Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 3 - 60

Freedom Dreaming
FREEDOM DREAMING OFFERS A NEW PARADIGM that centers the
experiences and realities of Latinx students on college and university campuses
and re-imagines residence halls as liberatory spaces. Referencing the legacy of
racism and the experiences that Latinx students have with microaggressions and
other forms of oppression, this article highlights how specific models like Yosso's
cultural wealth framework and Latinx values like familismo can be used to create
liberatory spaces in residence halls. Residence life should include opportunities
for staff to recognize, examine, and respond to microaggressions and work to
create spaces where Latinx students can share their culture and life experiences
and feel more closely connected to the larger residential community.
" All social justice work is science fiction. We are imagining a world free of injustice,
a world that doesn't yet exist. " ~ adrienne maree brown
A
lthough a well-known Latinx adage is " Mi casa es su casa, " meaning " My
house is your house, " my mother preferred " estás en su casa, " roughly translated
as " you are home. " My mother expected guests to treat everything from
the refrigerator's contents to all the furnishings as their own. My mother was calling
on the cultural assets of familial capital (Yosso, 2005) and familismo, which Azpeitia
and Bacio define as " the sense of providing support, acting in reference, and feeling an
obligation to the family " (2022, p. 924). Cultural and familial capital serve as frameworks
that demonstrate dedication and loyalty to biological and non-biological family
and thus represent critical contributions to creating a supportive environment for Latinx
students (Germán et al., 2009; Montoro & Ceballo, 2021; Romero & Ruiz, 2007;
Sabogal et al., 1987). In education, these cultural strengths have an established positive
effect on Latinx students at all levels.
Racist stereotypes (Foste, 2021), microaggressions (Harper et al., 2011), and exclusion
from equal access to residence halls (Bronkema & Bowman, 2017) can negatively
impact the experience of Latinx students. Given the burgeoning influx of Latinxs in the
United States (Office of Minority Health, 2023; United States Census Bureau, 2018)
and within higher education (Hernandez & McElrath, 2023), an application of Latinx
cultural values and assets is of significance in freedom dreaming, which involves visualizing
a new world that centers and celebrates the lived experiences of marginalized
populations (Kelley, 2002). This demands a level of critical transformation (Harro,
2018) that requires dismantling and challenging old racist paradigms in order to build
toward a new reality. Impossible to accomplish without an accounting of what has
stood in its place and the systems that maintained previous ways of being, liberation
for Latinx students in residence halls is admittedly complicated and nuanced.
Volume 50, No. 3 * 2024 57

Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 3