From the Editor’s Desk

Abstract

Bienvenidos! Welcome to Volume 18, Number 4 of the Journal of Latinos and Education. With your support, the journal has continued to increase its stature and influence as the premiere research publication that examines the educational conditions of Latina/o communities in and outside of the United States. In this issue, we have seven FEATURE ARTICLES, and one contribution in the VOCES section. In the first of the FEATURE ARTICLES, Cristobal Salinas Jr. and Adele Lozano map and recontextualize the evolution of the term Latinx, and new term that began to grow popularity since 2014, first appearing on social media and internet-based sites. The authors prompt us that empirical studies focusing on the creation and evolution of the term do not exist, albeit their search of the literature reveals that some scholars in the field of education have begun using the term in their research since 2016. They determine that the dearth of literature regarding the import and implication of this emerging label for a large segment of the U.S. population has created a knowledge gap within higher education. Their contribution shines light on how Latinx has been used within the context of higher education institutions, namely student affairs, and thus provide us an analysis of how the term can disrupt traditional notions of inclusivity and shape institutional understandings of intersectionality. Within the context of theory concerning the college search, choice, and enrollment processes, the second article by Amanda Taggart and Jaimi Paschal examines the influence of equitable treatment on Latina/o students’ college aspirations utilizing logistical regression, and used to identify variables associated with Latina/o high school students’ aspirations to attend college. Data were drawn from a nationally representative sample of Latina/o students and results point to that Latina/o students are more likely to aspire to attend college if they perceive equitable treatment for different groups of students during high school. Their findings suggest that future research is warranted to better appreciate the sources and causes of inequitable treatment for different groups of students that may affect their educational aspirations and, in turn, their postsecondary education enrollment. Additionally, the authors applaud efforts that further work describing how K-12 schools with high rates of college-going Latina/o students treat students and encourage their educational aspirations. In the next article by Jill Koyama and Darcy Tessman, the authors remind us that the American Dream is alive, “but not necessarily well,” in the borderlands of the United States adjacent to the US-Mexican border. They go on ... “There, Mexican parents choose to give birth to children in US territory to mitigate the perceived economic, educational, and sociocultural disparities between Mexico (MX) and the US.” Like US counterparts, Mexican parents also aim to defend and extend educational benefits for their children, but unlike their counterparts, the typical middle-class avenues to the educational marketplace (like school choice and privatization) are not automatically available to them. The authors describe how Mexican parents and guardians therefore enact a unique form of “parentocracy” hoping to make available to their children opportunities with better education and chances of upward social mobility. Their article developed from a study of the schooling experiences of transfronterizo children and teens who cross the borders or live on both sides of the US-MX border in Southern Arizona, and was guided by the overarching research question: In what ways do Latino parents and their transfronterizo children narrate their American educational experiences? JOURNAL OF LATINOS AND EDUCATION 2019, VOL. 18, NO. 4, 299–301 https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2019.1659527