“‘You cannot come to this country’—that's what the government says sometimes, when you’re Brown”: African American children's critical literacies and emergent solidarity

Abstract

Decades of research demonstrate that young children make meaning about race and racism. Yet there remains a dearth of scholarship about whether and how African American children are thinking across racial and ethnic difference to make sense of systemic inequities. Moreover, there are but a handful of scholars who have documented the ways that children and youth engage in acts of solidarity. Extending the growing body of literature that privileges young children of color's critical perspectives, this article examines African American first-graders’ sociopolitical awareness; in particular, it explores how they expressed their understanding that racial discrimination undergirded contemporary US immigration policies. These data reveal that the children possessed a capacity for demonstrating solidarity with other non-white people, in that they named and critiqued the marginalization experienced by immigrant communities of color. Drawing on Black feminist epistemologies, critical literacy, and critical consciousness, the author argues that the children's emergent solidarity can be understood through their three rhetorical moves: (1) interchanging Black and Brown people in name; (2) advancing a critical moral ideal by juxtaposing current and former political leaders; and (3) invoking knowledge of US history. Although popular media and political discourse seldom portray immigration as an issue that concerns Black communities in the US, African Americans have long understood that their own liberation is connected to that of other marginalized groups. As such, this article urges early childhood researchers to examine the nature of the questions being asked about young African American children's racial meaning-making practices and knowledges about belonging, equity, and inclusion within and outside schools.