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Cultural Citizenship and Visual Literacy: U.S.-MexicanChildren Constructing Cultural Identities Along theU.S.-Mexico BorderMaria E. Franquiz & Carol Brochin-CeballosPublished online: 17 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Maria E. Franquiz & Carol Brochin-Ceballos (2006) Cultural Citizenship and Visual Literacy: U.S.-MexicanChildren Constructing Cultural Identities Along the U.S.-Mexico Border, Multicultural Perspectives, 8:1, 5-12, DOI: 10.1207/s15327892mcp0801_2

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In this article we examine a theoretical concept:cultural citizenship. Educators of color typicallyadvance this theoretical perspective because itprovides a way of probing into ways students’ dif-fering linguistic and cultural resources can bemade visible and effectively included in literacyevents both in and outside of school. Through thistheoretical lens we build an understanding of therole of culture and visual literacy in the lives ofyoung people living in rural South Texas. We sug-gest a cultural citizenship framework can (a) facil-itate the inclusion of multiple perspectives that“transcend the negative effects of the dominantculture ” (Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 17) and (b)“develop the vision and the power of our futurecitizens to forge a more just society” (Sleeter,1991, p. 2). Thus, we consider the nature andfunction of visual literacy in the lives of childrenbecoming writers who affirm their cultural citizen-ship along the U.S.–Mexico borderlands.

There are people who like to talk about the border. I’veseen them in supermarkets, in bars, on city buses, on tele-

vision, in newspapers. They always do it very seriously,like they were talking about a relative who just died or gos-siping about a dying man. There are also those who dedi-cate themselves to studying the border. (Crosthwaite,2003, p. 239)

Binary oppositions in the history of Texas and Mex-ico create a context for literal and metaphorical border-lands. U.S. Mexican children residing in the space andplace of literal and metaphorical borderlands inter-change words and worlds in a fluid and permeable man-ner. They answer their abuela1 in Spanish, their motherin English and playfully mix the languages on the play-ground. González (2001) dedicated herself to the studyof families living in the borderlands and provided an ex-ample of children’s linguistic border crossing:

All around the mulberry bushThe monkey chased the weaselThe monkey thought ’twas all in fun …PA-pas con chorizo. (p. 12)

Like González (2001), our identity as researchersprompts us to use an ethnographic approach to study thecreative potential of youth living in the borderlands. Weview the eliciting of children’s meanings toward life inthe borderlands, as a way to gain a fuller understanding

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Multicultural Perspectives, 8(1), 5–12Copyright © 2006 by the National Association for Multicultural Education

We thank Hecho en Encinal, the South Texas Writing Project, theAcademy of Teacher Excellence, the Division of Bicultural–BilingualStudies, and College of Education and Human Development at theUniversity of Texas at San Antonio for their financial support of the re-search presented in this article.

Correspondence should be sent to María E. Fránquiz or CarolBrochin-Ceballos, University of Texas at San Antonio, Division ofBicultural-Bilingual Studies, College of Education and Human Devel-opment, 6900 North Loop 1604 West, San Antonio, TX 78249.E-mail: maria.franquiz@utsa.edu or carol.brochin@utsa.edu

1Like the editorial decision made at Cinco Puntos Press, we have cho-sen not to italicize Spanish words that appear in this English text. Becausewe live en la frontera, the borderlands, we want to establish partnershipamong cultural equals by assigning equal value to the Spanish and Eng-lish languages.

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of their bicultural lives. The scholarship on cultural citi-zenship informs us because it focuses on the ways thatMexican culture is excluded from or assimilated into en-during societal structures (Flores & Benmayor, 1997;Rosaldo, 1994) such as schools. Using cultural citizen-ship as a lens entails learning about the multiple ways“Latinas/os give culture a central place in defining theiridentity, relationships with the world, and sense ofrights” (Silvestrini, 1997, p. 40).

