Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating School Reform (The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society)

The New Americans Recent Immigration and American Society Edited by Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut A Series from...

Author: Mariolga Reyes Cruz

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The New Americans Recent Immigration and American Society

Edited by Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut

A Series from LFB Scholarly

This page intentionally left blank

Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform

Mariolga Reyes Cruz

LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC New York 2008

Copyright © 2008 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reyes Cruz, Mariolga, 1970Mexican immigrant parents advocating for school reform / Mariolga Reyes Cruz. p. cm. -- (The new Americans : recent immigration and American society) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59332-236-6 (alk. paper) 1. Mexican American students--Education. 2. Education--Parent participation--United States. 3. Children of immigrants--Education-United States. 4. Educational change--United States. I. Title. LC2683.3.R49 2008 371.19'2086872073 2007047774

ISBN 978-1-59332-236-6 Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper. Manufactured in the United States of America.

A los hijos e hijas de las madres y padres en esta historia: Que su vida esté coloreada por el amor, la paz y la justicia.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ...............................................................................ix CHAPTER 1: Introduction .................................................................1 Parent Involvement in School Matters and the Reproduction and Contestation of Social Inequality ....................................3 Moments of Reproduction: Parent Involvement, Cultural and Social Capital, and Power .................................................7 Moments of Contestation: Community Organizing, Empowerment and Sense of Community ..............................11 Latinos and Latin American Immigrants in the United States ......14 A Focus on U.S.-Born and Immigrant Mexicans ..................15 Immigrant Mexican Parents Legitimizing Their Right to Be Involved in Schools..........................................................17 CHAPTER 2: From Community Practice to a Critical Ethnography ...............................................................................23 Social Actors.................................................................................25 The Research Process ...................................................................25 Preparation of the Ethnographic Material and Data Analysis .................................................................................28 A Note on Ethnographic Time, Accuracy and Crafting the Story.................................................................................30 CHAPTER 3: The Schooling of Mexican Children in Korbel .......33 A New “Community” in Town .....................................................34 Not All Students of Color are Created Equal: The ClassRace-Ethnicity Divide..........................................................36 African Americans’ Longstanding Struggle for Educational Equity in Korbel...................................................................37 Construyendo el Barco Navegando: Schooling for Latino American Students in Korbel ...............................................39 Mexicans in Dubois Elementary School: Entering the Struggle for Educational Equity ............................................40 Walking the Distance between Theory and Practice: Schooling Conditions at Dubois ............................................42 vii

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 4: Ellos nos van a sacar de estarnos arrastrando: Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future............................55 Circumstances of Emigration, Reasons to Stay ............................56 Stories about Mexican Parents’ Engagement with the Local Schools .................................................................................65 The Dominant Story ..............................................................66 An Alternative Story..............................................................70 CHAPTER 5: Para muestras un botón: Parents’ Lived Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling ..............................79 What Parents Know and How They Come to Know It.................80 Mexican Parents’ Ways of Knowing .....................................81 Mexican Parents’ Knowledge................................................85 Knowledge-Claim Battles.............................................................93 CHAPTER 6: El que no tiene voz, no tiene mando: Voice, Bilingualism, and Power .......................................................... 105 Monolingualism, Power, and Representation ............................. 106 English-Learning, Bilingualism and Empowerment................... 118 From, For, With? The Role of Bilingual Professionals in Parents’ Struggle for Educational Equity ............................ 123 CHAPTER 7: Luchando por mantener ‘el dedo en el renglón’: Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital ....................................................................................... 131 Efforts to Mobilize Parents to Participate in School Decision Making ............................................................................... 132 From the Top Down: District and School Staff’s Efforts to Involve Parents in School Decision Making.................... 133 From the Ground Up: Mexican Parents’ Efforts to Advocate for School Reforms ............................................. 139 Overarching Barriers to Parent Mobilizing................................. 153 The Elusiveness of Small Wins .................................................. 155 CHAPTER 8: Paradoxes of Social Life.......................................... 157 Democratic Participation in Schools........................................... 158 Living the Paradox...................................................................... 161 Endnotes ........................................................................................... 167 References......................................................................................... 177 Index.................................................................................................. 195

Acknowledgments

Research and writing for this book was possible thanks to the support of many people throughout the years. Julian Rappaport, Irene Cruz and Gloria Soto offered thought provoking guidance and continued encouragement. Martina Miranda Lugo, Rosalinda Barrera, Andrew Rasmussen, Martín Nieto, Sue Noffke and Alejandro Lugo believed in the work and accompanied me during the fieldwork years. Without the wisdom and generosity of Irene, Humberto, Ivonne, Lupe, Antonia, Lorenza, Jovita, Osiris, Gloria, Petra, Sandra, Juan, Crecenciano, Gloria, Kathy, Rachel and many others, this work would have been nearly impossible. The Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for Minorities supported me during my last three years in Illinois. The Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, provided a summer grant to conduct interviews with key stakeholders. In Puerto Rico, writing for this book was supported in part by grant number 5 P20 MD001112-03 from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge Christopher Sonn and Tania García Ramos for their encouraging comments to the last chapter, and the invaluable assistance of Maricelis Nogueras and Kay Hessemer during the revision, proofreading and editing of the book.

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Despite overwhelming evidence that many Latino1 students are doing poorly in school, most Latino American immigrant parents hold positive views about public education, believe schools are improving and are willing to maintain children in failing schools (National Council of La Raza, 2004; Pew Hispanic Center, 2004a; Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Foundation, 2004). Some have argued that the positive attitudes immigrant parents hold about public schools in the United States reflect a positive dual-frame of reference: they compare schooling conditions in the host society to what they lived in their country of origin and conclude that things are better in the new context (Ogbu, 1994; Ogbu & Simons, 1998; M. M. Suárez-Orozco, 1993). However, this is only part of the story. There are important differences in how immigrant groups experience and are received by the host society. Moreover, immigrants have multiple frames of reference for understanding their experience, including knowledge about how different groups fare in U.S. society (Louie, 2006a,b). In line with recent research on immigrant parent involvement (e.g., Pérez Carreón, Drake & Barton, 2005), the present study shows that a dual frame of reference in favor of the host country does not preclude immigrant parents from believing that schools are not preparing their children to succeed in United States society. Moreover, regardless of legal citizenship and immigration status, lack of fluency in English, limited educational attainment or disadvantaged economic circumstances, many are fighting individually and collectively to improve schooling conditions for their children. This ethnographic work provides material to craft an alternative “parent involvement” story: a story about the conditions in which undocumented2 recent immigrant Mexican parents attempt to transform 1

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schools and the dynamics that work to squelch their efforts. The parents who are the principal actors in this story did not believe the local public schools were preparing their children well for life in the United States. They saw aspects of the school system and culture as barriers to the success of their children and were willing to challenge school authorities to work towards school reform. At the same time, they were performing many of the behaviors typically understood as “effective” parent involvement (e.g., reading to their children, attending parentteacher conferences, volunteering in school and bringing concerns to teachers). Their efforts took place in Korbel, Illinois (pseudonym), a small Midwestern city that had seen a rapid increase in the population of working-poor Latin American immigrants in the last ten years. Although this “emergent community”3 had caught the attention of officials in the public and private sectors, the city had little experience with Spanish-speaking immigrants and few community-based organizations worked with this population. Moreover, the local school district had been under close scrutiny for their failure to educate African American students. This ethnographic study is the result of four years of participantobservation in various educational settings serving Latino American families and children in Korbel, Ill. As a “community consultant” to various stakeholders in a school community4 the aim of the work was to develop “processes and settings that create opportunities for citizen involvement in the school” (Good, Wiley, Thomas, Stewart, McCoy, Kloos, Hunt, Moore & Rappaport, 1997, p. 279). The main sources of data for this study are field notes, formal interviews with parents, staff and administrators, and public documents on the state of schooling for Spanish-speaking students. In order to situate the work, in this first chapter I present a critical analysis of the literature on parent involvement framing the discussion on processes of social reproduction and contestation. Then I provide a brief overview of demographic data about the Latino population, focusing on general socioeconomic and educational characteristics of Mexican immigrants. The chapter ends with a review of the literature on Mexican parents’ involvement in their children’s schools. In Chapter Two methodological matters are discussed and the method for this study described. Chapter Three narrates the context of schooling for Spanish-speaking students (specifically immigrants from working-poor families) in Korbel. First a description of the growing Latino American population in town is provided, followed by a brief

