Abstract
Latina/os experience some of the lowest academic outcomes and youth of Mexican-origin are among the most educationally disadvantaged of all Latina/o subgroups. These disparities impact many Latina/o students including our family. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Chicana/o Movement focused on fighting for equality and access to quality education for Chicana/o students. Our parents were among the students who participated in and benefited from this fight. This set their children on the path to educational success. This is the story of how they broke down the educational barriers and set their children up as projectiles that pelted against an inferior educational system and unequal access. Through the lens of critical race theory (CRT) and Latina/o CRT, we use counter storytelling and narratives to demonstrate the parallels between the barriers and facilitators to educational success we experienced and those of Latina/o students. Barriers include socioeconomic hardships and racial discrimination in school. Facilitators include access and opportunities provided through social activism in the Chicana/o Movement, participation in college pipeline programs, mentorship and authentic caring, culturally relevant curriculum, and familism. We provide recommendations for serving and supporting Latina/o students through the educational pipeline.
A critical issue facing Latina/os 1 is the ongoing disparity in educational achievement. Most notably, Latina/os have several achievement gaps in education including poor performance on state standardized tests and low graduation rates (Webley, 2011). Of all Latina/o subgroups, Mexican American 2 youth are among the most educationally disadvantaged and often attend schools where teachers have little knowledge of their cultural or linguistic backgrounds, which can lead to alienation and disengagement from school (Ream, 2003; Valenzuela, 1999). Due to the rapidly growing Latina/o population, the persistent Mexican American achievement gap is a serious concern.
Several explanations for these gaps include individual motivation, cultural background (Matute-Bianchi, 1991; Ogbu, 1991), and the impact of family on academic achievement (Rumbaut, 1997). Since the early 1990s, Mexican American families have received special attention as their home environments provide insight into the complex layers of cultural systems that impact the everyday life of the family and intersect with school (Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Valenzuela & Dornbusch, 1994). The home environment provides helpful information to understand values, level of acculturation, and family interaction. In particular, Valenzuela and Dornbusch (1994) found that students who have extended and strong family ties and whose parents have higher levels of education are more academically successful. Thus, an examination of education attainment through the lens of family can be a fruitful way to understand the educational experiences of Latina/o students.
Drawing on the extant literature, we seek to demonstrate the parallels between the barriers and facilitators to educational success the authors and our family experienced and those of Latina/o students. These barriers include socioeconomic hardships and experiences of racial discrimination in school. The facilitators include access and opportunities provided through our parents’ social activism in the Chicana/o Movement, participation in college pipeline programs, receiving mentorship and authentic caring, learning through culturally relevant curriculum, and strong family ties. We provide recommendations for serving and supporting Latina/o students through the educational pipeline.
As Chicanas 3 who grew up in a barrio in Denver, Colorado, we experienced some of the same barriers to academic achievement Latina/o students face, including socioeconomic hardships and racial discrimination. Our parents’, our siblings’, and our own experiences have shaped our educational paths. This is the story of how our parents broke down the educational barriers they encountered and set their children up as projectiles that pelted against an inferior educational system and unequal access, as our parents strived to change their educational path and the educational trajectories of their children.
Our father, Bill Sr., grew up a military brat, moving to and from different military bases, without a permanent home. Although frequent moves forced him to attend several different schools, his mother always encouraged him to focus on his education. Moreover, he felt a sense of obligation to his mother to work hard in school because she was unable to complete high school. Our mother, Carolina, was born in a small town in northern New Mexico. She was one of the 14 children and one of the only four to graduate from high school. This was a great accomplishment since both of her parents only completed the seventh grade. Working together, our parents challenged barriers to academic achievement and set us on a positive educational path.
Their efforts were bolstered by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which focused on cultural preservation and the advancement of people of color. Its ancillary, the Chicana/o Movement or El Movimiento, fought for equality for Chicana/o students and access to quality and higher education programs (Olken & Rocky Mountain PBS Firm, 2005). In response to these efforts, the U.S. federal government enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965. It, combined with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, set the stage for the initiation of college preparatory programs as well as the equal opportunities program (EOP), which was intended to recruit Chicana/o students into higher education (Delgado Bernal, 1999).
