category of identity wider

than any social position or racial label. This conocimiento motivates you to work

actively to see that no harm comes to people, animals, ocean—to take up spiritual

activism and the work of healing (Anzaldua, 2003, p. 558).

Gloria Anzaldúa (2003) transformed this hyper-consciousness of interconnectedness by conceptualizing seven stages of conocimiento that opens the senses causing internal shifts and external changes. Therefore, the seven stages coupled with the Four Directions, including below, above and centered are interwoven within this path of awareness. The four directions

represent the first four stages; below, and above represents the fifth and the sixth stage; and the center represent the seventh stage. People watching this documentary film witness the participants in this project explore the seven stages that Gloria Anzaldúa envisioned. Anzaldúa

(2003) felt strongly that to increase awareness of spirit, and recognize our interrelatedness these core energies and elements (Fire, Water, Air, Earth), connected with the Four Directions, serve as a roadmap in guiding viewers/readers through this dissertation. In chapter 1, the introduction,

I discuss the purpose of the research project, the function and meaning behind systems of oppression and intersectionality. Chapter 2, which is marked by the East/West directions and

Fire/Water elements represents new beginnings and “place of women.” The East, the place of the sun, is associated with new beginnings and vision. Chapter 2 starts off with the moment I began to critically engage with fractured moments of my life. This is where my path of conocimiento begins and the intentionality of seeking guidance to heal and move toward happiness and transformation (Facio & Lara, 2015). The West, the “Place of Women”, is associated with feminine energy and endings or the completion of a cycle (Facio & Lara, 2015).

Following this theme in chapter 2, this section shifts from my male privileged perspective to my mother’s narrative. Grounded in this Chicana pedagogical approach the chapter discusses research questions, theoretical framework, methodology, role of the researcher, and data collection methods. Chapter 3 is defined by the directions North and South and the elements of

Air and Earth because the North is associated energy of maturity and we often turn to this direction for guidance from the ancestors. Whereas the South is the place of the earth and associated with the children and youth—we turn to this direction for healing. In the conclusion there is a learning guide, findings, and final thoughts.

Now let us Shift

The purpose of this research project is to create systemic social change through a documentary film that critically interrogates identity and experiences through Gloria Anzaldúa’s framework: Path of Conociemiento. The link below provides the full 40 minute version of the film: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1KYQhjKYg9IT2l2S3JBcWpUd2s/view?usp=sharing

In this autoethnography/testimonio, I utilize the interlinked theories that underpin seven stages of awareness/reflective consciousness within the Path of Conociemiento by putting the framework, grounded in the participants’ experiences, into practice. It is my objective to facilitate this action by producing a documentary film to serve as a pedagogical instrument to educate, inspire, and inform communities subjugated by systems of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ability, and so on) created and sustained by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy ideology. I will discuss and elaborate more about systems of oppression further on in this chapter; however, it is critical to acknowledge the fundamental understanding of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in order to move forward. According to bell hooks (2004),

White supremacist capitalist patriarchy is “the interlocking political systems that are the foundation of our nation’s politics”. Meaning that people aren’t white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, rather, people (of any race, sex, nationality, class, religion, or sexuality) can adopt, support, and perpetuate this oppressive ideology. What sustain these interconnected ideological terms (white supremacist capitalist patriarchy) are laws and policies implemented by governing institutions. White supremacy is a racist ideology that dictates white people are superior over people of color politically, economically, and socially. These privileges have been granted by a colonial legacy set in place by ideas such Manifest Destiny, an American imperialist concept,

(Gilborn, 2005; hooks, 2000). In the documentary, I bring insight to the one joy in my childhood despite my dysfunctional upbringing, and that is “Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball”. However,

through this process of attaining hyper-consciousness through the Path of Conocimiento, I realize that even in my youth I was internalizing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. For example, I provide context in the film about the forced removal of Brown people where Dodger Stadium was built. If I had not challenged myself to critically understand this American imperialist act, which means tearing apart the one comfort in my childhood, I would be complicit in supporting and perpetuating systems of oppression. In an interview, bell hooks explains more about this complex dominant culture:

In my work and that of others was the call to use the term white supremacy, over racism

because racism in and of itself did not really allow for a discourse of colonization and

decolonization, the recognition of the internalized racism within people of color and it

was always in a sense keeping things at the level at which whiteness and white people

remained at the center of the discussion (Patierno & Hirshorn, 2002).

White supremacy has long been tied with capitalism since and before slavery—especially with the objectification of Blackness. “The capitalist system ultimately commodifies all workers— one’s own person becoming a commodity that one must sell in the labor market while the profits of ones’ work are taken by someone else,” (Smith, 2016, p. 2). Similarly, in terms of exploitation and abuse, Patriarchy, specifically heteropatriarchy, is a historical unequal distribution of power that socially positions men, performing hypermasculinity, at the top of the social, political, and economic hierarchy.

“Any liberation struggle that does not challenge heternomormity cannot substantially

challenge colonialism or white supremacy. Rather, as Cathy Cohen contends, such

struggles will maintain colonialism based on a politics of secondary marginalization

where the most elite class of these groups will further their aspirations on the backs of

those most marginalized within the community” (Smith, 2016).

There are many layers that oppress many people who cannot recognize these systems in place and unknowingly perpetuate this ideology. During the time of this project, current events in the documentary film show how intersectional these systems of oppression reinforce and compliment each other (Crenshaw, 1989). For instance, in the opening of the documentary film, viewers witness a montage of state sanctioned violence toward unarmed Black men, misogynistic rhetoric during the 2016 presidential campaign, and the dehumanization of undocumented people in the United Sates. By avoiding the focus on just one oppressive force that leads to the support of linear, single-issue thinking, this intersectional montage creates an opportunity to call out white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy ideology for the violent cruel and unjust treatment of people of color that it is. Furthermore, this intersectional way of thinking allows for the understanding of multiple, interlocking systems of oppression, and can inspire them to coalitional, issue-based action, rather than single-issue or identity-based action (Shalsko,

2015). To assist in the process of dismantling this dominant cultural hegemonic form, and allow for a society of inclusiveness, the two research questions below provide readers and viewers a direction in reaching the project’s objective.

RQ1. How can the voices of Nepantleras and Anzaldua’s Path of Conocimiento foster greater understanding of the intersectionality of systems of oppression and marginalization?

RQ2. How can the voices of Nepantleras and Anzaldua’s Path of Conocimiento engender healing, transformation and social change?

In addition to creating systemic positive social change, this objective may provide readers/viewers an opportunity for self-discovery, healing, and transformation by self-reflecting

on their own internalization of White supremacist capitalistic patriarchy due to witnessing the painful negotiations of the participants’ struggle with these oppressive forces. The ability to see and hear the participants’ counter-narratives provide readers/viewers an opportunity to re- connect with the disenfranchised, and bridge our differences, so we can strive to dissolve the physical and psychological walls that keeps us from one another.

“To bridge is to attempt community, and for that we must risk being open to personal,

political, and spiritual intimacy, to risk being wounded. Effective bridging comes from

knowing when to close ranks to those outside our home, group, community, nation—and

when to keep the gates open,” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 3).

The participants in this research project such as myself, Teresita (a Masters of Fine Arts student activist), and The Crimson Group (undocumented college students), risk vulnerability.

They are willing to share their distressed lived experiences caused by historical hegemonic forces, and by this they jeopardize opening a wound by the same systems of oppression that caused it to begin with. This innovative research project, in which I call a Chicana Feminist

Decolonial Project, encompasses the stories of several people living in nepantla (“in-between space”). The stories of those living in-between cultures, lost and forgotten by the rest of the world, will unselfishly create a humanizing bridge for those living on each side of the normalized us/them binary. Consequently, through self-reflective dialogue, critique and resistance, this project is designed to dissolve the demarcations that divide us, and in turn create a culture for which we can all belong to while still celebrating our differences. The participants, including myself, share our personal life experiences in this film, making the documentary social and relational because it allows us to redeem our most painful experiences and transform it into something valuable so others can also be empowered (Anzaldúa, 2003). That is to say, this task

will include multiple testimonios from those who feel, and are, invisible in today’s society. “It’s about honoring people’s otherness in ways that allow us to be changed by embracing otherness rather than punishing others for having a different view, belief system, skin color, or spiritual practice” (Anazaldúa, 2002, p. 4). This project humanizes the participants’ voices by embracing their stories giving readers and viewers an opportunity to learn about different views, belief systems, skin color, or experiences. Once we honor people’s otherness, we can’t help but realize the interconnectivity amongst us, and begin to see that we are not citizens of division, rather, citizens of the universe.

Systems of Oppression—Intersectionality

In the documentary film, my mother’s narrative initially guides the viewers through this autoethnography as a strategy to de-center my internalized heteropatriarchal privileges. What her voice in the film also does is display Chicana feminist pedagogies by embracing Mexicana ways of knowing, which in turn provides strategies of resistance that challenge oppressive hegemonic practices (Delgado Bernal, 2001). Dolores Delgado Bernal explains the importance of this communication practice,

“It is through culturally specific ways of teaching and learning that ancestors and elders

share the knowledge of conquest, segregation, labor market stratification, patriarchy,

homophobia, assimilation, and resistance. This knowledge that is passed from one

generation to the next often by mothers and other female family members can help us

survive in everyday life by providing an understanding of certain situations and

explanations about why things happen under certain conditions,” (Delgado Bernal, 2001,

p. 625).

If it weren’t for my mother’s conocimientos, as shown in the documentary, my resiliency toward wanting to create positive systemic change would never have existed. My commitment to this research project and drive to understand these oppressive complexities is, what I believe, knowledge passed down from my ancestors who experienced historical trauma. These manifestations of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc.), which stem from white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, create systems that empower one group at the expense of other groups. Therefore, due to the complexities of identities and experiences targeted by systems of oppression it is difficult to dismantle it by narrowing it down to one form of oppression.

Hankivsky (2014) posits how intersectionality assists in addressing these intricacies, “the driving purpose behind an intersectional framework has always been to examine how best to shift systems of power, not just how best to understand or describe these systems,” (p. 3). Therefore, people who watch this film will witness the participants in this project attempt to shift systems of oppression by sharing their experiences that have been subjected to White supremacist capitalist patriarchy ideology.

Why I chose Gloria Anzaldúa for this Project

Gloria Anzaldúa’s work resonates with me academically, and spiritually. Her deep- rooted soulful words find their way to unanswered questions, to untreated wounds, as if they were medicinal. Her words rhythmically dance inside me as if the ebb and flow of life is laced in her writing. Anzaldúa’s wisdom on Chicana Feminism enlightens me about the oppression of the Chicana caused by not only men universally, but by the very machismo I have internalized throughout my journey in becoming a “man”. Through her and other scholars inspired by her work, I have learned that women are the architects of our biological existence, including those privileged by patriarchy; thus, femininity is the clearest connection to the parallel world.

Hernandez-Avila explains, “the Great Mother is the Female Principle of the universe, present in all of life…The act of birthing has to do not only with the physical act of giving birth, but also with personal creativity and the creative spirit of the universe” (as cited in Facio & Lara, 2014, p. xiv). Yet, the Chicano, unable to protect his family from repeated colonial conquests, over compensates his masculinity and subjugates La Chicana who gave him passage into the physical world (Mirandé & Enriquez, 1981). It is complex; it is maddening; it is the world we are forced to live in. However, Anzaldúa gives me the conocimento (knowledge/awareness) to recognize my false sense of identity of living in this state of confusion and abandonment (deconocimiento) and the need to want to change for the better—inward and outward. “Tu camino deconocimiento requires that you encounter your shadow side and confront what you’ve programmed yourself

(and have been programmed by your cultures) to avoid (desconocer), to confront the traits and habits distorting how you see reality and inhibiting the full use of your facultades,” (Anzaldúa,

2002, p. 540). I encountered my shadow side by confronting who I am by deconstructing how the dominant narrative, sustained by the colonial legacy, has programmed me to be comfortable with the status quo. This has allowed me to become conscious of la facultad, coincidently to the point that lead me to unearth this particular study. This awareness allows me to understand that it is not that I have finally found a place of belonging; rather, it’s that I have discovered where I have been living this whole time. Meaning, I began in nepantla and I will return to nepantla—a space of “in-between.” Gloria Anzaldúa’s epistemology, her spirituality, her artistic storytelling abilities are important not only to me, but to this project. Her work allows me to be conscious, and gives me the tools to listen to my intuition and act, yet, also apply institutional knowledge where needed—to code switch for particular audiences —to bridge (Martínez, 2010). Code switching allows me to discuss lived experiences with marginalized cultures in which I have

shared meaning with; however, within existing in the dominant culture, I code switched to the dominant discourse as a surviving mechanism (i.e. employment, speaking to police, etc.). For her work emphasizes that the new paradigm must come from outside as well as within the system

(Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 541). She feeds this spiritual hunger inside of me, which fuels a cathartic expression of creativity. Gloria Anzaldúa has planted the seed; she is a shaman invoking art from within my deeper being, and as this seed sprouts, we will see the fruits from our labor in this research project. “The ability of story (prose and poetry) to transform the storyteller and the listener into something or someone else is shamanistic. The writer, as shape-changer, is a nahual, a shaman,” (Anzaldúa, 2010, p. 88).

