Black and Latinx Youth Narrating Linguistic Solidarity

• In Event: 21.020 - Reimagining Intellectualism: Challenging Academia to Sustain Pluralistic Productions of Knowledge

Abstract

This study utilizes critical narrative analysis (Souto-Manning, 2012) as a method to explore Black and Latinx youths’ storying (San Pedro, 2016) of linguistic solidarity with one another in two separate California high schools. Specifically, the research presented highlights Black and Latinx youth ingenuity (Gutierrez, et al, 2017) with respect to their tacit understandings of racializing language utilized in curriculum, instruction, and their lived experiences within hyper- segregated Black/Latinx communities. Sociocultural language scholars have argued that while Black and Latinx youth are flexible, creative, and nuanced in their language use, schools continue to treat their linguistic resources as an index of intellectual inferiority (Alim & Paris, 2017). And, while Black and Latinx youth are often described separately from one another in language and literacy research, scholars have begun to document what their close contact with one another in communities and schools means for their schooling experiences, particularly as it relates to their language and literacy practices (Paris, 2011). Little research, however, has asked Black and/or Latinx youth about how they use language as a way to demonstrate a solidarity stance with one another, particularly when classrooms instruction may contribute to forms of linguistic violence against language minoritized youth in varying ways (Paris, 2011). This notion is particularly critical in our current political climate as Black and Latinx youth are using their robust communicative repertoires and digital media literacies to communicate meaning across face-to-face and social media outlets (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015). Informed by two distinct ethnographic research projects in Los Angeles and Northern California, this paper draws on data where youth narrated moments of Black and Latinx solidarity during classroom interactions and interviews. For the purposes of this paper linguistic solidarity attends to moments where youth presented narratives that explicitly endorsed a stance with their Black/Latinx peers that supported an identity, social position, or racialized subject position. At both sites, Black and Latinx youth were/are the overwhelming majority. Using critical narrative analysis, youth narratives are fore- fronted to highlight meanings across scales that go beyond micro and macro perspectives. Findings reveal that while Black and Latinx youth may appear to exist in racially segregated social circles, these youth 1) expressed feeling a connection with one another because of a “shared” or “similar” way of using language, 2) reported defending one another (as racialized groups) in varied interactions with teachers and other adults through the use of inclusive language and 3) revealed a sense of responsibility to one another given the way both racialized groups are treated in schools, and in society. This paper adds to scholarship that disrupts damage centered (Tuck, 2009) narratives of Black and Latinx youth relations, and instead makes visible the robust ways these youth learn from one another, and engage in everyday practices that embody learning steeped in local learning models (Lee, 2009). Additionally, by fore-fronting youth narratives, from a humanizing research stance (Paris & Winn, 2012), this work shifts whose knowledge counts within academic circles (Smith, 1999).

Author

• Danny C. Martinez, University of California - Davis