Pláticas as Pedagogy: Fostering Linguistic Consciousness Among Latinx Youth

• In Event: Language Across Borders: Multilingual Realities and Linguistic Justice in Global Classrooms

Abstract

In Texas, Spanish-speaking youth often navigate educational environments shaped by English-dominant ideologies that devalue their linguistic identities. These subtractive approaches to bilingual education have historically positioned students' home languages as barriers rather than assets (Valenzuela, 1999; San Miguel and Valencia, 1998). This study addresses the need for pedagogical practices that affirm and sustain students’ translingual realities. The purpose is threefold: (1) to explore how language minoritized youth perceive and engage with their linguistic identities; (2) to examine pláticas as a pedagogical intervention; and (3) to contribute to the development of more equitable educational spaces through fostering Critical Latinx Youth Linguistic Consciousness (CLYLC).
Guided by Latina/o Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) (Delgado Bernal, 2002), Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) (Yosso, 2005), and Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) (Cammarota and Fine, 2008), this study centers youth knowledge, cultural resistance, and collective healing. LatCrit situates language as inseparable from race, identity, and power. CCW reframes students’ bilingualism as a form of capital, while YPAR positions youth as co-creators of knowledge. These frameworks enable an understanding of pláticas not simply as conversation, but as decolonial praxis capable of disrupting hegemonic language structures.
Using a qualitative case study design, this study engaged Spanish-speaking high school students in Eagle Pass, Texas through six plática workshops. Each session was structured around themes such as language shame, linguistic identity, racialization, and resistance. Data sources included audio-recording transcripts, participant-created artifacts (e.g., drawings, handouts), and researcher field notes. Through iterative coding and critical discourse analysis (Rogers, 2011), the study explored how students' participation in pláticas shaped their understanding of language, power, and self.
Findings show that pláticas created intimate, culturally sustaining spaces where students could safely reflect on and resist deficit narratives (Delpit & Dowdy, 2002; Baker-Bell, 2020). Students articulated pride in their linguistic hybridity and developed a deeper awareness of how language, race, and power intersect (Rosa, 2019; Anzaldúa, 2007). Core components of CLYLC included youth knowledge-making, linguistic solidarity, critical reflection, and collective action. Participants like Mia and Amaris embodied these shifts, moving from internalized linguistic shame to a proud assertion of their translingual identities and a shared commitment to language justice. Pláticas emerged not only as a tool for consciousness-raising, but as healing praxis rooted in relationality and joy.
This work contributes to scholarship on bilingual education, linguistic justice, and Latinx youth activism by theorizing pláticas as both pedagogy and methodology (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016). It challenges educators to move beyond English-centric, assimilationist approaches and embrace pedagogies that honor students’ full linguistic selves. By centering the voices and experiences of Latinx youth, this study reimagines what linguistically just classrooms can look like (i.e., spaces of affirmation, resistance, and transformation led by those most impacted).

Author

• Elisa Marisol Serrano, University of Texas - San Antonio