Narratives of Gente Decente: Spanish Literacy in the Texas Escuelitas

• In Event: Narrating Perspectives on Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Preparation in Bi/multilingual Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how these poems alongside the participants’ oral histories inscribed narratives of gente decente, or decent people, demonstrating that literacy practices are never void of ideology (Street, 1984). Indeed, we submit that literacy practices are socially constructed, situated, and ideological (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Street, 1995). We argue that the gente decente narrative is an entanglement of resistance and resilience in the face of hegemonic whiteness while at the same time aimed at ridding the “savageness” often associated with indigeneity (Saldaña-Portillo, 2016). Additionally, we maintain that these competing narratives and discourses are part of colonial and imperial legacy in unique geopolitical spaces where there are layers of historical violence towards marginalized people.

Authors

• Enrique David Degollado, University of Iowa

• Desiree M. Pallais-Downing, The University of Texas at Austin

• Rosalyn Harvey-Torres, Georgia State University

• Randy C. Bell, University of North Texas