Linda Prieto

The Stings of Social Hierarchies: From the Central San Joaquin Valley Vineyards to the Ivy Walls  

which Delgado Bernal (2001) describes from a Chicana feminist perspective as focusing,

…on the ways Chicanas teach, learn, and live the foundations for balancing and resisting systems of oppression. In other words, the teaching and learning of the home allows Chicanas to draw upon their own cultures and sense of self to resist domination along the axes of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. (p. 624)

We must highlight the promise within these communities as we rethink, redesign, and recreate schools as places that liberate the lives of all young people. Unlike me, perhaps hegemony deserves a cachetada to awaken itself, to keep alert, and to keep moving.

Reply:

Linda Prieto paints a beautiful picture about the necessary breaking down of current values and way of thought of the American Education system. In her writing she reminds readers of the history of the American nation. Looking back into history where foreign cultures, including languages, were imposed on the indigenous people of the Americas, shows us how whacky the state of mind is today within many of the present American school walls; where the benefit of speaking a second language is hidden. English is made to be the standard language of schools in a country where English is not the official primary language;  yet negative connotations are imposed on foreigners who come here to make an honest living. Year after year goes by since the ending of slavery, and since the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and still till this day women and men of color, or foreign decent, (everyone in America at this point besides the indigenous), have to leap through loops of fire to prove to White America that we are all the same, capable of putting out the same amount of work in all fields. The conversation as a people has yet to transition from “You are this, and you are that,” to “let’s get together and work towards the forward progression of our world.” Instead the people at the top of the food chain, the “one percent,” have managed to turn everything into a business, including education. The people at the top control what America needs, state of mind, and values; therefore the values, and state of mind of the people can only be changed by the people.

I end this reply with two questions, (some may think decent interview questions): What can you do? How many languages do you speak?

Nathaniel Jimenez