"Growing Up Brown in a Border Town"

Title: Growing Up Brown in a Border Town

Commentator: Tanya Barrientos

Lexile Level: 800L - 900L

Qualitative Level (Based on SCASS Qualitative Measures Rubric: INFORMATIONAL TEXTS)

• TEXT STRUCTURE: Moderately Complex
• LANGUAGE FEATURES: Very Complex Conventionality, Moderately Complex Vocabulary and Syntax
• PURPOSE: Very Complex
• KNOWLEDGE DEMANDS: Moderately Complex

Source: Barrientos, T. (2006, May 2). Growing Up Brown in a Border Town [Interview by R. SIEGEL]. In All Things Considered. NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5377330

Format or text type: Audio

Summary & Justification: Tanya Barrientos, remembers how she felt about her Latina heritage growing up in El Paso, the same town where Aristotle and Dante is set, back when "America wasn't a hyphenated nation" and "People who came here were expected to drop their ethnic baggage at the border, become apple pie citizens as quickly as possible and never look back."

She remembers as a teenager being ashamed of her brown skin and trying to hide where she was from, much how Dante feels. Her father sent her to the National Ballet School of Mexico in Mexico City one summer to teach her to take pride in her heritage.

Aristotle and Dante's Mexican-American heritage, especially living in a border town like El Paso, is one of the central ecotones that they inhabit, and one that not even their parents seem to have learned to navigate well.

Additional useful notes:

• This text is accessible enough for students to access on their own or with peers, but because of the format, may be easier to play to the whole class.