"You Are My Other Me": Youth Grown Nourishment in a Latinx Youth Group

• In Event: 21.037 - Centering Community Knowledge and Counterstories Across Community and School Spaces

Abstract

This paper highlights what I term “nourishment work” found in La Colectiva, a Latinx community-based youth group in Wisconsin. Nourishment work involves creating spaces where youth can find a sense belonging, cultural affirmation, counternarratives as well as border-crossing social capital. Border-crossing social capital, or the information and resources needed to cross school, home and community borders, stemmed from the authentic relationships of critical care (Rolón-Dow, 2005) between youth and facilitators. La Colectiva was based on a by-youth-for-youth model where the facilitators had graduated from the same high schools as the youth members of the group and therefore facilitators and youth quickly bonded over shared experiences. La Colectiva was also a space for critical dialogues, where youth learned to interrogate systems of oppression and see themselves as agents of change.

This paper employs a critical race theoretical analysis, particularly drawing on the LatCrit branch, which focuses on Latinx intersectional identities and experiences (Delgado-Bernal, 2002; Espinoza & Harris, 1997). By centering the voices of La Colectiva youth and facilitators, I highlight the “contextual contours” of their lived experiences to not only show how educational inequality is reproduced, but also how youth spaces like La Colectiva attempt to interrupt that reproductive process (Ladson-Billings, 1998). For this paper I draw upon data from an 18-month multi-site ethnography, which included three Latinx high school clubs and La Colectiva youth group at a community center. This paper specifically focuses on the community-based youth group to delve deeper into their youth-centered educational practices.

Findings in this paper focus on how La Colectiva facilitators engaged in nourishment work that created a youth-centered space where youth strengthened their cultural roots and learned to speak out about their experiences as Latinx immigrant youth. La Colectiva’s week-to-week planning strategy allowed the facilitators to design activities and dialogues based upon what youth experiences and current events, such as the 2016 presidential election. Another important aspect of La Colectiva’s nourishment work was the development of border-crossing social capital, which helped youth navigate boundaries across school, home, and communities. For instance, DACAmented youth found support from facilitators and peers in navigating the transition from high school to college. Finally, youth facilitators’ critical orientation led them to take on a social justice youth development approach, which helped youth see themselves as critical actors in their communities who could engage in political action (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002).

La Colectiva is an example of a culturally responsive youth space with trusting and caring relationships and youth-centered practices. Latinx youth in this study were contending with multiple issues that affected their educational outcomes. While some students pushed through and found their way to higher education, others became disillusioned with the ways in which their teachers, counselors, along with the high school curriculum were disconnected from their lived experiences. Therefore, this paper demonstrates that community-based youth spaces can provide valuable nourishment, particularly for Latinx immigrant youth who often lack a sense of belonging in schools and who are increasingly living with fear and stress in the current hostile, anti-immigrant political time.

Author

• Julissa Ventura, University of Colorado - Boulder