Truth-telling through Testimonio

Migrants are simply people who were born in one place and move to another. The large majority of people in the United States are either migrants themselves or descendants of migrants. The move might be for a job or an educational opportunity. The move might be more life-or-death: a war, a famine, a disaster. Most students at Penn State Altoona are far removed from those experiences. They were born in the United States and may have moved from one state to another, but no further. They see themselves as from Pittsburgh, or Philadelphia, or even Altoona. In her CI 280 Foundations for Teaching English Language Learners class, Freyca Calderon-Berumen, assistant professor of elementary and early childhood education, works to help her students understand that “you’re not as local as you think.”

As a first step, Calderon-Berumen asks her students to “define their culture right now as college students,” she says. “They describe food they eat, friends they live with, their clothing.” Having to identify something that they took for granted “makes them realize it’s different from when they’re home.” She says to them, “This [meaning college] is your little bubble. Then your family, then the community, then the world. This is the ‘normal.’”

That simple exercise helps students “start opening their eyes to the Other,” she says. “Just because it’s outside of what we do doesn’t mean it’s bad.” As another illustration of our differences, Calderon-Berumen shows her students a documentary titled Do You Speak American?, which explains the way English is spoken in the United States, the difference between dialects, because “when you hear people in Boston, it’s very different from the South.”

Students must write an autobiography, where they include discussion of their “language practices and cultural practices,” which gives them an opportunity to identify their own world. They then have to “ask the same questions of someone for whom English is not their first language,” Calderon-Berumen says, which can often be accomplished simply by speaking to a family member or roommate and allows the students to see “differences within the sameness” for people living in the United States.

The concepts of difference and sameness also influence Calderon-Berumen’s own research. She identifies “two strong research interests. I combine my interest in women’s studies with Latina women. I mostly work with women. I’m very interested in immigrant mothers and the way they raise children in the United States.” A native of Mexico, she speaks from experience when she says, “In becoming an immigrant your identity changes in different ways. You have to live with your own issues while raising your children and embracing what your children are learning and adopting in school. Sometimes it’s very nice, sometimes it’s conflicting. I use a metaphor of a braid. Sometimes it’s really neat, sometimes it’s messy.”

To conduct her research Calderon-Berumen uses “ethnographical observations and interviews.” She elaborates: “I work with a specific method called ‘testimonio.’ It’s a narrative, a personal experience that is told in first person, but it could include a collective experience.” As an example she cites the well-known testimonial biography I, Rigoberta Menchu, whose subject received the Nobel Prize for her work as a human rights activist.

Calderon-Berumen’s dissertation was “a testimonio of 11—I interviewed 10 women and added my own story.” While readers learn the women’s stories, they “don’t know who’s who—one story could be things that happened to all of us, or something’s happened to one or two of us.” The stories these women tell Calderon-Berumen are not always positive. “The difference between these and other methods is the political urgency into action, announcing injustices we go through,” she explains. And while “it breaks my heart to hear their stories, it breaks my heart more to do nothing. I talk to them, I get stories, and I work with the stories. I feel a responsibility to make my voice be heard. I need to tell their truth. If I gain a little more privilege than others, then I need to use it.”

Calderon-Berumen appreciates the opportunity she has been given. After living in Texas for 10 years she came to Penn State Altoona in 2017, a move that has given her “a lot of support, resources, and autonomy to do the research I am passionate about.” As she moves forward in both the classroom and her own research, she will continue to encourage students to become more aware of the world beyond their “bubble” and she will collect the stories of women who might not otherwise have the opportunity to be heard.

Therese Boyd, ’79

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