The (class)room is appropriately named, for it is indeed a room of class - a room where students learn the class they belong to and the power and privilege (or lack thereof) that comes with that class.[1]  The fact that some students are able to pay sufficient money to attend particular rooms of class located on prestigious campuses indicates that they will have certain opportunities which are denied to those of lower economic class, those who are more often than not students of color residing on the margins of society.

Far from being an objective neutral educational system, students who attend (class)rooms can either be conditioned for domestication by, or liberation from, the existing social structures.  All too often, the educational system serves to normalize these power structures as legitimate.  The task of educators, specifically those of us who call ourselves liberationists, is to cultivate the student=s ability to find their own voice by creating an environment in which individual and collective consciousness-raising can occur.

As a scholar-activist, unapologetically grounded in a Latino/a social context, I create an environment within the room of class that attempts to perceive Divinity from within the social location of marginalized people - that is, those who are usually unable to participate in the (class)room where I teach.  Such a process analyzes their reality, a reality tied to perspectives which demands a socio-political response to oppression.  A relationship develops between the disenfranchised and intellectuals aware of the structural crises people of color face in the United States.  Nevertheless, the danger facing educators is that they can become an intellectual elite disconnected from the everyday struggle of the marginalized, having little or no impact upon the churches in disenfranchised communities.  Scholars from the margins, who are attempting to overcome this danger, advocate connecting the pastoral work done by ministers serving disenfranchised communities with the academic work done by intellectuals and both with those believers within the local marginalized congregation.  These ministers and scholars attempt to learn from the disenfranchised while serving them as (to borrow a term from Antonio Gramsci) organic intellectuals, that is, intellectuals grounded in the social reality of the marginalized, and acting in the consciousness-raising process of the faith community.

The pedagogy I employ in my constructed room of class seeks to un(cover) social ethics through the rich diversity found among those who are usually excluded - those who are part of a multiracial and multicultural people.  Succinctly stated, what occurs in my room of class is the construction of a collaborative ethics, and the study of its impact upon the reflection of marginalized people who struggle in understanding their faith and vocation as it is contextualized in their lives and circumstances.  Approaching the constructed space of educational pursuit from the margins of society is not to make students aware of some quaint or exotic perspective of those who are disenfranchised; rather, it is to help them realize that because the gospel message was first proclaimed in the marginalized spaces of Judea, those who reside in these disenfranchised spaces, then and now, hold the key to interpreting this message properly, making the “salvation” of the eurocentric dominant culture dependent upon hearing what those from the margins proclaim.    

This approach entails a response to injustice and oppression.  By forcing my students to occupy the uncomfortable, if not downright faultfinding space from which to approach religious studies, they are provided with a unique outlook on the normative discourse, a view I believe enhances traditional curricula.  Because individuals enter the educational system with a lifetime of experiences and knowledge, I design my courses to bring their suppositions into conversation with those who many consider have nothing to offer the intellectual dialogue.

Only by being organic intellectuals can educators contribute toward the struggle against oppression which has become institutionalized.  For this reason, my role as a scholar-activist must include participation with the faith community and the overall society.  The praxis of dealing with oppressive structures within communities is more crucial than books published by the Aexperts.@  I do not teach or publish just to express my views in the marketplace of scholarly opinions.  I teach and write to give voice to the voiceless - to shout from the mountaintop that which is commonly heard among disenfranchised people - to put into words what the marginalized are feeling and doing.  No doubt, such a methodology will usually anger those who are accustomed to viewing their power and privilege as a birthright, still, these things must be said in the hope of bringing the dominant culture into repentance, and through repentance, discover their own salvation.

As can be imagined, my implementation of this type of pedagogy lead some to question my sanity, for only a madman would fight the insurmountable forces bent on maintaining the status quo.  Surely, it would be wiser to avoid the constant questioning of one=s scholarship and research by those who disagree, and simply conform to the dominant culture, remaining silent in the face of unbearable racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism.  I confess that the temptation to hide and write De Mi Torre, from my ivory tower, quietly cash my paycheck, and turn my back on the oppression that surrounds me becomes, at times, an attractive and peaceful way to live an idyllic life of a scholar.  But unfortunately, my pedagogy has been influenced by Don Quixote, and like Don Quixote, I mount my faithful steed and charge the windmills of academia.  In The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, Don Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher of the early twentieth century, attempts to organize a hopeless crusade for the sepulcher of "Our Lord Don Quixote," rescuing it from the "hands of university graduates, curates, barbers, dukes, and cannons."  The holy quest of redeeming the sepulcher from the "power of the champions of Reason," and liberating ourselves from eurocentric dominating rationalism, is allegorically an attempt to search for the Sepulcher of God, and redeem it from believers, unbelievers, atheists, and deists, "until God resuscitates us and saves us from nothingness."  Yes, I am aware that those depending on a eurocentric reason and realism would deduce that those who instead insist on an utopian-type justice must be mad.  But, in an insane world that normalizes oppression, maybe the sane are those who refuse to accept the status quo of injustice.  The Don Quixotes of the world become the hope for a justice-based pedagogy.  But such an impossible dream can only be achieved if we fight, in and out of the (class)room, the unbeatable foe of power and privilege.