G L O R I O U S T R U T H S

Boiled peanuts can bring us together. Yes…valuing both regional traditions and the love behind everyday tasks unite us and create pathways to critical literacy.  This summer, The Clever Chicas Project evidenced these glorious truths through partnerships with We The People Theatre Arts Initiative and The Summerville Boys and Girls Club of Northwest Georgia.  We were invited to teach critical literacy; we discovered that the mores of local culture anchor connections to a larger community.  As evidence, we share the astute observations of the young Chicas and Compañeros who partnered so openly with us. We celebrate their curiosity about tradition, and we honor their appreciation for mundane tasks we often neglect to name as acts of heroism. 

We begin with the Chicas and Compañeros of Gainesville’s We The People Theatre’s Pop-Up Camp.  Together, camp participants staged and performed the play The Alligator Sang All Night. The play celebrates folklore, specifically the traditions archived by Florida writer Zora Neale Hurston, author of the 1928 essay “How it feels to be colored me.” Through a series of critical thinking exercises dating back to Plato’s time, these young thespians of various ages and backgrounds connected their characters to the meanings behind folklore surrounding Southern foods.  For example, one character in the play, a boiled peanut, inspired the sharing of said peanuts.  As we sampled the soft, salty groundnuts, we discussed the lore surrounding boiled recipes that Southern folks have enjoyed together since America’s Colonial period. Curiosity killed the can of peanuts and opened their creative minds to new ways of personifying favorite folkloric foods.  Their authentic understanding exploded on that stage. Congratulations, Clever Cast and Crew!

Also this summer, The Clever Chicas Project started a year-long collaboration with a Boys and Girls Club in Northwest Georgia that serves four counties. More than a dozen middle schoolers followed the same critical pedagogy as the Gainesville group. But this time, in Georgia, the home of the American peanut, we worked to celebrate local volunteers. Our discussions quickly evolved to shared daily traditions. When asked to describe the volunteers in their lives, these Chicas and Compañeros named first their care-givers—the volunteers at the Boys and Girls club and the care givers who keep these young folks fed each night and wearing clean clothes each day. These middle schoolers celebrated the people who are there, day after day, taking care of them. Such an innate value placed on those who do the basics for these young thinkers is inspiring. These children, one day, will raise their own families and build their own communities the same way. Perhaps the most striking story came from a young Chica who celebrated her father. Her father takes care of her four chickens when she is not there to make sure the little birds are getting the care they need. Four little chickens and the father who loves his daughter through the care he shows her chickens — what a valuable addition to the folklore of Northwest Georgia…and to the Clever Chicas Project.