Since the U.S. Recession of 2008, more Mexicans are leaving than coming to the United States. Many Mexican families return to Mexico with their U.S.-born--or "American Mexican"--children and youth. Approximately 700,000 American Mexican children and youth are now living and attending K-12 schools throughout Mexico (Gandara & Jensen,…

Hispanic literacy development in the Southwestern US is examined through standardized assessment data derived from recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and Texas Academic Performance Reports (TAPR). This longitudinal study focuses on significant variables across a spectrum of grade levels for Hispanics of Mexican descent.…

The authors describe a culturally sustaining bilingual family engagement project that draws upon Latinx families' experiential and cultural wealth and integrates that knowledge within the literacy curriculum of a bilingual fourth grade classroom. Through the use of monthly writing prompts, Project "Recuerdo," engages families in sharing…

Via care ethics and culturally relevant pedagogy, this article explores the events observed in fifth grade science classrooms of two Mexican American teachers. The participants were observed expressing dichotomous emotional struggles with their feelings towards their Mexican American students. The struggle consisted of a genuine caring attitude…

This article explores translanguaging pedagogy through the lens of the politics of caring, subtractive schooling, and authentic carin~o (composed of intellectual, familial, and critical carin~o). We begin with a broad overview of translanguaging and situate it in the theoretical frameworks of the politics of caring, subtractive schooling, and…

In this two-year ethnographic study, we explored engineering teaching and learning in fourth-grade, dual language (DL) classrooms. We discuss the biliterate disciplinary practices in these classrooms, examining data (field notes, interviews, artifacts, audio, and video recordings) gathered at a school on the US-Mexico border. Our purpose is to…

This article focuses on the reported experiences of three focal students who participated in a Spanish/English dual language program in their southern California school district throughout their elementary and middle school years. All three students identify as Mexican-origin and speak Spanish, English, and the Indigenous language of Zapoteco and…

The current study examined the trajectory of gender role attitudes of 471 Mexican-origin adolescents (236 girls, 235 boys) from 5th grade (M[subscript age] = 10.86 years) to 11th grade (M[subscript age] = 16.75 years), investigating how situating identities (i.e., gender, nativity, SES), ethnic identity (i.e., ethnic pride), and familial context…

This case study focuses on the diverse discourses Latinx bilingual students bring to class to make sense of power relations in the world. The study implements critical literacy practices such as read-alouds, discussions, writing, and drawing activities that help students critique and disrupt power discourses embedded in texts and visuals. With the…

Pedagogies employing critical traditions have increasingly been used to ameliorate achievement disparities and centralize issues of power in the education of Students of Color. In this study, I trace a teacher's journey--new to critical pedagogies--as she learned about community cultural wealth and incorporated family histories as…

The author looks at bilingual first language acquisition Spanish-English Mexican American bilinguals across an elementary school in Colorado. Based on classroom observations, and small group and one-on-one interviews with student participants, their teachers, and immediate family members, these bilinguals reveal how their identity is compromised…

This paper draws on practitioner inquiry and participatory action research methodologies to recount how five K-12 educators, who inhabit a range of positionalities and levels of teaching experience, engage in a collaborative professional development program, called Teaching Out Loud as they draw upon critical literacy theory and practice to…

We examined perceived emotional support and expectations from parents, teachers, and classmates in relation to Mexican American adolescents' (n = 398) social behavior and academic functioning. Results of regression analyses indicated that direct associations between emotional support and expectations differ as a function of source and domain;…

The socialization of cultural values, ethnic identity, and prosocial behaviors is examined in a sample of 749 Mexican-American adolescents, ages 9-12; M (SD) = 10.42 years (0.55); 49% female, their mothers, and fathers at the 5th, 7th, and 10th grades. Parents' familism values positively predicted their ethnic socialization practices. Mothers'…

Children of Latino immigrants in the United States encounter ecological stressors that heighten their risk for depressive symptoms, externalizing behavior, and problems in school. Studies have shown that affirming parent-child communication is protective of child depressive symptoms and accompanying problems. The purpose of this study was to…