Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Two Cents, Sam Avila

New and Dangerous Ideas

I took a Literature class a couple of years ago where we read different poems and short stories that focused on the Civil Rights Movement as well as social justice as a broader theme. I remember reading the poem “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall, which magnified the emotions of African-American families in a powerful piece of literature. When I read that piece, I fell in love with writing again and I wanted to share stories through literature.

I wrote this piece because it was a way for me to reflect on a society that can act so hateful towards …

That Is So Gay, Daniel Nemec

New and Dangerous Ideas

The piece I created shows the complex and varied subject that is identity, specifically pertaining to the queer community.

The United States Healthcare System Keeps Failing Black Women, Vanessa Malkia

New and Dangerous Ideas

Writing this piece, I was pushed by the anger I constantly feel anytime I am reminded of the state of black women’s health in our country. As a black woman in a world that constantly reminds black people that we do not matter, hearing about the negative experiences black women face at the hands of healthcare professionals is incredibly frightening. It begs this question to be asked: Where are we safe? Racism (racist beliefs and acts) has real repercussions that sometimes put minoritized groups in deadly situations.

Due to a combination of implicit bias and structural inequalities, black women have …

This Is Not A Woman's Body, Av Binns

New and Dangerous Ideas

I was inspired to create this drawing while learning about the AIDS crisis, and the use of human bodies in acts of civil disobedience calling for government recognition and medical support of people living with AIDS. The queer community, with limited financial and political support, used their bodies for tools of resistance and visibility. Queer bodies were not only tools for marching and blocking streets; they were evidence of the severity of the issue at hand. AIDS was hard to ignore when it was gathered in the streets. Decades later, queer bodies remain an essential tool of advocacy for the …

David Wojnarowicz By Peter Hujar (1981), Kieran Binney

New and Dangerous Ideas

The poem is an ekphrastic piece, meaning it was inspired by a work of art — in this case, a portrait of David Wojnarowicz, photographed by Peter Hujar in 1981. Both Wojnarowicz and Hujar were prominent artists and gay activists in the 1970s and 80s, during the height of the AIDS crisis, and both died of AIDS-related illnesses.

I originally picked this portrait to write about for a class assignment simply because it was a striking image, but as I looked into Wojnarowicz’s background I grew more interested in both his life and the time in which he lived, and …

Like Mother, Like Daughter, Savannah Fox-Tree Mcgrath

New and Dangerous Ideas

My motivation for this piece was to shed light on what it is like growing up with a heritage, knowing it from your experience and family, and yet, having people challenge you your whole life to prove it. No one questions my German, Irish, or Finnish ethnicity, but, since I don’t match the stereotype of a Native American, I am constantly challenged.The image on my painting depicts my twin sister, Indigo, the only one of us five kids to have blonde hair and blue eyes, from my mother’s mother and my father’s mother and father. Having a mother who was …

Would You Be Comfortable Living With Someone Who Identifies As Homophobic?

New and Dangerous Ideas

Entering college for the first time is a very exciting time. You are starting a new chapter of your life, meeting new people, and living independently. While I had the same anxieties that many have over making friends and adjusting to college life, I could not have been prepared for the experience of my freshman year. My first semester at Roger Williams was a very dark time. I cannot express how harmful it is to be excluded and disliked in your living space because of a part of yourself which you cannot change. I was fortunate that I was able …

Artist Statements

New and Dangerous Ideas

Statements of artistic creations and ideas.

What Is The Opportunity Cost And Burden Of Confronting Oppression In And Out Of Classroom?, Beza Tadess

New and Dangerous Ideas

I was inspired to write this piece because at many points in my college career, I have felt exploited by the hands of white patriarchy that deemed the issues that I faced in and out of the classroom as my own to solve. This piece is my heart and intellect in order for me to leave this institution feeling like someone with power will be forced to hear it. I did not write this piece with the intention of inciting pity but rather to start a conversation with the larger university and higher education community about the ways in which …

New And Dangerous Ideas Back Cover

New and Dangerous Ideas

Page Image of New and Dangerous Ideas Back Cover.

Zine Team Advisors And Members Of Faculty Selection Committee

New and Dangerous Ideas

Page image of Zine Team Advisors and Members of Faculty Selection Committee.

