Latinx- What Do We Mean and Why Does it Matter?

In this first episode of Raíces y Resiliencia, host DENISE VALDEZ, LCSW explores how language shapes identity, belonging, and power within Latinx communities. From the history of “Hispanic” to the term “Latinx,” she reflects on what these terms mean for students, families, and educators working toward more inclusive, trauma-informed schools.

Link to reflection sheets:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MNg5hiSQ0-tb3W-k4tbUM7Ny9SIYEEkI?usp=share_link

Link to references:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aiafHEh5mOBkftfkM2HgjwMd4d2XS-76?usp=share_link

Transcript

Transcript

Episode 1: Latinx- What Do We Mean and Why Does it Matter? 

Hi everyone and welcome to Raíces y Resilencia, a podcast on supporting Latinx students with trauma-informed, culturally-rooted care in K-12 school settings. 

Intro music 

I'm your host Denise Valdez and I'm so glad you're here today. Hi everyone, welcome to Raíces y Resilencia, a podcast on supporting Latinx students with trauma-informed, culturally-rooted care in K-12 school settings.

I'm your host Denise Valdez. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, a school social worker, and a doctoral student. First off, I want to start with the purpose of this podcast.

This podcast is for school social workers, mental health professionals, and educators who are serving Latinx students in our schools. My hope is to give us tools for providing culturally responsive, trauma-informed care, especially in racialized and anti-immigrant climates. So, before we dive in, I really want to acknowledge something important.

First, I am so thankful for all of you here sitting, listening, whether that's at home, whether that's on your way to work. This is going to be such an important space for us to have a lot of discussion around how to better support the Latinx community and I'm so thankful that you all are here listening. But before we dive in, I want to acknowledge something.

In this episode, and throughout the series really, we'll be covering sensitive and sometimes very challenging topics. These may include conversations about identity, belonging, representation, trauma, and systemic inequities, especially surrounding some of the issues that we are noticing due to our political climate currently. And so, I really want to put an emphasis on taking care of yourself while listening.

If you need to pause, step away, or return at another time, that is totally okay. Your well-being matters as much as the learning and I think in order for us to really be able to learn through this, it is going to be so important that we sit down and reflect and really take the time to process. So, I really want first to thank all of you, but really to acknowledge that this is our space and we definitely need to also take care of ourselves while listening to this podcast.

So, in today's episode, I really want to take the time to really acknowledge language and just really start off with what is Latinx? What does that mean anyway? I know that a lot of Latinx populations come from very different and diverse cultures and settings, and so I really want to take the time today to kind of talk a little bit about the history of the word Latinx, where it stems from, and how it has kind of transformed into being a more inclusive term and why language is so important. So, before we even had the word Hispanic, which was one of the first words that identified brown populations, people of Latin American descent in the United States were identified in very different and often very harmful ways. So, on the U.S. Census, there wasn't a category for brown populations at all until 1970, which is very shocking because we know that the brown populations have existed in the U.S. prior to 1970s.

Most people from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, or other Latin American countries were just counted as white, and unless you were visibly black or indigenous, the system erased your identity completely. There was one exception. In 1930, the Census briefly added a category called Mexican, but once again, it was very brief, and after that, Mexican American organizations pushed back, fearing that it would increase discrimination, right, being labeling every brown person as a Mexican.

And so, by the 1940s, the category was completely gone, and once again, Mexicans were again counted as white. Outside of the Census, people often felt lumped together under labels like Spanish speaking, Spanish surnames, or simply Mexican, and honestly, let's be real, sometimes those labels were in neutral. They came with slurs, stereotypes, and derogatory terms that carried a heavy weight, and also, if you think about it, when you think of a brown person, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're Mexican, and so this definitely was not inclusive and really left out a lot of other brown populations.

So, when Hispanic finally appeared in 1970, it was the first time the government admitted that this was a distinct population, but it's also really important to remember, this wasn't a word chosen by brown populations. It was a word created by the government to count us, right, to control us, and to simplify us into one category. So, when I learned this in history, it helped me make sense of why that Hispanic box never felt right for me.