Our father benefited from these federal programs. In 1972, he was admitted into the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder through the EOP (Delgado Bernal, 1999). Together, our parents left their tight-knit, predominantly working-class, Mexican American community in Denver to pursue higher education with the hopes and dreams for themselves and their children. They packed their few belongings in their car and headed to Boulder, a place that might as well have been on the other side of the world with historically few Latino residents (McIntosh 2016a and McIntosh 2016b). Not only did they have each other’s support, but they brought passion and self-determination. This, along with access to opportunities, provided the foundation for their and our educational pursuits.
The goal of this counter narrative is not only to understand our educational paths but also to present a holistic picture of how our family, despite odds, overcame challenges that impact the educational paths of many Latina/os. In addition, we seek to contextualize our experiences in the extant literature on Latina/o academic achievement and the role of family. More specifically, we add our voices to the robust literature that counters the notion that Latina/o families are barriers to academic success (Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Gándara, 1995; Valenzuela & Dornbusch, 1994). Our family experienced socioeconomic hardships and racial discrimination but utilized education as a facilitator of social mobility. In this vein, this project addresses the following research questions: How did the Chicana/o Movement and the larger Civil Rights Movement create access to educational opportunities for us and our parents? What barriers did we encounter in our educational journeys and what facilitators influenced our pathways through the educational pipeline?
Researcher Positionalities
We both identify as “Chicana” and as women of color. Stephanie is the youngest of four children, and Chalane is the second oldest child. We were born to fourth-generation (paternal) and zero-generation 4 (maternal) Mexican American parents who identify as Chicano/a. Our brother, Bill Jr., is the oldest and only male. Our sister Loralei is the third oldest. We lived most of our childhood in the “Northside” of Denver in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Our neighborhood consisted of predominantly working-class Latina/o families (Langegger, 2013) whose children attended low-performing schools with high dropout rates.
Through self-reflection, we both agree we were average students who worked hard and had access to educational opportunities through our schooling. Both of us graduated from high school, college, and earned doctoral degrees. Stephanie received her PhD (2016) in social work and is an assistant professor at Arizona State University. Chalane’s PhD (2010) is in sociology, and she is an assistant professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. When we approached this project, we believed it was critical to understand our own educational journey as researchers and scholars in order to inform our work and find ways to decrease education disparities for Latina/o youth.
Literature Review
The Chicana/o Movement
In the 1960s–1970s, Mexican Americans engaged in a collective struggle for “social political, and economic self-determination and autonomy” (Garcia, 1997, p. 2). The Chicana/o Movement, El Movimiento, evolved from various struggles including the United Farmworkers Movement in California led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. There was also a concerted effort led by Reies Lopez Tijerena in New Mexico to raise awareness about the loss of Mexican land grants and the rights of “dispossessed Hispanos” (Garcia, 1997, p. 2). Moreover, “the urban-based Crusade for Justice, spearheaded by Rudolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales, mobilized Mexican American communities around issues of self-determination and community autonomy” in Denver (Garcia, 1997, p. 2).
A critical focus on the El Movimiento centered in public schools, where student activists demanded an end to discrimination, attention to the high dropout rate, inclusion of Mexican American experiences and perspectives in the school curriculum, and the recruitment of Chicana/o teachers (Garcia, 1997; Vigil, 1999). Notably, in 1969, school walkouts occurred in Denver, starting at Denver’s West High School and expanding to public schools around the state including “North, Manual, Lincoln and East High Schools; from Cole, Kunzmiller, Lake, Horace Mann, Skinner, Morey, Baker, Smiley and Kepner Junior High Schools; and Adams City Junior and Senior High Schools and Kearney Junior High in neighboring Adams County” (Vigil, 1999, p. 85). The walkouts crippled the Denver Public School system and school systems around the country (Olken & Rocky Mountain PBS Firm, 2005). The fight to address issues of structural inequality in education for Chicana/os was at the forefront of El Movimiento. Unfortunately, many of these educational inequalities still exist for Latina/o students today (Anyon, Lechuga, Ortega, Downing, Greer, & Simmons, 2017; Ream, 2003; Telles & Ortiz, 2008; Valenzuela, 1999; Webley, 2011).
