Hope & the Communal Pedagogy of Resistance

Over the years I've tried to practice letting go of ownership of images and create with and by the community for our collective struggle for liberation, so I'm no longer that surprised to have the communities I've been accompanying reach out to ask if they can use images. The answer is always, of course, you know they belong to you to use. This one was created in 2015 at the #ShutDownBerks action organized by Juntos. We were all present to resist that under the Obama administration the U.S. still was using this corporate owned prison to imprison migrant children and families. Some of the organizers present that day are now writing about that experience to show that immigrant students’ education cannot be separated from sociopolitical struggle! It gives me hope!

You will be able to read the whole article in the future when it is published (source below).

Some quotes from the article:

Highlighting the pedagogical nature of this event that engaged testimonials as a critical intergenerational literacy practice, María, who participated in it with her two children, Erick (12) and Itzel (4), said: 

I had asked my son to come with me to the activity where we created signs as a way for him to live with the community, to know how we think, how we work, how we help each other within the community, so that he does not stop speaking the language. He is learning about our culture, about our customs and learning more in order to be just. 

I brought my daughter so that she will learn from the example we set as parents fighting for justice, fighting for something good. I want her to learn this from her early years….As a mother and an immigrant, I want my children to learn that there is much injustice in the world…. Families who are being detained in these facilities deserve freedom. (Interview February 22, 2016)

With her children, and with fellow community members, at this literacy event María co-created a multimodal pedagogical poster that also reflected her own testimonial of hope (PHOTO ABOVE), saying:

“as community members we chose these words and these images to show that even in our lowest moments there is always hope… ICE cannot take away our hope to be free” (Fieldnotes February 22, 2016).

Her poster, like all the posters co-created intergenerationally at this session, is a feminist affirmation of her and the larger community’s power in the face of a state apparatus that strives everyday to take away hope. It also reflects how this pedagogy does not center individualism, a colonial logic, but instead centers a communal sense of agency, being and belonging, communalism, exemplified when, for example, María explained her poster (Figure 4) by saying:

“as community members we chose”, “in our lowest moments there is always hope”, and “they cannot take away our hope to be free” in ways that are inclusive of our communal being with others, including and beyond mothers and children incarcerated at Berks.