Post #4 - Beginnings, topics, stories for my Literacy Autobiography

Learning to read and write has been a real struggle throughout my life. Tracing back to my earliest memory I remember my parents trying to teach me the sounds of each letter in the alphabet. I was 7 years old and was sitting at the kitchen table with a pencil in one hand and an alphabet chart in the other. I think it was around 10:00pm which for a 7 year old was considered rather late. Sitting on the opposite side of the table were both of my parents looking at me with frustrated, tried, and upset faces. I remember they had spent several hours trying to teach me the sounds of each letter in the alphabet. They would take turns pronouncing the sounds of every letter. My mom began by saying, “Alligator A goes AAAAH, Butterfly B goes Buh-Buh, Camel C goes Cuh-Cuh.” Then my dad would interrupt and say, “Dolphin D goes Duh-Duh, Elephant E goes Eh” and so on. I also remember looking at my parent's exaggerated expression every time they would make a sound for a letter in the alphabet.

I don’t really know if this experience was effective in teaching me how to read, but I do know that it was a very confusing time because my parents were also going through the same process of learning how to read and write in English. My parents at the time had just emigrated from Mexico and carried with them a heavy Spanish accent. Consequently, the sounds they would make for each letter in the alphabet would be really different from the sounds I heard at school.

As a result, my interpretation of that memory has changed over time. As a child, this experience was very confusing since my parents and teachers had different sounds for each letter. However, as a teenager this memory turned into a hilarious recollection because I remembered my parents taking turns making exaggerated sounds for each letter and animal in the alphabet. Now as a twenty year old, this recollection is one of the most beautiful memories in my childhood because it represents the hard work and determination my parents put in trying to teach me how to read. I now understand the struggles they were going through because they were trying to teach me a language they barely knew themselves. I hold this memory very close to my heart because it embodies the first steps I took in learning how to properly speak, write and read.

Post #3 - Redefining the "Contact Zone"

Contact zones, as defined by Mary Louise Pratt, are “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often as highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination.” In the past I have been in classes that were used as vehicles for the initiation of contact zones. These classes have struck me as very interesting because they touch on sensitive aspects of our history that can be applied to each student in the class. For example, in a class I took my sophomore year titled History 7B dealt with Colonialism in the Americas and mainly brought up topics regarding African-American slavery, Native American (U.S. and non-U.S.) encounters with Europeans, and Asian immigration in the Americas. Every race, ethnicity, and culture that ever existed in the Americas was brought up into investigation and was closely examined. This class was a prime example of several cultures clashing and meeting to create an intense contact zone.

No race or culture was spared in this class. If you were Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American you were going to explore the highs and lows of your ancestry in the Americas which stretched from the northern tip of Alaska in North America to the most southern tip of Chile in South America. From this class I realized that contact zones are an integral part of all of our histories not only here in the United States, but in all of the Americas. Through my education here at UCB I was allowed to come into contact and have deep discourse with several different types of cultures. Thus I strongly feel that education can be a good vehicle for the exploration of contact zones. Education can be the catalyst to which we greet other cultures with respect and reverence for one another; and at the end of the day revisit our safe-houses where we can return to our community members of with which we have an easier time identifying with.

However, after reading Pratt’s definition of contact zones I wonder why contact zones must be a point where “highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination come into contact- like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out across the globe today?” In other words, is it really necessary to have a dominant-subordinate relationship between cultures in order for there to be a contact zone? Why can’t there simply be a contact zone where there are two different cultures, but they both regard each other as equal? I find it extremely illogical that for there to be dialogue between two cultures and sharing of ideas one culture must be subordinate. I think there can be a mutual relationship where there is a constant sharing of ideas between two cultures without subordination.

What do YOU think?.......