Book chapter
"Our Parents Believed That We Should Learn Spanish the Right Way": Spanish Literacy as Resistance and Ideological Negotiation at Las Escuelitas
Exploring and Expanding Literacy Histories of the United States, pp.110-129
Routledge
2024
DOI: 10.4324/9781003381334-7
Abstract
This chapter discusses las escuelitas, or little schools, as sites of resistance and ideological negotiation. Las escuelitas flourished in the South Texas border town of Laredo, and the surrounding area, during the first half of the 20th century. Through the oral histories of nine participants who attended las escuelitas in the early 1940s, this chapter demonstrates how these schools taught Spanish literacy and Mexican culture as a means of resistance toward hegemonic assimilationist practices. Analyzed through theories of nepantla and literacy ideologies, the Spanish literacy practices presented also reveal how literacy learning can be both functional for learning discrete skills but also critical in their resistance of linguistic and cultural hegemony. The findings complicate the notion of literacy as apolitical.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- "Our Parents Believed That We Should Learn Spanish the Right Way": Spanish Literacy as Resistance and Ideological Negotiation at Las Escuelitas
- Creators
- Enrique David Degollado
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- Exploring and Expanding Literacy Histories of the United States, pp.110-129
- Publisher
- Routledge; New York, NY
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781003381334-7
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2024
- Academic Unit
- Teaching and Learning
- Record Identifier
- 9984651158102771
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