Our identity as literacy educators prompts us to studychildren’s emergent ideas of cultural citizenship in andthrough visual literacy events. By using cultural citizen-ship as a lens we are able to study how U.S. Mexicanchildren construct distinct border identities, orsubjectivities (Ong, 1996). Because children’s meaningsare noticeably absent from the nascent literature on cul-tural citizenship, our work seeks to add an educationalperspective to the predominant anthropological, andcommunication viewpoints on the topic. An educationalperspective is important for improving the diversitytraining of the nation’s predominant White female mid-dle-class teaching force.

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Diversity courses in teacher training encourage teach-ers to use culturally sensitive materials, curricula, andprojects in their classrooms. However, few teachers ac-complish this task by collaborating with commu-nity-based arts organizations (Fránquiz, 2004; Heath,2004) that recognize students’ right to express their ownculture, history, traditions and values. We argue that in-structors in community arts learning environments canoffer K–12 teachers some exemplary ideas for strength-ening future citizens against the homogenizing tenden-cies of a standardized curriculum and the mass media(UNESCO, 1997). We make a case for students affirmingtheir rights to cultural citizenship through visual literacy.According to the North Central Regional EducationalLaboratory, visual literacy is the ability to interpret, use,appreciate, and create images and video using both con-ventional and 21st-century media in ways that advancethinking, decision making, communication, and learning.

In this article we specifically analyze the experiencesof two U.S. Mexican students who participate in an on-going study of how Latina/o students’ literacy experi-ences shape and are shaped by their cultural identities.We chose the rural community of Encinal as a site forthis study because current scholarship on Latina/o cul-tural citizenship has not taken into account how U.S.Mexican children construct their cultural identities inlearning environments along the U.S.–Mexico border.

The centrality of culture to our study shifts the mean-ing of citizenship from strict rights to students’ evolvingsense of belonging to differing social groups and toclaiming cultural space for personal and collective ex-pression. Because citizenship is not entirely about for-mal rights, the project reported here makes visible theways in which children participating in literacy activitiesin a community arts learning center use their power toname, to create meaning, and to construct images thatreflect their understandings of themselves and their so-cial worlds. In the first part of this article we describethe premises for fostering cultural citizenship in educa-tional settings. Next we show how a visual literacy pro-ject provided students with opportunities to grow in theirresponsiveness to cultural citizenship and literary genre.Finally, we suggest ways in which K–12 teachers can di-rectly or in collaboration with arts organizationsstrengthen students’ emerging understandings of culturalcitizenship and visual literacy.

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From the available research literature, we formulatedfour principles we felt embodied the various definitionsof cultural citizenship. We then applied these principlesto the education context. The result is four premises foreducators to consider in fostering the development ofcultural citizenship. The four premises are (a) providingaccess to culturally relevant oral, visual, and writtentexts; (b) proposing multiple opportunities for childrento use cultural assets in producing their texts; (c) foster-ing cultural preservation; and (d) engaging students inactivities with transformative potential. These four prin-ciples are dynamically interrelated and guided our deci-sions for what to observe and analyze in our research.

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The principle of using culturally relevant texts is notnew. Many scholars agree that literacy experiences con-nected to the local context allow students to gain mean-ingful understanding of their multiple realities (Harris,1993; Jimenez & Gomez, 1996; Moll, Amanti, Neff, &

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Gonzalez, 1992). Laliberty (2001) used this premise inher classrooms and found that inviting bilingual studentsto tap into lived experiences in the official space of theclassroom improved the quality of their writing develop-ment. Nathenson-Mejia & Escamilla (2003) applied thisprinciple in their approach to training preservice teacherswho in turn had positive results in their student teachingassignments. However, Barrera and Quiroa (2003)warned that some texts considered as culturally relevantactually promote cultural stereotypes. For example, allbooks on Latinas/os in a classroom may document onlythe migrant experience. Thus, the principle of access toculturally relevant material takes into account a criticalapproach in selection of classroom literacy materials.

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An assets orientation assumes that children from La-tino homes do not necessarily come from a “culture ofpoverty” (Lewis, 1959). Rather, Latino children are in-vited to affirm and develop a “culture of empowerment”(Benmayor, 2002). When teachers adopt an assets orien-tation, students are provided multiple opportunities toestablish their cultural authority as authors of texts abouttheir lived experiences (Mo & Shen, 2003)—in this case,along the Texas–Mexico border. Above all, an assets ori-entation builds on the diverse “funds of knowledge” ofstudents, their families, and communities (Moll, Amanti,Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992).

