Teaching Across Tensions: Xicanx-Indigenous Solidarities and the Stakes of Reclamation

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Living Indigeneity: Centering Critical Reflections, Epistemologies, and Reclamation for Diasporic Indigenous Communities

Abstract

Purpose
This paper reflects on a twenty-year friendship shaped by academic and communal collaborations, examining the colonial and historical power dynamics between mestizo/Xicanx and Indigenous communities. As Chicana/o Studies educators in California’s community college system, we explore how our shared connection to Guerrero, Mexico, informs our teaching and scholarship, while also acknowledging the distinct experiences that shape our perspective.One of us is Nahua from Atzacoaloya, the other mestiza from Acapulco. Our central objective is to examine the complexities of solidarity, Indigenous reclamation, and complicity within Xicanx-Indigenous collaborations, particularly in educational settings where questions of identity and belonging are increasingly being foregrounded.
Theoretical Framework
We center on Indigenous historical continuity and pueblo-based epistemologies (Authors, in press), rather than focusing solely on ancestry. Our analysis draws on Comunalidad (Díaz Gómez, 2001; Martínez Luna, 2010, 2016) as an embodied, everyday practice of Indigeneity that emphasizes consensus-based decision-making and collective labor. We use this framework as a conceptual anchor to rethink solidarity, complicity, and pedagogical responsibility.
Additionally, we engage Chicana feminist epistemology (Delgado Bernal, 1998; Delgado Bernal & Elenes, 2010; Calderón et al., 2012) to examine how pedagogical and scholarly practices can guard against the folklorization and Indigenous consumption that often circulate within academia and broader mestizx Latinx communities (Calderón, 2014; Calderón & Urrieta, 2019).
Method & Data Sources
We employ pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016; López & Calderón, 2023) as a dialogic, reflective method grounded in trust, relationality, and co-thinking. As a conceptual and reflective paper, our collaboration is shaped by ongoing conversations that merge personal histories, community engagement, and teaching experiences. Through these pláticas, we trace our evolving perspectives on solidarity, Indigeneity, and pedagogy.
Points of View/Argument
We argue that solidarity between Xicanx and Indigenous communities requires a sustained reckoning with colonial inheritances and the power differentials we carry, even when we share commitments and ancestral heritage. For Xicanxs, self-ascribing as Indigenous is not sufficient; Indigeneity is not reducible to ancestry or blood quantum. Too often, self-identification is used to sidestep deeper engagement with the colonial legacies we embody and benefit from. Our reflections reveal that without this critical reckoning, solidarity risks reproducing the very hierarchies it seeks to dismantle. We further contend that pedagogical approaches in Chicanx Studies must resist flattening complex histories. Ethical engagement with Indigenous communities must be central to our teaching to prevent the extraction or romanticization of Indigeneity.
Scholarly Significance
This work contributes to Chicanx Studies as well as educators navigating the expanding ethnic studies requirements in California, providing critical tools for resisting institutional co-optation and ensuring Indigenous epistemologies remain centered in the classroom. This is also a call for offering a relational and reflective model for examining solidarity and pedagogy in our current political climate. By foregrounding pláticas and relational accountability, we model an approach to scholarship that is deeply personal, communal, and pedagogically urgent.

Authors

• Gabriela Kovats Sanchez, San Diego Mesa College

• Velma Calvario Tlahuancapa, San Diego City College