Revisiting the Concepts of Latino/a/e and Latinidad and Education: Towards an Inclusive Pan American Vision

• In Event: Politics, Identity, and the Educational Institution

Proposal

Revisiting the Concepts of Latino/a/e and Latinidad and Education: Towards an Inclusive Pan American Vision

This paper revisits the concepts of Latino/a/e and Latinidad within the context of education. To be sure the term Latino is primarily used in the United States to refer to students who are of Latin American Descent (U.S Census, 2020). The irony is that people from Latin Americans outside of the U.S. tend not to use the term Latino and some U.S. Latino scholars believe that it is only a U.S. specific contruct (Murillo et al., 2016 ). So this has lead to some of the biforcation between the U.S. and Latin America (including the Caribbean) and inadvertantly or not an exclusion of Canada and at times the Caribbean. There has been a good amount of quality scholarship done in Latin America and on Latinos in the U.S. However, there has not been much work done across Pan-America.

There are important bodies of research that examine what is a Latino and Latinidad (Garcia, 2000) and if the concept of Latino/a/e is a racial and/or a ethnic construct (Chavez-Moreno, 2024) and racial/ethnic identity and their respective critiques. This paper argues that the Latino/a/e communities across the Americas have important overarching educational issues that transends borders. And at the same time, there is a need to be more inclusive of how we conceptualize Latino/a/e communities and Latinidad. To embrace, in particular, the black and indigenous roots and thriving communities across the Americas that many times feel excluded from the Latino/a/e and Latinidad conversation.

Latin America is increasing in its international presence, relevance and stature with approximately 667 million residents plus another 67 million Latinos residing in the U.S. and Canada (Census.gov, 2024). This figure is more than twice the numbers of residents in the U.S. and Canada that are not Latino/a/e (313 million). The Latino/a/e population across Pan-America represents about 9% of the world population. Thus, making the Americas an important part of the global conversation when it comes to addressing all the pressing international educational needs and solutions

In addition to the population demographics, there are salient educational issues that need to be articulated and understood within and across Pan-America. For instance, the topic of immigration, migration and refugees is ever present and interconnected across the americas especially recently with the Venezuelan and Central American migration. Not only movement to the U.S. but among all the countries from Canada to Chile. Another example of a salient issue environmental and sustainable education and how it is inextricably linked with the previous issue of migration. As Suarez Orozco (2024) asserts that climate change and its impact is the biggest driver of migration in Latin America.

Lastly, this paper proposes an inclusive Latino/a/e framework that integrates the diversity of the latino/a/e communities and Latinidad across the Americas. A framework that incorporates key contructs such as historical contexts, migration context, regional contexts, langauges, racialization, and culture to attempt to bring the Latino/a/e community closer together especially given these precarious political and economic times in Pan-America.

Author

• Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos