'Crazyghettosmart': a case study in Latina identities (original) (raw)

Engaging in Travesuras: A Latino Fifth-Grader’s Disassociation from the Schoolboy Label

International Journal of Multicultural Education, 2010

This case study examines José, a bilingual Latino fifth-grader, and his complex and dynamic engagements in travesuras (mischievous behaviors). José’s travesuras served to disassociate him from being labeled a “schoolboy.” This disassociation was evident in how José: (1) renounced “school-like” work and (2) downplayed his intelligence. José had been pigeonholed—for the most part—as a smart student who should have known better than to behave inappropriately. Implications point to how to create more nurturing and enriching experiences for urban Latino youth such as José.

Soy Mi Cuento: Latina Students Bridging Multiple Worlds in Independent Schools

2013

The dissertation explores the hybrid identity, mestiza consciousness (Anzaldúa, 1999), of Latina graduates of independent schools. Latinas currently represent one of the lowest performing, fastest growing, youngest ethnic minority groups in the United States (United States Census, 2010), and the smallest demographic in independent schools (Torres, 2012). Education offers Latinas academic and social capital for economic advancement and college opportunity (Gándara & Contreras, 2009; Santiago, 2013); independent schools are an important entry to gaining this capital. Latinas attending independent schools often enter heterogeneous educational environments for the first time and find the need to explore their identity more salient (French, Seidman, Allen, and Aber, 2006). The experience results in bridging multiple worlds as students experience dissonance (Alvarez, 2011) negotiating their place and their experience. The purpose of the research is to answer the question, "Does an awareness of identity development offer an advantage to navigate the elite independent school cultural milieu?" Through testimonio (Pérez Huber, 2009), a form of storytelling or personal narrative, and Gloria Anzaldúa's (1999) autohistoría-teoría, the research gathered data from successful Latina independent school graduates about their experiences in independent schools. The research explored Latina identity development in the context of her school experience from the perspective of a new mestiza consciousness (Anzaldúa, 1999) and offers a countervailing perspective to Deficit Studies (Madrid, 2011). Latina participants underscored Anzaldúa's theory of hybrid identity development indicating that socioeconomic status and family influence had a profound impact on their identity development.

Pensadoras in the New Latino Diaspora: Latina Girls Navigating the Intersections of Their Social, Emotional, and Sexual Lives

2016

The social, emotional, and sexual experiences of adolescent girls in the United States are often framed as superfluous, negative, and distracting from academic activity, rather than as significant learning experiences in girls’ developmental and academic trajectories. Specifically, the social, emotional, and sexual experiences of Latina adolescents living in poverty are commonly characterized as causing them to make poor choices, to drop out of school, or to become teenage mothers or the girlfriends of gang members (Denner & Guzman, 2006). However, most Latina girls’ experiences do not match these characterizations and little research has been conducted on the relationships between the social, emotional, and sexual experiences of Latina adolescents and their educational trajectories. Using ethnographic techniques, this research aims to the roles that Latina girls’ social, emotional, and sexual experiences play in their identity development and experiences as students in one New Lati...

Borderlands of Teenage Mothering: Life Stories of Latinx Teen Mothers from a Critical Feminist Perspective

2019

Borderlands of Teenage Mothering: Life Stories of Latinx Teen Mothers from a Critical Feminist Perspective Rather than trying to understand and support teenage mothers, society has stigmatized and marginalized them, even more so for women of color. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of teenage mothers of color as they reflected back on their teenage years in school, at home, and in their communities. Participants were asked to photograph people, places, and things that reminded them of their time as a teen mom. Open-ended semi-structured interview questions along with photo elicitation were implemented to support the young mothers to describe their experiences in school, community, and personal lives during their high school years. Using a critical feminist mothering framework (community cultural wealth, intersectionality, and nepantla), this study revealed how these young women were excluded in and out of school solely by the fact that they were mothers. These findings suggest that teenage mothers find themselves located amidst "in-between" spaces of gender, age, and social constructs that create gendered expectations. Despite the barriers, the young mothers became transformed into complex, loving, and supportive women. The lesson of this study for educators is that we need to help make the transition between childhood and motherhood to be full of support, love, and care through building trusting relationships with our students. Instead of marginalizing these young women, we can-and should-create a space of agency for them to make their own decisions about their futures and bodies through providing constant unconditional love.

