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Intercultural Times

- The IAIE Newsletter -

INTER-VIEW WITH

René Hernandez Luis [1]

1) First of all Rene I would like to thank you on behalf of the IAIE for agreeing to do this interview

I am thankful I’ve been given the opportunity to share a little about my personal life and learning process with the IAIE on- line magazine. I hope it can be an interview that will contribute to intercultural education.

2) Before we talk about intercultural education I would like you tell us a little about your background: where you grew up, your family and your community?

My name is René Hernandez Luis. I come from the community of Huazuntlán in the municipality of Mecayapan, Veracruz. My parents are indigenous nahua farmers in the south of Veracruz. I grew up in a family environment with very few economical resources. My parents didn’t have a chance to be part of the educational system; therefore they can’t read or write. Nevertheless they gave me the advice and support to have a professional education. The advice and the things they lived through were the motor that pushed me to try hard and move forward, sometimes with little strength to go on but never losing sight of my objective. Living in a family in which parents don’t have a fixed salary and live entirely off the land is hard but nice as well. You may not have the material resources to get what other people have, but my experience in that environment makes it perfectly clear that money isn’t what keeps us going. I remember that while I didn’t have money to buy notebooks for each individual school subject, like my classmates did, I had the momentum to find the way to do things in the best way possible. I didn’t have notebooks but I did have white sheets of paper that I stapled myself to make notebooks. While other kids rested after school, I went home, ate and then helped my father farming the land and chopping firewood to have enough at home. Both my parents battled with illness while I was in high school and that is when I started to feel the burden of leading a family. As well as providing food for everyone, I was in high school and had a job as well as a few small grants and scholarships which covered my school expenses. This experience shaped me as a person and also taught me how important it is to help others. It doesn’t matter what our economical and social conditions are, success can be for everyone.

3) Could you also tell us about the educational trajectory that framed these formative years: in particular your primary and secondary school education?

When I had just turned 3 my parents enrolled me in the Ignacio Zaragoza pre-school. I barely remember but during this period I was a very restless and curious child. Every time I got home I did my homework and my father, even though he didn’t know how to read and write, helped me, to do it. Thanks to the limited amount of things and letters he had learned in his life, he taught me to do things at an early age. When I finished pre-school at 6 years old I knew the vowels and how to write my whole name among other things.

My journey through grade school was at Santana Rodriguez state school, in my community. I remember that from the beginning of grade school I was very dedicated, every day alter school I did my homework and read the school text books, because we didn’t have any other books at home. Around the final years of grade school I also started to participate in National Anthem, oratory and knowledge competitions. In the fifth grade knowledge competition, I was placed first at regional level. In the sixth grade I also got first place for oratory at regional level and second place at state level. I graduated with honors.

After grade school I went to the Escuela Secundaria Técnica Industrial 106 (Technical Industrial Secondary School) in Tatahuicapan de Juárez, Veracruz. I enrolled in accountancy. During this time I became president of the school council. As president, I represented the school in accounting competitions and was placed at the highest level in the regional context. I also continued with oratory competitions, and came first at both regional and statewide events. In my second year of secondary school I got a grant from the SEC (Department of Education) for scholastic performance, which helped me continue my studies and cover some of the personal costs for school.

4) Had you considered going to university prior to the arrival of the UVI (Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural). Did university form part of your imaginary future?

By the time I had finished high school I had it in my mind to go on studying, the only problem was that neither my family nor I had the economic resources to cover the enrollment nor the maintenance fees . Nevertheless my plans to go to college were firm and a few months before I had already decided to save some money to enroll in a university.

I went to high school at Centro de Bachillerato Tecnológico Industrial y de Servicios #250 (Technical, Industrial and Service High School #250) in Jaltipan de Morelos, Veracruz where, once again I was class president for two years and student council president for one. In my last year of high school I was selected to represent the school in the social history category at regional level. I got first place and was given the opportunity to represent the region at a state-wide level where I came in third place. All this, plus my grade point average, helped me get grants and scholarships during my three years of high school which were an incentive to continue with my studies.