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Cultural citizenship is a “set of social processes”(Rosaldo, 1997, p. 27) that fosters children’s abilities toarticulate their values and beliefs regardless of race orethnicity, class, or documented or undocumented legalstatus. Ladson-Billings (2004) explained, “While somescholars might argue that cultural allegiance is provin-cial and dangerous to a national civic allegiance, histori-cally, ethnic groups have viewed cultural citizenship asan important form of self-determination and culturalpreservation” (p. 114). Teachers that focus on culturalpreservation ought to be sensitive to the development ofbilingualism, biculturalism, and biliteracy.

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Ong (1996) described cultural citizenship as “a dualprocess of self-making and being-made within webs of

power.” For her, “becoming a citizen depends on howone is constituted as a subject who exercises or submitsto power relations” (p. 738). This perspective mandatesthat educators not see their students from subordinatedcommunities as passive receivers of knowledge but asbecoming agents of change. Toward this goal a safespace is created for students where they can link culturalpractices from the home and community to broaderstruggles for social change. In these safe spaces opportu-nities with transformative potential are nurtured so thatstudents come to understand citizenship as cultural re-sponsibility (Rosaldo, 2003; Stevenson, 2003).

In our study we show how the four principles of cul-tural citizenship were used as a framework for engagingU.S. Mexican students in visual literacy activities. Insuch a framework the heritage culture was recognized asthe primary root to be utilized for providing

a sense of belonging to a community, a feeling of entitle-ment, the energy to face everyday adversities, and a ratio-nale for resistance to a larger world in which members ofminority groups feel like aliens in spite of being citizens.(Silvestrini, 1997, p. 43)

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Encinal is a rural community located 37 miles fromthe Texas–Mexico border with a total population of 620.In the past Encinal was an agricultural community, andnow most employment is related to ranching. There isone elementary school serving a majority Mexican-ori-gin population (97%). The school is part of the CotullaIndependent School District (ISD). Once students reachmiddle and high school, they travel 30 miles to and fromCotulla. In contrast to urban districts such as nearbyLaredo ISD, the rural schools that comprise Cotulla ISDare isolated from many cultural and educational re-sources. Consequently, there is limited availability of en-richment programs for school-age children.

Janet Krueger, a local visual artist living on a ranchnear Encinal recognized the disparity between arts op-portunities in urban places and those available in ruralcommunities. She and Donna Lednicky shared the samevision. Together, in 1999 they opened the doors ofHecho en Encinal and offered a variety of after-schoolprograms and community workshops. The programsbrought visual and performing arts including dance, mu-sic, creative writing, and art to the students and familiesof Encinal. The trailer that is home for the communityarts center is located on the same grounds as Encinal El-ementary School. As researchers centered in anethnographic perspective we spent time in the trailer, atthe school, in community spaces such as the café, park,and veteran hall, as well as in the homes of artists, teach-ers, and students.

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Our ongoing interest in the study at Encinal wasprompted by the following research question: What in-structional practices are used by art educators in a smallrural community to assist students in claiming theirrights to and development of cultural citizenship? Webegan the project during the summer of 2003. With sup-port from the South Texas Writing Project,2 a 3-weeksummer workshop was offered to K–8 students. A totalof 16 students participated. The 1st week students wrotepoems in response to prompts and took photos of spacesthat were personally meaningful in their community.During the 2nd week students selected a piece of writingfrom their individual portfolio and developedstoryboards for a videopoem. The 3rd week was spent infilming at the locations identified in student storyboards.The filming was extensive (11 one-hour tapes). The edit-ing team worked throughout the year to capture 6 of theoriginal 16 children’s videopoems onto one productionof approximately 7 min.

Wozek (2003) defined a videopoem as a mixed mediaformat where the unison of visual art, music, andfilmmaking is made with written and spoken text. Al-though visual poetry has not enjoyed a high profile ineducation, according to Wozek it is a physical manifes-tation of what it means to be a human who pushes liter-acy boundaries. Some visual artists and poets considervideopoetry as situated somewhere between installationart and music video.

