INNOVA Research Journal, ISSN 2477-9024

La dualidad de ser tanto opresor como oprimido en diferentes lugares

The duality of being both oppressor and oppressed in different places

Evelyn Verónica Almeida García

Universidad Central del Ecuador

Universidad de la Fuerzas Armadas ESPE, Ecuador

Autor para correspondencia: evalmeida@uce.edu.ec

Fecha de recepción: 5 de enero de 2017 - Fecha de aceptación: 20 de Febrero de 2017

Resumen

El propósito principal de este artículo es ofrecer una perspectiva diferente de un opresor y una

persona oprimida y comprender mi propia realidad a través de mi propia experiencia. Esta dualidad

me hace una persona con características únicas. Características que en ocasiones me hacen

privilegiada como mestizo y una persona que comúnmente oprime, explota y gobierna a otros con

fuerza económica y social. Por otra parte, otras situaciones me convierten en una persona

colonizada que se caracteriza por ser dependiente y oprimida cuando estoy en la posición de mujer

latina en los Estados Unidos. Me gustaría pensar en mí como una mujer que está dispuesta a

"desarrollar [mi] poder para percibir críticamente la forma en que [yo] existo en el mundo con el

cual y en el cual [yo] me encuentro" (Freire, 2000, p. 12). Me gustaría ver este mundo como una

realidad en un proceso de transformación.

Palabras claves: dualidad; opresor; oprimido; latino; mestizo; migración; dominante

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to offer a different perspective of an oppressor and an oppressed

person and to understand my own reality through my own experience. My reality is that I am a

mestizo from Ecuador, and in Ecuador mestizo is the dominant and “preferred” ethnicity. This

duality makes me a person with unique characteristics. Characteristics that on occasion make me

privileged and a person who commonly oppresses, exploits, and rules others with economic and

social force. On the other hand, other situations make me a colonized person who is characterized

by being self-depreciated, dependent, and masochist when I am in the position of Latino woman

in the United States. I would like to think about myself as a woman who is willing to “develop

[

my] power to perceive critically the way [I] exist in the world with which and in which [I] find

myself” (Freire, 2000, p.12). I would like to see this world as a reality in a process of

transformation.

Key words: duality; oppressor; oppressed; Latino; mestizo; migration; dominant

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Introduction

Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who

“

they are so that they can more wisely build the future.” Paulo Freire

I thought that topics such as hegemony, racism, discrimination, white supremacy, and

oppression did not have much to do with me or with the life that I was living. However, after

reading The Colonizer and the Colonized (Memmi,1991), Black Feminist Thought (Collins,

2

000), Schooling in Capitalist America (Bowles & Gintis, 1976), Pedagogy of the Oppressed

(Freire, 2000), Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (Tatum, 2003) and

articles such as “Rethinking Racism” (Bonilla-Silva, 1997) and “Globalization of White

Supremacy” (Allen, 2001), I have realized that Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, Social

Reproduction, Resistance Theory, and issues with power and race offer a critical perspective of

educational, social, and race inequality, which perpetuate over generations and affect everyone. I

have also found out that I was immersed and involved with these issues in more than one way. In

this paper, I would like to talk about my positionality as a mestizo oppressor in my home country

and also as an oppressed Latina in the United States.

The main purpose of this article is to offer a different perspective of an oppressor and an

oppressed person and to understand my own reality through my own experience. As Collins

(2000) has stated, “[T]he primary responsibility for defining one’s own reality lies with the

people who live that reality, who actually have those experiences” (p. 35). My reality is that I am

a mestizo from Ecuador, and in Ecuador mestizo is the dominant and “preferred” ethnicity. This

duality makes me a person with unique characteristics. Characteristics that on occasion make me

privileged and a person who commonly oppresses, exploits, and rules others with economic and

social force. On the other hand, other situations make me a colonized person who is

characterized by being self-depreciated, dependent, and masochist when I am in the position of

Latino woman in the United States. I would like to think about myself as a woman who is willing

to “develop [my] power to perceive critically the way [I] exist in the world with which and in

which [I] find myself” (Freire, 2000, p.12). I would like to see this world as a reality in a process

of transformation.