It wasn't about me or my family, right? It was a lot about, rather, how the government had some form of, you know, control or power, and it also made me reflect about how I felt left out when I was younger, and obviously at that age, I didn't have the critical thinking skills that I do now, but now that I am older and actually work in the field with Latinx students, I often think about those students and families and how they might feel the same disconnect today. And when we dig deeper into why the term Hispanic was a problem, although it gave us or started to give us some form of representation, it also created a problem. Hispanic squeezed together people with very different cultures, histories, and racial identities.

Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorians, Afro-Latinos were all put into one box, and, you know, I remember, like I was sharing earlier, the first time I had to check Hispanic on a school form, I remember coming here from Mexico to the U.S. and wanting to write Mexican, but that wasn't an option, and I really didn't understand what Hispanic meant because I had never heard that term. I stared at the piece of paper, and I knew I didn't fit into that word, but I also knew I didn't have a choice, so I checked the box that didn't feel like me, and I still remember how erasing that felt. It almost felt like I was denying a part of me that I just felt so strong about.

If we fast forward to today, I'm a school social worker, and it's sometimes very shocking to see those same forms, and every time I hand one out to a student, I think about how many of them are experiencing the same quiet erasure that I did. So by the late 1970s and 1980s, people obviously pushed back on that term. Activists wanted language that reflected culture and history, not just language, right? That's where the Latino term started to gain traction and started to become something that was being pushed.

Latino was different because it was chosen by the community. It was chosen by activism through the Chicano movement, and it was something that was organized in the brown neighborhoods. Latino was a way of saying, we will not let the government define us.

We will name ourselves. And so that was part of that resistance of saying, how can we become seen, and how can our culture become seen rather than just our language? And so then in the 1990s, something new happened. So the Latino term was used prior to this, and it continued to be used prior to this, but in the 1990s, feminists and LGBTQ plus activists began using the term Latinx.

They wanted a word that broke away from the gender binary of Latino and Latina. You know, Latino stands for male in Spanish and Latina for female, and so they wanted to break away from that. Latinx created a space for people who didn't feel represented by those endings, right? And then we started to see, or first started to see the term Latinx used in Puerto Rican psychology journals, and that was a way to challenge language norms.

And then in the 2000s, and currently as social media and student activism took off, Latinx spread quickly across campuses and online spaces, and it's something that continues to be pushed to be more inclusive of different genders and cultures as well. So knowing that the history behind the term Hispanic, Latino, or Latina and Latinx, when we look at these three words, we are able to better understand that these, you know, words used to identify the brown population are more than labels. We see power, right? If we think about it, Hispanic was created by the government, and that was the power that they held on our identities.

Latino was claimed by the community, and that was the power or challenging the power of the government that the brown population was trying to push. And then Latinx was created to be inclusive, to challenge binaries, and to reflect younger and activist voices. So as we reflect on these three words, we're able to really see that words are in neutral.

They show us who has the power to name us and who resists being named by others, right? And I think that as we learn through the history of these words, we're really able to see that sometimes something as simple as the identity or the labeling that we put on ourselves can have such a powerful impact. So here's a quick reflection for you. I want you to pause this episode for a moment and write down the words your school uses most often.

Is it Hispanic? Is it Latino or Latina? Is it Latinx? Maybe something else? Now ask yourself, where did that word come from? And what does it or who does it leave out? Now, to be very clear, not everyone embraces the term Latinx. It's obviously fairly new, and some people haven't adapted to it or aren't really ready to, and that's important to say out loud. For example, generationally, younger people tend to use it more, while older generations often prefer Latino, Latina, or simply their country of origin.

Linguistically also, some argue that Latinx doesn't fit Spanish grammar or that it was imposed by English speakers. And so just as we here in the U.S. are challenging some of the terms that are used and we're trying to be more inclusive, there's also people out there who believe that Latinx just doesn't fit the Spanish grammar or it's something that doesn't fit into the culture. I've been in plenty of spaces where colleagues whisper to me, I don't get it.

Why can't we just stick with Latino, you know? Or have a hard time feeling like Latinx really covers, you know, all the different, the diverse populations and the diverse cultures. And my response is always, it's not necessarily about finding the perfect word, because we probably might never be able to get to that, right? It's about listening when people tell us who they are and not creating those assumptions ourselves. So as I share this, it makes me think of one school meeting where I was meeting with a daughter and a mom.

And I heard three different words used in the same room during that same time. The student identified as Latinx, her mother said proudly, Soy Mexicana, or I am Mexican. And on the school paperwork that I was, you know, reviewing for the assessment, she was listed as Hispanic.

