Illegal Aliens, Criminals, and Hypersexual Spitfires: Latin@ Youth and Pedagogies of Citizenship in Media Texts

ABSTRACT

This article aims to broaden the ways we conceptualize citizenship and implement citizenship education in social studies. To do so, the authors explore media texts as a curricular and pedagogical site for teaching lessons about citizenship. Specifically, the authors investigate how media drafts the boundaries of citizenship for Latin@ youth, and influences how young people come to understand who is and who is not perceived as a citizen entitled to rights and freedoms. Media texts, like formal social studies curricula, are powerful and enduring educators that shape how students know the world and imagine their place in it. Therefore, this article addresses how social studies teachers can integrate media texts into the classroom to explore representations of Latin@s and the impact that media has on our citizenship identities and experiences.

Keywords:

• Media texts
• Latin@ youth
• citizenship
• media literacy

Notes

1. We use Latin@ as a more inclusive term and as a way to promote gender equity beyond traditional gender binaries.

2. Civic knowledge and citizenship education focus on US history, institutions, seminal texts (the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc.), and the development of American democracy. Prosocial behavior for the common good and voting duties are emphasized (Knight-Abowitz and Harnish 2006; Journell 2010). No places are reserved for critical media content and pedagogy. The national standards for civics and government reflect this agenda. They prioritize communal values, voting, and the foundations of American democracy as represented by political actors (James Madison, John Marshall, etc.) and the aforementioned seminal texts.

3. Arizona SB 1070, Georgia HB 87, and Alabama HB 56 are state legislation legitimating racial profiling and surveillance of persons suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Arizona HB 2281 banned ethnic studies courses out of concern that such courses promote ethnic solidarity, resentment against white people, and overthrowing the US government.