Educators Sponder and Kurkjian (2001) described theevolving genre as, “Cine(E)poetry, video poetry, or po-etry video.” They referred to this genre as “an art formwhich combines the visual images, sounds, [and] musicwith the text of a poem to create its own unique work ofart” (p. 20). They contended that the creation ofvideopoems provides important learning opportunitiesbecause in the process of translating writing into thisnew genre, students have a reason for rethinking themeanings of a poem.

After the July 2003 workshop the researchers re-turned to Encinal with a 30-min edited video of sixvideopoems. Our return served several purposes. First,as teacher consultants of the National Writing Projectwe were accustomed to reading (in this case previewing)the rough draft or work-in-progress for editorial consid-erations. Secondly, in our role as qualitative researcherswe used the preview as a member checking (Foley,1990) method to verify if the representation of the stu-

dents’ writings truly matched what students desired tocommunicate about their lives in Encinal. The January2004 meeting was held after school at Hecho en Encinaland was audio and videotaped. Students suggested mu-sic, additional footage, and edits. One of the studentscommented, “looks like real life—like if people reallylive inside the TV” (Transcript, January 22, 2004). Weconsidered this statement a testimony regarding the emicperspective captured in the edited video.

We chose analysis of Amelia and Rodrigo’s3

videopoems because in spite of their common back-ground (living in Encinal their entire lives, attendingclasses at Hecho en Encinal, and sustained associationwith different types of artists) they often played differentroles in their school and after-school learning communi-ties. Whereas Amelia was responsive to writing promptsboth in the community arts learning environment and atschool, Rodrigo displayed himself as a less engaged,distant, and reluctant writer in both settings. Our intentwas to understand how two siblings who take up similaropportunities in different ways affirm and develop theirsense of cultural citizenship through videopoetry.

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Seated under a small window air conditioning unit atHecho en Encinal, Amelia, a soon to be sixth grader, satquietly as she wrote a list of descriptive words that por-trayed her grandfather. She was creating a parallel poemto Sandra Cisneros’s (1994) poem, “Abuelito Who.” Thefirst draft of her poem read: “My grandfather whosearmy uniform feels like feathers. His black hair ripplesin the wind like a glass of water being shaken. The cou-gar [car] which had seats as soft as blankets.”

For the 1st week of the summer workshop, a similarscene played out each morning. Students responded toculturally relevant texts written by Tejana authors suchas poems by Sandra Cisneros (1994) or memoirs byCarmen Lomas Garza (1990, 1996). The objective wasto elicit a writing response that would be developed intoa videopoem. For Amelia the prompt, “write a poemabout your abuelito,” was effective. For her brother,Rodrigo, the prompt did not elicit a complete response.He wrote the title, “Abuelito Who” at the top of the pageand only added, “Abuelito who was stationed.” However,our observational field notes indicated that Rodrigo par-ticipated in extensive and overlapping talk to assistAmelia regarding the accuracy of her memories abouttheir grandfather. When students selected a written piecefrom their portfolio to transform into a video, Amelia

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2The South Texas Writing Project (STWP) has been a contributingpartner to many projects at Hecho en Encinal. Carol Brochin is a graduateof the STWP located in Laredo, Texas. María Fránquiz is a graduate ofthe South Coast Writing Project located in Santa Barbara, California. 3The names of students in the examples are pseudonyms.

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opted to build on the poem about her abuelito. By theend of the 2nd week Rodrigo’s portfolio contained fiveshort and incomplete texts, none that captured visualthinking described as “the active reconstruction of pastvisual experience with incoming visual messages to ob-tain meaning” (Sinatra, 1986, p. 5).

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As previously mentioned, Amelia selected the finaldraft of her response to “Abuelito Who” (Cisneros,1994) for developing into a videopoem. The following isher final draft:

My Grandfatherby Amelia (2003)

My grandfather whose army uniform feels likefeathers.

His black hair ripples in the wind like a glass ofwater being shaken.

