Lorenzo Rivera

ED 405 A
Dr. Irene Villanueva
Personal Reflection on Positionality
Where I come from, my family history and my personal history play a major role
in my decision to pursue education with a social justice lens. Everyones personal
histories and experiences form the way they look at the world. For me, education
helped me critically examine the injustices that were occurring around me and that I saw
when I was growing up. Education became an outlet, a way to think these issues
through to potentially make a change. This is part of the reason why I came into
education, so that I could tackle some of these injustices from the start.
I am a child of two immigrant parents from Mexico. Growing up we faced many
hardships but I recognize that I am in a place of great privilege. By the time I was in
middle school my father had been working at a company for over 10 years and was
finally receiving a lower middle class income, rather than the minimum wage income he
had been receiving up until that point. This gave my sister and I the opportunity to
become educated past the secondary level. I grew up in a very diverse community, the
cultures that were most represented neighborhood were Filipino and Mexican.
Throughout my elementary and secondary education I saw the various injustices taking
shape within the schools that I attended. More attention was focused on education
certain students and there was less effort put into the students whose first language
was not English. I saw this happening in kindergarten all the way through high school.
I was fortunate enough to attend a small liberal arts college that was focused on
critical pedagogy. We were taught to critically think and reflect rather than memorize
and regurgitate, which is very different from most colleges and universities in the United
States. This form of education allowed me to form my own ideas and opinions. During
my first year I was introduced to W.E.B. Du Bois and during my second year I was
introduced to Marx. Being introduced to various radical and critical thinkers throughout
my college education shaped the way that I now view the world. My college education
opened my eyes to the various injustices in our world and our country and it was then
that I knew I had to do something that helped make a change. My education allowed
me to form my own definition of social justice; equal opportunity and an equal amount of
access to different forms of wealth for all people no matter race, ethnicity, gender,
sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, etc. My idea of social justice, due in part to
my college education, takes on a somewhat of a socialist standpoint. It also helped me
form my definition of education; an experience that allows us to transcend the concrete,
to theorize it, to critically think about it and to apply it in our daily lives.
It wasnt until I went to college that I felt a sense of community, since I did not feel
any attachment to where I grew up. The college that I attended had around 400
students which meant that there was never a new face. I joined the Latino Student
Alliance, which I later became president of, I became a part of this small community. I
do not have a set definition of community because for me community can mean so
many things. Community can mean a place, for example the community of East Los
Angeles. Community can mean a group of people, like the Latino Student Alliance I
was a part of. Community can mean a group of like minded people from a certain area.
Community has many different definition, but for the purpose of the Community Inquiry
Project I see community as a place, a geographical location.
Although I grew up in a community very similar to East LA in some ways I know
that each time I step foot in East LA I am an outsider. Speaking Spanish allows me to
talk to many people in this community but It does not automatically take away my
outsider status. In order to become apart of the community I must always enter with
respect for all of the people in the community. Walking around with a clipboard, taking
notes and asking interrogating questions will only distance myself even further from the
community. Since I have a very radical view of the world I cannot bring myself to this
form of ethnographic note taking in the community, I would much rather be immersed in
the culture of the community, talk to people and let the conversation develop naturally. I
am also not approaching the community as a white savior/ hero because, approaching
the community in this manner will also create a distance between me and the
community. I will go into the communities with respect. I will listen to what people want
to tell me, I will tell them about myself and what I am doing. I can only become a part of
the community if the members of that community invite me to.