Common Ground Winter 2016 - CROSSings: Borderlands by Cross-Cultural Center UCSD

borderlands crossings

ucsd cross cultural center

COMMON GROUND VOLUME 21 â&#x20AC;˘ WINTER QUARTER 2016

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i n d i ge n ous

n e w f a c es

a c r i t i c a l look a t re t e n t i on a n d w o men i n c o m p u t e r s ci ence

edwina welch

preuss intern & artist in residence

joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

edward nadurata

b eyo n d l a jo lla

history and the hair story: 400 years without a comb

fa n d a n go fro n t e r i zo

sonia garcia avelar

borderlands crossings

en a ta n l uc y, s el a m b e ethio pia

w i n t e r m o ment s

tho ug hts po ts

ccc sp r i n g c a le ndar

benyam alemu

interns

ucsd cross cultural center

COMMON GROUND VOLUME 21 â&#x20AC;˘ WINTER QUARTER 2016

staff & interns

borderlands SPACES OF COMPLEXIT Y & HOPE by edwina welch

new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance “ The for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. ” Borderlands/La Frontera Gloria Anzaldua

director’s message

The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be Indian in Mexican cultural, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality… nothing is thrust out, the good, the bad, the ugly, nothing is rejected, nothing is abandoned. Not only does she sustain contradictions, she turns ambivalence into something else. Borderlands/La Frontera Gloria Anzaldua The above quote is one of my favorites from Anzaldua’s works particularly because the subheader of this section is titled “high tolerance for ambiguity.” The quote brings to mind W.E.B. du Bois construct of Double Consciousness where folks of color and from other marginalized communities have to know, in intimate detail, the craters, caverns and bogs of the ‘borderlands.’ Sometimes we might soften our tone in a discussion because we know historically people are “intimidated” by us or we have to decide to say something when a clerk helps the person behind us. We take it in stride or we say something. Either way we have been impacted by the scene, the complexity of our day to day experiences. There is a wonderful TED Talk called Ending the Straight World Order. The talk is about the consequences of transgressing social roles and expectations, or as I would say naming the borderlands and the contradictions we see. It’s also about how each of us contributes to the creation of these borderlands often without realizing that we do. When we don’t name micro-aggressions, go along with the jokes, misgender people, we are contributing to borderlands that impact others. I invite you all to check the video out. In Anzaldua’s quote there are also elements of hope within navigating borderlands. I appreciate how she embraces all the elements of self that are forged from life in the borderlands. How she speaks to the power of seeing the contradictions and living her full self. CrossCultural Center work lives in this ‘ambiguity.’ Learning, explaining, educating and knowing power in naming the contradictions we see and experience and at the same time empowering ourselves to embrace the fullness of who we are. I invite you on the journey with us. 04

LILYAN ROBLES winter preuss intern

My name is Lilyan Robles, I am a senior at The Preuss School UCSD. I am the eldest child of five. From the time I was five I lived with my grandmother, who immigrated to the United States at a very young age from Guanajuato, Mexico. I had many hardships throughout my childhood, as I grew up, I made a conscious decision to work hard, be a good role model, and be that person who my siblings could eventually depend on, but more importantly, change the outcome of my life. I focused more in school, and I began reading more and decided that instead of focusing on

new faces

things that could harm me I would look for positive activities. I started dancing with Ballet Yaqui, a folkloric dancing group with a director who has a passion for making a difference in the community. This has helped me become the motivated hardworking person I am today. My aspiration is to one day attend UC Riverside and obtain my bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in Business Administration.

DIANA CERVERA

artist in residence

Diana Cervera, the Cross-Cultural Center Artist in Residence, is a theatre, spoken word, music, and film artist. She is currently producing her first spoken word and acoustic music album Mujer Mariposa while engaging with San Diego students through her art and writing and performance workshops.

Mujer Mariposa is a multimedia album dedicated to migrant and refugee women and the empowerment of women of color. The project is grounded in an intersectional framework as Cervera constantly strives to juxtapose and unify voices that are silenced and underrepresented. The purpose of the album is to provide a counter-narrative to existing representations of migration while bringing light to the narratives of mothers and women who cross multiple systemic boundaries in their everyday lives. The ultimate goal of the project is to collectively create representations that subvert images existing in the public imagination regarding migration and motherhood as well as to build and create a framework of intersectional resistance within many contexts and realities.

staff feature

Beauty is subjective / I understand / But that “ fact does not change the place in which I stand ” All photos were taken on January 23, 2016 at The History and the Hair Story: 400 Years Without a Comb, an art exhibit at the California Center for Arts in Escondido. Joy de La Cruz Art and Activism Intern Jolena Vergara Collas organized Beyond La Jolla, in which community members visited the exhibit to learn about the significance of hair with respect to self-love, beauty, power, privilege, and history of slavery and colonialism for people of African descent. C U R AT O R :

S TA R L A L E W I S Professor Emeritus of Black Studies at San Diego Mesa College

ARTISTS IN EXHIBITION:

