Mexican-American writer and educator Aja Martinez affirms and proves her points on how socially marginalized education can be, especially when it comes to learn, embrace, and integrate different ethnical experiences in a school setting.
Martinez discusses these issues in a particular context, both political and geographical. She shares her experience in writing allegories through storytelling methods, which can be viewed as truthful fiction, by taking into consideration the place where she is, Arizona, and the multiple laws that have been against the Mexicans (House Bill 2281 and the Senate Bill 1070).
In her essay “Critical Race Theory Counterstory as Allegory: A Rhetorical Trope To Raise Awareness About Arizona’s Ban on Ethnics Studies“, Martinez explains how important and relevant storytelling is in a classroom. She reports various definitions of the word “allegory” and she also gives her own significance to the term: “a trope by which to render invisible forms of racism (structural or colorblind), visible” (page 1). She then confirms how relevant is the use of allegory in her writing. Allegories and fictional characters are important because they are a reflection of a certain and real situation.
The format of the storytelling narrative gives an opportunity to the readers or the listeners to explore a new approach to current problems. For this reason, she states that she sets her “allegory in the present anti-immigrant context that plagues Arizona and the nation at-large, and reference political and media coverage” and explores “assimilation, especially with regard to the protagonist, and the colonizing effects of an education that conquers the mind, crushes, and essentially obliterates a people’s worldview”.
After her allegorical story, about Rosette Benitez and her family, Martinez highlights the importance of this communicative choice in expressing her writing with an allegory. “This Mexican American character (the allegory’s protagonist) is warranted access to the inner workings of United States politics through her achievements in academia” (page 14). The story, with subtle references to the discriminations and laws that Arizona has performed and outlined during the last decade, empowers and gives a voice to the protagonist, who is not only one fictional individual, but a whole real class made mostly of young women and men. Those who in need of education are the most targeted, therefore such narrative could be beneficial to them, if explained and told with transparency.
The author encourages also comments and point of views fro other people. She welcomes diversity in her own unique experience. “I have written this counterstory to elicit discussion. I welcome readings and resulting discussions that explore additional meaning in either the themes or characters written herein” (page 14).
As a biracial scholar, Martinez doesn’t put all her effort and curiosity on just one specific context. Throughout her work and research, Martinez has collected several impressions and affirmations on how storytelling is a kind of resistance. In one article co-written with Dr. William Broussard from Elizabeth City State University, she points out how intrinsic and deep racism is, even though many of her students are not aware of the issue and all the mechanisms around it. She notices that most of these kids are white, hence their experience is shaped differently from other students, who are already told about their status and condition outside the four-wall classrooms.
” In our contemporary socio-political context, I rarely face this question, and I find myself forgetting that my young, predominantly White students who attend a private predominantly White institution still have much to learn about race relations in our institutional spaces. Considering this context and my own identity as Chicana — of Mexican-American and indigenous ancestry, born and raised in the U.S. Southwest — I find the most accessible point of entry to conversations about racial justice for my students is through story — counterstory, to be specific” (from Storytelling as #Resistance, diverseeducation.com).
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Giulia, you write with passion here about Martinez and her representation of marginalized voices. I want to point out a couple things to consider as you go forward.
You sometimes pack multiple thoughts into one sentence, like this: “She shares her experience in writing allegories through storytelling methods, which can be viewed as truthful fiction, by taking into consideration the place where she is, Arizona, and the multiple laws that have been against the Mexicans.” I think a sentence like this would be clearer and more persuasive if you broke your ideas into parts; for example, you could define the function of allegory in one sentence and express Martinez’s content in another sentence.
Your in-text citations are very helpful, and please remember to include a works cited list whenever citing sources for me.
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