Counternarratives of Immigration, Survival, and Resistance: Secondary Latina/o Immigrant Students' and Culturally Relevant Mentor Texts

• In Event: Sueños de America/Dreams of America: Discourses on Immigration and Social Justice in K–12 Classrooms

Abstract

Scholars from critical and sociocultural perspectives have called for pedagogies that challenge dominant approaches. Critical and sociocultural pedagogies reflect a significant shift from cursory understandings of culture to more rigorous and relevant curricula, which draw from the intellectual and cultural heritages of students (Gay & Howard, 2000; Ladson Billings, 1995) their funds of knowledge (González et al., 2005), community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2006), and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris, 2012). Yet, more empirical research is needed to explore the applications of critical pedagogies in varied contexts, particularly across culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This study examines a case study of one English teacher and her high school Chicana/o Studies class of predominantly Latina/o immigrant youth in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. The research questions are:
• In what ways are critical pedagogies organized around the linguistic and cultural practices of Latina/o immigrant secondary students?
• What is the potential of critical pedagogies for developing academic literacies?

The qualitative case study used participant ethnography with Ms. Gonzalez and her classroom of primarily Latina/o immigrant secondary students. The unit of analysis was the cultural and pedagogical practices of the teacher and students. Participant observations of classroom teaching were conducted approximately 1-3 times a week for one academic year. Data collection included teacher interviews, curriculum planning meetings, and participant observations of the curricular design. The urban school is highly segregated with a disproportionate percentage of Latina/o and African American students. Ms. Gonzalez’ Chicana/o Literature class was comprised of 21 Latina/o students out of 26; 18/26 were re-classified “English learners” (ELL) students, and 19/26 are on free/reduced lunch.
Ms. Gonzalez adopted a strategy of sharing her life experiences as a child of immigrants and weaving these stories into her teaching practice. She talked of her family's stories—of border crossing, domestic work, and working class life. In this way, she provided a conceptual framework of counternarratives of immigrants and immigration. She developed units on immigration policy; life stories, storytelling and autoethnographies; oppression, censorship and resistance. These units were developed through the use of Chicana/o literature including novels, short stories, poetry and essays. The teacher normalized immigrant experiences, countering inferiority narratives and deficit perspectives (Delgado, 1989; Montoya, 1994). Her autoethnographic counterstories positioned students as co-constructors of knowledge, socialized them into norms for academic language, and placed value on their immigration experiences.
As students listened to their teacher’s stories, read about immigration experiences in novels like Drown by Junot Diaz, Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario and Gloria Anzaldúa’s essays they had opportunities to make connections, examine the disjunctures, and wrestle with the tensions between the curricula and the varied immigrant and Latina/o diasporas. This study addresses an urgent social problem in America—the education of Latina/o immigrant youth. The critical pedagogies employed in the Chicana/o Studies classroom provided affordances for teachers and students to engage in a more transformative educational experience that aims toward seeking solutions for persistent social problems.

Author

• Rosa M. Jimenez, University of San Francisco