Before analyzing this duality, it is imperative to define concepts proper to this topic.

Collins (2000) offers a definition of oppression as “any unjust situation where, systematically

and over a long period of time, one group denies another group access to the resources of

society” (p. 4). She also believes that “Race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, age, and ethnicity

among others constitute major forms of oppression in the United States” (p. 4). Memmi (1991)

considers that oppression is “the greatest calamity of humanity. It diverts and pollutes the best

energies of man-oppressed and oppressor alike.” (p. xvii). In addition, colonial racism is built

from three major ideological components: “one the gulf between the culture of the colonialist

and the colonized; two, the exploitation of these differences for the benefit of the colonialist;

three, the use of these supposed differences as standards of absolute fact” (p. 71).

Referring to education, Freire (2003) creates a concept of the “banking of education,”

where:

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Knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon

those whom they consider they know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a

characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as process of

inquiry. (p.72)

Bowles and Gintis (1976) also focused on the idea of the inequality of education when

they argued that, “the U.S. educational system works to justify economic inequality and to

produce a labor force whose capacities, credentials, and consciousness are dictated in substantial

measure by the requirements of profitable employment in the capitalist economy” (p. 151).

Michael Katz stated as far back as 1880 that “American education had acquired its fundamental

structure characteristics” and that these structures “have not altered since.” Katz continues,

“Public education was universal, tax-supported, free, compulsory, bureaucratically arranged,

class based, and racist” (As cited in Bowles & Gintis, 1976, 153). Tatum (2003) on the other

hand believes that “stereotypes, omissions, and distortions are a preconceived judgment or

opinion, usually based on limited information” (p.5). Tatum also compares racism to smog in the

air, when she says that:

Cultural racism – the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of

Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color – is like smog in the air. Sometimes it is so

thick it is visible, other times it is less apparent, but always, day in and day out, we are breathing

it in. (p.5)

Picture 1. Indigenous selling candies in Quito.

Dominance of Mestizos

According to the online dictionary, mestizo is a a person of mixed racial or ethnic

ancestry. In Latin America is a mixed between American Indian and European descent. The

indigenous people, their rights, and their situation as a minority group in Ecuador have not been

topics of discussion in my country. The Population and Housing Census of 2010 showed that the

mestizo population in Ecuador was 71.9% and indigenous people accounted for 7.1%. The data

shows that mestizos are the dominant ethnic group in Ecuador. The mestizo group, which I am

part of, influences and oppresses the indigenous groups. Paradoxically, even though the

indigenous people are natives in the region, they are treated as foreigners in their own homeland.

These minority groups, for example, Puruhá, Otavalo, Karanki, Cañaris, Cofanes, and the

Huaorani, amongst others, have been subjects of discriminatory events throughout history. These

people have been oppressed in different ways such as having limited access to education, basic

services, work, language, territory, and culture. Oppression of these sociocultural aspects have

resulted in a loss of identity for indigenous people. As Memmi mentioned, the assumption is that

the colonizers’ living standards are high, while the colonizers are low. This assumption results in

the oppressors attempts to enculturate the oppressed into the supposed dominant culture, and, as

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a result, indigenous people are treated as low-class citizens, deprived from political and civil

rights and services.

Since the colonization of Ecuador by the Spanish began in the late 1500’s, indigenous

people suffered through this enforced enculturation and loss of their ethnic identity. Now, in this

period of post colonization, many Ecuadorians still have that mentality of separating the

indigenous into the colonized and the mestizo into the colonizer. An example is what happened

with the indigenous people during the Agrarian Reform and Colonization in 1964. This reform

had an original objective of a set of political, economic, and social policies whose that offered

the indigenous people bigger portions of lands for agricultural production. It also offered them

social security and loans to continue their agriculture production. However, the reality was

different; the reform helped the people in power by offering them productive lands and giving

the indigenous people infertile lands. The indigenous people had debts that they could not pay

and became poorer and poorer.