Academic Achievement Among Mexican Americans
Noting that Latina/os experience some of the lowest education outcomes, including dropout rates that hover around 14% among those ages 16–24 (Fry & Lopez, 2012) and low graduation rates (U.S. Department of Education, 2017), much of the early literature focused on school failure or lack of academic achievement. The work of Ogbu (1991) and Matute-Bianchi (1991) argued that “minorities” experience school failure due to oppositional identities that reject school and lead to their academic failure. Simultaneously, understanding the impact of family on academic achievement for Latino/a students became key. Early on, Rumbaut (1997) found that the cultural practice of familism was negatively associated with academic achievement. That is, “a deeply ingrained sense of obligation and orientation to the family” was “significantly and negatively associated with [educational] outcomes across the board, net of other predictor variables” (Rumbaut, 1997, pp. 35, 39). Rumbaut (1997) asserted that “family ties bind, but sometimes those bonds many constrain rather than facilitate” academic success (p. 39).
However, the work of Valenzuela and Dronbusch (1994) complicates this assertion by examining the interaction of familism and parental education, finding that among Mexican-origin individuals, familism (sense of family identification, obligation, and support) has a positive impact on academic success, “provided that parents have attained at least 12 years of school” (p.19). They draw upon the work of Velez-Ibanez and Greenberg (1992), which surmises that Mexican American youth are often raised in a “dense social context in which children internalize an expectation of emotional attachment to and investment in a wide variety of relations with kin, who reside in geographically proximate households” (Valenzuela & Dornbusch, 1994, p. 33). Mexican American youth are able to leverage these kinship networks and draw upon their parents’ experience of successfully navigating educational systems. In fact, when compared with whites, who exhibited no academic benefits of familism, familism is more important and can only be leveraged when parents have higher levels of education.
Just as familism can be important for academic success, parental support, such as giving encouragement and monitoring student progress, increases academic persistence for Latino high school students (Mena, 2011) and particularly for Mexican American youth whose parents are involved in home-based activities like helping with homework and having educational resources (Altschul, 2011). Similarly, Van Velsor and Orozco (2007) posit that parent engagement is one particularly effective strategy for improving the academic outcomes for low-income and minority youth. For Mexican American middle and high school students, parent involvement increases their sense of belonging to their school, further increasing their school success (Kuperminc, Darnell, & Alvarez-Jimenez, 2008). Thus, while some research suggests that Latina/o culture is primarily responsible for school failure (Ogbu, 1991; Matute-Bianchi, 1991), others have found that family is an important source of strength, encouragement, and advantage (Altschul, 2011; Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Gándara, 1995; Valenzuela & Dronbusch, 1994).
In addition to identity, familism, and parent engagement, the role of schools in academic achievement has been examined by others (Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Ochoa, 2004; Pizarro, 2005; Valenzuela, 1999). Valenzuela (1999) argues that school practices and policies contribute to the construction of an oppositional culture and subtracts valuable resources from Mexican American students. She documents the ways that schools “are structured around an aesthetic of caring whose essence lies in attention to things and ideas. Rather than centering student learning around a moral ethic of [authentic] caring that nurtures and values relationships, schools pursue a narrow instrumental logic” (p. 22). This, combined with underlying assimilationist school policies and practices that are designed to divest Mexican students of their culture and language due to their curricular bias against the Spanish language, Mexico, Mexican culture and “anything Mexican,” works to erode students’ social capital. In the span of two generations, schools “socially decapitalize” Mexican youth (p. 29). Valenzuela (1999) concludes, “US born, [Mexican-origin] youth are not inherently antischool or oppositional. They oppose a schooling process that disrespects them; they oppose not education, but schooling” (p. 5).
Furthering Valenzuela’s (1999) argument, Pizarro (1999) adds that racialization processes collude in the creation of school failure. His analysis of Chicano/a high school students examines their identity construction as a manifestation of their racialization. That is, students’ identities are formed at the intersection of their gender, class, race, school, religion, and community, but race is most salient. He argues that students’ experiences of racism and discrimination are predicated on the basis of how they are racialized. As such, race comes to the forefront and often relegates these students to the bottom of the racial hierarchy. In response, students often lash out against school and ultimately fail.
Theoretical Framework
Our work is guided by critical race theory (CRT) in education (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) and LatCrit (Moldonado & Moldonado, 2012). The application of CRT (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) provides a lens through which we can interpret our experiences of racism and discrimination, while LatCrit (Moldonado & Moldonado, 2012) highlights the intersections of our identities.
