Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 2017

Abstract

In April, I was the keynote speaker at the University of Texas at El Paso’s Spring Symposium, an annual event hosted by Frontera Rétorica, the graduate student chapter of Rhetoric Society of America. In my talk, “Decolonizing Digital Platforms,” I cited a 2017 Hispanic Pew Research report that provided exigency for my call to decolonize digital habits of mind in the context of the U.S./Mexico border. The Pew Report found that 54% of Latinxs felt confident about their place in the U.S. under the new presidential administration (Hugo Lopez and Rohal). These findings suggest disparities among Latinx in the U.S. in the levels of critical awareness about issues of race, class, citizenship, and language. Many Latinx rhetoric and composition scholars resist and counteract these disparities through a spectrum of emerging research foci, such as the decolonial potential of theory and practices for the field (Baca, Mestiz@; Ruiz and Sánchez), digital rhetoric and writing (Cedillo; Gonzales; Medina and Pimentel), feminist filmmaking methodologies (Hidalgo), critical race theory (Martinez; Sanchez and Branson) as well as issues that have traditionally been associated with Latinx research like immigrant rights and activism (Arellano; Ribero); multilingual literacy (Alvarez); service- learning (Baca, Service) and culturally relevant pedagogy (Mejía; Serna). In this spectrum of emerging and established research, Latinx scholars engage in historiography, theoretical articulation, and analysis of local practices, contributing to a growing body of knowledge that resists dominant narratives that delegitimize through deficit rhetoric and logic of the colonial imaginary.

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