Exploring Cultural Wealth with Latinx Youth: Interweaving Testimonios as a Youth Participatory Action Research Practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT This interdisciplinary article examines literature across Education, Social Work, and Chicano/a/Latino/a Studies. By interweaving the literature with student voices, clinical knowledge and field observations, the authors use a Community Cultural Wealth Framework to highlight an afterschool program that empowers and encourages Latinx youth to use testimonio as a powerful transformational tool. While the students at the center of this program actualize six forms of capital within CCW, we focus on aspirational, resistant, and navigational capital in this study. The authors provide examples of students exploring various modes to amplify their voices through skills co-developed with undergraduate students. The overall goal of the study was to identify programmatic strategies that support Latinx students. The findings illustrate the need for further Youth Participatory Action Research that can be a vehicle for change with practitioners and researchers. This coauthored article is written by a graduate student with a professional background as a licensed clinical therapist, and secondly, through a faculty member who has seven years of experience working with Latinx high school youth through various programming.