"So You Know Your Roots": New Latinx South Youth and Their Decolonial Journey Through Conocimiento

• In Event: Stories of Resistance and Healing: Curriculum and Pedagogy

Abstract

This critical ethnographic, arts-based, youth participatory action research (YPAR) study, framed overall by a decolonizing framework, explored the experiences of multilingual language learners (MLLs) as they made sense of their CLI in the Nuestra Escuelita collaborative. The assertion is that the students experienced a decolonial journey towards healing, wholeness, and humanity. Specifically, the students 1) felt connections of community and care; 2) rewove the tapestries of their identities and heritage; 3) activated critical consciousness through historical learnings, shadow work and shifts toward power; and 4) felt inspiration for change and imagining a decolonial vision for new educational futures. Implications include centering MLLs’ CLI in curriculum and the need for implementing ethnic studies programs for the New Latinx/Global South youth.

Authors

• Jyoti H. Kaneria, Georgia Institute of Technology
  Presenting Author

• Jonathan Peraza Campos, Georgia State University
  Presenting Author