Artist Ethnography: 5 Steps of Cultural Translation (In Summary) by Ixchel Tonantzin Xochitlzihuatl

Rio Grande Valley, Texas

Artist Ethnography:
5 Steps of Cultural Translation
(In Summary)

by Ixchel Tonantzin Xochitlzihuatl

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

My name is Ixchel Tonāntzin Xōchitlzihuatl (formerly ChristinaMaria Patiño Houle). I am a visual, community and conceptual artist who works to evolve the collective imagination towards more peaceful, just and liberatory present/ futures.

I have ancestral roots connecting me to the Rio Grande Valley and moved to the region for a fellowship with buildingcommunityWORKSHOP in 2016. After the fellowship ended I continued to work with the community in the Rio Grande Valley. My work there continues to this day.

It is important to understand my relationship to the organization and to the community because it influenced the nature of my relationships with interviewees. At moments there was lack of clarity on my different projects and engagements with these interviewees over time. There was ambiguity on what I produced in the region with [bc] and what I produced as an artist, or as the director of a separate nonprofit (now called Voces Unidas).

Instead of clarifying these points with interviewees during the interview process (it made no difference to them) I simply interpreted the data to reflect what I understood from their responses and what I knew about the larger regional (and personal) context.

It is also important to understand my relationship to [bc] because I have an intimate (though not complete) understanding of the culture and programs at the nonprofit from my work there. Though my employment at the organization ended 7 years ago, we continue to be in dialogue and have collaborated on other smaller, regional projects, including participation in the Architecture Roundtable in 2020.

INTENTION

My intention in committing to this project as an artist-researcher is to uplift the voices and wisdom of community members who may otherwise not be centered or understood for their deep insights and reflections on the region and community development.

I spent time connecting with each participant in advance of the interview, explaining the purpose of the interview and the larger potential for their contributions: to have their voices influence how community development unfolds both in the region and within the field at large.

Art and relational connection is a critical part of my process (both in this initiative and my work at large). Art and relational connection allow community members to express themselves in languages and processes that may be more familiar and comfortable than other methodologies that can seem technical, competitive, or restrictive.

My mentor, Renda Dionne-Madrigal (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) says that English is the language of the colonizer. It is not a language indigenous to this land, nor is it a language indigenous to the people we serve. I write this text in English. The interviews were conducted in Spanish and English (both languages of colonization) but the language of expression, of somatics, of embodiment, languages that live in our ancestral bodies, were all critical parts of the interview process.

PROCESS

Before embarking on the project I talked with Third Space about the research questions, the existing methodologies, and the research goals. I made two primary changes to the existing methodologies implemented in the research structure:

I grouped the questions into 7 thematic categories (The original research questions are listed in the appendix A and the reformatted research questions are listed in Appendix B). This adjustment allowed the format of the conversation to have more of an organic flow and allowed participants to speak freely on a theme.
I grouped participants into small circles instead of interviewing each one individually. This allowed participants to be influenced by one another’s ideas and shifted the interview dynamic from being one of researcher vs participant to researcher as a guest in the community landscape. The result was that participants felt comfortable shaping the space and speaking freely on issues that might otherwise feel sensitive or taboo.

During the first round of interviews I decided to participate directly in the story circle myself. My responses to the questions are included in the original transcripts. From an indigenous and decolonial perspective it is important to include my own voice and point of view so that the lens of analysis is transparent.

During most interviews I chose to simply observe and be attentive to the interviewees. Sometimes I chose not to take notes so that I could be somatically alert to cues to information that was communicated nonverbally. I reviewed transcripts to generated notes after all the interviews were completed and completed a process of art-based coding (designed specifically for this project) to support the process of data analysis.

I view this artistic ethnography as a 5 step process in cultural translation. First I worked with Third Space to translate the questions into a framing that suited the community context. Secondly I reconfigured the community interview structure so that it would best highlight the collective regional wisdom. Thirdly I coded the data using artist-ethnographic tools. Fourthly, I wrote the artist-ethnography summary. Lastly, the literary artwork was created as a culminating, expressive gesture.

