“Why Do I Have to Pledge the U.S. Flag? It's Not My Country!”: Latina Youths Rearticulating Citizenship and National Belonging

Latina Youth, Education, and Citizenship: A Feminist Transnational Analysis

“…These strategies included reference chaining and consulting with colleagues. I initially used purposive sampling (Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014) to select works that were concerned with aspects about citizenship identities, partly informed by earlier studies (Bondy, 2011(Bondy, , 2014. I then used theory-driven sampling (Miles et al, 2014) to add and elaborate on sampling strategies.…”

“…Adolescent Latinas are frequently ignored in relation to questions about citizenship because they are considered less important social actors (Denner & Guzmán, 2006). As gendered members of a racialized group, Latina youth experience politicization at an early age, negotiating institutions and negative stereotypes that can be hostile to their well-being (Bondy, 2014;Miranda, 2003). The intersection of race, gender, class, sexuality, and citizenship and residency status position adolescent Latinas such that schools might not recognize their experiences and knowledge (Cammarota, 2004;Rodríguez, 2009;Villenas, 2009Villenas, , 2012.…”

“…After describing the methods for the qualitative synthesis (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009), I synthesize the literature on adolescent Latinas' school experiences and provide a different interpretation using feminist transnational and cultural citizenship perspectives. I also draw upon examples from my own qualitative research with Latina youth about their citizenship experiences to support a broader set of claims I am making about creating just, responsible citizenship education (Bondy, 2011(Bondy, , 2014. 1 Finally, I suggest how educational researchers and practitioners can rethink citizenship education to differently reflect young people's experiences with citizenship.…”

“…Collectively, this research cultivates a more complex understanding of adolescent Latinas/os' transnational lives and highlights the identities forged in the in-between spaces as strengths and not deficits. As educational scholarship has slowly begun to focus on youth immersed in transnational contexts, the same can be said of studies on citizenship as they relate to youth in U.S. public schools: Researchers are now beginning to use a transnational lens when they encounter adolescents whose citizenship identities span national borders (Abu El-Haj, 2009;Bondy, 2014Bondy, , 2015DeJaeghere & McCreary, 2010;Maira, 2009). Educators, therefore, might come to a more complex way of knowing Latina/o youths' citizenship identities if they were understood through a transnational lens.…”

“…As Sánchez and Machado-Casas (2009) explained, "This indicates that Latinas/os are highly immigrant if we include in this definition those Latinas/os with at least one foreign-born parent" (p. 4). Research by scholars studying adolescent Latina/o students from immigrant communities has indicated that these youth live at the intersections of transnational constructions of gender, race, class, language, and nation (Bondy, 2014(Bondy, , 2015DeJaeghere & McCreary, 2010;Ek, 2009;Fránquiz & Salazar, 2007;Rodríguez, 2009;Sánchez, 2007Sánchez, , 2009Sánchez & Kasun, 2012;Villenas, 2007Villenas, , 2009). These researchers have described how adolescent Latinas/os create identities, lives, and communities betwixt and between nations, challenging traditional pathways of assimilation and incorporation.…”