AATSP Collaborative Helps Build Bridges Between Anglos
and Latinos in Central Pennsylvania
By Wanda L. Codero Ponce and Barbara A. Corbin
Susquehanna University
The RÁo Arriba chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and
Portuguese (AATSP) meets regularly on the campus of Susquehanna University, located in the
rural heart of Central Pennsylvania. Over the course of the past six years a strong
collaborative relationship between regional high school Spanish teachers and those at the
University level has helped establish a wide array of activities and programs whose goal
it is to build bridges the schools.
The seeds for this collaboration were initially sown by the service-learning course
"Spanish for the Service Professions," which has been offered at Susquehanna for
more than ten years. As the initially small Latino population increased in our area, it
was a natural transition for the University to sponsor a series of educational and
cultural activities, including the annual Latino Symposium held for the have featured
outstanding Latino performance artists. In addition, local Latino and Anglo high school
students have been included as panelists, theater performers, and interactive audience
participants. The concluding highlight of the annual symposium is the evening gala
dinner-dance featuring live Latino music. The strength of these programs is the positive
interaction and communication between Latinos and Anglos of all generations, enriching
cross-cultural understanding and appreciation.
The most exciting recent development in this collaborative effort is
"Reconstructing the Past; Reaching for the Future," a Latino oral history
project involving Latino high school students from three regional schools who researched
the history of their families and local Latino communities. The first phase of this
project, funded by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, consisted of a
planning workshop in January of 1998, in which University and high school faculty, Latino
community leaders, and experts in oral history collaborated to determine the overall
project content and design.
The second phase, funded by a grant from the Aid Association for Lutherans, began with
the selection and training of the student participants. Regional AATSP high school Spanish
teachers distributed program announcements and encouraged Latino students to participate.
Students had to complete an application form, write an essay, and send two letters of
reference from teachers and/or community leaders. Once selected, the students met for a
weekend workshop at Susquehanna University in late February. On the first day of the
workshop, they received instruction and demonstration in the procedures for conducting
oral history interviews. The second day was devoted to individual practice in conducting
oral histories, followed by instructor and peer evaluation of their interviewing
techniques. Students were then provided with tape recorders, blank cassette tapes,
suggested interview questions, and were instructed to conduct two practice interviews with
Latino adults in their communities. Four weeks later, the students and instructors met
again to evaluate the practice experience and discuss the problems and successes they had
encountered while conducting the interviews. The Latino students were then ready to begin
the actual job of collecting the oral histories for the project. One final meeting was
held to assist the students in learning the procedure for compiling a master index of each
taped interview in order to facilitate the retrieval of information which they would need
to produce the final project in June.
With this groundwork accomplished, the students came to campus again at the end of June
for the culminating weeklong workshop. The goal for the workshop was for them to produce
material based on their oral history interviews to be published on a web page. The week
began with several brainstorming sessions where the students explored the content and
possible formats they wished to use for their web page. Each student wrote an
autobiographical description and then worked on creating an original way to present
highlights of the life stories they had collected. Several worked together to create a
magazine-styled format, which they called "Boricua," as a vehicle to relate the
oral histories of the Latinos they interviewed. Others used the format of a fictitious
newspaper, with themselves as the star reporters, to introduce their interviewees. They
all shared their ideas and work as it progressed, allowing for constant peer evaluation
and constructive criticism. The directors of the workshop gave continual support and
feedback, and helped the students with the editing process. By the end of the week, the
students had completed the writing and editing process and had indicated what photographs
and/or oral portions of the taped interviews they wished to include. After the students
left campus, the technical advisors for the project took the students' work and created
the web page for the Latino oral history project. Finally, the student authors came to
Susquehanna University once more in August 1998, to review and edit their web page before
it was published. The Latino Oral History Web Page can be accessed through the Modem
Language Department Web Page at: www.susqu.edu/ad_depts/ModernLanguages/.
The Latino oral history project provided these high school students with a vehicle to
dialog with other area Latinos on topics they may never have discussed. Many of the
students were surprised by what they learned through the interviews they conducted, even
with their own parents. In addition to learning about the hopes and dreams of their
relatives and other Latino adults, the students have become more aware of their own ethnic
roots. This awareness has brought them renewed pride in their Latino heritage and an
increased sense of their own cultural identity. The strengths of the Latino oral history
project are threefold. The first is bridging the cultural gap between Latinos and Anglos
through increased communication to foster better understanding of each other. The second
is promoting increased interaction and mutual respect between different generations of the
local Latino population, creating stronger bonds, and cultural information that might
otherwise be lost. The third is the emerging sense of a positive cultural identity among
the Latino students who participated in the oral history project. This important link to a
cultural past with pride will certainly benefit these Latino youth as they strive to reach
their future potential as tomorrow's leaders.
For further program information contact Wanda Cordero-Ponce, Project Director, at: corderop@roo.susqu.edu
Posted with author's permission, originally printed in ENLACE (AATSP
Newsletter), Fall 1998 - Page 11.
|
