Discursive interactions: Racial ideologies, discourses, and socialization in Latinx families

Abstract Existing research on Latinx racial and ethnic socialization has focused on ethnic socialization, while not fully examining how racial discourses unfold within Latinx families or how racial discourses among family members interact to shape how children understand race. Using racial formation theory, I develop the concept of discursive interactions , which unpacks how multiple racial discourses interact in everyday conversations among family members and shape how children understand race. Using sixty-five interviews with Latinx young adults and parents, I argue that the process of racial and ethnic socialization includes three discursive interactions: parental disagreement in messages, parent–extended family disagreement in messages, and child-parent disagreement in messages. Discursive interactions contribute to research on racialization, familial racial and ethnic socialization, and immigrant incorporation by showing the multidirectional discursive processes of how structural racism is engaged with by parents, children, and other family members and how racial and ethnic meanings and hierarchies are learned and countered in the family.