Latinx in the First Year Writing Classroom/ Public Sphere: Annotated Bibliography
Brown, Alan V. “Effectively Educating Latino/a Students: A Comparative Study of Participation Patterns of Hispanic American and Anglo-American University Students.” Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 7.2 (April 2008): 97-118.
This article provides, first, a brief review of literature concerning the education of Hispanic American students at the secondary and postsecondary levels and, second, the results of questionnaire research conducted with Latinx and Anglo-American students at a large university in the Southwest regarding classroom participation patterns. Latinx students' responses reflected traditional Hispanic values (i.e., community and cooperation) when compared to White students' responses. These value differences will be discussed within the rational discourse and the textbook of the FYW courses.
Fine, Michelle and Jessica Ruglis. “Circuits And Consequences Of Dispossession: The Racialized Realignment of the Public Sphere for U.S. Youth.” Transforming Anthropology 17.1: 20–33. PDF.
These two “critics of public education and mass incarceration” argue that youth of color are being coercively migrated out of sites of public education and into “militarized and carceral corners of the public sphere” (20). Focusing on primary and secondary, they analyze educational, criminal, and policy data, then interview students from low-performing California schools, arguing that the corporatization of education from primary to college (testing companies, corporate textbooks, private tutoring companies) increase funding to corporations while state-responsibility disappears (21). Increased police-in-school presence, and frequent military recruitment efforts at high-risk schools do nothing to increase graduation rates or instill hope, while the attrition rates of these “drop out factories” remain high even after NCLB. The researchers conclude that policies such as zero-tolerance, abstinance-only instruction, and metal dectectors instill the belief in minority students that their schools are public institutions that convey their fundamental disposability in a corporatist state (23). As part of the findings, discuss the consequences of diploma denial, including earnings, health, social stability, etc. (28). I will compare the findings in this study with HISD police policy, the TEA's TAKS (now STAAR) pass rates for the high-stakes years (4, 9, 11) and with college AIR data on minority admissions.
Flores, Juan and George Yudice. “Living Borders/Buscando America: Languages of Latino Self-Formation.” Social Text 24 (1990): 57-84. PDF.
After establishing that Latinx are a heterogeneous group with various reasons for living in the US, the authors state that the conditions for Latinx identity-formation, had been largely provided by the struggle over how to interpret language needs and of civil rights, but which now can be seen as multiple struggles, along with the dominant sphere's counter-publics, of gender, environment, religion, etc. (57-58). The argument here is that in the new politics, it is not race, but power that is the antagonist, and Latinx enter the political arena in their engagement with the welfare mechanism and the consumer media and market (59). The realm of language, naming, and the opposition to one's own language is one of the battlefields that Latinx see as their counter-public, where the namelessness in an “English only” political scape, and that if the dominant culture unpacks the discourse against the language of Latinx, we are left with a “panoply” of racist and classist repudiations (61). The discussion on market and media is also important in our corporate university world where texts often reach to all youth through mass media and the appeal to uniformity. Finally argues not for multiculturalism but for a convergence; not for being “in” America, but for creating a new America (71-77). The argument here is very pointed and specific – that Latinx create a public not in assimilation or emulation, but in creation of new spheres altogether.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print.
Marxist perspectives of the oppressed and the oppressors. Banking model. Praxis. Dialog. Conscientization. After the critique, what is important for my study is Freire's insistence on situating educational activity in the lived experience of participants including the possibility of generating new ways of naming and acting in the world when working with people around literacies.
Gandara, Patricia. “The Latino Education Crisis.” Educational Leadership 67.5 (Feb 2010): 24-30. PDF.
To be used as essential background understanding of the educational situation of American Latinx, who now constitute the largest minority group in the United States yet are the least educated of all major ethnic groups. Poverty, lack of access to high-quality preschool, low levels of parental education attainment, and hypersegregated schools all play roles here. Gandera argues that a continuing net of support for disadvantaged students--rather than isolated interventions--is likely to significantly improve students' academic outcomes and reduce achievement gaps, through the college years.
Juffer, June. “In Search of the Latino Public Sphere: Everywhere and Nowhere.” Nepantla: Views from South 4.2 (2003): 263-268. PDF.
