Learning with immigrant indigenous parents in school and community

ABSTRACT

In this article I introduce a framework that centers indigenous educational sovereignty in university-school partnerships. Developed from collaborative work with Indigenous Maya families who are migrants from Yucatan, Mexico, the framework operates from an understanding that Indigenous parents have knowledge that is important for their children to acquire and that schools are key sites to support this knowledge. I begin the article with a description of the framework that guides our participation in the partnership and which supports indigenous educational sovereignty. I then provide a brief overview of research addressing the growing population of Indigenous Latinx families in US schools. I discuss the partnership which developed from a qualitative study on academic literacies and expanded into a colaborativo (collaborative) that centers on the revalorization and maintenance of indigenous Maya culture and language at the school. I conclude with an example from an activity organized under this partnership that illustrates our consultative process in our family-school-university collaboration.

Acknowledgments

I thank the parents and staff at Metropolitan Elementary School, the student researchers of the Laboratory for the Study of Interaction and Discourse in Educational Research (L-SIDER) at UC Berkeley, and our collaborators in Mexico Fidencio Briceño Chel and Karla Berrón Cámara (Centro Estatal de Capacitación e Investigación y Difusión Humanística de Yucatán). This article represents only a partial perspective on a project of a much broader scope; any errors or omissions are my own. Special thanks to the following UC Berkeley student assistants who have participated at various times in colaborativo activities: Rocio Aguilar-Pedroza, Pancho Antonio, Luz Bertadillo, Alitzel Blanco, Gabriela Borge-Janetti, Susana Castro, Prescilla Cobian, Brianna Davis, Jessica del Castillo, Diana Gama, Karla Garcia, Rosalinda Godinez, Mirayda Guzman, Nerelyn Hernandez, Leah Jaffe, Erica Lopez, Genesis Mazariegos, Catalina Monteon, Danitza Morante, Jeannette Perez, Maricruz Pool-Chan, Alejandra Ramirez, Sugey Reynoso, Omi Salas-SantaCruz, Joanna Torres, Karen Valenzuela, Consuelo Velazquez, Elizabeth Vergara, and Kimberly Villanueva.

Disclosure statement

I have no conflict of interest to disclose.

Additional resources

1. Casanova, S., O’Connor, B. & Anthony-Stevens, V. (2016). Ecologies of adaptation for Mexican Indigenous im/migrant children and families in the United States: Implications for Latino studies. Latino Studies 14, 192–213. https://doi.10.1057/lst.2016.4

This concise research overview introduces readers to literature on the adaptation of Mexican Indigenous immigrants in the US. The authors explore the ways in which the role of community in migration can facilitate cultural and linguistic continuity for Mexican Indigenous immigrant children and families.

2. Gallo, S. (2018). Overview: Migration and binational schooling. In Helping immigrant families navigate migration decisions and schooling in a different country. Online resource by Colorin Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/overview-migration-and-binational-schooling.

This online article and how-to toolkit offer recommendations for school staff serving transnational families. It offers concrete suggestions to support families who experience family separation or reunification. It discusses the potential impact of binational schooling on students and families and offers a guide to navigate educational policy.

3. García-Sánchez, I., Orellana, M. & Hopkins, M. (2011). Facilitating intercultural communication in parent-teacher conferences: Lessons from child translators. Multicultural Perspectives 13, 148–154. https://doi.10.1080/15210960.2011.594387

Based on their longitudinal studies working with child translators, the authors offer a set of suggestions for facilitating home–school communication, especially during teacher-family conferences where children act as translators. It describes the complex work that translators must do and that adults often underemphasize such as good listening skills, summarizing, selecting relevant information among other skills. This is a helpful guide for supporting families when teachers and staff do not speak the students’ home language.

Notes

1. The term Indigenous refers to members of original communities and to their presence and history as nations and people pre and post invasion of their territories by European settlers. I capitalize Indigenous when referring to people. The term Latinx is used here to avoid the grammaticalization of gender in Spanish words.

2. Words in Spanish are not italicized in an effort to avoid English language hegemony in multilingual texts.

Additional information

Funding

The research that led to the colaborativo activities was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation and the University of California Institute for Mexico and the US. The colaborativo activities have received support from the University of California, Berkeley.