I was talking to a classmate of mine and what she said made me think of the dynamic between educator vs clinician. In my organization, we have trainers who have worked for many years in the field (or on the work site) and become trainers vs those who were trainers and have not been in the field.
This idea, proposed by Tharp (2012) regarding mainstreaming some of the terminologies in his article has been a struggle for our learning community. Last year we were asked by several of our members to develop a DEI-focused course that they could leverage to help educate their workforces in many of the topics and the vocabulary that Tharp suggests in his article. In some cases, we know because they told us, they were only asking for this training to "check a box." In other cases, I think there was a genuine desire to move social justice language into the community to help offset some of the challenges that our industry has seen (and as many others see).
Our developers spent 9 months creating an industry-specific course that weaved aspects of social justice language, promotion, goals, etc into the course. It is described as a course that aims to empower each person to bring their authentic self to work, celebrating what makes us unique, and accepting our differences as a key driver to success.
I dated someone years ago who would persistently and consistently ghost me . . . then I guess, the term is . . . she would Zombie me. What's ghosting and zombieing? Ghosting we all know . . . a form of confrontation and conflict avoidance? Sure. But being a zombie? Someone who comes back from ghosting. In this case, she would pretend that nothing had happened. Just say, "I'm back."
The worst part of this was at each part of the comeback/zombie process, it was like coming back starting fresh. We were always at square one again, or worse . . . behind square 1 . . . square 0.
Goodman (2012) writing about microaggressions in Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Groups, defines microaggressions as "the unconscious and unintentional expressions of bias and prejudice toward socially devalued groups" (p. 25). Mohamed and Beagan (2018) write that microaggressions are everyday racism or "interactions generally not intended to be racist or colonialist, but which nonetheless convey subtle messages of not-quite-belonging" (p. 2).
Smith et al. (2016) write that microaggressions are "daily indignities, invalidations, and slights that are experienced by people of color" (p. 127). They develop the idea of microaggressions further by creating types of microaggressions in their article and point out that there are three levels consisting of: microassaults, which are overt or explicit, (b) microinsults, those that demean a persons heritage, race or other identifiable characteristics, and (c) microinvalidations, which are those "communications that exclude, negate, or nullify a person's thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality" (Smith et al., 2016, p. 130).
My classmate reacted to my wirting on the Alamo and Texas' single history. He brought up two salient and interesting other cultures that were single histories; Guinea and India. First, he's right there is a alot of emotion and experience wrapped up in the subject of colonialism and a discussion in a professional and academic setting for a true exchange of ideas is best.
His post, especially the focus on Guinea, made me think of a book I just finished reading; Lost in Shangri La. It's all about a lost valley in New Guinea that is "found" by US Pilots during the middle of WWII. I say "found" because the natives of that valley were never "lost" but it's interesting in that a plane crashes in the valley and the military is forced to launch a rescue operation and disturb the native population. Even before the crash that necessitated the rescue, there was no thought about whether or not, or in what ways, a western group of explorers (not in this instance colonizers) might affect the native population.
We had a reading this week by Nesbit (2005) regarding social class and adult education where citing Morris (1994) he writes, “most recently the concept of a fourth class, an underclass has arisen. This rather unfortunately named group consists of those whom society considers largely excluded from the economic order, such as the certifiably insane, the long-term unemployed, drug addicts, recent immigrants, prisoners, and others with certain so called pathological deficiencies” (p. 7). This passage struck me because of so many of the initiatives we have seen in our learning community lately and with the organizations we support.
Nesbit writes about a segment of the underclass being recent immigrants. When I was a recruiter, and our organization was constantly understaffed, I would have loved to been able to recruit, hire, and train recent immigrants to work in our field.
I can remember several times when my family encouraged me to reach out to family friends for positions or jobs, or told me to call on an extended network. In these cases I always refused. Although I took advantage of my college degree, I started at the bottom within this community, and very few people know about my background.
There is a alot of emotion and experience wrapped up in the subject of colonialism and a discussion in a professional and academic setting for a true exchange of ideas is best.
What a classmate and I discussed this week was India and Guinea. It made me think of a book I just finished reading; Lost in Shangri La (see here). It's all about a lost valley in New Guinea that is "found" by US Pilots during the middle of WWII.
My class had a chance to discuss unequal social relations. Specifically, we discussed how this can create a "culture of silence" that instills the oppressed with a negative, passive, and suppressed self-image.
