BACK TO MY HOME PAGE

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.


Getting rolled-up


Paulo Freire

A CALL TO FACULTY CHASING TENURE IN LIGHT OF ETHNIC STUDIES BATTLE

One-year ago today I published on my website a document titled Five Principles of Community in Diverse Learning Spaces in Light of Cultural Transformations. The document began, as a revised version of my Teaching Philosophy that I felt needed updating after two years. As I updated the text, I began to reflect on my mundane years as a faculty member. I had spent a major part of my campus hours advising and mentoring students outside of classroom hours. We talked about everything from college majors to health, sexuality, gang violence, aggression, identity, and spatial wellness. A focus of all conversations was the attainment of success, but only after addressing the struggle and failure that brought students to me in the first place. I was not surprised. As an adjunct faculty of color, fresh from graduate school, the challenges sounded all too familiar. All of them!
As I proceeded with the document, I felt a deep urge to integrate not only my teaching approach but also the call for support that was resonating through students’ voices the times we’d meet. As new faculty seeking employment, we are accustomed to submitting a cover letter, and if the position requires, a teaching philosophy, and that is it! Oh and the CV. I thought to myself wouldn’t it be more transformative to submit the sense of urgency that was being felt by our students, and the connection that we as faculty recognize, and ultimately aspire to cultivate. Wouldn’t it be better if my potential employer knew that I was sincere about the health and wellbeing of my students, outside of my scholarly merit?
Around the same time the text was being drafted I was in dialogue with colleagues who were playing the tenure game. The point was made that the principles paper could harm my chances of gaining employment. In similar fashion, one near and dear colleague was advised by a member of her PhD dissertation committee to takedown a YouTube video where she reflected on the current state of our society, and education at large. As the Ethnic Studies battle rages at Cal State L.A., I am again reminded of the fragileness of rookie faculty. The link between Paulo Freire’s critical consciousness and job security is very much a reality for many instructors with scary consequences. Vocal faculty get rolled-up by department heads for rattling cages all the time, I’ve seen this happen, as a student and faculty.
I too am chasing tenure having recently submitted four applications for a shot at full-time pay and benefits; one is the Ethnic Studies position at Fullerton College. Than I think about the students that I serve and my teaching approach. How in my classroom learning is a two way street. How I myself remain a student and have aspirations of one day completing a doctoral degree. How if it were not for the past civil disobediences that voiced their hearts and minds (with some fear I imagine), I would not be in the classroom that I am in today. Ethnic studies remains about community struggle and overcoming (transformation) not institutional policy and adherence (OPPRESSION).
So how can I possibly be silenced about my concerns, let alone concerns of the student population I serve, when I apply to a teaching institution? Not the case. To remedy the situation I felt that a stern principle’s of community would need to compliment my novice teaching philosophy. It is a WARNING to potential employers that calls for support made by students OF ANY COLOR would not go un-answered, regardless of how threatening these appear to be.

A CALL TO FACULTY CHASING TENURE IN LIGHT OF ETHNIC STUDIES BATTLE

Let us all attach a principles of community, a manifesto, a concerning document (what suites you best) addressing mounting student risks. Moreover, that we represent a generation of applied/transformative/de-colonial teacher-scholars that will not be silenced, nor threatened, by institutions, or their associated chairs and deans when we stand in solidarity with our students.

See my Five Principles of Community

Respectfully,


Santiago Andres Garcia, M.A.
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