Tejiendo Conocimientos: Pláticas, Testimonios, and the Pedagogies of Immigrant-Origin Latinx Teachers in New York City

Author

• Veronica I. Paredes, CUNY Graduate CenterFollow

Date of Degree

6-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Urban Education

Advisor

Anna Stetsenko

Committee Members

Anna Stetsenko

Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

Ariana Mangual Figueroa

Subject Categories

Community-Based Research | Education | Educational Sociology | Higher Education | Higher Education and Teaching | Humane Education | Indigenous Education | Linguistic Anthropology | Migration Studies | Other Teacher Education and Professional Development | Place and Environment | Race and Ethnicity | Scholarship of Teaching and Learning | Social and Cultural Anthropology | Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education | Social Justice | Sociology of Culture | Teacher Education and Professional Development | Theory, Knowledge and Science

Keywords

Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Testimonio, Decolonial Methodology, Immigrant-origin teachers, Pláticas, Conocimiento

Abstract

This study explores how Latinx immigrant-origin teachers draw on their cultural knowledge, lived experiences, and identities to inform their pedagogical praxis in NYC. Guided by a decolonial orientation to knowledge and relational inquiry, the study examines the forms of conocimiento that emerge when educators share testimonios through pláticas. These conversations created space for teachers to reflect on how migration histories, linguistic experiences, family responsibilities, and community ties shape their pedagogical practices and their understanding of schooling. The study conceptualizes and responds to the persistence of Western Hegemonic Knowledge Producing Practices (WHKPP) that privilege Eurocentric epistemologies while marginalizing knowledge rooted in lived experience, relationality, and community memory.

The analysis is guided by the Decolonial Conceptual Poncho of Conocimiento, an analytic framework developed in this study that draws on the temporal dimensions of the chakana. Through Uku Pacha, the study traces how teachers’ pedagogical orientations are shaped by historical conditions of coloniality, migration, and racialized schooling. Through Kay Pacha, it examines how teachers interpret classroom realities and respond through relational pedagogical practices in the present. Through Hanan Pacha, the analysis highlights how acts of refusal, boundary making, and cultural reworking gesture toward educational futures grounded in dignity, belonging, and collective care. Using pláticas and testimonios as relational research practices, the study engaged Latinx immigrant-origin teachers working in public schools in New York City. These dialogic spaces created opportunities for educators to collectively reflect on their experiences navigating linguistic hierarchies, institutional pressures, and intergenerational responsibilities within schooling.

Findings illuminate four interrelated areas of pedagogical insight. First, teachers engage in bridgework across institutional systems, mediating between families, communities, and schools. Second, teachers draw upon language and identity as sources of pedagogical knowledge, recognizing multilingualism as central to students’ dignity and belonging. Third, teachers intentionally design classroom conditions under institutional constraints, creating relational learning environments despite pressures of standardization and accountability. Fourth, teachers enact intergenerational praxis and cultural reworking, challenging deficit narratives and sustaining community-rooted forms of knowledge within their classrooms.

By centering immigrant-origin teachers’ testimonios, this study contributes to decolonial and community-centered approaches to educational inquiry. It demonstrates how pedagogical conocimiento emerges through lived histories, relational dialogue, and collective reflection rather than solely through institutional or professional training. The Decolonial Conceptual Poncho of Conocimiento offers a conceptual and methodological framework for understanding teaching as a relational weaving of memory, experience, and responsibility. Ultimately, this study invites educators, researchers, and institutions to reconsider whose ways of being and knowing are recognized in educational spaces and to imagine schooling grounded in relational accountability, collective care and oriented toward educational futures that honor dignity, connection, and community wisdom.

Recommended Citation

Paredes, Veronica I., "Tejiendo Conocimientos: Pláticas, Testimonios, and the Pedagogies of Immigrant-Origin Latinx Teachers in New York City" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/6736