Diasporic community smartness: saberes (knowings) beyond schooling and borders

Abstract

This article presents ethnographic data of US Mexican-indigenous heritage children’s transnational experiences during return visits to Mexico. US-born children and youth’s acquisition of transnational diasporic community knowledge, in this article, is studied as a form of ‘smartness.’ Diasporic community knowledge is defined as the saberes (knowings) and ‘smartness’ developed in relation with familia (family) and community life that originate, in this case, in the pueblo of San Miguel Nocutzepo, and that span the geo-physical and geo-political spaces of migration to and from the US. This study finds that these return visit experiences and the saberes/smartness acquired and developed through them were valuable to families and children because they socialize US Mexican-indigenous heritage children and youth in different knowledge systems, and allow them a smartness that is ancestral and that encourages mature participation in diasporic family and community life across transnational social fields.

Keywords:

• Diaspora
• saberes
• smartness
• indigenous

Notes

1. Products of the Spanish colonial caste (casta) system, Mestiza/o (Ladina/o), generally refers to a person of mixed European and indigenous racial heritage. Mestiza/o is most commonly used in Mexico, while Ladina/o is most commonly used in Guatemala and other Central American contexts. While initially derogatory terms, after the nationalist period, Mestiza/o and Ladina/o took on an intermediary role between European descent elites and indigenous and African descent people. This intermediary positioning also often led to an oppressive role and exploitative relations toward indigenous and African descent peoples (Urrieta 2003).

2. Research during the fiesta in Nocutzepo was conducted by Luis Urrieta and Sergio Martínez, with assistance from then graduate students Jisel Vega, G. Sue Kasun, and Corina Zavala López. Research in Los Angeles was conducted by Luis Urrieta.