Will You Stand for Me? Authentic Cariño and Transformative Rites of Passage in an Urban High School

Abstract

This case study documents a small, urban high school that implements firewalks, innovative rites of passage in which low-income, racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse youth publicly reflect on their personal and academic development. Drawing from anthropological scholarship on rites of passage and scholarship on color-conscious care, I examine firewalks through a model of authentic cariño, which incorporates interpersonal and institutional care and emphasizes the dynamic interplay of familial, intellectual, and critical care. Based on analyses of school culture and firewalk enactment, I argue that authentic cariño is essential to nondominant students’ success and that rituals like firewalks productively help youth negotiate emergent cultural identities and develop collective social conscience, reflexivity, and agency.