CHAPTER TWO: EAST-NEW BEGINNINGS/WEST-PLACE OF WOMAN

(METHODOLOGY)

East: Sun-New Beginnings

Tujunga, California. I would stare through the rackety screen door, while I sat patiently in an apartment where my mother, sister, brother, and I (the youngest) lived. I couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old. My father was supposed to pick me up on weekends; however, those days of that actually happening were merely a fantasy. A momentary escape, living in a pretend world of calmness, imagined happiness. Despite his promises, my family was certain of the typical outcome; my father was predictable. But not to me—I had hope. However, that hope would eventually be shattered into pieces, only to be broken time and time again. Typical machismo bullshit. My father’s actions, some too shameful for me to tap into, represent everything that is patriarchal colonialism. Reflecting on the past, I now understand why I don’t trust people. It’s heart breaking; it’s the way I am wired—it’s loneliness. It is the shadow beasts

(desconocimientos) of internalized colonialism that lives within me. This feeling of being wounded, disoriented, confused, and conflicted will make anyone feel like an orphan. Through the darkness, I look to the moon and realize the brightness of Coyolxauhqui, the Aztec moon goddess. Her beacon of hope, which leads to healing, illuminates the particles of our individuality—fragmented, drifting in this world of division. However, it is this ray of moonlight that brings us together, but before we can come together, and rid this feeling of being an orphan, we must confront our shadow beasts (Anzaldúa, 2005). According to Anzaldúa

(2005), shadow beasts can be recognized by numbness, anger, disillusionment—all inherited by past problems of family, community, and nation (p. 304). You see: this machismo that my father inherited is the same machismo that could be found in Chicano nationalism. Meaning, the onset

of the Chicano movement was male dominated and accused of being chauvinists, subjugating la

Chicana (Moraga, 2017). This male form of nationalism in the Chicano Movement supports the male narrative of the Aztec empire, subverting the stories of the female deities of back then.

Chicana feminist such as Gloria Anzaldúa, and Cheri Moraga allows us to confront our ignorance and face our shadow beasts, so we can begin to dismantle patriarchy, and begin to heal our open wounds (Anzaldua 2005; Moraga 2017). As the story goes, Coyolxauhqui tried to kill her mother, Coatlicue, but her brother Huizílopchtlí, the war god, sprang out from the womb fully armed. He decapitated and flung her down the temple, scattering her body parts in all directions, making her the first sacrificial victim (Anzaldúa, 2013). The dismemberment of

Coyolxauhqui is synonymous with the Four Directions that guide this paper and film because the

Aztec Moon Goddess represents the life energies that will help restore natural order and bring positive social change to this world (East-new beginnings; West-place of women; North-place of elders; South-place of youth). According to Anzaldúa (2005), we have a positive shadow that we have also inherited, and through this epistemological lens of conocimiento, we can begin to understand healing and transformation by honoring these internal offerings from our ancestors.

However, there needs to be balance by removing the gender binary. This is why the stories of women of color, like that of Coyolxauhqui, are essential into bringing harmony to our shared world that has long been fractured. “Coyolxauhqui is your symbol for both the process of emotional psychical dismemberment, splitting body/mind/spirit/soul, and the creative work of putting all the pieces together in a new form, a partially unconscious work done in the night by the light of the moon, a labor of re-visioning and re-membering” (Anzaldúa, 2013, p. 546). In order to heal, to put body/mind/spirit/soul back together is the transformation within the path of conocimiento. Therefore, it is imperative that I become conscious of my past experiences, no

matter how painful. I critically interrogate my experiences to help get insight on the cause of dismemberment. This is sacrificial, like Coyolxauhqui. I and the other participants in this project are willing to risk being hurt again so we can build bridges and assist in unifying conflicting cultures, no matter how painful it is to re-live and re-member trauma.

I believe that a paradigm shift was in motion long before this project started. In fact, with camera phones capturing unjust police shootings, and social media providing a platform for people to witness this and reflect on their experiences with these dominant systems has led to a global resistence. Gloria Anzaldúa was hyper aware of this intuitive way of knowing as she suggests, “many are witnessing a major cultural shift in their understanding of what knowledge consists of and how we come to know, a shift away from knowledge contributing both to military and corporate technologies and the colonization of our lives by TV and Internet, to the inner exploration of the meaning and purpose of life” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 541). We become consciously aware of this shift as we experience a personal identity crisis, especially in critical moments of our lives. Personally, I am awakening from a slumber and reconnecting to this instinctual way of knowing that leads to awareness. This conocimiento is because of an eagerness to understand, to expand my consciousness beyond the status quo, and to heal from repeated blows by perpetual oppressive systems that have caused generations of trauma. This transformation, which begins within myself, could be something greater than I have ever anticipated, and I want to share this shift with the world. While attuned to my instin ctual way of knowing, which lead me to start this project, I can attest that there is much more below the surface. I did not chose to work on this Chicana Decolonial Feminist Project by my own free will, in fact, la facultad assures me that the project chose me. However, it is my agency, because

of conocimiento, that recognizes the call of those before us, and influences me to want to follow my instinct. There’s no real beginning, there’s no real end—it’s non-linear, it’s the circle of life.

In Borderlands: La Frontera, Anzaldúa calls this subconscious way of knowing from within la facultad. La facultad is more of a feeling than it is of being consciously aware. It is an intuitive form of knowledge that includes but goes beyond logical thought and empirical analysis

(Anzaldúa, 2009). “It is the capacity to see in surface phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below the surface. It is an instant ‘sensing,’ a quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning…an acute awareness mediated by the part of the psyche that does not speak, that communicates in images and symbols which are the faces of feelings”

(Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 321). These images and symbols, as Anzaldúa so eloquently describes, are the driving force in what we say, hear, see, and feel in this project toward a hyper awareness, toward conocimiento. For the “spirit speaks through your mouth, listens through your ears, sees through your eyes, touches with your hands,” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 558).

Within this autohistoria-teoría (coined by Anzaldúa: a personal narrative, testimonio, factual accounts, cuento, and poetry that transcends the status quo) this innovative project encompasses the stories of several people living in the state nepantla. Gloria Anzaldúa’s epistemological theories in this project are similar to autoethnographical and testimonio research in that the researcher and participants start within and work their way outward.

“Autoethnography does not attempt to speak on behalf of others but instead makes the researcher the research subject. Turning the ethnographic gaze in on itself, autoethnography allows the marginalized voice to speak for itself. Grounded in experience and written in evocative prose, autoethnography is intended to provoke other stories,” (Boylorn, 2008, p. 414). Similar to autoethnography, but an opportunity for the other to share their voice, “testimonio is used by the

narrator as a denunciation of violence, especially state violence, as a demonstration of subaltern resistance…The urgency of the testimonio aims to bring immediate and emotive attention to an issue…in an effort to raise the readers consciousness, (Gonzáles, Plata, García, Torres, &

Urrieta, 2003). While autoethnography and testimonio provide solid underlying scholarship and could stand alone in informing this research project, Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría provides a feminist women-of-color approach that is a stark contrast to western autobiographical forms

(Anzaldúa, 2009). These methods of research inform one another, because they are a process and a product, in turn providing the best method in collecting and discovering the overall narrative. The participants, and I share our personal life experiences in this film, making the documentary social and relational because it allows us to redeem our most painful experiences and transform it into something valuable so others can also be empowered to create positive social change (Anzaldúa, 2003). That is to say, this task will include multiple testimonios from those who feel, and are, invisible in today’s society. I begin this chapter with a discussion of my mother as an act of re-membering. I discuss historical trauma, the “male gaze”, and re-claiming her position of power. I then move to a discussion of the research questions, the theoretical framework, methods, and role of researcher. I end the chapter with a reflection on my attempt toward healing and transformation.

West: Water-Place of Women

My mother grew up in a family of 10 (8 brothers and sisters) in Mexico. She was the third oldest child, however, the oldest daughter, overall. In an audio-recorded interview with my mother, she candidly told me that she was not afforded the opportunity to have a normal life, such as that of her brothers and sisters. For instance, her mother made her drop out of elementary level schooling to help raise her siblings. My mother was/is a nurturer to her

brothers and sisters; therefore, leaving her little opportunity to enjoy the privileges her siblings were given. For example, she would make sure her siblings were fed and ready for school, or looked after them when her parents weren’t home. As the interview moved forward, my mother also reflected on my Grandmother’s lack of compassion and minimal affection; these actions would have damaging consequences as she grew up. However, in a complete contrast, my mother’s relationship with her father was different. Her words in the interview not only suggest this distinction, but her unseen mannerisms showed me how much love she has for my grandfather. My grandfather passed away a year or two before I was born. This devastated my mother. During the time of my grandfather’s death, my mother informs me that she was raising my sister and brother alone. The only support she had was a mother who could not display love for her, and an abusive husband, who did not put his children first. She was in a fractured state.

She does not shy away from her depression during these difficult times. I’m confident that my mother passed the emotional turmoil of grief, loss, and dismemberment onto me in utero. I write this because I can honestly say that I don’t recall feeling happiness or nostalgia when thumbing through our family photos. However, I am confidently certain that there would have been less heartbreak, and affliction, had my grandfather still been alive during my siblings’ and my childhood. I am also confident that witnessing my mother’s mental and physical fortitude

(working three jobs at one time, celebrating our birthday parties, making sure we had food and clothes) gave my sister, brother, and I the blueprint in how to persevere with strength and benevolence. Like the Place of Water, where there is great strength and healing, I learn from my mother’s perseverance by embracing the feminine energies from The West. Her unselfish devotion to fight for her children, to speak up about injustice when the vulnerable are attacked, gave me an opportunity to become conscious of life and my existence within it. When life leaves

me fractured, I look through the dark sky, and as a guide, my mother beacons a light of hope that unselfishly gives me the desire to repair, to heal. She is my Coyolxauhqui.

I did not film my mother during our interview because I did not want to subject her to the male gaze, nor did I want to speak on her behalf. In fact, my intentions were to give her agency in this project by allowing her to tell her story in the language she is comfortable in speaking.

My mother lost any form of free will under the patriarchal control of my father, and subjecting her as a spectacle in this film would make me a perpetuator of this form of oppression. This form of oppression was interrogated by Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative

Cinema, and coined the term “male gaze” as a way to illustrate to women as a spectacle in film

(Mulvey, 1989). This form of objectification renders women as inferior to men, which sustains the patriarchal order in which dominant systems exist. Those of us who are marginalized by the white male gaze, stemming from colonial conquests and the indoctrination of white supremacy, internalize this form of oppression—including women. Therefore, anyone can be complicit in perpetuating the male gaze. “Freud’s views would support this as being a mirror image of oneself, a more egotistical image, which will be portrayed as the main man in the film as the women is simply an erotic passive spectacle who has no bearing on the importance of the film”

(Miller, 2012, para. 4). This logic transcends in everyday life as women, specifically women of color, bear little to no importance in society. Therefore, I am a creation by my mother, and her story is representative of me, and my autoethnography. Meaning, to de-center my male privilege in this Chicana feminist project, my mother’s voice is the first voice heard in this film, but her image is not subjected to the dominant white male gaze.

Although, I have heard these stories before our interview, this particular sit-down with my mother was especially different. Our past casual conversations were meaningful but they

didn’t have an objective as to the purpose of this research project--to create systemic social change through a documentary film that critically interrogates identity and experiences.

Anzaldúa brings insight to why I specifically felt this way, and the importance of interviews in general, “The interviewee and the interviewer are sort of a captive audience to each other. I like to do one-on-one talks because I discover things about myself, I make new connections between ideas just like I do in my writing. Interviews are part of communicating, which is part of writing, which is part of life” (Keating, 2000, p. 3). This method of interviewing not only allows for a scholarly approach in gathering information, but it also grants an opportunity for self-discovery by connecting with participants’ lived experiences. I made sure the theoretical framework situated in Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento guided my questions. The tapestry of the theoretical framework and research questions in this project are essential in building inclusive bridges that allow for changeability in dominant societies; therefore, the interviews are not only an academic practice with a history that provides a specific context for human interaction and knowledge production (Brinkmann, 2016), it’s also as Anzaldúa mentions: a way of life.

Research Questions

Within the autohistoria-teoría, this project encompasses the stories of several people living in the state nepantla. Their stories, including my own, are told with our own words but also with the part of the psyche that does not speak. This film captures the images and symbols that represent feeling and are rooted within Indigenous spiritual ways of knowing.

An image is a bridge between evoked emotion and conscious knowledge; words are the

cables that hold up the bridge. Images are more direct, more immediate than words, and

closer to the unconscious. Picture language precedes thinking in words; the metaphorical

mind precedes analytical consciousness (Anzaldúa, 2010, p. 90).

For instance, this story follows one of the participants and a catalyst for this research project,

Teresita De La Torre, whom is in a transitional stage of her life. In 2014, the MFA student found a migrant’s shirt in the Sonoran dessert while leaving gallons of water for migrants crossing the border; she literally embodies the Place of Women through water. Teresita, through her activism, nourishes internal wisdom through introspection. She strategically decided to wear the plaid shirt everyday for a year consecutively. During this year, Teresita De La Torre, self- reflective of her own hetero-normative identity and documented status, transformed the lives of those within the spaces she occupied by engaging in dialogues about immigration and social justice. Like her, and others in this film, this documentary concerns those living in-between two worlds of discomfort and pain, and is “about doing away with demarcations like ‘ours’ and

‘theirs’” (Anzaldúa, 2002). Participants, on a path of conocimiento, are shedding an identity that has filtered awareness to a fraction of reality, and through creative engagements connect personal struggles to those of other beings on the planet subjected by the same struggles manifested by systems of oppression (Anzaldúa, 2002). To arrive at this point, one becomes aware of their position in-between cultures, gaining perspective of how limiting subscribed cultures can be.

This project is a call to build inclusive bridges and allow for changeability of racial, gender, sexual, and other categories rendering the conventional labelings obsolete (Anzaldúa, 2002, p.

541). Therefore, “autoethnographic research combines the impulses of self- consciousness with cultural awareness reflecting the larger world against personal lived experiences oftentimes blurring the lines between them” (Ellis, 2004; Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Situated in autoethnography, and testimonio, the project is driven by the theories of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento:

RQ1. How can the voices of Nepantleras and Anzaldua’s Path of Conocimiento foster greater understanding of the intersectionality of systems of oppression and marginalization?

RQ2. How can the voices of Nepantleras and Anzaldua’s Path of Conocimiento engender healing, transformation and social change?

