Traigo pleito con rhet-comp

The following is a letter composed by José Luis Cano Jr. on the dearth of specialists in Latinx, Mexican-American and Chicanx Rhetorics both within the TCU English Department and broader field of Rhetoric and Composition. His words below reflect Aja Martinez’s theories about the transformative capacities for counterstory:

As an interdisciplinary method, CRT counterstory recognizes that the experiential and embodied knowledge of people of color is legitimate and critical to understanding racism that is often well disguised in the rhetoric of normalized structural values and practices. (Martinez)

José Luis Cano offers a necessary conversation within the field of Rhetoric and Composition and beyond it.

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Rhetoric and Composition Studies (rhet-comp) in this hemisphere can trace its provenance to a Latinx tradition,1 so I write to address an issue with the PhD in Rhet-Comp program which reflects equally on the Department of English. In other words, traigo pleito con rhet-comp. I encounter difficulties in composing this letter because I don’t believe individual faculty members reject expanding rhet-comp beyond its whiteness, yet “[n]o individual has to block an action that is not continuous with what has already been willed” (Ahmed 129). Consequently, I target the outcome: No specialists in Latinx, Mexican American, or Chicanx rhetorics hold tenure or tenure-track positions in the rhet-comp program. A disjuncture therefore exists in research, curriculum, and instruction that dismisses the complexity of Latinx graduate students’ linguistic, cultural, and quotidian practices in Fort Worth, in Texas, throughout this hemisphere, as well as beyond. This disjuncture communicates that the rhet-comp program devalues or ignores this demographic group, a protected class, despite our unequivocal presence.

Rhet-Comp Graduate Curriculum

Serving as a foundation, graduate courses depict the philosophical orientations and educational capacities of rhet-comp graduate programs. A review of the English Graduate Catalog reveals a dearth of courses in the rhet-comp program applicable to the sustained study of Latinx language practices and rhetorical situations. This course offering fails to develop research and teaching endeavors for current and prospective doctoral students pursuing a specialization in Latinx rhet-comp. This type of omission in the graduate curriculum “creates a distinct form of harm for students…as they become more entrenched in the ideology of white supremacy” (Patel 4). The expansion of a rhet-comp graduate program of study requires concerted and dedicated efforts to make visible the needs of Latinx graduate students and revise the whiteness behind readings, assignments, and learning outcomes. For instance, to counteract the “racism sometimes disguised, or even reproduced, by a traditional curriculum” (27), Aja Y. Martinez applies CRT and LatCrit to her own curriculum. It therefore concerns me when courses teach scholars or texts that have never considered a Latinx population or taught a brown student. Subsequently, Latinx graduate students must use these incomplete rhet-comp theories to analyze pertinent issues in their own lives. Graduate student artifacts exist that include Latinx rhetorics or compositions, but oftentimes, these students must infuse incomplete theories with their own experiences or seek outside scholarship that engages Latinx issues. These kinds of at best partial instructional practices illustrate deficits in the rhet-comp curriculum, producing shortcomings for the graduate education of any student developing expertise in Latinx, Mexican American, or Chicanx rhetorics.

 Critical Mass in Faculty Composition

The demographics of the faculty evince a disregard to hire and retain Latinx faculty. Conversations on student demographics engage the concept and practice of “critical mass” or the “educational benefits that diversity is designed to produce” (“Guidance” 3). Applying this logic to rhet-comp, the graduate program lacks a critical mass in its faculty members. logic to rhet-comp, the graduate program lacks a critical mass in its faculty members. One Black faculty out of seven rhet-comp specialists represents the entirety of embodied racialized rhet-comp discourse. While representing a much needed hire, the efforts to expand the racial demographics of the rhet-comp faculty have resulted in optics that position the Black faculty member as a token. I recognize this maneuver. Despite possessing the oldest endowed chair in rhet-comp, I note that decades had to pass before hiring a faculty of color in any tenure-track or tenured position that could bring the rhet-comp program into conversations on the “out-of-school” literacies of brown, Black, or minoritized graduate students (Kynard 14). One faculty member cannot resolve the legacy of white scholarship in this rhet-comp program. While not a comprehensive solution, achieving critical mass with a Latinx faculty hire propels rhet-comp graduate education in directions that acknowledge the presence of Latinx individuals.

Academic Mentorship for Latinxs

This situation affects mentorship practices vitally necessary in graduate education for Latinx graduate students because it limits the capacity for mentorship from a Latinx faculty member or a faculty of color. In a not dissimilar situation, Luhuia Whitebear shares that her white institution has “fewer than five tenure track Indigenous faculty members,” which “speaks to the lack of institutional priority and support of Indigenous students (218). The lack of institutional priority and support in rhet-comp forces Latinx students to choose white mentorship because this presents the most viable option. Furthermore, Latinas require a mentorship that considers intersectional positions. For instance, Ana Milena Ribero and Sonia Arellano advance that “comadrismo as a culturally specific mentoring model can help provide Latinas in Rhetoric and Composition with the holistic support they need to succeed in academia” (336). These scholars signal that Latinas require appropriate forms of mentorship. In a comadre circle, Christina V. Cedillo notes, “we are trying to enact policies that will make things equitable for [Latinas]” (Garcia, et al. 65). These scholars position mentorship as a policy issue within institutions that facilitate or hinder the sustained development of Latina graduate students. The enrollment of Latinx graduate students should continue, yet I strongly urge the graduate rhet-comp program to assess and build capacity for mentorship of these scholars.

