The format of the article, “Chicana/ Latina Testimonios” is extremely organized which helps to understand the article better. The introduction gives the reader insight as to what testimonios are and their significance to Latina/ Chicana culture. The introduction continues to explain how the significance is spreading throughout educational fields and what it means to have a testimonio in an educational field exposing flaws and how the genre is shifting along with the times.
The article then goes on to “Mapping the Testimonio Genre” which describes what testimonios are, the history behind testimonios and how it has been represented. Largely, testimonios have been for feminista’s and their papelitos guardados. Basically, papelitos guardados are protected papers used to document mentally and physically the transitions and roles faced by people, mainly women. Things like rape and what it means to be a woman in Latino countries are addressed in many testimonios.
Although it would make more sense for protected documents to be written down, some are shared orally, and some are written down and never shared, much like a diary. Such narratives are representative of the way culture and society and even the economy and politics have affected people. The purpose of a testimonio is to share experiences and work towards “solidarity” in hopes to reform and create a better society. I thought it was particularly interesting that when testimonios are being translated, everything needs to be said and interpreted with caution, since there are phrases in Spanish that may come across as an insult here.
There is a lot of trust and responsibility on both parts to accurately portray the testimonio. The educational testimonios do not come into play until the end of the article, which as an educator I may find better since reading the significance and origin of testimonios is important. Overall, the article was extremely informative and shed a lot of light over testimonios. Hope is necessary to create an impact, especially with education and the divide that is created through ignorance and racism.
To DaVinci, From Imhotep 