Education has also been an issue for indigenous people in Ecuador over the time. There is

a minimum population of indigenous accessing education; very few of them manage to graduate

and have a job and decent work. We are used to seeing indigenous children of the streets selling

candies, seasonal fruit, and flowers like the people in picture 1. These children do not go to

school. The ones that manage to go to school are likely to live in poverty and experience the

highest school dropout rates. They usually stay home and help their parents in their work instead

of going to school. Other children work in the homes of mestizos as house cleaners, but even

positions do not pay well.

Because of the lack of access to quality education, Indigenous people usually are

domestic workers and construction workers. Indigenous people are seen as an underclass not

equal to the mestizos. It is common to see that mestizo group can benefit from the low rate labor

of the indigenous people, who in many occasions are exploited and are not protected from the

laws in Ecuador. I am sorry to recognize that my house has been one example of this situation.

We have had some indigenous maids who have helped in the house cleaning, washing the

clothes, cooking, and helping with the children. Collins’ (2000) comments on these types of

arrangements when she mentions that domestic work is profoundly exploitative and that there is

a unique relationship between the employer and employee. As a participant in this explotative

structure, I am reminded of “Maria” the maid who used to work for us for many years. I

remember she used to call me “Señorita Evelyn” and my mother “Señora Luisa,” which is a

formal addressing. We had a very good relationship, especially because Maria used to take care

of me and my two brothers for many years. We used to give her used clothes and other

household items. She even used to wear a uniform and an apron. Now, I have realized that all of

these actions just highlighted the economic and social inequality separating the domestic workers

and the employers.

Talking to my friend, Ana, about my essay, an interesting anecdote came into play. One

of her classmates from elementary school had a very common indigenous last name. His last

name “Ninagualpa” was an object of bullying, not from his friends in school but outside of it.

Ana saw him after several years. And to her surprise, he had changed his last name for his

mother´s last name, which had been, of course, a Spanish last name “Chavez.” He also changed

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his first name. This is an example of how the psychology of this person worked and how

ashamed he was to be an indigenous descendent. He gave away his identity to fit in this

dominant “mestizo” group. He reinvented himself to be a person that he was not.

The inequality of arrangements such as the one from my childhood extend beyond the

mestizo/indigenous duality in Ecuador and can be found in many colonized and postcolonized

societies. Collins (2000) remarks on this when she asks the question “If women are allegedly

passive and fragile, then why are Black women treated as “mules” and assigned heavy cleaning

chores” (p. 11)? In Ecuador, indigenous people are treated the same way. If they are not working

as domestic workers, they are going in the fields and farm or helping their husbands in

constructions sites.

Exacerbating the oppression they experience, indigenous people are also segregated

geographically. Quito, for example, which is the place I lived in, is divided in three sectors

geographically. There is the south, the center, and the north. People who live in the north and

part of the central of Quito are assumed to have money and have a better life style. On the other

hand, the poor people and the indigenous people generally live in the south and suburbs of the

city. They are segregated not only by the people that live in the north, but also from the

government and the authorities. While the North and North Central portions of the city enjoy

successful governance and the luxuries provided by well-dispersed taxes and services, the places

where the indigenous people live in Quito lack basic services such as drinking water, sewage,

electricity, and garbage disposal.

There is a social pressure in Ecuador influenced by mestizos against indigenous people.

Because of that, many indigenous people give away their culture, including their way of dressing

and their language. One vivid example is that mestizos speak Spanish and do not recognize

Quichua, which is an indigenous language, as an official language. In schools, indigenous

children are forced to speak Spanish and English. Additionally, indigenous people had to give

away their religion. For example, in Ecuador the indigenous celebrations have been mixed with

the Spaniard traditions such as Fiesta de la Mama Negra in Latacunga, Ecuador. It starts with a

traditional mass and an indigenous parade, which includes masks, adorned with dead animals,

bottles of wine and liquor, dancers and music. It is a mix between Catholic and pagan

celebrations. This is just one example of the influence that the Spanish colonizers have had on

indigenous religions.

