Systemic Racism in Education: A Chicano Perspective

• In Event: Centering Latinx and Chicano Perspectives: Bate-Papo~Testimonio, Authentic Cariño, and Radical Healing

Abstract

This inquiry takes a critical look at elementary school instruction to uncover forms of oppression in education including racism, neo-racism, cultural racism, and linguicism. The researcher-participant, a marginalized Chicano educator, utilizes critical autoethnography to deconstruct and confront the phenomena of microaggressions on a journey towards critical consciousness and transformation.

This study speaks back to outsiders who have misunderstood or misrepresented the researcher-participant’s culture, and to undercut canonic conventions of inquiry that foster hierarchy and division through the categorization of some methods of inquiry as being inferior to others. Thus, it is critical of the white, male, heterosexual, Christian conservative outlook and its use of hegemony to maintain its position of status and power.

Author

• Héctor Guillén, New Mexico State University