The Beauty of Counterstory as Narrated Dialogue: Educational-Environmental Racism in Higher Education

• In Event: Reflexivities, Positionalities, and Interrogations

Abstract

Using critical race counterstorytelling, I tell a story about the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at a predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, document analyses, and literature on race and space and racism in higher education, I argue that the racially hostile campus environment experienced by MMAX students at their university manifests itself as a form of educational-environmental racism. Through narrated dialogue, Aurora (a composite character) and I delve into a critical conversation about how educational-environmental racism is experienced by MMAX students through a racialized landscape in the following ways: 1) Discriminatory Objects and Symbols on Campus; 2) Glorification of Historical Trauma; and 3) Lack of Physical Representation and Cultural Deprivation.

Author

• Martín Alberto Gonzalez, Portland State University
  Presenting Author