My Name is Not María: Young Latinas Seeking Home in the Heartland

Traditional theories of immigration to the U.S. assume a unilateral movement that eventually results in the "absorption of the immigrant group into the American fold" (Gibson 1988:x). Recent studies of transnationalism introduce a more complex back-and-forth variety of migration, providing ways to explain differences among migratory subgroups. Building on segmented assimilation and transnationalism perspectives, this research addresses the maze of adjustment processes encountered by participants in this study-Latina teenagers who recently immigrated to the U.S. and attend a mid-western high school. This paper proposes an integrated model of gender and acculturation by focusing on adaptation processes. Using qualitative data gathered through group interviews, observation, and survey, the study examines how interaction is organized around gender, ethnicity, and immigrant status. The Latinas invoke ethnic identity to resist an American gender order. However, institutional structures, such as English-as-Second-Language classes, shape practices that have differential effects for girls and boys. Latinas are subject to harsher control both within families and the conformist school culture, which marks them as outsiders more than it does their male peers. These practices reveal the gendered makeup of interaction as distinct from characteristics and beliefs of the individual, and adjustment processes as segmented along structural gender lines. A gendered ethnicity and ethnic gendering reinforces the gender order, but in a way specific to local gender practices and immigrant status.

Breaking Stereotypes and Boundaries: Latina Adolescent Girls and Their Parents Writing their Worlds

Voices from the Middle, 2018

The author shares her learnings working alongside Latina adolescent girls and their parents in Somos Escritores/We Are Writers, a six-week writing workshop that invites families to write and share stories from their lived experiences. She shares what led her work with families, providing an overview of the practices of the space. Next, she shares what she learned from families about why they write. Finally, she discusses the importance and pedagogical possibilities of creating space in literacy classrooms and family involvement spaces that center the voices, stories, and ways of knowing of families.

Cultivando La Voz Mujer: Latina Adolescent Girls and Their Mothers Rewriting Their Pasts and Imagining Their Futures

This article shares the experiences of Latina adolescent girls (Grades 7–12) and their mothers as participants in Somos Escritoras/We are Writers, a creative writing workshop that invites girls and their mothers to engage in the sharing of stories through art and writing. In the creation of Somos Escritoras, I position Black and Chicana feminist thought as important experiential knowledge to center that of my participants' experiences as valuable points to begin theorizing. In addition, I weave Gutiérrez's conceptualization of third space and Anzaldúa's theorizing of Nepantla to describe the spaces of liminality the girls and mothers navigate and the potential of Somos Escritoras as a site of transformation. Drawing upon field notes, writing, artwork, and interviews, I share how girls and their mothers used writing and artwork to express themselves, define themselves, and learn from one another through their collective sharing of stories and experiences. Somos Escritoras is an example of a family engagement space that centers the cultural and gendered ways of knowing and being of Latina girls and women as important sites of knowledge to cultivate similar spaces with and for families.

The Theme of Outsiderness in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature: Self-Fashioning Identities, Canons, and Fields of Study

Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura

This review article focuses on the critical anthology Nerds, Goths, Geeks and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, edited by Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera (2020). The goal of this collection of essays is to fill the gap that exists in both Latinx cultural studies and children’s and young adult (YA) literature scholarship: the focus on US Latinx children’s and YA literature. Its second goal is to concentrate on Latina and Latino outsiders, who are also ignored in the above-mentioned fields of study, even when it comes to nerds, goths, geeks, and freaks. The anthology offers a necessary exploration of the double marginalisation of Latinx and queer, nerdy, geeky, or otherwise non-conformist teenagers and young adults. The authors analyse Latinx YA texts to capture the strategies and practices the protagonists use to reject or question the dominant Latinx/Chicanx identity scripts, self-fashion a new identity, or, simply, to survive. The article outlines ...