Cutting out Their Tongues: Mujeres' Testimonios and the Malintzin Researcher

Abstract

This article presents the issues I encountered as I collected data and translated life herstories/ testimonios of six Latina mothers living in a city in the U. S. Mountain West. After over five years of living, being, working, collaborating, and developing relationships with six Latina mother activists (five Mexicanas and one Guatemalan), I delved into critical reflexivity. The experience of researching and writing the critical ethnography and the depth of relational connections I developed with each of the six mothers moved me to write this critique so that I might continue to learn from the use of testimonio methodology and the countering act of translating their stories from Spanish to English. I search the possibility and explore the contradictions of being a researcher and how such researchers may be replicating oppressive acts when we translate and edit the voices of participants in educational research. At the same time, as Malintzin educational researchers in our communities, as Mexica...