Discussions on Latino/a students’ interpretation of the opportunity structure and schooling treat racial/ethnic identification among Latino/as as static, despite skin color variation. This article provides findings from interviews with six Mexican students who discussed teachers identifying them as “White-looking” or “Hispanic/Mexican-looking.” Both groups shared belief in the achievement ideology and understood the opportunity structure as fraught with barriers. However, the “White-looking” students perceived themselves as being able to permeate such barriers meanwhile the “Hispanic/Mexican-looking” students believed such barriers affect their ability to “make it” regardless of their aspirations. This study raises questions regarding theories on academic variability of Latino/a students.
ArceC.MurguiaE.ParkerF. W. (1987). Phenotype and life chances among Chicanos. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 9, 19-32.
2.
BashiV. (1998). Racial categories matter because racial hierarchies matter: A commentary. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21, 959-968.
3.
BashiV.McDanielA. (1997). A theory of immigration and racial stratification. Journal of Black Studies, 27, 668-682.
4.
Bonilla-SilvaE. (2004, November). From bi-racial to tri-racial: Towards a new system of racial stratification in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 17, 931-950.
5.
CalhounC. (1995). Social theory and the politics of identity. New York, NY: Ballantine Books.
6.
CandelarioG. (2007). Color matters: Latina/o racial identities and life chances. In FloresJ.RosaldoR. (Eds.), A companion to Latina/o studies. New York, NY: Blackwell.
7.
CarpenterD. (2008). Expectations, aspirations, and achievement among Latino students of immigrant families. Marriage & Family Review, 43, 164-185.
8.
ColonY.SanchezB. (2010). Explaining the gender disparity in Latino youth’s education: Acculturation and economic value of education. Urban Education, 45, 252-273.
9.
DavidsonL. A. (1996). Making and molding identity in schools: Student narratives on race, gender, and academic engagement. Albany: State University of New York Press.
10.
DiamondJ. B.HuguleyJ. P. (2014). Testing the oppositional culture explanation in desegregated schools: The impact of racial differences in academic orientations on school performance. Social Forces, 93, 747-777.
11.
FeaginJ. (2000). Racist America. New York, NY: Routledge.
12.
FergusE. (2004). Skin color and identity formation: Perceptions of opportunity and academic orientation among Mexican and Puerto Rican youth. New York, NY: Routledge.
13.
FergusE. (2009). Understanding Latino students’ schooling experiences: The relevance of skin color among Mexican and Puerto Rican high school students. Teachers College Record, 111, 339-375.
14.
FergusE. (2016). Understanding Latino student racial and ethnic identification: Theories of race and ethnicity. Theory Into Practice, 55(1): 20-27.
15.
Flores-GonzálezN. (1999). Puerto Rican high achievers: An example of ethnic and academic identity compatibility. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 30, 343-362.
16.
Flores-GonzálezN.ArandaE.VaqueraE. (2014). “Doing race”: Latino youth’s identities and the politics of racial exclusion. American Behavioral Scientist, 58, 1834-1851.
17.
FordhamS. (1988). Racelessness as a factor in Black students’ school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory?Harvard Educational Review, 58, 54-84.
18.
FordhamS.OgbuJ. (1986). Black students’ school success: Coping with the burden of acting White. Urban Review, 18, 176-206.
19.
GandaraP.HopkinsM. (Eds.). (2010). Forbidden language: English learners and restrictive language policies. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
20.
GandaraP.OrfieldG. (2012). Segregating Arizona’s English learners: A return to the “Mexican room”. Teachers College Record, 114, 1-27.
21.
GarciaO.WoodleyH.FloresN.ChuH. (2013). Latino emergent bilingual youth in high schools: Transcaring strategies for academic success. Urban Education, 48, 798-827.
22.
GarzaR. (2009). Latino and White high school students’ perceptions of caring behaviors are we culturally responsive to our students?Urban Education, 44, 297-321.
23.
GibsonM. A. (2005). Promoting academic engagement among minority youth: Implications from John Ogbu’s shaker heights ethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18, 581-603.
24.
Golash-BozaT. (2006). Dropping the hyphen? Becoming Latino(a)-American through racialized assimilation. Social Forces, 85, 27-55.
25.
GomezC. (2000). The continual significance of skin color: An exploratory study of Latinos in the Northeast. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 22, 94-103.
26.
GomezC. (2008). Brown outs: The role of skin color and Latinas. In HallR. (Ed.), Racism in 21st century: An empirical analysis of skin color. Springer. Pg 193-204.
27.
HackerA. (1992). Two nations: Black and white, separate, hostile, unequal. New York, NY: Scribner.
28.
HallS.du GrayP. (Eds). (1996). Questions of cultural identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
HollingsheadA. (1975). Elmtown’s youth and Elmtown revisited. New York, NY: Wiley.
30.
