As part of this year’s LBCC Latinx Heritage Month, the presentation “Querida Latinx: Using Racial Micro Affirmations to Recognize Us”, took place via Zoom on Sept. 29 to discuss how ethnic minorities in the U.S. handle the emotional impact of oppression.
Through the presentation, Dr. Lindsay Pérez-Huber, professor in analysis of education at CSULB, emphasized the concept of the “racial micro affirmation”, a term used to refer to the strategies marginalized people use to validate their experiences.
The term is a spin on the concept and term “microaggression” which was first introduced in the work of psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, M.D, in the 1970s, and has become integral to discussions about racism in America.
The microaggression is a subtle, everyday expression of racism that makes people of color feel like they don’t belong.
Someone touching a Black person’s hair without consent or using backhanded compliments and telling someone they are attractive, or speak well for a person of their race, are all examples of microaggressions.
The racial micro affirmation combats the microaggression and acts as an encouragement that acknowledges an experience, recovers self esteem or creates a positive sense of community in people of color.
“Micro affirmations can also be like the everyday validations we get from each other, they can be representations that are empowering … and they can also be counter space that we create within both academic or professional spaces,” said Pérez-Huber.
Throughout the presentation attendees were shown clips from various documentaries and speeches to examine research and engage in cultural storytelling.
The clips included footage from a TED Talk by children’s author Grace Lin and a documentary on the work of Dr. Kenjus Watson regarding the health of young Black undergraduate students at UCLA.
Also featured was the 2011 documentary “Precious Knowledge” which documented the effects of living through subtle expressions of racism can have on marginalized people.
Those effects include the negative psychological impact on children when they have no positive media representation and the biological impact caused by the stress of racism.
In one memorable scene from the “Precious Knowledge” documentary, Dr. Augustine Romero talks about the school to prison pipeline in underserved Black and Latinx communities.
“They’re using second grade children of color data to determine what number of prisons they’re gonna need in the future,” said Romero.
Racial micro affirmations are the coping mechanisms marginalized communities use to cope with racism.
Responses include the creation of positive representation, safe spaces, and the invention of shared slang or traditions to express a sense of cultural intimacy.
Pérez-Huber discussed a research activity called “Name Narratives’ that teachers at secondary and university level education could use as racial micro affirmations which allow for students to interact with their influences and identities.
“Names are culturally imbued with our family memory, they tell stories of structural oppression … it is one of the most powerful assignments I assign my students.” said Pérez-Huber.
The general idea is that the exercise, and others like it, can help legitimize traumatic experiences in the face of a culture eager to pretend those experiences do not exist.
In discussing exercises like this, Pérez-Huber also emphasized the importance of disciplines like ethnic studies or critical race theory being taught in schools to encourage critical thinking and take responsibility for uplifting communities of color.
For an educational institution like LBCC, hosting events like this one is part of upholding that responsibility.
“In the last two years the college has really moved in the direction of affirming and putting together heritage celebrations, and that really came under Dr. Mike Muñoz, who at the time was the vice president of student support services. ” said LBCC’s Dean of Student Equity, Sonia De La Torre-Iniguez.
Lectures like Pérez-Huber’s are just one form of the kind of critical thinking and involvement LBCC organizers are hoping to encourage. Other events include virtual cooking shows, a virtual Danza Azteca (Aztec Dance) practice, as well as other panels and discussions.
All of these events are meant to encourage conversations about the intersectional layers of the Latinx community, and are in line with this year’s Latinx Heritage Month theme, “convivir: communities among us, and between us”.
“This year we’re expanding the types of culture and identity based celebrations that we’re putting forward…and it’s really important to organize the event under a unified theme…we have found that that becomes a really good way of finding what anchors the message, and also what types of activities we have.What is happening on campus, locally, across the nation, globally, affects what that theme is.” De La Torre-Iniguez said.