Abstract

This paper examines the civic and literacy practices that emerged through virtual feminista pláticas between Adri, a first-year college student and graduate of a “newcomers” high school, and her former teacher. Amidst a context in which transnational and immigrant youth often struggle to find a sense of belonging in educational and civic spaces, this article reveals the importance of relationships and spaces built on trust, care, and the co-construction of knowledge in which multilingual recently arrived youth can elevate their voices. I draw from transcripts of over seven hours of translingual virtual feminista pláticas. I draw on the concepts of border thinking (Anzaldúa, 2012, 2015; Mignolo, 2000) and futurity literacies from the margins (Cervantes-Soon, 2024) to deepen our understandings of speculative civic literacies (Mirra & Garcia, 2022). Findings reveal how Adri drew upon her border thinking to critically interrogate a deeply unjust global context and to imagine alternative futures for herself and her communities. This work highlights the epistemic ingenuity of transnational youth like Adri and the civic and literacy practices that can emerge through methodologies and pedagogies that recognize that ingenuity.

Journal
Research in the Teaching of English
Published
2025-11-01
DOI
10.58680/rte2025602167
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (61) · 2 in this index

  1. Papeles, sueños, y futuros: The altermundos literacies of parents of the Latine/x diaspora
    Journal of Language, Identity & Education  ↗
  2. We should all be feminists
  3. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader
  4. Borderlands/La frontera: The new mestiza
  5. Light in the dark/Luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting identity, spirituality, reality
Show all 61 →
  1. The “warm embrace” of a newcomer school for immigrant & refugee youth
    Theory Into Practice  ↗
  2. Indigenous futurisms in North American Indigenous art: The transforming visions of Ryan S…
    Extrapolation  ↗
  3. The politics of transcription
    Journal of Pragmatics  ↗
  4. Troubling the essentialist discourse of Brown in education: The anti-Black sociopolitical…
    Educational Researcher  ↗
  5. Partnering with immigrant communities: Action through literacy
  6. Literacy as translingual practice: Between communities and classrooms
     ↗
  7. Building new futurities from the margins: Reading and writing a reimagined world
    Journal of Language, Identity & Education  ↗
  8. Let’s go there: Making a case for race, ethnicity and a lived civics approach to civic ed…
  9. Beyond the “English learner” frame: Transnational funds of knowledge in social studies
    International Journal of Multicultural Education  ↗
  10. “Consejo” as a literacy event: A case study of a border Mexican woman
    Language Arts  ↗
  11. Toward a “corridista” consciousness: Learning from one transnational youth’s critical rea…
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  12. Research in the Teaching of English
  13. The handbook of critical literacies
     ↗
  14. Reimagining critical care and problematizing sense of school belonging as a response to i…
    Review of Research in Education  ↗
  15. Walking the clouds: An anthology of Indigenous science fiction
  16. Research in the Teaching of English
  17. Rethinking global citizenship education with/for transnational youth
    Globalisation, Societies and Education  ↗
  18. Reflections on the field: The democratic citizenship formation of transnational youth
    Anthropology & Education Quarterly  ↗
  19. Border thinking: Latinx youth decolonizing citizenship
     ↗
  20. Vamos a platicar: The contours of pláticas as Chicana/Latina feminist methodology
    Chicana/Latina Studies
  21. Handbook of Latinos and education
     ↗
  22. Literacy: Reading the word and the world
  23. Rejecting abyssal thinking in the language and education of racialized bilinguals: A manifesto
    Critical Inquiry in Language Studies  ↗
  24. Translanguaging with multilingual students: Learning from classroom moments
     ↗
  25. The laundromat as the transnational local: Young children’s literacies of interdependence
    Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education  ↗
  26. Developing a sociocritical literacy in the Third Space
    Reading Research Quarterly  ↗
  27. Language and linguistics in context
  28. Humanizing language teaching and teacher education in transnational spaces: Critical pers…
  29. Belonging, place, and identity: The role of social trust in developing the civic capaciti…
    The High School Journal  ↗
  30. Understanding the transnational lives and literacies of immigrant children
  31. L2 literacy and the design of the self: A case study of a teenager writing on the internet
    TESOL Quarterly  ↗
  32. Multilingual literacies in transnational digitally mediated contexts: An exploratory stud…
    Language and Education  ↗
  33. Invite their languages in: Community-based literacy practices with multilingual African i…
    International Journal of Multicultural Education  ↗
  34. Centering nepantla literacies from the borderlands: Leveraging “in-betweenness” toward le…
    Theory Into Practice  ↗
  35. Critical literacy: Foundational notes
    Theory Into Practice  ↗
  36. “My mom seems to have a dicho for everything!”: Family engagement in the college success …
    Journal of Latinos and Education  ↗
  37. Altermundos: Latin@ speculative literature, film, and popular culture
  38. Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking
  39. Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook
  40. “I hesitate but I do have hope”: Youth speculative civic literacies for troubled times
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗
  41. Guns, schools, and democracy: Adolescents imagining social futures through speculative ci…
    American Educational Research Journal  ↗
  42. Civics for the world to come: Committing to democracy in every classroom
  43. Feminista pláticas as a methodological disruption: Drawing upon embodied knowledge, vulne…
    International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  ↗
  44. The discourse reader
  45. Immigrant youth organizing as civic preparation
    American Educational Research Journal  ↗
  46. Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective
    Language in Society  ↗
  47. Techniques to identify themes
    Field Methods  ↗
  48. The coding manual for qualitative researchers
  49. The Latin American subaltern studies reader
  50. Decentering Americanness: Transnational youth experiences of recognition and belonging in…
    Anthropology & Education Quarterly  ↗
  51. Working with youth counternarratives: Enjoining transnational youth displacements, sociop…
    Comparative Education Review  ↗
  52. “We can be leaders”: Minoritized youths’ subjugated (civic) knowledges and social futures…
    International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education  ↗
  53. Teaching transnational youth: Literacy and education in a changing world
  54. Immigrant and refugee youth organizing in solidarity with the movement for Black lives
    Gender & Society  ↗
  55. “The door was always there”: Transnational youth leveraging their multiliteracies for civ…
    Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy  ↗
  56. Restorying the self: Bending toward textual justice
    Harvard Educational Review  ↗