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Welcome students and colleagues, friends and family, if you have made it this far, I encourage you to stay a bit longer and read about some of my work. The writings reflect many of the thoughts that I carry with me throughout the course of a day, evening, and often times, the dreams that take hold of me while I sleep. The verses represent the inner voice in me that speaks of the past, the present, and the future. Writing is my ultimate form of expression that allows me to reflect, inspire, get well, and grow. The energy that feeds my work, I pull from themes that correspond to Mesoamerica, my ancestral place of birth, and the area I study. References to symbols of the past, deities, and natural phenomenon, dominate certain pieces, and blend with current verses of life, love, and death. I have never taken a writing class... the only "style" that exhibits my work is the one that I create from my imagination, heart, and dreams.

I’m an avid builder and horticulturalist, and so I spend a lot of my time building things and growing different types of herbs and plant food. I do not identify as an artist nor do I make art for aesthetic purposes; my work solely materializes a ritual-ceremonial or utilitarian function. The craft of working with wood I learned from my father, by watching him design and build homes throughout much of my adolescent youth. I also learned how to work with stone by watching my uncles construct brick and rock landscapes, in the wealthy neighborhoods were they labored during much of the 1980s, when construction was booming. My paternal grandpa Juan was also a craftsman, hence why all his sons became builders of some sort, and so building has always been an integral part of my family’s trade history. I learned about plant cultivation from my abuelita Mercedes on my paternal side and my abuelito Severo on my maternal side. Much of the landscaping strategies that I learned from my grandparents came with them from Mexico when they migrated to Alta California, in the early 1960s, along with my parents. A lot of the building and planting strategies that my family has implored have been in use for over 3,000 years. It is my purpose to revitalize and sustain these ancestral practices through ceremony, household building, and plant cultivation.

My fascination with building and growing food is not only familial, but also physical-skeletal (see my Physical Anthropology 101 blog), and because so, I have an admiration for the morphology of the human hand. The hand is unlike any part of the body, and because we use our hands every day, we literally take them for granted, sometimes failing to notice their full potential use. Our hands are our first weapons of choice in an attack, yet they are the first part of the body that we extend when helping or consoling someone. With our hands, we build shelter, writer letters, prepare food, and unknowingly, make love. Our hand-digit coordination is unique because it is precise, well adapted for creating, and for using and making tools. Hand-digit use coordination has been a part of our human evolutionary past since we inhabited arboreal environments, way before we developed bipedalism. When combined with tool use, the creative use of the hands has the capability of decolonizing our minds and bodies.

My inquiry into the relationship between hand-bone morphology usage and social behavior remains in the early stages. Nonetheless, some preliminary findings I modeled in a recent paper where I discuss the role of the hands, and early human tool making, in the creation of spatial wellness. The paper is published in Vol. 3 No. 4 of the International Journal of Development and Sustainability.


Baked squash and pumpkin seeds


Squash, White Squash, and Jack-o-lantern seeds

1) Fill foil pan with seeds
2) add desired amount of sea salt
3) bake in oven for 25 minutes at 400

Store in glass jar and enjoy all winter... and wine for lust taste


Household Building Sustainability

 
Household Building Sustainability
I follow D.H. Meadow’s (1998) further development of the “Daly Triangle” (see Herman E. Daly 1973), which outlines the ultimate ends of human wellbeing.  According to Meadow these are:  happiness, harmony, identity, fulfillment, esteem, self-realization, community, transcendence, and enlightenment.  In this paper, wellbeing and spatial wellness are synonymous.  However, spatial wellness also links the inter-relationship between mind, body, and the material world.  In the household, spatial wellness, I define as the ultimate ends of living space in response to social transformations and the negotiation of building materials.  Therefore, household building sustainability (HBS) as an applied household science aims to achieve spatial wellness within the scale of the home (Diagram B).  In practice, HBS moves beyond building materials to encompass the modification and negotiation of all material culture to improve health and achieve wellness.  It asks the agent to develop a critical consciousness, as a pre-requisite or learning goal, requiring further sustainable systems to be resilient, low-maintenance, and capable of restoration through time.  The sustainable house must return a multitude of services, material and spiritual, for aiding human health and wellbeing.  This echoes the goal described by landscape scientists under the premise of landscape sustainability science: “Landscape sustainability science is a place-based, use-inspired science of understanding and improving the dynamic relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes under uncertainties arising from internal feedbacks and external disturbances” (Wu 2013:999). 

