Creative Literacy in Focus: Bridging Social Justice Literature with Visual Art in Our Borderlands
Elizabeth Gaxiola

This vignette explores how using photo collages based on social justice-themed literature has enriched students’ learning experiences, fostering empathy, critical thinking, and community dialogue. Through innovative assignments like photo collages, students explore moving themes of immigration, identity, and resilience, using visual storytelling to express their interpretations and reflections. These pedagogical strategies are empowering students to navigate complex social issues and emerge as informed, compassionate advocates for change in their communities and beyond.

During the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer 2023 Institute, “We the People: Migrant Waves in the Making of America,” I encountered numerous children’s, young adult, and fiction books that made me realize the profound influence they harness in raising awareness about social justice issues within our local, national, and global communities. Through this exposure, I gained further insights into a diverse array of topics, including immigration, identity, water rights, language rights, discrimination, racism, and more.

Upon gaining this new knowledge, I immediately began contemplating ways to share it with undergraduate students. Since 2020, I have been instructing first and second-year students at Pima Community College in Mexican American Studies and American Indian Studies. Located in the breathtaking landscapes of the Southwestern United States, Pima Community College serves Tucson, Arizona and its surrounding communities, offering educational opportunities to approximately 17,000 students. The student body reflects a diverse composition: 48.2% Hispanic or Latinx, 36.5% White, 4.61% Black or African American, 2.84% Asian, 2.77% two or more races, 1.88% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.34% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders. The course where I applied the book suggestions from the institute was primarily attended by Mexican American and Latinx students, ages between 18 and 50.

For several years, I have embedded arts-based pedagogies into my teaching practices in Mexican American Studies, American Indian Studies, and Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural courses. These courses integrate a focus on social justice, and the use of arts-based approaches has been essential. This approach enables students to express themselves through art rather than conventional written assignments. By incorporating these arts-based methods, the learning experience for students can be profoundly enhanced, offering alternative avenues for learning, self-reflection, and active engagement. Moreover, these teaching methods foster creativity and innovation, vital skills in today’s technological world, while encouraging students to become socially conscious contributors to their communities.

At the start of the semester, I engage students in discussions about the social issues affecting them and their Latinx communities (Josiowicz & Coronado, 2023). This approach is important for several reasons. It makes the academic content more relevant and engaging by connecting it to students’ personal experiences. Understanding the real-world impact of social issues provides important context for theoretical concepts and nurtures a supportive learning environment. These conversations also encourage critical reflection, helping students to develop deeper insights and cultural competence. By addressing these topics early on, we create a classroom atmosphere where students feel seen, valued, and motivated to connect their learning with their lived realities, ultimately promoting a more inclusive educational experience. They also upload artifacts, encouraging them to select arts-based pieces that resonate with the weekly readings, videos, or discussions, supporting a more personalized learning experience as they explore the impact of inequities faced in their Latinx communities. These assignments and pedagogical methods help students prepare for their photo collages as they internalize and articulate complex ideas more vividly and creatively.

I designed an assignment inspired by the text sets I explored during the institute. The assignment prompt was as follows: “Select a book from the provided list or of your own choosing and produce a collage to present to your classmates during class. The collage, composed of images or photographs (including ones you have taken), should reflect your understanding of the book’s concepts, themes, major ideas, and your personal connections, reflections, and reactions.” Once the collages are created, they are submitted to our class Padlet, a digital communications platform that facilitates sharing and interaction among students. I have utilized this platform for several years, enhancing engagement and enjoyment in interactions between students and the instructor.

Students’ Photograph Collages

This section provides examples of students’ photo collages, their take-away or connection with the book and brief summaries of the books they chose. Several students chose the picturebook, Hear My Voice.

Book summary: Hear My Voice: The Testimonies of Children Detained at the Southern Border of the United States. Escucha Mi Voz: Los testimonios de los jóvenes detenidos en la frontera sureña de los Estados Unidos, edited by Warren Binford (2021), gathers firsthand stories from children detained at the U.S./Mexico border, revealing the harsh realities they endure such as poor conditions, family separation, and profound emotional tolls. Bilingual Spanish/English.

Maribel: “Hear My Voice is a great book and even though this is a family book, it really projected the voices of the children being detained at our border detention centers. It really brings awareness to an ongoing issue that has been happening here in our country. I just think it’s very controversial that America, which is a country known to protect and aid weak and vulnerable countries that are being attacked, is putting weak and vulnerable children in this situation. It’s hard to believe that here on U.S. soil there are camps, detention centers where children are being traumatized for weeks and months at a time to ‘protect our country.’ Any human being can see that the future of these minors is being taken from them, because of this detainment. This very unfortunate event, considering their age group, will surely live with them for the rest of their lives.”

