How K–12 Curriculum Silences Latino Voices in the Classroom
Latino voices in the classroom are often missing from K–12 curriculum. Picture a classroom where students are fully engaged, reading and listening to the histories of the people that make up the United States. A young girl of Mexican heritage who is learning about Juan Crow laws in the 1900’s. She is also reading “The Daughter of Doctor Moreau,” which plants a seed, placing a Mexican heroine at the center of a narrative about identity, resistance, and self-determination.
But this classroom is rare. A report released by Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and UnidosUS found that 87% of key topics in Latino history were either not mentioned or addressed in a few sentences.
The World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews released an article that shed light on the negative outcomes of underrepresentation in the classroom. Students were disconnected, had decreased motivation and a lower GPA.
When Latino narratives go untold in K–12 school curriculum, it reinforces whose stories matter and whose don’t, and narrows students’ imagination of what their future can be.
Why K–12 Curriculum Shapes Identity?
A student’s time in the education system does not just develop their mind. It develops their sense of self. During the years of childhood and early adolescence, students encounter a world beyond the one they are familiar with. When Latino voices in the classroom are omitted from the educational sphere, students internalize the message that some stories matter more than others. The stories and environments students are exposed to shape what futures feel possible for them.
Researchers have found that when students are engaged and see themselves in what they’re learning, they gain a sense of belonging and purpose. Engagement is critical. It drives students’ critical thinking and imagination and shapes their academic success.
Research from the San Francisco Unified School District showed that when 9th graders took Ethnic Studies courses, attendance rates increased by 21 percentage points, their GPA by 1.4 grade points, and their earned credits by 23 credits. These differences prepare them for career success and play a key role in planting a sense of confidence that will drive the student in school and later in life.
Who Decides What Gets Taught in K–12 Schools?
Underrepresentation in school curricula is no coincidence. The Journal of Cultural Analysis conducted a study finding that 64% of authors of books appearing on AP Literature reading lists are White, while 3% are by Latinx authors. Because Advanced Placement courses often shape what high schools treat as “serious” literature, these lists influence what many students encounter as foundational texts. This sizable difference reflects institutional patterns that are normalized while Latino voices are neglected.
For over twenty years, White primary characters, and thus experiences, have been prioritized in literature. One notable example is the book, To Kill A Mockingbird. The central theme is race, while the narrative is largely concentrated around White protagonists, a story about racial injustice still mediated through white narrative authority.
When texts are repeatedly placed at the center of a curriculum, they become canon. As Stanford professor Ramón Saldívar explained during an interview, “Canon formation meant material written in English. That was the crux of the original argument about what counts as American literature.”
From the beginning, language determined legitimacy. If American literature is defined by language from the start, then the texts in English are most likely to be repeated, taught, and canonized. Repetition signals authority. When some narratives are consistently canonical over others, it tells students whose perspective is foundational to understanding America.
What Happens When Latino Voices Are Missing in the Classroom?
In an interview, Dr. Rebecca Salois, a scholar of Latine literature, shared, “I don’t want to be the first one to introduce them to Latine authors because I don’t teach them until they’re eighteen. When they tell me, ‘This is the first time I saw myself in a book’ in 2026, what are we doing? That needs to come earlier.’”
Enoch Jacquet, a high school math teacher in New York City, observed, “In the classroom, I’ve noticed a lot of my students have a negative self-perception. Students are easily demotivated when the task at hand is difficult.”
If students cannot see themselves in the narratives they study, they begin to question whether those futures belong to them.
One of his students confessed, “I’ve seen so many people younger than me achieving a lot more than me.”
When speaking with Dr. Shelly Eversley, a professor of English and Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College, she described a student who read a poetry collection by Afro-Latina poet Melania Luisa Marte and discovered the author had once lived in her same housing complex. “All of a sudden she realized, ‘I can write books.’”
Why Representation Cannot Wait
The imagined classroom at the beginning of this piece should not be rare. It should be ordinary. When Latino voices and literature are treated as secondary rather than foundational, students learn more than content; they learn whose stories define the nation.
In classrooms across the country, students are developing a lens through which they see themselves and their role in the world. How long are we willing to wait before those stories are central? Because when a student finally sees themselves reflected in the words of a book and realizes, “I can write books,” imagination opens up, and so does the future.
