“It was affirming and beautiful:” Visibilizing the experiences of Central American students and the teachers who teach them

• In Event: Critical Dialogues in Latinx Education

Abstract

Objectives:
In 2021, Ethnic Studies became a high school graduation requirement in California. This paper focuses on a case study of a K-12 interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies Program in Los Angeles at a public charter school serving predominantly Central American students. Through ten interviews with teachers, this paper analyzes how the educators challenged the limits of thinking through a Chicanx-centric lens that missed national, linguistic, and racial differences and the possibility for developing K-12 Ethnic Studies that grappled with Latinx diversity.
Framework:
Critical Latinx Indigeneities (CLI) contextualized transnational histories of migration and race to document how the participants learned to engage with Central American students and families through a place based Ethnic Studies pedagogical approach. CLI added analytic nuance about migration, Indigeneity, diaspora, racial projects across migration regions and Latinidad. CLI accounted for differences within Latinx communities and complimented LatCrit/CRT to better understand why the Latinx teachers in this study who were largely of Mexican ancestry needed to learn about and from their Central American Latinx students.
Methods:
This paper is based on a qualitative and inductive case study that centers the voices of educators (Saldaña, 2011). The study analyzes the experiences of ten K-12 Ethnic Studies teachers who attended critical professional development sessions presented by the authors that were created to expand teacher’s understanding of Ethnic Studies Pedagogy and also tailored curriculum to Central American and Indigenous communities to reflect the backgrounds of the students the teachers served.
Data:
Ten educators were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Over 9 hours of interview material were collected. Each interview was transcribed and went through two rounds of thematic coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). A qualitative and mixed methods research data digital platform was used to utilize codes to find trends and key takeaways from the interviews. Through ten data analysis dialogues amongst the researchers, trends based on the study to identify key findings, recommendations and analysis were extrapolated.
Conclusions:
This study highlights the importance of ongoing professional development training that exposes teachers on a regular basis to develop critical lenses, historical context and knowledge, and examples of curriculum that is both Ethnic Studies and place based.Three themes emerged from teacher interviews: challenging Chicanx and Mexican centric experiences to deeply learn about Central American and Indigenous histories, a commitment to relationality and collaboration, and the value of teacher time and effort as curriculum co-creators.
Scholarly Significance:
This study has concrete implications for developing K-12 interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies training programs to meet the needs of diverse Indigenous and Central American Student populations. The study highlights the importance of teachers engaging deep community histories to provide rich and un-essentialized complexities to Latinx student, family and community diversities. Teacher educators need to provide teachers tools to visibilize Central American, Indigenous, and Black Indigenous students, to build community relationships, co-create curriculum that humanizes and provides opportunities for healing, and that brings their colleagues along with them on the journey to culturally sustaining teaching and learning.

Authors

• Floridalma Boj Lopez, University of California - Los Angeles

• Ron Espiritu, Camino Nuevo Charter Acadamy

• Luis Urrieta, University of Texas at Austin