Teaching Across the Demographic Divide With Latinx Texts on Immigration

Abstract

This chapter presents a preliminary introduction into the topic of Latinx immigration in texts. To begin, the authors discuss the demographic divide between majoritarian teachers and multiply minoritized students in the U.S. literacy classroom. Then, the authors briefly share their experiences regarding their work in light of major trends relating to literacy teaching before outlining the key tenets of culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogies. The majority of the chapter will focus on detailing how teachers can support Latinx students around the topic of immigration by providing examples of culturally relevant and sustaining practices with an abbreviated lesson plan of how to facilitate discourse addressing the topic of immigration using a text featuring Latinx characters.