A Poem For A Small Town Queer Kid, Indigo Martin

New and Dangerous Ideas

I wrote this piece originally for myself. It was a healing piece about coming to terms with my past and embracing it. Embracing my past is important to me because being discriminated against, being put in violent situations, experiencing microaggressions, and being made to feel like less than a human being has made me stronger. Minoritized people who do social justice work have often experienced some deep trauma. It is important to focus on healing and take care of one’s mental health in order to be able to be activists for social justice.

This piece opens with my experiences being …

Ancestry, Indigo Martin

New and Dangerous Ideas

Ancestry websites like 23 and Me or Ancestry.com remove the culture and the meaning behind the concept of ancestry. Ancestry as a concept means looking back at the culture we come from and the ways of life that shaped our ancestors. With queerness, ancestry cannot be traced through bloodlines. It is a passing down of culture through word of mouth. This culture has not been preserved over time but rather erased. This piece is a social commentary on the erased culture of queerness and showing the culture and what has kept it hidden. As someone who identifies as both queer …

Assembling A Hispanic-Serving Institution: A Campus Landscape Analysis Of A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Brenda Lee Jimenez Sifuentez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Post-secondary educational spaces are often thought of as a backdrop to where education takes place. Architectural designs are seen as neutral sites; however, higher education institutions are sites of ideological production and therefore, fundamental exercises of power (Ford, 2017). The study of campus landscapes is relevant to uncovering and illuminating larger social issues of (in)equality in higher education. Literature regarding campus landscapes is scarce and this study seeks to demonstrate how the study of campus landscapes is both materially "real" and socially constructed. This study takes place at a four-year institution of higher education that has received the Hispanic Serving …

Using Spanish In English-Language Spaces: Identifying Bilingual Composition Students' Translanguaging Practices, Maria Isela Maier

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is a qualitative study that uses ethnographic research methods to examine the translanguaging practices of bilingual students in first-year composition at a university along the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, I observe how and why bilingual students employ translanguaging practices, as they are encouraged or invited by their instructors, in contexts where English Standard Language policies exist. The results of this qualitative project demonstrate bilingual students' use of translation as part of their translanguaging practices, as well as a tool that uncovers students' writing processes which also demonstrates their language negotiation. Furthermore, the students' translanguaging practices reveal the rhetorical use …

Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions Of Their International Teaching Assistants (Itas) And Perceptions Of Themselves In A Course(S) Instructed By An Ita, Nadia Hanayeen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The University of Arkansas is a large, diverse public university. International teaching assistants (ITAs) represent 20% of the total graduate teaching assistants at the University of Arkansas. In the Fall semester of 2015, the University of Arkansas ranked 9th among U.S. universities based on the number of ITAs instructing undergraduate classes. Combining quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods, this study investigated domestic undergraduate students’ perceptions of their ITAs and of themselves in courses instructed by ITAs. The descriptive quantitative findings showed that the two most significant challenges facing ITAs are American students’ perceptions of their pedagogical skills and …

“Siento Que Siempre Tengo Que Regresar Al Inglés”: Embracing A Translanguaging Stance In A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Sandra I. Musanti, Alyssa G. Cavazos

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This chapter centers on our reflections and pedagogical moves as two bilingual educators at a Hispanic-Serving Institution on the borderland region of South Texas, a predominantly bilingual and bicultural community. Specifically, the chapter documents how we embrace a translanguaging pedagogical stance. Translanguaging practices are identity markers and represent the complex ways bilinguals use their linguistic repertoire to communicate across contexts and to negotiate social identities (García & Li Wei, 2014; Martinez-Roldán, 2015). Drawing on García, Johnson, and Seltzer’s (2017) conceptualization of a translanguaging “corriente,” we describe our translanguaging stance and moves as we, respectively, design and teach two undergraduate courses: …

Project Summary: Mapping International Refugee Access To Higher Education, Melody Viczko Dr, Marie-Agnès Détourbe Dr, Shannon Mckechnie

Education Publications

There are approximately 25 million refugees around the world, and over half of this 25 million are under the age of 25. While many refugees hold strong aspirations to attend higher education, about 3% of refugees have access due to political, social and economic challenges. The challenge is how to understand, support, and develop successful greater access to higher education for refugees.

