| This dissertation explores ways US Latino literatures selected for high school English literature curricula are situated to create particular US Latino identities that often are universalized and even stereotyped. Using a feminist poststructuralist perspective, I argue that even in present curricula, where some diversity of US Latino literatures has been incorporated, little, if anything, is done to disrupt the dominant previously constructed notions of what is considered US Latino literatures, Latino identities and Latino cultures. Using a feminist poststructuralist approach allows for a disruption of the traditional analyses of identity, allowing for US Latino identities, Latino literatures, and cultural practices to be understood and experienced as fluid and contingent.;My research develops from personal and professional experiences, both as high school English teacher and student in the Los Angeles Unified School District, and as immigrant woman from Colombia. As a teacher, my literature anthologies and set curricula designed by the state, the district and the school established and maintained the Western literature canon. US Latino authors seemed to be sprinkled throughout the literature selections situated to represent the Latino experience in general, without regard to particular historical/national/racial, socio-economic and gendered identities. This created a limited and often erroneous account of what it may "mean" to be Latino, not only for non-Latino students, but for those who identified themselves as Latino.;Data for my research consist of the most commonly used literature high school anthologies, specifically the US Latino literature selections required and recommended for use in American high school English classrooms. In my analysis, I examine how dominant US Latino literature texts are positioned within the textbooks; how those texts and their positioning affect knowledge that is produced about US Latino literatures and US Latino "culture"; and, by adopting a feminist poststructuralist lens, I explore how US Latino identities are constituted through social structure, dominant discourses and power relations in particular social-cultural contexts.;This research contributes to the field of English education, with implications for curriculum designers and English teacher education and practices, particularly in the ways US Latino literatures are selected and discussed. |