Three words, three truths, and none of them were wrong. It just depends on who you asked. And that is really what I want us to hold on to as we continue these conversations.

These aren't just words, they are layered identities. And as school professionals, social workers, mental health providers, our job is not to decide which one is right. Our job is to ask, to listen, and to honor.

So as we dig deeper, it's important to ask, why does language matter? Well, because words shape belonging. Picture a student filling out an intake form in your office. The only option is Hispanic.

That student has no space to write Afro-Mexican or Latinx. What does that teach them? That their identity doesn't fit. As we dig deeper, research shows that categories don't just describe us.

They shape identity development and institutional responses. Now imagine the form says, rather than check this box, how do you identify? That tells the student, you matter, and we want to hear from your own words what you identify as. And as I talk about this, I also want to bring up a term called linked fate.

Linked fate is the sense that Latinx futures are connected by shared discrimination, even if one person isn't directly affected. For example, I had a U.S.-born student tell me he couldn't sleep after an ICE raid took a classmate's father. His own family wasn't touched directly, right, because he was a U.S. citizen, and they also, you know, had legal status.

But the fear was something that he felt. That's linked fate, the experience that what happens to one of us can happen to all of us, regardless of our legal status, especially in today's political climate. So now let's connect that to language.

When we use umbrella terms like Hispanic or Latinx, those words don't just describe identity. They also shape who is seen as part of a community that faces discrimination. The label itself becomes tied to collective experiences of marginalization.

So, for example, right now we know that the political climate, there is currently a big target on brown populations, and by brown I mean brown as your skin color. And so that label being brown is specifically tied to collective experiences of discrimination and possible, you know, ICE detention. And this is why language matters so much.

Choosing or rejecting a word like Latinx isn't just about grammar or preference. It's political. It signals whether we see ourselves as part of a larger struggle for recognition, for gender inclusion, or for racial justice, right? In schools, this shows up in very powerful ways.

If students only hear themselves described in deficit terms, like our Hispanic kids are struggling, they internalize being part of a stigmatized group. But if schools use affirming and inclusive language, like asking how do you identify, or using a student's chosen words, they feel that shared fate in a different way. They see themselves not only as vulnerable to discrimination or the current political climate, but also as part of a community with shared strength, solidarity, and resistance and resilience.

So I want us to pause for a moment and reflect on this. You can jot it down. If you're on your way to work, sit with it.

But what labels do I hear most often in my school or workplace? Do they carry stigma or do they affirm identity and belonging? I really want you to take the time to reflect on this and think about possible ways or times in which our language might have carried stigma and not affirmed identity and belonging. When we think about linked fate alongside language, the message is very clear. Our words are never neutral.

They can either deepen fear and stigma or they can nurture solidarity and belonging. So what does this mean for us in schools? I want to take the time now to be able to think of ways in which we might consciously or unconsciously be pushing for that lack of inclusivity and exclusion through some of the practices that we currently do in our school settings. One of those practices is something that seems very minimal, but can have and send huge, powerful messages.

And that is the use of our intake forms, assessment forms, and data that we collect. So what I mean by this is that oftentimes when we're doing assessments, we, as a student, are you Latino or Latina? Are you not even Latinx, right? I've seen on my form Hispanic, Latino, Latina. And we never really say, what do you identify as? And this makes me think of like some of my students who are, for example, are afro-Latinos or who, you know, identify as indigenous.

And that is not something that is asked. And so one practical step that we can do to be more inclusive in our school setting, especially with the Latinx community, is advocating for open-ended questions with our districts or with our schools, or even if like we're the only mental health providers, us reviewing our own intake forms and assessment forms and changing the question from a checkbox to really like, how do you identify? And even explaining to our students what that means, because a lot of the times it's been so ingrained in them that they're Hispanic or Latino or Latina, that they don't realize that some of them can identify and should identify as something that they strongly feel they connect with more. Another challenge that I've seen in school settings and in my school setting is the use of staff language and assumptions.

You know, I've been in meetings where someone has said like, our Hispanics are struggling in math or just being very generalizing or just, you know, cluster all these different, you know, identities and brown populations as one. And it is so important that we model that, right? We as social workers, mental health professionals and providers, and one way that we can do this is by modeling to teachers, asking families directly, for example, in meetings or during parent-teacher conferences that we're a part of those, modeling the use of more specific or inclusive terms. In our clinical practice, one way that we can do this is by teaching our students how to be able to identify, right? And allowing them to have that space to even process what that means.

