Counter-Storytelling Using Xicana Epistemologies and Rhetorics: Countering White Benevolence and White Ignorance in College Literacy Intervention Spaces

Abstract

Most of us who ask ourselves “What do students need in order to succeed in college?” genuinely want to help students succeed. However, because helping others is known to be a good thing, we often don’t look critically at the driving force and mechanisms behind the concept of helpfulness; we often fail to see the violence of problematic ideologies hidden behind our motives to and the means by which we help students in classrooms and even writing centers. More specifically, we need to consider the ways in which what we believe to be helpful might be epistemically unjust for student writers. Specifically, I consider the ways in which white benevolence and white ignorance in sites of literacy interventions can impede Chicana identity development and affirmation. Counterstory as a Critical Race Methodology is one method that Latinas can rely on to create epistemologically just spaces, as well as one that can be incorporated into curricula to curve epistemological injustice as it makes room for the use of Xicana rhetorics and epistemologies.