His cougar which had seats as soft as blankets.Who used to make me think he was up in the sky

glittering the stars like beautiful diamonds.His brown glasses were as thin as pencils when

he wore them.He was as tall as a pole and as slim as a pole.His shoes were shiny like a new car and were

light brown.This is how I think my grandfather would look

like.

In the construction of her response to “AbuelitoWho” (Cisneros, 1991), Amelia employed similar wordchoices to Cisneros to help the reader visualize hergrandfather. Although Cisneros used, “big brown shoes,”Amelia wrote, “his shoes were light brown.” UnlikeCisneros, who fills her poem with metaphors and simi-les, Amelia only used similes. For example, Ameliawrote, “his shoes were shiny like a new car.” Interest-ingly, she appropriated the image of diamonds and skyfrom Cisneros’s poem to shape her own similar, yet dis-similar, simile. Instead of Cisneros’s grandfather sayinghis granddaughter was the sky to him, Amelia said hergrandfather used to make her think that he was glitteringamong the stars. Amelia clearly recognized patterns inCisneros’s poem, but she was unable or chose not to re-produce a metaphor. Additionally, instead of Cisneros’sclosure with figurative language, Amelia closed with afactual statement, “this is what I think my grandfatherwould look like.” Overall, Cisneros’s poem provided arelevant scaffold to support Amelia in producing herown culturally relevant text and also inspired her to elab-orate on details during the next step of storyboarding.

A storyboard is a sketch of how to organize a storyand a list of its contents for making a video. LinHuff-Corzine (1998) used storyboarding in her diversityclasses and has received students testimonials such as “Ilove these projects which let us think about ourselvesand get to know each other,” “I really enjoyed doing theframes today. It gave me a chance to look back at mylife and all of the events that have helped to make mewho I am,” and “It gave me a chance to reflect on whatwas important in my life.”

Similarly, in planning for her video poem, Amelialisted materials she considered authentic and importantfor filming: “Places: Veteran’s Memorial, Props:Flowers, Feathers, Blanket, Grandpa’s picture, Notebookand pen.” Instead of planning for materials that corre-sponded strictly to the images in her poem, Ameliaadded props. For example, she added flowers becausethis is the ritual matching her ordinary life experience ofvisiting her grandfather at the Encinal veteran’s memo-rial. For her storyboard Amelia planned to have the teamfilm her performing this ritual. She located her poem inthe literal and concrete place where her memories of hergrandfather flourished. Amelia’s visualization was un-complicated. Such simplicity facilitated the acting andfilming of the videopoem. In fact, Amelia was ready be-fore any other student so her videopoem was producedfirst.

During our member checking and editorial teammeeting in January of 2004, Amelia’s written piece tookon additional details. The editorial team made up of stu-dents, the director of Hecho en Encinal, parents, familymembers, and the two coresearchers watched half of therough cut. We stopped the video and discussed placeswhere further details were needed.

Carol: Can you suggest a place where music couldbe added?

America: When Amelia was next to the stone thereshould be, like sad music.

Jorge: Like the one that they sing at the church. Likethe bells.

Carol: Oh what song is that?Rodrigo: The bells.

Carol: When they ring the bells.Cristina: They ring the bells at six o’clock.

Donna: It’s longer than just the chimes.Maria: That sounds like it would be a nice sound then.

Rodrigo: At noon and six.Maria: Everyday?

Rodrigo: Yeah, everyday.

Consensus for the addition of the church bells wasreached and the Vesper songs were recorded that eve-ning at 6:00 p.m. Negotiating the addition of the churchbells to Amelia’s piece was gratifying because everyone

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was concerned about authenticating details. It was as ifthe story belonged to everyone. This sense of belongingand respect for local details contributed to preservingstudents’ culture, a premise of cultural citizenship. Atthe same time the negotiated details met one of the crite-ria for videopoetry. Sponder and Kurkjian (2001) ex-plained, “the creation of videopoems necessitates thecollaborative construction of a shared meaning of apoem” (p. 20). It was through the collaborative negotia-tion of meaning that the editing team took on similarcharacteristics as Benmayor (2002) reported in her cul-tural citizenship project with college students. She “al-lowed [her] students and [herself] to position [them-selves] in a more complex, dialogic relationship ascollaborators, co-scholars, and interlocutors engaged inapplied learning and action research” (p. 118).