I was always interested in reading, my previous experience and my participation in competitions related to the humanities led me to that area of study. In the beginning I wanted to study philosophy and literature so during my last months of high school I went to a professor to ask for advice on where I could do that degree. He told me to ask myself this, “At what age does a philosopher get famous? What do you live on while you write a book?” In other words, he advised me to look into engineering. My teacher’s comments influenced my decision and led me to pick a degree in engineering. Once I had decided which engineering degree I applied to the Instituto Tenológico de Minatitlán (Technological Institute of Minatitlan). I had decided to study Industrial Engineering however studying accountancy at high school had left me unprepared for this career. During the summer vacation therefore I asked one of my high school professors to help me catch up on the topics I was behind on. He helped me and a few days after I sat the entrance exam, I checked the school’s website and saw that I had been accepted. I began my studies in industrial engineering.

But, to answer your question, I didn’t know anything about the UVI, nor had I thought of studying at an intercultural university. I found out about this educational model a few months after I began studying engineering in Minatitlan. One afternoon the UVI’s regional management committee summoned people to the main plaza to inform us that the UVI had been approved. Preparations were made in the community to remodel the facilities of the INI hostel in Huazuntlán, through community work, “tapalewillis”. My father and I helped for more than two weeks, afternoons, mornings and full days on the weekends. My participation, at a young age, motivated the project coordinator, Lic. Vidal Hernández Martínez, to invite me to become part of the first generation of students for this project.

5) Can you remember how the decision to go to the intercultural university unfolded? Who was involved in this decision making process and what were the determining factors?

As I mentioned in the previous answer, the founding coordinator’s invitation to become part of UVI, is what influenced my decision. He explained to me how the degree worked, about paying attention to environmental, cultural and productive issues in the region. My answer was that I thought it was a great proposal but I was already studying to get my engineering degree in Minatitlán. He told me not to worry, to go ahead and do the paperwork to start at UVI, since it wouldn’t do any harm and if I didn’t get into the UVI program I already had my fall-back plan assured. After some thought I decided to go ahead and do the paperwork, a few days later I checked the UVI’s website and saw I was accepted. That’s when I realized I had to make a decision, should I leave one degree or continue with both? I finally decided to proceed with both. I made it through my second semester of engineering when I finally decided to leave it and continue my degree in Desarrollo Sustentable Regional (Regional Sustainable Development) at UVI. This decision was not easy, my friends and family all were against the decision, because they all believed a career in engineering would be far more lucrative than a degree at UVI. They thought it wasn’t a real school, some even told me this decision would lead to me starving to death; they honestly made me think about it a lot. I didn’t know what to do for a while, but I finally realized the decision had been made and I wasn’t going to change my mind. I dropped out of the Tecnológico in Minatitlán and continued my degree at UVI. Like I said before, even though I had a very technical development all through school, I always saw myself thriving in the humanities and I was always interested in reading about both the theoretical and, of course the practical side of things. The UVI was offering me this, which is how I decided to enroll at UVI.

6) Before entering the UVI what were your expectations for an intercultural education: how did you imagine it might be constituted?

When I got to the UVI, the expectations I had for an intercultural education were not realised. I had no idea. I wanted the way of teaching and learning at the UVI to be based on technical knowledge not so much on community or cultural knowledge. I thought the best way that the UVI could pursue education would be to create technical and practical techniques based on engineering or other subjects which I thought were more formal. I didn’t think cultural, environmental or community knowledge could be a part of professional education for a student. I had cultural knowledge about the region but I hadn’t lived with and really talked to these people in an interactive environment, so my attitude wasn’t very sensitive when it came to these interactions.

7) Having completed your degree course at the UVI how would you now define intercultural education?

Having finished my degree at UVI I consider intercultural education to be a representation of a new educational model that is just emerging. This emerging model is on the horizon, wishing to re-structure and bring together new ways of teaching in higher education. On the one hand it recognizes cultural diversity, not just cultural groups but as groups that have their own ideals and views of the world; cultural recognition for both the tangible and the intangible. Intercultural education represents a field that is in construction, an emerging space where cultural knowledge and practices have been invisible for many years; not only of the indigenous people but of groups that are considered vulnerable or afro-descendants, especially in the latin american context. It is also a space that lets us move toward an education that tries to articulate and establisb networks of professionals that engage with their regions with a critical and responsible spirit.