You know, making identity exploration part of your intake and part of your ongoing therapy work with the student. This not only builds trust with you, but it also empowers them to really own who they believe they are and who they choose to be. When we think about school-wide implementations, I think one of the things that we can definitely push for is just making language reflect our values as a school.

If schools default to outdated or imposed terms, students feel it, right? And so one practical step that we can take is to advocate for, you know, bringing this knowledge and information into possible professional development trainings and staff trainings and speaking with administration on how language can make such an impact in the students that we serve and how we can unconsciously be excluding some of our Latinx students because of this lack of knowledge. We've talked about language, the history of Hispanic, Latino, Latina, and Latinx, and how the words we use in schools can either affirm or erase students and their identities. And it's important to know that language doesn't just exist superficially.

It is us, right? Through the people who speak it, through the identities we carry, the privileges we hold, and the way others see us. That's why I want to spend this last part of our episode talking about positionality. Positionality is just a way of saying who we are matters.

The identities we bring into a space shape how we see others, how they see us, and how power is distributed in that relationship, whether that's with, you know, the people that we meet, other professionals, whether that's with the populations we serve. This is definitely, you know, the power, how the power is distributed. Scholars have reminded us for years that there's no such thing as a neutral profession, right? We tend to and have used in the past that, you know, we as social workers or as therapists are nonjudgmental and we hold space, which is all true, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we are human.

We all bring a lens. We've all had experiences growing up or even, you know, as adults that have shaped us and our views. And in social work, teaching, and counseling, ignoring those lens that we bring can be harmful.

So I want to be transparent about my positionality, where I come from, the identities I carry, and how that impacts my work with students and families. Let me start by naming my intersecting identities. I am a Mexican-American woman.

I am the daughter of immigrants. I am a first-generation college student. I am bilingual and bicultural.

I am a licensed clinical social worker, a school social worker, and now a doctoral student. Each of these identities overlaps and interacts. They shape how I use language, how I interpret it, and how I respond when others use it with me.

One of my strongest identities is being the daughter of immigrants. I think this is, one, what really pushed me to create this podcast, but also the relationship that I have with this identity and my, you know, how much and how meaningful it is for me. Growing up, I was my parents' translator.

I was the one reading the bills at the kitchen table, explaining doctor's instructions, or translating during school conferences. At 10 years old, I knew what minimum payment due meant before I even knew what long division was. That was my first lesson in the power of language.

Language could give me authority in a doctor's office, but it also could remind me, or did remind me, how powerless my parents felt when they couldn't advocate for themselves in English and the impact that that had on them, on our family, and on just, you know, in general how we communicated with each other and how they communicated with the systems that, you know, were designed to help me. And here's the thing. Children of immigrants know this burden.

It's often called language brokering. Research shows it can give kids pride and skills, being able to, you know, be the translator, but it can also cause stress and role reversal. I live both sides of that.

And when I see my students in the same position today, now as my role as a school social worker, I don't just see a helper. I see a child carrying weight that's too heavy. Another key part of my identity is being first generation.

When I was in high school, I didn't have the language of academia. Teachers would say things like college readiness or AP credit, and I had no idea what those words meant. And it was really hard navigating the education system because I often felt like I didn't belong in these places.

I knew that you went to high school and then eventually went to college, but I didn't necessarily know what college readiness even meant or AP credit. And I took AP classes, but I often felt like I didn't belong because oftentimes I was only Latina there. Later in college, I remember sitting in lectures where professors used academic jargon that everyone else seemed to understand.

Words like practicum, epistemology, even when I started my doctoral program, abstract. I had to secretly Google half of them, and it felt like I wasn't once again where I needed to be. That's what research called the hidden curriculum.

The unspoken rules and language of education that first gen students are expected to pick up on their own. For me, it was a constant reminder that I wasn't raised with the vocabulary of higher ed, and like I mentioned earlier, it made me feel like I didn't belong there or that I wasn't understood. And that's why I noticed this so quickly in schools now, especially in the school that I work in.