Alex Adams, Josh Ashford, Alexsandra Babic, Ernie Barnes, Chor Biggies, Manuelita Brown, Bunny, Canaan Chick, Zach Cordner, Jean Cornwell, JoAnne Cornwell, Albert Fennell, Simone Fennell, Matthew Gidi, Dondre Green, Jacki Geary, Matthew Hebert, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Keith Mallett, Willie Morrow, Edward Ndoro, Pam Perry-Smal, Mirella Riccardi, Charles Rucker, Yelena Yohntova, Michele Zousmer

beyo not my hair “ I amBut my hair is me

beyond la jolla

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ond la jolla HISTORY AND THE HAIR STORY 400 YEARS WITHOUT A COMB want or need / “ Ibutnotwould appreciate some

genuine / deserved validity

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history and the hair story: 400 years without a comb

indigenous

BY JOSEPH ALLEN RUANTO-RAMIREZ

“Indigenous” has been a contested term in the fields of American Studies, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies, and even Indigenous/ Native Studies and its lexicon differs between the fields. For many academics, the term “indigenous” brings forth colonial narratives, postcolonial structures, and neocolonial nationhood. Indigenous, in these various studies, have different, and at times, conflicting, definitions and frameworks that try to bridge various resources and where the term is often used, in relation to non-White, nonEuropean bodies in addressing racial formation. Many scholars have also used the terms “Native,” “Aboriginal,” “First Nation,” and, in the American context, “Indians” to describe the people and communities that originally inhabited the continent of North America prior to White European settlement 09

community submission

(Kauanui, 2014; Warrior, 2014). Yet the understanding of the term “indigenous” and its various academic, social, and political manifestations are often at odds with one another and do not fit external racial formations of indigeneity and people of no nation-state when in diaspora to the United States. The ethno-racial, socio-cultural, and geo-political construction around “indigenousness” is a complicated and continuously changing project; whereas contemporarily labeled indigenous peoples and communities are often in cultural and theoretical debates with diasporic

peoples due to colonialism, imperialism, and slavery (Dvorak & Tanji, 2015; Martinez, 2004; RuantoRamirez, 2014). In Keywords for American Cultural Studies (2nd edition), “Indigenous” and “Indian” are separated into two different articles and at times, in conflict with each other – whereas “Indian” argues that its root analytical formation comes from Christopher Columbus’ mistake (Warrior, 2014) while “Indigenous” draws from colonial histories and its critical responses (Kauanui, 2014). While Kauanui address the (emotional, mental, and academic) anxiety of

Therefore, one can argue that “indigenous” (and its “ various lexiconical manifestations both in theory and in “flesh”), will always be a hybrid – a chimera, a cyborg of both the personal and the political, the imaginary and what is reality, the personal and communal longing to find the pre-colonial while living in the postcolonial within the frameworks of the neocolonial.

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its usage, “indigenous” has been in debate even with its own “official” definition set forth by The Oxford English Dictionary. Being defined as “native; born or produced

Can the Chicana/o, “Filipina/o, and Black/ African American claim a lost (or imagined) indigenous identity because of American western expansionism, Pacific colonialism, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade?

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naturally to (the soil, region, etc.),” allows anything and anyone to be considered “indigenous” as they can be connected to a particular place and space. This is where “indigenous” (and by affect, “indigeneity”) can be a complicated term (and terrain) to address academically (and theoretically). That is why Kauanui states that the argument of being “born or produced naturally in a land or region” may be too simple both in an academic and political sense. Yet even with this explanation,

“indigenousness” and “indigeneity” must also be placed in how the subject sees themselves in relationship to racial construction, diasporic narratives, and personal longing. Therefore, one can argue that “indigenous” (and its various lexiconical manifestations both in theory and in “flesh”), will always be a hybrid – a chimera, a cyborg of both the personal and the political, the imaginary and what is reality, the personal and communal longing to find the pre-colonial while living in the postcolonial within the frameworks of the neocolonial (Haraway, 1991). Can the Chicana/o, Filipina/o, and Black/ African American claim a lost (or imagined) indigenous identity because of American western expansionism, Pacific colonialism, and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade? Does American Studies (and other fields) use these term when addressing people and communities (and cultural artifacts) outside of the United States (CasumbalSalazar, 2015; Dvorak & Tanji, 2015)? For many (aspiring) scholars in the

various fields, “indigenous” and its various lexiconical manifestations will always be in relation to the scholar’s understanding of selfidentification when it comes to theorizing indigeneity. INDIGENOUS DOESN’T (R E A L LY ) M E A N “N AT I V E ,” IT MEANS “DEATH”