Introduction

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history of the struggle for educational equity in Korbel. The focus then turns specifically to the educational conditions for Spanish-speaking students. In Chapter Four I present a picture of the main social actors in this story, the Mexican parents. Here I narrate aspects of their immigration circumstances, their daily lives in Korbel, and their hopes for their children. The chapter ends with a description of the dominant story about these parents’ engagement in their children’s schooling and the beginnings of an alternative story or “counterstory.” By dominant story I mean the story that reflects the dominant discourse and is referred to by most stakeholders at one time or another. This story reflects what people in positions of power tell about those who are marginalized. The alternative story is one that challenges the dominant discourse, a story that brings to the foreground the experiences and voices of the marginalized in a particular social context (Knight, Norton, Bentley & Dixon, 2004). Chapter Five focuses attention on epistemological battles among and between different stakeholders. I describe what the parents claim to know about their children’s schools and how they came to know it. I also describe how parents’ knowledge both confirms and contradicts what the professionals claim to know. Chapter Six speaks about issues of voice, bilingualism and power in the local community. In Chapter Seven, different efforts to mobilize parents for school reform are described. First top-down/institutionalized efforts are presented. Then ground-up efforts, those spearheaded by Mexican parents themselves, are described along with the barriers that got in their way. Then I describe the involvement of Latino and Latin American professionals in these efforts, some of the overarching barriers to mobilization, and the elusiveness of small wins. In Chapter Eight I discuss the limitations and implications of this work, making some observations on the task of a community praxis for social justice.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOL MATTERS AND THE REPRODUCTION AND CONTESTATION OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY Schools are the primary entry point for immigrant children to their host society and a major socializing force shaping opportunities for children and their families (Baca, Bryan, McLean-Bardwell, & Gomez, 1989; Weinstein, 2002). In the United States, Latino students are the secondlargest segment of the school population and more than half of these students are themselves immigrants (National Council of La Raza,

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2004; Ruiz-de-Velasco, Fix, & Clewell, 2000). Students who are immigrant, ethnic minority and/or poor are more likely to be found in existing schools (rather than new schools) with scant resources (Rury & Mirel, 1997; Fry, 2006). These facts are not lost on Latino parents. U.S.-born Latinos and immigrants from Latin America have been fighting for their educational rights for decades (Cockcroft, 1995; Gonzalez, 1990; Muñoz, 2004; Jasis & Ordóñez-Jasis, 2004). Seven years before Brown vs. Board of Education, five Mexican American families won an antischool segregation case in California (Hendricks, 2007). Now Latinos constitute a significant proportion of the people organizing for school reform (Mediratta, Fruchter, & Lewis, 2002). However, engagement in organizing efforts by no means characterizes the larger Latino population. Findings from a survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,508 Latinos show that only a minority (27% U.S.-born and 16% immigrants) believes schools have worsened in the past five years. Most understand that the government should help failing schools meet standards while keeping the students enrolled to avoid closing failing schools. This position is more strongly supported by immigrants than by U.S.-born Latinos (69% and 50% respectively) (Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Foundation, 2004). National survey data and ethnographic research on parent involvement in schools present a similar picture. Among Latinos, recent immigrants tend to have lower expectations and more positive views about teachers and schools, are more tolerant of schools known to be failing, and tend to rely on schools to provide their children a formal education (e.g., reading and writing skills, mathematics). Research on Latin American immigrant parents who are poor and have few years of formal education suggest that they are minimally engaged in schools due to a series of socioeconomic factors that act as barriers to their involvement. Language and cultural mismatch between parents and schools, long working hours and the subsequent limited time to participate in their children’s school, lack or limited knowledge of how schools work and how to advocate for their children, and uneasiness speaking to school staff and voicing concerns are some of the most cited factors (Martinez & Velazquez, 2000; Romo & Falbo, 1996; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; C. Suárez-Orozco, M. M. Suárez-Orozco, & Doucet, 2004; Valdés, 1996). Certainly, the barriers identified reflect aspects of the lives and experiences of working-poor immigrants who have limited formal

Introduction

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education and English skills. Parents from other ethnic backgrounds who are also poor experience many of the barriers Latin American immigrants confront, suggesting that social class plays a key role in parent-school relationships across and within ethnic groups (e.g., Lareau, 1987; Lareau & Horvat, 1999; Lareau & Weininger, 2003). Addressing those barriers would facilitate these parents’ access to their children’s schools. However, focusing solely on socioeconomic and cultural factors that hinder parent participation can easily lead to wellintentioned interventions that reproduce social inequality by failing to address more fundamental questions of unequal power that shape parent participation in school life (Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991; Fine, 1993; Valdés, 1996). The contemporary literature on school reform places great emphasis on the role parents and other community members should play in transforming schools (e.g., Adger, 1996; Brown & Hunter, 1998; Bryk & Schneider, 1996; Cohen, 1978; Gold, Simon, & Brown, 2002; Haynes & Comer, 1996; Wilson, Iverson, & Chrastil, 2001). However, ethnographic research shows that parents who do not fit schools’ definition of “involved” and “good parents” are seen as lacking or problematic by school personnel, creating an unwelcoming climate for the parents (Tinkler, 2002). This seems to be the case regardless of whether parents are performing the kinds of behaviors schools expect them to do with their children (Pérez Carreón et al., 2005). Writing on parent involvement tends to focus on those behaviors that are school-sanctioned, particularly those found to support students’ academic achievement. Some of the parental behaviors associated with children’s academic success are reading with them at home, working together on homework, attending parent-teacher conferences and school-sponsored social events, communicating concerns to teachers, and volunteering in the classroom (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995; Walker, Wilkins, Dallaire, Sandler & Hoover-Dempsey, 2005; Walker & Hoover-Dempsey, 2006; Hoover-Dempsey, Walker, Sandler, Whetsel, Green, Wilkins & Closson, 2005). Research shows that middle-class parents are more likely to perform these behaviors than parents who are poor (Delgado-Gaitan, 1991; Lareau, 1987; López, 2001). Critical analyses of the parent involvement literature point out that the behaviors sanctioned by schools reflect the dominant middleclass European American culture, thus failing to legitimize the ways in which marginalized families are involved in their children’s education (Auerbach, 2006; Abrams & Gibbs, 2002; Lareau, 1987; López, 2001;

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Valdés, 1996). Furthermore, as Lareau (1987) maintains, research on the influence of families on children’s educational achievement and school experiences has focused on outcomes rather than the processes by which “educational patterns are created and reproduced” and the interests behind these processes (p. 73; see also Jacob & Jordan, 1993; Fine, 1993; Spring, 1993). Differences in conceptualizing what is best for children are often framed in terms of “cultural differences” and “cultural conflicts,” typically disregarding class and power struggles in classrooms, schools and communities (Delpit, 1995). This framework also guides much of the writing aimed at addressing barriers to parent involvement among Latin American immigrants. These parents are seen as lacking what is necessary to support their children’s academic success and thus schools are encouraged to offer parent education programs, develop culturally sensitive school-parent relationships and classroom curriculum, and make educational resources and personnel available to parents who do not speak English, informing parents about realistic contributions they can make to schools (e.g., Adger, 1996; Chavkin & Gonzalez, 2000; Martinez & Velazquez, 2000; Saragoza, 1989). Again, while addressing language and cultural barriers that inhibit parent participation in schools is necessary, the interventions that are often implemented leave unchallenged the power structures that maintain poor immigrant parents in a subordinated position and excluded from decision-making processes.5 Behind interventions designed to improve parent involvement among poor and working-poor families is the assumption that if only “those” parents would comply and behave in the ways in which it is “known” to be effective (i.e., how “typical” middle-class White U.S. American families behave), their children would succeed in school. These interventions are generally schoolinitiated, school-controlled initiatives that reproduce the power structures already in place (Delgado-Gaitan, 2001).6 Generally absent from the research literature on fostering parent involvement are explicit discussions about how, in addition to performing the behaviors thought to support academic achievement, parents (especially those with a lowsocioeconomic status) are expected to act in accordance with school culture, “back up” teachers, and not critique or antagonize the school, leaving social inequalities intact (Cline & Necochea, 2001; Lareau, 1987; Lareau & Horvat, 1999; Tinkler, 2002).

