Critical Race Counterstory as Rhetorical Methodology: Chican@ Academic Experience Told Through Sophistic Argument, Allegory, and Narrative

Abstract

This work focuses on Chican@ identity in academia and uses CRT counterstory to address topics of cultural displacement, assimilation, the American Dream, and ethnic studies. This research considers where the field of rhetoric and composition currently stands in terms of preparedness to serve a growing Chican@ undergraduate and graduate student population. Through counterstory, I offer strategies that more effectively serve students from non-traditional backgrounds in various spaces and practices such as the composition classroom, faculty mentoring, and programmatic requirements such as second language proficiency exams. Since rhetoric and composition can confront structurally and historically specific racisms--e.g., segregation, lack of access for the racial minority to higher education, ethnocentric curricula--embedded in our field, then we, as teachers, students, and administrators, can strategize ways to achieve social justice in academia for historically marginalized groups. My dissertation is focused on Chican@ undergraduate and graduate students because this is the fastest growing population in the academy and is a group with which I feel I can draw upon my cultural intuition; however, the critical race theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological strategies I make use of in my project can be adapted to assist other historically marginalized groups in academia.