I work at a training non-profit where we deliver training to workers in the energy industry. We are seeing a bit of a revolution in how we approach, train, and accept non-native English speakers. These workers have certainly been a group that is not one with power and privilege in our community. In fact, they have been excluded from work in our industry due to safety concerns around their language skills. This is all changing.
But, there is definitely a "culture of silence" that leads them to have a passive response and approach to training and to the industry. Goodman (2012) writes that the more dominant groups in a society, in this case, English speakers, and for the most part white, English-speaking men, inherently create systems that reinforce their more dominant roles. This has certainly been the case in our community. What's startling is to be on the leading edge of supporting the change in our community, especially in terms of training. The question I might have is how will these changes to this group of workers effect there self-image? How will they become less passive? Less negative? How might they become more effective and emboldened?
Reference
Goodman, D. J. (2012). Promoting diversity and social justice: Educating people from privileged groups. SAGE Publications.
I’m reading about a battle in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. It involved the 101st and I’d never heard of it till now. I jump around quite a bit in my nonfiction reading. My favorite of course is anything about the Korean War. Vietnam isn’t bad. Pacific in WW2 is always fun to read about. For reasons I can’t explain I rarely read about the European theater of WW2 and I stay completely away from anything that occurred during my lifetime. Why? No idea.
I’ve written before that the military has influenced my business career. In some ways it’s positive. I’m more able to adapt, adjust and overcome. I am a bit more bold than some of my colleagues. The challenges are that I don’t build sustainable or transferable projects. I can think of several projects that I focus on that if I wasn’t there, . . . They’d fail. I can’t transfer them to others, and I’ve yet to find a way to keep them up without my direct intervention.
Reading about the 101st I’m even more stunned by the way that my military career has influenced me. They’re so much more to these missions than anything we had to deal with. Even on the airfield seizures we would do, where we had to work with the Air Force and other assets for support. This Ripcord book shows me that that is nothing compared to what some of these Leg or Air Mobile groups had to deal with.
I always wondered if I should have stayed in a regular Army or non Ranger unit. The operations tempo in the Regiment was so extreme I think it scared me for my future. If I had it to do over . . . I would have become a paramedic and probably tried to transfer over to 5th ID. I think I would have liked that.
Let me know if you’d be interested. Or, if you know of anyone who might be, please let me know.
As a non-profit safety council, we literally exist to help shape the contracting community around us. Without the support of the contracting community we would not have been “associated” and created.
Now that we are a part of the community we work hard to stay relevant. All around us we see safety councils failing because they cannot find ways to be a big enough part of the communities that they support.
In the past few years we have been forced to absorb four other safety councils because they were not able to survive any longer as they had in the past. Staying relevant, in a world where training is becoming more prevalent, dynamic, easier to create, and cheaper, leaves those following the older models in a precarious position.
But, this could be the type of radical change that we discussed in the question above. A radical change in the way that contractors are trained. Having worked with a contracting organization I know how they are slaves to savings and finding the most competitive price, ironic that the very characteristics they display in business could ultimately hurt the safety councils that support them.
One thing that my organization is doing is trying to incorporate more of the contractor's experienced workers into the training deliverables we produce. We try to give them a voice, and leverage their experience for the betterment of the entire industry. We commonly host lunch and learns and other events to help promote safety, information sharing, and other ways to be relevant to the community and industry.
Myles says, “Often whe I says you start with people’s experience, people get the point that you start and stop with that experience, but of course all of you know better. There a time when people’s experience runs out” (p. 128). That’s what we want to try and avoid. Earlier Myles says “I just think most people cant’ think outside the socially approved way of doing things and don’t open up their minds to making any kind of discoveries. I think you have to think outside the conventional frameworks” (p. 44).
This is what we are trying to do. Both leverage the existing experience but also think outside the conventional frameworks. This should help us stay relevant for the industry and the community we serve.
References
Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change (J. Gaventa & J. Peters, Eds.). Temple University Press.
According to CIO magazine, Oscar Wilde said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness” (Leggat, 2017). As you can see from my word cloud above, I am the mediocre one, tons of people summarize things with a word cloud, but I was so impressed with the idea of a word cloud to visualize our class discussion that I wanted to try my own this week when I'm the summarizing.
From this word cloud I tried to use the font size and position to create a concept map as well. I tried to use the size of the words (which in the word cloud denotes the number of times the word was used) to place primary and subsidiary concepts into an order. I struggled at first with the nexus as the word "social" . . . while the next level . . . "capital" was left without the adjective. Might make more sense if it was "social capital" but I was trying to stay true to the word cloud data.
