1. Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval, Ph.D.
Ancestral Computing for Sustainability
1. Good morning, everyone. My name is Cueponcaxochitl Dianna Moreno Sandoval Miranda
Sifuentes Ureño Frutos Pérez Torres, descendant of the Caxcan peoples of Zacatecas México. I give
thanks and honor the original peoples of this land and this land we find ourselves within here today.
2. How many of us are wearing a computer? Brought a cell phone? A laptop? To what extent are
our daily activities and interactions shaped by these devices? Whose worldviews are represented in
the science behind the creation and production of these devices? Whose worldviews are missing?
Have we ever considered the material that is used to manufacture these devices? What happens to
that material after it has been quickly usurped by the next generation of digital advancements? Are
these technological advancements sustainable?
I asked myself these questions after several years of conducting research on a project during my
doctoral work, funded by the National Science Foundation and UCLA Center X, and with the goal
of broadening participation in computer science, one of the most racially segregated and gendered
fields in education.
3. Computer science education is not offered in many high schools, especially among underserved
populations in the inner cities. For example, in Arizona, only 190 students took the Advanced
Placement Computer Science High School Exam in 2013, you can see the disparities by group here.
Furthermore, in 2013, no females at all took the AP computer science exam in three states:
Mississippi, Montana, and Wyoming. The lack of diversity in computer science education
continuously sets the stage for the national computing workforce; in 2013, just 26 percent of the
computing workforce were female, with only 2 percent of these females representing the ethnic
makeup of the entire Americas. While many of us are computer systems consumers in terms of
mobile technology and web networks, only a small portion of the population produces the
underlying innovations in computer science technology. Efforts by the U.S. Department of
Education and The National Science Foundation as well as Code.org, a nonprofit organization have
led efforts to increase diversity in computing through, for example, a 10x10x10 initiative to train
10,000 teachers in 10,000 high schools in 10 years. Yet, there is no systematic effort in these
initiatives to address another concerning part of digital innovation. In addition, to being one of the
most racially segregated and gendered areas in education, computer science production poses a
serious threat to environmental sustainability.
4. For example, as a product of military engineering, computer science relies heavily on electricity,
water usage, and ewaste landfills to operationalize data centers. The real price of our love affair
with faster and more ‘efficient’ technologies are the unintended consequences of excess water usage
and pernicious mountains of toxic electronic waste (ewaste). In 2009, over 2 million tons of ewaste
were discarded into landfills, and in Utah, the U.S. National Security Agency’s massive data center
consumes 1.5 million gallons of cooling water each day. What can a diversity of worldviews in the
creation and production of computer science teach us about sustainability efforts?
5. In 2010, Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly passed the Law of the Rights of Mother
Earth. The law contains ten articles that posit the physical and social on an equal footing,
highlighting the interdependence of these two worlds. For example, the law affirms that Mother
2. Earth has a right to clean water and uncontaminated air, elements that are necessary not only for her
survival but for the survival of plant and animal nations and for the survival of human beings. This
positioning of all forms of life as interdependent of one another is a fundamental worldview held by
Indigenous peoples worldwide.
7. But what do the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth and the efforts to increase computer science
education have in common? Equally important, what do they not have in common, and why are
Indigenous worldviews systematically denied entrance into computer science classrooms?
Is our goal simply to engage a more diverse population to create more innovations in computer
science without thinking of the detrimental consequences that this production has on our Mother
Earth?
It is important to start with the visions of diverse communities and assess whether or not computer
science production is appropriate to carry out those visions rather than begin with romanticizing
computer science as a silver bullet that will solve our complex societal problems. Similarly, we must
decide how sustainability is to be prioritized if computer science is to act as a mediating tool to
achieve those visions.
8. Over the course of three years, my research has woven together ancestral knowledge systems
and computer science education through the participation of Itzel, a high school junior at the time
and a selfidentified Mexicana, across three communities of practice: 1) A studentled organization
whose primary focus is to revitalize Mexican ancestral knowledge systems; 2) a projectbased
computer science classroom that teaches technical aspects of computational thinking; and 3) a larger
interdisciplinary schooling community of three classes and the Parent Center of a Northeast Los
Angeles neighborhood.
