Cuentos Combativos: Decolonialities in Puerto Rican Books About María

Abstract

Guided by theories of racialization and through a decolonial analysis, we share findings on the examination of four children’s books written in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane María. In engaging with these books, we situate our work in communal and research activist practices that foreground Puerto Ricans’ hidden stories and knowledges. Our initial analysis focuses on mapping the complex and contradictory constructions of diverse sociopolitical perspectives within a Puerto Rican imaginary around Hurricane María, communal and historical agency, and emerging resistance as decolonial literary acts. We then provide a more in-depth analysis of two texts, exploring the themes of estamos bien, delinking, one story/one people, and acción social. Findings highlight the need to engage with ruptures created by texts within decolonial imaginative spaces to improve literacy instruction.

Teaching with Cuentos Combativos: Reading for Decolonial Futures

“…However, it also addresses how people can unite to help each other live, find joy, and keep hope. This book, in this space, was and continues to be a cuento combative , or a text that pushes us to action against injustice (Torres & Medina, 2021). Imagine, a children's book at the center of one of the nights of protest against systemic injustice, coloniality, racism, and sexism.…”

“…Torres and Medina (2021) write, “‘cuentos combativos’ serves as a metaphor to frame the work writers for young audiences contribute to the combative efforts of local resistance and decolonization” (p. 2). Cuentos combativos exemplify texts that engage in storytelling that encourage readers to be reflective of our current reality in order to imaginatively and creatively re‐envision who we are and the spaces we inhabit.…”

Down but not out: Using restorying to imagine beyond the constraints of mandated texts for critical thinking, empathy, and identity work

“…In order to engage with canonical literature in ways that center justice, world building, and the lived experiences of all students in the classroom, critical literacy grounded in imagination must be at the center of practice because of its attention to power, identity, ideology, and the reading of the word and the world (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Torres & Medina, 2021). Luke (2012) highlights that “critical literacy has an explicit aim of the critique and transformation of dominant ideologies, cultures and economies, and institutions and political systems” (p. 5).…”

Scoping the field of literacy research: how might a range of research be valuable to primary teachers?

“…Also included here are studies that provide critical examinations of resources used in primary classrooms, examining how they challenge or uphold inequalities. These include analyses of children's books, such as Hayden and Prince's (2020) examination of representations of disability in picturebooks and Torres and Medina's (2021) study of the 'hidden' literature of Puerto-Rican island-based authors, which they propose as a counterpoint to the colonisation of children's texts post Hurricane Katrina. Others consider resources for teachers, such as guidance offered to teachers on dyslexia, which Worthy et al (2021) argue can be reductive and misleading.…”