Indigenous people in Ecuador constitute the oppressed group, while the oppressor group

are the mestizos. As a mestizo, there are several ways in which I somehow have used my

privilege as a member of the dominant group against the ingenious people. We know that there

are differences but no one wants to face it. No one stands out for the minority. Now that I am

aware of my privilege. I do not deny it, but neither use it against the people that are in minority

groups. It is necessary to put ourselves in the shoes of other people in order to understand what

they are going through so we do not misjudge or stereotype them. Privilege should not determine

anyone’s outcomes. Mestizos are the majority in Ecuador, but that does not mean they have to be

oppressors against the indigenous people. They are part of our past, present and future and

should be respected and treated as equal.

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Oppression of Latinos

Being a Latino woman in the United States has made me become part of the minority,

part of the oppressed group. There are several examples that show discrimination against my

group. For instance, the moment I entered the University and went to the Student Union Building

or to a dining hall, I noticed that every person cleaning the tables or cleaning the bathrooms were

Mexican or Hispanic decedents. This division of labor where the oppressed are the ones in

menial labor was apparent even here, in the United States. Another example came on the first

day of class. I wanted to print some of the essays for my Seminar class and I did not know how

to use the printer located on the first floor of the SUB, so I asked a cleaning lady and she

answered me in Spanish and told me that she was from Mexico. I also went to the dining hall and

met Carlos, an Ecuadorian person who cleans there. For the students, these workers are invisible;

they are just labor force whose job is only limited to cleaning. This situation reminded me about

a sentence from Collins (2000), which stated the situation of African American woman in the

United States. Collins states, “This group treatment potentially renders each individual African

American woman invisible as fully human” (p. 100). I felt so sad and also discriminated because

that could also have been my brother or family.

Latino women have a higher percentage of suffering from discrimination and abuse, not

only from white people but also from Latino men. I have heard this issue from many sources

such as news, TV, internet, and even from people who have seen these types of abuse first hand.

One example is a nurse, who we are going to call Teresa. She comes to my house every

Thursday to check on my daughter. She has seen how Latino men mistreated Latino women

verbally and physically in Albuquerque, NM. She even had to go to court and support these

women. One story that almost made me cry was that of a Mexican immigrant who had just given

birth and her husband hit her. She was so afraid to go to court because her husband threatened

her. Additionally, the judge told her that if she did not attend to the hearing he was going to take

her kid from her because she was not strong enough to defend herself and her child. These stories

are every day stories of Latino women in the United States. And the cases are even worse when

they are illegal immigrants. In a 2015 article in the Spanish language periodical New Herald, it

was presented that 1 out of 12 Latinas in Chicago have experienced domestic violence in the last

1

2 months. It further described that married immigrant women are more likely to be abused than

single women, particularly during the period of pregnancy. Also, the news article reported that

these abused women rely less on police and prefer to go to their friends, families, or neighbors

for help.

Another example of privilege and power was when I was going to a dinner at a Christian

church. I saw something that got me thinking about how unconsciously we as parents help

perpetuate the inequality and the differences of classes, gender, and race. There was a young

white boy around 12 years old who was wearing a suit and tie and behaved very properly. This

boy, who I soon realized was the pastor’s son, was guiding the catering people, who happened to

be Mexicans, with the food for the event. What was shocking to me was the attitude of this boy

towards the catering people. It seemed that he knew he was superior and he was ordering them

with his fingers and an attitude, demanding the caterers to “put this here,” “move this,” and “this

way.” I felt that this boy, because of his young age, should not treat the adult catering people that

way. On the other hand, the catering workers seemed that they felt ok with that type of treatment.

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Their response was “yes, sir” and “thank you.” The boy did not mistreat the caterers in a physical

way; however, it was and unconscious way of stating power and privilege between him and the

workers. It appeared to me that this was an example of Freire’s “false generosity” which

constrains the fearful and subdues the “rejects of life,” to extend their trembling hands. (2000,

p.45) So, though this young white boy was being kind to the workers, his status, his appearance,

and his assumed authority over adults was all indicative of unequal power relations based on the

assumption that Latinos, immigrants, and non-English speakers are inferior to white, male

English speaking residents.

