Eastern Washington University EWU Digital Commons EWU Masters Thesis Collection Student Research and Creative Works 2016 "I am from Epifania and Tomas": an autoethnography and bi-literacy narrative of a Mexican American orchard workers' daughter Brenda Lorena Aguilar Eastern Washington University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.ewu.edu/theses Recommended Citation Aguilar, Brenda Lorena, ""I am from Epifania and Tomas": an autoethnography and bi-literacy narrative of a Mexican American orchard workers' daughter" (2016). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 336. https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/336 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research and Creative Works at EWU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in EWU Masters Thesis Collection by an authorized administrator of EWU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “I AM FROM EPIFANIA AND TOMAS”— AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHY AND BI-LITERACY NARRATIVE OF A MEXICAN AMERICAN ORCHARD WORKERS’ DAUGHTER A Thesis Presented To Eastern Washington University Cheney, Washington In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Teaching English as a Second Language Emphasis By Brenda Lorena Aguilar Summer 2016 ii THESIS OF BRENDA LORENA AGUILAR APPROVED BY LaVona L. Reeves, Ph. D.! Date Professor of English ! Chairperson of the Graduate Study Committee Tracey McHenry, Ph. D.! Date Associate Professor of English Member of the Graduate Committee Mary Parker, M. A. ! Date Instructor, Asia University America Program Member of the Graduate Committee iii MASTER’S THESIS In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree at Eastern Washington University, I agree that the JFK Library shall make copies freely available for inspection. I further agree that copying of this project in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this thesis for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without my written permission. Signature ________________________________________ Date___________________________________________ iv ABSTRACT This is an autoethnography and bi-literacy narrative of a first-generation Mexican American woman whose parents work in the orchards around Mattawa, Washington. It is a collection of 44 written artifacts dating back to high school Spanish class and moving forward to the graduate papers written in the master’s program at Eastern Washington University as well as concurrent and retrospective journal entries documenting her infancy years through her graduate studies. A close and interactive reading of works by Mexican Americans, Richard Rodriguez and Gloria Anzaldua, is offered by the author who connects her own experiences growing up bilingually and biculturally in the United States with their experiences. She also reviews literature about the role of the bi-literacy narrative and value of autoethnography in the lives of first-generation college students like herself. Providing both emic and etic views of the orchard community and cultural practices, the author highlights the values of respect, hard work, and responsibility taught to her and her three siblings by her Mexican-born parents who have worked for the same company in the orchards for 25 years. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would want to thank mis padres, Tomas and Epifania, for giving me their support and love when I was feeling distressed. I am grateful for everything they have taught me and their advice to become the successful person I am today. I hope I have made them proud. I am thankful to mis hermanos, Crystal, Federico, and Ismael. They were the ones to cheer me up whenever I doubted myself. I am glad to say I have made it—thanks to my family’s support. I also want to express my greatest gratitude to Dr. LaVona Reeves who has supported me from the very start of the graduate program through the completion of this thesis. She has been the one who has taught me so much about language learning and appreciating who we are as individuals. Thank you for the opportunity and encouragement to present with you at the Washington Association for the Education of Speakers of Other Languages (WAESOL) and Tri-TESOL to share our lived experiences through autoethnography and bi-literacy narratives. You are truly inspiring and truly a great role model, Dr. LaVona Reeves. I hope that I can inspire my future students in the same way you have inspired and guided me through the internships and the course work in this program. Thank you to Dr. Tracey McHenry, my second reader for your time and encouragement as I completed this project. I appreciate the comments you gave me and thank you for sharing your thoughts about the quinceañera (Sweet 15). It meant a lot for me to see how my learning experience with my quinceañera can help others learn about this beautiful celebration. Thank you to Mary Parker for accepting to be my third member last minute, and for reading my thesis. I am grateful for the support in telling me about how my work had deep meaning to you in telling about my lived experiences and for the recommendation of looking into developing my work in the future. vi Lastly, I want show my appreciation for the valuable internships I had in English 112 Composition for Multilingual Students with Dr. LaVona Reeves and at the Asia University America Program with Janine Alden and Diane Adler. They were both wonderful opportunities where I was able to learn from students coming from different countries. The English teachers I worked with are great examples of what I hope to be in the future—to be compassionate, open- minded and inspiring so the students can feel comfortable and safe in my classroom. vii Preface Language Learning Experience/s Part 1. Before the M.A. Though I was born in the United States, my family spoke español (Spanish) at home. When I started kindergarten in Mattawa, Washington at age five, I acquired English because everything was taught in English, and eventually I was able to distinguish English and español as separate languages. This model that insures bilingualism is called diglossia: at home and church, I would speak español, and at school and in the larger community, I would speak English. In high school, the only foreign language class offered was Spanish, so college-bound Mexican Americans began to learn Castilian Spanish grammar and syntax, but it was taught by an Anglo, non-native teacher who explained everything in English, not in español. Let me first emphasize that even though I spoke español, it didn’t necessarily mean my español was what is considered the correct spoken or written Spanish from Spain. I did not know the rules applied in español. I had tacit knowledge because I was a fluent Spanish speaker, but I could not state the rules. We Mexican Americans had to learn about los artículos, los participios, la conjugación de los verbos, and soon we were writing in Español. There was also reading involved in the target language, but it did not seem age appropriate and was more like children’s stories that I felt had no real purpose for me since they had no cultural information about México or anything relevant to my current life as a Mexican American teen. It was mostly focused on getting practice with speaking the language by reading aloud to peers. There were also never any opportunities to use the language with the other students in the class in communicative activities. As I explained before, the Spanish courses I took for two years were not very challenging for me as a heritage Spanish speaker. I was able to learn the rules for the Spanish language (in English), but I never learned how to explain these rules in Spanish or how to pronounce or viii recognize them in Spanish because my teacher always explained in English. However, I valued the opportunity to escribir en español (write in Spanish) in class every day. The class would get the chance to journal for five minutes on a prompt the teacher gave us, for instance, our thoughts from the news or would give us the option of a free write. My free writing was always about how my day had been in school, what I had planned, and what I did over the weekend. As a matter of fact, Spanish class helped me think about what I wanted to do if I ever became a Spanish teacher. I would imagine how my classes would be, and it was for this reason I was more motivated to learn Spanish. My dream in high school was to become a teacher—Spanish teacher perhaps. Pre-M.A. Teaching Experience in the U.S. and Abroad When I went off to college, there came a time where I had to think what I wanted to be, and my goal of becoming a teacher became clearer. As a freshman at EWU, I started taking Spanish and education courses along with English as a Second Language (ESLG) courses at EWU that would allow me to teach in the near future. However, with the ESLG courses, I would be able to earn only a minor, but I continued down the path of becoming a high school Spanish teacher. One of the challenges I had when I began my first Spanish classes was keeping up with the terminology for the rules applied in Spanish. In some ways, it felt as if I was starting over, but it wasn’t too difficult as I started picking everything up and then was moved into the classes for heritage speakers. The EWU classes for heritage speakers were more advanced than I had expected since the Spanish I was learning was the academic Spanish from Spain.