By Marissa Wells
Contributing Writer
“How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America,” by Laura Chavez-Moreno, is an insightful new book that explores how schools shape the understanding of race and the Latinx racial category.
It highlights the complex interplay among educational practices, policies, pedagogy, language and societal ideas, showing how these dynamics form, reinforce and blur the boundaries of racialized groups — creating contradictions in classrooms and communities committed to antiracism.
The book was inspired by questions students asked both in her classroom and classrooms that the author observed.
“Students often ask profound, thoughtful questions about race that deserve meaningful answers,” Chavez-Moreno said. “I believe these answers should address the complexities of race and racism, offering students the critical tools they need to deepen their understanding of these issues.”
The ongoing public debate about whether Latinx is a racial category or an ethnicity further sparked the author’s curiosity and motivation to write the book.
“That debate made me question my own understanding of race and compelled me to explore it more deeply,” she said. “I realized others shared my questions and I wanted this book to be a contribution to collective thinking on this topic.”
“How Schools Make Race” is intended for educators, students, parents, and school or district leaders who are devoted to fostering justice in education.
The author hopes readers will gain a deeper understanding of race, not just as an identity, but as a social construct shaped by the unequal distribution of resources.
“I want readers to recognize the crucial role communities play in supporting teachers as professionals, enabling them to provide lessons that critically address race and racism,” Chavez-Moreno said. “Instead of debating whether schools should teach about race, I hope communities can focus on how to support teachers in developing students’ critical racial consciousness.”
In addition to being an author, Chavez-Moreno is a researcher, qualitative social scientist and assistant professor at UCLA in the Department of Chicana/o & Central American Studies and Education. She is based in Los Angeles. For more information about the author and her work, visit laurenchavezmoreno.com.
“How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America” is available for $42 (paperback) and $34 (eBook) online via Harvard Education Press, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop and Amazon. The book may be requested at local libraries and university libraries as well.