Politics of indigeneity, as a hybrid of the personal, the communal, and the political, are at times, a disposable term that are used by anyone depending on the context of personal understanding of the word, stating their existence (or people’s existence) from a particular place, or used to counter anything that is a result of White-settler nation-state colonialism and imperialism. The value of “indigenous” will always be upon those who use it and study it, and at times, embody it through the need of (re)defining “the self.” Therefore, I argue that since the term and the identity can be (easily) consumed (by anybody) both in the theoretical and the contextual manner, the cannibalistic embodiments of the term

indigenous: joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

and its consumer gives way to how “indigeneity” becomes an allegory of (post) gender, (post) race (/ial), and (post) class – a “not-quietdead-yet-but-soon-to-be” metaphor that uses the term outside of the context of the body and the law. Jodi Byrd (2011) conceptualized that indigenous bodies are “zombies” as they function at the boundaries (and even imagined borders) between “human and inhuman, legal and illegal, sacred and bare life.” The indigenous (or the native) is in a state of “living dead” (or “undead”) as it constantly straddles between man and nature, the real and the imaginary, the natural and the political. Its existence will always be in relations, not just to governmental powers, but also the personal and the theoretical, binding it to an endless negotiation of its usage(s) and its (various) embodiment(s). If abstract use of “indigenous” is because of its usage and definition cutting across and beyond boundaries, then “Native” (and “First Nation”) can be argued as a politicized term 11

community submission

resulting from the hybridity of “indigenous” and nationstate (and international) laws. “Native,” therefore, is a term meaning “original” and “non-foreign” yet its physical manifestation(s) in many nation-states are always

indigenous bodies are “‘zombies’ as they function at the boundaries (and even imagined borders) between ‘human and inhuman, legal and illegal, sacred and bare life.’

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in relations to two factors – the settlers who constructed the nation-state and the immigrants that followed. As in the construction of all White-settler nation-states, the eradication of indigenous bodies and communities are enacted to make way to the establishment of a political boundary that affirms Whitesettler desires. Policies towards “the Native” (whether it be political or religious) always result in violence of the body and the erasure of identities. In the case of the United States, the establishment of the thirteen colonies to the

creation of the nation-state later on with the expansion westward, Native bodies were marked as obstacles that needed to be rendered subhuman (or non-human) and therefore controlled (colonized), destroyed (genocide), and/or ostracized from the everyone else (resettlements in reservations). Even the context of postslavery reparations were directly linked to the genocide of Native bodies and control of their (ancestral domain) land – the forty acres and a mule policy was a direct way of claiming Native lands that were seen as terra nullius (“unused land” or “nobody’s land”) (Smith, 2005; Byrd 2011). The Native, therefore, is constructed as a “nobody” or “nothing,” existing in particular spatialities and temporalities only when invoked upon for immediate destruction (or consumption). Yet even when the “indigenous’ or the “native” is rendered “dead” or “nonexistent,” its (produced physical) entrails remain as products of desire. I use the term “entrails” as a metaphor of indigenous/

native iconographies, art, and products as means to state that these productions are created, attached to the subjects (and culture) that they come from, but are also disposable commodities. Entrails, like the body, also pass through time and are subject to violence and desires. They are the physical manifestations of what makes the subject “alive” yet without them, the subject “dies.” As indigenous/native entrails, the desire for them outside of the body (or subject) is what become commodified obsessions, fears, and longings of the non-indigenous/ native and those who wish embody the indigenous/ native identity. These entrails transform to a different manifestation of “indigenous/ native” – the “primitive” or the “pre-colonial.” The individual who invests in these entrails do so, as I have argued, outside (or beyond) the actual indigenous/native subject and in doing so, also invest in the continual fatality of the indigenous/ native subject (and identity). Such examples of these would be how White and nonindigenous/native purchase

and display “indigenous/ native artifacts.” From Native American (or Indian) turquois or beaded jewelry to African tribal masks, attires and bags from indigenous/ native communities in the Chiapas, and “purchasing” of Polynesian tattoos (or renditions of them) to be put on the body, “primitivism” can be (re)defined as a personal affinity of “the tribal” while living in modernity (Torgovnick, 1990 & 1996). Here, Torgovnick (1990) argues that the postmodern and/or the post-colonials’ desires for the “indigenous/ native” renders their existence as a mortified state – denying what their bodies’ desire, but instead, desires “Othered” bodies and identities. This state of mortification has manifested “itself ” through various post-colonial discourses and actions commonly found with diasporic peoples who have been colonized and who wish to decolonize themselves (and their communities). Here, “decolonization” begins an estranged relationship with “indigenous/native.” Whereas “decolonization” has a

historical and political agenda around land-rights/ancestral domain, self-determination from the nation-state, and maintains cultural affinity with the indigenous/native community, its lexicon has been changed by youth activists and the postmodern/ colonial as a means to counter White (sometimes classified as European) spheres of influence, dominion, and oppression (Tuck and Yang, 2012). This estranged relationship manifests itself in activist circles where certain institutions (namely education) has been rendered oppressive and therefore needs to be “decolonized” and “indigenized.” The conversation around how to “decolonize” these institutions and what framework of “indigenization” should be adopted has always been contested within those who seek to obstruct Whiteness or Europeanness. Process of metaphorical decolonization and indigenization were more visible in the 1950s and the 1960s when marginalized people of color in the United States began to demand Ethnic Studies (and ethnicindigenous: joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