VISION FOR EQUITY

METHODOLOGY

The practice I implemented was influenced by Judy Pryor-Ramirez and taught to me while she collaborated with an organization I founded, Voces Unidas (RGV). Our organization brought Judy in to help us check in with the community during a time of deep structural transition. Judy developed a story circle process influenced by the cultural and community organizing of Junebug Productions and the Civil Rights Movement. Her process, my work with Renda Dionne-Madrigal as part of our cultural reclamation project in the RGV, my studies at Harvard in Ethnography with Roberto G. Gonzalez, Community Research with Chris Dede, and Arts-Based research with Mary Hafili at Columbia University, all informed the methodological practice I developed for this specific initiative. I was also influenced by the writings and research of Dr. Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot, Dr. Barbara Tedlock, and Dr. Jack D. Forbes.

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

PARTICIPANTS

I interviewed 10 individuals from the Rio Grande Valley. 7 lived in the Lower Valley, in
Brownsville, Texas. 3 lived in the Upper Valley in different cities in Hidalgo County. Participants ranged in age from early 30’s to mid 50’s. 6 identify as female. 3 identify as male. 1 identifies as nonbinary.
All participants spent the majority of their lives living in the Rio Grande Valley. 7 identify as culture makers. 3 identify as community organizers. 6 identify as educators.

There were three main categories that participants identified as benchmarks for measuring community equity

Cultural and Economic Equity

Participants wanted to live in a city where there is a thriving creative economy. They yearn to be recognized for their abilities as culture makers and to live in a region where they can thrive based upon their wisdom as cultural stewards. To them equity means that there are ways for them to financially sustain themselves while they advance cultural innovation.
This point is important because cultural genocide often happens through economic stress. When the economy of a community forces residents to devote all of their time and labor to basic needs (housing, food, etc.) there is no time or resources available for cultural production. As a result, cultural production becomes an activity only afforded by the wealthy, and then cultural narratives are only determined by the wealthy. Eventually, the culture of historically targeted groups (immigrants, Indigenous people, Black people, women) disappears because these individuals do not have access to the time needed to uphold and pass down their traditions. Languages and cosmovisions disappear in this way.
Spatial Equity

Spatial equity addresses who is creating the dominant narrative in the region by shaping public space. This issue was a dominant theme across almost all of the interview questions. Participants repeatedly voiced their concerns that the dominant cultural decisions in the region were being made by people who did not reflect the interests of the community at large.
Participants repeatedly expressed concerns that outsiders with a lot of money were playing a large part in shaping the cultural landscape of the region. Participants reflected that these individuals were using capital to influence local government decisions and that large decisions were being made without the interest or input of the community at large. Cultural and economic equity would mean that the average resident of Brownsville would have equal ability.
Equitable Treatment

Equitable treatment means that immigrants do not suffer discrimination and have equal access to basic needs such as just housing, transportation, culturally relevant education, language accessibility and economic sustainability. Presently immigrants feel persecuted in their own communities. It is unsafe for residents to perform basic activities like going to church, school, or a park because of fear of deportation. Colonias (unincorporated townships where low income residents live in small communities) lack basic infrastructure and are under constant threat of flooding. Every year immigrants lose their houses during hurricane season. Equity means that immigrants and low income residents have access to basic needs and are able to live in a demilitarized community.

NARRATIVE

Indigenous- and Black-led teachings demonstrate that the more a narrative is repeated the more it multiplies and reinforces itself. This idea is addressed by adrienne maree brown in her teaching that “what you pay attention to grows,” and in the Navajo teachings of the Beauty Way. Both of these ideas point to the fact that the more energy that goes into an idea the more the idea will grow and multiply itself. If you want beauty you should focus on beauty, not the things that threaten beauty. By focusing on beauty you strengthen the beauty and the threats to it organically fall away.

These teachings are not meant to dismiss or discredit the actual challenges that communities have in keeping ourselves safe, but instead they present a complimentary model that allows us to hold space for safety while also centering the vision that we work to cultivate. With these philosophies in mind I am presenting the narratives that participants celebrate in our region and alongside the ones they want to see further developed.

“The RGV is a place to thrive.”

Community members see people have left the region to pursue opportunities that they perceived were not available in the RGV. Those who participated in the interview process see the RGV as a place where all opportunities can be created. They see the RGV as somewhere that can provide educational, cultural, environmental, and economic livelihood. They celebrate the abundance of their region.

“We take care of one another. We share resources. We create our own abundance. We are abundance. We provide for one another and create networks of care and love.”

