Tactics of Hope in Latinx Children's and Young Adult Literature

Jesus Montaño, Regan Postma-Montaño

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780826363831
• eBook ISBN: 9780826363848
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire

This important study affirms that Latinx children and young adults are uniquely positioned to change the world. Using Gloria Anzaldúa's theories of conocimiento as a critical lens, the authors examine several literary works including Side by Side / Lado a lado; They Call Me Güero; Land of the Cranes; Efrén Divided; and Gabi, a Girl in Pieces. Using these texts and others, Montaño and Postma-Montaño demonstrate how Latinx literature for young readers reveals the oppressions that affect the everyday lives of Latinx youth in order to destabilize the racist notions that inform them. Whether it is injustices in the agricultural fields, weaponization of deportation and deportability, or forms of exclusion based on gender, ethnicity, and race, the books in this study counter by imagining and then participating in social-justice activism that seeks to transform the world. Ultimately the lessons shared in these books will allow Latinx young people to lead us into a future where equity and belonging are as endemic as they currently are rare.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter One. Reading for Conocimiento Mirrors in Farmworker Kid Lit: Roots of Transformation and Activism
• Chapter Two. Border Kids in the Land of Nepantla
• Chapter Three. The Cultural Wealth of Diasporic Youth
• Chapter Four. Kids’ Agency and Empowerment in an Era of Family Deportation
• Chapter Five. The Role of the Border Artista
• Afterword
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index