Adalberto Aguirre

Academic Storytelling: A Critical Race Theory Story of Affirmative Action

The minority (nonwhite) can tell stories about institutional practices in academia that result in unintended benefits for the majority (white). One institutional practice in academia is affirmative action. This article presents a story about a minority applicant for a sociology position and his referral to an affirmative action program for recruiting minority faculty. One reason for telling the story is to illustrate how an affirmative action program can be implemented in a manner that marginalizes minority persons in the faculty recruitment process and results in benefits for majority persons. Another reason for telling the story is to sound an alarm for majority and minority faculty who support affirmative action programs that the programs can fall short of their goals if their implementation is simply treated as a bureaucratic activity in academia.

MAJORITY AND MINORITY FACULTY PERCEPTIONS IN ACADEME

This paper examines majority (white) and minority faculty perceptions in academe. It focuses on two general areas of institutional activity: employment and workplace issues, and minority affairs. The data examined in this paper are from a study of faculty at the University of Colorado (CU) system. The faculty sample in this study consisted of 73 minority faculty and 122 majority faculty. The findings reported in this paper show that minority faculty are dissatisfied with certain contexts within the post-secondary education institution, and minority faculty feel excluded from others. Discussion in this paper examines the interaction of status (majority vs. minority) and gender with perceptions of the postsecondary education institution.

Profiling Mexican American Identity Issues and Concerns

Racial profiling is a repressive social practice that uses group characteristics to individualize stereotypic behavior for minorities in American society. The practice of racial profiling victimizes minority persons to support a White hegemonic structure that promotes White values and beliefs as superior. The harmful effects of racial profiling on Mexican American social identity are discussed in this article. Several court cases are reviewed to illustrate how “Hispanic identity” is used by law enforcement agencies to profile Mexican Americans as either drug smugglers or undocumented aliens.

Diversity as interest-convergence in academia: a critical race theory story

This paper presents a critical race theory story regarding diversity and affirmative action in academia. The storys purpose is to raise issues regarding the treatment of diversity as a commodity in academia and how white faculty seek to privilege themselves in the diversity discourse. The story raises questions regarding the costs and benefits of diversity and affirmative action for minority faculty. The story illustrates how white faculty privilege themselves in diversity discourses by silencing diversity.

The cultural production of Mexican identity in the United States: an examination of the Mexican threat narrative

This paper examines how the cultural production of Mexican identity in the US media processes a Mexican threat narrative in the American publics mind. Racial profiling procedures utilized by the US Border Patrol that criminalize Mexican identity are used to illustrate the application of the Mexican threat narrative. The news media is treated as a primary data source because its portrayals are instrumental in processing perceptions in the publics mind that emphasize the criminality or foreignness of ‘others’ in US civic culture. For our purpose in this paper the authors we examined daily news articles from the Los Angeles Times focused on US-Mexico border news events. The analysis of the news articles supports two categorical domains: Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans as perceived threats to US society; and the racial profiling of Mexican identity.

An interpretative analysis of Chicano faculty in academe

Abstract By examining a set of descriptive data regarding the participation of Chicano faculty in minority-oriented activities in academe, a set of observations is constructed regarding the social relationship of Chicano faculty to academe. The central argument in this article is that Chicano faculty participate in minority-oriented service activities in response to an organizational logic that transforms their participation in minority-oriented activities into personal expectation. The role of sponsorship in this organizational logic is examined.

Sentencing outcomes, race, and victim impact evidence in california: A pre‐ and post‐payne comparison∗

This paper examines the effect of victim impact evidence in capital‐murder jury trials in California since the United States Supreme Court decided Payne v. Tennessee in 1991. Pursuant to Payne, prosecutors can use victim impact evidence in capital‐murder cases to encourage sentencing juries to impose death as an alternative punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole. We analyzed 151 capital cases occurring in thirty‐six counties in California between 1989 and 1994. Our findings show that the presentation of victim impact evidence increases the likelihood of receiving a death sentence for some crimes. Secondly, our findings show that victim impact evidence has greater consequences for cases involving Latino defendants, and in cases involving nonwhite defendants and victims.

Linguistic Diversity in the Workforce: Understanding Social Relations in the Workplace

Abstract The discussion in this paper focuses on the language rights of non-English and limited English-speaking workers in the U.S. workplace. By using Garcia v. Spun Steak as a heuristic tool, the argument is presented that English-only rules in the workplace silence non-English and limited English-speaking workers in the workplace. It is argued in the paper that English-only rules empower English-speaking workers in the workplace by curtailing the language rights of non-English and limited English-speaking workers. It is also argued that English-only rules force non-English and limited English-speaking workers to assimilate to a social identity that identifies them as American. Particular attention is placed in the paper on the need to implement practices in work organizations that support a diverse workforce.

A descriptive profile of Mexican American executions in the Southwest

Abstract What do we know about the execution of Mexican American prisoners in the Southwest? A descriptive profile of Mexican American prisoners executed in the Southwest is presented. The descriptive profile documents the date, type of execution, offense, age, gender, and occupation for Mexican American prisoners executed in the Southwest. The descriptive profile is presented as an augmentation to the research record regarding Mexican American executions. The descriptive profile is also presented as a valuable tool for asking questions, especially about extra-legal factors, regarding the execution of Mexican Americans in the Southwest.

A descriptive profile of the Hispanic penal population: Conceptual and reliability limitations in public use data*

The focus of this paper is on conceptual limitations in criminal justice statistics regarding the Hispanic population. The paper addresses the problems in constructing a descriptive profile of the Hispanic penal population from public use data sources, and argues that the lack of reliable statistics for the Hispanic penal population is due to a conceptually imiting definition of the Hispanic population.