“Coming Out and Creating Queer Awareness in the Classroom: An Approach from the U.S.-Mexican Border”
De la Tierra, Tatiana. “Coming Out and Creating Queer Awareness in the Classroom: An Approach from the U.S.-Mexican Border.” Lesbian and Gay Studies and the Teaching of English: Positions, Pedagogies, and Cultural Politics, edited by William J. Spurlin, National Council of Teachers of English, 2000, pp. 168–190. Educational Research Information Center.
Lesbian and Gay Studies and the Teaching of English: Positions, Pedagogies, and Cultural Politics is a novel compiled of topics related to homosexuality in education. Tatiana de la Tierra, a Colombian, bilingual and bicultural lesbian, elaborates on her ideology of coming out and creating a classroom environment conducive to broadening horizons in her chapter of this novel, entitled “Coming Out and Creating Queer Awareness in the Classroom: An Approach from the U.S.-Mexican Border.” By telling her own classroom coming out story, sharing her secret as she says, she creates a personal pedagogy of queer awareness in English classes to be applied by any educator.
The identity of an educator, de la Tierra maintains, has everything to do with their approach to education. Just as our identities color our lives, they have a notable effect on a teacher’s classroom, agenda, and lesson plans. As a Colombian woman of a working-class background, a pagan, a leftist, a lesbian, and a lover of all art, especially the written word, Tatiana brings all of this to her classroom. In fact, both the background of an educator and that of a student, each individual identity is brought with them to the classroom. However, being proudly out and having a progressive political position then raises the question of proper use of the classroom and the inherent power dynamic of the student-teacher relationship. De la Tierra finds it unethical for a teacher to use the authority of their position with the intent to influence the convictions of their students. Instead, she sees her role as an English teacher as most important, so she prioritizes teaching her students the fundamentals of writing. In her own words, “I want my students to walk out of my class refreshed by the power of the written word.” (de la Tierra 176). However, her process of teaching a student how to write is influenced by her political ideology, identities, and personality. She struggles with this truth, stating that some may see her selection of materials and topics as promoting the politically charged classroom she has spoken out against. Her response is as follows: a classroom is an inherently politicised arena, set up to disempower the student. Tensions are further stretched by a certain level of resistance to learning and a resistance to teaching, influenced by outside factors. Students and teachers come into a class with expectations and pre-existing ideologies. Learning takes place when all of this is acknowledged. A teacher must engage in their students’ resistance. Acknowledging disharmony allows the classroom to become a site of social and ideological transformation organically, allowing a student to open their minds to other perspectives without forcing any agenda upon them.
Tatiana de la Tierra then elaborates that, as a Latinx lesbian in modern times where there is a political war being waged against cultural, linguistic, and sexual otherness, she feels a sense of social responsibility. Having faced bigotry alongside her queer community, she is now in a position to use representation as a political tool. By integrating texts on queerness by queer people, or texts about people of color by people of color into her writing curriculum, she is deliberately disrupting the mainstream. De la Tierra argues that teachers must recognize that we, as a society, are in the midst of a queer revolution, and acknowledge that their students, regardless of their personal positions, are a part of this society. She challenges all educators to “assume the responsibility of multicultural representation in the classroom” (de la Tierra 174).
After stressing that coming out to a classroom is a unique experience that should be personalized by every instructor, Tatiana de la Tierra goes on to present her experience. Teaching in El Paso, Texas, she sets a scene of a Mexican Catholic majority but makes it clear that she feels very comfortably out in her community, surrounded by a sense of familia. Nonetheless, each coming out is a risk. It forces a person to look within themselves and expose their secrets, their core as a “lavender blooded queer.”
Tatiana's goal was to be seen as a person first and foremost, a lesbian as post note of her identity. She found her best coming out process was to mention it in the offhand, and seamlessly weave it into her class. However, she handled her first classroom coming out in a much more straightforward, theatrical way. On National Coming Out Day, over halfway through the semester, she asked her class to journal their thoughts on the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian.’ She then told her students about her own sexuality and invited them to ask questions, which she answered honestly. After that, she followed her lesson plan, using lesbianized examples for all of the techniques she was reviewing that day. What she came to find in her subsequent years of teaching is that her in-your-face approach incited visceral responses never again paralleled in the coming years of more laid-back approaches. She found that, though there were many polarized opinions, her students' responses to her coming out were overwhelmingly positive, commending of her bravery and honesty. The most gratifying result of this classroom coming out was that her LGBTQ students knew they had someone like them. Tatiana de la Tierra gives the disclaimer up front that the responses she has gathered on her lesbianism and queer inclusion in the classroom are far from scientific. However, she, as an educator, gains from them. She sees the most valuable result of her honesty being that it caused students to consider queer issues in a personal and meaningful way.
Though coming out to a class is a beautiful compliment to the queering of writing curriculum, it is not a necessary addition. Simply integrating queer and people of color issues into a course through authors or guest speakers that represent different identities, informational texts, free response papers on the topic of sexuality, or merely an open classroom discussion can all be effective ways to address LGBTQ issues while still covering the typical curriculum of an English class.
This powerful chapter, written by one of the most influential gay Latinx activists in history, both weaves a personal tale of navigating a classroom setting as a lesbian educator and provides an outline for teachers to follow in her footsteps. It is written both for the academic world and the common man, accessible to everyone and especially meaningful for those who teach their own English or writing courses. The way Tatiana elaborates on her mindset of knowing who she is as a proud Colombian lesbian and feeling a duty to her communities, with the duel realization that she holds a position of power in her classroom that would be wrong to abuse, allows for this paper to be both deeply moving and educational. From there, she formulates the central argument of this piece, which states that a teacher is meant to facilitate the organic learning of a student by being aware of the power structure, disharmony, and resistance present in a classroom. All of this can be harnessed to facilitate real discussion and open the minds of students, which allows them to come to new conclusions about preconceived notions. The true purpose of a teacher is to expand a student's horizons by integrating the perspectives of ‘others,’ those outside the mainstream, into their class curriculum. In this way, an English teacher can give their students all the necessary tools to both expand as writers and human beings.
To fully explore the Latinx LGBTQ perspective, I found it essential, as de la Tierra herself advocates, to include works by Latinx LGBTQ authors. Tatiana de a Tierra happens to be a well-known historical figure and advocate for her peoples, and I saw her writing on her personal experience of coming out in an academic setting to be a powerful addition to my research. No, it is not a piece on the topic of LGBTQ Latinx families, but it does explore a personal queer experience while considering how to best educate students on what it is to be queer, of color, or both. It also provides representation, not only in the author's identity but also by bringing light to queerness in an academic setting, an often taboo subject. As de la Tierra herself points out, there are LGBTQ students in every classroom beginning to feel safe expressing who they are. A holistic approach to best serve Latinx LGBTQ families, or any marginalized group, begins in education. I see ignorance as the bane of both tolerance and harmony, and public education is the platform by which to eradicate it. This is the only place where I found this piece lacking. An extension to all literature-based classes is in order. The queering of history, art, social science, et cetera is the next step along this path begun by Tatiana de la Tierra in this chapter. By queering and culturally expanding the classroom, new perspectives can shine through, allowing students to formulate their own ideas while they gain information on cultural and sexual diversity. Educational diversification is something necessary for the future of all our youth, but especially to allow the brightest future possible for the marginalized, the queer youth of color, and the next generation of Latinx LGBTQ families.