Finding Wholeness: From Latina Daughter to Motherscholar: A Mujerista Autoethnography

Abstract

School counseling is facing a crisis of representation. Within the diversification of the profession, the question of professional identity development is critical. However, the professional identity development of school counselors from an intersectional and Mujerista perspective is limited. Through an evocative autoethnographic methodology, I explored my professional identity development through the recall of various critical incidents that impacted the way I exist and enact social justice advocacy to increase the narrative representation of a different path of professional identity development and to support professional diversification efforts. Themes from Latine professional identity development, Mujerista psychology, and motherscholar epistemology were used to deductively code the recalled critical incidents. Readers are invited to feel instead of think through the moral dilemmas of professional diversification efforts and then connect that dilemma to a diversification action within school counseling practice, education, research, and policy.

Keywords

mujerista psychology school counseling autoethnography professional identity development motherscholar

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American School Counselor Association . (2019). ASCA national model: A framework for school counseling programs (4th ed.), American School Counselor Association.

American School Counselor Association . (2021a). The school counselor and anti-racist practices. American School Counselor Association. https://schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Position-Statements/ASCA-Position-Statements/The-School-Counselor-and-Anti-Racist-Practices

American School Counselor Association . (2021b). The school counselor and cultural diversity: American School Counselor Association. https://schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Position-Statements/ASCA-Position-Statements/The-School-Counselor-and-Cultural-Diversity

American School Counselor Association . (2022). The school counselor and school-family-community partnerships. American School Counselor Association. https://schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Position-Statements/ASCA-Position-Statements/The-School-Counselor-and-School-Family-Community-P

American School Counselor Association . (2023). The school counselor and the identification, prevention and intervention of harmful or disadvantageous behaviors. American School Counselor Association. https://schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Position-Statements/ASCA-Position-Statements/The-School-Counselor-and-the-Identification,-Preve

American School Counselor Association . (2024). The school counselor and equity for all students. American School Counselor Association. https://schoolcounselor.org/Standards-Positions/Position-Statements/ASCA-Position-Statements/The-School-Counselor-and-Equity-for-All-Students

Anzaldúa

(2021). Borderlands: La frontera: The new mestiza (5th ed.), Aunt Lute Books.

Bayne

H. B.

Ocampo

Wilson

(2023). Building cultural empathy and deconstructing Whiteness in counselor education. Counselor Education and Supervision, 62(2), 118–131. https://doi.org/10.1002/ceas.12263

Berbary

L. A.

Lopez

K. J.

Alexander

Pereira

M. T.

Coalition

(2023). Musings on becoming the ghost in the machine: Writing into practice subversive academic relations towards care. Leisure/Loisir, 47(1), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/14927713.2022.2141830

10.

Bordas

(2023). The power of Latino leadership: Culture, inclusion, and contribution (2nd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

11.

Bryant-Davis

Comas-Díaz

(Eds.), (2016). Womanist and mujerista psychologies: Voices of fire, acts of courage. American Psychological Association.

12.

Cox

M. R.

(2024). A Black autoethnography of grief and racial trauma during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The Journal of Humanistic Counseling, 63(2), 160–179. https://doi.org/10.1002/johc.12229

13.

Creswell

J. W.

Poth

C. N.

(2025). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (5th ed.). Sage.

14.

Cross

W. E.

Vandiver

B. J.

(2001). Nigrescence theory and measurement: Introduction to the Cross racial identity scale (CRIS). In Ponterotto

J. G.

Casas

J. M.

Suzuki

L. M.

Alexander

C. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (2nd ed., pp. 371–393). Sage.

15.

Denzin

N. K.

Lincoln

Y. S.

(2018). The Sage handbook of qualitative research (5th ed.). Sage.

16.

Ellis

Adams

T. E.

Bochner

A. P.

(2011). Autoethnography: An overview. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum for Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), 1589. https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-12.1.1589

17.

Ellis

Bochner

A. P.

(2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity: Researcher as subject. In Denzin

N. K.

Lincoln

Y. S.

(Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research, (pp. 733–768). Sage Publications.

18.

Ewe

K.-M.

(2024). Relationships among a selected set of systemic variables and counselor educators in training professional identity. Journal of Counselor Leadership and Advocacy, 12(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/2326716X.2024.2388028

19.

Falco

L. D.

Mayes

R. D.

Hirdes

C. L.

(2025). Content analysis of the professional school counseling journal: A 15-year reflection. Professional School Counseling, 29(1), 2156759X251316560. https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X251316560

20.

Fan

Moen

(2023). Ongoing remote work, returning to working at work, or in between during COVID-19: What promotes subjective well-being? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 64(1), 152–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221465221150283

21.

Flores Locke

(2022). A counterstory of resistance: The professional identity development of Latinx doctoral students in counseling programs. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 50(1), 2–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmcd.12229

22.

Gibson

D. M.

Dollarhide

C. T.

Brashear

Huynh

Marshall

Robinson

(2023). The emergence of unique elective identities in the professional identity development research in the counseling profession. Counselor Education and Supervision, 62(3), 222–232. https://doi.org/10.1002/ceas.12277

23.

González-Rosario

L. M.

Gibbons

M. M.

(2024). Combining the MSJCC and creativity: School counseling for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Journal of Professional Counseling, Practice, Theory, and Research, 52(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15566382.2024.2368642

24.