Introduction

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Moments of Reproduction: Parent Involvement, Cultural and Social Capital, and Power Generally speaking, students who are different from the White U.S. American middle-class majority (including Whites who are poor) do not fare as well in schools as their White counterparts. For decades social scientists have searched for explanations of this phenomenon outside the realm of what schools are and do. Explanations move from biological, psychological to sociological levels of analysis. In one way or another, most of these explanations place the burden of school failure on the students’ families (e.g., their genetic makeup, cultural practices, socioeconomic status). One exception is social reproduction theory, which shifts the focus from marginalized families to the ways in which schools, and society more broadly, shape opportunities and allocate resources for students and families. Social reproduction theorists argue that schools replicate the dominant labor hierarchy by reproducing the same social relations in schools and directing students to their prescribed roles in the social structure (Jacob & Jordan, 1993). Social reproduction theory has been critiqued on the grounds of being overly deterministic, exaggerating the correspondence between the needs of the dominant classes and school practices. Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) attempt to address those criticisms by explicating the role of culture in mediating macro- and micro-social processes (Jacob & Jordan, 1993). They argue that “all pedagogic action is, objectively, symbolic violence insofar as it is the imposition of a cultural arbitrary by an arbitrary power” (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977/2000, p. 5). The pedagogic action that dominates corresponds to the interests of the dominant groups in any given context. Schools are “systems of agents explicitly mandated” to exert pedagogical action and are thus given pedagogic authority, “a power to exert symbolic violence which manifests itself in the form of a right to impose legitimately, [reinforcing] the arbitrary power which establishes it and which it conceals” (p. 13). A dominant educational system is able to establish what is considered the legitimate pedagogical work because: 1) “it produces and reproduces the necessary conditions for” exercising its socializing function (p. 67), and 2) its mere existence and persistence as an institution gives it legitimacy and an aura of neutrality. This in turn permits the reproduction of the dominant power relations and the dominant class through the schools’ pedagogic authority. In order for this process to work smoothly all involved have to recognize the schools’ pedagogic authority. As its authority is established and

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recognized, so are the ways in which its function is exercised. One fundamental aspect of this process is the sanctioning of a particular form of cultural capital: “the educational norms” or ways of talking and acting, aesthetics, ways of knowing and knowledge, language practices and values of the dominant social classes who are capable of imposing their norms as the criteria for evaluation (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977/2000; Jacob & Jordan, 1993; Lareau & Weininger, 2003). From this social reproduction perspective, schools draw unevenly on the social and cultural resources of members of the society. For example, schools utilize particular linguistic structures, authority patterns, and types of curricula; children from higher social locations enter schools already familiar with these social arrangements (Lareau, 1987, p. 74). It is precisely the correspondence between the dominant school culture and the cultural patterns of the dominant social groups that transforms the home experiences and ways of being of privileged families into the cultural capital which facilitates their children’s adjustment and success in school (Laureau, 1987). As long as the dominant social classes are able to impose the evaluation criteria most favorable to them, what counts as valued cultural capital is never fixed but rather monopolized in terms of skills and competences that yield “profits” for them (Lareau & Weininger, 2003). It could be argued then that what people bring or do about a school setting is less important than whether it reproduces or challenges the evaluation criteria imposed by the dominant social group. The concept of cultural capital is useful for understanding parental involvement in schools because it points to the role of class and class cultures in parents’ ability to negotiate the schooling process (Lareau, 1987; Lareau & Horvat, 1999; Lareau & Weininger, 2003; Weininger & Lareau, 2003). These processes are not only shaped by the dominant social group but also reinforced through their social capital. Bourdieu defined social capital “as the aggregate of actual or potential resources linked to possession of a durable network of essentially institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (Bourdieu 1985, p. 248, in Portes, 1998, p. 3). Portes describes two elements in Bourdieu’s articulation of social capital: the social relationships that allow individuals to claim resources their associates have, and the quantity and quality of those resources.

Introduction

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Consequently, this non-monetary resource can become a form of influence and power. Through their social capital actors can have “direct access to economic resources,” “increase their cultural capital through contacts with experts or individuals of refinement,” or associate with the institutions that would give them socially valued credentials (Portes, 1998, p. 4). Bourdieu maintains: the volume of social capital possessed by a person depends on size of the network of connections that he or she can mobilize and on the volume of capital-economic, cultural, and symbolic-possessed by each person to whom he or she is connected (Dika & Singh, 2002, p. 33). Lareau and Horvat (1999) argue for close attention to three points implied in Bourdieu’s work: First, the value of capital depends heavily on the social setting (or field). Second, there is an important difference between the possession and activation of capital or resources. That is, people who have social and cultural capital may choose to activate capital or not, and they vary in the skill with which they activate it. Third, these two points come together to suggest that rather than being an overly deterministic continual process, reproduction is jagged and uneven and is continually negotiated by social actors (p. 38). They call for scrutiny of “the ways in which institutional actors legitimate or rebuff efforts by individuals to activate their resources” (Lareau & Horvat, 1999, p. 38), or how they use their power over others. Implicit in this discussion of social and cultural capital is the ways in which social power is exercised by different social groups. Power is an ambiguous, multidimensional and relational phenomenon that has meaning at individual, community and societal levels. Some critical theorists speak about the oppressive and productive aspects of power expressed in the ability to (re)produce social inequalities or engage in the establishment of critical democracies (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000). In the field of community psychology, some speak about “social” power manifested as “power over” and “power to.” Riger (1993) defined “power over” as the ability to exercise explicit or

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implicit dominance or control over resources. “Power to” is the opportunity (means, ability) to do some things through power sharing. These two aspects of power can be expressed as what Speer and Hughey (1995) called “instruments of social power”: 1) superior bargaining resources; 2) the ability to set agendas and define issues; and 3) the ability to influence or shape “shared consciousness through myths, ideology, and control of information” (p. 732). It could be argued then that it is through their pedagogical authority that schools exercise their social power to reproduce the cultural and social capital of the dominant social groups (e.g., White middle-class, heterosexual). Lareau’s ethnographic work pays close attention to everyday micro-interactional processes through which social inequality is reproduced by examining the role of class in shaping family-school relationships for Whites and Blacks in the United States (e.g., Lareau, 1987; Lareau and Horvat, 1999; Lareau, 2002). In a study of poor and middle-class Blacks, Lareau and Horvat (1999) found that while the racialized experiences of Black parents shaped the ways in which they perceived schools, social class mediated how these parents approached the school staff and their children’s schooling experience. They found that beneath schools’ explicit request for parent involvement was the implicit expectation of compliance with the school (e.g., teachers’ definition of the problem, school cultural patterns of interaction). More specifically, the researchers found that school staff “liked parents who were deferential, expressed empathy with the difficulty of teachers’ work… and accept[ed] the teacher’s definitions of their children’s educational and social performance” (p. 43). Parents who, in addition to performing sanctioned parent involvement behaviors, challenged schools to attend to issues of power and racial discrimination were rebuffed and characterized as unhelpful and problematic. Their findings suggest that regardless of whether Black parents performed the kinds of behaviors thought to promote student academic achievement, they were not expected to explicitly participate or challenge the power structure of the school. Understanding social and cultural capital as well as how power is enacted in interactions between parents and schools is useful in describing how things are and how they are perpetuated. Actually, as Weininger and Lareau (2003) recognize, such understanding has greatly influenced current parent involvement policies aiming at shaping the cultural capital of working-class and poor families in order to bridge the achievement gap between their children and middle-class