Dear Students Of Color, Melissa Mota

New and Dangerous Ideas

Why are we hated for the things that we cannot control? Why is the killing of a black man just another sequel? Why don’t black lives matter?

Sensuality, Sara Slowik

New and Dangerous Ideas

My quilt is an intimate object that explores sexuality, feminism, beauty, and the vulnerability of women. I explored these topics through hand-stitching sensual images onto squares of fabric, which I then sewed into a quilt. There is a conflicting connection between the security of a quilt and the vulnerability of the images. In my Mixed Media class, I explored the ways in which society's views on nudity causes tension between security and vulnerability. Sensuality is a taboo topic, yet it fills the media. Where is the line between sexualizing women and embracing their bodies and beauty? This quilt was created …

Letter From The Editor, Lily Schenk

New and Dangerous Ideas

A summary of the first issue of New and Dangerous Ideas.

On Apocalypses: 11.9.16, Raffi Altman-Allen

New and Dangerous Ideas

I wrote this piece as my way of trying to come to terms with the most recent presidential election. I needed to process how weird it was that something so impactful and terrible had happened, but everyday life didn't stop existing. My hope is that this poem will offer encouragement to those of us involved in social justice work in the wake of the election. I would also want this to act as an acknowledgment that in other places in the world people are living in war-zones, surrounded constantly by death and destruction, and still get up in the morning …

Lotus Blossom, Meg Dela Dingco

New and Dangerous Ideas

In making Lotus Blossom, I hoped to bring light to the fact that Asians do face racism and how Asian women, in particular, have been fetishized. There are many misconceptions that racism is only violent in specific ways, such as the genocide of Indigenous people or much of America being built on the slavery of Blacks and African Americans. Through ｌｏｔｕｓ ｂｌｏｓｓｏｍ, I wanted to show that racism isn't based only on physical violence (although I did cover the demographics of Asians when it comes to being victims of sexual assault), it is also about history.

Table Of Contents

New and Dangerous Ideas

Photocopy of the Table of Contents.

No Te Pierda, Xante Chalwell

New and Dangerous Ideas

The Dominican Republic is globally portrayed as a paradise. Tourists flock from every corner of the earth to experience the glamorized side of the Dominican Republic. However, few venture out to the reality. The reality that is a two-tier caste system, exemplified by the city of Punta Cana. Security guards and gates separate the two starkly different realities of this nation.

Nasty, Paulina Kobylar

New and Dangerous Ideas

There are numerous ways to combat institutionalized oppression, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and violence. One way just so happens to be through the art. This piece explores identity groups who are discriminated against every day, which President Trump has only emphasized through his actions and words. It questions why the history of our country has divided people by the color of their skin, why powerful men can say what they please about the female body, why heterosexuality is the only sexual orientation, why people should fall on either side of a gender binary, and why violence has continually …

Black Life Mater: Debunked!, Asia A. Carter-Lamb

New and Dangerous Ideas

The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2012 to combat racial targeting after the death of Trayvon Martin. The purpose of the movement, according to the Black Lives Matter Guiding Principles, is to serve as “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise” and “an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.” From meetings with Democratic National Convention leaders, to attending a meeting at the White House at the invitation of the President, the Black Lives Matter movement …

Different Tongues, Skyler Moncada

New and Dangerous Ideas

I wanted to share my experience as an individual who often intervenes in challenging or dangerous situations who was transformed into a bystander by a familiar situation that occurred in an unfamiliar setting. While my study abroad experience was undoubtedly one of the best moments in my life, it brought a lot of discomfort in the forms of different cultures, settings, peoples, and expectations.

Afrobeat, Elfreda Hoff

New and Dangerous Ideas

My dance is called Afrobeat. You may ask, what is Afrobeat? Afrobeat is a unique style of dance and popular music embracing elements of African music, jazz, soul, and funk. I used a mixture of African songs that focus on romance, self-love, and acceptance. I ended my dance with a powerful song that talks about always pushing through no matter what the struggles and hard times will be.

Prisoner Of America, Kat Vicente

New and Dangerous Ideas

I wanted to expose the fact that many understand that we do not live in a just world but they do nothing to fight against it either, which makes them part of the problem. It just shows that you can know something is wrong, but if you chose not to do anything about it, then you have sided with the oppressors.