Theoretical Framework

In the Fall of 2014, Teresita De La Torre stood in the land of the prohibited and forbidden. The inhabitants of this land straddle a dividing line that separates the haves and have- nots. The have-nots are the disposable. The dispensable. Transgressors. These are the

Borderlands. De La Torre, while in the Sonoran desert was accompanying members of an organization whose sole purpose is to prevent heat-related deaths by strategically placing water in the desert for migrants crossing the United States/Mexico border. She inhaled the insufferable heat of the Sonoran desert, only to exhale the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary that is designed to divide humanity. It is at this moment, the student-art-teacher from a local state college, recognizes her privileges and tries to become one with Los atravesados. These are “the squinted-eyed, the perverse, the queer, the troublesome, the mongrel, the mulatto, the half-breed, the half dead,” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 25). In the past 14 years, more than 6,000 people have perished attempting to migrate through the U.S./Mexico border (Organisation for Migration,

2014). In the year, Teresita and fellow philanthropists were part of this water operation, as many as 445 people died trying to make the voyage into the U.S. (Organisation for Migration,

2014). Teresita has empathy for those who risk their lives crossing on a daily basis. Maybe it’s this compassion that leads her to an abandoned shirt sprawled across a dried bush during the water operation. Or maybe it’s the spirit of the ancestral inhabitants that have a history of migration, luring her to the button-down that would change her life and those around her

forever. Historically, the first inhabitants migrated across the Bering Straits and south through what is now the U.S. After the displacement of the first peoples, by the way of colonial occupation, the migration pattern shifted. Today, the journey north for migrants, as their ancestors before them, has a similar purpose: A search for a better life on revisited land. “Today we are witnessing la migración de los pueblos mexicanos, the return odyssey to the historical/mythological Aztlan” (Anzaldua, 2012, p.33). The plaid shirt, in which De La Torre wore consecutively for a year as a performative art piece, represents more than the journey of the migrant who left it there. It represents the Borderlands in which the convergence of two worlds, separated by a militarized imaginary line, has “created a shock culture, a border culture, a third country, a closed country” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 33). It also represents the Latinx experience with issues of immigration status, language, ethnicity and culture (Perez Huber, 2010).

Path of Conocimiento

“Now Let Us Shift...The Path of Conocimiento…Inner Work, Public Acts” (Anzaldúa,

2003) is one of Gloria Anzaldúa’s last published articles she worked on before passing away.

Throughout her life, Anzaldúa took us on a journey that allows her followers to understand the wounds that were inflicted and pain she suffered, but also the healing and transformation that is possible. In the Path of Conocimiento, Anzaldúa allows for her readers to understand the process of self-discovery in which this self-awareness transcends from internal changes to external activism.

“Breaking out of your mental and emotional prison and deepening the range of

perception enables you to link inner reflection and vision—the mental, emotional,

instinctive, imaginal, spiritual, and subtle bodily awareness—with social, political action

and lived experiences to generate subversive knowledges,” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 542).

This process allows us to see past the dominant narrative immersed in white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy to perceive reality in a different way and work toward bridging our differences. I believe Gloria Anzaldúa’s past work such as This Bridge Called My Back, and

Borderlands is her personal journey of her Path of Conocimiento; therefore, it is imperative that her previous work provides readers the context needed to fully understand this project. In this

Theoretical Framework, Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera will assist in mapping out key terms that are in the Path of Conocimiento.

Borderlands

There is not one way to describe the borderlands. For instance, there are the psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands, and the spiritual borderlands. Anzaldúa developed Borderlands Theory to explain this complex contradictory psychic, social, and cultural terrain that dictates the experiences of many different peoples in the geographical parts they inhabit. "The Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy" (Anzaldua, 2012, p. 19). Gloria Anzaldúa refers to the differences of lower case borderlands and uppercase

Borderlands: (b)orderlands with a lower case b refers to the region on both sides of the

US/Mexican border. The United States and Mexico has an 800-mile long wall, an arbitrary line carved into the earth from Tijuana to Matamoros, Mexico. (B)orderlands, with a capital B, encompasses psychic, sexual, and spiritual dimensions in physical, and metaphoric meaning. For example, the wall is not only a physical barrier within the borderlands that separates humanity, it is also a metaphor for the contradictory social systems that exist and continue to oppress the people who live there. Those exposed to these conditions live in multiple social worlds that are

defined by cultures, languages, social classes, sexualities, nation states, and colonization

(Anzaldúa, 2012). According to the Migration Policy Institute (2015), in 2013, approximately

41.3 million immigrants (documented and undocumented) lived in the United States. And despite white supremacist dominant narratives most are hardworking people who contribute to local, state, and federal economy. In fact, about 70 percent of the 11 million undocumented immigrants from Mexico ages 16 and older were in the civilian labor force (Migration Policy

Institute, 2015).

Borderlands theory provides a lens to further analyze and identify the complex and contradictory social systems that shapes and dictates the experiences of the people who live and partake in these psychological, sexual, and spiritual spaces. Specifically, in this research project, the theory will help guide and give readers a better understanding of Teresita’s Journey in the physical and physiological Borderlands. Knowingly, or not, Teresita is echoing Anzaldua’s purpose to reverse psychological colonization by creating dialogue inside the spaces she physically enters wearing the shirt in the United States. “The dominant culture has created its version of reality and my work counters that version with another version—the version of coming from this place of in-betweenness, nepantla, the Borderlands. There is another way of looking at reality. There are other ways of writing. There are other ways of thinking. There are other sexualities, other philosophies” (Anzaldua & Keating, 2000, p. 229). I will further discuss nepantla in the subsequent section.

Borderlands theory is complex as the contradictory societies it was created to examine. Although Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, (Anzaldúa, 2012) is where

Borderlands Theory emerged, some of Anzaldua’s work thereafter is connected to the theory and used to support this project. For instance, Autohistoria-teoria, a theory by Anzaldua to describe

the storytelling process, was coined after Borderlands/La Frontera. “Writers of autohistoria- teoria blend their cultural and personal biographies with memoir, history, storytelling, myth, and/or other forms of theorizing. By so doing, they create interwoven individual and collective identities” (Keating, 2009). While Teresita De La Torre is exposing the limitations in the existing paradigms and creating a story of healing, self-growth, cultural critique, and individual/collective transformation, I too, am participating in autohistoria-teoria. I, as the researcher, am weaving my personal story into the fabric of the overall narrative of this project. My position of existing in the physical and psychic Borderlands and by my coming in contact with Teresita and the shirt, contribute to the overall goal of the project. However, in attempt to avoid re-inscribing white supremacy capitalist patriarchy ideology, as I will further explain in my role as a researcher, I am critically aware of my positionality, in terms of privileges: documented, male, cisgender, etc.

Nepantla

Nepantla is a word from the Uto-Aztecan language family. According to Nahuatl,

Nepantla means the space between two bodies of water, the space between two worlds,

(Anzaldua, 2012, p. 276). Anzaldúa uses this concept as a way of reading the world, a way of feeling like you don’t belong to any culture, in other words, an exile in all the many different cultures that exist. This feeling of not belonging allows one to metaphorically see the gaps and cracks in the world. Societal norms begin to label and categorical situate people in gender, race, sexuality, etc., disregarding the differences in all of us who inhabit the earth. “You see the cracks and realize that there are other realities. Women can be this or that, whites can be this or that. Besides physical reality there might be a spiritual reality. A parallel world, a world of the supernatural” (Anzaldua, 2012, p. 276). Los atravesados, as mentioned earlier, are situated into

these categorical binaries such as the queer, the troublesome, the half-breed, and the half dead. If people do not belong to a dominant societal group, they fall subject to dehumanization, disposability, etc. by those with more economical, political, and social power. However, those living in these lower tiers of stratification may gain insight during temporal, spatial, psychic, and/or intellectual point(s) of crisis. For example, according to Anzaldúa, Nepantla is not only seeing behind the veil and discovering the scraps, but also a way of creating knowledge and writing a philosophy, a system that explains the world through the eyes of the disempowered. “Nepantla is a stage that women and men, and whoever is willing to change into a new person and further grow and develop, go through” (Anzaldua, 2012, p. 276). Teresita is changing into a new person while she wears the migrant’s shirt. With every fiber slowly disappearing, like our physical bodies do with time, Teresita is creating knowledge in the physical and psychological Borderlands with wisdom. “I knew it would fall apart, but I didn’t know it would to the extreme it did. I was really interested in Mandalas from Tibet and how they create these beautiful objects and how they just sweep them away, like a representation that nothing is going to last, and don’t be attached to things or even life because it is going to fade one day” (De La Torre, Video Transcripts, 2015). Similarly to Mandalas, by the way of a spiritual guidance tool for establishing a sacred space, those in the spiritual Borderlands will enter the Nepantla stage and shed internal colonization, and begin transformation.

As mention, I too am in this Nepantla stage. This conversation is meant to highlight the physical spaces between two worlds. Two worlds filled with cracks in which many are slipping through, specifically migrants crossing the US/Mexico border. However, to be more specific, in terms Teresita and my experience, our positions would be considered nepantleras. A unique type of mediator, one who “facilitate[s] passages between worlds” (“(Un)natural

bridges”). “Nepantleras live within and among multiple worlds and, often through painful negotiations, develop what Anzaldúa describes as a ‘perspective from the cracks’; they use these transformed perspectives to invent holistic, relational theories and tactics enabling them to reconceive or in other ways transform the various worlds in which they exist” (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 322). Teresita is situated in these cracks of the physical and psychological Borderlands, therefore, with this perspective she strategically designed this performative art piece to bring awareness to the harsh realities of migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border while decolonizing herself, and providing an opportunity for others to do the same.

La Facultad

La facultad is more of a feeling than it is of being consciously aware. It is an intuitive form of knowledge that includes but goes beyond logical thought and empirical analysis

(Anzaldúa, 2009). When those living in the borderlands are not privileged with the language to situate the oppressive conditions, such as Los atrevesados, they are left with feeling. This feeling brings insight to the disempowered. It rests with everyone in this position of marginalization, however, remains idle until awoken. “It is the capacity to see in surface phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below the surface. It is an instant ‘sensing,’ a quick perception arrived at without conscious reasoning…an acute awareness mediated by the part of the psyche that does not speak, that communicates in images and symbols which are the faces of feelings” (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 321). Teresita has had this awareness at a young age and had a sense of wanting to create change, especially through the way of images and symbols.

“My parents had been waiting 12 years for documents, and by the time I was 5 we were able to migrate to this country. I will never ever know what it is like to cross the border, to be

out in the desert or to experience the life of an undocumented person. That is something that I can’t change about myself. I recognize my privilege in it, but I also feel that this is an issue that affects humans. It affects our community. I want to be an ally to that. Since I was a young kid growing up on the border and hearing the stories of my parents being undocumented and having to cross the border” (De La Torre, Video Transcripts, 2015).

Teresita is a border artist/activist who specializes in multi-media forms of art. She is situated in two worlds. One is dominant; where individuals find themselves superior over others that are categorical subjugated into binaries. The other world in which she resides is where the ethnic, queer, and unwanted (Los atrevesados) live. This way of being brings out a state of double consciousness. Anzaldúa considers a person such as this as someone who’s shifted from ordinary normal perception to a different type of “seeing,” one that “sees” through the illusions of consensual reality—“the watching inner eye” (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 277). In the Gloria

Anzaldúa Reader, Anzaldúa describes an artist in the story ‘Bearing Witness’ as someone who lives in the aforementioned state of consciousness. Anzaldúa believes there are parallels between conscious dreaming and the imaginative process of fiction, painting, dancing, music, and other art forms, all of which every artist engages in (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 277). Anzaldúa states the artist in this ‘Bearing Witness’ story is attempting to bridge the reality of the dream with physical reality. A sentiment, I feel, Teresita is also attempting to do herself. “I feel like, and this happens a lot with my family, when you look at me, and as humans we are so used to recognizing patterns of the way woman should dress, or they way we should act, we should change your shirt every day. Our minds are so programmed to think in these patterns” (De La

Torre, Video Transcripts, 2015). Anzaldúa explains, “In creating artistic works, the artist’s creative process brings to the page/canvas/wood the unconscious process of the imagination. By

awakening and activating the imagining process in the viewer, la artista empowers us. La imaginación gives us choices and options from which to free ourselves from las jaulas that our cultures lock us in” (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 278). Teresita, in the past, has created art on walls, canvas, wood, but has taken a step further with this recent performance art piece. The shirt is empowering all of us who come in contact with this narrative by allowing our minds to imagine beyond the mechanistic world we all live in. This is empowering because the shirt gives us a push toward healing. This healing is enacted by engaging in dialogue about the conditions millions of people are going through by crossing the U.S./Mexico border and living in the physical and psychological Borderlands. But before one can begin to mend generations of colonial affliction, it is important to engage in self-reflexivity and see through the eyes of others to gain a deeper understanding of multiple oppressions. Anzaldúa stresses in order for social action and coalition building, it is important that one see’s no sides in conflict, but rather adversaries whose perceptions can be understood by examining and empathizing with their perspective and leaving one’s own comfort zone (Cantú & Hurtado, 2012, Introduction to the

Fourth Edition). Anzaldúa postulates,

The counterstance refutes the dominant culture’s views and beliefs, and, for this, it is proudly defiant… But it is not a way of life. At some point on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagles eyes…

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react, (Anzaldúa, 2012).

The Coatlicue State

Anzaldua’s epistemological stance on Coatlicue State represents the resistance of new knowledge. The resistance of new knowledge protects the colonial legacy internalized by the

oppressed. Those affected by the psychological borderlands will remain paralyzed by the contradictive forces that induce complacency; any movement toward new knowledge is frightening for those comfortable with inactivity and will not cross over to the conscious world, remaining in contradiction limbo. “Coatlicue depicts the contradictory. In her figure, all the symbols important to the religion and philosophy of the Aztecs are integrated. Like Medusa, the

Gorgon, she is a symbol of the fusion of opposites: the eagle and the serpent, heaven and the underworld, life and death, mobility and immobility, beauty and horror” (Anzaldua, 2012, p.

69). Before there were borders dividing land and people, Mexican Indians of Ancient times made mirrors of volcanic glass known as obsidian. It is said our ancestors would gaze into a mirror until they fell into a trance. Anzaldúa explains how within the black glossy surface, they saw clouds of smoke which would part to reveal a vision concerning the future of the tribe and the will of the gods (Anzaldúa, 2012). “A glance can freeze us in place; it can “possess” us. It can erect a barrier against the world. But in a glance also lie awareness, knowledge. These seemingly contradictory aspects—the act of being seen, held immobilized by a glance, and

‘seeing through’ an experience—are symbolized by the underground aspects of Coatlicue,

Cihuacoatl, and Tlazolteotl which cluster in what I call the Coatlicue state” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p.