When teachers or administrators throw around acronyms like IEP, MTSS, or SEL in front of families, I pay attention to the looks on parents' faces. I know that look. The look of being in a room full of words that weren't meant for you.

And I'm also really, really mindful of when these acronyms are used because not only are our Latinx families navigating challenges with the language barrier, but then having to figure out what these acronyms mean in English and then trying to translate in Spanish is something that feels very heavy. Being a Mexican American woman shapes how language lands on me. I've been in professional spaces where people assumed I was the interpreter instead of the lead social worker.

I've been asked to speak for all Latinas in a room as if we're a single voice. And I've been in meetings where my ideas were ignored until someone else, usually a white male colleague, repeated the same thing and suddenly it was this brilliant idea. Language reflects bias.

When men are assertive, they're praised as confident leaders. When I use the same tone, I've been called too emotional or too aggressive. That double standard isn't just about perception.

It's about the language attached to women of color in professional spaces. Those experiences made me intentional about the words I use with students. I never want my language to box them in the way that it has boxed me.

And I think that this specific part of me has really pushed for me in my school setting to really push for the importance of representation. I try to be as inclusive as I can and to really make our school a place where students feel represented. And so when I do notice that I am starting to become biased or I notice that I am using language in not the correct way or I'm relying on like, for example, one of my newcomers, you know, a student who just came from another country to be the spokesperson for other people who also, you know, have just arrived here and have came from the same country.

It becomes really unfair because now I am doing the exact same thing that I didn't like that was done to me when I was younger. And that is boxing them in a way that is not inclusive of their own experiences and identities. Another one of my identities that I really want to focus on is me being bilingual.

And I really want to put an emphasis on the fact that being bilingual is a privilege, but it's also a responsibility. For example, I've been in meetings where my ability to move between Spanish and English gave me authority and power, right? I have been the bridge, the connector, the mediator, and that has given me that power to one, advocate for the families that I work with, the Latinx families. But it's also given me the power to really be present in these spaces.

The fact that I am bilingual. But I've also been in spaces where my Spanish has been questioned and a lot of it has been internal. Like, is it formal enough? Was it correct enough? Am I speaking the language the correct way for families to understand it? Because I do navigate being bilingual and sometimes that is also a challenge in itself.

Or where my English was critiqued as being too accented. And that has happened to me in the past where I have gotten comments stating, you speak really well English. And I think that I wasn't aware of that until I started to dig deeper into language and what that meant and how it can, there can be oppression through language.

And from that experience, when I was told as a compliment, or at least that's the way it felt like it was intended to be, superficially, saying, you speak English really well. Now I question it and say, well, of course I speak English really well. I am a US citizen and I did attend school here.

And there would be no reason why I wouldn't speak English, right? But that is part of that exclusion or that, those microaggressions that exist now still in language. And so from all these moments that I just shared, the privileges that I've had and the microaggressions that I have navigated, these moments taught me that language is never just neutral. Speaking English fluently, or at least feeling like I do, gives me access.

Being able to speak Spanish gives me connection to the Latinx community. Being bicultural allows me to move between two worlds, but it also means I'm constantly aware of how language is judged, valued, or dismissed. Then there's my professional identity.

I spoke a lot about my personal identity, but I also possess a professional identity. I am a licensed clinical social worker. As I shared, I'm a school social worker and I'm a doctoral student.

Those titles come with authority and privilege. When I walk into meetings, people listen differently because of the letters after my name. But those same titles can create distance.

Families sometimes see me as part of the system, right? Students sometimes assume I can't understand their struggles because I've made it, or I've overcame them, or they can't relate to me, even if we both identify as Latinx individuals. And I really want to put an emphasis on the part of like, there is a lot of privilege because I do get to be in these spaces, especially like in the school setting with administrators, and being able to advocate for the Latinx community and just the populations I work with in general on a higher level. And because of these last four letters after my name, the LCSW, my input is valued.

But those same four letters after my name also have a huge negative connection within the Latinx community about being a social worker and what that looks like. Because in the Latinx community, there is such a big misinterpretation or misunderstanding about what a social worker does. And so sometimes when I do contact parents to just provide support for their child, I do have to state, I'm Ms. Valdez.

I am the school social worker. And immediately, I can feel it, and I have seen it in meetings where parents tense up and have the fear of, you're going to remove my child from me, or you are here instead of to help, rather to cause harm within my family. And so these four letters have both their privileges, but also their challenges.