Eric Draven

Eric Draven
In Memory of Juan Angel Garcia, Bruce, and Brandon Lee

Pa que no velen

Skulls, squash, and maize in my altar...
I just want to run my fingers through your hair... So that I could feel your skull. You know Dia de Los Muertos is just around the corner y me quiero morir contigo. Pa que nos velen juntos con flores y pan muerto. Tal vez un trago... y una cerveza.

Critical Ancestral Computing

PsychNology Journal, 2013

Volume 11, Number 1, 91 – 112


 
Critical Ancestral Computing:
A Culturally Relevant Computer Science Education
DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER NOW in .PDF
 
Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval, Ph.D.
 
ABSTRACT
 
At first glance ancestral knowledge and computer science appear incompatible. Critical ancestral computing—socio-cultural and historical ecosystem approaches to solve complex problems—as an epistemological center for computer science education opens a pathway of critical consciousness, academic success and cultural relevance (Ladson-Billings, 2009). Weaving both disciplines to build a tapestry of critical ancestral computing in urban computer science education sets a stage for social transformation of present-day colonialism (Orelus, 2012). Critical ancestral computing feeds 1) a socio-historical learning context, 2) positive cultural academic identity formations, and 3) advocacy approaches that link engagement with society as individual and collective action by interrupting neocolonialism and prioritizing the health of social and environmental well-being.
 
Keywords: critical ancestral computing, indigenous epistemology, critical theory, culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, computer science education, Mesoamerica, urban education, decolonial scholarship.
 
 
Paper Received 12/11/2012; received in revised form 01/05/2013; accepted 01/05/2013.

 
 

Served with love


Yuman Yellow Corn
The best foods are not bought or sold
Only gifted
Nurtured with your hands from the very start
Born of the Earth
Prepared with heart and soul
Loaded with energy
And served with love


A Boxers Approach to Teaching


A Boxers Approach to Teaching

Idealist by nature – realist in practice; give me something I can feed my students.  Something they can take and start using right away.  The truth is… some of my students have no interest in the material; they’re just looking to meet the transfer requirement.  Other students are just learning the ropes, testing college, and building-up their academic identities.  For some…  my class is the last class they’ll take before realizing college is not for them.  In these college classrooms, academic and life pipelines are still being constructed and navigated.  Theory is useful but it’s not always practical.

The atmosphere here is like a boxing match… both teacher and student need to know when to jab, punch, pull-away, and throw a combination.  Sometimes we dance, sometimes we lean on the ropes, and sometimes we get pinned into a corner.  We expect to get hit, maybe even knocked out… but we always protect ourselves.  Sportsmanship allows us to keep things classy and no low blows are allowed (you’ll have points deducted if you swing below the belt).  If we win we throw our hands up high in the air and pump our fist - pose for a picture.  If we lose, we hug our foe, and get back into the gym.

Nickels and Dimes

Las Tres Hermanas (The Three Sisters) 
Pinto Beans
Hopi Blue Corn
Nickels and Dimes

I get emotional when I talk about corn
Especially blue corn… They are like my children
I planted their seeds and nourished their soil
I cultivated them into something beautiful and rewarding
I’m going to give some to my family and friends
I’m going to drop seeds wherever I can, and some ill just
keep in my pocket like nickels and dimes
I’m going to buy your love with everything I grow

How to bend as an adjunct


Its okay to bend, we all have to bend.  But do it in a way that honors what you bring to the table.  The good teachers that bounce back into the semester always do so with something new under their belt.  Create a new worksheet, add some major readings, speak in a new language, or find another way to assess student learning.  And even if you are not recognized, you’ll be happy that the work you did is your own, and you can take that anywhere, no one can take it from you.