Picture 2. El Nuevo Herald

I have also seen geographic segregation in the town where I have been living. Similar to

what Collins (2000) mentioned regarding racial segregation in urban housing, I can see racial

segregation occurring in Albuquerque, NM. Latinos live in self-contained Latino communities

such as South Valley, and their children attend Latino schools, worship at Hispanic churches,

purchase food at Mexican supermarkets, and join Latino-based community organizations. This

geographic separation of Latinos to their own communities, schools, and religious centers

hinders racial interaction and integration.

Another vivid example of discrimination was what happened to my friend Claudia, an

Ecuadorian student at the university. She was pregnant and had a complication. She went to the

emergency room at the hospital and had to wait for about 9 hours to be seen. Yes, 9 hours! She

lost her baby afterwards. I do not think it would have been the same if she were white or had an

English accent as opposed to a Spanish accent. I felt so helpless when I heard of her loss. In my

country, this would not have happened. I do not know if the baby could have survived, but I

know for sure that the treatment would have been completely different. She would have entered

into an intensive care unit immediately because, once again, we have the mestizo privilege back

in Ecuador.

When I started to read Tatum’s (2003) book Why Aare All the Black Kids Sitting

Together in the Cafeteria? it reminded me of myself and my Ecuadorian friends who are also

here studying at the university. We usually sit together during lunch in the SUB because we felt

the need to connect with someone who looks like us and share the same experiences. We came to

study with a scholarship from the university we worked at back in Ecuador. The education and

the university is excellent and we are thankful for that. However, some aspects make us feel

segregated and oppressed. We have the feeling that we have lost our identity, our status as

professors, and we that we have become mere students. I see how my classmates and I, back in

Ecuador, used to have cars, take taxis, dress formally, all of that is gone now. In other words, we

had a completely different lifestyle. Here in the United States, we are just “students” to the other

people at the university. And, worse, to others outside the university we are just Latino

immigrants and not necessary decent. This idea that Latino immigrants are not good people

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affected me first hand when myself and a friend of mine went to a Dollar Tree store. They asked

us to put our backpacks away, like we are thieves and we were going to steal something. I felt so

discriminated against and furious at the same time. How could this happen to us? I am a

prestigious university professor in my country, how could they treat me like that?

Another form of oppression as a Latina that I have seen, read, and been told about is the

discrimination of language. This discrimination can be seen in different levels, from teachers of

elementary school not wanting their students to speak in Spanish, to Hispanic university scholars

choosing to publish their research articles in English in North American journals instead of in

Spanish and in international journals. Even though there is a high percentage of people whose

native language is not English, there is still a strong English-only movement, which are in favor

of anti-bilingual education, and this makes it difficult for non-native speakers to be successful in

publishing in their home language. The article Preparing Teachers for Bilingual Students (Blum

Martinez & Baker, 2010) reports that, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in 2007, immigrants

accounted for 12.6% of the population of the United States. Additionally, two thirds of the

population growth in 2002 came from immigrants (p. 321). Therefore, it is unbelievable that

such English-only movements exist. These movements have a great negative impact not only on

students, but also on teachers and their professional development. Without bilingual education,

Latino students will not be able to perform in the same way as they could in their native language

and have a great disadvantage over students whose first language is English.

Even though there is the No Child Left Behind legislation, there are problems that

students, teachers, and authorities have to face. While the “system allows for testing English-

language learners (ELLs) in their native language, only 11 states have taken advantage of this

possibility” (Blum Martinez & Baker, 2010, p. 323). In addition, bilingual programs are easy

targets because they are new programs and are not well-formed. Blum Martinez and Baker

(2010) stated that “School districts have utilized these funds for other purposes” (p. 333). There

is a lack of availability of assessments and materials for native languages. Another problem is

that “many bilingual teachers [are] inexperienced and undertrained with a large percentage

working on an emergency waiver. Most programs served poor populations, their schools were

underfunded and suffered from a high level of teacher transiency” (p. 323). All of these issues

come together to keep English as the “dominant” language and jeopardize the use of other

languages for socializing, learning, and for doing business.

