Aurora Chang

Assistant professors of color confront the inequitable terrain of academia: a community cultural wealth perspective

Abstract This qualitative study adopted Yosso’s community cultural wealth (CCW) framework to examine how 16 assistant professors of color (APOC) drew upon various forms of capital (navigational, aspirational, social, resistant, linguistic, familial) to deal with racism and marginalization in academia. Findings revealed how APOC: dealt with students’ stereotypes of them, maintained their authentic selves to make academia more accessible and relevant, persevered with integrity despite hostility or marginalization, self-advocated for quality mentorship, and engaged in strategic service while avoiding cultural taxation and tokenism. Findings highlighted the positive cultural assets APOC enact within the academy while reiterating the need to address racist and marginalizing policies and practices in higher education. Variations in experiences based on gender and international status that can be explored further in future research also emerged. Working at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) also did not eliminate or lessen racist or marginalizing experiences for participants.

Multiracial Matters--Disrupting and Reinforcing the Racial Rubric in Educational Discourse.

When studying matters of race and education, there seems to be an assumption that the inclusion of all monoracial populations equates to a comprehensive look at all students, particularly students of color. But what about students who identify with more than one race? How do Multiracial students identify and how are they included/excluded with respect to educational curricula, policies and climates? This growing group presents an immediate opportunity and challenge to the educational community, because while educational researchers appropriately and vigorously pay attention to matters of traditionally under-represented monoracial groups of color, it has yet to be seen where Multiracial students fall into this discourse. Based on a qualitative study of 25 Multiracially identified college students, I explore the ways in which the notion of Multiraciality muddies traditional conversations about race and education in an effort to better understand the potential impact of this ‘new’ demographic within an educational context.

Undocumented intelligence: laying low by achieving high – an ‘illegal alien’s’ co-option of school and citizenship

Abstract In this article, I relay the irony of my own path as an ‘illegal alien’ in the US – identifying the tension between being a successful student earning straight As and accolades for good citizenship, while hiding my undocumented legal status. Drawing from the notions of race, smartness and citizenship as social constructions, I use a Chicana feminist epistemology to argue that, from early on, my schooling process taught me, intentionally or not, that academic achievement, as perceived and assessed by my school teachers and administrators, would protect me from unwarranted inquiries about my ‘illegal’ status. But beyond academic achievement, I argue that my undocumented status greatly contributed to my unofficial and ‘undocumented intelligence,’ that is, the knowledge, skills and intuition fostered by living as an undocumented person. Negotiating the process of schooling as an underground ‘good’ citizen fostered intangible skills that undergirded my ability and motivation to do well in school and to interact with people in a cautiously savvy way. Critically thinking about my daily behaviors and interactions with authority, the significance of scholarly performance and the transnational conditions that led me to this conundrum, then, was not an option but a necessity for individual and familial survival. This narrative aims to introduce and relocate ‘undocumented intelligence’ from a place of obscurity to a central position in educational research – a site of knowledge construction, development and authorship.

We are stronger together: reflective testimonios of female scholars of color in a research and writing collective

In this paper, five female scholars of color utilize the method of testimonio (testimony) to document their individual lived experiences as members of a three-year long research and writing collective. This collective served as a space of liberation from the dominant discourses and practices the women were experiencing in the academy. Each testimonio presents themes related to: shared struggles, friendship, trust and vulnerability, a sense of give and take, and their commitment to each other and the group. It is hoped these reflective testimonios (testimonies) contribute to the existing literature citing the benefits of such collaborations among female scholars and also encourages and guides other female academicians to develop their own research and writing collectives.

Resisting the Orthodox Smart Label: High School Latinas and the Redefinition of Smartness on the Western Frontier

ABSTRACT Drawing from Chicana feminist epistemology and counter-storytelling, this article argues that Latina high school students’ refusal to attach the culturally constructed and hegemonically imposed label of smartness to themselves, while easily identifying that label within others, stems from a resistance to associate themselves with traditional notions of smartness, a label they often frame as exclusive, inappropriate, and/or incongruous within their experiential contexts. This article suggests that the participants in this study agentically embrace their own constructions of smartness to include alternative funds of knowledge and, in this way, coopt smartness in a culturally relevant and specific way.

