Cultivando La Voz Mujer: Latina Adolescent Girls and Their Mothers Rewriting Their Pasts and Imagining Their Futures

Abstract

This article shares the experiences of Latina adolescent girls (Grades 7–12) and their mothers as participants in Somos Escritoras/We are Writers, a creative writing workshop that invites girls and their mothers to engage in the sharing of stories through art and writing. In the creation of Somos Escritoras, I position Black and Chicana feminist thought as important experiential knowledge to center that of my participants’ experiences as valuable points to begin theorizing. In addition, I weave Gutiérrez’s conceptualization of third space and Anzaldúa’s theorizing of Nepantla to describe the spaces of liminality the girls and mothers navigate and the potential of Somos Escritoras as a site of transformation. Drawing upon field notes, writing, artwork, and interviews, I share how girls and their mothers used writing and artwork to express themselves, define themselves, and learn from one another through their collective sharing of stories and experiences. Somos Escritoras is an example of a family engagement space that centers the cultural and gendered ways of knowing and being of Latina girls and women as important sites of knowledge to cultivate similar spaces with and for families.