Introduction

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children. However, understanding the role of cultural capital in the reproduction of social inequality stops short from examining what transpires when marginalized parents collectively attempt to garner the social power necessary to challenge the status quo. Moreover, it poses the danger of focusing undue attention on individuals and families rather than on the roles school culture and structure play in the reproduction of social oppression and alienation (Fine, 1993; Weininger & Lareau, 2003; Fine, Burns, Payne & Torre; 2004). Lareau and Horvat (1999) suggest that attending to “moments of inclusion” and “moments of exclusion” (“moments of reproduction” and “contestation”)—how individual behaviors are legitimated or marginalized within particular social fields (contexts)—would provide a more nuanced and phenomenologically valid understanding of the reproduction and contestation of social inequality. They urge researchers to “pay more attention to the field of interaction and the explicit and implicit rules for interaction embodied in a given field,” stressing that “any form or type of capital derives value only in relation to the specific field of interaction” (p. 50). Parent involvement research that examines community organizing and empowerment processes provides additional theoretical frameworks for understanding the events that take place when marginalized minority groups organize to challenge the received power structure in schools. Moments of Contestation: Community Organizing, Empowerment and Sense of Community Marginalized communities in the United States have a long history of mobilizing to advocate for their rights and improve their living conditions. Some contend that, actually, without collective political action, marginalized groups could not benefit from the same rights as the dominant groups or even aspire to enhance their rights (Flores, 1997). Thus, community organizing is one way by which marginalized groups build their social power to exercise political capital. Mediratta (1995) defines political capital as “the clout and competence a community can wield to influence public decisions in order to obtain resources, services and opportunities from the public and private sectors” (p. 4). To have political capital a community has to garner social capital and power. The most recent history of community organizing in the United States can be traced back to the work of Saul D. Alinsky, arguably the first organizer to create a replicable model for community organizing (Delgado, 1997). Alinsky “advocated a reason for organizing that

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extended beyond the mere leveraging of additional goods and services: building organizations of poor people that could challenge the existing balance of power” (Delgado, 1997, p. 9), people who knew how to organize to exercise social power (Alinsky, 1971). Although the larger aim is social justice, the immediate focus is on what Weick (1984) called “small wins:” “controllable opportunities that produce visible results” (p. 35). Ultimately, people need to garner and wield power in order to produce the results they are aiming for. The right to equitable and high quality public education has been a target of community organizing across the nation for decades. By the beginning of the 20th century, compulsory public education was a reality in most states. Educational reform movements first sought to gain autonomy over families and centralized governance. Most recently school reform efforts attempt to reduce the distance between schools and the communities they serve. These efforts have taken different forms: from focusing on gaining community support for schools, to developing collaborative relationships between schools and community members in the day-to-day governance of schools, to outright community-organizing by adults and youth from the outside and within to transform schools (Crowson, 1998; Snauwaert, 1993; Zachary & olatoye, 2001). Behind efforts for the most participatory vision of education reform is an understanding of public education as a vehicle for the development of an active citizenry engaged in concocting a deeply and critically democratic society: citizens who think critically about their circumstances and participate in the debates and decisions that affect their communities and society at large (Snauwaert, 1993; Wilson et al., 2001; Torre & Fine, 2005). Speer and Hughey (1995) argue that community organizing provides a context for understanding the interplay between empowerment and social power. Like power, empowerment is a multidimensional construct. It is both a value orientation for working in the community and a theoretical model for understanding the process and consequences of efforts to exert control and influence over decisions that affect one’s life, organizational functioning, and the quality of community life (Zimmerman, 2000, p. 43) Empowerment can be expressed as process and outcomes. Basic components of empowerment processes are “participation with others

Introduction

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to achieve goals, efforts to gain access to resources, and some critical understanding of the sociopolitical environment” where efforts are being made (Zimmerman, 2000, p. 44). These components of empowerment may be involved at individual, organizational or community levels. All are at play in community organizing. At the individual-process level, “empowerment is expressed through membership in an organization, relationship building with community members, and practice of action-reflection dialectic through the organizing cycle” (Speer & Hughey, 1995, p. 736). It is through their connection with organizations that members can have access to social power: forming relationships with other members leads individuals to identify areas of common interest, talk about how issues affect them individually and collectively, and “challenge each other to act” (Speer & Hughey, 1995, p. 736) Practicing the action-reflection dialectic is an individual and collective endeavor that entails talking, learning, thinking, and acting on issues. For example, people engage in action by having conversations with each other and other community members about issues of concern, investigating the issues, running meetings and speaking publicly. Reflection entails “a systematic, phenomenological evaluation” of the actions taken. Such “reflection cultivates an individual’s knowledge, emotional reactions, and critical awareness of community functioning” (Speer & Hughey, 1995, p. 736; also Freire, 1970/2002). At the organizational level, “sustaining activity and levels of participation” is fundamental for empowerment processes (Speer & Hughey, 1995, p. 738). Moreover, building a relational basis within the organization is key; otherwise, participation will be determined by the salience of the issue at hand, precluding the organization from building social power. Finally, at the community level, empowerment processes are expressed through “multisector relational development, institutional linkages across sectors, and collective attention to common community issues” (Speer & Hughey, 1995, p. 739). Mediratta (1995) suggests that “social and economic ties can provide the building blocks for collective political action to ensure the needs of a community are met” (p. 4). Again, building relationships based on mutual interest and commitment is central to empowerment processes at individual, organizational and community levels. Although much of the research literature distinguishes between individual and community levels of empowerment, from a phenomenological standpoint, it makes little sense to separate individual empowerment processes from the person’s social context including his/her

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community(ies) of reference. At the individual/community levels, building relationships based on mutual interests, values, experiences, could also be described as building a sense of community. Psychological sense of community is defined as the “feelings of belonging, mutual influence, fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection with other members of one’s group” (Brodsky & Marx, 2001, p. 161; also McMillan & Chavis, 1986). Heller (1989) suggests that communities may be based on place (geographical), shared interests (relational) or be formed for members to wield joint power. Although people belong to multiple communities, we are typically centered in what Sonn and Fisher (1998) call “a primary community;” it is this community which gives the person “values, norms, stories, myths, and a sense of historical continuity” (p. 461). The primary community then would provide the social ties that could become the ground for empowerment processes, including collective action. Some argue that there is a connection between sense of community and empowerment (Miers & Fisher, 2002). In his review of the literature, Maya Jariego (2004) concludes that in the context of social change dynamics, psychological sense of community, citizen participation and psychological empowerment function as interrelated processes. However, as Riger (1993) points out, more empirical work needs to be done to integrate these constructs. This gap in the literature is particularly evident in the study of empowerment processes in small, marginalized and new communities, such as those formed by recent working-poor immigrants in areas where they represent a new population.

LATINOS AND LATIN AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES The latest U.S. census brought good news for many Latino advocates: U.S. and foreign-born Latinos are now the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority in the United States (Grieco & Cassidy, 2001; Pew Hispanic Center, 2006). There are more than 44 million Latinos in the U.S., accounting for almost half of the population growth in the last decades. Immigration and fertility rates are major factors in the rapid growth of this population (Pew Hispanic Center, 2006; U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). Latino advocates hope the increase in numbers will translate into more attention to our needs and more political and economic power for the group. However, turning numbers into power will take more than spreading the news.

