Carving Out Brown Spaces: Chicagoland Latina/o Youth Navigating a White and Affluent Suburban High School

• In Event: Youth in Revolt: Latina/o Youth Fighting for Their Education

Abstract

Student participants attend Shields High School (SHS) in a predominately white and well-resourced affluent suburb outside of Chicago. Despite the resources and opportunities SHS has, Latina/o students experience their schooling differently than their white peers. Latina/o youth of my study traverse different academic and social terrains that constantly challenge their identities and how they maintain community. My dissertation research seeks to address two focal questions: First, how do Latina/o youth negotiate and perform their identities (e.g., racial/ethnic, classed, gendered, and linguistic) in school; and second, what are the ways in which Latina/o youth build and maintain community in school?

This research employs Butler’s (1990) work on performance and performativity. People negotiate and deal with identity categories they inhabit (Bettie, 2003; Bucholtz, 2011), but they also evolve through “social practice and social interaction” (Bucholtz, 2011). In their interactions Latina/o youth will enact different performances, which at times may be rebuffed by their white or Latina/o classmates. Therefore, my research will examine both the agency and social structures at SHS in order to better understand how Latina/o youth performances are enacted and how they change in different spaces.

I employ qualitative research methodology by utilizing an ethnographic approach. Since student perspectives are central, I shadow students (Rios, 2011) by putting myself as close to their experience as possible in order to attempt to see through students’ eyes. I was in SHS during the course of the 2014-2015 school and I was there daily for the duration of the school day along with spending time afterschool hanging out with students or joining them in their afterschool activities. To make sense of my data, I am coding and categorizing by themes (Bogdan, & Biklen, 2003). Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) is guiding my coding process and I will be presenting preliminarily findings of my data.

I put identity and community in conversation with each other in an effort to complicate how identity politics shapes the different spaces Latina/o students make use of. Moreover, the interplay between whiteness and Latinoness is crucial in understanding the breakdown of how Latina/o students choose to present themselves. The spaces Latina/o students occupy vary by time of day, and which social group a student may belong to. Moreover, while not a primary focus the varied white peer groups push out Latina/o students to periphery locales within the building further fueling interracial divisions and decreasing the spaces for the diverse Latina/o population to feel at home.

While the study is anchored in Chicagoland, the region heralds some of the larger demographic transformations being replicated across the nation. The changes in suburban schools merit analysis from the perspectives of Latina/o students because they are the ones who navigate their academic and social worlds on a daily basis. The interplay between identity and community is vital to the production of larger discourses and school policies that create inclusive and sustainable environments for Latina/o youth to flourish and contribute as members of ever-evolving contexts.

Author

• Gabriel Rodriguez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign