"The Road to Freedom”: How One Salvadoran Youth Takes an Agentive Stance to Narrate the Self Across Time and Space

  • Theresa Ann McGinnis
  • Andrea Garcia

Abstract

In this article, we use narrative theory to analyze and discuss how one Salvadoran youth, Thomas, constructed three different yet overlapping narratives, including a digital story, on his family’s movement across borders. We describe how each telling of his narratives is situated in time and space, where Thomas reveals his understandings of current social, political and hegemonic forces. Further, we demonstrate how Thomas is taking an agentive stance countering U.S. national anti-immigrant narratives that position Latino immigrants unfavorably. We suggest that narratives and digital technology offer Latino youth a vehicle to become theorists of, and change agents of their own and of others’ worldviews.

Published
2012-05-01
Section
RESEARCH ARTICLES