Experiences of Central California Latino Male Youth: Recollecting Despair and Success inBarriosand Schools

Examining Race in LatCrit: A Systematic Review of Latinx Critical Race Theory in Education

“…Some scholars are ambivalent about Latinx being either an ethnic or a racialized label-even while they acknowledge that Latinxs experience racism in education (Chávez-Moreno, 2021b). In line with scholars like Gómez (2018Gómez ( , 2020 and Haney López (1997), I assert that "Latinx" is a racialized category. 4 "Latinx" is a racialized category because-like the "Black" and "Asian" categories-it (1) refers to a group that is imagined to come from a particular region, and (2) essentializes the people in this large heterogeneous group by ignoring their different cultural practices to assign them to an arbitrary category.…”

“…The debates about the making of racialized groups and specifically "Latinx" and Latinidad aim to illuminate America's racial order and imagine how to subvert its white-supremacist racial hierarchy (e.g., Gómez, 2020;Molina, 2014;Pulido & Pastor, 2013). Moreover, it matters whether or not Latinxs are seen as a racialized group because the ethnicity label bestows on them a perpetual foreignness that affects how they relate to others' struggles and hinders cross-racial coalitions (Bebout, 2019;Gómez, 2020;Mutua, 1999). What is certain is Latinxs' importance in American society, and this makes it incumbent on education scholars to be specific about how they conceptualize this group (Busey & Silva, 2021;Chávez-Moreno, 2021b).…”

“…Z. Morales et al, 2016). The literature generally noted that because of Latinxs’ large numbers, researchers, policymakers, and educators need to know about Latinxs’ experiences and perspectives, which can offer us a nuanced understanding of structural inequalities (González & Immekus, 2013), how policies affect this population (Irizarry, 2011a), and how to improve the education provided to Latinxs. The articles also note that the population increase among Latinxs has a bearing on the educational experiences of youths, which, in turn, has brought changes in policy and practice that research should examine (e.g., Bettencourt et al, 2020; Salas, 2017).…”