64). Teresita is documenting her performative art experience on Instagram, and in one of her video’s she is seen gazing into the mirror while putting on the plaid shirt. As a spectator, it appears to me that she is reflecting on the past and future, while paralyzed in the present. “One begins to confront past identities against those awaiting in the future, but the path of Coatlicue is the dark night of the soul, [is] hiding oneself in the dark cave, reaching the bottom” (Anzaldúa, quoted in Reuman, 2000, p.13). Teresita explains her journey of Coatlicue, “I just have to start this process of trying to find out who I am, and this process of loving and accepting myself is

foreign to me. I had never thought of those things before, but since I started the project this process has just happened it has been painful at times, but I think I’m starting this relationship of self, of finding who I am, and accepting myself and of all my flaws” (Between Worlds,

2017). Coatlicue is a symbol of life and death, in other words, deconstructing everything we have been through and re-building it. But, before we can reach this stage, we are, as mentioned earlier, “in-between” worlds. “Our channel to this process is the nepantla state, an in-between space where we are in transition through different worlds, meanings, concepts, categories that allow us to gain the necessary conocimientos (knowledge) to re-configure the self” (Orozco-

Mendoza, 2008, p. 49). Life is filled with many disappointments and painful experiences, whether we make meaning out of those experiences or not will determine if we want to understand more of who we are. Anzaldúa posits Coatlicue State to be either a stopping point or a way of life (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 68). Teresita has made the shirt a way of life for 365 days consecutively.

Mestiza consciousness

Mestizaje is the Spanish word for “mixture,” in other words, mixed ancestries. However, it is the new mestiza who inhabit multiple worlds because of their gender, sexuality, color, class, bodies, personality, spiritual beliefs, and/or other life experiences, (Anzaldua, 2009). Since the

16th century, the colonization of the southwest region by Spanish rule has had a possessive and guarded legacy that continues to thrive to this day. This legacy exists by the way of the dominant narrative situated in today’s societal discourse. Until the counter-narrative of those without a voice in the Borderlands is heard, the inhumane treatment and degradation of its oppressed inhabitants will remain. However, before the turning of natives into foreigners by the

conquerors, women in general were and have been stripped of their strengths, dignity, and compartmentalized well before colonization and made into second-class members of society.

Huitzilopochtli (Wee-tsee-poch-tlee), the God of War, guided them to the place (that later became Mexico City) where an eagle with a writhing serpent in its beak perched on a cactus. The eagle symbolizes the spirit (as the sun, the father); the serpent symbolizes the soul

(as the earth, the mother). Together, they symbolize the struggle between the spiritual/celestial/male and the under world/earth/feminine. The symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the ‘higher’ masculine powers indicates that the patriarchal order had already vanquished the feminine and matriarchal order in pre-Columbian America (Anzaldua, 2012, p. 27).

Not only is it important to reverse psychological colonization, it is vital that we examine the deep-rooted origins of patriarchy in this geographical region of the borderlands. Patriarchy perpetuates and dehumanizes people, especially women, by othering them. Azteca-Mexica was a male-dominated culture in which its ideological practices continue in many other present cultures to this day. Said historical culture forced powerful female deities underground by vilifying and giving them monstrous attributes only to substitute male deities in their place, splitting the female self and the female deities (Anzaldúa, 2012). Women of this time were complete and yet to be in the margins, until they were forced in the shadows, and disempowered. This legacy of subjugation has left the mestiza in a constant state of “in- betweeness”, or nepantla, if you will. The mestiza living in multiple worlds because of their gender, sexuality, color, class, bodies, personality, spiritual beliefs, and/or other life experiences is in a constant state of dual or multiple personality and plagued by psychic restlessness

(Anzaldúa, 2012).

La mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to

another. Being tricultural, nonlingual, bilingual, or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in

a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed: which

collectivity does the daughter of a darkskinned mother listen to?” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p.

100)

Anzaldúa explains that La mesitza is in constant shift because of living in these multiple worlds; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that is linear, to divergent thinking, moving away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes, (Anzaldúa, 2012). Teresita can relate to the state of perpetual transition and dilemma,

“I grew up extremely introverted. I was raised where my mother told me to be quiet and not express what I am feeling-- and that was the formula that worked for her. Not to argue, not to put la contra. I grew up and held everything in and so this (wearing the shirt) is all kind of foreign to me and it’s hard to articulate, and sometimes it can be problematic for people,” (Between

Worlds, 2017). These set patterns were meant to deem women defective. The opposite of this is being macho. Anzadúa (2012) posits the modern meaning of machismo is an Anglo invention, and in Mexican culture of the past meant being strong enough to protect and support their wife and children, yet being able to show love. The former is a product of a man’s oppression, poverty, and low self-esteem. This blow to the ego is the result of hierarchical male dominance. “In the Gringo world, the Chicano suffers from excessive humility and self- effacement, shame of self and self-deprecation. Around Latinos he suffers from a sense of language inadequacy and its accompanying discomfort. He has an excessive compensatory hubris when around Mexicans from the other side. It overlays a deep sense of racial shame”

(Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 105). This shame can make a person resist new knowledge and fear any

transformative processes that could alleviate such feeling of contempt. Men have been divided and deemed superior for quite some time that they are blinded by the shackles that grip their true position in overall hierarchy. This mental enslavement perpetuates divisiveness; therefore, men in these Borderlands, and in psychological captivity lose sight of being one with others in their community, especially women. These men reflect all they despise, hundreds of years of abusive, violent, oppression, and not only do they hold on to it, but cast it on their own.

“Tenderness, a sign of vulnerability, is so feared that is showered on women with verbal

abuse and blows. Men, even more than women are fettered to gender roles. Women at

least have had the guts to break out of bondage. I’ve encountered a few scattered and

isolate gentle straight men, the beginnings of a new breed, but they are confused, and

entangled with sexist behaviors that they have not been able to eradicate,” (Anzaldúa,

2012).

My grandfather, through the testimonios of my mother, represents the Mexican culture of the past because he showered people with love and respect. Growing up without a father, through my own male gaze, I inherited a gender role from White supremacist capitalist patriarchy ideology that reviles tenderness. However, through my mother’s strength to see past the oppressive gaze and set herself free from the mental enslavement of heternormative patriarchy, I have, through her wisdom, been able to interrogate living in multiple worlds of life experiences.

This state of nepantla, a place of fluidity—like water, allows me to see my interconnectedness with all that exist on this earth; however, I have embodied a “shadow beast”, through colonialism, that I will challenge for the rest of my life. Before we can reach a level of healing, self-growth, and individual and collective transformation, we a society, as a culture, need to challenge masculinity in these contradictory spaces. Teresita, as a woman reaching mestiza

consciousness, is challenging such masculinity by defying the expectations of what women should wear by putting on a tattered plaid button-down in these male dominated spaces. It is also my intention, in my documentary film, to flip ideal notions of tenderness vulnerability by subjecting and scrutinizing my personal narrative in the piece. This is my responsibility as a nepantlera to create and invent a holistic strategy to transform the complicated world in which I exist. Anzaldúa explains her role as a nepantlera, “I, for one, choose to use some of my energy to serve as mediator. I think we need to allow whites to be our allies. Through our literature, art, corridos, and folktales we must share our history with them” (Anzaldúa P. 107). The importance of the counter-narrative in this project allows our collective voices be heard, so our differences can be revered and not demonized as the dominated narrative strategically does so often. “Borderlands Theory allows for the articulation of multiple oppressions and forms of resistance to these oppressions, it has produced rich and unique analyses in various academic fields as well as among independent artists, community organizers, and professionals such as counselors, social workers, and public health workers” (Cantú & Hurtado, 2012). The shaming and constant rejection of our identity will no longer be internalized. It is a thing of the past, and our stories will reflect our resilience to the point of extending our hands and asking all to join us in these borderlands.

Methodology

As I document and analyze my journey in this project, I gathered the stories of those on a similar path toward hyper awareness, self-reflection, and self-discovery. The dominant narrative, amplified and sustained by white supremacist heteronormative patriarchy, overshadows the voices of the unheard, marginalizing any form of representation. Therefore, I am utilizing autoethnography to describe and systematically analyze my personal experience.

“This approach challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others and treats research as a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act. A researcher uses tenets of autobiography and ethnography to do and write autoethnography. Thus, as a method, autoethnography is both process and product,” (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). While my personal journey is claimed as an Autoethnography because of it’s ability to better represent my voice and allowing for an authentic perception of my narrative, Testimonio assists in grounding the participants voices in this project. The participants, living in nepantla, are familiar with navigating through spaces of different cultures that do not fully represent them, especially when it comes to their narrative. Testimonio provides a method to better represent the participants’ voices, giving a more authentic perception of their narrative with a pedagogical, methodological, and activist approach to social justice that transgresses traditional paradigms in academia.

“Unlike the more common training of researchers to produce unbiased knowledge, testimonio challenges objectivity by situating the individual in communion with a collective experience marked by marginalization, oppression, or resistance” (Delgado Bernal, Burciaga, & Flores

Carmona, 2012). For instance, undocumented people in the U.S. have been dehumanized and portrayed as dangerously vicious people by the dominant narrative; however, because of their status, many remain hiding in the “shadows” unable to defend their character. Testimonio is a genre that provides an opportunity for the research to correct misrepresentations and distortions of undocumented people and for them to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations others have made of them. “Most of the methodological and epistemological discussions regarding testimonios focus on an approach in which an interlocutor, who is an outside activist and/or ally, records, transcribes, edits, and prepares a manuscript for publication.

Within this approach, a testimonialista works closely with the recorder/researcher/journalist to

bring attention to her community’s experiences,” (Bernal, Burciaga, & Carmona, 2012, p. 365).

This gives people in subjugated spaces more power, and less likely to fall victim to systems of oppression and marginalization.

Role of the Researcher

In this autoethnography, I personally critique my lived experiences and weave my story in and out of the narratives of the other participants. “The autoethnographer not only tries to make personal experience meaningful and cultural experience engaging, but also, by producing accessible texts, she or he may be able to reach wider and more diverse mass audiences that traditional research usually disregards, a move that can make personal and social change possible for more people,” (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2015). Collectively, our stories in this research project better help explain the intersectionality of systems of oppression, thus our personal stories are able to reach more people making it possible for healing, transformation, and social change. Below is a clip from the documentary of me explaining the purpose of this journey:

“…and this is why I’m telling you my story, and the story of those on this journey that

are looking deep within, to make change without. We need to honor people’s otherness

in ways that allow us to be changed by embracing that otherness rather than punishing

others for having a different view, belief system, skin color, or spiritual practice. For

positive social change to occur we must imagine a reality that differs from what already

exists. The shift to repair, to heal our wounds—what Anzaldúa calls the Coyolxauhqui

Imperative, after the Aztec Moon Goddess” (Between Worlds, 2017).

In dealing with my own personal desconocimientos (ignorance), such as anger, numbness, and disillusionment, I’ve learned from Anzaldúa that I inherit these insensibilities, like many of us do, from family, community, and nation. It was made clear to me while

gathering my findings that it was not only problematic to overlook my privileges, but also a quandary to ignore my identity as well. Therefore, by deconstructing myself and this internalization of white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy, it was imperative that I also deconstruct this westernized institution of higher learning in which sets the standard in research.

“Those who advocate and insist on canonical forms of doing and writing research are advocating a White, masculine, heterosexual, middle/upper-classed, Christian, able-bodied perspective.

Following these conventions, a researcher not only disregards other ways of knowing but also implies that other ways necessarily are unsatisfactory and invalid” (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner,

2011). Furthermore, not only is it fitting, but using Autoethnography in this project helps open up a wider lens on the world, eschewing rigid definitions of what constitutes meaningful and useful research (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011). Therefore, as mentioned earlier, it was necessary to include my narrative while documenting the stories of Nepantleras amid this project. Autoethnography blended with Testimonio informs one another, and exposes the limitations in the existing paradigms by specifically addressing phenomenons that can not be explained by one method alone. However, by implementing Autohistoria-teoria, a term that involves the profound search for personal and cultural meaning, not to mention that it is informed by reflective self-awareness employed in the service of social-justice work, integrates itself with the other two methods and collectively removes itself from dominant ways of knowing (Anzaldúa, 2009, p. 319). Despite my story, and my self-awareness, I did not want to center Authohistoria, a Chicana Feminist term, around my male colonized privilege that derives from patriarchy. Therefore, I made sure my documented experience in this project was rooted in the narrative of my mother. I would not exist in this natural world if it wasn’t for the matriarch of my family, nor would I have survived this long without the resilience and wisdom I obtained

from her. This recognition is important because my identity, as a cisgender, heteronormative, male, complicates the process of drawing from theories based from the experiences of Women of

Color. However, I believe, as do other feminists, that gender is fluid we can begin to bridge our differences that are fixed on the binary thought process (Anzaldúa, 2003; Facio & Lara, 2015;

Keating, 2002).

As mentioned earlier, understanding my positionality, as a cisgender, heterosexual, documented, male in the United States, It’s imperative I recognize my privileges. By telling my personal story and the stories of the participants in this project, I have the position of power to contribute to reshaping the master narrative. My postionality, in this research project, is situated in the context of my participants’ lives and their communities. Therefore, analyzing our narratives with a Chicana Feminist lens provides an overarching theme that neutralizes positions of power. “The researcher should respect the sacredness of relationships in the research-to- action continuum. This means that the researcher respects the collaborative and egalitarian aspects of research and makes spaces for the lifeways of others” (Lincoln, 1995, p. 284). I will show this film at venues within communities that invite me. This allows for communities to shape the conversation about the film rather than the film forcibly shapes the community.

