YO! Chisme Is Good! Latinx Girls’ Literacies of Confianza in an After-School Program

• In Event: Cultivating Girl and Women of Color Collective Spaces: Reimagining Pedagogies and Methodologies That Center Our Stories and Language and Literacy Practices

Abstract

Middle-school girls of color experience complex systems of relationships, structures, and situations in and out of school spaces. Their experiences, however, are often at the margins or excluded from middle school curricula and after-school programming (Author, 2022;Griffin, 2022; Flores, 2018). In fact, rather than relying on school learning and structures to acquire the tools and knowledge they need to deal with social and institutional situations, problem solve, or engage in critical discussions, instead girls of color often find themselves doing this work in isolation. One strategy girls use to navigate these complicated and at times violent contexts is chisme, dialogic sharing of information in trusted spaces.

To understand how Latinx girls use chisme to navigate school we draw on Chicanx/Latinx feminist theories of literacies have historically situated and theorized as knowledges, processes, and practices that begin in the home and that have the power to influence and transform other spaces (Delgado Bernal, 2001; Elenes et al., 2001; Villenas, 2005). Chicanx/Latinx Feminist theorists for example have presented chisme (Author, in press; Author, 2021; Trujillo, 2020;) , desahogamiento, or the healing that results from venting/sharing orally in community (Nikte & Mendoza, 2020), storytelling (Delgado, 1995), consejos, or advice (Delgado-Gaitan, 1994), and testimonios (Delgado Bernal, et. al. 2021), as literacies of the flesh (Anzaldúa & Morraga, 1981)— the literacies that emerge from gendered, classed, and racialized bodies. Situated within this framework, we aim to understand the ways that chisme is a sociopolitical and cultural practice that Latinx girls use in confianza, or grounded in trusted bonds, for survival in educational spaces.

The study employed a participatory design research (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016) to explore the literacy knowledge and practices of Latinx middle school girls participating in an after-school program. The research questions that guided our inquiry included: (1) What do middle school Latinx girls define chisme? (2) What is the role of chisme in an after-school program for middle school Latinx girls? To address the research questions, we drew from audio-video recordings, supporting audio recordings, and field notes. Analytically, we conducted video data analysis (Erickson, 2012) and qualitative coding analysis (Saldaña, 2013) to examine the data.

Three patterns emerged from the data: (1) Latinx middle schools girls had shared understandings of chismes, rumors, and snitching and their impact within their everyday life; (2) chismes, as a literacy practice, was a process and a product of confianza for the girls; (3) with confianza as a foundation to the space and relationships within the afterschool program, Latinx girls co-constructed pedagogies of desahogamiento that allowed them to center chisme.

For Latinx middle school girls to engage in chisme, they needed to trust the space and people within it. This was a gradual process of learning/unlearning and negotiation between the researchers and youth, and among youth themselves. Chisme, thus, became a powerful literacy practice that not only required confianza but also reinforced its role in the afterschool program.

Authors

• Idalia Nunez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Monica Gonzalez Ybarra, University of Illinois

• Brian Acosta, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign