Over our ten years of facilitating popular education gatherings, we have discovered that despite the different working agendas and nature of projects, most PVI participants share the common goal of building a public voice and making themselves more visible by becoming publicly engaged.
Another commonality among PVI participants is that they all express experiencing cultural conflicts. They have felt scrutinized by the mainstream population because of their traditional practices, healing and belief systems, celebration of traditions, identity, and language. In other words, these groups have been struggling with how their cultural backgrounds make them vulnerable to discrimination and exclusion, and they are constantly put in a position of choosing one way of being over the other.
Powerful stories of loss were shared as the immigrant participants began to recognize the universal bond they shared. One such story was that of the indigenous Mexicans and Southeast Asians , who felt they did not have the right to practice their culture. This led some to feel ashamed of these cultural practices and to practice their traditions in the margins of society - or to abandon their traditions altogether. These and other stories highlighted how cultural limitations impact the participation of immigrants in society.
These newfound similarities led to a search for a better understanding of how this rejection and struggle for cultural balance prevents immigrants from investing in their communities. Guided by popular education principles, PVI staff decided they could not tackle this question alone, and that those who brought these issues to light during the process must also participate.
To do this, in 2005 - with the financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation - PVI initiated a participatory action research project to better understand the interjection of culture and participation. Participatory research methodology was chosen for its collective process of generating knowledge that is then utilized for changing a specific social condition impacting the most marginalized members of society. In this case, the large number of immigrants residing in California's Central Valley would benefit.
Participatory action research was also chosen because this methodology validates the knowledge of the most oppressed groups in society and allows these groups to enhance their knowledge and use this knowledge for transforming their oppressed conditions.
Such a movement is increasingly important now more than ever before because immigration policies are being developed based on ideas from groups in power who claim to understand the complexities of immigration yet completely ignore the human aspect of the issue - the immigrants themselves.
PVI views participatory research as a process initiated and conducted by the people directly affected by the research subject. Research methods are based on the principles of popular education - in other words, everyone involved brings expertise to the equation, which is of equal value to the process. It is important for the knowledge generated to be used toward solving social or economic problems impacting Central Valley immigrant communities.
What is the problem to be addressed? The immigration debate dominated by anti-immigrant and protectionist sectors has shaped public opinion through the mainstream media and argues that immigrants resist assimilation, integration or - worse yet - resist becoming "American" by not learning English, embracing the "American" values and by adamantly maintaining their culture. This debate of immigrants opposing integration very seldom includes the voices and perspectives of immigrants themselves. In fact, very little is known of the efforts made by immigrants to become a part of the communities where they are raising families and making a living.
A series of questions were drafted based on the information yielded from popular education gatherings: Why is maintaining culture important? Does this support or hinder integration? What barriers prevent immigrants from maintaining their cultures? Are these barriers oppressing them and preventing development of a sense of belonging in their new communities?
For a period of two years, a participatory research team formed by community members, academicians and PVI staff engaged in an inquiry process to answer these questions. The results of this research will be presented at upcoming Tamejavi events. For more information on this project, please continue to check www.tamejavi.org.