Crossing the Split in Nepantla: (Un)successful Attempts to Dismantle a TESOL Teacher Candidate in After-Queer Research

ABSTRACT

This paper neither plans to use the restorative agenda nor provides a sample of representation or voices of a teacher candidate or researcher who identifies themselves as queer. Instead, this paper looks into the researcher’s desires and imagining in analyzing a split self to think about how to problematize their thinking and actions, which should go beyond the limits of gender and sexuality or a coded term “L-G-B-T-Q,” to disrupt the existing binary of doing queer research. First, the author reviews what queer and after-queer mean in educational research and how the researchers have queered their work in the education field. Then, the author describes the nepantla concept as a theoretical lens. The autohistoria-teoria, or a personal essay that theorizes, is used as a form of self-critique in this piece. The author concludes by reexamining this paper’s central question, How did a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) teacher candidate queer their teaching in a high school in the United States? and shares critical thoughts of what could be next in after-queer research.

KEYWORDS:

• Autohistoria-teoria
• nepantlerx
• after-queer research
• TESOL
• teacher candidate
• affective turn
• rewriting identities
• queering text
• LGBTQ
• Gloria Anzaldúa

Acknowledgment

Thank you Jane Bleasdale, Ph.D. and Kevin Stockbridge, Ph.D. to include my paper in this special issue. Thank you to two anonymous reviewers to help bring my voice to the center. And a special thank to Luis Javier Pentón Herrera, for your very first review, suggestions, and proofreading of this paper. Your support and friendship are beyond my gratitude.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I use nepantlerx (singular) and nepantlerxs (plural), using “x” instead of “a” or “o,” to refer to person/people/entit(ies) in a nepantla state to disrupt gender binaries in Spanish language traditions and encourage gender-neutral linguistic usages moving forward.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.