♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪ Hey, hey - Hello, and welcome to "Horizonte," a show that takes a look at current issues through a Hispanic lens.

I'm your host Catherine Anaya.

A new book by an award-winning UCLA researcher and assistant professor focuses on how schools make race in the Latinx group.

Laura Chavez Moreno grew up in Douglas, Arizona, and her book, "How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America," details what she uncovered in her research of a bilingual education program.

Joining us now is Laura Chavez Moreno.

It's nice to have you here.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

- Great, well, let's just dive into our conversation by beginning with maybe if you could give us the definitions in your book for race, ethnicity, racialization and Latinx.

- Sure, thank you.

So I define ethnicity as a category to put people based on their ethnic practices, cultural practices, whereas race, instead of seeing and observing their cultural practices, race is about ignoring those cultural practices in order to lump them into a group, and a group that's imagined to have something shared.

For example, skin color, for example, where they are from in the world, or, for example, for Latinxes, an imagined Spanish that binds the group together.

Now, racialization is about the process of society making racialized groups.

So it's about how society distributes resources, and then how that distribution of resources affects how groups bind together, for example, see each other as a group.

And Latinx I use to challenge gender binaries, to challenge patriarchy, and also as a reminder that Latinx is different from Latin American, and the X to remind us to X out or to cross out the Latin, which is a European imposed term for the continent.

- Okay, great, thank you for defining those for us.

So let's go back to the process that you mentioned.

You are a big supporter of Spanish-English bilingual education.

What does it mean when you say, "Schools make race?"

- Thank you.

When I say, "Make race," I'm talking about how schools teach us about what is race and the racialized groups.

Sometimes they do this explicitly.

For example, in the book, I talk about how one teacher taught about what was the difference between race and ethnicity?

But most of the times, schools are teaching about race through implicit ways.

So for example, talking about how it distributes resources, schools are major institutions in our society and they distribute resources based on racial groups, and that causes patterns that we notice in our society.

So patterns based on who receives awards, who receives, for example, who's able to enroll in advanced classes, all of these lead to patterns that we then notice.

And then we see that and we're learning about these patterns and interpreting them as if racialized groups are in a hierarchy, and as if that they were naturally there.

- So when you talk about this then, what does this process look like in terms of influencing equity in education?

How does that process do that?

- Thank you.

So equity in education, the way I define it, is an equitable education is an education that provides for students to enhance their critical consciousness.

And it's also an education that provides and distributes resources by need.

So when we're talking about, for example, racialization, the fundamental aspect of racialization is to not distribute resources fairly, to not distribute resources based on needs, to basically distribute them to maintain a racial hierarchy.

So when I'm talking about, for example, bilingual education, not distributing resources, this is sometimes what happens.

We want bilingual education to address inequities in our society, we want it to provide a linguistic and culturally relevant education.

The issue is that sometimes that doesn't happen, and we want education to be equitable and to distribute resources equitably.

- Absolutely.

We want to make sure that people know that your research included you obviously going into classrooms to study what's happening in there.

If schools are, as you say, already directly or indirectly teaching about race, how do we improve the way we go about teaching it in a more progressive way?

- Sure, so in the classrooms, I saw that teachers were teaching about race, some teachers we're teaching about race in a way that really helped students push their thinking about what is race and about racism in our society.

But sometimes students were bored with the same type of lessons that they were receiving, or the same ideas, and they really needed to be pushed more in directions that were advancing their thinking about what is race?

For example, even talking about how are racialized groups made?

Sometimes the lessons were taught as if they just exist because it's a very natural process or a very natural thing for our society to have, instead of our students seeing that it's actually a process that people are deciding based on the policies that are being enacted.

So this is why it's so important for us to progress students' thinking and not just keep students thinking about race in ways, for example, that is all about inclusivity and identity.

We do want them to progress from elementary to middle to high school into thinking about race in different ways.

- Well, you talk about in your book what you believe that schools should offer, which is what you call ambitious teachings, to increase students' understanding of their place within a racialized society.

What does that approach look like inside the classroom?

- Yes, so inside the classroom, that approach looks like, for example, teachers listening to students' questions and their comments, and then following those to be able to incorporate them into their classroom lessons.

So for example, if a student makes a question, asks a question about, for example, the current political climate, not ignoring it, but thinking about with students how to learn about what's going on, how can they interpret the different experiences or the political messages that they are receiving.

So that's ambitious teaching.

Also, I say ambitious teaching, like I mentioned before, is this progression of learning about racial ideas.

And by the time they're in high school, I think that students should learn about race making or how society is distributing resources and forming these racialized groups.

