Graduate students from our Theories of Literacy course are sharing insights from our weekly sessions in weekly blog posts. They’ll rotate the responsibility throughout the fall 2025 semester, sharing how we’re making sense of the ideas that emerge in our time together.
We read two articles for class: “Literacies of Refuge: ‘Pidiendo Posada’ as Ritual of Justice” by Cati V. de los Ríos and Arturo Molina, and “The Skin We Ink: Tattoos, Literacy, and a New English Education” by David E. Kirkland. Both texts were examples of research in literacy studies.
“Literacies of Refuge” explores how culture can be a form of social justice, specifically illustrating how a traditionally religious parade about Mary and Joseph seeking shelter was re-expressed as an immigrant’s search for refuge. As we discussed in class, anti-immigration policies have arisen since the time that the article was written, resulting in disruption of daily life activities because government agents could be on the prowl. Thus, the idea of publicly celebrating one’s own identity as an immigrant, which the parade embodies, now seems radical and dangerous.
Highlighting that specific demographics, having no connections to the affected group, are unaware of the intense fear and danger said groups experience, Kim Jaxon related a conversation she had with one of her east coast friends: “If they’re not doing anything wrong, ICE won’t bother them,” said the friend, referencing the immigrants.
In response, Dr Jaxon pointed out that one of her colleagues feels the need to, at all times, carry the birth certificates and passports of her family members. Otherwise, the colleague fears, deportation may come upon her suddenly like a hawk descending upon a mouse. This changed the friend’s perspective and made her sympathetic to the situation. It is thus ignorance, rather than malice, that can lead a person to downplay the severity of another’s grievous situation.
Sel brought up a circumstance that, for us, hits close to home: recently, somebody from Chico was deported. The specific details of the occurrence are unknown to us. To help their students and staff feel safer, Chico State has removed its publicly available class numbers, so that random folks cannot easily know where people are on campus. Sel also brought up resources that are available to those who have been affected by the ICE activities. Sel mentioned how the local churches have stepped up to help the community and also talked about CAREChico.
Returning to the difference between the political climate during the writing of “Literacies of Refuge,” which was already escalating in 2020, and the current political climate, the class discussed how the building of “the wall” between the U.S. and Mexican border was considered a big deal in 2020. However, now, the biggest deal is the threat of martial law: the potential for ICE agents and the U.S national military to kidnap anyone, even if they have documentation. A decade ago, the concern was over the meaning behind a wall being built far away. Now, the concern is over what has snowballed into government raids on your hometown.
“The Skin We Ink” highlights how Black youth use tattoos to tell their own story, not only in the tattoos themselves, but also in the conversations, journal entries, and lifestyle they represent. Kirkland, with permission from the high school and the students involved, was able to develop relationships with his participants. They willingly provided him with data, as their identities, through their tattoos and the literacy involved, were celebrated. Our class discussed the importance of positionality when it comes to research, race relations, and power structures: there are significant ethical considerations involving consent and privacy when, as in this study, there is a significant age difference between the researcher and the participants; and in other cases, unlike this study, when the race of the researcher and the participants differ.
M’Kenzie has heard a similar story to “The Skin We Ink” in a previous class about
Spades at UCSC. Dr. Don Miller, the researcher in this case study, visited a high school with the school’s permission to study a group of students and observe how they played spades. He built a relationship with the students and learned how to play spades through these students. The students taught him all the different terminology and phrases that held meaning for them. They had five different tiers, and people had to win a certain number of games in a row before they could advance to the next tier in the game system. The students who played spades developed their own understanding of the game by keeping detailed records and using these records to judge current games based on previous rulings in similar situations. They also taught new people interested in playing the game how to play. Yes, this research method, both in the spades and in “The Skin We Ink,” is both fascinating and creepy at the same time. It leaves one torn about whether the method used to obtain the data is ethical.
Kirkland’s study itself serves as a case study of how, for the research study of a person or group of people to be effective, such a study must not only honor the identity and agency of the participants by allowing them to, beyond being mere sources of data, participate in the research process along with the researchers, but also how such a study requires, in addition to interviews, many material artifacts, often intimate personal ones, such as journal entries, pictures of tattoos, and transcriptions of private conversations.
The class discussed several times the moral implications of a researcher being in close
contact with the people they research. They said that if someone engaged in such practices—following someone down a hall, looking through their journal, taking pictures of them—without asking first, it would be unethical (to say the least; think stalkers). Logically, then, an ethical study requires informed consent, which Kirkland, practicing good ethics, sought before gathering his data.
Transitioning from the research articles to our own research practices, Dr Jaxon asked us what it would look like to research Safe Space, a low-barrier emergency shelter in Chico. Sel said that doing a volunteer shift, engaging in the community of practice, would be the best way to learn about it. Dr Jaxon asked us about ethics. Sel proposed that open and honest communication was important: to inform the supervisors and those seeking shelter about your intentions—in other words, seeking informed consent—before engaging in research. At this point, Dr Jaxon showed us an example of an informed consent document. One should not, Dr Jaxon concluded, treat one’s participants as spectacles to be showcased, but as people with valuable identities who deserve, on a human level, to be respected.
Then, since Kirkland’s study was about tattoo literacy, we began talking about our tattoos. Several students demonstrated their tattoos, and we agreed that some tattoos are pretty, some are meaningful, and some are both.
The penultimate topic was murals, both locally and in other cities. Like tattoos, some can be meaningful – even politically-charged – while others can be merely aesthetic.
Finally, we transitioned to a discussion of our own research projects, with each student in class sharing their thoughts on potential future work.
M’Kenzie Drill & Julian Roloff