THAT'S WHY I TEACH: IT IS MY DUTY TO BE CRITICAL

Excerpt from
"The Struggle of Latino/a University Students in Search of Liberating Education"
(Routledge)

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Felix M. PadillaProfessor: Lehman College-CUNY
Dept of Latin American & Puerto Rican Studies

CHAPTER ONE

THAT'S WHY I TEACH:

IT IS MY DUTY TO BE CRITICAL

Willie Colón is a famous, world renown Puerto Rican salsa singer from New York City who has maintained a never-compromising, radical, oppositional voice for thirty years. In Por Eso Canto (That's Why I Sing) [click to hear the song], a 1993 recording, Willie Colón provides his most powerful and explicit explanation for what he has come to accept as his political responsibilities as a singer. In a general way, Por Eso Canto can be seen as Willie Colón's critique of those who do not, cannot, or refuse to recognize the transformative, emancipatory possibilities of their work, of their cultural practices. Ever since he started playing Salsa music in The late 1960s, Willie Colón has been an ardent critic of musicians who define and perform Salsa music as just another form of individual or social entertainment rather than as a political, cultural project. When you listen to his music, when you read of him interviews for magazines and newspapers, you are most likely to find Willie Colón naming The hypocrisy embedded in music which is detached from The most important political issues and conditions facing Puerto Ricans and other Latino/a people in The United States, Latin America and The Caribbean.

Por Eso Canto (That's Why I Sing)by Ricardo Vizuete

No puedo callar antes de lo que me rodea, tampoco ignorar a los que sufren mil penas, cantar por cantar no tiene ninguno sentido, Yo quiero cantar porque siento un compromiso.No puedo callar sabiendo lo que anda mal, cambiar la mirada por temor a que dirán, Cantar por cantar es repetir Mil palabras , hablar al cantar es conversar con el alma, Por Eso Canto Porque nací para cantar. Por Eso Canto! Llevo en mi pecho aquel el lelolai, Por Eso Canto! Es que no canto por cantar. Par Eso Canto! Mi canto es de campo, barrio y de ciudad Y por eso estoy aquí, cantando para ti No puedo callar a lo que ocurre hoy. Si hay hambre o miseria, lo viento mi corazón, Cantar par cantar es ver pero de no mirar, Hablar el cantar es denunciar y pensar. Por Eso Canto! Porque nací para contar, Por Eso Canto! Voy describiendo en cada verso tu realidad, Es que no canto por cantar. Mi canto es de campo, barrio y de ciudad Y por eso estoy aquí, cantando para ti. cantando para ti Por Eso Canto! Por Eso Para el mulato, y pare el chinito, para el lampiño y el jabaito Hecha Pa'lante Somos Latinos. Por Eso Canto! Por Eso Y quiero cantar sin complejos, ni miedo. Mi compromiso as claro y sincero. A las caras lindas que son mi pueblo .Jimbara, Jimbaro, Jimbara, Jimbaro Escucha a ese bongo que dice! Oyeme bien, para decir lo que siento, para expresar sentimientos Por Eso Canto! Por Eso Por eso y por tantas cosas hermosas, maravillosas. Por Eso Canto! Cantar por cantar no tiene ningún sentido. Por Eso Canto Tampoco callar, es que tengo un compromiso. Por Eso Canto!' Porque no puedo ignorar a los que sufren, a los que lloran, a los que nada tienen de comer, es que no puedo callar. Por Eso Canto!

I cannot remain silent in light of what surrounds me, neither -can I ignore those suffer from a thousand sadness, to sing for singing's-sake has no meaning. I want to sing because I feel a commitment.I cannot remain silent knowing what is wrong, to change my glance in fear what they might say, to sing for singing's-sake is to repeat a thousand words to talk as you sing is to speak with The soul. That's why I sing! Because I was born to sing. That's why I sing I carry in my breast The lelolai, That's why I sing! It's that I don't sing just to sing. That's why I sing My song is from The countryside, neighborhood and city, And that's why I'm here, singing for you! I cannot remain silent to what is happening today. If there is hunger or misery, it is felt by my heart. To sing for singing-sake is to look but not see. To talk in your singing is to denounce and to think. That's why I sing! Because I was born to sing. That's why I sing I am describing in each verse your reality. It's that I don't sing just to sing. My song is from The countryside, neighborhood and city, And that's why I'm here, singing for you! That's why I sing! That's why! For the mulatto, and for the Chinese, for the hairless and for the albino Go forward, we are Latinos. That's why I sing! That's why! I want to sing without any complexes or fear My commitment is clear and sincere To the beautiful faces of my people. Jimbaro, Jimbaro, Jimbaro, Jimbaro Listen to The bongo speak! Listen well, to tell you what I feel, to express my feelings! That's why I sing! That's why! and for so many beautiful marvelous things, That's why I sing! . To sing for singing's-sake doesn't make any sense That's why I sing! I can't be silent, I have a commitment That's why I sing! Because I cannot ignore those who suffer, those who cry, those who do not have to eat, is that I cannot remain silent, That's why I sing!

