The poetics aesthetics of testimonios. Subverting “I” for social “I/We.” Una lengua que desquicia la academia

Abstract

I/We are immigrants in the United States, passionately engaged in a decolonizing project, working with testimonios encargados. I/We respectfully chose to share them as POC epistemologies to correct its omission in most history and presence of millions of residents of this land. Based on this sharing, we also subvert the Western “I” for a community shared, social “I/We” and advance the poetics aesthetics of testimonios.

Notes

1 Behar (1997).

2 Latina Feminist Group (2001).

3 Espinosa-Dulanto (2018, p. 163).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto is faculty at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley. Her writing as well as her academic research originates from identifying herself as a woman of color, a Borderlands Mestiza, and a non-mainstream person in the US. From that perspective, she explores the construction and transmission of knowledge. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto is an avid ethnographer who uses narrative inquiry, photography, testimonio, and poetry as tools to learn and communicate.

Freyca Calderon-Berumen

Freyca Calderon-Berumen works as an Assistant Professor in Elementary and Early Childhood Education at Penn State Altoona. Her research interests are around linguistic diversity and multicultural education through the lens of critical pedagogy as an avenue to address social equity and justice. Her scholarly work aims at exploring possibilities for community building for marginalized and under-theorized groups and contributing to the teacher education field by linking theoretical perspectives with everyday experiences and developing culturally relevant understandings.