9. While leading in the efforts to revitalize ancestral knowledge systems of agriculture and food
practices in the studentled organization,
10. Itzel also led a participatory sensing campaign in her computer science class that included
developing a mobile application to conduct a research project that assessed her communities’ food
and drink practices. Itzel’s computational artifacts drew upon computing, symbology, storytelling,
and critical inquiry to successfully navigate the juncture of her academic and cultural identities
around her communities’ food and drink practices.
11. Later, she shared the results to a larger schooling community using an animation software in
which she learned programming skills. Itzel’s leadership intersected with a movement toward health
promotion, and she participated in transforming an abandoned lot on her high school campus into a
community garden that continues to flourish today. In my participatory research, I discovered that
ancestral stories, coupled with computational inquiry and purpose, equipped Itzel to accomplish
significant feats. I will mention four. Here is a visual representation of the complexity of her
participation across three communities of practice:
12. First, she improved her computational thinking practices, such as abstraction and data
analysis. Second, she participated in civic engagement, including public expressions of her ancestral
knowledge systems. Third, she affirmed her academic and cultural identities, especially in computer
science and her ancestral Mexican identity. Finally, she learned computer science as a mediating
tool to benefit the larger visions of her schooling community. Critical Indigenous approaches to
3. learning are conspicuously absent from the dominant methods of computer science education.
As one of the least represented women in computer science education, Itzel’s leadership in
computing has led us to a new way of thinking about computer science education that I call ancestral
computing for sustainability. Ancestral computing for sustainability is a conceptual framework that
interweaves ancestral knowledge systems with computer science education with and for the larger
purposes of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Itzel’s ancestral knowledge
engagement in a field that has systematically denied her entrance informs the ways in which
underrepresented female students positively engage in computer science production. Itzel’s identity
formation, learning, and civic engagement have broad implications for how underrepresented
students make meaning in segregated fields.
13. We all have ancestral knowledge systems somehow. Herbal medicine practices, stories about
animals, songs, for example. Each of our ancestors have left us with instructions about how to pay
attention to and care for Mother Earth as if our collective lives depend on it. Because they do.
However, not all human beings exist on the same playing field. While revitalizing ancestral
knowledge systems, we must unfold and address the uneven distributions of power in fields like
computer science and end all forms of hegemony so that all human beings have the opportunity to
live, learn and die with dignity.
14. One way that I have been inspired to do this work is by keeping the songs that my
grandmother has taught me alive. She is 97. Her songs and the songs of my distant ancestors are
encoded with worldviews about time and space, including instructions about the interdependence of
the social and physical realms. I will end with one of those songs that my maternal grandmother
learned during the times of the Mexican Revolution. It is about a colorful bird bringing joy to the
people in difficult times.
Computer science inextricably shapes our lives. Itzel taught us that nurturing her ancestral
knowledge systems and establishing visions for her community were central to her engagement with
computer science education. How might computer science creation and production continue if they
are inclusive of a diverse set of ancestral worldviews? Ancestral computing for sustainability may
lead us to prioritizing the health of the bird nations and all other forms of life as interdependent on
one another.
15. Thank you.
Image credits:
Dominguez, Veronica (2010). Guacamaya, [photograph]. Retrieved March 10, 2015 from Flickr
Commons: https://www.flickr.com/photos/verod03/
Takao, K. (2013). ewaste, [photograph]. Retrieved March 10, 2015 from Flickr Commons:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/takao21203/
Botello, P. (2001). The Wall That Speaks, Sings, and Shouts [outdoor mural]. Retrieved from
author’s personal collection. East Los Angeles, CA.
References
4. Bowers, C.A. (2000). Let Them Eat Data: How Computers Affect Education, Cultural
Diversity, and the Prospects of Ecological Sustainability. Athens, GA: University
of Georgia Press.
Margolis, J., Estrella, R., Goode, J., Jellison Home, J., & Nao, K. Stuck in the shallow
end: Education, race and computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Moreno Sandoval, C. D. (2013). Critical Ancestral Computing: A Culturally Relevant Computer
Science Education. Psychnology Journal, 11(1), 125.
The College Board. (2014). AP Program participation and performance data 2013.
Washington, DC: Research and Development Office. Retrieved from
http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/participation/2013
