“It's Not Just a Book”: Cultivating Spaces of Acompañamiento With Latinx Book Clubs

ABSTRACT

Situated in the Arizona borderlands, a Latina researcher led a qualitative study that utilized anti‐colonial ethnographic methods in three 12th‐grade classes focused on Chicanx and Latinx literature. The study examined how Latinx students responded to reading Latinx young adult literature (YAL) in book clubs in the secondary classroom. She utilized the concept of acompañamiento as the theoretical and pedagogical framework for this study. The findings inform educators of the nuanced issues that Latinx youth experience and how reading Latinx YAL in book clubs can support them while cultivating spaces of acompañamiento with characters as well as their peers, which serve as spaces of community, validation, and solidarity within the ELA classroom. This research contributes to current scholarship on Latinx YAL and book clubs, which can serve as spaces of transformation for youth from historically silenced communities and can validate their lived experiences.