Data Collection Methods

The primary method of data collection was interviews. I used research questions grounded in the theoretical framework’s seven stages (Path of Conocimiento) to design open- ended interview questions. This strategy allows the respondents to answer without presented or implied choices. “Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participants’ experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around the topic. Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to questionnaires, e.g., to further investigate their

responses,” (McNamara, 1999). For instances, when asking members of the Crimson Group about their experiences, (following the interview protocol guide: first stage of the Path of

Conocimiento) the question was: What was your experience feeling fractured when living in the

“shadows”? However, more often than not, altering questions were given throughout the interviews after learning more about the respondents’ answers. “The interviewer should be prepared to depart from the planned itinerary during the interview because digressions can be very productive as they follow the interviewee's interest and knowledge,” (DiCicco-Bloom &

Crabtree, 2006).

Interviewing for a documentary film requires providing participants with questions in advance, preparations of lighting and cameras, etc. The interview process also required travel to

Los Angeles, California to interview Teresita, and capture contextual footage of one of the communities of my identity constructions. “The qualitative research interview seeks to describe and the meanings of central themes in the life world of the [participants]. The main task in interviewing is to understand the meaning of what the interviewees say,” (Kvale, 1996). The location of the interview, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, shined light on the community that shaped me, but it also provided context to Teresita’s interview by supporting her artistic point of view. For example, The Great Wall of Los Angeles displays the historical background of people of color in that area, and the plight of their existence despite American imperialism.

Methods

Autohistoria and testimonio require the process of getting to know the participants, so I could ask them questions that pertain to the purpose of this study. However, the research project is also a product. Meaning, in order to gather and capture the voices of the marginalized and oppressed, I need to be equipped with the knowledge of conducting research, but also the

experience to do it in a documentary format. “The researcher acquires the necessary equipment and production crew expertise to record high-quality video and audio, and plans filming schedule and protocols,” (Friend, & Caruthers, 2016, p. 33). It is important that I mention my experience as a filmmaker because it is my ability to create a high quality film that serves the project’s end goal: To create systemic responsible social change. Friend and Caruthers (2016) suggest meaning making is impacted by whether the researcher has had training in the field of documentary making (p. 36). Cantine, Howard, and Lewis (2000) explains:

In its most basic sense a documentary is a film in which the filmmaker allows the action or events to unfold naturally with minimal interference... The very process involved in making a film requires that the artist manipulate the subject material to some extent. Differences in documentary style are often a matter of the degree of manipulation the filmmaker chooses to imposeǁ (p. 14).

Prior to entering the Ph.D. program, I was a professional television reporter working in a top 20 market (eg. New York: Market #1, Los Angeles: Market #2, Chicago: Market #3). This experience comes into play when organizing the gathering of the participants’ narratives. “The choices are seemingly infinite when determining points of entry during the pre-production phase of the project. Who will be filmed? Where will the filming take place, keeping in mind that the space needs to be large enough to provide depth of frame, and quiet enough to record high- quality audio. What questions will be asked during the interview? Will the researcher appear in front of the camera? Will the interview participant be filmed in a wide shot to include more context, a close-up to capture minute facial expressions, or both?” (Friend, & Militello, 2015 p.

92).

Traditional methods of research can facilitate the status quo by following similar rigid patterns set in place by institutional standards. However, artistic expression provides an opportunity to not be situated in a fixed position, rather it sets the groundwork for new and fresh ideas. These ideas capture authentic voices and experiences. Friend and Caruthers (2015) gives insight on these alternative methods: “We viewed documentary film as an opportunity to step outside the formalized methods of the interpretive turn forged in the 1980s (St. Pierre, 2015) which tend to block new ways of thinking. St. Pierre (2015) stated, ―In fact, the new empiricist might well argue that attempting to follow a given research method will likely foreclose possibilities for the ̳new. The new empiricist researcher, then, is on her own, inventing inquiry in the doing,” (p. 37).

Interviews, in this research project, were recorded by a video camera; their stories transcribed and used to develop a script driven by the research questions. Following the written script, the story was woven together on a video editing system so that the final draft is available to be displayed via classrooms, community events, and social media. The interviews were recorded by a video camera and edited to showcase the participant’s voices on film. The participant’s of this project explain their personal stories of what it is like to live in-between social worlds. I, as researcher and filmmaker, by the way of video editing, string together a montage of narratives and visuals to reach the projects end goal. Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of

Conocimiento, and the research questions motivated the filmmaking techniques. “The film offers a different way of understanding the experiences and circumstances of the participants. In making these experiences and circumstances visible” (Stille, 2011). It is anticipated that the voices of the unheard can create social change through democratization and humanize the experience, voices, and existence of people of color in the local community and society. This

challenges the master narrative by allowing people to hear the stories of those that have been and are currently silenced. Friend and Caruthers (2015) once again provide the importance of the counter-narrative versus the dominant discourse: Stock stories are hegemonic narratives that preserve the status quo. Bell (2009) states, ―I also think of stock stories as owning stock. That is, hegemonic stories are stock stories that give White people stock in society in terms of privilege and advantage --- stock that is not available to other folks,” (p. 43). Those who are disenfranchised and marginalized have less “stock” value; therefore, have less impact on society because the lack of platform available. This documentary provides a platform for people who typically are not given a voice.

I wanted to make sure that participants in this study were at ease as much as possible.

One way to do this was to give them general questions ahead of time. However, as mentioned earlier, these initial questions lead to other follow-ups in an overall attempt to find themes and answer the research questions.

I realize the pain my father has caused my family and I. My father’s negligence repeatedly left me fractured. I was left to pick up the pieces on my own. The problem with being so broken is that you don’t know what piece goes where, leaving you unable to fit in with particular groups. However, this position of displeasure brings insight and awareness. It allows for people like me, too broken to have a voice, to gain perspective from these “cracks”. We know this space as nepantla—an in-between space that represents temporal, spatial, psychic, and/or intellectual point(s) of crisis. “It’s not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape…Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p.

19). However, we also know it is a liminal space of transformation. I should hate my father, but in this place of contradictions it’s the opposite-I forgive him for all the damage he has caused. I have learned to be on my own, and this transformation is allowing me an opportunity to put

Coyolxauqui back together again. I am no longer fantasizing about a world of calmness and happiness; rather, I am re-imagining a place of wholeness, a place where I have a voice. I’m learning how to speak again. It’s a new beginning in speaking toward reconnecting our divisions.

I was unsure about how this documentary was going to unfold, but I did know focusing on my positionality was important because I did not want my perspective influencing the participants’ stories/findings. For example, I wanted to de-center my privileges that have been influenced by colonization. The colonial mechanism, infused into the dominant culture, sustains systems of oppression that perpetuate affliction onto vulnerable populations by projecting ignorance both inward and outward. Those affected mirror these actions by the oppressor into our everyday lives. “The practice of performing culture is an all-encompassing aspect of our daily being, inclusive of rituals, customs, policies and procedures, as well as those performances of self related to sex, gender, class and race; operating with the realm of the expected and how we subvert the expected to follow our own desire,” (Alexander, 2012, p. 87). In order for me to de-center these privileges, such as identifying as a male, cisgender, able-body person (to name a few), I would need to be consciously aware of my deconocimientos (ignorance) while collecting the stories of my participants.

This non-traditional project started when I met the catalyst of the project, Teresita De La

Torre. Her story led me to a path of self-introspection, and the journey to find others experiencing similar situations. For example, there are 5 people, including myself and Teresita,

that are pivotal in this film because their lived experiences help foster a greater understanding of the intersectionality of systems of oppression and marginalization. The participants are: the researcher: Edmundo M. Aguilar, Artivist: Teresita De La Torre, Crimson Group:

Undocumented Students (5 in total), Anzaldúan Scholar: Elisa Facio, and Curandero/Healer:

Joseph M. Cervantes. I met with participants at least once, some of them twice, to capture their journeys in this transitional process of living in nepantla.

CHAPTER THREE: BETWEEN WORLDS

South: Youth-Earth

I was left to pick up the pieces on my own after repeatedly being fractured by my father’s actions. The problem with being so broken is that you don’t know what piece goes where, leaving you unable to fit in with particular groups. However, this position of displeasure brings insight and awareness. It allows for people like me, too broken to have a voice, to gain perspective from these “cracks”. We know this space as nepantla—an in-between space that represents temporal, spatial, psychic, and/or intellectual point(s) of crisis. “It’s not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape…Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element”

(Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 19). However, we also know it is a liminal space of transformation. I should hate my father, but in this place of contradictions it’s the opposite-I forgive him for all the damage he has caused. I have learned to be on my own, and this transformation is allowing me an opportunity to put Coyolxauqui back together again. I am no longer fantasizing about a world of calmness and happiness; rather, I am re-imagining a place of wholeness, a place where I have a voice. I’m learning how to speak again. It’s a new beginning in speaking toward reconnecting our divisions.

The film

In this chapter, I will provide a short analysis about the documentary film, Between Two

Worlds. This chapter represents both directions North and South and the elements of Air and

Earth. The North because it is the direction of the elders and associated with maturity. Thus, this documentary displays my process of cultivating wisdom from those before me, and the

completion of this film, is a product of this journey. The South represents this chapter because this film is a learning tool to educate and inspire the children and youth inside all of us, so we can return the favor outwardly to other children who are our future. To put it another way, we turn to the South for healing and transformation so we can actively work toward building bridges to create positive social change.

In addition to the guidance of the Four Directions and elements, this film is grounded in

Gloria’s Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento. The film is analyzed through the lens of POC and the seven stages. While the film chronologically gives viewers an understanding of each stage, the Path of Conocimiento is nonlinear. Anzaldúa (2002) explains,

All seven are present within each stage, and they occur concurrently, chronologically or

not. Zigzagging from ignorance (desconocimiento) to awareness (conocimiento), in a

day’s time you may go through all seven stages, though you may dwell in one for

months. You’re never only in one space but partially in one, partially in another, with

nepantla occurring most often—as its own space and as the transition between each of the

others (p. 545).

In this autoethnography I position my Path of Conocimiento journey in chronological order both in this paper and in the film. However, in the film, I’m able to reflect on my past and show images that represent the antecedent, displacing the chronological sequence. This Anzaldúa theory of nonlinear being within the (POC) is also evident with the other participants as their testimonios weave in and out of my journey. Meaning, their POC process in not chronological in sync with my process; however, our path is interconnected.

Film Analysis

1. el arrebato…rupture, fragmentation…an ending, a beginning

The first stage of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento is about total chaos.

Nepantleras, in this project, describe their process of psychical dismemberment. The participants describe a particular moment that made them feel as if abandoned. This is the stage where they share moments of disorientation, confusion, and confliction. Stories about their experiences give an authentic representation of the affliction caused by systems of oppression and the violence it leaves in its wake. It also ties together the participants’ relation to

Coyolxauhqui, the Aztec Moon Goddess, and their creative effort in putting all the pieces together in a new form.

In the beginning of the film the sun, the moon, and earth in that specific order, appears on screen, but seconds after this cosmic revelation, viewers witness the atrocities happening on planet earth. For example, viewers are witness to unarmed black men being gunned down, immigrants being treated as disposable, and the degradation of women due to hyper-masculinity in the way of Donald Trump calling women: ‘fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals’ (CNN,

2016). The purpose of this sequence is to introduce the viewer, consciously and subconsciously; that beyond the earth we are all part of the universe, but inside the world we are divided/fragmented by systems of oppression perpetuated by capitalistic white supremacist patriarchy. “Every paroxysm has the potential of initiating you to something new, giving you a chance to reconstruct yourself, forcing you to rework your description of self, world, and your place in it (reality),” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 547). This is one way, for me as a nepantlera and author of this autoethnography, to act on my interconnectivity and cross boundaries by making those on each side of the us/them binary get a greater understanding of the intersectionality of systems of oppression and marginalization. “Empowerment is the bodily feeling of being able to connect with inner voices/resources (images, symbols, beliefs, memories) during periods of

stillness, silence, and deep listening or with kindred others in collective actions…Éste modo de capacitar comes form accepting your own authority to direct rather than letting others run you”

(Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 571). Throughout the film, participants share their moment of being fractured. For instance, revisiting the story of my past life is enough to recreate another rupture in my present life. The trauma, while I’d like to pretend didn’t exist, is clearly an open wound that doesn’t allow me forget. Despite my feelings about my fractured narrative, I had to let my guard down if I was going to genuinely tell the stories of the voiceless. In this state of vulnerability and re-membering, I straddle the line between two worlds. One world is the micro culture, and the other is the dominant culture. One foot is inside of a culture that didn’t accept me because of my lack of ability to perform its rituals and celebrate its traditions, and the other in a world that judged me because I didn’t meet their superficial culture and genetic differences.

“This project had me doing a lot of self reflection. Something was happening—a

disruption. I was in unchartered territory. I’ve never felt as though I have belonged. I’ve

been a loner most of my life, and have lived amongst many different peoples and

cultures. My mother tried her best to support three children as a single mother. She

would struggle watching her children grow up this way. Myself particularly, I would not

live with my mother most of my childhood and adolescent upbringing. I would attend

twelve different grade schools. One for every grade level. My academics would suffer,

and my report cards supported this. What is this project doing to me? Although, I had to

see it through and finish it” (Between Worlds, 2017).

As previously discussed, Teresita De La Torre found a migrant’s shirt in the Sonoran desert and came up with a plan to wear the plaid shirt everyday for a year consecutively to foster a conversation about the perils of immigration reform. Her purpose was to transform the lives of

those within the spaces she occupied, but she had no idea that it would transform her. However, with this transformation experienced in all seven stages of the path of conocimiento comes the too familiar that jolts one of your souls out of your body causing estrangement. “With the loss of the familiar and the unknown ahead, you struggle to regain your balance, reintergrate yourself

(put Coyolxahqui together), and repair the damage. You must, like the shaman, find a way to call your spirit home” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 547). The self-reflective action caused by this feeling of fragmentation allowed Teresita to realize her own deconocimiento by re-evaluating her hetero-normative identity. “I went through a depression. To step foot in a LGBT center and ask,

‘you know what, I’m struggling, I need help, and I don’t know how to deal with this…this caused me a lot of pain because I didn’t want to accept it” (Between Worlds, 2017).