Immigrant, Indigenous, and Latin American culture all value family, resourcefulness and
community care. These values came forth in the interview process. Interviewees wanted to share and uplift their ability to care for one another even in times of financial challenge or hardship. Our community has the capacity to generate abundance in times when others might see scarcity. We have the capacity to make something from nothing. Our love and ability to care for one another is our deepest and most valued resource.

“Cultural production can generate community abundance.”

There are many narratives that state that creative people can either choose a career as an artist and live in perpetual economic instability, or choose a career in a different field in order to have economic stability. Community members in the RGV see their cultural value and believe in their ability to create thriving cultural economies.

“The community has the power and wisdom to generate cultural programming (by us and for us). Our community can tell our stories. We shape and make our future.”

The participants see outsiders shaping their cultural landscape and telling stories about their region. During election cycles the national news is flooded with stories about border regions and immigrants that decenter the voices of local residents. Furthermore, municipal leaders have commissioned outside culture makers to create large scale artworks. These experiences are especially frustrating to our regional community of thriving artists. Community members know that their voices and stories are powerful medicine. They know that they create cultural work that has value and that the cultural content they produce shapes the city they live in. They have seen their cultural content change the city around them.

“We make change. We shape our community. We advocate for our needs. We influence power. We shape space. We advocate for and build the futures that we desire.”

This narrative is about centering community agency. There are a lot of narratives (both within the community itself and from outside forces) that reinforce ideas of community powerlessness. There are also narratives around community power, agency and autonomy. Community members choose to center and advance the stories of their ability to transform the world around them.

“There are things special and distinct about our region, unlike anywhere else in the world. Our relationship to the water and the land here defines us.”

Community members love their community. There is a special relationship to the landscape there that emerged in the interviews. People made reference to the resacas (a type of chanel that is specific to the RGV), the native palm trees and other natural phenomena that is distinct to the region. It is clear that participants love the RGV and know that the land, animals, and water there are unlike anywhere else on the planet. They celebrate this wisdom and love to celebrate it in their narratives about the region as well.

“We are women-led. We are workers. We are fighters. We are educators. We care for our families. We center our families.”

The participants who are community organizers wanted to share these narratives specifically about women leadership. Most of the community organizing and advocacy in the RGV is woman-led. It is an important narrative of pride for residents of the region. They see that it is women who are advocating for community change and it is women who are making the difference in how people live their day-to-day lives. Women are winning the fight on public lighting in the colonias, women are advocating for bilingual education (and winning), women are working in the day and caring for their families at night. It is women who are the heartbeat of the community.

POWER

Community members talked about how power is distributed in the community and how it moves in the community. They talked about how privilege (race, gender, education, immigration status, sexuality, and access to capital) influences power distribution.

One trend in the responses is that power perpetuates itself. Power travels multi-generationally (through money, citizenship, close relational ties, and access to education networks). Power also reinforces itself: power makes more power. Those who have access to money have access to education which then creates more money, etc.

Participants noted a trend that power does not necessarily work in relationship to community values. And that many times power allies itself with power over and above community values. Power has momentum: it will choose power and make more power. The nature or energy of power is that it is more interested in perpetuating itself than adhering to any particular value set or community allegiance. Power has its own drive and life force. It will defend itself. Power has a fear of death and transformation.

These observations are not to say that a politician or person in power can not have values and be in power. However, it is the nature of power itself (specifically in the context of a capitalist and colonized world that lacks both communal cultural norms and protocols of accountability) that it will be upheld for the sake of itself.

The image that represents the data collected on this theme ( Q4 [POWER]) is a type of incomplete or unbalanced medicine wheel. Power does not need to be out of balance. Indigenous cultures have systems of accountability for leaders and those with privilege. Interviewees expressed a sense that accountability practices in the RGV were built by the powerful to protect the powerful. Restoring the medicine wheel of power will mean strengthening relationships across power, tightening the circle of accountability, and creating a culture of interconnectedness.

Participants remembered interacting with specific employees who have not been at the organization for more than 5 years (Hugo, Elaine, Jesse, and Christina/Ixchel).

Some participants also reflected on the need (generally for nonprofits and specifically for [bc]) to adapt practices of “organizational humility”. One participant suggested that this orientation will help nonprofits and [bc] to more meaningfully integrate community feedback. There was also a desire expressed for more consistent community engagement.