Introduction

15

Latinos are a vastly heterogeneous group, varying along ethnic, racial and cultural lines, political histories, socioeconomic status, language, place of birth and immigration experience. Demographic diversity also implies a diversity of experiences, standpoints, strengths and needs. Two dimensions of difference relevant to parent-school relations are immigration and social class. Latinos are much more likely to be unemployed and earn less than European Americans. Close to a quarter of the population lives below the poverty level. Barely 57% of Latinos have graduated from high school; 27% have less than a 9th grade education. Moreover, about forty percent of the Latino population is immigrant. Among them, more than half are recent immigrants who entered the country between 1990 and 2002. Today, close to seventy percent of the Latino population is of Mexican origin (Ramirez & De la Cruz, 2003). Some have argued that among Latinos, the state of U.S.-born and immigrant Mexicans requires urgent attention (M. M. Suárez-Orozco, 1998). A Focus on U.S.-Born and Immigrant Mexicans7 The history of Mexican-descent people in North America predates that of other Latino groups (Moll & Ruiz, 2002). People of Mexican descent have been in what is known as the U.S. contiguous territory centuries before its current geopolitical boundaries were drawn (Chavez, 1998). The U.S. border officially crossed Mexicans in 1848 when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, annexing vast parts of the Mexican territory to the U.S. (see Gutiérrez, 2004; Zinn, 2001). Since the early 1900s poor Mexican workers have been actively recruited, expelled, and recruited again repeatedly by the U.S. government and private industry to perform the jobs that are unattractive to most U.S. citizens (Chavez, 1998). The generations of Mexican-descent people who have lived in the territory together with the millions of Mexicans who have and continue to immigrate make them the largest Latino ethnic group in the U.S. (Malone, Baluja, Costanzo, & Davis, 2003; Ramirez & De la Cruz, 2003; M. M. Suárez-Orozco, 1998). Census figures indicate that people of Mexican descent are not only the largest group of Latinos but also fare worse on most socioeconomic variables. Mexicans represent more than half of the 8.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. (Passel, 2002). Mexican-descent people have the lowest proportion of work earnings and are the least likely to have graduated from high school (Ramirez & De la Cruz, 2003). Some argue that the kinds of jobs available to lowskill immigrants rarely offer opportunities for upward mobility (M. M.

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Suárez-Orozco, 1998). Worse yet, data on economic adaptation, occupational attainment and mobility suggest that higher education does not bring higher status for most Mexican immigrants (Myers, 1998; Toussaint-Comeau, Smith, & Comeau, 2005). The high school dropout rate for Latino youth is 21% nationwide. A third of this population is composed of recently arrived immigrants who never enrolled in U.S. schools. The dropout rate for U.S.-born and immigrants who have done most of their schooling in the U.S. is 14 and 18 percent respectively (Pew Hispanic Center, 2004b). Although some researchers have examined the characteristics of public schools with high-performing Latino students, and the ways those schools relate to parents (e.g., López, Scribner, & Mahitivanichcha, 2001; Reyes, Scribner, & Paredes Scribner, 1999), most educational research has focused on the school experiences of Latino youth, particularly Mexican-descent students (e.g., Armendariz, 2000; Bonetati, 1994; Conchas, 2001; Delgado-Gaitan, 1988; Gitlin, Buendia, Crosland, & Doumbia, 2003; Matute-Bianchi, 1991; Plunkett & Bamaca-Gomez, 2003; Portes & MacLeod, 1996; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; C. SuárezOrozco et al., 2004; Valenzuela, 1999). The growth rate of this population and the socioeconomic realities that Mexican-descent parents face have caught the attention of policy makers and school officials across the nation. How parents and students understand their relationships with schools seem to be related to how long they have lived in the U.S., whether they share the collective memory of discrimination in this country, and how they define the roles of family and school in the education of children (Olneck, 2004; Romo, 1986; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Valdés, 1996). Research shows that recent Mexican immigrants tend to view U.S. schools more positively than longer-term, second- and third-generation Mexican-descent students. Some argue that recent immigrants’ optimism about school, teachers and educational opportunities reflects their “dual frame of reference,” as they compare the increased quality and quantity of resources they have access to in the U.S. with what was available to them in their home country (Matute-Bianchi, 1991; Ogbu & Simons, 1998; Olneck, 2004). In contrast, Mexican-descent students who have more experience with U.S. schools are more likely to see teachers as holding racist attitudes towards them, and have a general distrust of the schooling process (Matute-Bianchi, 1991; Olneck, 2004; Valenzuela, 1999).

Introduction

17

Although many have examined the experiences of immigrant Latino parents as they negotiate U.S. public schools (e.g., Baca et al., 1989; Cline & Necochea, 2001; Commins, 1992; Delgado-Gaitan, 2001; Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991; Lopez, Sanchez, & Hamilton, 2000; Romo, 1986; Shannon, 1996; Valdés, 1996), less is known about parents’ experiences trying to participate in schools, particularly undocumented8 parents collectively advocating for school change. A careful look at how Mexican parents understand and confront educational disparities would inform us about how this growing ethnic minority understand and shape their roles in their children’s schooling. Understanding their experiences could deepen our knowledge of how social, cultural and political capital are shaped in U.S. schools. Immigrant Mexican Parents Legitimizing Their Right to Be Involved in Schools Schools are an important socializing force for immigrant children and their families. Demographic projections suggest that in fifteen years, 25 percent of the nation’s youth will be Latino (Trueba, 1998). Most Latinos of recent immigrant origin speak limited or no English (SuarezOrozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1995; Suro, 2005). The increase in the immigrant Latino American population is likely to have a continuing impact on public schools (Ruiz-de-Velasco et al., 2000). This trend is becoming increasingly evident for communities where there were hardly any Spanish-speaking immigrants a decade ago. In Illinois, Korbel represents an example of this trend (Reyes Cruz, Decker, & Johnston, June 2001; Reyes Cruz & Miranda Lugo, June 2003). Developing strong school-community relationships is not only a matter of providing the appropriate resources for students’ learning. Parents’ and students’ experience of school-community relations has implications for the viability of public schools as places where active and productive citizens are nurtured. Research on the experiences of working-poor Mexican immigrant parents with their children’s schools has found that parents themselves show low levels of educational attainment, have difficulties negotiating U.S. school culture and expectations, and place high value on their children’s educational attainment. For example, Baca and his colleagues (1989) interviewed a random sample of 105 Mexican immigrant parents living in a community within the Los Angeles area. They found that most of the parents had no more than an elementary school education and were generally unaware of parents’ rights and obligations in U.S. public schools. Parents in this study placed a high value

18


on education, wanting to see their children master the English language, graduate from high school and go on to college (see also Pérez Carreón et al., 2005; Knight, Norton, Bentley & Dixon, 2004). In addition to trusting schools to provide their children with the skills to succeed, parents also saw schools as places where they could develop their own skills and in turn be more useful to their children academically. English and Spanish classes were among the areas identified by parents for school-based parent education programs. Romo (1986) investigated perceptions of schooling among Mexican-descent families in Texas. Undocumented Mexican parents in her sample believed that acquiring a formal education and learning English were essential for their children’s chances for upward mobility. Despite their limited level of formal education, economic pressures and precarious immigration status, some undocumented parents also saw educational opportunities for their children as a right. Romo suggests that perhaps, influenced by public debate about events taking place at the time (i.e., court cases on the rights of undocumented children to schooling) or informed through their contact with U.S.-born Mexicandescent parents, these parents believed they had earned their children’s right to education through their own contributions to the community as workers, consumers and tax-payers. However, the benefits their children received by attending U.S. schools overshadowed any concern or criticism parents had about schools. Romo (1986) also found that, compared to other Mexican-descent groups, undocumented Mexican parents “expressed the strongest feelings of isolation, lack of control over their lives, and embarrassment in school encounters because of lack of English fluency and literacy skills, but expressed the strongest support for school teachers and staff.” They “became vulnerable to the availability, patience, goodwill, and honest intentions of those who helped them” (p. 186). Uncomfortable in schools and self-conscious about their precarious immigration status, these parents attended school meetings if personally encouraged to do so, asked few questions, and knew little about how schools worked and what schools expected of them and their children. Other studies describe the cultural basis for the disconnect between Mexican immigrant parents and schools. These studies highlight the role of cultural differences in shaping the nature of school-community relations (e.g., Commins, 1992; López, 2001; Valdés, 1996). Although researchers in this area often point out how power inequalities determine which cultural practices are sanctioned and which are marginal-