Naturally, I like the fact that "community" is listed in a larger font. I think community is an integral part of helping to distribute social capital across workers/students/people et al. I also like that social capital leads to "access" and "resources." That's something that I've seen in real life in our own learning community and organization. I enjoy the fact that the concept map shows that the "community" is a source of "support" and can lead to "progress."
Merriam and Baumgartner (2020) write of liberators in feminist pedagogy and adult eLearning that they "draw from poster modernism and Marxist and critical theory. From this perspective, the structures of society, these systems that intrude on our life worlds, oppress through their power and control. The structured nature of power relations and interlocking systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and ableism are seen as being reinforced through education: that is institutions of learners and the classroom itself reproduce the power structures found in society at large" (p. 311).
I get to see feminist pedagogy weaving it's way into our learning community every day. A standard in our industry has been a 6 hour new hire training that is for the most part trained by older, usually white, men. These are former safety representatives who are working as contractor trainers. They reinforce the structured power of the community and do so for every new hire that comes into the industry by "banking" education. In their defense, this is the system that has been set up, and due to regulations, there is little they can do to change it.
There have been changes though. One has come from a small training group in California. This group created a training that has many aspects of feminist pedagogy. Collaboration, co-construction of goals and an environment where the instructor is less a "banking" instructor and more a facilitator, learning with and along side the learner. We have modeled several of our newer courses off of this course from California due to the effectiveness of engaging the learner. We see our learners are thirsting for this type of training and a change to the old school "banking" system.
References
Enns, C.Z. & Forrest, L. (2005). Toward defining and integrating multicultural and feminist pedagogies Download multicultural and feminist pedagogies. In C.Z. Enns & A. Sinacore (Eds.) Teaching and Social Justice: Integrating Multicultural and Feminist Theories in the Classroom (pp. 3-23). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. (K-State Online)
Merriam, S. B., & Baumgartner, L. M. (2020). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Although I don’t agree with some of the arguments that the authors make in these studies/articles that I’ve selected, it does provide a nice view and counterpoint to my own thoughts and ideas.
Whether it was a desk reconnaissance or an active field reconnaissance it's important to know the battlefield as it is defined by the enemy forces. Now, I’m not suggesting the authors are my enemy, I think the point is clear that it’s best to know all of the arguments and perspectives on the other side of the aisle if only so I can make my own arguments stronger and can expect what arguments detractors or readers might make while reading what we might produce.
My intention now is to make sure that the arguments listed on the countervailing side of these concepts are accounted for in my own work to preempt arguments and make my own work stronger.
Stake (1995) writes that case study research is more of an art than a science. This is a poignant description of case study research as a methodology and Stake continues by writing about qualitative research in general as emphasizing “episodes of nuance, the sequentially of happenings in context, the wholeness of the individual” (p. xii).
However, Stake (1995) also points out that “the real business of case study is particularization, not generalization. We take a particular case and come to know it well, not primarily as to how it is different from others but what it is, what it does” (p. 8) and case study research is “not sampling research. We do not study a case primarily to understand other cases. Our first obligation is to understand this one case” (p. 4). This dichotomy, or rather this emphasis on the completeness of the case being researched without using the research to make broad generalizations is the heart of case study research. Researchers who employ this methodology should come to know their specific research and case intimately but should be cautious about using lessons from their research to draw similar conclusions about other cases.
Researchers who use case study as a primary methodology in their qualitative studies should also be aware, Stake (1995) points out, to what degree their own interpretations and experiences might leach into the study. Stake writes of the prominent and “ongoing interpretive roles of the research” (p. 43) and “its orientation away from cause and effect explanation and toward personal interpretation” by the researcher” (p. 43). If there is so much of the researcher’s perspective intermingled with the case being studied, how then can the research and the researcher be trusted? Stake points out that “researchers are encouraged to include their own personal perspectives in the interpretation. The way the case and the researcher interact is presumed unique and not necessarily reproducible for other cases and researchers. The quality and utility of the research is not based on its reproducibility but on whether or not the meanings generated, by the researcher or the reader, are valued. Thus, a personal valuing of the work is expected” (p. 135). This passage helps make sense of the fact that qualitative case study research implies that the researcher's own thoughts, values, feelings, and prejudices might interfere with the analysis of the research, but that it is expected, and to a great degree it is the reader's obligation to understand this and analyze the research with this connectedness in mind.
