At the Intersection of Spirituality and Politics: Using Artful Mediators to Excavate Obscured Immigrant Narratives

• In Event: Latin@ Families, Parent Engagement, and Sacrificios

Abstract

In this critical ethnography I used art as a mediator for stories during a program for Latino immigrant children. I sought to understand what immigrant children’s voices had to say as they were provided with a caring and safe place to be heard, using a pedagogical tool called “hanging journals” as a conduit for that voice. Using frameworks of conscientização (Freire, 1970), contact zones (Pratt, 1970) and artefactual literacies (Pahl and Rowsell, 2010), this study examined data radiating from the hanging journals during conversations around topics contained in them. Narratives which emerged were analyzed using a filtering process and produced understandings of immigrant life which disrupt simplistic and common assumptions often associated with Latino families in the U.S.

Author

• Stacy Lee Penalva, Indiana University