The Crimson Group is an inclusive organization at Washington State University that supports the success of undocumented students. The students (Nepantleras) that participated in this project share their stories about being undocumented and what it is like being forced to live in the shadows. These “shadows,” as mentioned earlier, are between worlds, and the participants give insight about their perspective of living in the “cracks”: “You grow up thinking something is wrong with you,” “there’s a possibility of coming home from school to an empty house,”

“you’re normal, but you’re not,” “living in the shadows is very confusing, because no one knows your situation, no one can help you,” “I feel society implements a feeling of shame,” “If you speak up, you put your family in danger, you put your self in danger” (Between Worlds, 2017).

These findings show that this rupture of living in the shadows has serious psychological implications. “You feel like an orphan, abandoned by all that’s familiar. Exposed, naked, disoriented, wounded, uncertain, confused, and conflicted, you’re forced to live en la orilla—a razor-sharp edge that fragments you” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 547).

2. nepantla…torn between ways

Within the second stage of this framework, participants of this project exhibit living in a liminal space of in-betweenness. People in this space are pulled between opposing realities.

They feel split between what they once knew to be true through culture, family, friends, and the new culture that is vastly different. The participants give testimony to this lived experience of living in-between cultures. Anzaldúa posits that those in this space feel torn between two ways—suspended between traditional values and radical ideas and they don’t know whether to assimilate, separate, or isolate (Anzaldúa, 2002, p,. 548). “According to nagualismo (indigenous spirituality), perceiving something from two different angels creates a split in awareness. This split engenders the ability to control perception. You will yourself to ground this doble saber

(double knowing) in your body’s ear and soul’s eye, always alerta y vigilante of how you are aware. Staying despierta becomes a survival tool” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 549). In this documentary we witness the narrative of the participants and their relationship to this split in awareness and the feeling of being in such a confusing, painful space.

The participants and I, as explained, do not fully exist in either world (macro culture, micro culture), rather in a fissure that is rarely, if ever, seen by those living within the contrary forces of two worlds. However, with every difficult breath taken, and every painful experience exhaled and emitted in this liminal space, we gain “perspective from the cracks.” Pain will do that to you; it’ll open your eyes to issues, and problems you had no idea existed. For example, in the documentary I state, “it has taken me some time to realize the hyper-masculinity in my upbringing that I physically embody to this day. It’s part of a system of oppression that has treated femininity with such disrespect and degradation. It’s a large part of patriarchy.

However, I have learned that women are the architects of our biological existence, the clearest

connection to the parallel world” (Between Worlds, 2017). Acknowledging and deconstructing my past is unsettling and resurfaces painful experiences, but it is transformative and provides an opportunity to invent a strategy in putting “Coyolxauhqui” back together again. As a research scholar, Autoethnography gives me the power to create an opportunity for a world that is desperate need of positive social change. I, like the other Nepantleras, have called the space of not belonging home. We have made Nepantla a place of belonging for those not able to fit in a defined box, yet work toward bridging their differences. In fact, according to Anzaldúa (2002), living in nepantla is a stage of the path of conocimiento that is frequented most than the other 6 stages. This path of awareness has allowed us to see the deception and divisiveness by the elite in power continuing to categorically cage us in with makeshift borders of identity. “Living in nepantla, the overlapping space between different perceptions and belief systems, you are aware of the changeability of racial, gender, sexual, and other categories rendering the conventional labelings obsolete,” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 541). This path toward heightened consciousness enables Nepantleras to reconceive or in other ways transform the various worlds in which we exist (Keating, 2009). For example, in my findings, as mentioned earlier, I tell my story through my mother’s narrative, in an attempt to de-center mechanisms of patriarchy immersed into the fabric of my social being. In addition to the preceding example, I am consciously aware, while in this state of introspection and liminality, of the systems of oppression rooted in my upbringing, such as my love for baseball. Specifically, as mentioned in the documentary, my childhood fondness of the Los Angeles Dodgers is not only because they are the home team, but also because it was my grandfather’s (whom I never met) favorite team. This connection is important because I did not have a male figure during my childhood, and I was told my grandfather and I would have had a special bond had he lived. However, as I describe in the

documentary, “our mutual love for the game, for the same team, is not a coincidence, but it is rooted in a dark past that displaced hundreds of people, like my grandfather, like me, on a land where the stadium sits. This gentrification would mirror manifest destiny, and brown people, of this land, once again, would lose their rights to live there” (Between Worlds, 2017). To perceive this reality in a different way than I have in the past, gives insight from living in nepantla.

“Seeing through human acts both individual and collective allows you to examine the ways you construct knowledge, identity, and reality, and explore how some of your/others’ constructions violate other people’s ways of knowing and living” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 544).

Teresita De La Torre’s moment of recognizing she is living in nepantla is revealed several times in the documentary. As the filmmaker, it was important for me to document the sequence of Teresita’s transition from fragmentation to the feeling of being torn between two ways. However, it’s also important to note that Anzaldúa’s POC is intertwined and some of the stages are captured synchronously. The first time is when Teresita gives the viewers insight from the cracks is when she and I are at The Great Wall of Los Angeles. This is where she talks about the clash of cultures, and the importance of social justice. “It’s so important to have art to expose injustices to express anything that is going on. Something that is moving and empowering for me is the function of art in social movements. Like playing son jorocho music, and playing it outside of a detention center. And we have these beats and people in these detention centers bang to the beats, or hang their signs--feeling the music, like they’re not alone.

There are people out there that care for this and that something needs to change,” (Between

Worlds, 2017).

Therefore, It was my intention to reveal Teresita’s experience living in nepantla three quarters into the film (Path of Conocimiento is not linear). In her own words, Teresita explains the feeling of living in-between worlds:

(Edmundo) We stopped talking for a bit. Was it because we shut down, or what was that

process like?

(Teresita) I kind of went through a depression. To step into a LGBT center to ask for—

you know I’m struggling and I need help. I don’t know how to do deal with this. It took a

lot of power courage. If I hadn’t started this project, and didn’t have this time to analyze

myself, I would have still been living in the closet.

Throughout this process of living in the nepantla, Teresita was wearing the shirt she found in the desert as a performative art piece. Engaged with the knowledge of having perception of two worlds that are filled with conflict, the struggle of her deconocimientos (ignorance) remind her of who she was. However, once in nepantla, and conscious of the possible “new” you, the challenges of who you once were do not leave you so easily.

“Craving change, you yearn to open yourself and honor the space/time between

transitions. Coyolxauqui’s light in the night ignites your longing to engage with the

world beyond the horizon you’ve grown accustomed to. Fear keeps you exiled between

repulsion and propulsion, mourning the loss, obsessed with retrieving a lost homeland

that may never have existed. Even as you listen to the old consciousness’s death rattle,

you continue defeing its mythology of who you were and what your world looked like.

To and from you go, and just when you’re ready to move you find yourself resisting the

changes” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 549).

The testimonios of the Crimson Group evoke emotion when they describe their experiences of living in the shadows. “Testimonio differs from oral history or autobiography in that it involves the participant in a critical reflection of their personal experience within particular sociopolitical realities” (Degaldo Bernal, Burciaga, Carmona, 2012, p. 364). Their narrative about this experience, which equates to living in the cracks, was mentioned earlier in this paper. However, not all lived experiences of people living in nepantla are the same, but they are similar in that they don’t belong to any fixed culture.

3. the Coatlicue state…desconocimiento and the cost of knowing

Anzaldua’s epistemological stance on Coatlicue State represents the resistance of new knowledge. The resistance of new knowledge protects the colonial legacy of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy internalized by the oppressed. Those affected by the psychological borderlands, of not belonging to one side or the other, will remain paralyzed by the contradictive forces that induce complacency; any movement toward new knowledge is frightening for those comfortable with inactivity and will not cross over to the conscious world, remaining in contradiction limbo. This feeling, much like an orphan, one begins to break down and descend into the third space Anzaldúa labels: The Coatlicue State (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 545). Participants in this study describe a feeling of despair, self-loathing, and hopelessness. This moment is paralyzing, and those going through it can find themselves trying to escape emotional trauma by indulging in addictions. This hellish experience is decimating, and easy for one to cling to ignorance. But, the participants face their fears and past traumas in order to move forward in their journey, risking vulnerability, they share their narrative. “You’ve learned that delving more fully into your pain, anger, despair, depression will move you through them to the other side,

wherever you can use their energy to heal…To reclaim body conciousness tienes que moverte— go for walks, salir a conocer mundo, engage with the world” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 553).

Participants share their experiences about being in the Coatlique State and the paralyzing emotions they’ve endured while in this stage. The purpose is to give viewers a sense and understanding of the violence the oppressed and marginalized groups are subjected to daily. By understanding these atrocities, spectators will begin to value and humanize the experiences of people that have been treated as disposable. Scholars claim there is a need for people in these marginalized spaces to be heard because “they realized that stories were complex, constitutive, meaningful phenomena that taught morals and ethics, introduced unique ways of thinking and feeling, and helped people make sense of themselves and others” (Adams, 2008; Bochner, 2001,

2002; Fisher, 1984).

To capture this state of bewilderment, depression, and torment, I literally narrated the process of my feeling of isolation. “(Narrator: Edmundo) This project had me doing a lot of self reflection. Something was happening—a disruption. I was in unchartered territory. I’ve never felt as though I have belonged. I’ve been a loner most of my life, and have lived amongst many different peoples and cultures…What is this project doing to me?” (Between Worlds, 2017).

Coincidently, I purposefully paralleled my process of being in the Coatlicue state with Teresita’s moment. In fact, to show transparency in the film, I revealed a private Instant Message correspondence (with her permission) between Teresita and myself. In the film, I noted that communication with Teresita had ceased and I made the effort in contacting her to see how she was doing:

(Narrator: Edmundo) I contacted Teresita to touch base.

(Edmundo text) “Hi, I hope all is well. Being that it has been a crazy semester I thought I’d write a couple things I had wanted to talk to you about…

(Narrator: Edmundo) We hadn’t communicated in several months. Apparently, in the midst of her own project, she was dealing with her own issues.

(Teresita text) Eddie, I’m overwhelmed right now with teaching and school. Also I’m dealing with emotional problems, and I’m trying to work on healing. Let’s find an opportunity to talk soon…

(Edmundo text) Ok, not a problem. I hope you heal soon. Let me know f you need anything.

(Teresita text) Just send good vibes, I need all I can receive.

To my dismay, I wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue with the project, however, more importantly, I was hoping she was not in any kind of trouble. Although, despite my worry, I had my own darkness I was sinking into.

“You can no longer deny your own mortality, no longer escape into your head—your body’s illness has taken residence in all your thoughts, catapulting you into the Coatlicue state, the hellish third phase of your journey. You listen to the wind howling like la Llorona on a moonless night. Mourning the loss, you sink a stone in to a deep depression, brooding darkly in the lunar landscape of your inner world,” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 551).

Teresita, like la Llorona was crying for help, in search of direction, in search of guidance.

Similar to la Llorona, a woman demonized by the dominant culture, Teresita was battling the pressures of judgment by dominant society. She was fractured, and as the filmmaker, I wanted to build up this feeling of uncomfortable discontent up until this point, which can be felt by the images and words from the film, but also by the music underneath the storyline. This all changes as the documentary transitions into the next stage.

4. the call…el compromiso…the crossing and conversion

The fourth stage is a call to action that pulls people from out of their depression and into the possibilities of transformation. At this point, participants show their passionate resilience to overcome fragmentation and find themselves in this world. This deepened awareness instills a spark to engender positive social change within their spaces and place. However, despite past and existing trauma, they find the courage to proceed.

“The bridge (boundary between the world you’ve just left and the one ahead) is both a

barrier and point of transformation. By crossing, you invite a turning point, initiate a

change. And change is never comfortable, easy, or neat. It’ll overturn all your

relationships, leave behind lover, parent, friend, who, not wanting to disturb the status

quo nor lose you, try to keep you from changing,” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 557).

This is where the film takes a turn toward action. Where the participants, including myself, start to recognize this transition. Transition truly never stops in this Path of Conocimiento, you’re most of the time in nepantla. “This knowing prompts you to shift into a new perception of yourself and the world. Nothing is fixed. The pulse of existence, the heart of the universe is fluid. Identity, like a river, is always changing, always in transition, always in nepantla”

(Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 557). In this stage, viewers are witnesses to the process of me becoming aware of a new version of myself. For example, I wanted to capture the process of me taking an ethnic DNA test to see my biological roots. This displays my eagerness of wanting to know who

I a, and where I belong. However, I did not want to reveal my results until the next stage-- healing. In this process of self-discovery, I introduced the Crimson Group and a montage of their collective testimonios, in the film. The Crimson Group shares their moment of awareness when they were no longer living in the shadows (for their protection, names are not disclosed—

in either the documentary film, or this paper). One of the freshman college students revealed her story,

The first time I was able to step out of the shadows was when I received my DACA

(Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), because it protects me from deportations.”

“Being open for me so far granted me a lot of opportunities. Being open with my status

gives me confidence, (Between Worlds, 2017).

Another student from the group shared a similar experience, “If nobody knew how could they help me. So, I told my counselors, I told my teachers, I told everybody. And when I finally revealed it to everybody, I felt like I could just fly, and I’m free,” (Between Worlds, 2017). This point of the documentary begins to witness the capacity of one’s own ability to reach of point of transformation for a greater good—to cross a threshold of new possibilities.

“You must make the leap alone and of your own will. Having only partial knowledge of

the consequences of crossing, you offer la Llorona who regulates the passage, a token.

You pray, repeat affirmations, take a deep breath, and step through the gate.

Immediately, a knowing cracks the façade of your former self and its entrenched beliefs:

you are not alone; those of the invisible realm walk with you; there are ghosts on every

bridge,” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 557).

You’re not alone because you feel the wind touch your face. Your ancestors are with you--the direction of the North, it’s the elders giving you strength to make that leap out of your old self.

The new you awaits transformation, as you pause and give thanks to those who have built the bridge you currently walk on.

5. putting Coyolxauhqui together…new personal and collective “stories”

Participants at this stage, with a new sense of awareness, begin to look at the world with a different perspective. Pieces of their previous life were fragmented during this 7-stage process, but after the turning point, they remember the past, but let go of the darkness and embrace the future in a new light.

