Rural Latina/o Youth Define “Community”: “You Must Be as American as Americans and as Hispanic as Hispanics”

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Cultivating Community and Empowerment: Supporting Rural Youth and Diverse Identities (Table 4)

Abstract

We build on previous research as we explored concepts of citizenship and the complicated concept of community in one rural site. Original goals were to document how student identities were shifting. We documented students’ concerns and questions, as they explored new alliances with tutors and student peers. In the current study, the focus is on the children of adults in the initial study. We ask how second-generation Latina/o citizens from East Town define community as they have come to understand it? In what ways have their parents’ experiences in East Town shaped their own impressions of rural and raced midwestern communities? How is the meaning of ‘community’ complicated when culture, class, language, and education intersect in these new times?

Authors

• Carolyn A. Colvin, University of Iowa

• Richard Barajas, University of Wisconsin - Madison