2022 Articles

Our journey toward racial literacy: A mother and daughter's story

Ruiz, Olivia; Sealey-Ruiz, Yolanda

Talking about race is not easy. For us, the journey in talking about, and seeking to understand the myriad ways race impacts our lives mostly involves schooling experiences. Ours has been a sensitive and delicate journey, one paved with frustration and hurt caused by others' microaggressions and limited knowledge about their own biases. In this commentary, we each share moments connected to our awakening about race through our interactions with others. Moments led us to explore the impact of race on our lives, ones that pushed us toward our own racial literacy development while recognizing that those we interacted with lacked personal racial awareness, and mostly likely had not begun their own journey toward racial literacy.