"Here, I Already Feel Smart": Exploring Chicana Feminist Literacy Pedagogies With Chicanx/Latinx Youth in an (Im)Migrant Housing Community

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This study focuses on two Chicana feminist pedagogical practices, testimonios (narratives of marginalization and survivorship) and pláticas (conversations that co-construct knowledge through experience), as pedagogies for literacies. I highlight how these pedagogies serve as tools for making visible and engaging the cultural wealth of youth from an (im)migrant housing community, Comunidad Miravalle (CM). CM is located in a semi-rural suburb in the rocky mountain region. Most residents are of (im)migrant and mixed status families from Mexico. To qualify for residency in this community, the head of each household must work in either agriculture or landscape. Data collection took place within a series of ethnic studies courses over a three-year period. In this ethnic studies seminar, students participated in a YPAR project where they collected testimonios from peers, family members, and residents from within the CM community. The research questions guiding this study are, (1) how do the Chicanx/Latinx young people in this housing community engage with YPAR and Chicana feminist pedagogies as ways to disrupt dominant notions of knowledge production? And, (2) How does YPAR in community spaces inform the theory and praxis of Chicana feminist literacy pedagogies?

The findings from this dissertation reveal that the literacies and knowledge of the young people in this study are etched on and within their bodies, shaped by their lived realties, and transcend generations and borders. For example, one finding from this dissertation highlights how youth from (im)migrant mixed-status families hold critical, complex, and tension-rich knowledge central to engaging in sociopolitical discussions of (im)migration, citizenship, and migrant labor. The analysis for this finding centers on one plática and reveals how youth in this study are able to co-construct critical arguments, rooted in knowledge from their experiences and those of their families. In another finding, pláticas with the young women in this study highlight intersections of race, gender, and literacies. This find exposes how pláticas are a feminist pedagogy where young Chicanas/Latinas can draw on their embodied and intergenerational knowledge to engage in feminist politics of disruption and reflection. Further the data show that young Chicanas/Latinas draw on their literacies to engage in intersectional feminisms, situating their understandings of race, class, gender, and sexuality within larger conversations of oppression across various communities. Another significant finding from this study is that young people draw on their community cultural literacies to act as educators within their community. These literacies are reflective of their critical knowledge of (im)migration and border crossing, their educational aspirations, their deep commitment to community strength and success, and a robust linguistic repertoire that is rooted in communicating critical knowledge.

Author

• Monica Gonzalez, University of Colorado - Boulder