Because of these personal experiences, I believe that linguistic discrimination, or what

Phillipson terms “Linguistic Imperialism” (1992), absolutely exists in the United States. How

many times I have heard “I do not understand your accent,” “I do not speak Spanish,” “Sorry I

do not understand?” This has happened to me and to several of my Ecuadorian friends who are

studying at the university. One vivid example of this linguistic discrimination was when I was

going to Human Services to obtain medical service for my little baby. I was with my husband,

who does not speak English, and my newborn baby. I would like my husband to understand

everything that was going on so I asked the human resources worker if he could speak Spanish.

To me he was Hispanic. However, he was irritated and told me that he did not speak Spanish and

that they only speak English at the Human Service office. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed of

speaking Spanish at that moment. I started to think why Hispanic decedents feel so bad about

speaking Spanish and if this is connected to the idea of feeling or wanting to appear “white.” I

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did not understand the discrimination of Mexican Americans and Nuevo Mexicanos against

Mexican Nationals and other Spanish speaking immigrants. For me, this was so absurd and

unbelievable how they refused to speak Spanish.

After asking a Nuevo Mexicano the reason why he did not speak Spanish, I started to

connect this situation to “the concept of linguistic imperialism where Phillipson believes that

there is a “very strong case for claiming that English Language Teaching and the intellectual

tradition behind it are neo-colonialist” (p.72). In order to preserve English as a dominant

language, Phillipson focuses on fallacies including the monolingual fallacy that English is best

taught without reference to learner’s native language; the native speaker fallacy that the best

teacher is a speaker from one of the center countries; the early start fallacy, which states that the

earlier a language is learnt the better is mastered; the maximum exposure fallacy, in which the

more English one comes into contact with the better it is learnt; and the subtractive fallacy,

which stated that the less a student speaks other languages the better their English will become

(Personal communication, May 5, 2016). The Nuevo Mexicano explained to me that when his

grandparents came from Mexico they entered school in New Mexico and it was forbidden to

speak in Spanish. Children were punished and even physically assaulted by their teachers for

speaking in Spanish. So in school kids were not allowed to speak Spanish and at home their

parents only spoke Spanish when they did not want their children to understand what they were

saying. Parents agreed that speaking Spanish was negative for their children’s future. The parents

thought that their children would be discriminated against for speaking another language and that

speaking Spanish would make them less American-like.

Another kind of discrimination that I have seen is when Spanish speakers want to publish

in American, or so called “Western,” journals. Swales (1997) remarked on the monopolization

of English language in American academic journals. In his article, he stated, “English is a

Tyrannosaurus rex… English is a powerful carnivore gobbling up the other denizens of the

academic linguistic grazing grounds” (p. 374). Giddens (as cited in Swales, 1997, p. 376)

calculates that in 1994 no less than 31 percent of all papers published in mainstream journals

emanated from the USA, and a very little percentage from countries where English is not the

native language. This fact also supports the realistic view of Swales about the domination of the

English language in journals. From my own experience, non-native speakers are discriminated

against when trying to publish papers. According to Li (as cited in Belcher, 2007, p.3) 80 percent

of non-native English speakers felt disadvantaged in competition with their native-English

speaking counterparts. It seems to me that this underestimation of their language abilities,

conscious or unconscious, is affecting the writers’ performance in a negative way. Even before

writing, we see that we have a disadvantage, whether this is true or not.

International journals require specific conventions strictly related to native-speakers of

English. If non-native speakers, like myself, have to publish in these international journals, there

are two options. The first one is to cope with it, and try to acquire this journal-writing discourse

and pay attention to audience, topic, purpose, literature review, methods, results, discussion,

pedagogical implications, and language use (Belcher, 2007). The second option is to fight for

changes. These changes are that journals carefully choose international reviewers, that reviewers

provide constructive critiques even if the papers are rejected, and, for me the most important

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change, that “editors and reviewers begin to rethink the standard text convention and even

variety of English privileged in English-language journals” (Belcher, 2007, p.19).

As a Latina English teacher, whose first language is Spanish, I also felt discrimination

from on my native speakers’ counterparts, students, teaching institutions, and community. In my

own experience, there is a struggle to teach English as an international language. Holliday (2005)

explores this struggle between native and non-native speakers of English. In terms of location,

Holliday defines “Western centre” as the well-resourced countries, which have economic and

political power, which are the dominant ones, and the others are the “periphery” which are the

countries that possess limited resources and are under in a sense the domain of the west, in my

case, Ecuador.

