Assemblages of Chicanx Social Identities: Holistically Healing via Critical Reflexivity Journals

• In Event: Decolonizing Academic Spaces: Engaging Intersectionality, Social Identities, Racial Consciousness, and Action Toward an Anticolonial Education

Abstract

Purpose & Literature Review

Chicanx social identity development is discussed in this research as it relates to intersectionality and critical pedagogy. Drawing from my own experiences, throughout my interdisciplinary academic training as an undergraduate ethnic studies and psychology double major, I have critically examined the ways in which institutions disproportionately disenfranchise Chicanx students. I have noted that the experiences of Chicanx are often left out of the picture when looking at the policing and criminalization of youth of color in and outside of schools. Women of color are also directly impacted by criminalization policies and practices that render them vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, dehumanization, and marginalization (Morris, 2015). Overall, youth from communities of color, particularly Black and Latinx communities are not being provided with the necessary resources to resist and challenge these forms of violence. The lack of sources to support their wellbeing, health and academic thriving is problematic. This is further exacerbated by the discourses and actions that label students of color as “disruptive” or “undisciplined.” Ultimately we know that schools are not providing adequate help to our youth, therefore this presentation will focus on addressing the following question, particularly as it relates to the experiences of Chicanx students: How do critical reflexivity journals facilitate the Chicanx student’s social identity development, as well as their healing from trauma?

Method/Data
Via a thematic analysis of twenty reflexivity journals from students enrolled in an ethnic studies course, I demonstrate how reflexive journal allowed students to reflect, process and problematize their social conditions, and through that arrive at a realization of the social structures, rooted in the legacies of colonialism, that have oppressed them and their communities.

Scholarly Significance
The reflexivity journals document part of the reflective processes through which Chicanx students begin to situate their histories and identities, as well as the traumas. This talk provides empirical support for the relationship between ethnic studies and social identity development, and well as decolonial pedagogies.

Authors

• Alejandra Magana Gamero, Santa Clara University

• Jesica Siham Fernandez, Santa Clara University