Making Curriculum from Scratch: Testimonio in an Urban Classroom

Testimonio, as a genre of the dispossessed, the migrant, and the queer, is a response to larger discourses of nation-building and has the potential to undermine the larger narratives that often erase and make invisible the expendable and often disposable labor and experiences of immigrants, the working class, African Americans, and others. This essay explores the use of testimonio in urban classrooms in Los Angeles and its use as a mediating tool in critical thinking and community based learning projects. I argue that there is a pedagogy to testimonio that is intersubjective and accessible and that, under certain circumstances, re-centers and revitalizes curriculum in this era of standardization and accountability, a hearkening to social justice movements that begin in education.