The Power of Texas Social Movements to Heal Fear, Inspire Hope, and Build Islands of Sanity in Troubled Times, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Power of Texas Social Movements to Heal Fear, Inspire Hope, and Build Islands of Sanity in Troubled Times

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Nov. 1, 2025

I know there is a lot of anxiety right now in this moment of institutional unraveling. It’s hard not to be afraid or uncertain about what comes next. But I want to suggest a different way of holding this moment. I hope you take a few deep breaths, listen to my vlog, and get inspired 

In times of fear and uncertainty, social movements remind us that hope is a collective act. Across Texas, communities are rising—teachers, students, parents, organizers, and Indigenous leaders—refusing to surrender to despair. Their courage shows that democracy is not a spectator sport but a living practice of solidarity and imagination.

When we stand together, fear loses its grip and anxiety gives way to purpose. Social movements transform pain into possibility, reminding us that power does not reside in institutions alone but in people who dare to believe that another Texas—and another world—are still possible. From the halls of education and policy to the sacred work of land and water protectors, these intertwined movements embody a deep remembering: that care for people and care for the Earth are inseparable acts of justice.

These are the truths we live and build through the Texas Association for Bilingual Education educators movement, the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition, the Ethnic Studies Movement, the Mariachi Music in the schools movement, the Texan Genealogical Society movements, the For the Love of Texas Higher Education Coalition, the impressive youth movement of those involved in legislative battles, and the growing Indigenous and Native American movement—and many other spaces where imagination meets action and where love, courage, and community become the most enduring forms of resistance and transcendence. 

Transcendence. 

Isn't that what we all want?

Each and every one of us is entitled to a life triumphant—a life of dignity, joy, and purpose. And no one has the right to deny us of it.

As the writer and systems thinker Margaret Wheatley (2017) reminds us, our charge in these turbulent times is to create “islands of sanity” in the midst of chaos—places where truth, compassion, and shared purpose can still flourish. In nurturing these islands together, we reclaim our power to heal, to organize, and to dream the future into being. Si se puede! Yes we can!

Reference

Wheatley, M. J. (2017). Who do we choose to be? Facing reality, claiming leadership, restoring sanity. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

America's Future Summit: Unlocking Potential, Advancing Prosperity

Friends, 

I attended this powerful summit by the Latino Aspen Institute last week in Chicago.  

A lot of important information and perspectives were shared.  I encourage you to take some time out to listen to the different presentations focused on such topics as Latina/o entrepreneurship, wealth creation, wealth gap, community empowerment, philanthropy, and policy.

Check out more pertinent links below from CEO Abigail Golden-Vasquez, Executive Director of the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute.  Thanks, as well, to Martin Cabrera CEO and Founder of Cabrera Capital Markets (CCM), for the invitation.  Thanks to Dr. Barbara Flores, too, who allowed me to accompany her on this amazing experience.

Enjoy!

Angela Valenzuela

Dear Angela,

We want to thank you so very much for attending the America’s Future Summit: Unlocking Potential, Advancing Prosperity. We hope that the event offered a great opportunity for building networks and catalyzing potential collaborations. The conversations throughout the day aimed to deepen the national discourse on economic mobility, add nuance and richness to the discussion, and activate inspired leaders to expand opportunities for Latinos and all Americans.

The summit brought the Aspen Institute to Chicago for conversations on Latino economic advancement to some 200 participants of diverse sectors, ages, expertise and backgrounds, including yourself. With over 26 speakers in eight different sessions, the summit contributed to elevating a wide spectrum of voices on unlocking potential and advancing prosperity. The conversations in the room were taken online where #FutureofLatinos trended locally. We encourage you to share the full video of the summit here with your networks.

As we continue to focus on impact and outreach, we invite you to follow us on Twitter and visit our website for updates on our work. A white paper will be disseminated in the coming months with recommendations for expanding Latino economic mobility based on working group discussions.

Finally, if you haven’t done so already, please complete the survey for the event.

Thank you again for joining us. We hope to see you at another event soon!