Lydia: “This collage depicts the children who were put into detention centers for crossing the border. As you take a closer look at the children, we see they each have a color bordered around them. These are what the following colors represent: red represents aggressiveness, blue represents dullness, teal represents fussiness, pink represents weakness, purple represents immaturity, white represents coldness, and finally truly inside the children is black which represents lifelessness. Some of these children are looking up into the sky and some are playing and have no idea of what is happening as their life is changing. As we can see the children are standing on the American flag which represents the soil of the United States of America. We see the red text of what the children would say to the guards in charge of watching over these children begging for necessities, the red represents the color of desire. They desire the comfort of their family, the coldness, and the sickness they have in the cages. We do see a barbed fence that is broken to represent what’s really on the other side of the ‘land of the free.’

As we move up in the photo, we see more of the food that is falling from the sky, just a few things that are given to the children. These meals are given three times a day, but they lack what is needed for these children shows how little it is. The flashlight represents how these children are awakened every night to do a body count and all they say to them is ‘get up.’ I chose this font because I wanted to capture the boldness of this font as well as the scariness of these guards. Most of these children do not speak English so it would just sound scary and bold. We see a bird in a cage locked up. The bird represents the freedom of these children locked up in a cage as well. We see these insects flying away from the children some of them have a white ribbon around them. The white ribbon represents the loss of purity within these children. The butterfly is a metaphor for hope, love, souls, enteral nature, and the red dragonfly represents strength and courage. These insects are flying away from the children to show how easy it is to lose hope for most of them. The last insect that is trapped within the children is the dragonfly in the day which represents realizing maturity at a young age. Lastly, the barbed wire separates these children from the feelings they possibly no longer feel.”

Book summary: All the Stars Denied (2018) by Guadalupe Garcia McCall is a YA historical fiction novel set in Texas during the Great Depression and the repatriation of Mexican Americans. It follows the story of Estrella del Toro, a Mexican-American teenager whose family is swept up in the government’s mass deportation campaign. Estrella struggles to bring her family back together while uncovering the truth about their unfair treatment, confronting themes of identity, resilience, and social justice during a challenging time in American history.

Brenda: “All the Stars Denied by Guadalupe Garcia McCall is a fictional book based on a true event that took place during that time period. It followed this family of three, mom, dad, daughter, who were well known in their community of Monteseco as activists. They stood up for their community in times of indifference and fought for their people even when they could/would get in trouble. During the Great Depression, there was a mass deportation in many states including Texas, which is where this story is based on. The police men would do ’round ups’ and would take anyone that looked Mexican or spoke Spanish regardless if they were American citizens or not. The majority of the people that were shipped to Mexico were American citizens and only had been to Mexico a handful of times.

When the family is fighting for the injustices, their house gets set on fire on purpose and the mother and daughter get separated from the father and get sent to Mexico without any information whatsoever. The woman would not get assistance because she did not have her husband around, she had to jump through so many people just to get the tiniest bit of unhelpful information. Everyone that was taken from their home was put in this corral made for animals and left to the weather conditions and little to no food. Through trials and tribulations, hard work and determination to get back home, the mother took matters into her own hands and found her husband, eventually they were able to prove their citizenship but that was one family out of thousands that couldn’t. This whole book really put this all into perspective that we have been fighting this fight for a very long time. So much so, that I didn’t even know about this mass deportation. It was eye-opening and life changing, and I hope that more people take the time to learn about this history.”

Book Summary: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1984) follows the life of Esperanza, a young Latina girl, who reflects on her life in a Latinx Chicago neighborhood. She dreams of breaking free from poverty and cultural limitations. This book of short stories explores themes of identity, community, poverty, and the search for self-expression and freedom.