Grimes Stanfill

Aycock

Dionne-Odom

J. N.

Rosa

W. E.

(2019). Strategies and resources for increasing the PhD pipeline and producing independent nurse scientists. Journal of Nursing Scholarship: An Official Publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, 51(6), 717–726. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12524

25.

Gumbs

A. P.

Martens

Williams

(Eds.), (2016). Revolutionary mothering: Love on the front lines. PM Press.

26.

Hays

D. G.

McKibben

W. B.

(2021). Promoting rigorous research: Generalizability and qualitative research. Journal of Counseling and Development, 99(2), 178–188. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12365

27.

Heled

Ukrop

Davidovitch

(2022). School counseling – a profession without an identity: Personal and group professional identity of school counselors. Education and Society, 40(2), 99–115. https://doi.org/10.7459/es/40.2.07

28.

Helms

J. E.

(1993). I also said, “White racial identity influences White researchers.”. The Counseling Psychologist, 21(2), 240–243. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000093212007

29.

Hipolito-Delgado

C. P.

Estrada

Garcia

(2021). Disrupting the narrative on recruiting graduate students of color in counselor education. Teaching and Supervision in Counseling, 3(1), 30–42. https://doi.org/10.7290/tsc030104

30.

Hooks

(1990). Homeplace: A site of resistance. Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics (pp. 383–390). South End Press.

31.

Howard

Nash

Thompson

(2023). Motherscholaring: A collective poetic autoethnographic inquiry. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 36(4), 590–611. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2020.1852486

32.

Ieva

Hannon

M. D.

Vereen

L. G.

(2021). The intentionality of confronting racism, systemic oppression, and cyclical trauma in counselor education: A self study. Teaching and Supervision in Counseling, 3(2), 109–124. https://doi.org/10.7290/tsc030211

33.

Kelsky

(2015). The professor is in: The essential guide to turning your Ph. D. into a job. Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group.

34.

Luebbe

A. M.

Ogbaselase

F. A.

(2018). Constriction of the educational pipeline for students of color at the point of entry to doctoral work in psychology: Commentary on Callahan and colleagues (2018). Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 12(4), 291–294. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000211

35.

Martinez

(2025). New Gaza aid group faces criticism, Harvard president speaks out, DEI rollbacks [Audio podcast episode]. In Up first. NPR. (Host). https://www.npr.org/2025/05/27/1253209930/up-first-gaza-hunger-harvard-trump-dei-jobs-05-27-2025

36.

Mayes

Hines

E. M.

Vega

Harris

P. C.

Lawson

T. K.

(2024). Cultivating homeplace for black girls through tier 2 group counseling experiences. Professional School Counseling, 28(1a), https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X241234927

37.

McCoy

S. Z.

(2018). The intellectual war zone: An autoethnography of intellectual identity development despite oppressive institutional socialization. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 11(3), 325–346. https://doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000062

38.

Mecadon-Mann

Tuttle

(2023). School counselor professional identity in relation to post-master’s supervision. Professional School Counseling, 27(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X221143932

39.

Mojica Rodríguez

P. D.

(2021). For brown girls with sharp edges and tender hearts: A love letter to women of color. Seal Press.

40.

National Board of Certified Counselors . (2024). Mentoring brings change: NBCC foundation. Retrieved January 8, 2025, from: https://nbccf.org/about/article/mentoring-brings-change

41.

Nygreen

Saba

Moreno

A. P.

(2016). Mujerista research: Integrating body, emotion, spirit, and community. In Bryant-Davis

Comas-Díaz

(Eds.), Womanist and mujerista psychologies: Voices of fire, acts of courage (pp. 41–65). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14937-003

42.

Okun

(2024). White supremacy culture. Retrieved January 8, 2025, from: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/

43.

Saldaña

(2021). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (4e ed.). Sage.

44.

Simmons

R. T.

Bohecker

Marrah

Clemons

Edwards

N. N.

Ascencao

(2024). One World, different lenses: White counselor educators understanding of the role of race and culture in counselor education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 38(6), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2024.2416710

45.

Spry

(2018). Autoethnography and the other: Performative embodiment and a bid for utopia. In The Sage handbook of qualitative research (5th ed.). Sage.

46.

Thompson

(2024). A Qualitative study of the impact if racial trauma on recruitment and retention among Bkack and Latinx school counselors. [Doctoral dissertation] ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. City University of Seattle. (Publication No. 31761511): https://www.proquest.com/openview/e2e3e169bdcac376fb637dcfff75d1d0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

47.

Williams

J. M.

Byrd

J. A.

Washington

A. R.

(2021). Challenges in implementing antiracist pedagogy into counselor education programs: A collective self-study. Counselor Education and Supervision, 60(4), 254–273. https://doi.org/10.1002/ceas.12215

48.

Wilson

M. A.

DePass

A. L.

Bean

A. J.

(2018). Institutional interventions that remove barriers to recruit and retain diverse biomedical PhD students. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 17(27), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-09-0210

49.

Woo

Harris

Jang

Lee

(2022). Preparing doctoral students to succeed as counselor educators: Professional identity development. Journal of Asia Pacific Counseling, 12(2), 35–49. https://doi.org/10.18401/2022.12.2.3