ERIC Number: EJ1161602
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1559-5692
EISSN: N/A
"Mi Historia Familiar Es Sencilla" ("My Family History Is Simple"): Testimonio in the New Latino Diaspora
McClure, Greg; Fitts, Shanan
Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, v12 n1 p14-27 2018
In this paper, we share the testimonio of Santana, an immigrant from rural México, who explained the ways that she navigates her life and raises her children as a Latina immigrant woman here in the southeastern United States. Our inquiry is guided by analysis of ethnographic interviews conducted with Santana over a period of three years. We argue that Santana saw these interviews as an opportunity to share "testimonios"--embodied life stories that bear witness to a history of social injustice. Testimonio centralizes marginalized knowledge and documents a collective experience of injustice via an individual narrative. Santana's testimonio underscores the complex ways that Latina migrants draw from embodied experiences to resist oppression and "sobrevivir," a verb that implies not only enduring, but moving forward with knowledge, power, self-confidence, and creativity. We argue that her testimonio disrupts the power relations embedded in the traditional hierarchy between the researcher and the research participant.
Descriptors: Mexican Americans, Females, Personal Narratives, Ethnography, Interviews, Social Bias, Social Discrimination, Experience, Resistance (Psychology), Self Esteem, Resilience (Psychology), Creativity, Power Structure, Undocumented Immigrants
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: North Carolina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A