Activating Vacancy Arts Incubator (AVAI)

Participants really liked how this program gave them access to buildings that were otherwise inaccessible. They liked that the program was an arts residency. Even though only three artists were admitted, culture makers remember applying to the program and participating in the event workshops. The activation of buildings and spaces that were otherwise out of reach to the general public really left an impact on interviewees. They expressed pride in the historic buildings that are prevalent downtown (Brownsville has more historic buildings than any other city in Texas) and, as culture makers, they yearn to engage with these structures. AVAI gave them this opportunity to engage with the public space.

PERCEPTION

9 of the 10 participants had heard of [bc] prior to the interview. 7 of the 10 participants had some knowledge or past experience with a [bc] program. None of the participants had engaged in a [bc] workshop program since 2018. The majority of them felt that they didn’t really understand what [bc] workshop does now. They did not know who works there or what their programmatic priorities are. Their perception focused on the people they knew who worked
their in the past and the programs they experienced in the past. All of the participants expressed a degree of respect and or gratitude for the programs that [bc] had previously pioneered. Most of them wished that the programs continued.

Sonido de Agua

This project engaged colonia residents and community organizers. They remember the project and felt it had a positive impact on their community.

Bike Trail Programs

There were numerous public input sessions associated with the bike trail program. Interviewees liked the creative process of imagining how their space would be built. One interviewee remembered a comment that was made about the design process for one of the trails and then later seeing the design idea incorporated into the final product. This experience ignited a feeling of agency and pride for the interviewee. She got to see community members actually influencing high level decisions.

FINDINGS

Access to Space

(Q7 POSSIBILITY: [LAND])
Participants expressed that they (still) need places to gather. This was a primary interest in 2016 when Activating Vacancy Arts Incubator took place and the need is perhaps even greater 7 years later. Gentrification in the region is accelerating: access to affordable housing, places to vend, places to create, and places to gather is narrowing. People desire safe places to gather, create, share, and learn together. They desire places that feel as though they belong. They desire to see themselves reflected in the physical environment that surrounds them. They would love for these sites of convening to be downtown.
Cultural Preservation

(Q7 POSSIBILITY: [STORY])
Elders are cultural bearers: They hold understandings of the past Brownsville that no longer exists. The younger generation recognizes that as the city changes around them they are witnessing transformation, and that those who came before have a deep understanding of the context in which this change is occurring. These cultural stories are critical for regional memory and identity.
Interviewees would like to see the stories of Brownsville documented and archived before the stories of the elders are lost forever.
It is important that any archive process is decolonial and community-led. Local culture makers can be leaders in collecting stories and innovating a community-based archive project. This initiative could be both a capacity building project for local storytellers (through a fellowship structure) and could offer paid opportunities for local culture makers.
Direct Services

(Q7 POSSIBILITY: [SERVICES])
Interviewees would like to see more service provision from [bc] and other nonprofits in the region. Upper Valley residents (and community organizers) are primarily concerned with direct services and community development concerns. They desire support in navigating technology, programs in healing and meditation, language support (improving English proficiency or translation services), and housing infrastructure (access to air conditioning, housing weatherization, renewable energy conversion, etc).
Both Upper and Lower Valley residents see the opportunity for support in developing alternative economies and advancing opportunities for microeconomies. Development of any direct service programs would require regular engagement with the community, listening sessions for feedback and adaptive curriculum based upon changing community needs.
Alternative Economies

(Q7 POSSIBILITY: [ECONOMY])
Many participants saw the possibility for [bc] or other community development organizations to support the development of micro, alternative, and cultural economies. Participants, especially in the lower valley, expressed the concern that vendors in Brownsville do not have a site downtown where they can gather and vend. Interviewees felt that existing downtown markets do not allow opportunities for the general public to vend. They desired to see something like the Pulga (the local flea market on the city outskirts) at a location more central to downtown.
Participants also saw the potential for [bc] to advocate to the regional government to make micro-vending easier and more accessible to the general public. Micro vending laws are prohibitive and challenging to navigate (as documented by Las Imaginistas in the project Taller de Permiso in collaboration with Civic Arts). There is still a lot of progress to advance the development of micro, equitable economies in Brownsville.
Lower Valley residents (and culture makers) would like to see workshops in technical capacity building for artists. They would like programs that teach them how to write grants, how to seek funding for creative projects, and how to build an economically viable future as cultural bearers. [bc] could support in building the infrastructure for creative economies in the Rio Grande Valley.
This support would deepen the regional foundation for local storytelling, regional cultural leadership and amplification of border narratives throughout the country.
Community Building

