A Case Study of Liberation Among Latino Immigrant Families Who Have Children with Disabilities

Latino immigrant families with children with disabilities experience multiple sources of oppression during their settlement
process in the United States. Unfair social structures and dominant cultural values and norms and the way they influence the
immigrants’ personal life stories generate a cycle of oppression very difficult to break. This paper presents a case study
of how a group of Latino parents carried out a process of liberation fueled by the generation of empowering community narratives
(critical awareness leading to transformative action) that resulted from a community-university partnership. Participants
initiated a process that led them to discover their own stories of oppression and create new stories; to deconstruct the dominant
cultural narratives and modify existing ones; and to understand contexts for power sharing. This joint reflection and increased
awareness propelled group members to take action by founding a grassroots organization to redress some of the injustices that
were partly responsible for their oppression, thus generating shifts at the personal, relational, and collective levels. In
light of the theory of liberation, we discuss the participants’ development of critical awareness that led them to take action
to address their unmet needs.