Marronage as More than Metaphor: AfroLatinx Youths’ Ethnoracial Identity Formation in the Third Space

• In Event: Assessing How Historical Content is Learned: Research on Student Thinking and Understanding

Abstract

In this paper, I interrogate how 13 AfroLatinx tenth graders (1) made sense of world history instruction that foregrounded Black and Latinx people and experiences, (2) unpacked their racial/ethnic socialization at home, and (3) employed physical and digital spaces as extracurricular and subversive sources of information for identity formation. Data sources include student comments during a class discussion, student responses during one-on-one and focus group interviews, and parent-child dialogue during one joint family plática. Building on historical literature on marronage and the postcolonial concept of third-space hybridity (Bhabha, 1994), I theorize how these youths carved out a landscape of emerging racial/ethnic identities that were open, liberatory, and humanizing; resourceful, adaptable, and tenacious; and complex, sometimes yielding ambiguous outcomes.

Author

• Eliana Castro, Boston College