(A speech given at The Pennington School to commemorate the Hispanic Heritage Month)

We all come from different places and have different stories. Mine began in Cuba and took an exciting turn when I moved to the United States to study. It’s kind of like jumping from one book into another, with new characters and new scenes, yet, I am still the main character of my story.

In Cuba, I was surrounded by familiar faces and places. When I came here to further my studies, things looked different, and often, people saw me differently too. 

My journey made me realize that who we are is not just tied to a flag or a country. It’s so much more. We are shaped by our experiences, the things we learn, the friends we make, and the challenges we overcome.

The whole idea of the “American Dream” or belonging to just one place didn’t resonate with me. I discovered that my identity goes beyond borders.

Every one of us is like a unique painting, with colors and strokes from all the different parts of our lives. We keep adding to our picture every day, with every new experience and every new person we meet.

I learned that it’s not about where you come from, but the journey you are on and the person you are becoming. Our stories are what make us unique, and sharing them with each other helps us learn, grow, and understand the world a little better.

In Spanish, there are two ways to say "to be": "Ser" and "Estar." It's like having two different lenses to look at who we are. "Ser" is used for things that don't change, like where you come from or the fact that you are a student. It's like the permanent colors in your life's picture. On the other hand, "Estar" is for things that can change, like feelings or where you are at the moment. It's like the changing shades in your picture as you go through your day. This cool thing about Spanish shows us that our identity has parts that stay the same and parts that change as we grow or as our day goes by. So, just like "Ser" and "Estar," who we are has both steady and shifting colors, making our life picture interesting and unique.

So, let’s celebrate our stories, learn from each other, and help each other paint our own remarkable, multifarious pictures.

Drawing upon years of instructing vibrant minds from high school to tertiary levels, I've observed a recurring theme: the conundrum of investing years in language lessons, yet feeling alienated from genuine language mastery. This reflective piece will delve into an oft-overlooked dimension of language teaching: transcending rote methodologies to illuminate the realm of intellectual engagement.

Avoiding Infantilization

A frequent misstep in language pedagogy is the replication of early childhood language, treating older students as if they were small children learning their first language. This approach often involves teaching basic vocabulary, colors, songs, and daily routines in a way that may have worked when students were toddlers but is wholly inadequate for older learners. While these topics are undoubtedly essential for building a foundation in a language, relying solely on them is a disservice to our students.

Intellectual Engagement Is Key

As students grow older, their approach to learning evolves. They develop a sense of intellectual curiosity that goes beyond simple vocabulary and basic phrases. To be effective language educators, we must tap into this curiosity and engage our students intellectually. Here's how:

Narrative-Based Learning: Instead of isolated vocabulary, immerse students in stories. Introduce them to celebrated figures from the language's cultural tapestry, broadening their linguistic and cultural horizons simultaneously.

Cultivating Critical Expression: Motivate learners to articulate intricate thoughts in the new language. Stimulating dialogues, debates, and analytical tasks compel them to navigate the language's depth and breadth.

Cultural Immersion: Every language is a portal to its culture. Blend elements of literature, cinema, and traditions into lessons. This not only makes learning more interesting but also helps students understand the nuances of the language.  

Authentic Materials & Real-World Resources: Integrate contemporary materials such as blogs, podcasts, and real-life interviews. These resources provide a tangible touch to the language, refining practical linguistic adeptness.

Interdisciplinary Approach: Partner with fellow educators to weave language into other subjects. Envisage a geography lesson detailing Spain's terrain — all in Spanish. Such strategies reinforce dual learning objectives seamlessly.

Digital Embrace: Harness the power of modern tools to make learning interactive and engaging. Learning apps in the target language, online language communities or exchanges, and virtual reality experiences can elevate the traditional classroom's scope

The Relevance of Stimulating Critical Thinking

Teaching language is not just about memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules; it's about enabling students to communicate effectively and engage with the world in new ways. When students are intellectually engaged in their language learning journey, they are more likely to retain what they've learned and apply it in real-life situations.

Adopting a holistic, intellectually invigorating paradigm enriches students' linguistic prowess and cultivates a keen ability to thrive in a globalized milieu.

By moving beyond basic lessons and embracing a more comprehensive and intellectually stimulating approach to language education, we can ensure that our students make substantial progress in their language skills. This approach not only benefits students in their academic pursuits but also equips them with the ability to navigate a multilingual and interconnected world.

