Cultivating hope through creative resistance: Puerto Rican undergraduates surviving the disasters of climate and colonization

Abstract

This article details what occurred during a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project involving Puerto Rican undergraduates who at first focused their analysis on how their experiences with Hurricane María could be framed as resiliency and then eventually adopted a framework of resistance to further capture their actions, stances, and practices in response to government neglect. The YPAR generative process facilitated this emergence of resistance by beginning with the presentation of a cultural artifact and then helping students to use creative and artistic means to critically reflect on their experiences and the ways that not just resiliency, but also resistance captured their analysis of the actions of the people and government actors both immediately after the hurricane and in the long recovery that followed.

Keywords:

• Latinx students
• participatory action research
• resistance
• Puerto Rico
• YPAR

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The themes that emerged in the coding are bolded for emphasis throughout the article.

2 bold and italics added by the authors to highlight the relevant text in the table reflecting the themes developed in the coding process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Regina Deil-Amen

Regina Deil-Amen is a Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education and Department Head of Educational Policy Studies & Practice in the College of Education at University of Arizona with expertise in qualitative methodologies, sociology, community colleges, culturally responsive practices, and postsecondary access and success.

Julio Cammarota

Julio Cammarota is a professor of education at University of Arizona. His research focuses on participatory action research with Latinx youth, institutional factors in academic achievement, critical race theory and liberatory pedagogy. He publishes on family, work, and education among Latinxs and on the relationship between culture and academic achievement.

Yareliz Zayas Cruz

Yareliz Zayas Cruz attained a Bachelor's degree in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico, Cayey campus. She has learned much from documenting and analyzing injustices and looks forward to experiencing the Puerto Rico of the future and contributing to culture as a weapon of resistance.

Gina Pérez

Gina Pérez is a cultural anthropologist and professor of Comparative American Studies at Oberlin College. Her research interests include Latinas/os, youth, militarism, gender, migration, urban ethnography, and the role of faith-based communities in organizing in Latina/o communities, including sanctuary practices and intra-faith and cross-racial solidarity efforts.