Process of metaphorical decolonization and “ indigenization were more visible in the 1950s and the 1960s when marginalized people of color in the United States began to demand Ethnic Studies (and ethnicspecific studies), reclaiming an indigenous self

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specific studies), reclaiming an indigenous self (the creation of Aztec-style dancing for Chicana/os and the creation of Kwanzaa for African Americans), and countering American imperial rule and racial formations as means to politicize community identities (from Oriental to Asian American and the beginning of the use of NDN instead of Indian). These frameworks and estranged relations between “decolonization” and “indigenous/native” stems from the longing of an elusive self for many marginalized communities trying to navigate their diaspora while at the same time, trying to find a sense of a non-Western

community submission

self rooted in a (imagined) “homeland” and (imagined) “memory” that they seek to (re)establish and (re)live. These are the hauntings of the post-colonial and the indigenized – a longing for a memory, a history, and an identity that transcends their own positionality, spatiality, and temporality (Gordon, 2008). INDIGENOUS HAUNTINGS: VOICES OF STRUGGLE

Avery Gordon (2008) work on “hauntings” looks at how memory (both real and imaginary) play a role in understanding one’s self and one’s relationships. Using this framework and my previous argument of how the “indigenous” can be classified as “dead,” I use Gordon’s work on spectrality

as a means to give the “dead” a voice to speak back. Though Gayatri Spivak (1988) argues that giving the subaltern (here can be argued as the “indigenous dead”) voice will render into a non-subaltern state (because the language it uses are through a framework of capitalist and academic elitism), can the specter, instead, haunt? Haunting, as mode of communication, comes from Gordon’s (2008) metaphorical examination of sociological remembering where specters communicate with the “living” demanding to be heard, seen, and justified. If the “indigenous” has been rendered dead and whose existence depends on “others’” construction of its identity, then the indigenous/ native can only haunt if it hopes to be acknowledged. These indigenous/native hauntings manifests itself through the importance of (hi)story telling and retelling as means to engrain in the minds of the non-indigenous/ native of their existence. Here I draw upon the work of Anzaldua (1987) and Min-Ha

(2009) where their framework of writing comes from the need to address the “self ” and themselves and speaking (or in this case, writing) for the “Othered” and not for the institution (or academia). Their framework of writing starts with the “I” as a means to center their identity and existence in their work. Though both address that their “haunting” (through their publication) draws upon the need to address the “native self ” as a means to decolonize their Westernized identities. Here, “decolonization” again has an estranged relationship whereas Anzaldua seeks to reconnect with the indigenous (of the continent) stating that there is no difference between the Native American and the Chicana/o and Min-Ha seeks to state that her identity is native, and therefore, her work is “for the people, by the people, and from the people (12)” speaking as if her work is directly tied to the lives who she is connected with. Both Anzaldua and Min-Ha brings forth elements of their non-Western and non-English cultural traits into their work – Anzaldua speaking in both

Spanish and Nahuatl, while Min-Ha brings for influences of Buddhism and Taoism into her work. For them, their “indigenous haunting” is a method to address Western (and in some sense, academic) oppression and frameworks, but also sees these hauntings as a means to decolonize and remake themselves into an imagined indigenous identity that will always (when given the opportunity) counter Westernization and institutionalization. Though these hauntings comes from a colonized perspective longing to be decolonized (and arguably, return to a pre-colonial state), I bring back Spivak’s argument and complicate Anzaldua and MinHa’s indigenous hauntings – what happens when the indigenous demands to be heard from the indigenized? The process of returning to an indigenous state of being or mind (indigenized) complicates frameworks and paradigms around the need to decolonize and counter Western (or American) influences and oppression. Anzaldua’s Chicana/o construction of

Aztlan neglects subaltern communities (sovereign indigenous/tribal communities in both the United States and in Mexico), many who many not accept the notion of Aztlan nor see that the Chicana/o and the Native American are one and the same. Though arguably, the construction of both modern nation-states are a result of European-based colonization, the lived experiences of Native Americans and Chicana/os (regardless if both consider themselves as indigenous to the land) are racialized differently. The construction of Native Americanness (as stated by the Department of Interior) must go through a process of Congressional approval and recognition, while Chicana/o (Mexican American) are seen as homogenized national identity in diaspora. While Native Americans (and Alaskan Natives) goes through a rigorous process in gaining federal recognition to be considered “native” and therefore indigenous to their (proposed) lands (even though many of these lands are actual creation of the indigenous: joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

federal government as means to regulate native bodies into a particular space), “Native,” in this aspect, is completely political. To be classified and affirmed as a “Native,” communities have to declare their ancestral lineage, perform their indigenous culture, and relive the trauma of relocation as they try to prove where (and when) their ancestral domain was originally placed. Indigenous haunting, therefore, is a violent process of remembering and reliving traumas that colonization and contemporary political structures has placed on indigenous/native bodies and communities. Though the Chicana/o can claim these violent traumas, they do not go through the process of constantly trying to gain federal recognition to be considered “Native.” For the Chicana/o (or Mexican in diaspora), Aztlan’s imagined geographies places their bodies within the boundaries of a mythical and contextual indigenous and indigenized spatiality. To invoke Aztlan is a means to “return” to a place and time, not only prior to 15