Societal Impact in the Community

This lack of faculty expertise debilitates current and future scholars to resolve Latinx rhetorical issues in society writ large. Referencing Ana Patricia Martinez, Aja Y. Martinez writes, “Your BA and MA are for you; your PhD is for the world” (5). I understand this statement to convey that a PhD in rhet-comp identifies, analyzes, and advances responses to real-world problems. This graduate degree intends to cultivate thought leaders and educators that address lived realities, but the rhet-comp graduate program here fails to engage the rhetorical complexity of long-standing Latinx issues, such as colonization, migrant death, machismo, bilingualism/multilingualism, un/documented labor, immigrant literacies, and Chicana as well as Latina feminisms. The gaps and underdeveloped areas in the rhet-comp graduate program signal decades of disregard for issues pertinent to the Latinx community.

Undoubtedly, research areas and teaching competencies shape placement rates post-graduation from the program. As a consequence, I contemplate this question: If this rhet-comp graduate program employs no specialists in Latinx, Mexican American, or Chicanx rhetorics, what type of thought leaders and educators does it produce out of its graduate students?

A Texan Rhet-Comp

The problematic situation with the rhet-comp graduate program at this institution extends across the state of Texas, where five PhD programs in the discipline of rhet-comp exist.2 During my application process to enroll in fall 2019, I researched these PhD programs, and at that time, only one program employed faculty specializing in Latinx rhetorics. Since then, one of these institutions has acquired the designation of Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), but “[b]eyond the enrollment requirement, there is no federally mandated expectation about processes or outcomes at HSIs” (Garcia 17). To this day, no specialists in Latinx, Mexican-American, or Chicanx rhetorics have received a tenure or tenure-track position at this HSI.3 A second institution recently hired a single Latinx rhetoric specialist, thereby producing a token faculty member in their program. This statewide trend perplexes me. “This negligence,” writes Jaime Armin Mejía, “continues to show the truly colonialist nature of these programs” (51). Latinx folks in Texas navigate intricate individual and institutional challenges suitable for sustained study in rhet-comp graduate programs.

Too Much Shadow Work

I realize that this letter inhabits the context of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) rhetoric in the program, department, and institution. This letter stands outside these efforts because a “document that documents the inequality of the university becomes usable as a measure of good performance” (Ahmed 84). I refuse to place this document as a measure of good performance and position it instead as a “space to examine…that which is being refused” (Rodríguez 6). This letter makes legible the failure of DEI rhetoric and implementation in advancing the educational needs of current and future Latinx students in the rhet-comp graduate program.

In the context of DEI, “shadow” work supplants inclusion as a para-institutional strategy (Arellano, Cortez, and García 31). In my own experience, I have required shadow work multiple times, but I share two examples. First, my initial year in the doctoral program proved difficult. The difficulty arose because of the many rhetoric and composition theories I read in courses that simply didn’t account for Latinx students. I felt the unbearable weight of whiteness in rhet-comp. This sentiment led me to seek support through faculty of color across institutions on several occasions. This type of shadow work asks faculty of color to contend with issues beyond their official roles. Second, applying to fellowships as a Latinx scholar typically requires faculty to perform more shadow work. When competing against scholars at a national or global scale, it matters who writes letters of support because these funding organizations assess whether the project seems feasible based on a graduate student’s knowledge and previous academic accomplishments as well as the personnel and support around this student. In this respect, I have concluded that Latinxs and graduate students of color ask faculty of color to spend time supporting these endeavors. This shadow work affects faculty of color because they spend considerable time supporting these efforts and less time on their own teaching and publication efforts. It’s a sequence of events worth noting because it impacts the program’s capacity and reputation from multiple institutional measures.

Graduate Student Energy

I see myself as an educator, so I enjoy expending energy teaching college students. The rhet-comp program provides some space to develop this type of expertise through teaching Comp I and Comp II courses to undergraduate students. In this responsibility, I developed a themed-course called Latinx Rhetorics that centered the rhetoric and writing practices of Latinx students. Through personal and institutional metrics, I walked away with innumerable class successes the first semester teaching this course. The second semester conceivably marks an educational shortcoming. Aside from minor revisions to the syllabus based on my own assessment and student feedback, two prominent characteristics changed from the first semester to the second semester: the student demographics and the time slot for the course. This shift demanded more teaching energy to develop scaffolding strategies that developed background information for white students on material I consider common knowledge. I gesture toward institutional mechanisms and forces that inherently counteract instructional approaches that center the experiences, rhetorics, and compositions of Latinx students. Nevertheless, with more professors and resources that have engaged similar issues, I believe structures could have existed to preemptively account for this shift that transpired because of the whiteness of this teaching space. This experience raises a question: What type of preparation does the rhet-comp graduate program provide that methodically equips graduate students to teach Latinx rhetorics or other racialized rhetorics to white and non-white students?

