| We Have Been Here Forever: Towards a History of Composition(ist)s of Color Rewriting Rhetoric within and beyond NCTE/CCCC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Session: B.01 on Mar 12, 2009 from 12:15 PM to 1:30 PM | Cluster: 104) History | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Type: Concurrent Session (3 or more presenters) | Interest Emphasis: race/ethnicity | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Level Emphasis: all | Focus: cultural studies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Part I of the ""Racism Is Over?!": People of Color Struggles within and beyond NCTE/CCCC and the Discipline of Rhetoric and Composition" panel series, organized by the Latina/o Caucus and sponsored by the American Indian Caucus, Asian/Asian American Caucus, Black Caucus, Latina/o Caucus, and Queer Caucus. The focus of this panel will center on the past, present, and future of the caucuses. Panelists will interview caucus leaders, provide testimonies of their experiences and others, and research the various groundbreaking events situated within and outside the caucuses that impacted people of color. Speaker 1 "...Who would believe/ the fantastic and terrible story of all of our survival/those who were never meant/to survive?" Joy Harjo Scholars of Color at CCCC have been voicing concerns about being heard at and fully embraced by CCCC and its parent NCTE. We have developed caucuses to act as the gadfly, and provided suggestions to the organization for creating real diversity. While we make steps forward, we often find ourselves having to take too many steps back thus rendering diversity to a meaningless buzzword. As we gain visibility one year, we are erased from the picture the next year. Our journals publish scholars of color in special issues rather than as part of the regular editions. American Indian scholars face a difficult battle in that there are fewer of us in the field of Rhetoric and Composition, and we continually combat the perceptions of Native Americans embedded in the dominant culture. Often our sessions are programmed against one another or we are positioned in the last sessions in the program. This presentation will examine the treatment of scholars of color at CCCC and how un/inviting conferences have been. In particular, it will examine American Indian Scholars' presence at the convention and their experiences as presenters, listeners, committee members and caucus members. Data from programs developed for diversity, an examination of CCC and College English, and interviews of American Indian scholars and others will be used for seeing CCCC through a red lens. Speaker 2 CCCC caucuses are "self-forming groups.who come together on specific issues and actions." Currently, there are five race-based caucuses, which were formed to support members and to increase diversity in our organization. While these caucuses have served their original purpose this speaker finds that the fact that all identity-based caucus meetings are scheduled at the same time ignores the fact that there is diversity within minority groups and that many members belong to more than one of these communities. Current scheduling doesn't allow members to be Black and queer, Asian and Latino, etc. As the previous presenter suggests "we often find ourselves.rendering diversity to a meaningless buzzword." This paper argues that diversity (even within the caucuses) has been rendered meaningless. Those unaffected by the scheduling fail to understand the need for minorities to build networks in a variety of identity-based communities simultaneously because it is here, at the intersection of these caucuses, that there is potential for both ground breaking research and the building and maintenance of a more truly diverse membership. This paper seeks to facilitate a discussion about the need to refigure/re-vision caucus placement on the program to allow for and acknowledge the importance and necessity of identity-based intersections. Speaker 3 Through a series of interviews with caucus coalition leaders from the various caucuses, Speaker #3 will provide a history of significant moments/events in caucus histories, where they came together to advocate for groups who are oppressed in our society and/or in NCTE/CCCC. Some of the histories may include various retreats for people of color through the years, CCCC Language Policy Committee, The Advisory Committee of People of Color, Rainbow Strand, The Committee on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English, NCTE Position Statement On Recurring Discrimination against Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual People, NCTE Policy on the Involvement of People of Color, Teachers and Scholars for the Dream, and NCTE LeaderShift Initiative. Speaker #3 will include an extensive written document on this history to be distributed at the presentation and among the caucuses. The speaker will discuss more recent initiatives by the caucuses to meet with our needs in the 21st century. Speaker 4 When Speaker #4 attended his first CCCC in New York, maybe 1982, he attended a meeting by one who would become a star of rhetoric and composition. Her topic was a then-famous Latino writer of memoir, arguing the case for linguistic assimilation. At one point, the panelist turned to Speaker #4, still a graduate student, and asked "Am I right?" Why single out Speaker #4? He was the only Latino in the audience; that was why. Over time, he helped found the Hispanic Caucus (though a Mexican Caucus already existed within NCTE); he took part in many CCCC committees, entered the leadership, watched the presence not only of Latinos grow but other racialized groups grow, and has lately seen their decline, the lessening of vigilance, becomes reminded of 1982. Speaker #4 will tell of community-of color and white-great joys and struggles and argue for a return to the vigilance, that racism continues and must continue to be challenged with more than token gestures. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||