HumesK.JonesN.RamirezR. (2011). Overview of Race and Hispanic Orgin: 2010. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved February1, 2016 from http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
31.
JimenezT. (2009). Replenished ethnicity: Mexican Americans, immigration, and identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
32.
KenaG.Musu-GilletteL.RobinsonJ.WangX.RathbunA.ZhangJ.. . . Dunlop VelezE. (2015). The Condition of Education 2015 (NCES 2015-144). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved February1, 2016 from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.
33.
KozlowskiK. (2015). Culture or teacher bias? Racial and ethnic variation in student-teacher effort assessment match/mismatch. Race and Social Problems, 7, 43-49.
34.
KubotaR.LinA. (Eds.). (2009). Race, culture, and identities in second language education. London, England: Routledge.
35.
LeeJ.KlugmanJ. (2013). Latino school concentration and academic performance among Latino children. Social Science Quarterly, 94, 977–1015.
36.
LewisC. (2012). Oppositional culture and educational opportunity. Theory and Research in Education, 10, 131-154.
37.
LukesM. (2014). Pushouts, shutouts, and holdouts: Educational experiences of Latino immigrant young adults in New York City. Urban Education, 49, 806-834.
38.
MacLeodJ. (1995). Ain’t no makin’ it: Leveled aspirations in a low-income neighborhood. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
39.
MaldonadoM. M. (2009). ‘It is their nature to do menial labour’: The racialization of ‘Latino/a workers’ by agricultural employers. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 32(6), 1017-1036.
40.
Matute-BianchiM. E. (1986). Ethnic identities and patterns of school success and failure among Mexican-descent and Japanese American students in a California high School. American Journal of Education, 95, 233-255.
41.
MilesM.HubermanA. (1984). Qualitative data analysis. New York, NY: Sage.
42.
MilnerR.LomoteyK. (2014). Handbook of urban education. New York, NY: Routledge.
43.
MoosaviL. (2015). The racialization of Muslim converts in Britain and their experiences of Islamophobia. Critical Sociology, 41(1), 41-56.
44.
MoustakasC. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
45.
NagelJ. (1994). Constructing ethnicity: Creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Social Problems, 41, 152-176.
46.
NairR.WhiteR.RoosaM.ZeidersK. (2013). Cultural stressors and mental health symptoms among Mexican Americans: A prospective study examining the impact of the family and neighborhood context. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42, 1611-1623.
47.
NogueraP. (2003). City schools and the American dream. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
48.
NogueraP.HurtadoA.FergusE. (Eds). (2011). Invisible no more: Understanding the disenfranchisement of latino boys and men. New York, NY: Routledge Press.
49.
OgbuJ. (1978). Minority education and caste: The American system in cross-cultural perspective. New York, NY: Academic Press.
50.
OgbuJ. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 18, 312-334.
51.
OmiM.WinantH. (1994). Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. New York, NY: Routledge.
52.
OrfieldG.FrankenbergE. (2014). Increasingly segregated and unequal schools as courts reverse policy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 50, 718-734.
53.
OrfieldG.LeeC. (2005). Why segregation matters: Poverty and education inequality. California: UCLA Civil Rights Project.
54.
PattonM. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
55.
PortesA.MacLeodD. (1996a). Educational progress of children of immigrants: The roles of class, ethnicity and school context. Sociology of Education, 69, 255-275.
56.
PortesA.MacLeodD. (1996b). What shall I call myself? Hispanic identity formation in the second generation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 19, 523-547.
57.
RodriguezC. (2000). Changing race: Latinos, the census, and the history of ethnicity in the United States. New York, NY: New York University Press.
58.
Rubie-DaviesC. M. (2010). Teacher expectations and perceptions of student attributes: Is there a relationship?British Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 121-135.
59.
SelodS. (2015). Citizenship denied: The racialization of Muslim American men and women post-9/11. Critical Sociology, 41, 77-95.
60.
SolomonR. P. (1992). Black resistance in high school: Forging a separatist culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.
61.
SongM. (2004). Who’s at the bottom? Examining claims about racial hierarchy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27, 859-877.
62.
StetserM.StillwellR. (2014). Public high school four-year on-time graduation rates and event dropout rates: School years 2010–11 and 2011-12. First look (NCES 2014-391). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch
63.
Suarez-OrozcoC.Suarez-OrozcoM. (1995). Trans-formations: Migration, family life, and achievement motivation among Latino adolescents. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
64.
TenenbaumH. R.RuckM. D. (2007). Are teachers’ expectations different for racial minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 253-273.
65.
TruebaH. (Ed.). (1987). Success or failure? Learning and the language minority student. Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.
66.
WeisR. S. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and method of qualitative interview studies. New York, NY: Free Press.
67.
WildhagenT. (2011). What’s oppositional culture got to do with it? Moving beyond the strong version of the acting White hypothesis. Sociological Perspectives, 54, 403-430.
68.
WillisP. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. London, England: Saxon House.