Noemi: “The House on Mango Street is a beautiful book written by famous poet and novelist, Sandra Cisneros who writes based on her own life experiences as a Chicana woman who grew up in a working-class family. The book seems simple and a light read at first glance but once you delve into the symbolism and metaphors, a deeper meaning is uncovered. Themes of gender inequalities, language barriers, financial struggles, assault, finding identity, and searching for autonomy as a Chicana all exist. Each chapter consisted of a new story about a different person who lived on Mango Street from the perspective of a young girl named Esperanza, a name that means hope in Spanish. The chapters are no longer than three pages and do not offer a continuous storyline. Still, the stories do illustrate Esperanza’s perception of the world based on the judgments she makes about each person she encounters. I included images pertaining to Chicano protests, especially feminism and education because Esperanza’s mother wanted her to be an educated woman. I also found an image of the actual house on Mango Street and the Little Village, a neighborhood important to the Mexican community in Chicago, the city where the book takes place. I also added images of Sandra and some of her poetry. I really liked the book but it was very sad when I began to reflect on the meaning of each story in relation to Chicano struggles.”

Book Summary: Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (2019) is a collection of interrelated short stories that focus on Latina women of Indigenous ancestry in the American West. Each narrative explores themes of family, heritage, love, and resilience, often through the lens of women navigating complex relationships and personal histories.

Josiah: “Sabrina & Corina: Stories has eleven chapters containing eleven different stories centered around young Indigenous-Mexican women in Colorado. I chose marigolds to be my background because they symbolize love and grief. Marigolds were mentioned in many of the stories. I also made the title font purple to symbolize grief and suffering. Many of the stories such as chapters 1. “Sugar Babies”, 2. “Sabrina & Corina”, 3. “Sisters”, etc. deals with domestic violence and violence against Indigenous women, so I added the MMIW seal to represent the murdered and abused women in this book. I added an intergenerational trauma chart to show how extreme poverty, dysfunctional relationships, trauma and violence affects all generations, this was shown in chapters 6. “Galapago”, 8. “Tomi” and 9. “Any Further West”. I added a photo of a woman protesting about the gentrification of her home. This represents the grandmother and her grandchildren who had to move because of high prices and crime due to gentrification in chapter 6. “Galapago”.

In the bottom left-hand corner, there is a photo of herbal remedies which represents the use of these indigenous herbs in chapters 4. “Remedies” and 10. “All Her Names”. The Diné Creation story was mentioned in chapter 11. “Ghost Sickness” and I feel that it meant a lot to the character and the connection to someone she loved. In the top right corner, there is a photo with a mother and her child that represents the special love that these women showed their children in the book. The sugar bag symbolizes the sugar baby that the main character in 1. “Sugar Babies” was assigned to take care of as a real baby. As she dealt with the constant abandonment of her mother, she abandoned the sugar baby. Which can mean that she was getting rid of her anger towards her mother and somewhat understanding her mother’s issues. The breast cancer ribbon is for chapter 5. “Julian Plaza”, where the daughters and father sacrificed their own wants and needs to take care of their sick mother. I felt that the miracle flaming heart would be the perfect symbolism for the love that was in this book. While many parts were truly sad, there were so many parts filled with love. I definitely recommend reading this book!”

Book summary: Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 by George J. Sánchez (1993) explores how Mexican immigrants and their descendants navigated identity and community formation in early 20th century Los Angeles amidst labor markets, discrimination, and cultural adaptation. The book highlights the complexities of forging a Mexican American identity within urban America.

Luis: “Becoming Mexican American Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 by George J. Sánchez examines the cultural adaptation of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles from 1900 to 1945 and its impact on Chicano identity. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 covers historical context of Mexico during the 1900s and the history of Mexican in LA during the 1900s up to the great depression. Part 2 talks about how Mexico and America wanted to secure the identity working class of Mexicans. Both failed as this cultural identity of being both American and Mexican cultivating is what part 3 goes more in depth on. Part 4 was about the community’s response to the Great Depression and how Americans treated Mexicans during it (deportation, racism). Sánchez highlights the complexities Chicanos had to experience during the earlier 20th century and challenges previous immigration culture and how it grew in LA. I thought the book was very informative and interesting to see that Chicanos built this sense of identity and culture, even when both of their identities (American and Mexican) treated them wrong.”

