How a closer look at ‘Latinx’ can help promote educational equity

As a Spanish teacher in Philadelphia's public school system, Laura Chávez-Moreno was excited to envision and work toward a bright future for her students. Yet, although worlds away from the Arizona border town where she came of age after emigrating with her family from Mexico, she soon realized many of them were facing the same challenges she herself had faced as a young person with few opportunities.

"From my schooling experience and what I saw as a teacher, I had questions about how different groups of students were perceived or treated differently, and the opportunities and outcomes they had as a result," she said, noting that many of these inequities stemmed from racial experiences. "I realized that schools play an important role in how our society shapes ideas about race."

Chávez-Moreno decided to return to school and expand her focus on teaching and education to include race and racism - work that led her to UCLA, where today she is an assistant professor of Chicana/o and Central American studies and of education. Her first book, "How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America," which will publish on Oct. 1, represents that journey and her vision for a path forward.

In the book, she argues that Latinx - the term she uses, she says, "to challenge gender binaries and x out the colonial 'Latin'" - should be recognized as a racialized group.

"This isn't an inherent group in society," she said. "Society, through its institutions like schools, creates racialized groups through practices and through putting one group in relation to another. That's how race is made: One group receives something while another group gets a different type of treatment and resources."

Presenting her study of a Spanish-English bilingual education program, she offers a detailed example of how schools contribute to this construction of race, whether intentionally or not. For instance, the book describes students grappling with what Latinx means due to society's mixed messages about whether or not Latinx is a race, given phenotypic variation - that is, diversity in observable characteristics, such as skin color.

"My aim is to encourage teachers to follow students' questions and consider the contradictions in order to extend the conceptualization of race," Chávez-Moreno said. "It's also important to acknowledge bilingual education as a racial project - meaning it teaches people to make sense of race and it distributes resources along racial lines."

While recognizing that a Latinx identity is meaningful and important to many people, she challenges educators to embrace what she calls "ambitious teaching" about race, which includes acknowledging its complexity, contradictions and consequences. It's an approach she uses in her own classroom at UCLA - and alongside the university's supportive academic community, she says, her students' curiosity inspires her to continue pushing the boundaries of this work.

Next spring, she will teach critical race theory at both the undergraduate and graduate levels; regarding the ongoing attacks on this area of study, she says society is engaged in the wrong debate.

"Schools are, whether they want to or not, teaching about race," Chávez-Moreno said. "This is already happening in our schools. So instead of debating whether teachers should be teaching about race, we should be working on how to improve our instruction about race so students are aware of racial issues and are prepared to engage in anti-racist actions - and so teachers are better equipped to deal with what are sometimes difficult topics."

She also hopes her work will inspire those outside the classroom who want to help improve outcomes for young people who, like herself, saw their opportunities limited early in life.

"It's important for communities to support teachers in this work," she said. "It determines whether schools serve their students in a way that advances antiracism and supports our democracy to achieve justice."

Support for "How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America" was provided by the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.

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