Centered on the Edge: The New Latina Intellectual Leader
By Laura I. Rendón
Veffie Milstead Jones Endowed Chair, California State University-Long Beach

The time has come for real transformative change to take place in the academy with Latinas and women from all races/ethnicities playing a central role in shaping the future of higher education. New Latina intellectual leaders can and will engage in transformation, acting as disruptive agents as well as agents of community, renewal, and sustenance.

Latinas as Agents of Disruption
The transformation process requires disrupting and reframing how we have traditionally viewed teaching and learning, research, leadership, and service. New Latina intellectual leaders need to develop scholarly approaches that speak from nuestra cultura and our own ways of knowing. Increasingly, feminists, scholars of color, and indigenous researchers, as well as gay, lesbian, and bisexual scholars are challenging colonization in their disciplines which take the form of exclusion, trivilization, marginalization, and denial (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Hurtado, 1998, Anzaldua, 1987; hooks, 1989). For example, some Latina/Chicana feministas are writing in a way that disrupts the normal way of presenting research. Two recent books written by collectives of feministas represent innovation in feminist discourse through their use of a model of deep engagement and collaboration with each other to generate new knowledge from diverse perspectives. The Latina Feminist Group, who represent varied class, religious, ethnic, racial, linguistic, sexual and national backgrounds, compiled Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (2001), employing testimonios--life stories--to engage the complexities of Latina identity. Similarly, Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader (2003), edited by Gabriela Arredondo, Aida Hurtado, Norma Klahn, Olga Najera-Ramirez and Patricia Zavella, draws on multiple disciplines, as well as scholarly analysis, life stories, interviews, letters, art, and poetry to highlight the diversity of the Chicana experience.

This kind of scholarship and practice is not positioned at the traditional center of intellectual discourse because this is a space Latina feminists believe has been occupied primarily by conservative White males and by, as the authors of Chicana Feminisms observe, "hegemonic feminist discourse that places gender as a variable separate from that of race and class." Instead, some Latina feminists are claiming a different space, speaking and being comfortable on the edge--what Emma Perez and Chela Sandoval have called "the third space." The authors of Chicana Feminisms have a created a dynamic metaphor for this sort of intellectual space that fosters a vibrant and electric form of intellectual engagement. They call it a "glorieta," a round-about, and what comes to mind is the traffic circle in Mexico City on Paseo de la Reforma, with the Angel of Independence at its heart and cars racing by. This intellectual glorieta, according to the authors, includes a dialogue that "is fast-paced, fluid, and flexible, at times unnerving; it forces intellectual dexterity. Such agility is foundational to the Chicana feminist political project, which intervenes in important ways to raise consciousness and further the struggle for decolonization against multiple oppressions."

This fluid, complex space of freedom is precisely the kind of intellectual context that allows feministas the opportunity to speak with their own voice and to write in opposition to silencing and marginalization. The danger in always trying to gravitate to the conservative mainstream is that Latinas will replicate hegemonic structures and validate them as the only models that work. New Latina intellectual leaders are those who will develop not only the intellectual agility but also the spiritual strength and courage to function in these third and fourth spaces of knowledge production. As we shatter traditions, Latinas will find ourselves battling resistance to non-mainstream ideas, fighting erasure and marginalization, and opening the doors for other scholars to have the necessary freedom to engage and express truth in new, different, and creative ways. Transformation is liberating in nature. Latina intellectual leaders should feel free to coin new terms, disrupt the usual, go against conventional wisdom, and even break the conventional academic rules of engagement in research, teaching, and service.

Latinas as Agents of Community and as Bridge-Builders
Even as we disrupt, we also need to connect, and that is our paradoxical challenge. All of us are familiar with the demographic trends in our country. Latina/os, now about 13 percent of the nation's population, have already surpassed the African-American population in sheer numbers. Some 50 years from now, minority groups together will constitute half of America's population. Latinas must be key players in developing ways and means to resolve interethnic and interracial conflicts and to work with an increasingly diverse population. We also have to come to terms with our own shadows in the Latina/o community. We have to come to terms with heterosexism and male privilege in Latina/o communities and the extent to which our own communities can sometimes be a source of oppression. Latinas can play key roles in transforming Hispanic communities through such self-reflection, making them less patriarchal and more open to viewing Latinas as leaders and agents of change.

To transform institutions, we must also transform our own lives. Feministas need to be cultural and spiritual leaders who advocate that rest, renewal, and sustenance are just as important as our academic work. Some of our most recognized Latina/o colleagues have died in their 40's and 50's--this is much too young to depart from this world. To what extent are the ailments that plague us, such as heart attacks, strokes, or cancer, mediated by the fact that we have bought hook, line, and sinker into the workaholic model of operating in organizations? What has happened to taking care of mind, body, and spirit? When we ask our colleagues, "How are you?" how often do they respond, "I feel so relaxed. I have time to do everything!" No, we always carry our cell phones along with all the latest electronic gadgets that keep us constantly busy and overwhelmed with work. While I am not arguing that we should turn into lazy academics, I am advocating that we need more balance in our lives. In my new research, I maintain that rest and replenishment are key aspects of what constitutes a true intellectual leader. Without taking time to rest and recharge the heart and soul of our being, we cannot engage in deep transformational work and bridge building; we cannot engage in passionate, sometimes contentious dialogue; and we cannot think clearly and do our intellectual work.

I speak from experience. My thirties and forties were spent on project after project, always working. I did not know what a vacation was, and yes, I got a great deal of work accomplished. I earned my promotion and tenure, but, as a person, I needed a wake-up call. I did not know what it was to love and be loved. I did not know what it was to pay attention to family and loved ones. We need Latina intellectual leaders who possess brilliant minds but who are also loving, compassionate, reflective human beings. We need to take care of ourselves and let renewal and replenishment be honored and dignified as a necessary dimension of our lives as academics.

Latina intellectual leaders must be engaged in visioning and shaping higher education's future transformative shifts. As I think about how exciting the possibilities for transformation can be, I also know that the process of change takes time. Perhaps we women will not see full change, full transformation in our lifetimes, but at least let us engage in continuing the process initiated by our ancestors and perpetuated by those of us who have taken risks and have shown the courage to articulate a different truth. In continuing the process, I trust we will honor those on whose shoulders we presently stand.

References

Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/la frontera. The new meztiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt Lute.

Arredondo, Gabriela F., Norma Klahn, and Aida Hurtado, eds. 2003. Chicana feminisms: A critical reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

hooks, bell. 1989. Talking back: Thinking feminist thinking black. Boston: South End Press.

Hurtado, Aida. 1996. The color of privilege: Three blasphemies on race and feminism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Latina Feminist Group. 2001. Telling to live: Latina feminist testimonios. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Rendón, Laura. 2000. Academics of heart. About Campus 5 (3): 3-5.

Rendón, Laura. 2000. Academics of the heart: Reconnecting the scientific mind with the artistry of the spirit. The Review of Higher Education 24 (1): 1-13.

Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous people. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Note: This article is based on remarks made at "Standardized Expectations or Unexpected Standards? Professional Advancement and the Dilemma for Latino Professionals in the Academy" at the American Council on Education Conference, 2002.