Call Me a Little Critical if You Will: Counterstories of Latinas Studying Abroad in Guatemala.

This article examined a group of Latina students studying abroad. It highlighted ways in which identity manifests itself for Latinas in different contexts. It used counterstories, stories of historically marginalized groups in education. Primary findings were cultural dissonance; a reflection of past, present, and privilege; and the critical consumption of knowledge. Institutional suggestions to increase participation of students of color in study abroad programs and recommendation of effective practices are provided.

Teacher Educator Identity in a Culture of Iterative Teacher Education Program Design: A Collaborative Self-Study

Abstract Faculty in the School of Education have collaborated to re-envision teacher education at our university. A complex, dynamic, time-consuming and sometimes painstaking process, redesigning a teacher education program from a traditional approach (i.e. where courses focus primarily on theoretical principles of practice through textbooks and university-based classroom discussions) to a model of teacher education that embraces teaching, learning and leading with schools and in communities is challenging, yet exciting work. Little is known about teacher educators’ experiences as they either design or deliver collaborative field-based models of teacher education. In this article, we examine our experiences in the second implementation year of our redesigned teacher education program, Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) and how these unique experiences inform our teacher educator identities. Through a collaborative self-study, we sought to make meaning of our transformation from a faculty delivering a traditional model to educators collectively implementing a field-based model, by analyzing the diverse perspectives of faculty at different entry points in the TLLSC development and implementation process. We found that our participation in an intensive field-based teacher preparation model challenged our notions of teacher educator identity. In a culture of iterative program design, this study documents the personal and professional shifts in identity required to accomplish this collaborative and dynamic change in approach to teacher education.

Privileged and Undocumented: Toward a Borderland Love Ethic.

In this article, I seek to explore the tensions of what it means to be a “deserving” native researcher. I begin by experimenting with the meaning of a borderland love ethic as a theoretical framework that centers on: nurturing our strength to love in spaces of contention, tolerance of ambiguity as a revolutionary virtue, and humbly beginning anew again and again. Drawing from an extended interview with a participant of a larger study about undocumented students, I describe our positionalities with respect to privilege and undocumented status as the central foci. I use my own dilemma of understanding and reconciling my position as a once-undocumented immigrant to a now hyperdocumented (Chang, 2011) native researcher, studying undocumented people, to work through the possibility of a borderland love ethic. Relying primarily on the theoretical works of Anzaldua (1987), Darder (2003), and hooks (2000), I ask, how we as scholars, enact love in our research amidst our seemingly contradictory positions of oppression and privilege. I contend that one possibility is by employing a borderland love ethic that embraces ambiguity, rejects binary positions and humbly acknowledges our constant state of arriving, both as researchers and participants.

Working with Undocumented Students: What They Say We Need to Know

My first memory of being undocumented is clearly seared in my body. I must have been somewhere between first and fourth grade. My mama was registering me for the first day of school. We must have arrived at an off-hour because we were the only ones in the elementary school office with Ms. B, the school secretary. She was familiar to me because we had often sat next to her at mass in the St. Callistus Churchpew on Sunday mornings. When I was filling out the registration paperwork, I asked mama what “SSN” meant. She and Ms. B exchanged glances. Ms. B said, “Write your tax id number,” which I knew by heart, having used it many times before on different types of forms. My mama gave silent thanks in the meek and heartfelt way that only she knew how to express. Something powerful happened in that subtle exchange. I knew my mama and Ms. B had made an arrangement of sorts, the way a child looks up at two adults and knows that a secret was shared and an understanding was established. Nothing I learned within school walls was as powerful and consequential as the tacit lessons that were so effectively inculcated in me as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala.

Undocumented to Hyperdocumented: A Jornada of Papers, Protection, and PhD Status

In this chapter, I situate my own positionality as a once undocumented Guatemalan immigrant. I describe my experience of hyperdocumentation—the effort to accrue awards, accolades, and eventually academic degrees to compensate for my undocumented status. In spite of my visible successes and naturalization, I discuss how I still confront the rage and intolerance of American “commonsense” beliefs about immigration. My narrative questions the pursuit of documentation as a means to legitimacy and acceptance in American society. This introduction lays the foundation for my argument and outlines the chapters to follow.