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American westward expansion, but also to a pre-Spanish national construction. Yet what happens to those who are denied the classification of “indigenous” or “native?” These frameworks on the indigenization also appear in Leny Strobel’s (2001 & 2011) work around decolonial frameworks and processes for Pilipina/o Americans. The need to indigenize, according to Strobel, is necessary as a means of survival from colonial trauma and imperial violence. The importance of, what she calls, a hybrid of story telling and story sharing allows the colonized to invoke an indigenous self that navigate institutional powers (“story telling”) and being in community with other colonized, marginalized, and oppressed peoples (“story sharing”). Arguably, all three feminist writers’ work excludes the possibility of Whites (or European ethnicities) as “indigenous” or allows them to be “native” to a particular spatiality or temporality. Since the 1850s, Kanaka Maoli (a self-determined term used by “Native” Hawaiians) have been struggling not only

to physically and political decolonize the nation from the United States, but also has fought (collectively as a majority) to not be recognized as “Native.” Here, the political arena around “Native” is different from “indigenous” where the former is bound to political discourses in the United States, while the latter address the community’s ties to the land. To be classified as “Native,” argues HaunaniKay Trask (1999), would mean acceptance of American rule over Hawai’i. She, along with many other Kanaka Maoli scholars and activists, navigate around the term “native” as they see it as, not only accepting colonial rule, but also as a term that addresses a pre-colonial identity bound to a particular cultural identity. Here, one can say that “native” is temporal (as it invokes a particular cultural time frame that is precolonial) while “indigenous” is spatial (being tied to a particular geography). Yet Mark Leo (2011) thesis on Igorot Americans within Philippine-America complicates “indigenous” being bound to land where

as Igorots (the tribal communities/nations of the mountain region of Northern Philippines) are not directly tied to a particular geography as they are in diaspora. Again, complications around “indigenous” (and in reference to Leo’s work, now also “tribal”) place the geographies and cultural timeframe into light for (recently) diasporic communities. For the American framework, United States’ ethnoracial project cannot (and will most likely will not) address global indigeneity and ethno-racial projects that happen outside of the political and geographical spheres of influence and borders (Martinez, 2004; Spark, 2005). Indigenousness, whether it be communities classified as “native/tribal” or who sees themselves as “indigenized,” will always create an imagined community that is bound to particular political, communal, and selfish longing of trying to counter Whiteness and/ or Europeanness. These communities create a particular (imagined) geography of where their

of story “tellingA hybrid and story sharing allows the colonized to invoke an indigenous self that navigate institutional powers (‘story telling’) and being in community with other colonized, marginalized, and oppressed peoples (‘story sharing’)

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bodies (and communities) can be placed and also invest into a particular time frame where they can see the rapture between pre- and post-colonial identity (Anderson, 1991). THE INDIGENOUS CYBORG SUBJECT

Drawing from the work of Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto (1991), “indigenous” (and its manifestations) will always be in relations to the body and the political, and therefore a hybrid of multiple realities, imaginaries, spatiality, and temporalities. The United Nation’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) defines indigenous peoples as “those which, having historical

continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that have developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them” and also suggests that self-identification should be the fundamental criteria rather than share characteristics and even geo-political construction (United Nations 2009). Here, the UN’s political definition will always be contrast to individual’s identity as even though there are set (international and political) definition of what “indigenous” is, it also pits its own definition with personal aspirations and selfidentification. The political and the personal must merge in order to find the “indigenous self ” even though the governing structure of the UN will not necessarily accept these individuals or group of individuals as “actual indigenous peoples.” So what then is indigenous if the UN’s definition contradicts itself and (might) be in conflict with American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, and Indigenous/Native Studies? indigenous: joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

Subsequently, what then is “indigenous” if it contradicts the ethno-racial project and geo-political structure that a nation-state has around what and who can claim an indigenous identity? Also, what and who can claim “indigenous” when various realities and imaginaries (try

mean that the settler who have been dispersed to the modern nation-state can claim “native” (or “indigenous”) as a way to connect their identity to creation, maintenance, and continuation of the nationstate. What (and when) does the settler become “native?” Since there are

‘Indigenous’ (and its various manifestations) will “ always be self-defined and self-proclaimed. It is a part of a personal longing to find the pre-modern self, trying to connect to a particular land or space, and a desire to remember something that has been forgotten.

