DOCUMENT RESUME ED 362 865 CS 214 051 AUTHOR Villanueva, Victor, Jr. TITLE Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color. INSTITUTION National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, REPORT NO ISBN-0-8141-0377-4 PUB DATE 93 NOTE 169p. AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111W. Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No. 03774-1288; $12.95 members, $16.95 nonmembers). PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141) -- Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120)-- Books (010) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Acculturation; Elementary Secondary Education; *Higher Education; Hispanic Americans; *Intellectual Development; *Language Role; *Personal Narratives; Puerto Rican Culture; *Racial Bias; Rhetoric; Social Integration IDENTIFIERS English Only Movement; Latinos; *Literacyas a Social Process ABSTRACT Presenting a look at how racism works to inhibit academic achievement by limiting academic opportunities,this personal narrative weaves stories from an individual's life withan examination of research and popular thoughton language use, literacy, and intelligence among people of color. The narrative considers the personal experiences ofan academic of color (in this specific case, an American of Puerto Rican heritage) inthe light of the histor7 of rhetoric, the English Only movement,current socio- and psycho-linguistic theory, and the writings of Antonio Gramsciand Paulo Freire, among others, as well as the phenomenor. of assimilation. Chapters are: (1) The Block; (2) An Americanof Color; (3) "Spic in English!"; (4) Coming toa Critical Consciousness; (5) "Ingles" in the Colleges; (6) Of Color, Classes,and Classrooms; and (7) Intellectuals and Hegemony. A "Post(modern)script"is* attached. (Contains 164 references.) (RS) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** .4060. * fir asr, 1. 4, A "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS GRANTED BY U DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN Mice of EducaticoM Rasearchand Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION AAAAA CENTER (ERIC) NNW( S. )(This document has beenreproduced as (*cowed from the person ororganization hIta otiginating d made to improve 0 Minor changes have been reproduction ctuahpv TO THE EDUCATIONALRESOURCES this docu POIMIS Of view or opinions stated In INFORMATION CENTER(ERIC)" Tent do not TecesSanlyrepresent official "..3 OEM Pantion of policy Y Mum 2 a nt._ ger Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color Victor Villanueva, Jr. Northern Arizona University OP National Council of Teachers of English 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096 I'l NCTE Editorial Board: Keith Gilyard, Ronald Jobe, Joyce Kinkead, Louise W. Phelps, Gladys Veidemanis, Charles Suhor, chair, ex officio; Michael Spooner, ex officio Project Editor: William Tucker Interior Design: Tom Kovacs for TGK Design Cover Design: Doug Burnett NCTE Stock Number 03774-1288 © 1993 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity afforded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Villanueva, Victor, 1948- Bootstraps : from an American academic of color / Victor Villanueva, Jr. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references ISBN 0-8141-0377-4 : $16.95 1. Villanueva, Victor, 1948-2. English languageStudy and teachingUnited States.3. Hispanic American college teachers Biography.4. English teachersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title. PE64.V55A31993 420'.71'173dc20 [Li.] 93-31889 CIP 4 Contents Good Debts: Words of Indebtedness vii Prologue xi I The Block 1 II An American of Color 15 III"Spic in English!" 34 IV Coming to a Critical Consciousness 51 V Ingles in the Colleges 65 VI Of Color, Classes, and Classrooms 91 VII Intellectuals and Hegemony 119 A Post(modern)script 140 References 144 Author 151 5 Good Debts: Words of Indebtedness I think of how it would be if the numbers of academics of color actually reflected the demographics of the country Once a year I meet with others who are of color and are involved in language teaching. I tend to be the only one who teaches rhetoric: some do English education; some bilingual education; someteach literature, ethnic and traditional; there is usually a poet or two among us. Our teaching spans all grade levels. We arebrown and black and yellow and red. At those meetings, we are the guests of NCTE. But our main host is Dr. Sandra Gibbs, thedirector of special programs for NCTE. She has no idea what those days mean to me. I don't think I know her politics, really. But I know she has a quick ear for the latent and a quick tongue for making the