CRT illuminates the way that white supremacy manifests in the oppression of people of color, how it continues to operate in the United States and identifies strategies to actively disrupt it (Anyon et al., 2017; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). CRT theorizes how racism operates and contributes to school inequity, positing that race continues to be a significant factor in determining inequity in the United States. Sólorzano, Villalpondo, and Oseguera (2005) argue students of color find themselves eliminated from the educational system through the school to prison pipeline, racial disparities in discipline, and overrepresentation in school dropout statistics even when accounting for the poverty of their white counterparts (DeMathews, 2016; Skiba et al., 2014; Wilson, 2014).
We also draw on LatCrit to provide a lens to examine the ways in which race and racism explicitly and implicitly impact educational structures, process, and policy discourse that affect Latina/o students (Fernandez, 2002; Oliva, Perez, & Parker, 2013). LatCrit builds on CRT by examining Latina/o ethnicity and culture including experiences unique to these communities. This examination enables researchers to have a better understanding of the unique forms of oppression that Latinas/os encounter and elucidates Latinas/os’ multidimensional identities to address the intersectionality of racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression (Sólorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001).
Method
We use counter storytelling and narratives to elucidate the experiences of our family members including our parents, siblings, and ourselves (Sólorzano & Yasso, 2001). This method provides an opportunity to use counter storytelling (from parent and sibling interviews) and self-reflection to change the master narrative of Latina/o education success. Thus, our stories may better inform educational research to offer support for new research paradigms on how to support Latina/o students.
Stephanie interviewed all five family members individually, including Chalane, and then Chalane interviewed Stephanie. They were asked to talk about their education experience from the time they entered school until their terminal degree using a set of 10 questions (see Appendix A). Additionally, Stephanie wrote responses to these questions in a personal narrative as a way to self-reflect on her own experiences. Stephanie interviewed our father and mother first, followed by Chalane, our brother, Bill Jr., and finally, our sister, Loralei. We provided a brief explanation of the study and, due to the emotional nature of some of the questions, they were told they could respond to all of the questions or only the ones they felt comfortable answering. They were also given the option to end the interview at any time. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. They were given the option to review their transcript and omit any part for the study. All interviews lasted between one and three hours and were conducted at their home or in our parents’ home.
Data Analysis
To analyze the data, a grounded-theory approach was used to generate theory “grounded” in the data. Atlas.ti (version 7) was used to code the first transcript, line by line, to capture the participant’s experiences in their own words. This “in vivo” coding method allowed us to use words or short phrases from the participant’s responses, in their own words, in the transcript as codes (Saldaña, 2013). These codes came from the language and terms from the interviews, helping us get familiar with the data and identify initial thoughts for the next transcripts. We then met to discuss the codes we created and then coded the remaining transcripts similarly. All codes were then organized into families from which the final themes emerged.
Findings
Our goal was to provide a holistic picture of how our family, despite the odds, overcame challenges that impact the educational paths of Latinas/os. We first examined how our parents experienced the education system and how the Chicana/o Movement and the Civil Rights Movement provided access to education. We then shifted the focus on educational barriers and facilitators we encountered as a way to understand how these experiences shaped our educational trajectories. Through this reflection, we began to piece together a clearer picture of our family’s educational survival and success.
We identified the following three themes and subthemes: First, opportunities and access, facilitated by the Chicana/o Movement through the Civil Rights Movement, provided support and residual benefits for us and our parents. Second, all family members experienced several barriers to education. However, two barriers were the most salient, socioeconomic hardships and racial discrimination in school. Third, several facilitators contributed to our success, including college pipeline programs, mentorship and authentic caring, culturally relevant curriculum, and familism.
The Chicana/o Movement and Larger Civil Rights Movement
Our mother and father have vivid memories of the Chicana/o Movement. Growing up in tight-knit, predominantly working-class, Mexican American communities in Denver in the late 1960s and 1970s, our parents were surrounded by political activism, school walkouts, and marches for justice (Vigil, 1999). Our father described the following high school experience: I got involved with the student walkouts, in 1969 or 1970 at North High School. We heard about the Movement and the marches, and students talked about walking out. They had a particular day, they were just going to walk. I remember being somewhat reluctant about it but I went and we actually marched around Denver.…There was definitely a problem with the different ways that they treated the brown kids, no doubt about it.
Our mother was only in middle school when El Movimiento began and recalled, “I knew about the walkouts but my parents kept us home. We were not allowed to go to school. They wanted to protect us.” These events contributed to her growing consciousness, as well.