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to) define an “indigenous self?” The socio-cultural and geo-political structure around “indigenous,” “indigenousness,” and “indigeneity,” as argued before, can come from a personal or individual longing to find the pre-modern self amidst modernity. As Kauanui (2014) stated in the Keywords project, the problem can arise when anyone can claim to be indigenous to a particular space (and time). Therefore, to claim “indigenous” in the modern nation-state can also

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no moral, political, and cultural frameworks to deny someone from self-defining as “indigenous/native,” the problem arises when “nativism” becomes tied to citizenship and nation-state power structure (Ahluwalia, 2001; Mamdani, 1998). Even in the United States, the colloquial usage of “native” is used to connote a person’s birthplace and upbringing (ie – Native San Diegan, Native Californian, or Native Texan). Here, the user identifies with a region as their place of home and,

if Trask’s (1999) conclusion that “indigenous” is tied to particular spatiality, then the Native Texan not only imagines themselves a being tied to the particular territory called “Texas,” but also realistically sees themselves as an agent that affirms Texan “native” identity regardless of the indigenous/native communities that are found in the region. Subsequently, since “indigenous/native” also is connected to geopolitical laws, then the Native Texan, by birth certificate and citizenship, can claim that their native identity is also politically connected to the space. The settler (whether they be White or diasporic racialized communities that are not Native American) blends the personal (selfidentification) and the political (citizenship and land use) to become “native” to a particular spatiality. So what is an indigenous cyborg? I argue that since the terms and the subject of who and what can be considered “indigenous” will always be a hybrid or a chimera of the personal and the political, the

real and the imaginary, the physical and the artificial, the tangible and the intangible, and the spatial and the temporal, “indigenous” will always be bound to these “mixings.” Whether it be the La Jolla Band of Kumayaay Indians or the Chicano who lives in Echo Park, the postantebellum African wearing kente cloth or the descendants of European whose ancestors established the United States, “indigenous” (and its various manifestations) will always be self-defined and selfproclaimed. It is a part of a personal longing to find the pre-modern self, trying to connect to a particular land or space, and a desire to remember something that has been forgotten (Torgovnick, 1996; Shohat 2006). “Indigenous” (unlike many Cultural Studies scholars’ description) cannot be bound to a particular reality, spatiality, or temporality. “Indigenous,” therefore, is a creation – created from nothing and everything, the pre- and the post-, the de- and the neo-, the theoretical and the factual.

CONCLUSION: THE INCONSISTENCY OF “INDIGENOUS(NESS)”

“Indigenous,” and its various academic, personal, political, and theoretical manifestations, will always be measured by those who invoke it in their work and with their personal identity. While the usage of the term gives the user the self-determination to (re)define it as they see fit, the complication of the term (and its various modalities), arguably then will always be messy and unrestricted. Therefore, “indigenous” (both as a term and a word) will not only navigate the various (mis)understanding(s) of the user’s intentions, but will also become a catalyst that provides a hyper-real (mis) representation of autonomous movements (in)between real and imagined fluctuating spatialities and temporalities. Like specters that haunts from a particular spatial and temporal framework, “indigenous” (and its various manifestations) must navigate through boundaries between the visual, the corporeal, the

imaginary, the factual, the political, the natural, the cybernetic, and the personal intimacies that the user wishes to invoke for their own desires. “Indigenous,” as a romanticized term and concept, will always be written and (re)appropriated by the user’s pen or keyboard or personal longing to find the “self ” within and away from the jargon of academia, politics, and other structures who wish to bind it to a strict definition and experience. Upon reflection on Gayatri Spivak (1988) and Trinh Min-Ha’s (2009) work, the “indigenous” therefore does not speak, but it is felt; it cannot be written, but writes; it cannot manifest into the tangible, but will always be there, everywhere, all the time. “Indigenous,” therefore, will never really know “itself ” nor be constricted to a particular lexicon that does not invoke the user’s emotional connection to a (-n imagined) state of personal longing and being.

indigenous: joseph allen ruanto-ramirez

A Critical Look at

etention R and omen W in Computer Science BY EDWARD NADURATA

First and foremost, I want to thank the women who were willing to share their stories to me as I conducted my research for my Ethnic Studies 102: Science and Technology in society: Race/Gender/ Class with Professor Kalindi Vora. Without their help, insight and support, my paper would not have been possible. Women occupy the periphery of Computer Science, often marginalized and outnumbered in their classes, with little to no support for their retention. What does it mean for women to traverse these borders that surround CS? How do they negotiate their passions with this hostile environment? It is important to trace and document the experiences of women at UCSD who are CS majors to see what the institution lacks and what the institution can do in order to support the retention and endeavors of women in this field.

With Title IX being seen as the solution to gender inequality in institutions of higher education, one would assume that this is reflected in departments across a university. In this essay, I aim to show how the field of Computer Science is not a safe space for women in the 19

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university by localizing the issue of gender inequality to the Computer Science (CS) community at UC San Diego. I also will argue that institutionalized programs or lack thereof in regards to women in CS are lacking in the resources that are needed to support their students.