Despite this, the case study methodology can be extremely powerful as a research tool for understanding not just the research subject being studied, but for moving overall understanding forward. There can be a significant payoff through case study research. Stake (1995) writes of qualitative case study research that “new puzzles are produced more frequently than solutions to old ones. It’s contributions to disciplined science are slow and tendentious. The results pay off little in the advancement of social practice. The ethical risks are substantial. And the cost in time and money is high, very high” (p. 45). Still, the strength of case study research According to Stake, is that it provides “(1) the distinction between explanation and understanding as the purpose of inquiry; (2) the distinction between a personal and impersonal role for the researcher, and (3) a distinction between knowledge discovered and knowledge constructed” (p. 37).
Writing about the origins and history of case study methodology, Stake (1995) writes that “there is no single wellspring of qualitative research. Its history is extensive, drawing from the evolving curiosities of humankind over the centuries” (p. 35). When discussing further the evolution of the methodology, Stake uses an analogy from Runkle (1990) that likens researchers to fishermen casting nets to collect specimens. In this analogy, the case study researcher would take one minnow from the net to understand why that minnow works as a part of the whole. Not necessarily to understand why the whole works, that would be generalization that he already cautioned the reader against, but rather to better understand that specific minnow. A quantitative researcher might count the total number of minnows, understand the different types, and try to determine how different types interact with the whole. Case study researchers however would remain focused on the one minnow and also try to understand their own prejudices and history with minnows, with fish, with nets, and with the world, and how that might change their interpretation of what they see and analyze from that minnow.
Writing of Von Write (1971) and his contributions to the methodology, Stake (1995) discusses the differences between empathy and understanding then understanding and explanation that case study can help provide. Stake writes that “qualitative research tries to establish an empathetic understanding for the reader, through description, sometimes thick description, conveying to the reader what experience itself would convey” (p. 39). Finally, Stake points out that quantitative research grew from a need to find cause and effect through scientific inquiry and to “establish generalizations that hold over diverse situations” (p. 39) which is not the goal for qualitative case study.
Ultimately, Stake (1995) points out that the narratives from testimonies that case study research produces are used to “optimize the opportunity of the reader to gain an experiential understanding of the case” (p. 40). This idea of experience and experiential understanding is discussed later by Stake in terms of constructivism and constructionism, where constructivism is the learners ability to build understanding through experience and reflection, and constructionism is the manner by which learners construct their understanding of knowledge and reality through discourse and conversation. Stake writes, “human construction of knowledge appears to begin with sensory experience of external stimuli” (p. 100) then follows this with a discussion of how learners conceive reality: (a) through external realities and the interpretation of stimuli according to those external realities, (b) experiential reality or the way that learners experience situations, and (c) rational reality which is a “universe of integrated interpretations” by the learner. The ultimate aim of the research that case study works to discover is as Stake writes is not to discover the external realities but to help construct a better and clearer understanding of experiential realities, and a more sophisticated understanding of rational realities.
Stake (1995) brings up several roles that case study researchers can utilize as they perform their research. Among these is the researcher as: (a) teacher, (b) advocate, (c) evaluator, (d) biographer, and (e) interpreter. These different roles offer the researcher the opportunity to understand the research and the researcher’s relationship to the research and to the reader in different ways. These relationships are shown in Table 1 below.
In the research project that I am analyzing, PO fit for contractor organizations within the energy industry, the roles that I as a researcher take on are varied and not limited to just one of the roles shown in Table 1. The research intends to educate the energy industry on various aspects of and benefits of PO fit and values fit, act as an advocate for ensuring that values fit is utilized in hiring, and work as an interpreter of the data in terms of values fit and organizational usefulness. This is shown with rationale in Table 2.
References
Runkel, P. J. (1990). Casting nets and testing specimens: Two grand methods of psychology. Praeger.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. SAGE Publications.
von Wright, G. H. (1971). Explanation and Understanding. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Alexis, works in a field similar to mine. Heavy regulations, training demands, a less educated workforce. She was discussing the divide between the workers and the executives.
HOWEVER, I do feel as though our executive class would love to be able to do things to help the workers remain at the job and grow, but in many cases, we are stymied by state and federal bureaucracies and red tape. Initiatives like sponsoring child care for all of the single moms we hire or new parents would be a welcome benefit to our workers, but the challenges of setting something like up, having it linked to our business, staffing, etc etc made it impossible.
At my previous job, I wanted to have a "return to work" initiative to help parolees and former convicts find worthwhile work in our industry. However, background check requirements made this impossible despite the fact that I proved that these employees have far less turnover and increased retention than our average worker. I could go on and on, and it's always a tough nut to crack.