“You now see the western story as one of patriarchal, hierarchical control; fear and hatred

of women; dominion over nature; science/technology’s promise of expanding power;

seduction of commerce, and, to be fair, a celebration of individual rights—freedom,

creativity, and ingenuity. You turn the established narrative on its head, seeing through,

resisting, and subverting its assumptions” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 560).

From the start of the documentary we learn what it is like to be fractured. However, at this point in the film viewers witness the participants begin to put pieces of themselves back together.

Personally, I begin to reconstruct myself by speaking to a Curanderismo expert, otherwise known as a psychologist whom deals with cultural spiritual healing. Dr. Jose Cervantes explains the feeling of this dismemberment and what one can do to begin to heal.

“The torment can be on the level of feeling lost and unclear and feeling like you’re an

orphan, on the more extreme side it can get into destructive actions such alcohol

abuse…trying to find your space-----we are all interconnected as Chief Seattle says—and

when we deny that we have a relationship not only with our immediate relatives, all that

are around us—all our brother and sisters—and even further out to all other creatures—

we then cut off parts of ourselves. But when we gather that energy around us we are

reconnected to that space or place that we are intended to be,” (Between Worlds, 2017).

I displayed the results of the ethnic DNA test I took earlier during this conversation. This was to give viewers a sense of my initial feeling of belonging. I was, at this point of the film,

recognizing my connection to Indigenous ways of being and knowing. My relationship with the earth, the moon, the universe is not simply academic, it is innate. At least, according to the process, this is where I begin to consciously recognize my self, and the differences that split me.

In the film, Teresita visits a conference organized by the Crimson Group and talks about her experiences about feeling fractured, and as mentioned earlier, her facing the reality of being gay.

This is the moment viewers get a sense of hope, and bear witness to the possibility of holistic healing.

6. the blow-up…clash of realities

With a new sense of perception, participants test the early onset of transformation with the rest of the world. While this fresh perspective is the center of their ideology, it is at this stage where they clash realities with others on opposite sides of ideals. This stage can be a struggle because of the desperate attempt to make people realize their story of transformation. Similar to the Coatlicue state, one feels a range of emotions that can be overwhelming, losing all sight of any possible bridge building. “In full-frontal attack, each camp adopts an ‘us-versus-them’ model that assumes a winner and loser, a wrong and right—the prevailing conflict resolution paradigm of our times, one we continue using despite the recognition that confrontational tactics rarely settle disputes for the long run” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 563). Like most in this position confrontation, set idle; however, nepantleras, such as those in this project, have an opportunity to create rituals of saying good-bye to old ways of relating, and seeing the positivity in all our feelings. Anzaldúa explains,

In gatherings where we’ve forgotten that the aim of conflict is peace, la nepantlera

proposes spiritual techniques (mindfulness, openness, receptivity) along with activist

tactics. Where before we saw only separateness, differences, and polarities, our

connectionist sense of spirit recognizes nurturance and reciprocity and encourages

alliances among groups working to ransom communities, (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 568).

This is where participants put themselves, a new self, into the world of contradicting differences.

A World that is divided, and comfortable with the status quo.

“You think you’ve made progress, gained a new awareness, found a new version of

reality, created a workable story, fulfilled an obligation, and followed your own

conscience. But when you cast to the world what you’ve created and put your ideals into

action, the contradictions explode in your face. Your story fails the reality test. But is

the failure due to flaws in your story—based on the tenuous nature of relationship

between you and the whole—or is it due to all-too-human and therefore imperfect

members of the community?” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 567).

For this reason, it was important that I implemented a current event that would represent this clash of realities. In the making of this documentary, the 2016 elections were taking place. In the midst of the tumultuous results, I was in a transformative state, feeling like I had discovered a new me. Therefore, the election of Donald Trump was a “blow-up” to my new understanding of the world. How could some who spewed so much hate and division be elected as leader of the free world? I edited the montage of the election results juxtaposed with evidence of the rise of hate-crimes to fit perfectly into this stage of clash of realities. This imagery is an illustration of how Trump is the embodiment of systems of oppression by the way these acts reinforce and compliment each other. This is, as his hateful rhetoric has indicated, situated within the ideology of White supremacist capitalistic patriarchy.

7. shifting realities…acting out the vision or spiritual activism

Spiritual Activism begins from within and makes it way outward into the world that has been manipulated by institutional forces perpetuated by hegemonic control. By allowing this metaphysical force to take it’s own shape, or the shape of our ancestral descendants, Spiritual

Activism begins with the personal and makes it way outward, acknowledging our radical interconnectedness. “This is spirituality for social change; spirituality that recognizes the many differences among us yet insists on our commonalities and uses these commonalities as catalysts for transformation,” (Keating, p. 19). This form of activism shatters categorical boundaries such as identity politics that create borders between us. If we can remove these psychological and physical demarcations then we can contribute to a more holistic democratic society through inclusive reflective dialogue. “You look beyond the illusion of separate interests to a shared interest—you’re in this together, no one is an isolated unit. You dedicate yourself, not to surface solutions that benefit only one group, but to a more informed service to humanity” (Anzaldúa,

2002, p. 572).

These seven stages of Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento form a journey toward a deepened awareness. This form of consciousness provides a lens to see existence with fewer restrictions, and the freedom to choose what and how you perceive life. The driving force behind this passion and desire for knowledge is to understand and love yourself, so you can in turn give that back to the universe, (Anzaldúa, 2002,). These inter-related theories are similar to autoethnography because this method of research frames an opportunity for “autoethnographers look in (at themselves) and out (at the world) connecting the personal to the cultural” (Boylorn,

2008, p. 413).

This is where the documentary comes full circle. My narrative, an autoethnography, indicates that I have been talking to my inner-child the entire time. Teaching the old me about

the Path of Conocimiento, an understanding about transformation to help create a better world for all that exist. Therefore, I reveal the importance to stand up for people and groups that have been systematically oppressed and marginalized by capitalistic white supremacist patriarchy.

“When one person steps into conocimiento, the whole of humanity witnesses that step and eventually steps into consciousness,” (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 573). Furthermore, in this conclusion, we witness the journey of the participants who sacrifice their private lives and share their vulnerable pain so viewers can see the importance of social justice. Reflecting on this part of the film, I recall that it was Teresita’s journey of wearing the plaid shirt of a migrant that lead me on this journey. This symbolic artifact represents the art against the status quo, and an image of transformation of division to inclusion.

These neplanteras will rise to their own vision, shift into acting them out, creating a

Nuevo Mundo because in the end, we are all wearing this migrants shirt. We are all

fighting these systems of oppression. We are all trying to figure out on how to live with

one another. And if it takes images and symbols like this shirt to manifest conocimiento

that provides knowledge, strength, and energy, then these neplanteras will help provide

the bridge for you to cross over (Between Worlds, 2017).

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION

Whether it is race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, religion, there are walls that keep us from re-connecting to our true nature. We come from one universe, fractured star dust that has found it’s way onto another star—we call this home. However, our current state of affairs informs us that we are no longer one, but a fractured society, once again like the particles from an exploding star. We are in desperate need of a shift in consciousness. Gloria Anzaldúa knew this as she wrote in one of her last texts before her death. “For positive social change to occur we must imagine a reality that differs from what already exists. The wish to repair, to heal our wounds—what I call the Coyolxauhqui imperative—animates the creation of this book, our teaching, and activism,” (Anzaldúa, 2002, p. 5). The purpose of this research project is what

Anzaldúa intended all along, to create systemic social change by repairing and healing our wounds. We are ever so interconnected by everything we once were, and still are. We are citizens of the universe; or to put it another way, we are our ancestors. However, we have lost our way through the division created by oppressive systems that benefit an elite few. We need calm our minds and listen, feel, see, smell, taste the world around us, because our senses match the rhythm of the cosmos, and will guide us home. The planet is vibrating at almost pure love, and everything is moving at an accelerated speed—we should match our energy to the energy of the change (Hernández-Avila, 2014).

This documentary is meant to educate, inspire, and inform people about systems of oppression that divide us. If we become conscious of these mechanized forces of division, and decolonize ourselves from the imperial takeover of mind/body/soul/spirit, then we can become aware of how to bridge our differences and celebrate our similarities—creating a common culture. As Chela Sandoval (2002) stated in the foreword in This Bridge We Call Home

(Anzaldúa & Keating, 2013), women and lesbians of color put their lives on the line to creating a vision of radical Third World Feminism that necessitates the willingness to work with the colored, the queer, the poor, the female, the physically and mentally challenged. This is why this

Chicana Feminism Project is vital toward effectively bridging a fractured society, to bring balance to a heavily tilted White supremacist patriarchal ideological world we live in. Women, especially women of color, have long been working toward this struggle, and those of us with privileges, such as myself, need to take the proper steps in becoming hyper-aware of systems of oppression that divide us. Therefore, working toward transformation, healing, and positive social change by recognizing Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento.

This method, its technologies and their interactions, and its effects on identity and social

reality work to emancipate citizen-subject from institutionalized hatred, domination,

subordination: it is a methodology of love. To deploy its psychic and social technologies

requires a concomitant evolutionary step for human consciousness, and the rise of a new

mode of citizen-subject, citizen-warrior, spiritual-activist (Sandavol, 2013, p. 25).

To commit joining the Path of Conocimiento is selfless. It is a journey toward confronting a dominant belief system that is violent and hateful. Shifting from that way of knowing, toward a less defensive, more inclusive identity, is compassionate in which triggers transformation.

And the South is the ‘Place of Youth’ and associated with earth” (p. 13). It’s important to note, these four directions structure not only this written dissertation, but are also a main component of the documentary film that accompanies this research project.

There is a learning guide below that will assist viewers in getting a better understanding when watching the documentary film: Between Worlds. In the direction of the South, and in honor of the Place of Youth, this learning guide is an opportunity to re-learn about ourselves and

the belief systems that have made us who we are and what we bring to this world. These questions are designed for viewers before they watch the film to help guide them toward recognizing their personal experiences and where they position themselves, in terms of understanding the intersectionality of systems of oppression and marginalization and engender healing, transformation, and positive social change.

Learning Guide

• Describe a time or a moment when you felt oppressed or marginalized?

Inviting viewers to describe a time or a moment when they felt oppressed or marginalized

allows them to remember a personal experience of vulnerability; therefore, in turn

allowing them to start thinking and feeling what that moment was like. By viewers

remembering such a moment allows them the opportunity to feel this lived experience

before they meet the participants who will also share their moments of oppression and

marginalization. This also creates an opening to discuss oppression and marginalization

from a systemic framework. While watching the documentary, it is with great

anticipation that viewers connect with the participants in deeper way by empathizing with

their struggles.

• Do you have any privileges? If so, what are they?

Viewers are asked to list privileges they may have. By doing so, they can begin to

witness how those privileges tie into systems of oppression. Recognizing the power of

the dominant ideology that is white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, they can self-reflect

on their privileges and consciously become aware of their social advantage of others and

how they’re complicit in the perpetuation and support of the dominant structure in place.

• Is there a time you may have felt fractured? (break up, loss of a loved one, traumatic

event, etc.)

In gaining perspective in understanding the first stage in the Path of Conocimiento,

viewers are encouraged to describe a “fractured” moment in their life. By remembering

such an event, those watching the film can begin to relate to this path of hyper-awareness,

and understand the impact it has toward positive social change.

• Have you ever felt like you don’t belong to any group, or culture?

There are moments in all are lives in which we felt we didn’t belong, or fit in. With

viewers drawing on this experience they can gain empathy and understanding of what

marginalized groups feel. Specifically, they can start to recognize social divisions

fractured by hegemonic forces and the complexities of cultures.

• What do you consider transformation?

Transformation happens on many different fronts, and in many different ways. By

having viewers explore their meaning of transformation they can begin to compare the

film’s intention. This film focuses on radical visions for transformation and the

possibilities of forging bonds across race, gender, nationality, and other

intersectionalities.

• What does healing mean to you?

Like transformation, healing comes in many different ways. Healing, in the path of

conocimiento means to confront your “shadow beast” and to put together the fractured

pieces that have left you in despair. This question gives viewers an opportunity to

explore themselves and the world outside of them—bringing opportunities to heal past

wounds.

• If you could change the world for the better, what would you do?

I believe we all want to make a difference in this world, and we have ideas on how that may look like. However, most of us do not have the theoretical background to build a framework and strive toward that possibility of positive social change. This film shows possibilities grounded in theories that challenge the dominant narrative. Viewers will get to compare their initial understanding of what change might look like with actual change by those making it happen.

Final Thoughts

There has always been a passion for me to know, to question the simplest answers, to perceive life differently. I would either continue to see the world as dismal as it appeared or challenge it by experiencing more out of life. Gloria Anzaldúa’s Path of Conocimiento has allowed me to recognize my journey and given me the freedom to explore what I make of this planet. I do believe we are citizens of the universe making our way in this earth back to one another. We are stardust scattered every which way, like the Aztec Moon Goddess; however, the elements on this earth paired with the Four Directions will help us put Coyolxauhqui back together again. To increase awareness of Spirit, recognize our interrelatedness, and work for transformation (Anzaldúa, 2003, p. 574), we offer a ritual/prayer/blessing to these elements, to these directions. They give us guidance, they give us hope, and they give us the strength to build bridges for positive social change. Now let us shift

Appendix

Between Worlds (Documentary Script)

[Introduction Montage]

East: Aire

There’s going to be a time when you look in the mirror and ask yourself: Who am I?

This is an important question because who you are reflects how you will treat others.

And how you treat others is vital in making this world a better place for all that exists on this planet.

Gloria Anzaldúa once said you change yourself, you change the world.

This story is for you, my child, my future, my hope for a better world.

For it is you that has the ability to recognize that you are loved, that you are worthy, and that you belong to everything that is significant to this world.

If you consciously acknowledge this love and interconnectedness, then it is your obligation to give back to the earth that has so graciously given to you.

And with listening to your intuition and finding the courage deep within you will help restore order in this chaotic world.