Although our parents had different levels of participation in the school walkouts, they were both impacted. As a result of the student activism in Colorado and across the country, the U.S. federal government responded by creating opportunities for students of color to pursue higher education and enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965. It, combined with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, set the stage for the initiation of college preparatory programs as well as the EOP intended to recruit students of color into higher education (Delgado Bernal, 1999; McIntosh, 2016b). Our father was recruited to the CU at Boulder through its EOP, and our mother enrolled in a local Boulder high school shortly after our brother, Bill Jr., was born. While Boulder County had historically low numbers of Latino residents, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Latino population, particularly at CU, grew significantly during this time period and as a result of these college recruitment efforts (McIntosh, 2016a, 2016b; Olken & Rocky Mountain PBS Firm, 2005). Moreover, as McIntosh (2016a) notes: In the late 1960s and 1970s, the activities of Chicano students on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus became part of [Boulder] county’s broader history. Not only were there many more Spanish-surnamed students, their forceful stance and participation in national protest movements had an impact on the surrounding community…influenced by the wider civil rights movements of the period—they formed organizations of their own. [United Mexican American Students] (UMAS) was the main Chicano student group in Boulder, demanding changes from the university and becoming increasingly militant as its demands were refused or ignored. In addition to taking over several campus buildings, the students orchestrated mass protests, marches through the community, and boycotts of local stores in response to national issues. In 1974, six young people—most of them currently or previously active in UMAS—were killed in two car bombings. It is still not clear how the bombings occurred, but ‘Los Seis de Boulder’ became symbols of the Chicano cause” (McIntosh, 2016b, pp. 205–206). I saw how people were treated, but I was in the background. My priorities were with my family and taking care of your brother. However, I do remember traveling with your dad to help recruit students to go to college. I got to campus and you are obviously just immersed in it and so I tried to find out as much as I could about the Chicano Movement. There were people with different degrees of participation and I wanted to be active in the movement primarily for the education; that’s what I went to school for. At the same time, I did want to link with the culture, because I did felt like it was important.…. School and going to class was my primary function and I wanted to do it because I was married and I knew that I had to be getting an education if I wanted a better job. So that was an avenue for me to go to college and at the same time have some group participation and to try to find some identity with other Chicanos.
Barriers to Education
Socioeconomic hardships
Every family member described experiences of socioeconomic hardship throughout their lives. Growing up, both of our parents lived in very poor conditions. Our father’s mother died when he was 12 years old, leaving his father to care for him and his four siblings. He always liked school and loved to learn, however, because of financial strains on his family, he worked numerous hours a week in addition to going to school to help support his family. He noted: In high school, I probably worked 70 to 80 hr a week to buy stuff. And up until I got a car, I’d walk miles to work and then back home. After school, I’d walk to McDonald’s and I’d work until 12 a.m. or 1 a.m. in the morning, especially on weekends, and then I’d walk back home.
Although our parents worked hard to overcome the poverty they experienced growing up, financial constraints remained while raising four children. All four children reflected on what it was like to grow up with limited financial resources. Chalane recalled how it was evident to her in school: “We were different, we were poorer. We weren’t wearing the latest fashions and didn’t have all the kinds of luxuries that a lot of our peers did, so I think we were singled out in many ways.” Our brother also remembered our parents’ inability to afford childcare and the impact it had on him from a young age. He began caring for us when he was nine while our mother and father worked full time. He recalled: When I was nine years old, I watched all three of you guys and cooked dinner by myself. So when [our parents] were working, I had to watch you guys a lot, even when they went out or they needed me to do it, I had to watch you guys.
Similarly, Stephanie recalled what it was like when she became a mother at just 16: I went to school until 11 a.m., then went to work until 5 or 6 p.m. at night. It took a toll on my schoolwork and I had to rely on government assistance for healthcare, food, and childcare. I worked a lot of hours, but it still wasn’t enough to care for my son.
Racial discrimination in school
A second barrier all of our family members experienced was some form of racism in school. Some were clear overt experiences while others were hidden or subtle. For some of us, we did not understand what was happening at the time, however, through these interviews and self-reflection, it became clear what we experienced was racial discrimination.
