The University of Arizona Press
Empowering Latina Narratives
Navigating the Education/Educación Conflict in the Third Space
In this groundbreaking book, author Margaret Cantú-Sánchez takes on the U.S. educational system. Cantú-Sánchez introduces the concept of the education/educación conflict, where Latinas navigate the clash between home and school epistemologies under Anglocentric, assimilationist pedagogies.
By analyzing literature, such as Barbara Renaud González’s Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me?, and education testimonios from seminal works like This Bridge Called My Back and Telling to Live, Cantú-Sánchez reveals how Latina/Chicana protagonists and students negotiate this conflict through a mestizaje of epistemologies—blending elements of both home and school cultures within the third space of education.
Cantú-Sánchez utilizes an interdisciplinary approach, deploying critical race theory, Chicana third-space feminism, and other pedagogical theories like sentipensante (a sensing/thinking) pedagogy employed by education scholar Laura Rendon, among others. By providing pivotal insights and strategies, she demonstrates how educators can implement culturally relevant pedagogies in their classrooms from K–12 through higher education, fostering environments where Latina/Chicana students can thrive without forsaking their cultural identities.
Empowering Latina Narratives not only identifies the challenges Latina/Chicana students face but also offers a roadmap for overcoming them, making this book an essential resource for scholars, educators, and students committed to culturally inclusive education.
“This work is a significant contribution to the field of Chicana/Latina studies because of its focus on education and self-identity. The author pioneers a new way to talk about the internal negotiation that Chicanas/Latinas often struggle with daily regarding their identity and formal vs. cultural education. Cantú-Sánchez’s coined phrase of ‘mestizaje of epistemologies,’ which refers to an inclusive third space of education approach where Latinas accept, reject, and define for themselves how their formal education and cultural educación influence who they are and how they self-identify, gives us a new way to talk about this conflict and negotiation.”—Jody A. Marin, Texas A&M University, Kingsville
