Young People Assert and Forge Cultural Identities in the Course of Their Political Activisim within Alternative Spaces - Fazila Bhimji

Oct 15, 2026

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The article analyzes how African American, Latina/o, and White high school students assert and negotiate cultural and ethnic identities while pursuing educational rights in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. It argues that alternative spaces outside formal schooling enable expressions, understandings, and activism, often with minimal adult intervention. Through examples including Philadelphia office-based collaboration and East Los Angeles efforts for Ethnic Studies, the study explains how counterpublics support civic, politicized identity claims and greater awareness of systemic inequities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

The Role of Alternative Spaces

Identity Assertions in Los Angeles and Philadelphia

Theoretical Framework: Counterpublics and Social Justice Youth Development Model

Young People Assert and Forge Cultural Identities in the Course of Their Political Activisim within Alternative Spaces By Fazila Bhimji Fazila Bhimji is a lecturer in the Humanities Department at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom. The article examines African American, Latina/o, and White high school students’ assertions of cultural and ethnic identities as they struggle for their educational rights in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. In doing so, the study illustrates the ways in which alternative spaces outside the formal context of schools facilitate expressions, understandings, and negotiation of identities among young people. In some instances, the young people attempt to bridge their differences and work towards attaining a common goal whereas at other times they may assert their ethnic and cultural identities. The school system tends to separate White middleclass students and urban poor students of color and the state does not recognize cultural identities of many young people of immigrant families. I illustrate the ways in which the young men and women from these cities make assertions of their ethnic and cultural identities while contesting structural inequities in alternative spaces where there is minimum adult intervention. White and African American students in Philadelphia in their struggles to campaign against privatization of schools not only work towards a common goal, but in the course of their activism attempt to bridge their cultural and social differences.They recognize and negotiate their differences and do not adopt a color-blind framework. However, this is achieved because White students and African American students come together regularly in an office space located in City Centre Philadelphia. On the West Coast, in East Los Angeles, young people of Mexican and Central American heritage assert their cultural identities and fight for Ethnic Studies to be made part of the school curriculum. Once again, the young people find the opportunity to express and explore their identities because they meet in a unique setting—the staff of which is composed of socially aware young Latina/o men and women who basedupon their personal experiences, socialize young men and women into becoming proud of who they are as well as gaining a critical consciousness of the issues they have to confront. Additionally, the site where much of the organizing efforts occur is located in a Mexcan and Central American neighborhood which further facilitates self awareness among the high school activists. Theoretical Framework This article stresses the ways in which these young people assert their multilayered identities such that they are civic, politicized, urban, and young while they simultaneously claim their rights to belong. In doing so, these students thus transform their positions and attempt to, as Fraser (1991) explains,“help expand a discursive space within dominant publics,”i.e., oneof rights toa collective, political, and cultural identity. She defines these spaces as “subaltern counterpublics where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs”(p. 123) . Fraser (1991) argues “that counterpublics in stratified and multicultural societies contest the exclusionary norms of the bourgeois public, elaborating alternative styles of political behaviour and alternative norms of public speech”(p. 160) . Furthermore, she calls for the formulation of multiple publics, especially in socially stratified and multicultural societies, arguing that public spheres tend to serve as arenas for enactment of social identities where participation means being able to speak in one’s own voice. Away from the formal domains of schools these alternative spaces allow marginalized young people to be in a position to enact their identities in self empowering ways as well making them aware of larger s

FAQs

Which student groups and locations are examined in the article?

The article examines African American, Latina/o, and White high school students in Los Angeles and Philadelphia as they struggle for educational rights.

How do alternative spaces outside schools affect youth identity and activism?

Alternative spaces help marginalized young people express and explore identities in self-empowering ways, while also increasing awareness of larger systemic inequities.

What theoretical ideas are used to interpret students’ activism?

The article draws on Fraser’s concept of subaltern counterpublics and the need for multiple publics, and it references the Social Justice Youth Development Model to connect identity expression with social action.

Oct 15, 2026

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