Girls Who Code is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2012, which according to their website, aims to “close the gender gap in technology” by inspiring girls “to pursue computer science by exposing them to real life and on screen role models.” The programs

they offer teach coding to sophomore or junior girls for an entire summer with hopes that this experience will encourage them to matriculate into a university as Computer Science majors. In an interview with a current first year CS major, she alluded to the fact that women are not initially encouraged by their environment to see CS as a career path because they were “raised to be quiet, to cook, to be nurses, be docile and help. [They’ve] been trained to do domestic work and maintain rather than create.” During career exploration, women are lead to believe that they are better in the arts & humanities and social sciences while the math and sciences are more suited for men. This can be seen with the demographics of UCSD’s Computer Science department. There are 2174 students enrolled with only 380 or 17.48% of the undergraduate body being women. In terms of faculty, only 10 out of the 77 faculty or lecturer positions are women with half of the women teaching in the department only serving

lecturer positions according to the Computer Science website. The work done by nonprofits like Girls Who Code are very crucial in inspiring young women to take CS, but with very few women to look up to at the university-level and very low numbers of women enrolling in the department, it can seem challenging to navigate the university as a woman in CS. The climate for women in CS is very hostile. The Koala at UCSD during the 20142015 school year published two blurbs regarding CS with one entitled “Top 5 Reasons I Love Raping Girls in the CS Dungeon.” The CS dungeon which is a place where a lot of students go to do their work is hypersexualized by this newspaper and further marginalizes the already few women that are in CS. It is also as if they are justifying rape in the dungeon and show how clueless everyone can be with the misogyny in the space when they list “nobody will hear their cries with headphones plugged in” and “people will mistake it for a gangbang and join in” alluding to the fact that there

is a gender imbalance in the department (The Koala). This holds true to the feelings of a first year who felt that most of the microaggressions she experienced were not with her professors and in the classroom, rather the interactions she had with fellow students “who assumed [she] didn’t know anything” and thought that she would not understand the material being covered. Due to this, according to Margolis and Fisher, “many end up doubting their basic intelligence and their fitness to pursue computing” (5). This can even be seen with UCSD when one looks at the enrollment between Computer Science and Cognitive Science with a focus on Human Computer-Interaction (HCI). According to the data from UCSD’s Registrar’s office, 64 out of 109 students were women which is 58.72% of the students. There is a stark difference between the enrollment of women in Cognitive Science HCI and Computer Science even though the classes that they are taking are the same. These issues are addressed

a critical look at retention and women in computer science: edward nadurata

specifically by students who are in the community. In an interview with a student who is involved in Women in Computing (WIC) at UCSD and is the incoming president of the organization, she talks about her experience in the organization and how “it’s great to empower women in CS but it shouldn’t be this way” in which students who have to worry about school, family, and surviving also need to worry about being a woman in CS and retaining other women in the program. According to Lilly Irani, a UCSD professor in Communications, professors in the university are tasked to do three things: teaching, research, and service; but the university doesn’t consider mentoring women in CS in terms of their retention in the program and the university as service because that is mostly seen as service through being in committees. The university has relied on free labor from students and professors who dedicate countless hours to make sure that women in CS are retained even though there are many microaggressions that are directed towards 21

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women. This free labor in the university can be compared to the free labor in the Internet because “the labor of building a community was not compensated by great financial rewards, but it was also willingly conceded in exchange for the pleasures of communication and exchange” (Terranova 48). Although many of the work in terms of women retention in CS is not compensated, the free labor is done so that the community is sustained and is done out of genuine interests. Due to this fact, the university end up relying on this free labor when the university is the one that should be doing the labor to retain their students so that they can graduate. Instead, the stress and workload are transferred to the backs of student leaders and faculty who see that there are gender inequities in CS. The gender dynamics in CS do have effects to the way that women in CS think and feel. Due to the aforementioned fact that growing up, most women did not think that CS was an option and the fact that there are not that many women who

teach them, it is definitely harder for women to fit in and succeed. According to the incoming president of WIC, “Not only do[es she] have to survive and pass class, [she has] to prove [her]self constantly,” to show that she belonged in that major. This idea was supported by Irani, who also has an undergraduate degree in CS, that women in CS have to always prove themselves and have to work at least twice as hard to be noticed. There is more labor needed in order to validate the stories and experiences a woman has in CS so that her peers feel like she belongs in the major. CS is depicted by the students as deeply rooted in meritocracy and that in order to be recognized one needs to work extra hard to beat everyone else and be validated. This extra labor can lead to burnout and even possibly lead to women dropping from the CS major into other majors like Cognitive Science HCI where they do the same work but the environment is more welcoming. Currently there are no programs or models at UCSD

besides Women in Computing who address issues regarding gender inequalities in the CS community. This however is just the push that many of the students need in order to continue the retention work that they are already doing according to WIC’s incoming president. There is one clear way that can make CS more accepting and inclusive for women which would lead to better retention rates and enrollment for the major. It is important to integrate Women Studies and feminism in the curriculum and the decision making of the department because there would be “an emphasis on beginning the process of knowledge formation from marginalized perspectives” which is something that is not always, if ever, looked at in discourses in science especially when a field is seen to be already established (Weasel 310). With women being a historically marginalized group, it is important for their views to be seen especially because science was established under the heteropatriarchal hegemonic structure that still prevails

