Tom's Emotional Farewell

This course has by far been the best course I’ve taken throughout college. I know I didn’t speak all that much in class or contribute much to conversations, but I have taken so many things away from the last few months, it’s actually quite ridiculous.  We’ll get to all that in due time though. For now, the prompts.

The Methodologies of Archival Research and Oral History

To start with, archival research had never even crossed my mind as a ‘thing’. I know that to a lot of people in the class that may seem crazy, but it’s true. I had never really (and this shows great ignorance on my part) thought about how history was created. I understood that there were biases in how it was created, that the history we know is never infallible, but I had never thought about the actual process in which people go about researching (and perpetuating) these stories and ideas.

Well, now I know a little better. For a start, I have an improved understanding of how actual physical documents create narratives. I was always of the thought that it was largely people’s opinions and personal biases that shaped the way they wrote about or perceived certain events. Archiving, however, seems to be what shapes history before these opinions and personal biases can get to it. That is to say that the existence of certain letters, photographs or other documents directly inform those who make history, who in turn inform those who draw knowledge from these secondary sources. I know this is nothing revolutionary, and I must be sounding like that guy who’s way behind the times (have you guys heard of myspace yet?), but as this has been entering my consciousness, it’s made a huge difference to how I think.

This kind of leads to my next point, which is basically that archivists and librarians are way more incredible than I had ever imagined. From the very brief sorting experience that I had with archives in this class, I realized how difficult it is to determine exactly what to archive without a thorough knowledge of the specific topic. I can’t even imagine how those at the Labadie or Bentley manage to make these decisions with the huge variety of topics they must receive. That these documents go so far toward determining how the past is remembered only makes their decisions that much more difficult, I’m sure.

Oral history was also a relatively new concept to me. I had only had a brief experience with the field just before arriving to the States, but it was enough to peak my interest and make me want to take this course. All the basic critiques of oral history were floating around my head; the unreliability of memory, the personal biases of memory – everything we read about early on. But I as I learnt, oral history is more than anything else an opportunity to challenge existing collective beliefs and expose different realities.

Oral histories to me appear to be the best way to capture individual viewpoints, which is crucial considering the extent to which any group movement inevitably glosses over diversity within its ranks. Further to this, I had previously never contemplated the role that individual realities play in shaping the present. These realities, based on an individual’s past experiences, are made real by virtue of their influence on individual behavior. In a way, whether or not they actually occurred isn’t important, instead what matters is that somebody perceives them to be true and acts as if they are. Oral history is an incredible way in which to gain an insight into what has motivated individual behavior in the past. It can recognize diversity of opinion, opening the doors to new ways of explaining why things have happened, and in which direction things are moving.

Working in “real world” situations

There were three main learning points for me here; 1) working in the real world means relying on other people, and other people make mistakes; 2) You’re crazy if a big part of your organization isn’t initially figuring out how to utilize everybody’s distinct abilities; and 3) things take time, and it’s usually more than what you plan for.

People get things wrong sometimes. Sometimes it’s avoidable, sometimes it’s not. In working with other beautiful, fallible human beings, it’s best to take this into account. I was lucky in that I had a good partner who was on top of everything, so my main problems were with the ISS Media Center, and, frankly, with myself. I’ve concluded that it’s safer to assume that something will go wrong and over-prepare. The problems with myself were that I didn’t do this – I didn’t prepare in a way that would nullify any last-minute issues. This is hard to take into account, and yes, you live and learn, but I was really annoyed that there weren’t do-overs.

I think Sarah and I did a good job of allocating roles early on, which made things run pretty smoothly for the rest of the semester. In any real world situation, I see this as such a crucial factor in creating efficiency. Had we swapped a few things around, perhaps life would have been a tad more difficult. Participating in this project has reinforced this viewpoint.

Things take time. My word, do things take time. I’ve basically learned to guestimate how much time something will take, and then double it. From there, once you times it by ten, you should only have to double it once more in order for it to almost be accurate. I suppose this falls into the over-preparing category as well.  I will never forget this lesson.

Chicana Feminism

I started this course with no knowledge of Chicana feminism, and little knowledge of feminism and feminist theory in general. As such, almost everything we learned was a new concept, which (honestly) gave me that adrenaline fueled rush you get from being terrified.

It’s a real struggle for me to know where to start, but I suppose an important thing to mention is that having had no experience in this area, I never learned the idea that Chicanas played an insignificant role in the Chicano movement. Instead, I learned from the outset how important Chicanas were to the movement. It’s like I have the opposite bias to what I’m supposed to. Related to this is that I never learned that the Chicano movement was exclusively a South-West U.S phenomenon. Instead, my knowledge started with books about Chicanos in Michigan, teaching me that there was a false perception of how S.W centric the movement was.

