“No Había Bilingual Education:” Stories of Negotiation, Educación, y Sacrificios from South Texas Escuelitas

Abstract

In 1940s America, along the Texas-Mexico border, las escuelitas–or little schools–were places Mexican American parents sent their young children to begin their academic learning. These escuelitas, however, were no ordinary schools. They did not teach students to read, write, and speak in English. Rather, they sought to develop, maintain and celebrate the linguistic and cultural heritage of the communities they served by teaching students a Mexican inspired curriculum exclusively in Spanish. Through narrative inquiry, we explore the escuelitas, as experienced and recounted by nine former escuelita students, as sites of negotiation, agency, and resistance. Drawing on theories of Third Space and nepantla, we explore the ways in which the escuelitas participants take up/put to use the knowledge they acquired at the escuelitas to enact third spaces in order to navigate hegemonic institutions. We underscore the complexity of these experiences by contextualizing the escuelitas historically.