society even today. This is true because when science is not examined in a critical way, as Weasel mentioned, “the power wielded by science can reinforce existing social inequities” (314). Through the application of feminism, CS can actually have an intersectional intervention that can prove to be very useful for the field because the voices of those who are not usually represented are being heard. It is very important to acknowledge that there are problems within the CS community in order for institutions to listen and fix the problem. However, many institutions also rely on the fact that they are receiving free labor from professors and students who do great work in retaining women in CS. Through the application of feminism to not only CS but also STEM classes, classes will start to feel relevant and doable especially because they will be seen through intersectionality as well.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

Girls Who Code. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 June 2015. "Interview with First Year CS Major." Personal interview. 29 May 2015. “Interview with WIC President.” Personal interview. 1 June 2015. Irani, Lilly. "Interview with Professor Lilly Irani." Personal interview. 1 June 2015. Margolis, Jane, and Allan Fisher. Unlicking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge: MIT, 2002. Print. Terranova, Tiziana. “Free Labor.” Social Text. 2000. Pg. 33-58 The Koala [La Jolla] n.d.: n. pag. Print. Weasel, Lisa “Laboratories Without Walls: The Science Shop as a Model…” pp. 305-320.

a critical look at retention and women in computer science: edward nadurata

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fandango fronterizo BY SONIA GARCIA AVEL AR

May 23, 2015 Friendship Park U.S.-Mexico Border

FANDANGO FRONTERIZO

I don’t think I’ve fully processed what it meant for me to be there. But the again I don’t think I can ever process the fact that I’m so close to home, yet so far away. I don’t think I can ever fully process the fact that a humxn made border has kept so many people apart, even cutting into the ocean as if, like the land we are on, it was theirs to claim. It was hard to stand there and watch broken families, unite.

Although it was hard to witness the way in which the physical border, divided people it was also beautiful to see them find a bit of happiness and go on with their lives and their loved ones. I live for the day in which I will be able to say to my people and my children that back in my day there was a border that cut across land and water in an effort to divide us but it could not withstand the nature of migration.

fandango fronterizo: sonia garcia avelar

Enatan Lucy BY BENYAM ALEMU

Selam be

Ethiopia

The theme is: “CROSSings: Borderline, Borderlands, and Borderless; to me this symbolizes the creation of self-validated identities – particularly the struggles of doing so in living in a complex and conflicting world. I chose to represent stories from Ethiopia, a seemingly forgotten land believed to be the birth of cultures and possibly of the human race. Snippets of what led to its fall to grace post World War Two are included with implications towards human rights. This is seen from the perspective of a refugee vantage point: hopeful yet still longing for elusive piece. Many culture allusions as were terms in Amharic were drawn such as the description of the god-like king Haile Selassie, central contributions towards global religions, coffee, African independence, cultural pride and mother Lucy: what we currently trace to be the original human and ‘mother’ of all man.

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We the people cried Lali Baba and sought Akum Fallen League

E N AT E N LU C Y, S E L A M B E E T H I O P I A

Infected with the disease of hope the sacred land of original birth chronically distressed Hail Haile! King of Earth and Man Eulogies of cleansing warmth Royal bearing, stiff love The eternal lion majestically roars The red terror crept Silent voices of the oppressed Rising screams separation of families Whispers of confession Political and economic collapse peaceful uprisings choked Lost boys, ignored girls Cleaned stomachs and collapsed organs Cursed the Derg Fallen necks, forgotten dreams disappearances Never ever again

Three millennia the Earliest State a rose-red city half as old as time How soon they forget! Independent exception yellow, red, green Minority diplomacy sacred rejuvenation plant unorthodox orthodox dispersed from the four corners of the earth Sacred beings The first human once roamed the earth originators of life, mother of all men beacon atop of the mountains and ensign upon a hill Faiths of Christ and Muhammad borne These are our contributions Self-manifestation of prophecy voices of the lost and unseen Independent, strong Distinctly beautiful Addis Ababa and her people

enatan lucy, selam be ethiopia: benyam alemu

thoughtspots

winter moments

week 1-5 spring programs MON

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THURS 30

FRI 31

WEEK 1

WED

APRIL

Cesar E. Chavez 4 Celebration Luncheon 11:30a-1:30p West Ballrooms A&B

WEEK 5

WEEK 4

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MARCH

spring 2016 calendar

Ethnic Studies Eric Tang Talk 4:00p–6:00p Communidad All

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Ethnic Studies Symposium & Graduation 12:00p–5:45p CCC All

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Ethnic Studies: Ines Hernandez–Avila Talk & Q/A: 3:00p–4:30p Communidad All Reception: 4:30p–5:00p Artspace

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Alumni Roots 27 Program Communidad All CCC Library

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Black, Raza, Pilipin@ Graduation