So I carry both connection and separation. And I have to name both and be real with myself about how these four letters and just my professional identity can connect, can help me connect with the Latinx community, but it can also push me away from them. I know that through me speaking about my identities, I've talked a little bit about privilege and access, but I really want to put an emphasis on this part as well.

Being U.S. born gave me the privilege and the access of my citizenship. That's protection my parents didn't have. It gave me access to benefits, rights, and mobility that are denied to so many of my students and families that I currently work with, especially in this political climate where even when we have this privilege of being a citizen, we are still targeted because of the color of our skin.

And so although, as I mentioned, there is this trauma, collective trauma that we experience as a community, I still hold the privilege of knowing that I am a U.S. citizen and that I have a lot of these opportunities that some of the families I work with and students I work with don't have. Speaking English is another one of my privileges. I can walk into professional spaces and be understood, respected, and heard.

My parents didn't get that growing up, and as I work in a school setting, I also see how many of my parents struggle and how many of my students struggle because of that language barrier and how some of their behaviors and responses to that struggle are seen as a negative behavior when that's really not the case. And we'll dig deeper as we continue with this podcast on what that looks like. My degrees are a privilege, and although it has been a challenge to be able to be a part of higher education and have obtained that, it is still a privilege.

I am in a doctoral program. I have my master's in social work. Each of those privileges has open doors.

Each one gives me credibility, and each one also distances me from families who never had that chance. And then there's code switching, which I consider a privilege. I can move between the language of my community and the language of institutions.

That's a form of power. Not everyone has it. I am able to communicate and connect with these families that need my assistance and my support while also being able to connect and advocate and speak up for these families in these institutions that I work for, and I consider that to be a huge privilege.

Privilege is like a backpack we carry. Some of us have tools in it that others don't, right? And some of us were born with those tools, and some of us worked really hard to get those. And what's inside of my backpack is not just for me.

These tools are not just for me. It's for me to use in the service of the communities I work with and to be able to use my to support, one, the populations that I directly connect with, but also to be able to be a voice for this population that even as we dig deeper, it's not just the language barrier, but also the systems that are working against them as well. And I want to make it really clear that positionality isn't just about how I see myself.

It's about how others also see me and how they perceive me. For students and families with similar positionalities and identities, like, you know, having my students having immigrant parents, being first generation kids, living in a bilingual household, my story often builds that trust, right? They see me as someone who gets it. They see me as someone that they can relate to, and it's easier for me to build those relationships with.

But for students and families with different identities, for example, Afro-Latinx families, indigenous migrants, maybe undocumented families, or children who are undocumented, right, who don't have the privilege of being citizens or having a legal status, my privilege can create some of that distance. They may wonder if I truly understand their struggles. They may see me as part of the system, and they may really question whether I'm really there to support them or not.

And even among those with similar experiences, there can still be skepticism, right? Some may think she's got her degree, she has her license, her job security, she's not living what we're living now. And to a certain extent, it's true, which is why I can't just rely on shared identity to build trust. I have to do the work, and I really have to challenge myself.

So what do I do to bridge those gaps? Well, first, I practice transparency. I name my positionality out loud. I let families and my students know who I am and where I come from.

Second, I also place and practice cultural humility. That means I ask instead of assuming, I might ask, how do you identify? What feels right for you? And as we were kind of sharing a little bit about the similar experiences that I share with my students and families, I think that this part is really important, the cultural humility part. And cultural humility basically states that we are not the expert of any population or any person, right? Even if we shared those same experiences.

And I think that this has taught me so much, cultural humility, to really be humble and really take the time to say, although you and I share so many of the same identities, you and I do not have 100% the same story. And I think that it has challenged me, and I have been challenged by really being mindful of that and not assuming unconsciously or consciously about the experiences that some of my students and some of my families carry, even if they seem to be very similar to mine. Third, I also center their voices.

I use frameworks like Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth Model, which we're going to speak about later also as we continue this podcast, to recognize the assets and strengths that these families bring. And finally, I practice critical reflection. I check my blind spots.

I use supervision, consultation, peer feedback, and continued learning to hold myself accountable. And I really, really put an emphasis on doing this. Especially after I meet with a student who I can feel and know that there is some biases or some countertransference that is showing up, I take the time to really reflect and ask myself why.

