Queer and Trans Latine Communities and Cultural Capital: Towards A Jotería Cultural Wealth Model

• In Event: Disrupting Cishetero Logics: Queer Futures and Trans Educational Justice

Abstract

How do queer and trans Latine students navigate K-12 schools, and what forms of capital enable their survival and success? The purpose of this paper is to work towards a type of cultural wealth model possessed by queer and trans Latine people. To begin thinking through such a model, I will trace the histories of understanding how people navigate social systems (like education) by discussing capital (Bourdieu, 1986), community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), and queer cultural capital (Pennell, 2016) to imagine new possibilities of a cultural capital framework. This paper theorizes a jotería cultural wealth model to account for the ways queer and trans Latine students mobilize cultural, social, and navigational resources within educational spaces. In a time of escalating anti-queer, anti-trans, and anti-Latine sentiment, this work underscores the urgency of supporting the resilience and thriving of queer and trans Latine youth in schools.

Author

• Luis Garay, University of North Carolina - Greensboro