The
last time I spoke with Vincente Ximenes we talked about my hometown
of San Angelo, Texas. He recalled with nostalgic humor how the
Tejanos and Tejanas in West Texas were a bit stubborn and a bit set
in their ways. Ximenes followed this accurate critique by telling me
that those that did listen to the message of progress and equality
via Mexican American Civil Rights were some of the most dedicated and
most vocal activists he had ever met.
After
our conversation, I reflected on the importance of Ximenes’s work
to scholars such as myself. As a young woman raised and educated in
West Texas, I was a definitive homegrown scholar, as much a part of
my community as I was a part of academia. Through Ximenes’s stories
about my hometown, I began to acknowledge this and embrace it. What
an honor it was to come to this realization through Ximenes’s fond
memories of San Angelo and his time there as an activist and
organizer.
As
a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of New
Mexico, I am taking a path like the one forged by Ximenes on his
journey from Floresville, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico, I have
made my way west to cultivate the academic side of my role as citizen
scholar. My dissertation, titled “The Chicana Speaks: Dolores
Huerta and the Chicana as Rhetor,” is the cornerstone of this
journey. My dissertation
examines the role of Dolores Huerta as a paradigmatic Chicana rhetor.
Known as “La
Huelgista,” Huerta
has worked tirelessly for the last four decades in pursuit of Mexican
American labor and civil rights. Through her position as lobbyist and
speaker for multiple organizations and foundations, she has
accomplished the monumental feat of the Chicana voice from the oikos
into the polis.
I take as my primary texts for analysis Huerta’s own words, her
1969 Statement to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, a
1973 debate between Huerta and Chuck O’Brien of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, and her 2009 Commencement Keynote Address
at UCLA. Ultimately, I argue that the confluences of Huerta’s
upbringing, her critically progressive embodiment of Chicanisma, and
her adept rhetorical skills positions her as an efficacious Chicana
rhetor. My work is in honor of activists and speakers such as Huerta
and Ximenes and the profound impact they have made in American
Rhetoric. I believe that the time is upon us to begin cultivating
these voices as part of our canon.
As
Ximenes scholars, we all strive to move the work we are doing within
the confines of academia into the community. An example of this came
with the 2013 Writing the World Symposium, held at the University of
New Mexico on April 19th,
2013. As the 2013 Chair of UNM’s Writing Across Communities, I had
the pleasure of helping to organize this symposium with a cadre of
like-minded citizen scholars. This symposium brought together
academics, poets, tutors, students, and community members in forum on
issues concerning literacy practices in our dynamic and diverse
university and community. Vibrant and varied panels led to personal
and professional connections for presenters and attendees. From these
connections arose continuing conversations on how to best engage and
enact literacy practices that are local and vocal and effective to
our communities.
Vincente
Ximenes’s legacy of interweaving civic duties with scholarly
endeavors lives on through the Ximenes Scholarship and those, such as
myself, who have the honor of receiving it.
c/o Professor Michelle Kells, Associate Professor, Rhetoric & Writing, University of New Mexico
No comments:
Post a Comment