Our mother grew up in a small town and remembered what it felt like living there: “I grew up and felt 13 years of racism, and more so when I started elementary school.” Our father also recalled how he was treated in school when he was excluded from participating in an activity at school: I remember I wanted to play basketball and there was one coach, he was racist as heck, he was like almost seven-feet tall and I went and said I want to try out for the basketball team and he said, ‘you’re too short, you can’t play.’ He goes, ‘go try wrestling.’ He wouldn’t even give me the opportunity. I remember when I began my freshman year in a large middle to upper class white public school. This new school was a huge culture shock from the schools I had formerly attended. It was here when I first experienced overt racism and when I was first tracked into remedial courses. I was placed in a lower level science and math course, but at the time I didn’t mind it since I could breeze through the work and rarely had homework. Mom and dad didn’t question the school and I never let them know how truly unchallenged I was. It was also at this time that peers made it clear that Lori and I were Mexican and that we should go back to where we belonged. On a weekly basis, we received hate notes in our locker with racist messages. The first time I applied [to medical school], there was a white professor that I got a letter of recommendation from. He was one of the science professors at [the University of Colorado, Boulder], and I asked him for a recommendation because they told me that you needed three recommendations, one from the science teacher, two from other people.…So, I came and talked to him one day.…He just talked to me for half an hour and then he wrote a letter, and I didn’t know anything else about him. I didn’t get in. And then the second time I applied, I did everything a little bit differently. I got letters of recommendation from different people. And then when I actually got in, they let me take a look at my file. And so I looked at the letter he wrote, and it was a bad recommendation. It wasn’t a letter of recommendation. It said that I had enough grades and everything but that he thought I would be able to get in because I’m a minority. That’s what it said. This was from that white professor.
Facilitators to Education
College pipeline programs
One of the first facilitators to our success was our parents’ pursuit of higher education through programs offered in response to the Chicana/o Movement (i.e., EOP programs). Our parents were the recipients of some of the first pipeline programs created to increase access to higher education for underrepresented students. Our mother reflected on an educational pipeline program she participated in at the local high school in Boulder: There was a program that would pay students to finish high school and that’s what I did. They had daycare, so I could bring your brother. I started school and they would give me stipends to attend school. We needed the money, so your dad told me to “go get your diploma.” I ended up getting my diploma and they had a small graduation and everything. I got paid for however long it took me to get my diploma. I had teachers that believed in my potential and I had one teacher nominate me for a math and science program held at the University of Denver, the summer before my junior year. There were a total of four students that were selected, along with 15 other students from other Denver Public Schools (DPS). The program was held to expose Latina students from DPS schools to the sciences. I did pre-collegiate.…The Health Sciences Center was running the pre-collegiate program and recruited a bunch of black and brown kids from inner city schools to go to these college campuses, but the counselor had to recommend you.…I never would have gotten nominated by a teacher since I just kind of floated through [high school] but…I got into that program.
Culturally relevant curriculum
Learning about our culture and participating in activities dedicated to understanding and preserving our culture were also important facilitators. Chalane recalled: It wasn’t until my senior year at North (High School) that things started to click for me. That I wasn’t just going through the motions.…I took Chicana/o Studies and I loved it. The next semester, I was [the Chicana/o Studies] teacher’s aide. He really mentored me my whole senior year…and it was through the discovery of Chicana/o studies, history and cultural pride and working with [that teacher] that things started to turn around for me and I connected to school in a more meaningful way. I started college at 17 and I was trying to navigate a whole new world. As I started school, I thought that I was academically ready, but found out quickly that North [High School] had not prepared me nearly enough. I found myself in remedial math and struggled to get through my English, public speaking, and history class, which is often the case for Latino students. The one class that I did well in was Chicana/o studies. This was the one class that I was most engaged in. I read everything on the syllabus and found the stories that I read were just like my own. There were stories of struggles for education, stereotypes of Chicana/os, and examples of how they were liberated. I was once again building my confidence and believed that I could be successful.
Mentorship and authentic caring
A third facilitator that all of our siblings noted was mentorship and authentic caring from an adult who was sincerely invested in our success and well-being. These individuals provided emotional support and connected us to valuable resources. Loralei had a teacher who took the time to get to know her and invested in her education: I started going back to school at North High School when I was a junior and I was doing really well, and I had gotten to know Mr. Orwig pretty well. He was my counselor and my Spanish teacher. And he was amazing. He is a really good guy and I got an A in his class. I aced every single test, I think. I think mainly because the teachers that paid attention to me and the teachers that cared for me are the ones that I cared back for, you know. What worked for me is the ones that cared, and paid attention to me specifically. [In college], I started following all the teachers that I really liked and that made a difference because it’s that relationship building that made a difference.…I did really well my last year and the whole time I was a work study student in the ethnic studies department. I knew all of the faculty.…I got to know the administrators really well and the counselor would let me use his computer. So I found a really good home there. My first experience with a teacher that really cared about me was in the fifth grade, Mr. Gonzales. He saw something in me that I could not and he pushed me in ways other teachers had not. Later on in college, I had a professor that mentored me and helped me apply to graduate school. We spent several hours preparing my admissions application. I would not have pursued graduate school if it hadn’t been for him. Finally, my most recent mentor, Dr. Ortega, helped me find my voice and understand the importance of my contribution in social work.
