Now that we are home from Peru, I will be posting two final reflection pieces discussing my final thoughts. In this post, I will be focusing my reflection on the topics addressed in the final articles that we read upon arrival in the U.S.. In the first piece I read, Prudence Carter discusses “’Black’ Cultural Capital, Status Positioning, and Schooling Conflicts for Low-Income African American Youth.” While defining and studying what these concepts entail in different settings it is clear that they all are complex and deeply-intertwined. While her primary focus is on the social mobility within the stratified society of the United States, specifically for low-income African American students, I found myself making comparisons to Peruvian society and education. She discusses dominant cultural capital and its ability to provide its possessors the capability to hold power and be “successful” in a stratified society, and non-dominant culture capital as the ability of lower status individuals to achieve an authentic cultural position or status within their community.
As I mentioned in a previous post, we learned that many people in the Andes region, especially those who primarily speak an indigenous language, feel inferior to Spanish-speaking Peruvians who live in bigger cities and possess a higher social status. Those who hold dominant culture capital are able to thrive in a way that others cannot. In Andahuaylillas, the teachers encourage their students to set high goals but also to acquire skills that will help them within their community. They acknowledge and embrace the students’ non-dominant cultural capital and push the students to do the same. In both the United States and Peru, the non-dominant culture is seen as inferior to the dominant culture. As a society, we should aim to appreciate what people from different cultures provide, whether we’re in Peru, the United States, or anywhere else in the world.
In the essay “Note to Educators: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete,” Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade focuses on the significance of hope in struggling urban schools. He explains the detrimental effects of three forms of false home, which he calls “hokey hope, mythical hope, and hope deferred.” He explains “hokey hope” as an unrealistic optimism, similar to an idea that “things will get better” when there is no evidence to support that hope. Similarly, mythical hope is described as a “false narrative.” Duncan-Andrade uses Obama’s election to exemplify an instance of when “mythical hope” was used. He refers to a speech by John McCain and writes, “McCain’s insinuation that this election signifies the ‘end of racism’ is mythmaking.” Duncan-Andrade explains that ultimately, mythical hope “denies the legitimacy of the suffering of the oppressed.” When referring to “hope deferred,” hope is almost a passive action of wishing for the best, similar to “hokey hope.” In fear of “blaming the victim,” educators may blame other sources such as the economy, violence in society, etc. Rather, Duncan-Andrade urges educators to maintain “critical hope,” hope that is committed and supported by active struggle and effort that demands progress. As Prudence Carter explained with her ideas of cultural capital, embracing and addressing the issues at hand, rather than avoiding them, is the only way to attempt to solve those issues. This will be a critical skill for me to practice as I begin my teaching career, whether it is in Milwaukee, anywhere else in the United States, in Peru, or any other country.
We also read a piece titled “The Opportunity if not the Right to See,” in which Augustine Romero discusses the Social Justice Education Project in schools in Arizona. This project supports the cultural, social, and intellectual needs of Latina/o students and aims to “simultaneously elevate student voices, consciousness, and academic performance.” This program is active throughout curriculum in the respective schools and it reminded me of working with a middle school Humanities class while at Colegio Roosevelt at the beginning of our trip. The students were working on Social Justice projects in which they did research, presented their information, and planned a way to take action on an issue that matters to them. While meeting all of the requirements the class needed, the students learned about a topic that resonated with them, learned about topics that their classmates were passionate about, and were given the opportunity to speak up for what is important to them.