Impact of Photo Collages

As seen in the photo collages, reflections, and conversations with students, using photo collage assignments serves several important purposes:

• Photo collages provide a creative and interactive way for students to engage with course materials. They move beyond traditional written assignments, allowing them to express their understanding and interpretations visually. This hands-on approach often results in higher levels of engagement as students can connect personally with the subject matter.
• Creating a collage requires students to critically analyze the themes, concepts, and ideas presented in the literature they are studying. They select images that reflect these elements and explain how they relate to the text. This process encourages deeper reflection and synthesis of information, fostering critical thinking skills.
• Including both pictures and text in learning materials caters to a variety of learning styles. This approach recognizes that students learn in various ways and gives them a chance to show what they understand through visual means. By using different arts-based methods, including collages, learning becomes more effective because it meets the different strengths and preferences students have.
• Photo collages allow students to incorporate personal reflections and reactions into their assignments. They can use photographs they have taken or found that resonate with their own experiences, as a result, making meaningful connections between the literature and their lives. This personalization can deepen their emotional engagement with the material and promotes a sense of ownership over their learning.
• Presenting their collages to classmates encourages students to develop clear and persuasive articulation of their ideas. They must explain their choices of images and how these images relate to the themes of the book, enhancing their verbal communication, visual literacy, and presentation skills.
• Utilizing platforms like Padlet for sharing collages promotes digital literacy and proficiency. Students learn how to navigate digital tools effectively while engaging in collaborative online spaces, preparing them for the workplace where digital communication and collaboration are essential skills.
• Using photo collage assignments not only enriches the learning experience by incorporating creativity and personalization but also cultivates critical thinking, communication, and digital literacy skills among students (Gersenblatt, 2013). This type of assignment empowers students to explore complex topics through a medium that encourages analytical thoroughness and creative expression.

Final Thoughts

The intersection of social justice literature with arts-based assignments enhances academic learning. When students connect books related to social justice topics with their lived experiences through assignments like photo collages, the impact can be significant. This connection bridges theoretical understanding of social justice issues with the practical realities of students’ lives, or that of their communities, fostering a deeper personal engagement with the material. It allows students to explore deeper layers of their identities and cultural heritage at the same time they reflect on the narratives of injustice, resilience, and advocacy in the literature. Additionally, the use of arts-based assignments promotes critical thinking as students interpret and analyze themes visually, using images to convey complex ideas and expression. Beyond academic skills, these assignments nurture empathy by encouraging students to explore varied perspectives and understand societal issues through diverse lenses.

Furthermore, arts-based pedagogies and activities such as found in the web publication, Digital Collages on Social Justice Issues in Education: Perspectives from BA Educational Studies Students (2023) support experiential learning by engaging students in hands-on, creative processes that deepen their comprehension and retention of concepts. Creating visual or multimedia projects requires students to synthesize information and translate their understanding into artistic forms, which can enhance intellectual and emotional connections to the material. This process also promotes collaboration and communication skills as students often work together, share feedback, and discuss their interpretations. Arts-based assignments not only enrich students’ learning experiences but also provide alternative ways to demonstrate understanding, supporting diverse learning styles and encouraging reflective thought, innovation, and creative thinking.

References
Binford, W., ed. (2021). Hear my voice/Escucha mi voz: The testimonies of children detained at the Southern border of the United States. Workman.

Cisneros, S. (1991). The house on Mango Street. Random House.

Educational Studies Students. (2023). Digital collages on social justice issues in education: Perspectives from BA Educational Studies students (Winter 2023). Open Library. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/socialjusticecollages/

Fajardo-Anstine, K. (2016). Sabrina & Corina: Stories. One World.

Gerstenblatt, P. (2013). Collage portraits as a method of analysis in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 12(1), 294-309.

Josiowicz, A. J., & Coronado, I. (2023). Children crossing borders: Latin American migrant childhoods. University of Arizona Press.

McCall, G. G. (2018). All the stars denied. Tu Books.

Ryan, P. M. (2000). Esperanza rising. Scholastic.

Sanchez, G. J., & Loewen, R. (1999). Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, culture & identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. Urban History Review, 27(2), 60.

Elizabeth Gaxiola is a Latina interdisciplinary scholar whose transnational identity has cultivated her research and teaching interests. She received her doctoral degree in Language, Reading, and Culture in Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies Department at the University of Arizona with a focus in social justice and diversity and immigration and education. Her minor is in Mexican American Studies with a focus in borderland studies. Her scholarly interests are border and migration studies, youth activism, activism and artivism, and arts-based literacies and pedagogies. She is a faculty member with the Ethnic, Gender, and Transborder Studies Department at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona where she teaches Mexican American Studies and American Indian Studies.

Authors retain copyright over the vignettes published in this journal and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the following Creative Commons License:

WOW Stories, Volume XII, Issue 1 by Worlds of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on by Elizabeth Gaxiola work at https://wowlit.org/on-line-publications/stories/xii-1/5.

WOW stories: connections from the classroom
ISSN 2577-0551