SURVIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM

This is an example of a personal narrative derived from lived experience that is turned into a performative text. Dwight Conquergood (1995/1998) states that performative text is necessary because:(1) Performance-sensitive ways of knowing hold forth the promise of contributing to an epistemological pluralism that will unsettle valorized paradigms and thereby extend understanding of multiple dimensions and wider range of meaningful action; (2) performance is a more conceptually astute and inclusionary way of thinking about many subaltern cultural practices and intellectual-philosophical activities (p. 26).Therefore this performance text is a counter-story to the social construction of a Latino identity by juxtaposing my authored identity that challenges, resists, and critiques the larger cultural apparatus itself, its versions, and structures that have impinged on my life.