Race and Racial Formation in Latin America is a six week long high school curriculum centering student discussion about race and racial formation in Latin America depicted in film and literature in a Spanish heritage language classroom. This unit will focus on racism and race formation in Latin America. The unit will focus on three different areas to demonstrate how racism and racial formation work differently in Latin America: the favelas in Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico City. This unit will focus on race and racial formation through literature and film is intended to use Brazil, Guatemala and Mexico as examples to show students how racism and racial formation is varied in Latin America. Students will explore racism and racial formation in Latin America and be able to compare it to racism and racial formation in the United States using the target language. Students will have an understanding that language instruction in the Heritage language classroom can be inherently racist as a base to start our conversations about race and racial formation in Latin America.

(Developed for Spanish for Hispanics, grade 12; recommended for Spanish and Latinx Studies, grades 11-12)