Introduction

19

ized, an analysis of how parents engage in the power dynamics is often missing. In his book on the problem of change in public schools, Sarason (1996) maintains that “one cannot understand the failure of efforts to change and improve schools unless one deals with school-community relationships and their largely implicit character—implicit, that is, until their legal-traditional-cultural features are pushed into the forefront by conflict and controversy” (p. 2). Efforts by poor and ethnic minority parents to bring about change in public schools make explicit aspects of school-community relationships that hinder meaningful parent and community participation in school matters. Research that documents these efforts illustrates empowerment processes by describing how parents from marginalized communities use and build their social, cultural and political capital. These studies also document how parents overcome barriers and create contexts for individual and collective empowerment (e.g., Bilby, 2002; Cline & Necochea, 2001; DelgadoGaitan, 1991, 2001; Gold et al., 2002; Kamber 2002; Mediratta et al., 2002; Williams, 1989; Zachary & olatoye, 2001). Parents’ efforts have required some level of community organizing where empowerment processes are intertwined with building sense of community, social, political and cultural capital. Some of these studies describe efforts by Mexican immigrants organizing to improve their children’s schools. With few exceptions, however, much of the writing on community organizing and empowerment processes among Latinos focuses on the activities of parents in urban settings where communities of color are often able to galvanize support from experienced community-based organizations and professional organizers to work towards school reform (e.g., Flores, 1997; Gold et al., 2002; Jasis & Ordóñez-Jasis, 2004; Ochs, 2003). Large urban settings provide numerous organizing resources that are not readily available in small cities and towns. Among these resources are: availability of bilingual/bicultural Latinos with experience working on civil rights matters, community-based organizations with a history of community organizing, mainstream social institutions knowledgeable in working with recent immigrants, and local funding sources for community building. Cline and Necochea (2001) and Delgado-Gaitan (2001) studied Latino parent mobilization efforts in two small towns in California. Cline and Necochea described the story of a group of Latino parents who came together to call attention to the inequitable educational achievement of non-English-speaking students. This group of parents demanded “fundamental change in the institutionalized behaviors,

20


norms, rules and expectations that govern instructional practices” for English learners, as well as the role of their parental involvement (p. 91). The negative reaction of those with institutional power forced parents to confrontation rather than collaboration with school and district staff. The researchers maintain that the oppositional and disrespectful ways in which parents were treated was the catalyst that led them to unprecedented political activism in that Latino community. Delgado-Gaitan (2001) studied another small town in California where a group of Mexican immigrant parents organized to become engaged in schools and help their children succeed. This group of parents aimed to “support each other in learning how to work with the schools in an informed way and help their children in their schooling… voice their interests, expand their knowledge and become partners with the schools” (p. 21). In this case, parents were able to galvanize the support of people and organizations working with Spanish-speaking families and find ways to both collaborate and put pressure on the relevant institutions. Local Mexican Americans and Chicanos also supported the parents by serving as key informants and cultural brokers. Cline and Necochea (2001) and Delgado-Gaitan (2001) described the social context in which Latino parents in small communities organized for school reform highlighting their experiences with stakeholders outside their primary community. In their studies, the dynamics between parents and schools take center stage: how parents engage with, challenge and/or resolve conflict with teachers and administrators is the main focus. Missing from their analysis is a detailed examination of the interplay between empowerment and sense of community, particularly the processes by which different segments of a Latino community build, activate and (de)legitimize their social and cultural capital in specific fields of interaction. Their accounts fall into portraying community as a “compact and homogeneous” “we” (Wiesenfeld, 1996, p. 337), romanticizing “the community” by emphasizing inter-group dynamics without close attention to how intragroup processes can both facilitate and hinder sense of community and collective empowerment. In sum, unlike multiethnic and urban settings, schools in relatively homogeneous towns experiencing an increase in Latin American immigrant students are just beginning to grapple with the demands on their institutional and cultural practices posed by this new population. For the most part, the research literature in this area has focused on

Introduction

21

school-centered, school-initiated interventions that would facilitate Latino parent involvement as defined by schools. On the other hand, the literature on parent organizing for school reform has focused on inter-group relationships highlighting the conflicts between parents and schools. This literature deals with the relationships between capital (social, cultural and political), community organizing, empowerment and sense of community, without attending to the interplay between inter- and intra-group dynamics in these processes. The present study aims to contribute to this area of inquiry by paying attention to the complex interplay of relationships within and between different groups of stakeholders in school settings.


CHAPTER 2

From Community Practice to a Critical Ethnography

Community psychologists committed to an empowerment social agenda work towards “identifying, facilitating, or creating contexts in which heretofore silent and isolated people, those who are ‘outsiders’ in various settings, organizations, and communities, gain understanding, voice, and influence over decisions that affect their lives” (Rappaport, 1990, p. 52). In line with Martín-Baró’s (1994) new praxis, Rappaport argues that our work should benefit society’s “outsiders;” it should be done in the context of the people one is aligning with, collaboratively, allowing for “paradoxical and qualitative understanding,” aiming for descriptive authenticity (Rappaport 1990; also Rappaport & Stewart, 1997). These efforts require relational methodological approaches that facilitate the communication and understanding of processes from the perspectives of multiple social actors9 with enough depth and detail to capture intricacies of socio-psychological and cultural dynamics. Critical ethnography grounded on hermeneutic methods of interpretation is a vehicle for documenting and interpreting the complexities of empowerment while remaining engaged in social transformation processes (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000; Trueba & McLaren, 2000; Carspecken, 1996). [Ethnographic work] involves an ongoing attempt to place specific encounters, events, and understandings into a fuller, more meaningful context. It is not simply the production of new information or research data, but rather the way in which such information or data are transformed into a written or visual form… it combines research design, fieldwork, and various methods of inquiry to produce historically, politically, 23

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform and personally situated accounts, descriptions, interpretations, and representations of human lives (Tedlock, 2000, p. 455).

Critical ethnography is ethnographic work grounded in critical theory traditions. Trueba and McLaren (2000) argue for a critical ethnography that advocates for the oppressed by (1) documenting the nature of oppression; (2) documenting the process of empowerment—a journey away from oppression; (3) accelerating the conscientization of the oppressed and the oppressors, (4) sensitizing the research community to the implications of research for the quality of life-clearly linking intellectual work to real life conditions; and (5) reaching a higher level of understanding of the historical, political, sociological, and economic factors supporting the abuse of power, oppression, neglect and/or disregard for human rights, and of the mechanisms to learn and internalize rights and obligations (p. 38). This work is framed within a critical hermeneutic approach that aims “to connect the everyday troubles individuals face to public issues of power, justice, and democracy” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000, p. 289). It recognizes that the meaning of human experience cannot be fully revealed. And requires the ethnographer/interpreter to engage in a process of self-revelation and interpretation to make as explicit as possible the ways in which who she is, her actions and her interpretive lenses are also socially constructed (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000). Also central to this work is the development of a relational approach: forming genuine relationships with those engaged in the ethnographic context in such a way that facilitates an in-depth understanding of the actors’ personal and social realities, and the development of empathy. In turn, feelings of empathy better equip the actor-researcher to avoid dichotomous understandings of others in the ethnographic context. In keeping with this and other traditions, such as feminist poststructuralism (Weedon, 1987) and value-praxis community psychology (Prilleltensky, 2001), I have attempted to tell a story that privileges the voices of those who are marginalized without making myself invisible. The ethnographic material was read interpretively and reflexively (Mason, 2002). This is neither the only reading possible nor the only


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story to tell. But it is the story that reflects what I learned working with multiple stakeholders to defend the rights and dignity of Mexican immigrant families.

SOCIAL ACTORS Although my intent is to portray social dynamics and processes rather than represent individuals, the processes of interest are enacted by social actors. The main actors in this ethnography are recent Mexican immigrant parents who were negotiating their place in the life of Korbel public schools. Almost all arrived to the U.S. between 1999 and 2003 and had an undocumented immigration status. All spoke Spanish and one was also fluent in English. Most worked one or two jobs and lived with their spouses and children. Although they had different levels of educational attainment, most did not advance to middle school. All the parents had elementary school-age children and some lived in the same trailer park neighborhood. All their children attended schools with programs for English learners. Most of these parents had been part of a parent-driven local group advocating for changes in the schools. Other actors in this ethnography are people who were involved in school politics with whom the Mexican parents came into contact: teachers and other school staff, administrators, advocates, other parents and community members including myself, a bilingual “community consultant.” These actors were a racially and ethnically diverse group (White and Black U.S. Americans, Latinos/as and Latino American immigrants) with professional roles in the local community. All actors are identified by pseudonyms. Some chose their own pseudonyms. Others are identified either by a generalized description of their role and/or a pseudonym I assigned to them.

