RAICES Indigenas de Mexico: How Mexican Migrant Youth Developed a High School Student Club Into a Platform for Cultural and Political Activism

• In Event: “Together We Can Do So Much”: Creating Community and Building Collaborations in Community-Based Participatory Action Research

Abstract

From a youth participatory action research (YPAR) framework (Cammarota & Fine, 2008), I examine how Mexican migrant youth’s experiences, interest, and pursuit for social change fostered the emergence and shaped the growth of RAICES Indigenous de Mexico, a student-lead high school club in the Central Coast area of California. At the time of its establishment in August 2011, the goals of RAICES were informed by the growing body of research with Oaxaqueño migrant youth (Fox & Rivera-Salgado, 2005). This body of research has documented that Oaxaqueño youth are often the target of discrimination from their non-Indigenous Mexican peers because of their Indigenous heritage (Barillas-Chón, 2010; Kovats, 2010; Stephen, 2007). Informed by my own research findings about the discrimination experienced by Oaxaqueño youth at this high school and guided by a YPAR framework, I, the primary investigator, collaborated with school administrators and students to develop a student-lead club that addressed the issue of discrimination among Mexican youth.

Thus, RAICES was established as a “safe-space” where Indigenous and non-Indigenous Mexican migrant youth could share their cultural practices with one another and learn about the cultural diversity of Mexico. In doing so, administrators and youth hoped to bring a level of cultural awareness that would foster a culture of acceptance among Mexican youth at this high school. Keeping in line with the goals of YPAR, the administrators, students and myself agreed that development of the club would be grounded in students’ interest and experiences. In this presentation, I draw from ethnographic evidence collected at students club meetings, field trips, and community events over the course of two years. I examine how student’s critical engagement in issues of discrimination, immigration, and social justice shaped the growth of RAICES into a club that raised cultural and civic awareness and promoted political activism.

More specifically, I examine how the collaboration between Oaxaqueño college and high school students was and continues to be pivotal in the growth and maintenance of RAICES. Second, I discuss how the identities and experiences that were salient to student members informed which club activities they organized and the topics they choose to discuss at club meetings. Specifically, the club’s name, club t-shirt design, field trip to the local Guelaguetza, and community service at Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) clinics reflect the ways in which students developed RAICES to address their lived experiences. Lastly, I analyze how students’ sense of cultural responsibility as members of the Oaxaqueño migrant community motivated them to contribute to organizing and assisting at local DACA clinics.

Author

• Elizabeth Gonzalez, University of California - Santa Cruz