Breaking Silence and Amplifying Voices: Youths Writing and Performing Their Worlds

Abstract

The author explores the experiences of adolescent youths (ages 13–21) through their participation in the Youth Writing Collective (YWC), a free creative writing program sponsored by the local university. For one week, youths attended YWC workshops, where they were invited to write, share, and perform stories from their lived realities. Situated in Arizona, a state with mandated English‐only polices and restrictive curricula, this study highlights the possibilities that exist when we create spaces with and for youths to utilize writing and performing as a tool to break silence and amplify voices while examining and challenging their worlds. In addition, the author highlights how participation in the YWC supported youths in raising their collective awareness of issues present in their lives while fighting to create their place in the world.

Multilingual Writers in College Contexts

“…As works such as those of T.T. Flores (2018), Martínez (2010), and Wang (2017) have shown, multilingual writers meet and exceed the demands of the new form of writing that Brandt (2015) highlighted in her work. Multilingual writers are, as they always have been, making significant contributions to the rise of writing-as a mass literacy.…”

“Got Libros?”: Exploring Patrons’ Experiences with Latinx History and Literature at La Casa Azul Bookstore

“…425 Although there are few studies that explore Latinx bookstores as informal learning spaces in the lives of Latinx families, there is an abundance of research on Latinx learning in informal spaces. This literature spans the learning attained via Latinx youths' neighborhoods and apartment complexes (Zentella 1997), digital literacies via online platforms (Lam and Rosario Enid 2009), spoken word and writing collectives (Fisher 2007;Flores 2018), youth participatory action research partnerships (Cammarota 2016;Morrell 2008), churches and religious organizations (Baquedano-López 2004;Ek 2005), and participation in immigrant rights movements (de los Ríos and Molina 2020; Zimmerman 2016), among others. Moreover, there have been educational campaigns and hashtag movements, like #WeNeedDiverseBooks, calling attention to the lack of linguistic and cultural diversity within the wider book publishing industry.…”

Humanizing the Practice of Witnessing Trauma Narratives

“…Writing helps us uncover our past, labor with it, and move toward other possibilities. Premised on the principles of social justice and public engagement that sees the necessity for, and the power of, mutually beneficial collaborations between the university and the community (Fitzgerald, Bruns, Sonka, Furco, & Swanson, ; Flores, ), the CSWW embodies my theoretical and pedagogical framework: a shared space and time where writers across campus and neighborhoods co‐construct literacy practices, meaning, and stories through writing art forms (Gutiérrez, ). In this space, writing is transitional, a tool for crossing environments (Bloome, ) from the streets to classroom, from marginalization to membership.…”

“…Here, homeless adults with diverse literacies (González, Moll, & Amanti, ) gather for 90 minutes weekly to write, revise, and share drafts. They consider multiple, and sometimes competing, perspectives on what constitutes literary and story , and they transform what it means to be published writers in a town known for its literary culture (Flores, ; Muhammad & Gonzalez, ).…”