Familism
The last facilitator that emerged continues to be an essential aspect of our educational success. As our mother reflected on how proud she is of all of our accomplishments, she noted “family, support, love, and always sticking together” was essential to our educational success. Furthermore, our father believed we all supported each other, which led to our success. When asked what he attributed to our success, he said, “You have all contributed and worked with one another fortunately. We fostered it, not just among us. I tried to extend that to where we accept each other and work with each other.” Our brother described how important it was that our parents accessed higher education and set the example for us. Since he and Chalane were the oldest, they utilized the passage of social capital from our parents and in turn were able to guide Loralei and Stephanie in their educational pursuits. He shared: Well, it starts with mom and dad because they were the first to do anything more than just high school. Especially dad getting a degree in college.…So growing up, college wasn’t a different thing, it was just something we knew we were going to do and be successful with it.…. By me doing it, and Chalane doing it, and you guys doing it, hopefully our kids will see that it’s just something that you just do. There was role modeling that was going on. Somebody who you know intimately is successful, so that mattered. I mean, I think it’s been a matter of hard work and parental guidance meeting access and opportunity, people opening the right doors, and then the diffusion of that social capital. So I think it’s a process from Bill to me and then from me to Lora and then from me to you [Stephanie].
Discussion
Like many other Latino/a students, we experienced numerous barriers throughout our journey through the educational pipeline. First, we experienced socioeconomic hardships similar to other Latina/o children, where nearly 33% live in poverty compared with 14% of white children (Kids Count Data Center, 2014). Loralei and Stephanie’s teen pregnancy added an additional layer of complexity as they assumed dual roles as a mother and high school student. In addition to attending school full time, they worked part time and were the primary providers for their children. Like many low-income mothers, they relied on public assistance to aid them in caring for their children. As a recipient of these programs, they often felt shame and stigma in addition to the daily judgment they felt as teen mothers. As young, low-income Latinas, these circumstances forced them to negotiate multiple systems that impacted their educational trajectories.
Second, we all experienced racial discrimination throughout our schooling at the individual and structural levels. One of the most poignant examples was the way in which Bill Jr.’s professor qualified his academic record and odds of being accepted into medical school as a product of his “minority” status. This is not an uncommon experience for students of color whose qualifications are often subjected to scrutiny and dismissed as a product of affirmative action gone awry (Yasso, Smith, Ceja, & Solórzano, 2009). Stephanie’s experience of school tracking is a clear example of structural discrimination that often negatively impacts Latina/o students. Latina/o students and their parents may not be aware of these tracking practices and the consequences they may have for college preparatory coursework and their future academic achievement (Valenzuela, 1999). Moreover, Latina/o students frequently have to negotiate subtle and more blatant forms of racism at school, often leaving them disengaged, disconnected, and psychologically stressed (Call-Cummings & Martinez, 2014; Pizarro, 1999).
Although we faced several barriers pursuing our education, there were a number of facilitators that are well-documented in the literature of Latina/o academic achievement (Cabrera, Miner, & Milem, 2013; Strayhorn, 2011; Valenzuela, 1999) and were essential for our success. First, we were fortunate to be exposed to higher education and all its possibilities through college pipeline programs. Our parents participated in these programs in the 1970s and we in the 1990s. Providing college pipeline programs targeted toward Latina/o students exposes them to the college environment, builds skills needed at the collegiate level, and fosters an academic self-identity (Cabrera et al., 2013; Strayhorn, 2011). Second, culturally relevant curriculum helped us find meaningful connection to school and teachers. Perhaps most importantly, we identified with the content because we could see ourselves in the history and stories of our community and it contributed to our self-esteem and self-pride. We believe it is critical for educators to teach Latina/o students about their culture and the contributions Latina/os have made to society (Dee & Penner, 2017; Cabrera, Milem, & Marx, 2012). In fact, in their analysis of the impact of Mexican American Studies in Tucson, Arizona, Cabrera (2012) found “a consistent, significant, positive relationship between MAS (Mexican American Studies) participation and student academic performance.” (p. 7)
Regarding social work education, Latina/o students would benefit from learning about the contributions of Latina/o practitioners in social work (Chandler, Aguirre, & Salazar, 2013). As a social work professor, Stephanie finds ways to incorporate this content in every class she teaches as a large number of Latina/o students are enrolled at her institution and many of the students in the program are interning and working with Latina/o communities. Furthermore, it is critical to recognize the power and relevance of women’s experiences in social work and commit to women’s inclusion and empowerment (Kemp & Brandwein, 2010). It would be important to focus on Latina students’ experiences and their commitment and contributions to the social work field.