The other point is to be aware of the implications that bring power and privilege of the

English-speaking West in the “chauvinistic” TESOL world. Holliday believes that “non” usually

implies disadvantage and deficit; this means that English as a Second Language (ESL) or English

as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers have a disadvantage when referred to as “non-native”

speakers of English, and, while this disadvantage is language based, it is heightened by the

chauvinism in TESOL. With this premise, I am double-discriminated, first because I am a non-

native speaker and come from a peripheral country, and second because I am a woman. There is

no doubt that when teaching English as a second or foreign language, students, parents,

institutions prefer to hire native speakers of the language.

Even colleagues discriminate ESL and EFL teachers; there is a professional division

between English-speaking West and non-natives in ways such as prejudice, identity, professional

status, employability, and cultural problems in language learning. Holliday (2005) describes

“non-native speakers’ students and colleagues as dependent, passive, docile, lacking in self-

esteem, reluctant to challenge authority, and easily dominated. While, he argues, native speakers

are” independent, autonomous, creative, respect freedom, change and equality” (p. 175). Even

though English is a foreign language to many, it is a dominant language around the globe. The

native speaker of English is, therefore, the norm. Native speakers are valued but they are not

considered “custodians” of the English language. Instead, it is often the non-native speaker who

have to do the “dirty work” or learning and teaching English to non-native speakers. While doing

this already labor-intensive work, the non-native speaker must also provide credentials of their

professionalism on a daily basis. The teacher is a native speaker, who brings her English and

culture to the uninitiated environment. The teacher has theories of exotic foreign cultures. “It is

not possible to label someone as a “foreigner” or a “non-native” as believe that he or she has

equal rights to the language” (Holliday, 2005, p.6). With all of these negative prejudices, there is

no doubt that non-native teacher such as myself feel discriminated. Holliday (2005) advises that

“English-speaking Western colleagues, who become no more than speakers of a dominant

variety of English must rethink and problematize their entire role, and exactly what it is that they

can contribute and to whom” (p.15). He also believes that it is imperative to “seek a deeper

understanding of individual people’s identity by avoiding preconceptions, appreciating

complexity, not over-generalizing from individual instances” (Holliday, 2005, p. 174).

Conclusion

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It has been very difficult to position myself as a mestizo oppressor as well as an

oppressed Latino woman. However, it was necessary in order to understand my reality and

myself. As Tate (1983) said, “You have to understand what your place as an individual is and the

place of the person who is close to you. You have to understand the space between you before

you can understand more complex or larger groups” (as cited in Collins, 2000, p. 112). Now I

can say that I understand my own reality as an oppressor and an oppressed person. I know what

it is like to discriminate and to be discriminated. In my position of a dominant mestizo, I had a

dilemma inside my head that Freire (2000) explained very well as an internal conflict. This

conflict stems from choosing “between human solidarity and alienation, between following

prescriptions or having choices, between being spectator or actor, between speaking out and

being silent” (p. 48). Now what I can say that I have chosen to fight against injustice, to show

true solidarity, to stand for the indigenous people in my country. I wish to develop a positive

mestizo identity based on the truth, not on phony superiority.

However, I believe that it is not enough. According to Tatum (2003) a developmental

process must take place. The six stages are contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-

independent, immersion/emersion, and autonomy. In my personal case, I honestly believe I am in

the second stage. I have passed the denial phase of not paying attention to the significance of my

racial identity. I do not use the speech of color-blind or free of prejudice. Now I am aware of my

privilege as a mestizo, and I do not mean to use it against anyone. I have a long way to go.

Meanwhile, I, as a teacher, am going to work with my students to help them discover themselves

and become co-investigators and re-creators of a new critical education that becomes “the

practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with

reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (Freire, 2000, p.34).

I will also try to help my fellow compatriots overcome their fears and anger for being

discriminated or abused. Finally, I know there is still a long way to walk, but it is a good start.

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