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What am I?by Rodrigo (2002)

I am from spicy chile to spicy salsa.I am from football and baseball games.I am from down town.I am from Texas to Mexico.I am from different cultures.

In an after-school writing club during the spring of2002, Rodrigo wrote this poem. At that time he was nota reluctant writer. In fact, he included six publications inthe Cactus Club Writing Anthology sponsored by Hechoen Encinal and the South Texas Writing Project. Rodrigowrote about various topics including his name, charac-teristics of the small town where he lived, and his favor-ite teacher, among others. Like his sister, Amelia, he at-tended the after school programs at Hecho en Encinalconsistently. Rodrigo usually had funny or interestingstories about events and people at school, the church, thecity council, and so on. Any new guest to the communitycould always count on Rodrigo telling stories to makethem feel at home. As can be seen in his poem “Whatam I?” Rodrigo was aware of and willing to share abouthis bicultural identity.

Nonetheless, in the July 2003 summer workshop,Rodrigo, a soon-to-be seventh-grader, was not interestedin writing. Although he attended regularly and partici-pated in oral discussion, he was reluctant to write. Al-though Rodrigo was attracted to the idea of making avideopoem, none of the prompts elicited connections forhim. He had ideas for other students’ writings andstoryboards, but during the last week of the workshop hestill did not have a written piece to transform into avideopoem. On the production day of Amelia’s

videopoem, Rodrigo walked into the trailer with a news-paper article about the recent demolition of the oldCotulla High School. Rather than constructing a sketchand list of materials needed for filming like Amelia haddone, Rodrigo’s storyboard was a visualization plan. Thefirst step in his mental sketch was to film in Cotulla atthe location of the site where the high school buildingrecently stood. Next, Rodrigo pictured himself as anon-site reporter. He wanted the film crew to go with himto the demolished high school site and to his school,Neuman Middle School. Finally, he envisioned an inter-view with his Tia Rosie who, in earlier decades, hadtaught at the razed high school. His storyboarding wasnovel, but the production team approved. This opportu-nity transformed Rodrigo from the reluctant writer to anexquisite investigator of communal memories.

At the demolished site Rodrigo held a microphoneand reported:

We’re here in Cotulla in front of what used to be the oldhigh school. … Before it was torn down there was a wholebunch of people here … trying to get in. They were formerstudents who came here … they just wanted to get in to seetheir high school one last time. … They went to schoolhere and what I think is that they want[ed] to have thememories of it … if they tore it down, they might forget thememories. (Transcript, July 31, 2003)

He planned to support his claim that residents fearedlosing their memories. Thus, Rodrigo wrote questions toask his Tia Rosie during his investigative interview.Sample questions from his notes included (a) What werethe activities in the high school? (b) How big was theschool in the year 1935? (c) Why did they abandon theschool? (d) Why did they not repair the school? (e) Wasit a very good school? These questions demonstratedRodrigo’s interest in documenting a piece of the educa-tional history of his communities (Encinal and Cotulla).

The writing prompts that were introduced during thefirst 2 weeks of the summer project prompted Rodrigo tovisually think with others but not to write his own per-sonal piece. A colleague in the National Writing Projectwho works with English as a second language highschool students recently asked the same question that weasked ourselves that summer: Does a student have to usepen and paper before we can call it writing? WhenRodrigo brought the newspaper article it was clear thathe had mental pictures that served as prompts for thecreation of his videopoem. Although Amelia was re-sponsive to the traditional writing workshop setting usedduring the summer project, Rodrigo appeared con-strained in the workshop format. Instead, he was able tofind his own prompt for advancing aesthetic understand-ing of visual poetry. The contrast between Amelia’s re-sponse and Rodrigo’s response during the writing work-

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shop may reflect a view of what counts as a culturallyrelevant text (a book rather than a newspaper) or a pieceof writing (pen and pencil vs. microphone and camera)that is not as permeable and dynamic (Dyson, 2003) asneeded to meet the needs of reluctant writers.

