Safe Houses in the Contact Zone: Coping Strategies of African-American Students in the Academy

gage in what Mary Louise Pratt calls the literate arts of the contact zone. Inspired by the extraordinary intercultural tour de force of a 17th century autoethnographic text from the non-literate Quechua community which expresses opposition against Spanish imperialism (34), Pratt celebrates the creative modes of text construction taking place in situations of cultural contact both inside and outside the academy. But, while acknowledging such fascinating examples of linguistic/literary resistance, we must remember that minority communities also inherit traditions of accommodation deriving from legacies of domination. Henry Giroux reminds us that subordinate cultures are situated and recreated within relations of domination