Teaching as an Act of Spatial Illegality: Latinx Teachers, the Public School, and El Sur Latinx

• In Event: Latinx Youth, Teachers in Schools, and Families

Abstract

In this paper I use data from a larger qualitative study of 25 Latinx K-12 teachers to demonstrate how Latinx teachers are relegated to certain spaces within Southern/South Carolina schools, and how their use of other spaces is deemed as an unnecessary, objectionable, and unworthy act, a violation of white spatial boundaries. This research is significant because it adds to a fairly limited literature about Latinx teachers in the U.S South by examining the “power of spatial illegality and its effects on racialization” (Guerrero, 2017, p. 154). Moreover, it relates directly to a question posed in the meeting’s call for proposals, “how can we individually and collectively demonstrate greater care about what happens in[side] our society and in educational institutions?”

Author

• Timothy Monreal, California State University - Bakersfield