Sembrando Semillas, sowing seeds: Reflections on Latinx representations in US community psychology's AJCP.

Latinx have contributed to the foundation and formation of the United States, and as this demographic increases, overlooking their unique experiences and lived conditions can limit community psychology's potential to better support them in their wellbeing. Thus, in alignment with the call for a virtual special issue highlighting critical themes in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP), we take an exemplar approach to reviewing 15 articles published between 1979 and 2023. We highlight these articles for their unique contributions in laying the foundation or shifting the discourses of Latinx in the United States.

Threading a decolonial feminist response to COVID-19: One community psychologist's reflection on the assemblages of violence.

To challenge and interrogate the assemblages of violence produced by racial capitalism, and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, community psychologists must engage in a transdisciplinary critical ethically reflexive practice. In this reflexive essay, or first-person account, I offer a decolonial feminist response to COVID-19 that draws strength from the writings of three women of Color decolonial and postcolonial feminist thinkers: Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Sylvia Wynter, and Arundhati Roy.

The society for community research and action on a path toward conocimiento: From silences and statements to solidarities in action in U.S. community psychology.

A first-person narrative essay is presented through a critically reflexive auto-ethnography of a community psychologist's experiences as a member of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) and (as of this writing) co-chair of the Cultural, Ethnic and Racial Affairs council. Through this methodological orientation, an analysis of some of the discourses that circulated within the SCRA listserv in relation to the murder of Mr. George Floyd, and amidst an ensuing pandemic are analyzed and discussed in relation to Anzaldúa's seven stages of conocimiento.

Dissident women's letter writing as decolonial plurilogues of relational solidarities for epistemic justice.

Braiding our words, "dissi-dance," and desires, this article engages how various social actors, and communities-which we are a part of and belong to-challenge structural violence, oppression, inequity, and social, racial, and epistemic injustice. We thread these reflections through our written words, in subversive letters which we offer in the form of a written relational conversation among us: a plurilogue that emerges in response to our specific locations, commitments, and refusals, as well as dissents. Our stories and process of dissent within the various locations, relationships, and contexts that we occupy served as the yarn and needle to thread our stories, posed questions and reflections.

"This was 1976 reinvented": The role of framing in the development of a South African youth movement.

The literature on contemporary youth organizing has documented psychological benefits associated with participation and some evidence of local political impact. But how do local organizing campaigns transform into regional or national movements? This is a practical question facing youth organizers and one that calls for attention from researchers. In this article, we draw on 3 years of ethnographic fieldwork with South Africa's Equal Education (EE) to analyze collective action frames that enabled EE youth to assert legitimacy and construct shared aims across locales.

Muxeres en Acción: The Power of Community Cultural Wealth in Latinas Organizing for Health Equity.

Community psychology, despite its commitment to social justice, is prone to engage in deficit-based perspectives that do not appropriately capture the strengths of Latinx communities. Given these limitations, we use a Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) (Yosso, 2005) framework to describe how muxeres, Latina women who identify as promotoras, madres, and mamás, leveraged their political power and culturally informed leadership to improve the health and well-being of their communities. We highlight instances from our fieldwork, witnessing the agency of muxeres en acción for health equity.

Decolonial Pedagogy in Community Psychology: White Students Disrupting White Innocence via a Family Portrait Assignment.

A decolonizing standpoint in community psychology is discussed in relation to the Family Portrait Assignment-a pedagogical tool developed and implemented to facilitate white students' decolonial thinking. The Family Portrait Assignment contributes to the limited of decolonial pedagogical tools in community psychology. Through a critical discourse analysis of student's essays, I discuss how decolonial thinking, including a critical sociohistorical examination of colonialism, racism and whiteness, was facilitated.

Toward an Ethical Reflective Practice of a Theory in the Flesh: Embodied Subjectivities in a Youth Participatory Action Research Mural Project.

The focus of this paper is to demonstrate how embodied subjectivities shape research experiences. Through an autoethnography of my involvement in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) after-school program with low-income and working-class youth of Color from predominantly Latinx communities I examined my embodied subjectivities, via an ethical reflective practice, as these surfaced in the research context. Autoethnography is presented as a tool to facilitate an ethical reflective practice that aligns with heart-centered work.

Living on the Margins of Democratic Representation: Socially Connected Community Responsibility as Civic Engagement in an Unincorporated Area.

We examine the civic engagement processes and practices among Viva Live Oak! photovoice project participants residing in an unincorporated area with limited local democratic representation and institutional resources. Eight individual interviews and thirty-one group photovoice meetings were conducted, audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. We describe how social structures of unincorporation shaped community life, and how this unique context informed participants' civic engagement.

International Perspectives on Youth Leadership Development Through Community Organizing.

This chapter details the ways youth community organizing strategies can inform leadership educators' approaches to engaging marginalized youth in leadership development for social change.

"A community with diversity of culture, wealth, resources, and living experiences": defining neighborhood in an unincorporated community.

To obtain a better understanding of how people living in an unincorporated region define their neighborhood, a long-term photovoice project was conducted. Thirty-one photovoice sessions and eight structured interviews were coded and analyzed to assess participants' neighborhood definitions. Participant's difficulties in identifying the geographic, physical and demographic characteristics of their neighborhood led them to use social interactions, place-mediated values, and civic engagement to define neighborhood.