“Me dicen negro, pero eso ya no es una molestia para mí”: historias de agencia racial en la escolaridad chilena.

Abstract

What do life stories tell us about the racial agency of black students in educational contexts? What do these stories tell us about the limits, challenges and possibilities of discourses of inclusion of black and immigrant children and youth in schooling? In this paper I discuss the racial experiences of Henry and Michelle, two Haitian students in the Chilean educational system. To do so, I use a narrative approach and show that, contrary to studies in which black students are positioned as passive recipients of racial violence or as victims, Henry and Michelle display a series of emotional and personal mechanisms to cope with and to respond to racial microaggressions in the educational system. This racial agency allows them to face marginalization in the class in a constant dynamic of reconstruction of their mathematical and racial identities.