The second point I thought about as she wrote about public transportation challenges, was a podcast on public transportation that I heard on Freakonomics. Their contention was the benefits of providing free public transportation far outweigh the downsides. I had never thought about this before, but listening to the podcast changed my mind completely. The revenue from fares is negligible when compared to the operating costs, and the amount of time saved on routes is significant. When she discussed her workforces challenges in missing the bus, this came to mind. I don't think many municipalities have tried it, but the ones who have have seen benefits for workers and riders who use the systems. It was quite enlightening to me.
Recently, I've been challenging myself to always end on a positive note. So to that end, I will say that several of our workers work the system to their benefit and find a rewarding and profitable career. I met one guy, high school graduate, who traveled the country from Jan to April working different jobs. He would stay in company-paid hotels, his work clothes were paid for, he had a nice per-diem that he never fully used so he kept the extra, he didn't have to pay for a car since there was transportation every day to the plants, and between jobs, and he racked up tons of overtime.
Then he would take June to Aug off and then do it all again from Sep to November. In the winter months he would hunt and fish, in the summer months he would take the family to his lake house to mess around. No work demands at all during these months. He made enough in working just 6 months that he wouldn't have to work the other 6 months.
Not only that, he made so much in double time and over time that I found out later he made more in those 6 months than I did in annual salary! He was a testament to hard work paying off and being able to work the system to his advantage.
People are crazy. That’s the self-authored journal note today. Just that. Simple yet true. People are wacko.
Why do I say that? Well, for many reasons, but top of mind is what’s happening at work. I manage a couple of departments and several managers and directors. Some are easier than others to manage. One is going through some nonsense right now and I really don’t know how to help them out.
They have a worker, and he’s kind of a jerk. He doesn’t come off as a jerk, he just has this way of being a jerk. Now, we are all jerks in our own way. I’m a jerk often at work. I get asked out to lunch on an almost daily basis. Do I go? Mostly no. I force myself to go to lunches every now and then, but I don’t go as much as others, and I never enjoy it. In fact I despise it. So could I be seen as a jerk about that? Sure.
But I let the folks know who ask that that’s just not my thing. They seem to get it. And I don’t use it as a cudgel against them either.
This guy at work does. He looks for reasons to be upset and uses them easily against everyone around him. He’s newish to our organization, and tells us he just wants to be left alone, but the problem is he causes dissection and irritation instead of leaving alone. That’s not fair. You can’t say on the one hand, “I just want to be left alone” and on the other go around gossiping, causing problems, etc.
At first I thought he didn’t like the leadership. Namely me and the department manager. But now, I’m not so sure. I thought he was the type who felt he could do our jobs better. This is common. Everyone always thinks they can do that other persons job better (more on that later). But, now I’m beginning to think it’s more just his way. I don’t think this guy can work any other way. I think this is how he works.
Why do I think that?
Cause if anyone was that unhappy with the job they’d just find a new one right? This is the time to find new ones. Yet, he remains. And we have calls and calls and calls and meetings galore to try and figure out what to do. UGH! It’s such a pain in the ass. And all the time we just want him to either be a part of the team or just go away. Instead, he does neither. He stays and he continues to be an angry nuisance. I feel bad for those who have to work with him.
Self-authored me realizes that the world takes all types. That I don’t know what he’s working through. Maybe he has a horrid wife or home life and he comes to work and takes it out on us so he doesn’t hit his wife. Or he grew up with an abusive father and this is the only way he knows. Non-self authored me just thinks he’s crazy.
As a part of my class on Critical and Social Issues in Adult Education, we had to write an introduction that included a "diversity wheel." Now, I've never done a "diversity wheel" and I'm not sure how comfy I am sharing some of my diversity wheel characteristics with my class mates. Apparently, the inner parts of the wheel should include some fairly personal things.
It's been so long since I was in class, I feel like I'm out of sorts a bit. Am I looking forward to it? Not really. It's another qualitative class. It's fun to do the studies, but the classes at this point all run together. I'm what? Two classes from being done?
Just because I haven't had any classes doesn't mean I haven't been working. I've been writing this dissertation like a mad man! Almost done too.
Well, usually as a part of each class we have to start with introductions. In this class we have to start by recording our intro, so here's mine.
BTW . . . . I already miss reading!
I found three articles/studies that focus on the critical theories that exist around the concepts that I'm focused on for my significant literature class (a) values congruence, (b) fit theory, and (c) recruiting and retention.