8) Is it possible to describe your journey through the university in terms of personal, emotional and intellectual growth?

My journey through UVI in personal terms has given me a lot, especially because I lived through an uneven formative process. My arrival to the humanities field, coming from the technological field, for a while influenced my perception, especially in relation to the idea that the UVI curriculum wasn’t useful for anything, that what they taught us were just discourses, and that what really mattered was to build or manage machinery or equipment where there was production. I was missing a critical spirit. I remember that some of the classes seemed boring because, in my opinion, I was only wasting my time at school, I though what my teachers were saying was useless, I had a challenging attitude. My teachers noticed and started to give lectures on sociology, to see if I what I was saying was true. I remember that when I started to read these articles I didn’t understand a word of them, I would read them three times, as for my reading reports, sometimes I would write pure nonsense, and even once in a while I would write that what the assigned reading said was right, but I had no idea how it applied to reality? How can you put it into practice? My previous education needed it all to be visualized.

As I explored the work of different writers and texts from the region I began to find some sense in it, and on the other hand, field work frequently showed me that what I had previously read was very similar to what has happening, which increased my interest. . Soon I became interested in community development, environmental development, indigenous languages and the media. These topics helped me practice and start writing my own presentations, scripts and essays that helped me develop my reflection, analysis and critical abilities in what I was observing. Interactions with community groups and local and regional actors helped me to broaden my vision , that was how I started to re-adapt my previous conceptions toward new ways to create and build knowledge.

9) I know it’s a hypothetical question but how do think your university experience might have differed if you had attended a traditional university in Mexico rather than an intercultural university.

Yes, as I’ve mentioned before, if I had gone on to finish my engineering degree nowadays I might not be interested or engaged with my region, I wouldn’t have developed a spirit for teamwork; the individualism that is taught in traditional universities would have consumed me and today, I might just be one more person looking for personal development no matter what the costs are. I don’t mean to say that the UVI is the solution to all these arbitrary reproductions that traditional education promotes, however I do point out that my journey through the UVI gave me the tools to act more sensitively in relation to getting closer to communities, as well as a theoretical and critical position that may not be complex but has a holistic view when it comes to identifying community development initiatives for this region.

10) Having graduated from the university can you tell us a little about your decision to continue studying in a post graduate capacity?

When I was working on my final dissertation at the UVI, in the Sierra de Santa Marta, a region in Veracruz, with Nahua and Popoluca Camedor Palm (chamaedorea) producers, I realized that there is very important knowledge area that today remain excluded from the Mexican educational system. Specifically the way to articulate the knowledge that both farmers and academics have that could contribute to shaping professional development. These positions seem to imply separate spaces, when in reality this dialogue is what designs and shapes a professional. Visualizing the dichotomy between what is academic knowledge and what is local knowledge is learned at school or college, and local knowledge seems to lack verifiability. Research at the UVI systematizes and demonstrates this dichotomy and tries to analyze how local and academic knowledge could be coordinated and articulated. I use the word could because I am not asserting this possibility. In that sense, the idea to develop this work through a master’s degree thesis was born. Therefore the decision to do a Master’s degree in Educational research with a focus on intercultural education at the Institute for Educational Research at the Veracruz university , was based on the decision that this is a space that will let me achieve the personal and academic goals that I mentioned at the beginning of this interview.

Before I chose to enter the Master’s degree program in Educational Research, I was one of UVI’s candidates selected through an exam to do a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Austin, Texas in the United Status, but since I lacked the necessary level in the English language certification exam that the University of Texas requires I couldn’t enter that program.

11) I would now like to ask you about more theoretical issues related to intercultural education. The world vision embedded in the UVIs pedagogical and epistemological discourse positions young people like you as intercultural managers. That is, as individuals responsible for managing intercultural relations between indigenous communities and the wider social context in Mexico.

Do you agree with this vision? How achievable, in your opinion, are these policy aims in a local context? Could you talk you to us about this world vision on both a personal and academic level?

I think this is a very important question. In the first place I want to clarify that to answer this question I give you my personal point of view based on what I know about UVI, as well as my experience in both the theoretical and practical fields as a first generation student in this degree.