- But how do you go about doing that, especially in a climate, like you mentioned, what we're dealing with now, where there are so many limitations on teachers.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

- Yes, there's so many limitations right now, like you say.

And the issue is that our society has never had this political will, this commitment to see very clearly that actually race is a very important thing in our society.

We have thought a lot about, for example, how students need to learn about their mathematical world, but we haven't really thought about enhancing their thinking about race and our social structures in our society.

One of the things that we need to do is support teachers in doing this work, because it's very difficult work, because like you mentioned, all the limitations.

And one of those limitations is, for example, not having curriculum that teachers can use in order to advance students' thinking.

- It's very challenging.

What do you hear from teachers when it comes to that?

- One of the things is that they're exhausted, because they have to find different things for them to be able to teach students.

And in bilingual education, that was also important because they didn't have as many resources in Spanish.

So in order for them to maintain teaching in Spanish, they really needed to either translate resources that were in English, and that exhausted teachers.

So teachers really needed support in order for them to have these type of lessons for their students.

That's one aspect.

Another thing now is also teachers now are really scared also because of, "If I'm gonna say something, that's gonna get me in trouble or it's gonna get me reprimanded."

So that's also something that's very limiting for teachers.

- And you have some experience when it comes to limitations, maybe not these exactly, but you were a former Spanish teacher.

You've taught various subjects and to all ages as a researcher.

You've been in many classrooms, including Arizona, where we are still the only state with English-only legislation.

What is the impact of this on racialization of Latinx students?

- Thank you.

So it is unfortunate that Arizona has that as one of the things that identifies it.

So one of the things that I show in the book is that Latinx, although some people think of it as just an ethnicity, it's actually also a racialized group, a racial group.

And one of the things that I show is that the ways that the society is treating the Latinx group, for example, not providing bilingual education, not providing ethnic studies, or Mexican-American studies, for example, in Tucson, Arizona.

All of these lead to, for example, not distributing what the students need, the type of education that they need, withholding an equitable education from students.

So this is also really important for us to recognize, how the Latinx group is being discriminated against in order for us to then be in solidarity with other racial groups against racism.

- So in your opinion then, how do educators and families go about supporting this kind of work that you're writing about?

- Thank you, so all of us need to recognize that race matters in our society.

And for teachers in particular, I recommend making sure to connect with others, to be able to join organizations and learn from other teachers who are committed to this work.

That's very important.

And for them to recognize that, as institutional agents in schools, they have a role to play.

So even if they don't say like, "Oh, well, I'm not teaching about race," there's still lessons in our school that deal with races.

So we do need to make sure to address them in the classroom.

Now, in terms of administrators and leaders, they have to work to also shield teachers from these political wills and these attacks on teachers.

And parents need to do their part also and advocate in school boards for this type of curriculum to be included in their schools.

Communities also have to support teachers in this work, and they also have to provide adequate funding to schools.

Students also have a role to play.

Students need to make sure to advocate for themselves and for their bilingual education and for ethnic studies.

- Well, it's difficult at times.

I know that you are doing research in Arizona, not for this book that you just published, but for future research.

Tell me a little bit about what you have noticed.

- So teachers are committed.

They understand that there are injustices.

One of the things that they're scared of is this climate right now, this political climate of, "How do I deal with this?"

Some teachers are also feeling like, "I'm not supported.

And also, I wasn't trained to teach about this."

So not being supported and not having the training really limits them.

- I have to mention, the book just won an award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education.

Congratulations on that.

- Thank you.

- So when you're talking to teachers here in Arizona and across the country, what is the feedback, and not just teachers, but educators in general, what is the feedback that you're receiving with your book?

- Thank you.

I'm very excited that I won the award, and I'm very excited that people have been interested in talking with me about this.

The book, I feel, people are telling me that it's complicating their ideas about what is race and how our society makes race.

So I'm very excited about that.

That was the goal.

And teachers are also telling me that it's very accessible to them.

People are telling me that it's accessible reading.

So I'm excited about that.

And I'm excited that I've been invited to, for example, academic conferences, universities also.

I just came back from a trip from Brown University, Harvard University and North Carolina University.

And then I've also been invited to talk with teachers in Texas and Virginia and in North Carolina.

So I'm very excited to talk with others, to hear about their different perspectives about what this brings up for them.

And I'm excited to hear about your viewers and what they think about the book.

- Yes, absolutely.

And clearly that means that people are definitely interested in finding out exactly what your research has uncovered.

So we encourage everyone to check it out.

Thank you so much for joining me here on "Horizonte."

It is good to meet you in person.

- Thank you.

Thanks so much.

- Appreciate it so much.

- Thank you.

- That's our show.

For "Horizonte" and Arizona PBS, I'm Catherine Anaya, thank you so much for watching.

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