Voices of Resistance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Chican@ Children's Literature

(Hardback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

The banning of Mexican-American Studies and censorship of Chican@-authored books in Arizona were part of a succession of anti-Mexican and anti-Chican@ policies that were enacted across the state and in the education system. The counterstories offered through these classes and literature not only created a sense of cultural inclusion, but ignited a political and activist consciousness among the mostly Chican@ youth, and reinvigorated conversations among educators about the teaching of race, ethnicity, and culture in the classroom, particularly through youth literature. While most work on youth literature has emphasized multicultural literature as a means of being inclusive, Voices of Resistance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Chican@ Childrens Literature recognizes that our present moment--one that is rife with continued anti-Mexican sentiment but that has given rise to our first Chicano National Poet Laureate--demands a more focused study of childrens and young adult literature by and about Chican@s. This collection re-examines how we view multicultural and diversity literature and recognize literature that invites social transformation. Using multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives to critically examine a wide range of Chican@ childrens pictures book and young adult novels, this collection reaffirms Chicano@ childrens literature as a means to achieve equity and social change.

Reviews

These pages, these warrior voices, these fervent words, sing to my heart songs of progresssongs of hope! I cannot emphasize too much how necessary, how relevant, how timely, this book is to educators seeking to inform themselves in regards to important developments in Chicano childrens literature. Take this book, open it, and let the melody of these voces lindas carry you home. -- Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Pura Belpr award winner
Voices of Resistance is at once a profoundly literary, educational, and sociopolitical accomplishment, as it pushes on conventional notions of how one engages Chican@ literature toward transformative ends. Blending the pedagogical with literary and cultural tropes, deeply historical and intellectual roots, and a complex array of sociocultural experiences, and Chican@ cultural sensibilities and practices, Voices illustrates how Chican@ literature is neither monolithic, nor is the community to which it speaks most directly. Instead, the collection of essays vividly captures complexity in the expansive linguistic and sociocultural practices of Chican@ communities, offering literature as a way for youth to become historical actors. -- Kris Gutierrez, Carol Liu professor University of California, Berkeley
A book like this is woefully long overdue. It unapologetically centers Chican@ childrens and young adult literature into a highly readable tome that pushes the discursive boundaries related to sex, race, class, linguistic, and gendered systems of inequality in childrens and young adult Chica@ literature. In a world of fake news, this compelling volume makes us mindful of the national myths, lies, and deficit perspectives that belie such falsities as solely a 21st century problem. As the wonderful contributions to this volume powerfully imply by example, the regular curricular diet of test-focused, culturally chauvinistic school curricula to which our children and youth are regularly, if tragically, subjected, is robbing the Chican@ community of voice, presence, and power in our nations classrooms. Hence, this path breaking text helps lay the ground work for the very liberation and uplift that all of our youth and communities so desperately need. Kudos for a job well done! -- Angela Valenzuela, professor, department of educational administration, University of Texas at Austin; director, University of Texas Center for Education Policy

Author Bio

Laura Alamillo, received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in Language, Literacy and Culture. She is currently a Professor in Literacy, Early Childhood, Bilingual and Special Education Department at Fresno State. Her research includes looking at the education of emergent bilingual children specifically at humanizing and culturally sustaining teaching practices in multlingual classrooms. Larissa M. Mercado-Lpez received her PhD in Latina Literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio and is currently an associate professor of Womens Studies at California State University, Fresno, and childrens book writer.. Her research focuses on Chicana feminisms, Tejana literature, and intersectional feminist fitness studies. Cristina Herrera holds a PhD in Literature from Claremont Graduate University and is associate professor and chair of Chicano and Latin American Studies at California State University, Fresno. She has published on Chicana literature, motherhood, and young adult literature, among other topics.