From illiterate assumption to literate potentiality: Harnessing the possibility of parent-of-Color stories

Abstract

A plethora of services in early childhood care and education has not sufficiently resulted in equitable practice for families and, specifically, families of Color across the globe. Despite numerous programs geared toward alleviating literacy challenges, families of Color worldwide continue to experience Eurocentric approaches to addressing the literacies of their children, as well as the practices they hold dear. This insistence on programming that is focused on family literacy and not “family literacies” has created a context where the playing field remains unlevel, and all students are not provided with equal opportunities. Moreover, even with largely sanctioned programming, the potentiality of the multiple literacies of families of Color has been left untapped and thus obscured, making it impossible to identify the meaningful contributions that such families can provide to the field. The authors argue in this article that this obscured potentiality, engendered through centuries of assumptions made about the supposed ‘illiteracy' of families of Color, and inadvertently reinforced by the silencing of parents and families of Color in drawing from the imagination of their children and on the extant narratives of their daily lives, continues to be maintained through Eurocentric mechanisms that tout a false notion of what young children of Color can and cannot do. In response, parent-of-Color stories is presented as a mechanism for recognizing and restoring the potentiality of families of Color worldwide.