On a final note, writing this letter requires energy. Instead of using this energy to complete a dissertation or write a course syllabus, I spent it contemplating and composing this letter. I realize the altruistic belief and institutional imperative whereby listening to graduate student voices improves educational spaces, yet speaking or writing on these issues consumes substantial graduate student energy. A graduate student should not have to point toward the absence of this Latinx, Mexican American, or Chicanx specialist in the rhet-comp graduate program because a careful examination of this graduate program provides this insight without placing the burden on others to document this educational gap. This process also consumes emotional energy in the form of frustration and bewilderment. Frustration builds up about pursuing advocacy efforts because I prefer simply to study. I’d like to sit down with the appropriate resources and support to develop my research and writing. This request immediately transforms itself into an educational equity conversation because of a lack of resources and support. This absence leaves me bewildered since I feel the abundant presence of Latinxs in the community and in the state. By recognizing the complexity of Latinxs, this presence alone should suffice as argument and support to expand the rhet-comp graduate program.

I’d like to sit down and study. The rhet-comp graduate program prevents me from this simple task. Y por eso traigo “pleito” con rhet-comp (Serna 2).

With tense hope, José Luis Cano Jr.

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1 Rather than an umbrella term, I imagine Latinx as a trenza that requires careful braiding of multiple experiences, including Indigenous and Afro-Latinx experiences in higher education. My own arrival to Latina/Latino/Latinx as a rhetorical force came in higher education, so I use it in this context more than any other sphere.

2 I exclude concentrations because standard 9.6 of the SACSCOC accreditation focuses on programs as opposed to concentrations when assessing institutional life and institutional effectiveness.

3 This issue exists at HSIs, so the Alliance of Hispanic Research Universities aims to “[d]ouble the number of Hispanic doctoral students” and “[i]ncrease by 20% the Hispanic professoriate” at participating institutions. Logically, the issue this alliance addresses extends to non-HSIs as well (“Goals”).

Works Cited 

Ahmed, Sara. On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, Duke U P, 2012. Arellano, Sonia, José Manuel Cortez, and Romeo García. “Shadow Work: Witnessing LatinxCrossings in Rhetoric and Composition.” Composition Studies, vol. 49, no. 2, 2021, pp. 31-52.

Garcia, Christine, et al. “‘It’s Not You. You Belong Here.’ A Latinx Conversation on Mentorship and Belonging in the Academy.” Composition Studies, vol. 49, no. 2, 2021, pp. 53-69.

Garcia, Gina Ann. Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Opportunities for Colleges and Universities, Johns Hopkins U P, 2019.

“Goals.” Alliance on Hispanic Serving Research Universities, https://www.hsru.org/goals. Accessed 01 Aug. 2022.

Kynard, Carmen. Vernacular Insurrections: Race, Black Protest, and the New Century in Composition-Literacies Studies, State U Of New York, 2014.

Martinez, Aja. Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory, Conference on College Composition and Communication/National Council of Teachers of English, 2020.

–Critical Race Counterstory as Rhetorical Methodology: Chican@ Academic Experience Told through Sophistic Argument, Allegory, and Narrative. 2012. U of Arizona, PhD Dissertation.

Mejía, Jaime Armin. “Bridging Rhetoric and Composition Studies” Latino/a Discourses: On Language, Identity & Literacy Education, edited by Michelle H. Kells, Valerie M. Balester, and Victor Villanueva, Heinemann, 2004, pp. 40-56.

Patel, Leigh. No Study Without Struggle: Confronting Settler Colonialism in Higher Education, Beacon Press, 2021.

Ribero, Ana Milena and Sonia Arellano. “Advocating Comadrismo: A Feminist Mentoring Approach for Latinas in Rhetoric and Composition.” Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric & Composition, vol. 21, no. 2, 2019, pp. 334-356.

Rodríguez, Yanira. “Pedagogies of Refusal: What It Means to (Un)teach Students Like Me.” Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal of the Theory and Practice of Teaching, vol. 115, 2019, pp. 5-12.

Serna, Elias. Composing a Chican@ Rhetorical Tradition: Pleito Rhetorics and the Decolonial Uses of Technologies for Self-Determination. 2017. U California Riverside, PhD Dissertation.

US Department of Justice and US Department of Education. “Guidance on the Voluntary Use of Race to Achieve Diversity in Postsecondary Education.” https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/guidance-pse-201111.pdf.

Whitebear, Luhui. “Interlocking Communities of Care: A BIPOC Map through Academia.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 40, no. 3, 2021, pp. 218-221.