Third, mentorship and “authentic caring” were essential for us. We all had teachers, mentors, and professors who saw our potential and believed that we could be successful. They helped us navigate the educational system and decode academic rhetoric and culture. Therefore, it is critical to work with Latina/o students to understand and learn how to negotiate the educational system. Valenzuela (1999) argues that Mexican American students value formal relationships with their teachers and want to feel like their teachers are generally invested in their success.
Fourth, perhaps the most important factor in our success was the family support we received. Too often, the ongoing narrative is that Latina/o parents do not care about education and it is not important to them. This problematic narrative is detrimental to Latina/o student success. We were fortunate to have parents who accessed higher education and could then pass on this form of social capital to our brother and then on to us. Our father finished college and our mother graduated from high school and began course work at CU. Like other women who often serve as the primary caretaker, our mother stopped going to college in order to care for us children. Our brother, Bill Jr., received his MD and our sister, Loralei, completed her bachelor’s of arts degree and is pursuing a graduate degree. We both earned the highest terminal degree in our respective fields, a PhD. With the exception of our mother, we all came out on the other end of the educational pipeline with at least a baccalaureate degree. In fact, we all are counterexamples to the dominant pattern of Latina/o student achievement. As Sólorzano et al. (2005) indicate: Of the 100 Latina/o students at the elementary level, 48 drop out of high school and 52 continue on to graduate. Of those 52 who graduate from high school, about 31, or 60%, continue on to some form of postsecondary education. Of those 31, about 20, or 65%, move on to community colleges and 11, or 35%, will go to a 4-year institution. Of those 20 in community colleges, only 2 will transfer to a 4-year college. Of the 11 students who went to a 4-year college and 2 who transferred, 10 will graduate from college with a baccalaureate degree. Finally, 4 students will continue on and graduate from graduate or professional school and less than 1 will receive a doctorate (p. 7).
Conclusion
While writing this counter narrative, we aimed to interpret our educational experiences through the lens of CRT and highlight our intersecting identities, while contextualizing them in the extant literature on Latina/o academic achievement and the role of family. Through self-reflection and listening to our parents’ and siblings’ stories, we learned how we are benefactors and legacies of the Civil Rights and Chicana/o Movements that provided the springboard to propel our parents toward a positive educational trajectory that would have residual impact on their children’s education. We were able to participate in pipeline programs and have access to culturally relevant curriculum, mentorship, and authentic caring. Moreover, we had parents and family members that worked to buttress the barriers we experienced.
Our personal choices to study education and inequality are an extension of our lived experiences, as we often draw on them to inform our scholarship and enhance our work as educators. We realize our continued efforts are critical and our daily struggle is essential in an effort to break down barriers for not only ourselves but other Latina/o students, our students, their family members, and future generations.
Footnotes
Appendix A
Tell me the story of your education experience from the time you first remember starting school until your last degree Can you talk about ways in which you feel the school facilitated the pathway to where you’ve been? (For our mom and dad) Can you describe the political climate in terms of education as a Chicano/a in Colorado? In which ways has the Chicana/o movement affected the way you think about your experience in educational systems? In which ways have you witnessed gender affecting the educational experiences of your siblings, your peers or your children. How was it different for you? How has your own experience of your ethnic identity on education experiences shaped your hopes and dreams for your children? In which ways have you felt included or excluded in your own children’s educational experiences? How do you understand our family’s success in education? We all have graduated and all have college? When you let your child loose into the educational system, what was or will be your biggest fear, given their race/ethnicity and gender.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.