Once Rodrigo was able to interact with the cameraand record real people from his life, he was able to as-sert claims to Latino cultural citizenship. He did this bytaking part in the historical recovery of the community’spast. According to Benmayor (2002) “memory is wherecultural citizenship and oral history meet” (p. 118).Rodrigo’s interview of his Aunt Rosie elicited an oralhistory.

In spite of some constraints Amelia and Rodrigo tookup opportunities to use their cultural assets in visual lit-eracy activities offered at Hecho en Encinal. Accordingto Yenawine (1997), visual literacy is a set of slow-de-veloping skills and understandings regarding the inter-pretation and production of images. To be visually liter-ate students are able to understand, analyze, interpret,and gain meaning within the cultural context in which animage exists.

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Literacy researchers agree that diverse narratives arecreated and thrive in student-centered learning environ-ments that provide “opportunities that open conversa-tions to discuss difference” (Van Sluys, 2003, p. 182).We have shown how Amelia and Rodrigo’s writing ex-periences show a wide range of differences even thoughthey are siblings living in the same rural community. Onthe one hand, we learned Amelia responded well to tra-ditional writing process practices. She wrote with cul-tural authority in producing a videopoem. On the otherhand, Rodrigo’s responses to traditional writing promptswere inconsistent. Although he was comfortable writingabout his bicultural identity, he was not at ease begin-ning his videopoem with pen and pencil. Instead, hefound his own culturally relevant material and used it totry on the role of an investigative reporter. His unortho-dox approach to videopoetry resulted in a powerful storythat preserved a piece of his community’s history fromthe point of view of a U.S. Mexican elder. By engagingin the production of the videopoem Rodrigo was trans-formed into a cultural investigator committed to the cul-tural preservation of aspects of community life. He wasable to bridge the funds of knowledge available from hiscommunity within a visual literacy framework. In theseways, both Amelia and Rodrigo participated in the pro-cess of constructing strong cultural identities at Hechoen Encinal. With help and guidance from artists-in-resi-dence during the summer project, they took responsibil-

ity for providing authentic details to their claims tocultural citizenship as U.S. Mexicans of Encinal, Texas.

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The study of Amelia and Rodrigo suggests that edu-cators and researchers interested in revising cultural re-lations would do well to trace the ways that children intheir writing and visual representations claim, affirm,and develop their cultural citizenship. Guided by this as-sumption, we make the following recommendations toimprove learning for U.S. Mexican students:

• Planning literacy activities that can transform stu-dents’ individual texts into a collectively producedtext such as a videopoem.

• Providing culturally relevant texts that assist stu-dents to respond by establishing cultural authorityin their writing.

• Asking for student’s views and interests when se-lecting culturally relevant texts.

• Working collaboratively with community-basedarts organizations to provide a broad range of op-portunities for the affirmation and development ofcultural citizenship through the visual arts.

The last recommendation is particularly germane inan era of high-stakes testing that no longer supports aformal arts program in public schools. Through collabo-ration with arts-based organizations such as Hecho enEncinal, schools can provide children opportunities forvisual learning. Artists-in-residence often know that stu-dents who struggle with the language arts (reading, writ-ing, speaking, listening, and visually representing) findinspiration when they have the option to access aca-demic knowledge through the visual arts. There is tre-mendous potential when the visual arts are coupled withopportunities to affirm one’s cultural citizenship.Therein lies the beauty of our inquiry project. Hecho enEncinal currently provides artists-in-residence twice amonth at Encinal Elementary. These visual artists usetraditional forms of visual literacy such as creative writ-

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ing, quilting, and ceramic making as well as visual me-dia literacy projects such as videopoetry to engage stu-dents critically with their culture. In this way studentsbecome media-literate. They are able to evaluate mediafor credibility and understand how words, images, andsounds influence the way meanings are conveyed andunderstood in contemporary society.

Although the extent to which the interpretations fromthis study are transferable to other people within thesame population is limited, future research regarding ef-fective literacy for U.S. Mexican students can benefit byconsidering ways that cultural citizenship is visible orinvisible in student products. Educators ought to makeevery effort to make claims for and questions of culturalcitizenship visible in the literate lives of children livingwithin and among the many borderlands of the 21stcentury.

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