In today’s classrooms, talking about, teaching, or even celebrating racial diversity have been shunned. At a moment when our nation’s schools have become more diverse than at any point in history, teachers and school administrators are mandated to steer clear of conversations on race, power, inequality, and systemic racism. Speaking loudly, and prophetically, into this void is Laura C. Chávez-Moreno’s How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press, 2025). The book is set in two racially diverse schools—a middle school and a high school—in a blue-collar neighborhood with a rapidly growing Latinx student population. Latinx students in the Oakville Urban School district had surpassed Asian American students in the early 2000s and African Americans in 2014 to become the largest racialized group in the district. Both schools offered a type of bilingual education known as a “dual-language program” where classroom instruction is done through an equal balance of two languages, in this case English and Spanish. The goal with this program is to get students to develop proficiency in both languages. To get a good sense of how these programs work, the author spent more than 180 hours in classroom observation, over 50 hours of interviews, and attended countless community and school meetings. At the heart of this book is the notion that schooling in America is a “racial project” (xi).
Chávez-Moreno focuses on how dual-language programs in these schools teach about race and ethnicity, how they make sense of Latinx identities, and the program’s limitations. In three parts, with a total of six chapters, the author discusses racialization, Latinidad, and the consequences of such a pedagogy and curriculum. For example, while not delving much into history, dual language programs offer students simplified notions of race that are centered on phenotypic characteristics and looks. The consequences of this, as the author argues, are that it “makes race be seen as if it were biological” (45). Even as dual language programs engaged in questions around the place of Latinxs in the U.S., and the stereotypes often attached to them, Chávez-Moreno found that they rarely engaged in how language and culture, and not simply phenotype, serve to racialize the Latinx community. In fact, much of the teaching on Latinx race and Latinidad happened, according to the author, “ambivalently” and with little intentionality (xiii). Dual language programs, Chávez-Moreno argued, stay at a “sesame street level” when it comes to teaching about race and identity. As a result, the workings of racial oppression are often left out of the discussion. By not explicitly teaching this, dual-language programs miss an opportunity to teach students the myriad of ways that Latinxs are racialized in the U.S.
Chávez-Moreno’s findings remind me of the work of historians Natalia Molina and Laura Gómez. Both Molina and Gómez delineate a historical look at how Mexican Americans and Latinx populations are racialized through draconian immigration laws, discriminatory practices, and a discourse that continually suggests Latinos are perpetual foreigners. Chávez-Moreno builds on much of this work to understand the context of dual language programs, which often fail to provide students with a broader understanding of Latinx racial identities. To do so in the classroom, Chávez-Moreno argues, what is needed is an approach to teaching that is “ambitious” and sequenced with electives in ethnic studies and Latin American studies (153).
The author ends the book with three important recommendations that, even in this political context, can help teachers everywhere better address the needs of dual-language learners. The first is that educators embrace theory. Race and racism are complex processes that require an understanding of how racial categories change, of the variety of experiences with race, and the ways in which race and racism are ignored because they have become common sense. The second recommendation is to ground bilingual education in ethnic studies. This would expand conversations and curricular lessons to include how power manifests itself within uneven social relations. More importantly, it can help students better understand the variety of manifestations of race and racism, whether through language, accents, citizenship, and gender. Lastly, the author suggests educators reconceptualize Latinx and Latinidad in a way that brings in conversations of racialization and the complexities and contradictions of Latinidad. How exactly these recommendations might be implemented in schools where talk of race and racism are being censored is not addressed in the book, but certainly something that educators will have to contend with going forward.
This book was of particular importance to me. Both of my kids attended a dual-language program from kindergarten to the sixth grade. Much of what the author wrote resonated with me not only as a scholar but also as a parent. Both of my kids grew up speaking both English and Spanish (Spanish was their first language) and so the dual language program made sense. But I always felt like Latinx students were not being served adequately, which is why the point about how “dual language is really meant for the white families” resonated with me so much. I witnessed this day in and day out as Latinx students took a back seat to the requirements of white parents and teachers and an entire curriculum that “celebrated diversity” with little regard to the social, economic, and racialized realities Latinx students faced in this predominantly white school and community every single day.
How Schools Make Race is an important and timely book that equips parents, teachers, and administrators with the language and tools necessary to improve dual-language programs. More importantly, it reminds us that schooling is a racial project that, whether schools are aware or not, shapes how students think about race and power in society. If we want to build a society that is rooted in justice, peace, and equity, then we must continue to improve programs like dual-language instruction so that they can be a benefit for all students.