To my fellow language educators, let's continually refine our pedagogical tools, championing intellectual stimulation, and genuine context. By doing so, we can empower our students to become proficient and confident speakers of the language, whether in high school or college, and equip them with intercultural skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

Oftentimes, when I go to a poetry reading to showcase or read aloud my work, I introduce myself as a transdisciplinary writer and educator. "But what is a transdisciplinary writer or a transdisciplinary poet, for that matter?" you may ask. 

A transdisciplinary poet, in a nutshell, is a poet who works across and beyond the boundaries of different disciplines. Those disciplines can be art, science, philosophy, ecology, or social science, to name just a few. The transdisciplinary poet may use various forms, media, languages, and modes of expression to create poetry that explores complex and emergent issues. They may also collaborate with other poets, artists, and practitioners from different disciplines and backgrounds to create interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dialogues that, ultimately, become poetic projects.

And if you are wondering about the difference between interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary, well, it is quite easy. The former keeps the boundaries of each discipline intact, looking for connections that can enrich each field. While simply put, the latter seeks to transcend the norms of individual disciplines to create new knowledge. 

There are several examples out there for transdisciplinary poetry, and I will make sure to list those at the end of this post -or if you are bored already, you can skip to that; don't worry, I won't take it personally, I get easily bored too.

In my personal work, and for those who know me without the need to stick your nose into my CV, some examples of transdisciplinary poetry practices are my performances, sometimes aiming closer to the visual arts, like "El poema" (1), and others, falling more along the lines of a play, such as "Esto no es un huevo es la muerte de la gallina" (2). Other examples come from media art, like the installation "Entre líneas" (3) or the net-art project CubaFakeNews (4). And in the form of a more conventional output, my ASCII (5) visual poetry, and the artist book/poetry collection/art project Hay palabras vulva (6), affectionately known as "the vulva book," where besides visual poetry and the ekphrastic (7) poem Destejido, there is a call for a global female intervention (do not panic, men, it sounds grandiloquent but it is actually a collaborative intervention that runs on photography, ASCII, and women's biographical writing).

Needless to say, since I am not just a poet but a writer, which accounts for fiction as well as other scribbling adventures, I also reserve some of my transdisciplinary impetus for prose. In "Exercising the Productive Einbildungskraf" (8), I work in the interstices between the short story and the play script. My novel Tim sin Tina, on the other hand -finishing this year, but still in progress, so no spoilers here- displays several genres to cover a variety of voices and time frames. 

And yes, down below, alongside the transdisciplinary poetry not authored by me, I will list as well some of my favorite examples for prose. 

Well, I hope you get it by now, and as I reach the end of this post, I will say that there are some transdisciplinary practices that I have yet to explore, such as cut-up writing, collage poetry, found poetry, or erasure literature. Maybe I'll try those in the future. For now, I am catching up with sound poetry and multimedia poetry -after all, I did not go through a DJ course in Havana or write a dissertation on the impact of digital technology in 21st-century Cuban literature just for nothing. 

One of these days, I may write another post where I do not talk about my own but the work of others, just for the fun of it. As you may already know, there is a hopeless bookworm behind every writer, and believe me, distinguished readers, I am not the exception. 

Until then, or that other phrase that I like to use and any respectable reader should know, Hasta pronto.

Some examples of transdisciplinary writers here:

Poetry, a couple of classics first:

• La poesía del pensamiento by Octavio Paz: A collection of essays that explore the relationship between poetry and philosophy, and the role of language and imagination in human thought. The essays cover topics such as the origin of poetry, the nature of metaphor, the dialogue between East and West, and the influence of poets such as Dante, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, and Borges.

• Bilingual/Bilingüe by Rhina P. Espaillat: A poem that explores the relationship between language and identity, tinted with the conflict between the poet and her father over her bilingualism. The poem uses both English and Spanish words to create a nuanced and poignant expression.

Poetry, now the more recent examples:

• .chisaraokwu., an award-winning poet-artist, actor, and healthcare futurist of Nigerian descent. She uses poetry, performance, photography, and film to explore themes such as identity, belonging, healing, and transformation.

• Monica Mody, a scholar, educator, and poet at the intersections of earth-based wisdom, whole-person philosophy, and embodied regenerative consciousness. She writes poetry that engages with myth, ecology, feminism, and decolonization.

• CAConrad, a North American poet, activist, and practitioner of somatic poetry rituals. His poetry challenges the norms of society, politics, and language.