Best Wishes,

The Aspen Institute Latinos and Society Program

Abigail Golden-Vazquez
The Aspen Institute
2300 N Street, NW Suite 700
Washington, DC 20037

UT's Dr. Adair is doing important research that exposes the deficit assumptions of many classroom teachers of Latino/a youth that is further justified in terms of an emerging "word gap" discourse.  Quote from within:

If we decide to label children by what they are not, rather than who they are and the capabilities they can expand then we are stuck blaming children for what we don't think they can handle.
If we continue to use word gap language for describing young children, we are just as misleading as Texas textbooks in how we label people.
Children deserve multiple and sophisticated learning experience. Let's be responsible with our words.

Rather than helping children, this discourse has unfortunately further solidified deficit assumptions. We should consider instead our children's funds of knowledge and their cultural community wealth, and most seriously, the gulf in sociocultural awareness and knowledge that largely exists between our schools and the children's communities from which they emanate.  Our communities of color also need to be much more involved in their children's education where education and self-determination are adjoined goals.

-Angela 

Labeling Young Children With 'Word Gap' Language Is Harmful

Posted: 10/12/2015 4:08 pm EDT Updated: 10/12/2015 4:59 pm Over the past few years, in my role as an early education professor and anthropologist, I have increasingly witnessed children being labeled at higher and higher costs. And this is happening younger and younger.
Young children in preK are put into red, yellow and green categories of reading success as early as age 4.
The newest label comes from the word gap argument which is supposed to alert everyone to the idea that young children from poor families begin school at a disadvantage because by the time are 3 years old they have heard thirty million fewer words.
Perhaps this doesn't seem like a serious labeling problem. After all, if we let everyone know that poor children will hear fewer words, then the adults in their lives will be motivated to talk and read to them more.
This is not what's happening so far.
Instead, like textbooks in Texas, the word gap argument is glossing over the very real historical and complicated understanding of the causes of poverty that should blame leaders and systemic inequities, rather than on the children and families. And it fails to recognize how White upper middle class versions of speaking and/or communicating with children are somehow inherently better than other families'.
Despite such deficit attitudes towards families, the word gap argument is finding a powerful fan base.
The word gap has received extensive media coverage over the past two years. This includes tremendous support from the White House, national early childhood advocacy groups and major foundations. This mostly positive reception masks or perhaps is naïve to, as I was, to how the word gap may be used to deny children in poverty important early learning experiences.
I was first alerted to this problem when I realized that teachers, principals and school officials in my latest early childhood education research study have been using this word gap language to articulate why they can't or don't give poor children of color dynamic, sophisticated, creative learning experiences. In my work, I make films of classrooms where mostly Latino children of immigrants get to make a lot of decisions, conduct research on their own, gather input and ideas from their classmates, discuss ideas and share stories, resolve conflicts and design projects.
Almost every single time I show these films to teachers and principals at schools that mostly serve Latino immigrant and/or low-income communities, they say that the kinds of learning in the films are good but would not work in their classrooms.
"It seems nice but it would not work at our school. Our kids don't have the vocabulary to do that."
Out of interviews with more than 100 teachers and administrators, almost every single group referred to a lack of words as being the reason to withhold dynamic learning experiences. Not because they believe other types of learning would be better. Not because of testing. Now, the rationale is about the children's lack of vocabulary.
Under enormous pressure with little autonomy, teachers who work in low-income schools are often pushed to deliver the same literacy outcomes with fewer resources. In schools across the country, there is an increasingly narrowed curriculum for many young children but disproportionately for children in poverty. Children who could benefit from multiple, routine experiences to learn through curiosity and cooperative, interdisciplinary types of learning are most often in classroom settings where they sit and memorize and follow directions.
And yet it is the same learning experiences in the early grades that will develop their vocabulary along with a host of other important academic, cognitive and social capabilities.
If we focus a great deal of attention on word count deficiencies rather than the resilience, funds of knowledge and potential capabilities of children and families struggling in poverty, then we will most surely deny them the learning experiences we offer those without those struggles.
If we decide to label children by what they are not, rather than who they are and the capabilities they can expand then we are stuck blaming children for what we don't think they can handle.
If we continue to use word gap language for describing young children, we are just as misleading as Texas textbooks in how we label people.
Children deserve multiple and sophisticated learning experience. Let's be responsible with our words.