This dissertation serves to further critical theory research through bricolage autoethnography of a Latinx English teacher from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The bricolage functions to unify reflective constructs that expose an emancipatory catharsis and painful reacquaintance with individual and cultural identity. This project offers the concept of a happening as a construct embedded with the ongoing, reflective, and liberating critical consciousness process. Four happenings are offered and establish that the dichotomies of oppression and liberation, how they happened, are happening or may happen are not easily recognizable unless critical introspection is involved. The leading happening titled Pablito’s Problem chronicles the first recollection of oppression as a prepubescent. Followed by the second happening titled The Monkey—set during the \u2770s and \u2780 through secondary education, Jesús Mil Veces—looks at family traditions, and followed by fear—which narrates the occasions as an adult that challenge the tendency towards positive intent. Ultimately, the analysis of the four happenings identifies four critical consciousness moments as serendipitous results that, while struggling to maintain the fundamental notion of compassion, follow the critical pedagogy mantra