From a knowledge perspective, it’s important for me to say how difficult I found this class. It complicated things more than it explained them, but I think that’s a good thing. The term ‘Chicana Feminism’ is remarkably daunting to me, only because I realize how layered (and loaded) the term actually is. Trying to figure out what constitutes a Chicana is difficult enough, throwing ‘Feminist’ in there creates a whole new level of identification. The truth is that I have no idea what Chicana Feminism actually is.

So many of the woman that were interviewed and those that we read about don’t identify with these labels. I think that’s absolutely crucial to take into account because it highlights one of the most important things we have learned this semester – that often internalized identity clashes with external narratives of what a particular identity should be. Essentially, this is a question of agency. Who can determine what it means to be a Chicana feminist is? Can you be a Chicana feminist without knowing?  

This comes up in the nationalist/feminist dichotomy that occurred within the Chicano movement; could one both be a feminist and loyal to the Chicano nationalist cause, or were these identities at odds? The intersectionality of these marginalized identities was something that fascinated me. It really made me question the reality of a ‘Chicano’ movement – it seemed to become more of a reductionist term as semester went along. Further, is any name given to such a diverse group of individual experiences reductionist, and therefore problematic? This poses huge questions (to which I do not have the answers) about how the dichotomous framing of ‘Chicanismo and ‘Feminism’ affected the Chicano movement in general. Certainly though, this framing appears to be one of the biggest influences on the evolution of ‘el movimiento’.

I could be completely wrong about this, but one other thing I took away about Chicana feminism (whatever you want that to mean) is that it is a natural human behavioural response to oppression, not just a framework or theory. I feel that the concepts we were learning about were not merely ideological frames through which behaviours can be understood, but rather behaviours from which ideological frames are derived. My take on the subject is that there is a certain way of being, I suppose you could call it a form of resistance, which develops in the face of oppression; meaning Chicana feminism did not develop before the act of resisting patriarchy within the Chicano movement.  

The problem, therefore, arises when you start labeling this resistance to oppression. All of a sudden, what could be considered a normal response to oppression becomes an ideology – and all ideologies are remarkably divisive. As soon as you start labelling something, it inevitably develops a contested exterior that is separate to its uncontested core. I feel like the core of Chicana feminism is the act of resisting unjust patriarchy. The uncontested exterior is derived from the label; to be a Chicana feminist do you also have to be against Chicano nationalism? Against men? Against being a feminist? Against middle-class white women? 

The contested exterior which inflates the importance of ideology seems to mean that you can’t be a Chicana feminist without also being a whole lot of something else that you never agreed to. I’ve often wondered how this affected the cohesiveness of the Chicana feminist movement. Maybe this is part of the reason why some who appear to espouse what some may call Chicana feminist values or ideas refuse to identify as such? Rather than actually finding answers though, I’m once again left feeling confused and uncomfortable, albeit in the best possible way.

What I learned about myself

I want to start by saying that there are a lot of intelligent cats in our class, so I was always looking forward to hearing other people’s opinions on readings and topics. Unfortunately, this also led to me being a lot quieter in class than I usually am; I grew up in the ‘if-you-don’t-know-shut-your-mouth’ school.  Couple this with me feeling like the more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know, and you had one quiet lad. But that’s not to say I didn’t learn or engage. In fact, I’m amazed at how much I actually picked up on this subject throughout the semester (which doesn’t mean I know a lot, of course).

This course, without any hint of exaggeration, completely changed my planned path after college. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it actually gave me one. As a Political Science and International Relations major back home, I really had no idea what it was that I wanted to do. After reading and hearing all these incredible stories about groups like the United Farm Workers, the Brown Berets and Las Adelitas de Aztlan, my eyes were opened to the immense power of organizing as a tool for social change.

This course made me realize that it is in this area that my passion lies. It’s funny, I’ve been involved in multiple projects that could have been the catalyst for this realization, but it took hearing the first-hand accounts of the amazing women that we interviewed for me to actually say to myself ‘that’s what I want to do’ (when I grow up). I suppose I had always focused on the big organized groups, assuming that they were the real change makers within society. I brushed off smaller efforts as ineffective and in some cases a complete waste of time. At times, I guess this may be true. What I didn’t realize though, was that these large organized groups are but the sum of multiple smaller efforts by a range of incredibly dedicated people. I now want to be one of those people. It is also for this reason, and I know it sounds stupid considering we interviewed her only a few days ago, that Maria Guadiana is somebody who I really look up to whose actions I hope to one day be able to emulate.

All that’s left now is to say thanks for a rad semester, team. You guys are awesome.