latent explicit. I'm glad she's there. A special thank you. I am glad to be among other professionals of color for thosefew days. In those few days, we !augh, and we swap stories which tell of our ways, ways which tell of our particularcultures, ways we have in common as people of color. And we work. And ourwork reflects the things we have in common with many of our fellow professionals, and our work reflects the things we see and hear andfeel, aggravating things sometimes, painful things. So it is that somewhere along the way I had thought it would be a good idea to have a collection of essays that would depict how the struggles of people of color continue after goals are reached,after "making it:' I still think it's a good idea. Rumor about the idea reached Michael Spooner, the person in charge of publications for NCTE. He asked if I had a book in the works. Only an idea. Meanwhile, Bryan Short, a co-worker at Northern Arizona, had read a mixed-genre piece I had written for acollection on critical theory; he had also read a more straight-academic piece I intended tosubmit to a journal. He preferred the mixed genre, said thewriting was more effective, the message worth saying, the time right. "Write a book:' He is more than well-versed in the ins and outs of the academy, scholarship to institutional politics. I trust his judgment. vii viii Bootstraps Before that, Anne Ruggles Gere responded to a mixed-genre essay I had written for the English Journal. She said there was a book there. I didn't see how at the time. But I had long ago learned that she knew things about this business that I would never understand (though she wasn't always aware that I didn't understand them). And she knew things about my potentials that I didn't always know. She never did let me get away with anything in graduate school, wouldn't let me lie down when I grew tired of poverty, indignity, insecurity, when I knew I didn't belong and couldn't do it. Anne and Bryan and Michael are the folks immediately responsible for my pursuing this book. Thanks. To these, I must add William Irmscher, my first boss when I was a Teaching Assistant (short for teaching-on-assistant-pay). Along with Anne, Irmscher kept me in the act when I felt like the Judy to the institution's Punch. He worked behind the curtain, my knowing of his help only through rumor: Irmscher, the Indonesian puppetmaster. Indonesian puppetmasters are believed lo shape destinies. There is Sharon Crowley. There is her company: co-worker, critic, and friend. Hers was the call one day, after my wife and I decided that we would leave the loneliness of the academic profession; Sharon's the call that allowed me to give academics another chance, a decision I have not yet come to regret. We're in the same business, Professor Crowley and I, rhetoric and composition, attending the same meetings, knowing some of the same people, reading the same journals and books, having similar ideas. We have fun together. And even a two-minute talk in the halls is often the seed for hours of fruitful thought. Yet she is less a mentor than my academic Papo. Papo was something of my protector on the block back in Bed-Stuy, the bad-ass that no one messed with. Sharon protects me from institutional politics, a discourse I will likely never break into. Special others. There is Bill Grabe, who casualty tosses into my box linguistic things I would want to read. And my bosses at Northern Arizona (named after furniture: chairs; Freire goes on about dehuman- ization), Paul Ferlazzo and Sharon and Susan Foster-Cohen. I could get on in Bed-Stuy. I'm not sure I could in the academy, the day-to- day, without these chairs. Breaking into the professional academic community is tricky business for most, I'm sure. Harder still for the person of color still weighted down by a GED, my personal psychological baggage of failure. Thanks to those who believe in me. Since I am mixing genres even here, a mix of dedication and acknowledgment. I think it important to acknowledge those editors and publishers who accepted essays I have written in the past which 7 Good Debts ix appear here in larger chunks. I've been going on about the same stuff for some time now, so I bypass the fragments and I bypass things written for NCTE. What remains includes a chapter in Writing With: New Directions in Collaborative Teaching, Learning, and Research, edited by Sally Reagan, Thomas Fox, and David Bleich, to be published by State University of New York Press (1993); an article which appears in PRE/TEXT (1993); and a chapter which appeared in Politics of Writing Instruction: Postsecondary, edited by Richard Bullock and John Trimbur, published by Boynton/Cook in 1990.