The Power of Alliances: A Case for Integrating Intersectionality Into Social Justice Leadership

• In Event: Standing With Youth, Parent, and Community Educational Leaders: Case Studies in Subverting Systemic Oppression

Abstract

In 2009, dozens of Asian students were attacked by fellow students in an act of perceived racial violence at South Philadelphia High School. Over the next few days, Asian students at South Philadelphia High School organized a school boycott demanding that the district listen to the often silenced voices of the perceived model minority. Asian student leaders protested, built a multiethnic coalition, and got a community to advocate for equitable educational opportunities. This paper examines the processes a group of Asian American youth took to develop as leaders and establish a youth-led, multiethnic alliance to hold a school district accountable for the hostile racial climate present in their schools.

Theoretical Framework
Transformational resistance in education is grounded in a Latino critical race theory framework to reform an old deficit-oriented framework on self-defeating resistance theories. Transformational resistance in education is centered on understanding the relationship between a critique of oppression and motivation for social justice (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001).

Methods
This research used a historical ethnographic method which includes a combination of observations, interviews, and document analysis. In depth, phenomenological interviews were conducted with youth, community members, school officials, and media sources.

Selected Results
Developing an understanding of systemic oppression helped lead to the success of the multiethnic alliance for safer schools. Youth reported that once they started to fully understand the effects of racism, sexism, and xenophobia through intersectionality, they began to empathize with other communities of color. They were determined to find a way to support all communities of color in Philadelphia in the fight for educational equity without compromising their own goals.

Through long conversations among community organizations, the youth developed their own theory of change. The general idea was for the youth to bring communities together to combat systemic racism in schools through interethnic alliances and partnerships rather than a formal coalition. Youth understood that all communities have different issues and strengths to solve those issues. By promoting and fostering the growth of each community, youth developed a system of shared governance for advocacy that led to transformational renaissance.

Scholarly importance
This research demonstrates the importance of understanding youth transformational resistance. Without an understanding of how youth develop collaboration and resistance, mentors from the school and community will be unable to adequately support the greater marginalized community. Promoting public engagement among the students leads to the goals of education as described by Dewey (1997).

Author

• Michael Ishimoto, University of California - Los Angeles