(Q7 POSSIBILITY: [ENGAGEMENT])
Interviewees see the potential for [bc] to create events that help bring the community together across differences of power. This type of relational networking and strengthening of social infrastructure can have large impacts in rebalancing the medicine wheel of power. When people are in close relationship with one another it becomes harder to villainize one another and it is easier to understand the impact of our actions. Colonization has severed our social and environmental ties. It is through rebuilding these relationships that we return to right relationship with the land and one another.
[bc] can cultivate community by creating community engagement sessions, activities, workshops or gatherings. Interviewees expressed a specific interest to gather around food through events like community dinners. Dinner, as an activity and gathering practice was mentioned twice by interviewees. Dinner as an event implies a type of intimacy and grace. The work of Leah Penniman comes to mind as an example of practices and techniques that could be applied to community assemblies around food and relationship building.
[bc] can create opportunities for deep listening and integration. [bc] has a rich history of community listening and input sessions. This work can be further strengthened by consistent engagement sessions (i.e. the first wednesday of the month centered around specific themes).
Residents value the opportunity to have their voices heard. They also recognize their input and time is valuable: they are experts on what it means to live in their region. Interviewees want engagement to be consistent so that there is relational accountability between the organization doing the listening ([bc]) and the participants. Questions arise like: How will their input be used? How is their time being valued or compensated? What will happen as a result of their engagement?
Exchange can take many different forms. It can be financial compensation for time (i.e. financial compensation for time), it can be a form of skill building (i.e. providing access to information that would otherwise be inaccessible), or it can be dynamic and social (i.e. if their views are advocated for at a city level etc). Regional artists, community organizers and culture makers can provide advice, support and oversight on how to navigate these social-relational questions while being sensitive to differences in power dynamics, community need and cultural context.

REFLECTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The landscape of community development work, nonprofit sustainability, and meaningful community engagement is rapidly changing. Questions like “Who is the community?”, “How do we understand community needs?” and “What is equity?” are becoming more complex and important. From an outside perspective, it can seem that geographies are equally divided on these fundamental questions.

If you survey 20 people in any geography to ask them “What is your region, how do you define it?” you will get 20 distinct answers. Who we are and how we define ourselves as community is dynamic and relational. The answers emerge intersectionally, through the process of research, activity, engagement, and activation. Who we are, is how we are in relationship to one another and our shared space.

These types of inquiries have intrigued me throughout my career as an artist, activist, and peace strategist. While working at [bc], and later when I co-founded the art collective Las Imaginistas, the nonprofit Voces Unidas RGV, and now as the lead strategist of Xi’im Ek Balam, I wonder(ed) about the crossroads of data collection and community engagement. I wonder(ed) “How do we know when we really know something about the community?”. I also wonder(ed) “How do I know anything about me? If I don’t understand the inherent nature of my existence how can I understand anything about another being, my place, or what someone might call community?” And I wonder(ed) “If I am colonized, and someone asks me what I want, how will I not repeat the power inequities of my own colonization?” In other words: how do we advance a healed future when we ourselves are not yet healed?

Listening to the 10 participants of this project felt like a process in time travel. Their words ignited in me similar stories that I have heard the community say over and over again in the 7 years I have been working with them. Community engagement is so important but I wonder: When someone entrusts you with their truth, what is the responsibility of the receiver to integrate and apply those wisdoms? Do we need more research to know what is already true? At what point do we agree upon values and then take action? Who is doing the agreeing? The community or the nonprofit?

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ixchel Tonantzin Xochitlzihuatl is a visual, community, and conceptual artist who works to evolve the collective imagination towards more peaceful, just and liberatory present/ futures. She served as one of five artist researcher partners in ThirdSpace’s Storied Communities, Community Stories project. Xochitlzihuatl has ancestral roots connecting her to the Rio Grande Valley and moved to the region for a fellowship with buildingcommunityWORKSHOP in 2016; after the fellowship ended, she has continued to work with the community in the Rio Grande Valley to this day.

ADDENDUM: Read Constellations of Hope

Rio Grande Valley, Texas