Liberating Ourselves: Agency, Resistance and Possibilities for Change among Latino Students, Educators, and Parents

Abstract

Latino communities across the United States are experiencing today the impact of the recent economic collapse in ways that only further exacerbate many of the same social inequalities that have been historically at work for over a century. Mass deportations, increasing unemployment and incarceration, poor health care, severe cuts in school budgets, the vilification of teachers, the silencing of parents and students, and wholesale attacks on ethnic studies are highly prevalent conditions in many neighborhoods where large populations of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Central Americans reside.