Is Chicano a type of chicken? Chicana/o social movements through children's literature

An ethnographic literary content analysis examined how Chicana/o social movements, activists, and issues have been conveyed in three children's books for ages 4-8 years: Side by Side/Lado a Lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez (Brown, 2010), From North to South/Del Norte al Sur (Colato-Lainez, 2010) and That's Not Fair! No Es Justo! Emma Tenayuca's Struggle for Justice (Tafolla & Teneyuca, 2008). Findings noted how textual themes such as heroification (Loewen, 2008) of leaders may lead to children's misunderstanding of leaders as larger than life and impossible to emulate. In contrast, textual themes of humanization (Freire, 1970) present in all of the texts could support children to see the real life challenges faced by leaders and everyday people and encourage children to see themselves as capable of creating positive changes in the world. Overall, the study points to the significance of Chicana/o children's literature addressing relevant current and historical events as important to the development of positive identity for Chicana/o children. In addition, developing and promoting a wide array of diverse multicultural historical literature is seen as important for all children.