Latinxs have a long history of participation in basketball, yet links to education scholarship are for the most part non-existent. In a context of ongoing subtractive policies around curriculum, teaching, toxic immigration policies and other sociopolitical realities, Latinxs have long used "hoops" as a space for identity formation,…

While much has been noted about the toxic treatment of Latinxs in Arizona, there is a dearth of scholarship that focuses on the role of grassroots organizing and the role that Latinx teachers have in fighting back via their involvement in social movements in historically red states. Drawing from research on Latinx teachers, border thinking…

Drawing from Anzaldúa's (1999) ideas on borderlands, this conceptual article addresses the potential of basketball as a space for developing critical subjectivities within minoritized communities. Further, working through relevant scholarship at the intersections of race, play, education, and sports, connections are made as to how basketball is…

This conceptual article considers the potential of a pedagogy of border thinking in the New Latinx South. The authors extend border thinking by applying it to new gateway regions in the southeast and linking it to schooling particularly in the south, a region that has experienced significant growth in its Latinx student population. The authors…

This article explores the role of the podcast, Block Chronicles, in contributing to Latinx education issues via its a role as a form of public pedagogy. The authors situate their work in experiences within urban spaces such as Los Angeles, CA and the south Bronx, NY, while also making links to rural/semi-rural towns in the New Latinx south.…

Drawing from Cervantes-Soon's (2012) framework of "testimonios" as confessions, counter-narratives, and "consejos," we explore how writing letters to our children serves as a process of historical documentation, healing, and a passing down of social justice principles and family history. Additionally, we expand on…

Based on Walter Mignolo's (2000) notion of border thinking, that is, the subaltern knowledge generated from the exterior borders of the modern/colonial world system, this article extends current conceptual frameworks for the implementation of a decolonizing border pedagogy with Latin@ students in secondary schools. In particular, Cervantes-Soon…

This study explores how 3 Latino male college students who attended rural, K-12 North Carolina schools use their conceptions of "home" to fight against oppressive forces in the southern United States. Specifically, through the use of life history data, I unpack both the challenges that they face and the agency-laden decisions that they…

Primarily drawing from the Mestiz@ Theory of Intelligences (Carrillo, 2013), this article examines how working class Latino male college students in North Carolina navigate multiple cultural worlds and excel academically. This work addresses current gaps in the literature that largely fail to unpack the experiences of academically successful…

Drawing from Espino, Vega, Rendón, Ranero, and Muñiz (2012), the authors of this article utilize dialogue partners to develop collaborative testimonios of Latino male faculty. We center the importance of engaging in vulnerability while embracing peer support to address issues of isolation, marginalization, and other challenges that Latino male…

Historically, Latin@s have experienced deficit thinking as it relates to their perceived academic abilities. In North Carolina's emerging Latin@ population, the first waves of K-12 students are writing a new chapter in the state's history. Yet, there is a dearth of research that focuses on the identities of academically successful Latin@ students…

Drawing from observations and interview data, this essay examines the role of "hormiguero agency" in nurturing empowered identities amongst Latin@s in Phoenix, Arizona. Specific links are made to how dehumanizing state level policies are resisted in multiple spaces, including schools, activist organizations, and within underground…

Justice Goodwin Liu reexamined seminal affirmative action in higher education legal cases beginning with the landmark 1978 case, "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" and leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in "Gratz v. Bollinger." Liu argued that the "Bakke and Gratz" lawsuits were…

Drawing on the work on "scholarship boys" (Carrillo, 2010; Hoggart, 1957/2006; Rodriguez, 1982), this qualitative study explores the schooling trajectories of working-class, Mexican-origin "ghetto nerds" (Diaz, 2007) in order to introduce Mestiz@ Theory of Intelligences (MTI). For the purpose of this study, "ghetto…

In this powerful essay, Juan F. Carrillo, a teacher educator in Austin, Texas, reflects on an encounter with a first-year Latina teacher, Christina, who has decided to leave the profession. Despite successfully learning and applying critical pedagogy, Christina finds herself isolated and frustrated, stuck between a societal push for standardized…