And a lot of the times, it is because there is that deeper connection, right, that I can identify, I can be empathetic, but move beyond being empathetic, like really, especially in today's political climate, really feel the pain for the injustices and the oppression that is happening, the racism that is existing within the Latinx community. And so critical reflection in current times has been something that I have been practicing more. Because at the end of the day, trust doesn't come from having the same identity, right? It comes from showing up with humility, with consistency, and with respect for each individual and their own story.

So you might be sitting there and asking yourself, why does all this matter for language? Why does positionality matter for language? Well, because my positionality shapes the way I use words. It shapes whether I approach families with jargon or with clarity. It shapes whether I use deficit language or strengths-based language.

It shapes whether I ask families how they identify or whether I just check a box for them like I have been doing in the past. And it shapes how students interpret me. Do they see me as an ally? Do they see me as someone that understands them and someone that they can fully trust? Or do they see me as part of the system that silences them and has silenced them for a really long time? That's why positionality matters, because it isn't just about me.

It's about the relationships I build, the trust I hold, and the way students experience care in schools. And it is especially important that we can really take the time to think about positionality and the way that, like I mentioned earlier, it impacts those that we serve. It impacts ourselves and how even as we grow, for example, me now with my doctoral or aiming to get my doctoral degree, being a doctoral student, my positionality is shifting, right? And so it's reflecting on that, not just reflecting on it once, but continuing to reflect on that.

So I want to leave you with this reflection. I really want you to take the time to think about it. If you are driving or if you're not in a space where you can jot this down, I want you to come back to this section and then reflect on it at a better time.

But the first question is, what is your positionality? What identities do you carry? What privileges do you hold? What blind spots might you have? And how might your students and families perceive you because of them? Now, if you don't identify as Latinx, I still want you to pause and reflect, and I want you to ask yourself the following questions. What part of your identity gives you privilege in school spaces? And what blind spots might you need to pay attention to when working with Latinx families? When we name both our privilege, our blind spot, the challenges that we've navigated, we show up more authentically, and our students and families can feel that. So today we covered various topics, and I think that it's really important for us to do a recap so that when we can remember some of those topics that we covered, but also so that we can leave this episode today being able to be more reflective and really put some of these things into practice within our school settings and even within ourselves.

So we covered first, in the first half of the episode, the evolution from the term Hispanic to then Latino, Latina, to then Latinx. And we talked about the power that came from that, or who had the power to create this label for us, and how that has shifted, and how it will probably continue to shift, right? We also talked about why language matters for belonging, and why it is so important that we really put an emphasis on getting to understand why we use certain languages for certain things, especially in the school settings. And we dug deeper into the school implications of our words, and how those implications then impact the Latinx populations we serve, and also the families and community, the Latinx families and communities.

And we also talked about some very practical ways in which we can start to change some of those, the use of our language through clinical practice, school-wide level, and within ourselves. And then in the second half of the episode, I shared my positionality. We talked about positionality and why it's so important, how our story, our privileges, our challenges, and the connection that we have shape the work that we do.

So here is my call for you all. This week, be intentional with your words. Ask instead of assuming.

Listen instead of labeling. It's so important that we start by being aware of the language that we use and have used, and just being mindful of how some of those words that we have used in some of that language has been damaging to some of the Latinx communities and populations that we work with. Before we all leave, I also wanted to share that I am going to be creating reflection journal prompts for each episode.

I think these will be a good way, one, for us to be able to have more dialogue with ourselves, with some of the staff members that we work with, and just to do more deeper reflection on the episodes and the topics that we cover. And so those are going to be linked on the show notes. And so it would mean a lot if you took the time, when you have that time, to be able to download these prompts and reflect on the episodes that we shared today.

So the journal prompt for this week will really focus on language and our own positionality and how those two can have an impact on the Latinx communities we serve. The references that were used for this episode will also be in the show notes. And so you will have access to that.

And if you're interested in digging deeper into some of the things that were discussed, you will be able to find the references there. If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, share with a colleague, and check the show notes. This is just the beginning of Raíces y Resiliencia.

In our next episode, we'll dive into trauma-informed care and how it can truly serve Latinx students when done through a culturally responsive lens. Thank you for being here with me, for listening, reflecting, and most importantly, for the work you do every day in our schools. I'll see you again soon.

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