Critiques Mendieta's argument (noted below) that the Latinx public-sphere is an “ideal projection” and, contra Mendieta's assertion that the power of a public sphere “lies in its formulation of a social project” and that the corporate university is not truly a public sphere (264), argues that Latinx intellectuals cannot afford to dismiss the university as a public, as the impetus for funding Latinx studies is meant to train students for the global job market. Those interested in Latinx studies or Latinx students risk irrelevance with students and policy makers if they do no engage in policy making at corporations, including but not limited to the university. Juffer also argues that there is no clear theory of agency offered that would explain how a Latinx or post-colonial intellectual becomes visible and effective. Juffer will be useful in an argument against the identity politics that would define Latinx as some homogeneous people, based on Catholicism, nationality, gender, etc. Her argument that the corporate-university is the means to establish a stable public, however, will be argued against.
Mejia, Jaime Armin and Keith Gilyard. “Conversation with Jaime Armin Mejia.” Conversations in Cultural Rhetoric and Composition Studies. Keith Gilyard and Victor E. Taylor, eds. Aurora, CO: The Davies Group, Publishers, 2009:73-92. Print.
In this interview compilation, Mejia argues that ESL and other mainstream policies are assimilative and problematic, because “Spanish is not going away.” “The American curriculum from K-16 represent indecisiveness and Rhetoric and Composition studies is going to have to engage the question of rhetorical dynamics when Spanish is the major part of the mix” (79-80). Overviews curricula in “Chicano/Chicana Rhetorics” he teaches at Texas State U, San Marcos. His discussion of the assimilation of Latinx into the mainstream Texas culture is useful for understanding political resistance in education and demographic shifts.
Mendieta, Eduardo. “What Can Latinas/os Learn from Cornel West? The Latino Postcolonial Intellectual in the Age of the Exhaustion of Public Spheres. Neplanta: Views from the South 4.2 (2003): 213-233. PDF.
Argues that Latinx must contribute to a larger transnational “and hemispheric” public sphere (216) with reference points of citizenship, ethnicity, race, religion, and language. Mendieta summarizes his perspective of typologies in sphere-making of the “postcolonial intellectual.” He argues that Latinx (and any minority) must reframe their discourse in terms of 1)tragedy, 2) political, existential, and spiritual engagement as committed praxis, 3) anamnestic and historical situatedness, and 4) posthumanist, postuniversalist, cosmopolitanism (223-). These will be discussed in terms of some current Latinx rhetoric and their absence in the university curriculum, especially FYW.
Ramage, John D., John C. Bean and June Johnson. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing. Fourth Custom Edition, University of Houston. New York City: Pearson, 2009. Print.
The first semester (ENGL 1303) writing text for the University of Houston. Will be rhetorically analyzed in its use of examples and sample texts for theme and values, and compared against the values discussed in Brown, above. See also Ramage, Bean, and Johnson, Writing Arguments, below.
Ramage, John D., John C. Bean and June Johnson. Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings. Eighth Edition. New York City: Pearson, 2010. Print.
Rocco, Raymond. “Transforming Citizenship: Membership, Strategies of Containment, and the Public Sphere in Latino Communities.” Latinos and Citizenship: The Dilemma of Belonging, Suzanne Obler, ed. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006: 301-328. Print.
The related processes of globalization, restructuring, and transnationalism have given rise to a significant body of work that focuses on reconceptualizing the nature and meaning of contemporary citizenship. This essay develops a particular conception of citizenship that accounts for the strategies of excluding Latinx from full societal membership. Rocco argues that Latinx have been constructed as perpetual ‘‘foreigners’’ and that only a form of citizenship that transcends this type of political imaginary can foster a more democratic system that addresses the unique position of Latinx in the US. The notion of regional forms of citizenship is advanced as one strategy for promoting a more inclusive and democratic sense of political community in the context of economic and political interdependence that characterize contemporary international relations. The ideas of political community here will be used in the sense of the (very) local – first-year students being aware of local issues and their responsibilities to those issues. Houston examples will be used.
Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez : an Autobiography. Boston, Mass: D.R. Godine, 1982. Print.
