11.5.12

So far I like the book. I’ve been doing some readings outside of the assigned ones within the classes that I’m taking this semester. A lot of the times, it’s the reason why I feel I get so behind on the actual readings that I need to do. However, they mentioned many ideas and people that I have been reading up on, so I was surprised but glad.

I’ve read several articles on consciousness, critical race theory, latin@ critical theory, creation of knowledge, and I started reading Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Delgado Bernal is mentioned in the book as well, and she wrote one of my favorite articles. I’m not sure if that’s the one that they keep on referencing during the text because they put her under CT but in the article she leans more towards LatCrit.

Like other students have already stated, the book glides by every idea that they talk about and don’t give a full picture of what it is. Reading this book alone is not helping me completely understand the concepts that they mentioned, but I do like that they mention so many people that influenced the field. Because of this, it makes it seem like a starters’ guide for critically conscious research, which is what I think it is since I don’t think of myself as knowledgeable in the field. Mentioning those names and ideas gives a good look on what people to read and what types of issues to consider. This is the part of the book that I liked the best.

I hope that the book gives more detail in the following chapters because they’re no longer framing the history. If that’s not the case, then, I still want them to throw in a bunch of names, so I can look them up at a later time and see what they discuss.