Nurturing Agency in Latina/o Youth: Transformative Resistance, Community Organizations, and the Pursuit of Social Justice

• In Event: 70.029 - Examining Resilience and Agency Across Race and Ethnicity

Abstract

This paper examines how a community organization, El Puente, provided a group of Latino/a immigrant students living in a new gateway state with opportunities to develop political agency despite the myriad forms of subordination that they confronted in their schools and communities, while promoting a form of resistance which was transformative. These students were at high risk for being pushed out of school and participating in self-defeating behaviours prevalent among marginalized youth. This paper explores the ways in which El Puente countered the students’ marginalization by fostering an activist identity and helping them to name and constructively resist the oppressive political, social and economic structures in their community. Qualitative methods are employed and Lat/Crit theory serves as the theoretical framework.

Author

• Eleanor Anne Petrone, Western Carolina University