Giving Back: Engaging Critical Indigenous Chicana/o Perspectives in the U.S. Southwest

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Abstract

To understand how educational policy, praxis, and cultures interact in the U.S. southwest, we must examine the multiple layers of dominance that arise from the dispossession and denial of Indigenous peoples, their rights, histories, and agency. In this paper, I offer an Indigenous perspective of the relationship between colonization and the ongoing cultural genocide across the U.S. southwest, and offer criteria for understanding Indigenous displacement and dispossession. Then, I use these tools to examine the recently proposed legislation including Arizona HB 2281 and Texas SB 1128, which mobilizes education as a form of “intellectual colonization.” Finally, I conclude with a counter-example by discussing the Semillas del Pueblo Community Schools as place-based, responsive, relevant intervention that honor Mesoamerican intellectual traditions.

Author

• Marissa Munoz, The University of British Columbia