• Sara Croucher, the PYP coordinator at Dwight School Seoul in South Korea. She revised a unit of inquiry about poetry as a means of creative expression to make it more transdisciplinary by focusing on the concept of patterns and integrating different subjects such as language, mathematics, science, arts, and physical education.

• Mónica de la Torre, a poet, translator, and scholar who was born and raised in Mexico City. She teaches at Brooklyn College. She writes in both English and Spanish, and her poetry explores themes such as bilingualism, identity, culture, and language.

Prose, first, the classics:

• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin: A classic science fiction novel that depicts a planet where the inhabitants are ambisexual, meaning they can change their sex depending on their hormonal cycles. The novel uses anthropology, sociology, psychology, and ecology to create a rich and diverse world.

• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. A nonfiction book that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. The book chronicles the History of the development of nuclear weapons, from the discovery of nuclear fission to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The book combines science, History, biography, politics, and ethics for a comprehensive and compelling narrative.

Prose, now the most recent, folks:

• The Arrival by Shaun Tan: A graphic novel that was published in 2006. The novel depicts the experience of an immigrant who leaves his homeland and arrives in a strange new country. The novel uses only images, without any words or dialogue, to create a universal, powerfull, story.

• The Silent History by Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby, and Kevin Moffett: Novel that was originally released as an app for iOS devices in 2012. It tells the story of a generation of children who are born without the ability to speak or understand language. The silent History consists of three parts: Testimonials, which are short chapters that can be read in any order; Field Reports, geolocated stories that can only be accessed by visiting specific locations; and Serial, which includes a daily update that advances the main plot.

• Pry by Tender Claws: A digital novella that was released as an app for iOS devices in 2014. The novella tells the story of James, a demolition consultant and veteran of the Gulf War, who suffers from vision loss and PTSD. The novella uses touch gestures, such as pinching and prying, to navigate through different layers of the story, such as text, video, audio, and images.

• El mapa de los afectos by Ana Merino: A novel that won the Nadal Prize in 2020. The novel tells the story of a small town in Iowa, where different characters live and interact over several decades. The novel uses text, images, maps, and comics to create a mosaic of emotions and relationships.

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: A Booker Prize-winning novel that tells the story of a family in Kerala, India, and the tragic events that shape their lives. The novel uses poetic language, nonlinear narrative, and political critique to explore themes such as caste, class, gender, and colonialism.

Some queer examples, because we all need those:

• She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: A genderqueer retelling of the origin story of one of China’s most iconic historical figures: Zhu Yuanzhang, founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The novel combines historical fiction, fantasy, queer theory, and Chinese culture to create a stunning and original work.

• Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe: A graphic memoir that chronicles the author’s journey of self-discovery and identity as a non-binary and asexual person. The memoir uses comics, illustrations, poetry, and prose to convey the author’s experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

• Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee: A fantasy novel set in a colonized Korea-inspired world, where a non-binary artist is recruited by the Ministry of Armor to paint mystical sigils that animate the occupying government’s automaton soldiers. The novel explores themes such as art, magic, war, colonialism, identity, and resistance.

• Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon: A nonfiction book that challenges the binary conception of gender and argues for a more inclusive and diverse understanding of gender identity and expression. The book uses personal stories, History, philosophy, art, and activism.

Other transdisciplinary projects can be visited at the Revista Desliz archives, courtesy of Rialta. 

Notes

1. “El poema” (performance). Torre de Letras, Havana, June 15, 2007

2.  “Esto no es un huevo es la muerte de la gallina” (performance, in collaboration with Andrés X). Festival de performances de Alamar, Havana, August 16, 2004

3. “Entre líneas” (exhibition, several installation pieces). Casa de la Poesía, Havana October 15-November 15, 2004

4. CubaFakeNews (collaborative online newspaper). Internet, Havana, March, 2009.

5. ASCII art: ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in the 1960s, ASCII code is a standardized way of presenting and reading Latin-based alphanumeric keyboard characters. ASCII art creates images using this set of characters. The final result, as an image made out of text, can be as complex -or as simple- as you desire it to be.

6. Hay palabras vulva (Editorial Casa Vacía, 2023)

7. Ekphrastic poetry: Poetry that responds to or describes another work of art.

8. “Exercising the Productive Einbildungskraf” (short story: English). Margaret Randall (translator), The Oval Portrait: Contemporary Cuban Women Writers and Artists (Ed. Soleida Ríos,  Wings Press, 2018)