The intercultural pedagogical and epistemological discourse at the UVI indeed comes from a specific world vision, based on a western occidental point of view. To engage with the sort of discourse, like the one the UVI puts forwards, is a worthwhile search for new ways to articulate and apply the new competence based educational models that start from the bottom up. However what happens in practice is different from what we imagine might happen on the theoretical level. These models are copied and recontextualised in diverse contexts where we are unsure whether they will produce the same results as in other situations. We preach about an educational model with a constructivist focus but it is often put into practice with a conductivist methodology (this isn’t specific to UVI). This is why the interactions between students and professors in the different UVI regions get re-structured, they get re-directed and re-designed depending on the regions, in a way that might not be intercultural. This leads us to the fact that there isn’t an appropriate or clear explanation in relation to the epistemological values or intellectual interpretations on how to be a professional with these traits. The proliferation of concepts facing these new topics is complex. In my opinion this situation stems from the fact that the UVI is going through an institutionalization process as well as a conceptual affirmation process on what interculturality is. Right now the first fruits of this program, the first generation of intercultural managers are facing the reality of the labor market. In this context, in relation to the communities, it is necessary to do a retrospective, introspective and future analysis, based on these new phenomena, in order to find some balance with the initial/ original aims for intercultural management or interculturality.

12) Another hypothetical question: If you had the power and the desire to influence UVI policy what aspects would you change and why?

More than change or influence I think it would be a good opportunity to think collectively about how appropriate the syllabus is as well as the educational opportunities that the UVI offers in different regions in the state of Veracruz. We need to ask, does the degree respond to the region’s needs? Is it possible to build sustainable development based on these proposals? Is it pertinent to re-plan or offer degrees that bring about regional development with an intercultural focus? Why a degree in intercultural management in these communities? And why not engineering careers focusing on productive systems, indigenous rights, local and foreign languages, traditional medicine with institutional recognition, etc? These are only proposals, but they could of course help us think about new directions.

Maybe there isn’t much we can influence at the political level in the UVI, but the results of research that has been carried out could contribute to consolidating and improving the university.

13) Before we finish Rene, I would like to thank you once again on behalf of the IAIE members for participating in this interview. Sharing your academic and personal experiences with us makes a valuable contribution to intercultural education development. Before finishing however I would like to ask you one last question. Given your personal and academic intercultural educational formation can you describe what your imaginary future might look like? Where do you visualize yourself, on a personal and professional level, let’s say, in ten years time.

Sometimes it is hard for me to anticipate, but it is also true that you cannot be without expectations for the future. I try to build day by day what I want for tomorrow. I work hard to learn new things from the moment I open a book to read it, when I speak to a farmer, a housewife a friend, a professional, a politician or to nature itself. Personally I see myself with a family who I can share my achievements, failures, triumphs and losses with. I can see myself helping my parents, my family and my community as I always have. Academically I see myself finishing a doctorate and getting a job to survive. I can imagine some places where I can see myself working, but to me that is going too far ahead. I’d rather talk about the little I can do right now and in the right way. This will help me be where I should be, in my community, my region or even outside of it. I especially want to continue, through research to contribute to intercultural topics that focus on the dialogue of knowledge, the environment and productivity. I would like to continue to develop as a researcher and teacher, to share my experiences with younger people, farmers and professionals, both in and out of my region.

[1] Rene is currently studying for his masters degree in educational research at the University of Veracruz. He is a first generation graduate from the Veracruz Intercultural University (UVI). The UVI emerged from one of the most prestigious public universities in the country, the University of Veracruz. It is based on the development of other intercultural universities in Mexico but following its own model, it opened four intercultural campuses in 2005, in four of the most important indigenous areas of Veracruz. Through academic programmes, which principally target indigenous and non-indigenous students living in marginalized, rural and indigenous communities the UVI aims to diversify supposedly universalist academic ‘knowledge’ in order to relate it to local knowledge, to subaltern, ‘ethno-scientific’ and alternative knowledge, all of which mutually hybridize each other and thus create new, diversified, ‘entangled’ and ‘globalized’ cannons of knowledge (Mignolo 2000). See Intercultural Education (2009) vol. 20 no. 1 for further information on intercultural universities in Mexico.

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