“That's ratchet”: A Chicana Feminist Rasquache Pedagogy as Entryway to Understanding the Material Realities of Contemporary Latinx Elementary-Aged Youth

ABSTRACT

In line with this special issue's examination of theories of teaching and learning that are neither determined by nor isolated from restrictive spaces of learning, this essay introduces a Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy. A Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy is rooted in the everyday experiences and material realities of Latinx elementary-aged youth, and thus serves as a contribution to educational research and praxis for all students, but particularly students of color. A Chicana feminist rasquache pedagogy emerges from the theories in the flesh of Latinx students, and as such, functions from their embodied knowledges and sensibilities rather than operating in collusion with the practices, approaches and ideologies of historically colonizing schooling institutions. The incorporation of a Chicana feminist rasquache praxis into K-12 schooling institutions provides humanizing approaches for education as well as for engaging with elementary-aged youth of color as it identifies and validates the radical sensibilities of youth intimately tied to their lived experiences, rather than reprimanding them for their embodied knowledges and creative forms of self-expression.

Acknowledgment

I thank the University of Houston, Center for Mexican American Studies for their support.

Notes

1. Doña María mole is a popular brand of mole sauce used in Mexican dishes and sold in grocery stores, usually in a glass container that can be reused as a drinking glass.

2. In this article, I use Chicanx and Latinx to honor the fluidity of gender and sexuality within communities of color. I use Chicana/Latina and feminist/feminisms to reference specific fields of academic scholarship.

3. The similarities and divergences between ratchet and rasquachismo provide an opportunity to examine, comparatively, Black and Chicanx/Latinx communities and to contribute to research on coalition building and social justice education, which will be explored in a forthcoming article.

4. The introduction to Chicana/o studies course was co-developed and co-taught by myself and my colega and comadre, Socorro Morales. I collected, organized, and analyzed all the research, and wrote this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sylvia Mendoza Aviña

Sylvia Mendoza Aviña is an assistant professor of Chicano Studies at Palomar College in San Marcos, California. Her research interests include Chicana/o studies in K-12, Chicana feminisms, and Chicana/o educational experiences.