 Just like The imprints left on my pedagogical practice by The teachings of The great Brazilian educator Paulo Freire along with The progressive intellectual work of many liberating educators like Henry Giroux, Ira Shor, Katheline Weiler, Peter McClaren, bell hooks, Cornel West, Jim Frasier, Donaldo Macedo and others, Willie Colón's music has served as a reminder to always approach teaching as a medium of struggle and possibility, When I listen to The music of Willie Colón, my belief in pedagogy as The practice of freedom is confirmed. There is much passion and indignation as well as a great deal of hope in The words of Willie Colón. His unmistakable critical voice carries an enormous amount of anger; it also carries strength. There's little by way of pessimism and fatalism in Willie Colón's passionate verses. He never despairs.

Willie Colón has long been one of my intellectual heroes, a true "organic intellectual," to borrow The phrase from Antonio Gramsci, The brilliant radical Marxist philosopher, activist who was jailed by Mussolini for over ten years for organizing The working class movement during The most repressive period of fascist rule in Italy. As an organic intellectual, one who has developed a great deal of pride, determination and confidence in his people, Willie Colón has devoted his work to serve as a cultural wake up call for his people. I really identify with Willie Colón, for my vision of society, just like his, is grounded in hope and liberating struggle. Though pain and hurt are unfailing themes in his music, as in Porque no puedo ignorar a los que sufren, a los que lloran, a los que nada tienen de comer (Because I cannot ignore those who suffer, those who cry, those who do not have to eat), Willie Colón's hopefulness about a better life occupies a central location in his songs, as in Hecha Pa' lante, Somos Latinos (Go forward, we are Latinos).

I like introducing The classroom to my students as a site of hope. When the classroom becomes a space of hope, we can develop The ability to re-learn to dream together, once again. When the classroom becomes a space of hope, we can develop The ability to learn The need to return to The youthful, adolescent dreams we carried until they were stripped from us, but never destroyed, by educational systems whose main function was to domesticate or incapacitate The consciousness. The significance behind The idea of The classroom as a space of hope which can enable students to retrieve their ability to dream lies in The recognition that many individuals in society die, as my good friend and colleague David Abalos likes to put it, "filled with dreams that never happened." In other words, people die with dreams for which they were forced to lose conscious. So, in my responsibility as a liberating educator, I must find different pedagogical ways and strategies for facilitating students with an education moment for longing, for yearning, for reclaiming their humanity.

In one class last year (1994), a student asked me to provide an example of The way critical knowledge can serve to inform hope. I presumed that he, along with other classmates, wanted to see what this idea looked like in practice. I turned to page 31 in one of our readers, Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice, a special issue of The Rethinking Schools Newspaper, and there was The best example I could think of, It was a poem by The title of My Street at Night. The poem, written by Faviola Pérez a fifth grader from at La Escuela Fratney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a progressive bilingual and bicultural school made up of Latino/a, black and white children, is about violence in her neighborhood, The poem is also about how to go beyond violence to find an alternative life.

My Street at Night
My mom says, "Time to go to bed."
The streets at night are horrible
I can't sleep!
Cars are passing
making noise
sirens screaming
people fighting
suffering!
Suddenly the noise goes a
I go to sleep
I start dreaming
I dream about people
shaking hands
caring
caring about our planet
I wake up
and say
Will the world be
like some day.

This young girl's vision of the world is so critical, it is so extremely hopeful Her dream does not negate the human suffering around which she exists in the present; rather her dream, her special dream recognizes human suffering in its public and private form as a dimension of the life of the poor who have being trapped I inner city neighborhoods--inner city life becomes a consequence for those who are treated as "Others" in this society. To be so hopeful, she has come to recognize the in the same way this form of life was socially "created," it can also be "recreated. She is quite aware that people not only suffer under conditions of oppression, the can also resist and contest. In other words, this young girl really believes in the human capacity to transform society, as in "suddenly the noise goes away." Her dream can be seen as representing a metaphor for the coming of transformation, for the coming of a dignity and solidarity of resistance, for the coming of that historic moment when the oppressed will ultimately become conscious of its oppression and decides to say "NO."
The liberation suggested in the powerfully poetic words of this young girl is exactly what Willie Colón's music embodies. Willie Colón, as a musician and as someone who comes from a working class background, refuses for his part to follow other musicians whose work is detached from the political reality of his people. Cantar por canter no tiene ningún sentido. Yo quiero cantar porque siento un compromiso. Cantar por cantar es repetir mil palabras, hablar a/ canter es conversar con el alma, (To sing for singing-sake has no meaning. I want to sing because I feel a commitment. To sing for singing-sake is to repeat a thousand words, to talk as you sing is to speak with the soul.) As a liberating educator I refuse to follow tire conventional, neutral, transparent teaching practices of so many professors. I was a high school teacher for nearly four years and I recall that as early as the time when I was training to be a high school teacher, I had already learned or figured out the hidden side of "pedagogical neutrality." To be neutral educator, according to Henry Giroux whose work has been described as constituting "a major discourse and foundation for developing and advancing a critical theory of education" (McClaren I988:X1), is to carry out a practice which upholds the culture of domination (1988). Specifically, Giroux writes: "Rather than viewing school knowledge as objective, as something to be merely transmitted to students, radical theorists argue that school knowledge is a particular representation of dominant culture, a privileged discourse that is constructed Through a selective process of emphases and exclusions"