THE RESEARCH PROCESS Methodologically, this critical ethnography is similar to classical ethnographic work. I conducted participant-observation in Korbel educational settings for a period of four years writing field notes of my observations, interviewing some of the actors, and conducting analysis of public documents. This work differs from classic ethnography in that the data collection process was guided by a community practice for social justice: a process that developed from the ground up, defining the issues of concern with those with less power in a given context, working towards tangible small wins. This required a “living” design:

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an emerging research design that remained flexible and thus capable of responding to the needs of the community work. In practice, my activities as a participant-observer reflected what some have described as “community consultation” (Good et al., 1997), working as a broker getting people together and linking them to resources they may not have access to otherwise, an advocate challenging dominant ways of acting that contributed to the marginalization of some actors, and a participant-activist working towards small wins that would directly benefit those being marginalized (Rappaport, 1977). In the context of the present study the community consultation entailed working collaboratively with multiple stakeholders to identify and address the needs of recent Mexican immigrant students and their families. Field observations started in 2000 as I began to immerse myself in the everyday life of various settings where the education of Latino American students was performed and/or discussed. Roughly speaking, participant-observation for this study can be described in three periods or “movements.”10 The first was a reconnaissance period: a time for developing a general understanding of the physical and social contours of the local Latino American “community.” I knew the population I wanted to work with (working-poor Latino American immigrants) but did not know if it constituted a community or how to enter it if it existed. The reconnaissance entailed holding multiple conversations with local professionals involved with working-poor monolingual Latino Americans in Korbel about the history and current situation of this segment of the local population, and identifying several local organizations for potential collaborations. The second movement began as I became a volunteer and consultant at a community-based bilingual after-school program. This community-based organization offered academic programs for students and translation and advocacy services to families. They also held informational parent meetings where school issues and other topics of concern were discussed. At the end of our first year of collaboration I became the program’s liaison to W.E.B. Dubois Elementary School (pseudonym), the only public elementary school that provided services in Spanish. Also during this period I designed a one-year long community psychology practicum for undergraduate students. The idea for the course emerged as an effort to address some of the needs identified with the leaders of the community-based organization. Their afterschool program relied on volunteers to run their daily operations. When


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volunteers became unreliable the program suffered greatly. The staff brainstormed possible solutions but it was difficult to find long-term alternatives. As I discussed the situation with my advisors and colleagues in the community psychology team at the university, they suggested I develop a community psychology practicum for undergraduate students. The community psychology program had a longstanding tradition of offering one-year-long seminars to undergraduates in collaboration with local institutions. These seminars provided a context for the integration of community theory and practice while providing support for local organizations. The after-school program staff liked the idea and we coordinated student support for them and Dubois Elementary as a way of integrating services for specific families. Being in the position of program liaison and instructor/coordinator of the undergraduate practicum opened additional spaces for building relationships with parents and school staff, directly continuing to deepen my understanding of the local dynamics. The last movement represents the time when I became more actively engaged in school politics and thus gained access to some of the spaces where the struggle to shape the education of Latino American students took place. During this period I collaborated closely but separately with school and district staff, Mexican parents and other community members vying to participate in school decision making processes that affected Spanish-speaking students. This included participating in a district-wide task force that dealt with issues concerning foreign-born students, collaborating with district staff to organize a Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee of Latino American parents, and becoming one of the close allies of an advocacy group founded by Mexican parents pushing for changes in the schools. Consonant with “what happens” in community consultations (Good et al., 1997), my roles were multiple and constantly changing, developing different kinds of relationships with multiple actors. Throughout these movements I served as translator, cultural broker, driver, resource, facilitator, confidant and consultant. For some I also was an ally and a friend. Some of those relationships continue to exist at the time of this writing. My observations and reflections throughout these three movements are described in field notes. These portray the settings where interactions took place, interactions between the actors involved, and my activities and observations as an actor in these settings. Additionally,

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during the summer of 2003 I conducted qualitative interviews with parents, teachers and district staff to explore their perspectives on the education of Latino American students in Korbel. The formal interviews were conducted at a critical time in local school politics. That summer marked the end of a consultation process in which the school district engaged Latino American parents in making some decisions about programs for Spanish-speaking students, and the beginning of the Mexican parents’ collective mobilizing efforts to effect changes in the schools. A total of 31 actors were interviewed: 19 parents and 12 school and district staff (including teachers, counselors, social workers and administrators) directly involved in at least two schools that offered services to Spanish speakers, Cleaver Middle School (pseudonym) and W.E.B. Dubois Elementary. An undergraduate research assistant conducted the interviews with people involved with Cleaver and I conducted the rest of the interviews. In order to make the most of the ethnographic material, I decided to incorporate in the formal analysis only those interviews with the people I had met during my involvement in the field. This sub-sample is composed of 12 Mexican parents and 6 staff directly engaged with W.E.B. Dubois Elementary. Two relevant interviews could not be used due to the poor quality of the recording. Some of the people interviewed were among those with whom I had developed a relationship (collaborators, allies and friends). Contact information for other interviewees was provided by the school district. The interviews took place at the setting most convenient for participants (e.g., their home, an office, a café) and were conducted in the language of their choice (i.e., English, Spanish, or both). Interviews lasted from one to three hours. All were audio taped except for one as per the interviewee’s request. Preparation of the Ethnographic Material and Data Analysis Field notes, interview transcriptions and public documents (e.g., newspaper articles and school district documents) comprise the data for the study. Before beginning the formal data analysis, I first organized the ethnographic material chronologically. Field notes were categorized into electronic folders by year. Each note was identified by a header with the date the note was written and a brief description of the main topic or event described in the note. All the interviews used in the analysis were transcribed by undergraduate research assistants and myself. I checked transcriptions for accuracy by listening to the tape


29

while reading the transcripts. Line numbers were added to each electronic document to facilitate matching excerpts to their source. The data analysis was guided by critical hermeneutic methods of interpretation. The general aim of these methods is to search for the historical and social dynamics that shape people’s discourse (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000). Towards this end, I followed Carspecken’s (1996) principles for reconstructive analysis. This approach “takes conditions of action constructed by people on nondiscursive levels of awareness and reconstructs them linguistically” thus making explicit what is otherwise implicit in everyday social interactions (p. 42). I focused particularly on meaning reconstruction by identifying validity claims in everyday discourse. Carspecken describes three types of validity (or truth) claims: subjective, objective and normative-evaluative. Subjective claims are assertions “about existing subjective states” (e.g., I am sad). Objective claims are assertions about the existence of certain objects or events that any observer present could notice (e.g., it is sunny today). Normative-evaluative claims are statements about “the rightness, goodness and appropriateness of certain activities” that others should agree on (e.g., parents who do not attend school meetings do not care about their children’s education) (p. 28). Once the data was organized, I began the first reading of the ethnographic material. First I read field notes and then interviews in chronological order. The goal of this first reading was to outline emergent themes staying as close to the primary record as possible (low-level coding). At this level of analysis, the themes served to describe relationships and processes of interest (e.g., entering the field, multiple roles of local leaders). In order to organize the material by theme, I created an electronic document where I copied and pasted excerpts under different themes (headings) using the Outline View, Master Document and Subdocument features in MS Word. Each excerpt was identified by the corresponding file name and line numbers. The master document-subdocument feature allowed me to view the document in outline form. Navigating the document was facilitated by seeing it in Document Map View which shows each subdocument heading (in this case the themes) on one side of the window and its corresponding text on the other side. During this process I also began to take note of themes that reflected a higher level of abstraction (high-level coding). These were later used to link the material to theoretical constructs. This dual-process is in line with what Carspecken (1996) describes as what actually happens in data coding processes.