However, within finding this courage, it is important that you understand the female principle of the universe.

It is important because the great mother is present in all of life and has given birth to not us as living species but personal creativity and the creative spirit of the universe.

And you need to embrace and respect this.

I’ll tell you why.

It has taken me some time to realize the hyper masculinity in my upbrining—and that I physically embody to this day—it’s part of a system of oppression that has treated feminity with such disprespect and degradation.

It is a large part of patriarchy.

However, I have learned that women are the architects of our biological existence—the clearest connection to the parallel world.

Despite given passage into this physical world, we have subjugated La Chicana.

Perhaps this comes from a dark past of historical trauma.

Perhaps the Chicano, trying to prove his machismo with every demeaning action, was unable to protect his family form repeated colonial conquests and because of this, over compensates his masculinity.

Disregarding these actions that the Chicano commits makes him oblivious to the devastating pain he passes onto his children, and his children’s children.

We need to break this cycle.

And this is why I’m telling you my story, and the story of those on this journey that are looking deep within to make change without.

On this journey, you will learn about the importance of scholar-activist Gloria Anzaldúa’s path of conocimiento.

It is her work that has revolutionized the way I think; her words rhythmically dance inside me as they are alive—they are alive.

They are a bridge home to the self.

We need to honor people’s othernss in ways that allow us to be changed by embracing that otherness rather than punishing others for having a different view, belief system, skin color, or spiritual practice.

For positive social change to occur we must imagine a reality that differs from what already exists. The wish to repair, to heal our wounds—what Anzaldúa calls the Coyolxauhqui imperative—after the Aztec moon goddess.

These wounds are a bridge to the possibilities of fixing a fractured society in need of immediate attention.

Although to treat the wounds we must sometimes reject the authoritive nomalities of culture, group, family, and ego.

This isn’t easy, but it is necessary and if we want positive social change, we need to look deep within and face our deepest fears.

Now lets us shift…

[Elisa Facio: Stage 1]

[Mom Track]

I have felt fractured since the day I entered this world. My mom supports this by telling me about what the nurse said before I was born:

[Mom Track]

My mother grew up in a family with eight brothers and sisters in Mexico.

She is the olderst daughter, nurterer to her siblings, a burdern to her mother.

My grandmother would sustain these feelings by showing us my mothers children little to no affection. There’s a deeper reason for this neglet, but we’ve learned to move on.

My mother barely completed primary schooling because she was forced to stay at home and help raise her brother’s and sisters.

They were poor. She had a special connection with her father. I never met him.

But I’m told he would have loved me as much as he did his other grandchildren.

I would need that love.

Apparently we had a lot in common. Like baseball.

I loved watching Dodgers baseball.

He did too, apparently.

When I would watch a game, I would escape a world that I did not belong to.

I always wondered what it would have been like to watch a game with him—a game with my grandfather.

Maybe then I would have felt like I belonged to this world.

I needed to feel like I belonged.

I needed to feel like I was loved.

Our mutual love for the game, for the same team is not a coincidence, but it is rooted in a dark past that displaced hundreds of people, like my grandfather, like me, on a land where the stadium sits. This gentrification would mirror manifest destiny, and Brown people of this land once again would lose their inherent rights to live there. This is complicated. How can I be devoted to something I passionately enjoy when I know it’s foundation is faulty. This is a connection I have with my grandfather. I don’t want to lose that.

[Mom Track]

My mother faced serious depression for more than a decade after she lost her father to a stroke.

My father only contributed to the pain and sorrow.

Throughout the years my father was abusive and controlling.

My brother and sister were witnesses to these atrocities more than I was.

We still loved my father.

It’s what children do, despite our loved ones actions.

I don’t know why, but we had every reason to hate him.

But we still have him our love—he is our father after all.

Like the others in our life, he would abandon my mother, my sister, my brother and me.

It was just us and no one else. We were left to pick up the pices of any possible dreams we may have had.

We needed him—my father.

I needed him.

I think the moment I stopped looking at him as someone who could do no wrong was when he went to prison for dealing drugs.

My patience would wear thin as I got older.

[Facio: Nepantla]

[The South: Fuego, inspire and energize us to do the necessary work, and to honor it as we walk through the flames of transformation. May we seize the arrogance to create outrageously sonar wildly—for the world becomes as we dream it.] poem: I press my hand to the steel curtain—chain link fence crowned with rolled barbed wire--- rippling from the sea where Tijuana touches San Diego unrolling over mountains and plains.

After living with several other families, I would leave the Los Angeles area and move to

Spokane, Washington at the age of 17.

My mother bought some land and would start a new life in the Pacific Northwest.

This is where my life would change.

Currently, I’m a doctoral student at Washington State University.

After a career as a television reporter, I knew that I needed a shift and it led me to education.

This shift was important because I felt I needed to give back to my communities, to repay the sacrifices of my ancestors.

For instance, my grandfather would work his fingers to the bone, picking produce so he could give his family a better life in the United States.

About a year ago, while on the internet, I came across an article about an MFA student in

Southern California doing activist work.

Teresita De La Torre had been wearing a tattered shirt, she found in the sonoran desert every single day since.

She found the shirt after leaving water behind for migrants crossing the treacherous border.

She used the shirt as a performative art piece to talk about immigration reform in the spaces she entered.

She documented this process on social media.

Some way, some how, I connected to her work on a deeper level.

There was a spiritual force that pushed me to try and connect with her.

I booked a flight to Southern California to interview Teresita for this research project.

I was back in the city where I had felt so much pain, and felt so much heartbreak.

I met up with Teresita at The Great Wall of Los Angeles; A historical place in the area. In 1976, dozens of youth were referred by the criminal justice department to collaborate with and under the direction of Chicana artist Judith Baca to paint this river wash made out of concrete.

The river that was once here contained the songs and stories of the indigenous people that were part of this land.

In the 1920’s, settlers, as they did the people, would try and contain the river and cement it over, disrupting the social and ecological systems in place.

Baca’s creativity on these walls is the tattoo on the scar where the river once ran.

The stories on the wall depict the injustices that were washed away in US textbooks, but now thrive on the concrete.

The art on the walls give us life, and allow us to discuss these injustices and provide an opportunity for us to heal an open wound.

Gloria Anzaldúa says indigenous people do not split the artistic from the functional, the sacred from the secular, art from everyday life. The religious, social and aesthetic purposes of art all intertwined.

This location was fitting for this interview.

I was seeing the shirt in person for the first time.

It had an immediate impact on me.

There was a wholeness about it.

Something spiritual.

It felt like it had it’s own identity.

When she found the shirt, Teresita was with a group of volunteers that are part of a non profit called water station.

They so happened to be followed by a news crew the day she found the piece of clothing that would change her life forever.

why would they leave it behind? What did they have to go through? Is this person alive?

Did they make their journey? Are they safe with their family now? Or where are they? Or

who was this person? All these thoughts and possibilities ran through my mind. And I’ll

never know for certain what happened to this person...

The group placed water in certain locations that have proven to be deadly for those crossing the

US/Mexico borders.

The ACLU has declared the migration on this border a Humanitarian crisis.

In the past few years, thousands have suffered and died because of border security policies and practices.

For instance, in 1994 the US government implemented a border enforcement policy known as operation gatekeeper.

This policy is used to have border agents in populated areas forcing undocumented immigrants to extreme environments.

This policy has failed has failed in its purpose to restrict immigration because from 2000 to 2008 the population in the US grew from an estimated 8.4 million to 11.9.

Yet this deadly failure of a policy still exists.

The risk of death for migrant crossers has increased in spite of government programs to reduce the harmful effects of border deterrence stratergies.

the main and important thing is to share where I found it in a place where people are

forced to travel to because of bad immigration policy and because of us imperialism and

capitalism and all these things that have forced people out of their lands.

The Obama administration has deporterd more immigrants than any other sitting president.

In 2012, this administration deported a record 409,849 undocumented immigrants—that’s about a rate of 34 thousand people a month.

While some think undocumented immigrants drain the economy, they actually pay 12 billion in taxes, and would pay a couple more billion if they were legally allowed to work in the US.

What people fail to realize is that US trade and immigration policies are linked. This has caused and sustained forced migration globally. Specifically, in Mexico, under the North America Free

Trade Agreement Mexicans have been uprooted and displaced because NAFTA has forced the price of corn so low that it’s not economically possible to plant a crop anymore.

So people are forced to leave their loved ones in search of resources to provide for their family so they can eat, so they can live, but many people in the US do not want to talk about this.

I’m at a coffee shop and somebody asks me and I’ll tell them a story, and it is something

they werent expecting. They were expecting to hear something funny back, and to say

something serious, and it throws people off and they’re really quite, their face just

changes, and then they don’t want to know about it anymore. Pause. They don’t want to

hear that this happens, I guess.

She is trying to change the conversation about undocumented people not only here in the US, but around the world. And she’s doing it by wearing this shirt as a performative art piece. She is a multimedia artist that has worked on murals to videos on youtube. And her work is trying to create positive social change.

it’s so important to have art to expose injustices to express anything that is going on.

Something that is moving and empowering for me is the function of art in social

movements.---like playing son jorocho music and playing it outside of a detention center

and we have these beats and people in these detention centers bang to the beats or hang

their signs and feeling the music, like they’re not alone. There’s people out there that

care for this and that something needs to change.

Western knowledge see are as dead objects. However this music is not dead, or these murals, or this shirt.

Our creations are our offerings to our ancestors. They are the spiritual presence of people who have endured violent atrocities.

We are their off-springs and we carry their trauma in our DNA.

West: AGUA: may we honor other people’s feelings respect their anger, sadness, grief, joy as we do our own. Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

[Facio Step 3: Coatlicue State]

This project had me doing a lot of self-reflection.

Something was happening: A disruption.

I was in uncharted territory

I’ve never felt as though I have belonged.

I’ve been a loner most of life and have lived amongst many different people’s cultures.

My mother tried her best to support three children as a single mother.

She would struggle watching her children grow up this way.

Myself particularly, I would not live with my mother most of my childhood and adolescent upbringing.

I would attend 12 different grade schools. One school for every grade level.

My academics would suffer, and my report cards supported this.. What this project, this journey doing to me?

Although, I had to see it through and finish it.

Meanwhile I was thinking about the project.

I found a replica of Teresita’s shirt online.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for, but I ordered it anyway.

I contacted Teresita to touch base.

(Messanger) Hi, I hope all is well. Being that it has been a crazy semester I thought I’d

write a couple things I had wanted to talk to you about…

We hand’t communicated in several months.

Apparently, in the midst of her own project she was dealing with her own issues.

Eddie, I’m overwhelmed right now with teaching and school. Also I’m dealing with

emotional problems, and I’m trying to work on healing.

Let’s find an opportunity to talk soon…

Ok, not a problem. I hope you heal soon. Let me know f you need anything.

Just send good vibes, I need all I can receive.

North: Madre tierra, you who are our body, who bear us into life, swallow us in death forgive us for poisoning your lands, guide us to wiser ways of caring for you. of caring for you….

[Facio: Stage 4]

I needed to look deep inside.

I needed to find out who I was.

I came across an ad for one of those ethnic DNA sites.

[Putting it in the mail]

I know these sites can be problematic, but it’s a start in finding out who I am. Where I belong.

In the mean time, I started to get involved in immigration reform.

In fact, at the university I attend, I met several undocumented students who formed a group to provide the right tools and resources to student who wish to learn, lead, and advocate for dreamers.

This is their story.

[Crimson Group story]

Things were changing once again. I was seeing myself for the first time. I was seeing myself for who I was.

I met clinical and family psychologist Jose Cervantes who specializes on curandismo.

He calls his work psycho spiritual connection because you’re blending a conscious mind with an indigenous mind. With an indigenous mind you can access as you become aware of a unifying self.

A relationship to everything around you.

I needed him to shed some light on immigration, and the people I have met on my journey so far.

Our indigenous history goes way back generations, hundreds of years, to indigenous

people that predate Columbus who had a very specific knowledge that had a relationship

with the earth and the stars, and the sun played a huge role because it was seen as the

creator, or the creator force that allowed all life to grow.

I believe we have a spiritual blue print. We as Latinos are children of the sun and that is

our heritage and to try and dismiss it, is to deny who we are, and eventually comes back

to us because it’s the place we need to connect to and affirm.

The torment can be on the level of feeling lost and unclear and feeling like you’re an

orphan, on the more extreme side it can get into destructive actions such alcohol

abuse…trying to find your space-----we are all interconnected as Chief Seattle says—and

when we deny that we have a relationship not only with our immediate relatives, all that

are around us—all our brother and sisters—and even further out to all other creatures—

we then cut off parts of ourselves. But when we gather that energy around us we are

reconnected to that space or place that we are intended to be.

Significantly, you’ve got ethnic and legal oppression, you’ve got marginalization, you

have feelings of incompetency that are thrust into you, so that once you come into the

country whether you come from Mexico or Central America you get most families that

are undocumented, you have a scribed status now, you move from being from that

country and you become undocumented and begin to know what that means, it’s negative

it’s pejorative and it’s alarming to learn that you have to live in the shadows to avoid

authorities for fear of what can happen.

the return of aztlan means the return to indigenous mind and a greater awareness of who

we are. Will that become more prevelant as we continue in future generations? I have to

say that not until we begin to acknowledge the various components of who we are as a

country, when we can bring back cultural studies in the elementary schools, and not wait

until college, until we can recognize that ethnic studies is something not to be feared, but

embraced by the whiter community—it has to do with being more fuller and more aware

of us. That we can begin to thrive of who we are human beings become more self

evident.

Step 5

I was beginning to put the pieces back together. However, this time, with stronger foundation.

Teresita and I had been in touch. She openly told me about what she was dealing with.

Our worked merged.

She came out and spoke to our community at Washington State University about her experience wearing the shirt 365 days in a row.

Everything in my life was making sense.

I had pupose.

I also received my DNA results around this time.

I was surprised by my biological makeup; however, I was learning that this doesn’t make you who you are.

This comes form the people you cross paths with.

I felt like I had found my path.

Step 6

Step 7

We are ready for change.

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