I will speak candidly here: my mother did not attend college, neither did her parents or her
parents’ parents. When forms ask me to input my parents’ education level, I leave my father blank (don’t ask, I am just as clueless), but proudly jot down “GED” for my mother. My mother often talks about the day she took her GED. She had just immigrated to the United States from Mexico and knew very little English. She laughs and tells me her English teacher was Barney the Purple Dinosaur, a children’s cartoon she’d play for my sister and me, but from which she seems to have learned more than I ever did. She had been nervous about the written essay portion of the exam but recalls that in the lobby of the testing center, a fellow lady advised her to simply write as much as she could. “They don’t care what you write, so long as you write a lot,” remarks this wise lady who, though she had only recently arrived in the United States, already understands the American education system. So my mother goes into the exam and she writes, and writes, and writes, and she passes!
Looking back, I am really proud of my mother’s GED. She often tells me she moved to the U.S. specifically so that my siblings and I could attend our local university when we grew up so that, unlike all the students in Mexico who had to cross the border every day to attend the university, we would be better prepared, homegrown and cultivated inside the American education system. But my mother’s GED is something she did for herself, who had no understanding of the American education system’s machinations. It is also something she succeeded at, whatever little knowledge she had; she was resourceful and that’s something I admire and try to mimic in my own research endeavors. No matter how unknowledgeable I feel, or how behind I am compared to my more privileged peers, I know I have inherited my mother’s resourcefulness and tenacity.
So when someone asks me if I dislike the research process, if I find it boring and dull or even difficult, I confidently answer yes — not because of what the research process inherently is, the pursuit of knowledge, but because of the socio-economic factors that have made it challenging to pursue research in the humanities or a career in academia. I don’t have the funds to travel to this or that archive, and it is stressful to think about Shakespearean literature when I am worrying about rent money. I also don’t have the typical family background you see in conferences or on the tenured faculty web pages of universities. Neither do I possess the safety net to dedicate myself solely to reading niche books, but even then, I find ways to pursue my research interests.
The academic research experience is difficult, yes. In the quiet moments I’ve spent deciphering cryptic texts, amidst the frustration of grappling with either an overwhelming scarcity or an overabundance of sources, and especially when the time comes to articulate my thoughts in writing, and my grasp of the English language falters — yes, in these moments, the research experience reveals its penchant for testing one’s patience. It’s a journey marked by tedium, where the pursuit of knowledge is interspersed with moments of exasperation that make you almost want to quit.
Yet these hardships are, in the grand scheme of things, simply momentary. When I am conducting research and a sudden intellectual roadblock appears, it appears so much smaller compared to the hurdles that I have already overcome and the socio-economic obstacles I know I will soon have to face. I find comfort in that the research I conduct today might help chip away, even if just a tiny bit, at the obstacles of tomorrow. For myself, my family, and others in my situation, my research strives to be accessible and inclusive. Though I do not delude myself into thinking I will change the world,
So, if you were to ask whether I harbor any real disdain for the research process, my honest response might be cliché. The truth is, I don’t truly hate the research experience. I honestly do enjoy delving into archives, uncovering their silences, or piecing together their messages for all to hear. I love closely reading texts and finding meaning in passages that still ring true today. I even enjoy a good critique, the back-and-forth conversation we scholars have on the best methodology, this or that approach to a text. I savor every moment of the research process and though it might be more delicious if I had the perfect circumstances, I nevertheless enjoy it with gratitude.
To this day, my mother insists she does not know how to write an essay, but I wish I could tell her that because of that jumbled mess she dared to write that day in the testing center, I can now write 10, 15, as many pages as you want, of carefully crafted, strongly argued, solid-thesis bearing research essays. Truly, my presence is ironic in my chosen field of research: literature, where essays and a strong command of the English language are everything. Ultimately, I love what I do and can only say with certainty that I dislike the socio-economic obstacles that make it harder for FLI students to pursue research in the humanities.