Green (2017) looks into an equity-minded approach to foster a more community-focused relationship in schools. Green (2017) writes "educational leaders need an equity-centered knowledge base and skill set that can engender more socially just approaches and practices across urban school–community relationships," (p. 371) and they look at this using a framework and focus on three different types of schools/community models. Green (2017) concludes that a community equity literacy (CEL) prgrom is needed to make these changes, a program that consists of a more central focus on the community aspect of the relationship.
The second study, by White-Lewis (2020) has a focus and presents a study on whether or not hiring managers for higher education positions really use a "fit" framework when making decisions, and if so, is the framework they are using robust enough to ensure that hiring decisions are made in a more equitable manner. White-Lewis (2020) writes "the purpose of this study is to investigate how faculty search committee members individually evaluate and collectively select prospective early-career faculty. Using a critical person-environment fit theory specifies an empirically tested model of employee selection, providing an organizing framework and architecture to investigate how, when, and why different biases emerge when evaluating for candidate fit" (p. 834).
Finally, there is another article, not a study, but rather a chapter from a text, on equity-minded hiring by Liera and Ching (2019). The authors contend that despite efforts toward equalizing hiring among racial groups, administrators and faculty in higher education still favor non-minority candidates. Liera and Ching (2019) advocate reconfiguring and taking a closer look at fit theory used for hiring and what "merit" may mean to hiring and candidate selection committees.
All three of these studies/articles offer compelling new perspectives from the other articles that I've read, and help readers and researchers understand that fit, used for organizational hiring is not a static feature of the process but that it must be reviewed, results analyzed, and goals understood to ensure that the fit, the framework, and the hiring practices are meeting the goals of the organization.
References
Green, T. L. (2017). From positivism to critical theory: school-community relations toward community equity literacy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education: QSE, 30(4), 370–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2016.1253892
Liera, R., & Ching, C. (2019). Reconceptualizing “Merit” and “Fit.” In Higher Education Administration for Social Justice and Equity (pp. 111–131). Routledge.
White-Lewis, D. K. (2020). The facade of fit in faculty search processes. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(6), 833–857. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2020.1775058
Question 1: Reflecting on your own experiences after reading Images Outside the Mirror by Meneses (2016), what other countries/peoples/races/groups would you argue had a single history imposed on them and what were the consequences of that? Or with whom were they forced to share silences or memories?
Reflecting on this question, and having just returned from a central texas camping trip with the family, when I think about the area where we camped it was nice to see so much diversity of culture and history within that central Texas region.
There is a heavy influence of German tastes and cultures, German-style beer gardens are popping up all over the area, then there is a very prominent Mexican culture and history, as well as Polish, and now Indian and Chinese growing all throughout the state. When I consider the "single history" aspect of this and Texas History, I am surprised to what degree Texas and Texan's are "single-historied." Most of that single history revolves around 1836, the Alamo, and the war for Texas Independence (seeing the Alamo was a part of our trip). There are great things about this "single history" or "shared history." Texas has a pride of ownership within it's citizenry that starts at 1836 and helps to influence that "melting pot" approach of living.
However, after reading Menseses (2016) it made me think of the lost history that having a starting point of 1836 creates. Menseses writes "colonial relations came in many forms, such as conquest, rebellions, religious missions, scientific exploration, education, medical services commerce, and economic exploitation, voyages, art, etc. In addition to the absolute denial of the colonized, colonial relations, often marked by domination and violence, are also characterized by multifaceted processes of appropriation. There were numerous forms of appropriation, such as religious, economic, demographic, political, linguistic, artistic, intellectual, etc. With different intensities in space and time, these appropriations and (re)creations generated contradictions and conflicts throughout this process" (p. 120).
Sitting at the Alamo, thinking about all of the cultures around me, and that melting pot, I thought of the original Mexican inhabitants of Texas who became Texican's as the colonizers moved it. Then it made me think of the Apache and other Native American/Indian tribes that were colonized by the Mexican immigrants . . . and on and on through history to I suppose the original Clovis people of North America. That process of appropriation occurring over and over again. What from all of these cultures gets unexpressed or pushed down through the process of creating a single history? What shared silences are out there that are not known because of this process of constant and continuing appropriation? When I read that passage, especially while visiting the Alamo, where to separate groups of "colonizers" warred for Texas in a religious mission, all of what Menseses (2017) wrote about took on new color and a new perspective.
References
Meneses, M. P. (2016). Images outside the mirror? Download Images outside the mirror?Mozambique and Portugal in world history. In A. Darder, P. Mayo, and J. Paraskeva (Eds) International Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp.118-128). Routledge
