Twenty years ago, as a kindergarten teacher, I adopted an “orthodox” pedagogical model of professional early childhood education as the basis for teaching my students and interacting with their parents. Over time, I reflected upon the differences between the educational theories I had learned and my own early childhood experiences, which led me to contemplate the tensions between actual practice and the cultural perspectives of my Bunun (a Taiwanese Indigenous group) upbringing. As a result of my considerations, I developed my own lesson plans and teaching strategies tailored to the local culture, including elements such as spatial relationships when playing. For children who were raised by the sea, I often took them to the shore or to taro fields for daily lessons to learn about coastal life. For children from the mountains, I took them to the mountains. Education stems from knowing oneself and one’s own culture; therefore, the living environment and spatial context are necessary sources of epistemological and practical knowledge for students.
I encountered bell hooks’s work when I pursued graduate studies in multicultural education, where I first read Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Her work inspired me to formulate and articulate a set of questions centered on my identity as a Bunun woman, teacher, and mother in my writing. I was inspired to write about my childhood experiences and draw upon my cultural experiences to challenge existing deficit-based discourses on education for minorities and marginalized groups. I have conceptualized my Bunun upbringing as being strength-based, relational, and resourceful, and I have articulated it in dialogue with mainstream educational theories and practices.
Bell hooks’s research led me to pursue writing an account of my tribal experiences and practices and motivated me to speak about my and others’ experiences. I have come to understand that many of the emotions, especially anger, that I carry with me are derived from my collective cultural identity and the historical circumstances on which such identity is based. Only by evaluating my experiences and living according to my tribal culture can I preserve my spatial knowledge and the experience of coexisting with the local environment.
Further along in my Ph.D. journey, I came across bell hooks’s Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. I analyzed the intersectionality of contemporary and traditional gender roles, ethnic identity, and class of Indigenous women to more appropriately understand the social, spatial, and health inequalities and injustices common to our shared experiences. Therefore, I have attempted to create a shared space in which Indigenous women can communicate and reveal their continual challenges.
On a typical weekday, I prepare breakfast before 6 a.m. and leave for work before my children go to school. I must travel a long distance from my home in the mountains to my office. As a civil servant, I am subject to Taiwan’s regulations concerning job posts, and I have been assigned a post 100 kilometers away from home (Taiwan is slightly more than 400 kilometers in length). After I arrive home from work, I bathe my children, guide them through their homework, and read with them before we go to bed.
In addition to performing expected gender roles, moving through the vast spatial distances to accomplish daily tasks is exhausting. The need to adapt to modernization has impoverished Indigenous women, burdening them in terms of limited transportation, medical care, education, and economic opportunities. This impoverishment may likely be intergenerational and passed down to our children, which will profoundly impact their psychological, spiritual, and physical wellbeing as well as their life expectancy—sometimes causing premature death.
As a Bunun mother, I make it my mission to pass down my culture and language on a daily basis. In the tribal community, we uphold cultural protocols and a self-sustaining lifestyle that are supported by traditional gender divisions. I grow crops and raise farm animals to preserve our daily practices and material conditions.
There are major trade-offs between tribal and city life. Unfortunately, most Indigenous people who move to the city fail to flourish and end up in low-wage jobs; this can be traced to the relatively poor educational and mainstream cultural assets they can leverage. In my case, for example, were I to leave the mountains, I would then burden the tribal elders with my children and face a high cost of living in the city. For those who do attempt city living, the majority still choose to settle in their hometowns when they grow old. However, others who move away from tribal communities might not only become disconnected from tribal life, but they might also create a gap in local knowledge creation. Because women are often primary caregivers, the more they move around, the more they become burdened by family care and labor. Therefore, women are often consigned to economically impoverished class positions and become less likely to voice their experiences. Currently, I feel overwhelmed by the multiple roles I must fulfill and the commute between home and work. Consequently, my research is based on a geographical feminist perspective.
Because many of my female peers are unable to speak up and are often misrepresented, I want to be a voice for Bunun women and express multicultural feminism. Bell hooks continues to remind educators with her timeless words, “education as free practice is a way of teaching that anyone can learn” (1994, 212). Many aspects of Indigenous issues and women’s education must urgently be addressed. As the French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir famously said, “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” We, therefore, must identify how women “become” in time and space and in place and gender. We must also look at the creative and productive landscapes of Indigenous women’s living spaces and allow them to shape their self, body, knowledge, and land. If people are born equal, they must act in love.
References
Bell hooks. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge.