Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

11.15.06 | Chela Sandoval and I are writing an essay on the digital artwork produced by Chicana artist Judy Baca together with youth of color. We’ve been fortunate to have numerous discussions with Baca about both the empowering and damaging aspects of digital technology for young people of color.

Judy Baca believes, like most of us, that the digital realm is a space like any other with all its racial, gender and social hierarchies. The difference is, however, that everything that happens in the world, both good and bad, has the potential to be amplified and widely disseminated in digital space, in particular the web. Youth of color are especially vulnerable to the racial stereotyping and corporate co-optation that happens on-line and in other digital environments like video games. So Baca’s view of digital technology is far from utopic and idealizing. As a community activist and teacher who has worked with at-risk youth of color since the early 1970s and who adopted digital technology in the mid-1990s, she underscores the importance of a mentor and/or role model to guide these young people through the contours of digital space.

We noticed, however, that Baca’s work with youth has often capitalized on the creative potential of these young adults. While not all youth of color are using digital technology in empowering ways, there is something about the digital sphere that escapes hegemonic control. Thus we see the emergence of interstitial spaces within the digital and these are the spaces where youth of color can operate outside of these control systems. Sites like BrownPride.Com and AlmaLopez.Net come to mind. In UC Santa Barbara, for instance, we have a cadre of Chicana/o/Latina/o students who are actively expressing themselves in clearly non-commodified ways through digital media (one of them even has a digital video piece submitted to the Santa Barbara Latino Film Festival). Therefore we think Baca provides a model, through her teaching and community work, for empowering youth of color through digital media in ways that do not overlook the damaging potential of these spaces nor repress young people’s innate creative potential.

Websites of interest:
http://www.sparcmurals.org
http://www.judybaca.com