It is the story of a now influential "public" man who traded his former identity (as working class California Chicano), his former symbolic authorities (his parents), his former language (Spanish) by assimilating to the gringo middle class under the tutelage of new symbolic authorities (his teachers and intellectual mentors, especially Richard Hoggart). His experience reads like an advertisement against bilingual education; Spanish is the "private" language of the ethnic, English the "public" language of empowerment. Rodriguez pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with alienation from his past, his family, his culture and so describes the high price of "making it" in middle-class America. Will be used an anecdotal evidence of a Latinx's experience/exposure to the American educational system through college, including the alienation that ELL students can feel in that system.
Rose, Mike. Lives On the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared. New York City: The Free Press, 1989. Print.
Considered a classic in modern American education, Rose addresses the stigmas that define America’s educationally under-prepared such as “remedial, illiterate, intellectually deficient.” He focuses on the institutional problems and how minority students struggle against the deficiencies in the American system and against a system that positions itself as “authority” vs. student. Rose demonstrates innovative methods to initiate “problem” students into the world of language, literature, and written expression. This book's strength is its use of personal and secondary anecdotes; I won't be referring to these, but will address Rose's assessment of a broken educational system that processes instead of engages its students.
Seif, Hinda. “'Wise Up!' Undocumented Latino Youth, Mexican-American Legislators, and the Struggle for Higher Education Access.” Latinos and Citizenship: The Dilemma of Belonging, Suzanne Obler, ed. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006: 247-272. Print.
Using the example of a California bill that would have waived out-of-state tuition for undocumented California youth who attend public higher education institutions, the author challenges two assumptions: that legislators only serve citizen voters and that legislative activists are adult citizens. She identifies the significance of youth and educational struggles in late 20th century Latinx politics, which has responded to demographic and political change by incorporating undocumented youth. The author discusses the historical trajectory of Latinx educational struggles through the experiences of legislative professionals from working class backgrounds. The fight in California united Latinx citizen professionals with undocumented youth and suggests channels to confront the global tragedy of the undocumented raised on the borderlands of the nation-state. Here, I'm using the examples of the undocumented directly a) interested and invested in higher education and b) formed into a vocal public that interacts with the political establishment as an example of a Latinx public sphere.
Vasquez, Jessica M. Mexican Americans Across Generations Immigrant Families, Racial Realities. New York City: NYU Press: 2011. Print.
Investigates racial identity and assimilation in three-generation Mexican American families living in California using first-person interviews with three generations of middle class Mexican American families. Vasquez focuses on the family as a key site for racial and gender identity formation, knowledge transmission, and incorporation processes, exploring how the racial identities of Mexican Americans both change and persist generationally in families. She illustrates how gender, physical appearance, parental teaching, historical era and discrimination influence Mexican Americans’ racial identity and incorporation patterns, ultimately arguing that neither racial identity nor assimilation are straightforward progressions but, instead, develop unevenly and are influenced by family, society, and historical social movements. Used here to approach attitudes of Latinx towards education, especially the claim of “acting white” by aspiring to college-level education.
Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Publics and Counterpublics. New York City: Zone Books: 2002: 65-124. Print.
Will use and engage his seven markers of publics in terms of the generalized and alternative Latinx populations, especially for first-generation Latinx college students. The ideas of self-formation, stranger relatedness, public speech, attention, reflexive discourse circulation, temporality, and world-making will be discussed – the FYW course, it will be argued, often prevents public-sphere-making because of its curriculum.
What Works for Latino Students in Higher Education: 2011 Compendium, Profiles of Selected Programs. Washington: Excelencia in Education, 2011. PDF.
This 32-page report links research, policy, and practice that supports higher educational achievement for Latinx students according to the standards of Excelencia in Education, a policy and advocacy group. Examples of Excelencia is a national initiative to systematically identify and honor programs boosting Latinx enrollment, performance and graduation with evidence of effectiveness. Examples focus on institution-based programs and departments which do not serve Latinx students exclusively, but each program disaggregates their data and can demonstrate success with Latinx students (LSC is not listed as one of their examples in their profiles for any of the last five years, though HCC is mentioned).
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