LatinX in Social Work: Tales That Heal, Encourage, and Join Communities, by Erica Priscilla Sandoval, ISBN 9781952779763, Fig Issue Media Publishing, 2021, 270 pages, $19.97 paperback, $9.99 Kindle.
To actually perceive an individual, we should know one’s expertise, impacted by their intersecting identities, inside their socio-political historical past, from their particular person and distinctive lens. Latinx in Social Work: Tales That Heal, Encourage, and Join Communities by Erica Priscilla Sandoval does this. Sandoval brings collectively a montage of the numerous life occasions, tales, and truths that spotlight the range of Latinx individuals.
Sandoval assembled 22 Latinx authors representing a myriad of life experiences. Heritages represented, to call a couple of, embrace Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Columbia, and Paraguay. Social identities embrace Black Latina, Queer, Jewish, Catholic, Afro Latina, cisgender, Garifuna American, and extra.
In a time when a lot of mainstream society makes an attempt to outline Latinx individuals with a myopic lens, constraining a various neighborhood to a predefined field, Sandoval’s textual content is a powerful counter-response. Every chapter walks you thru the distinctive journeys skilled by the writer as an individual who’s Latinx and a Latinx social employee. No two chapters are alike, but there are frequent threads: pleasure in a single’s heritage, resilience, navigating micro aggressions to macro assaults, traversing oppressive methods, difficult colonization, standing collectively, and self-care. Authors share challenges skilled in life from their distinctive Latinx lens whereas highlighting the resilience and energy of Latinx individuals.
Dr. Lausell Bryant (Chapter 7) reminds us that “our ancestors did what they wanted to do to outlive the hostilities they confronted, in order that we might have the alternatives we did” (p. 93). Every writer implores us to not lose sight of who we’re or the place we got here from. To paraphrase Madeline Maldonado (Chapter 4), maintain on to your “secret sauce.”
As a Latinx, cisgender, Nicaraguan American social employee, born and raised within the South, I didn’t discover my story in these chapters. Nor ought to I anticipate finding “my” story, as all Latinx individuals are distinctive. I did discover items of various tales that resonated with my story and in flip helped validate my experiences. If you find yourself one in every of a handful of Latinx individuals, discrimination and oppression may be internalized: it should be me. Nonetheless, a extra vital look reveals that this internalized feeling is admittedly racism and discrimination. (Learn Dr. Collazo’s dialogue about “imposter phenomenon” in Chapter 9.)
Sandoval shares that her aim with Latinx in Social Work was to create “a motion that’s dedicated to proudly owning our personal narratives, naming frequent however unstated struggles and challenges, and driving our personal therapeutic from the previous, whereas highlighting our successes and creating an area for hope for the long run” (p. 10). This textual content, these diversified voices, and the reflective questions posed ignite the motion. The willingness of the authors to be weak and share their journeys is a reminder to all Latinx social staff (and others) that we’re not alone, and our tales are all the time evolving. We should hear and see each other as we stand collectively working for a extra simply society. “Si se puede—pero nunca a solas, siempre con apoyo. Sure, we are able to, however not alone, all the time with assist” (p. 94).
Reviewed by Laura E. Escobar-Ratliff, DSW, DSW Program Director and Scientific Assistant Professor within the Faculty of Social Work on the College of Kentucky.