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Next I created an outline for each chapter of ethnographic findings. In the process of transcribing and reading the interviews with Mexican parents I began to take note of idiomatic phrases that captured recurrent dynamics and processes of interest. When I began to think about the outline, going over the themes identified in the analysis, I saw how the idiomatic phrases could serve as anchors for organizing the ethnographic material into chapters grouping those themes that together told a particularly poignant part of the story (see Rubin & Rubin, 2005). As Richardson (2000) pointed out, data analysis continued throughout the writing process. Before writing each chapter I performed a second reading of the material selected for the chapter. For this second reading I printed the relevant subdocuments and wrote brief analytic comments on the margins of the documents as I read. Then I created another document outlining my handwritten comments from the second reading. This provided me with a more detailed map of each theme. The second reading served to further the analysis of the material and maintain a close grasp of the data. I read all the material in its original language. A Note on Ethnographic Time, Accuracy and Crafting the Story One of the aims of a critical ethnography is to serve as a vehicle for amplifying marginalized perspectives. Thus, the focus of the data analysis and the writing of findings was not how many people said/thought/acted in a certain way but what can be said about what was happening that will shed light on what tends to be marginalized, silenced, and made invisible. This work is more about exposing silences than about “giving voice.” As described before, the ethnographic material presented here was assembled during the course of four years of field work. At first sight, the story that I am going to tell narrates the experiences of Mexican parents because their stories are the most marginalized in this ethnographic context. However, at a more basic level, the story is also about me: the material that I gathered and present here exists in part because I was one of the witnesses-actors. In turn, my “witnessingacting” reflects where I was (both as a matter of choice and coincidence), what I was looking at/for (or what caught my attention), my commitments (as a doctoral student, intellectual and activist, a friend). Thus, like any account about the social world, this is by definition a partial account: there is no ultimate interpretation of “what happened”


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or enough triangulation that could get us close to certainty about what happened (Richardson, 2000). As I wrote “the findings” I struggled with my awareness (as limited as it was) of the ways in which I was shaping the account and the necessity of striving to tell a story lived and narrated by others. At the end, if it all became about me then I would also be marginalizing the voices of other actors that are part of the story. If the story makes sense to the parents to whom I owe much of what I came to know about social reproduction and contestation in schools, then I will sleep better. Not because the Mexican parents involved in this process know something no one else could know. After all, they are part of an epistemological community (Harding, 1993; Nelson 1993). But rather because if they see themselves in this narrative, I have done part of the job I set out to do. The order in which “things happened” is relevant for an understanding of the processes at play. With this in mind, the reader should be reminded that the formal interviews with parents, teachers and school district staff happened a few months after a series of school district-sponsored meetings that lead to the parents’ organizing efforts. It was during these formal interviews that most of the detailed information about the parents’ immigration experiences emerged. Thus, parents were already participating at school and organizing meetings by the time I interviewed them and so technically they became visibly engaged in school matters even earlier than what will be suggested by the order in which the chapters are presented. I took this literary license in an attempt to build a narrative that fostered authentic emotional understanding; what happens when a person “enters into the experiences of another and reproduces or experiences feelings similar to those felt by the other” (Denzin, 2001, p. 139). Another issue in ethnographic writing is that of accuracy. How much of what is said “actually happened”? Is “what happened” the same from different perspectives? Is providing exact quotes the same as getting it right? How can one protect the identity of actors and maintain accuracy? Here I have taken what I will loosely claim to be a postmodernist/poststructuralist position (see Richardson, 2000; Weedon, 1987). This standpoint does away with the assumption that one method of approaching writing is better than another. Rather all methods have to be looked at critically from a stance of doubt. Moreover, there is no attempt here to claim that one has learned and understood everything about what one is writing. All knowledge and knowers are situated and temporary. On the other hand, taking this

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standpoint allows the writer to own what she has learned and understood. Finally, taking a postmodernist/poststructuralist position also means avoiding taking language, or more concretely what people say, at face value. What people say does not reflect social truth but social meaning: how the world is organized from a particular perspective given the discourses available to those who speak (and/or are silenced). Because there are more sides to the story than can be accounted for, the aim here is to “crystallize:” to provide “deepened, complex, thoroughly partial, understanding of the topic” (Richardson, 2000, p. 934). The ethnographic material is presented in the language in which it was inscribed (i.e., Spanish, English or both). Simultaneous translation from Spanish to English is presented when necessary, typically in columns with the Spanish text on the left and English on the right. Translating the material from Spanish to English was not a simple matter. Generally, people’s speech does not follow the same rules as written language. In addition, there are differences between the parents’ spoken Spanish and my own. Although we are all native Spanish speakers, there are enough regionalisms that forced me to pause and consult them and others to make sure I understood what they meant. For the purposes of the narrative, I decided to translate the Spanish text in a way that represented what the speaker said rather than what she said literally because literal translation made for awkward speech. The Spanish text is presented italicized with ellipsis signaling that text was omitted. Bracketed text denotes my personal comments, reflections or reactions. Some of the details of the actors’ identities and lives have been changed to disguise who they are. Excerpts from ethnographic material have been tailored to fit the flow of the narrative while maintaining fidelity to the original text.

CHAPTER 3

The Schooling of Mexican Children in Korbel

Although the Southwest continues to receive a considerable proportion of the Mexican immigrant population to the United States, the new Mexican immigrants are increasingly moving to other regions of the country including the Midwest (Diaz McConnell, 2002). Mexican and Mexican-descent people have lived in the Midwest since at least the turn of the 20th century (House, 1998). Korbel County has been receiving migrant Mexican and Mexican American farm workers for decades. The university located in Korbel has also attracted Latino and Latino American students and professionals for some time. However, the rapid increase in the population of poor-working monolingual Latin American immigrants who have settled in Korbel has caught the city off guard. Korbel, a small city surrounded by corn and soybean fields, has seen its Latino American population doubled in a decade. In the last ten years, the European American majority population in this city of approximately 70,300 people decreased from 79% to 73%. In contrast, the population of ethnic/racial minorities increased from 14% to 16% in the case of African Americans and from 2% to 4% for Latinos (U.S. Census Bureau, 1990, 2000). At the time of the study, about 2,724 Latinos lived in Korbel (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004), representing a population growth of 120 percent in a decade (Wood, 2001, September 9). Roughly 45% of the Latino population is foreignborn (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.-a). Most identify as Mexican (60%) and the second largest group identifies as “other Hispanic or Latino” (28%) (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.-b). About 39% of those who identify as Mexican are foreign-born (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).11 These figures are thought to underestimate the total number of Latinos/Latino 33

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Americans in Korbel due to the likely undercounting of the undocumented and migrant segments of the population. Unlike large U.S. cities such as Chicago, New York or Los Angeles, Korbel lacked the social, cultural and political organizations characteristic of cities with historical Latino communities. This is not to say that local institutions and organizations had ignored the increase in the local Spanish-speaking immigrant population. Many were taking steps to expand and create services to target this population. First response institutions such as hospitals, police departments, and victim and refugee services took action securing access to translators, translating frequently used and vital documents, training staff on culturally responsive interventions, and expanding current services to target Spanish speakers. Educational institutions such as the community college, adult education program, and public library also expanded their services to provide access to resources in Spanish, English classes for adults, and high school equivalency classes in Spanish. In addition, there was one community-based bilingual afterschool program and, from 1999-2005, there was one organization whose mission was to advocate for migrant workers’ rights. However, given the high demand and the characteristics of Korbel, providing services and securing resources in Spanish continued to be a challenge, and Korbel struggled to build the public and private infrastructure needed to adequately serve the growing Spanish-speaking population (see County Regional Planning Commission, 2003; Haag, 2001, August 1; Merli, 1999, August 29; Wood, 2001, September 9; Wurth, 2002, July 28). More importantly, none of the existent organizations and institutions was founded by members of the targeted group nor was run by them. Additionally, none of these organizations provided a context where working-poor Latino American immigrants could build the kind of social and political capital necessary to become a segment of the Korbel population that had to be taken into account on their own terms. In other words, there were no organizations that, rather than represent, were actually a voice from the emerging Latino American community. Korbel was experiencing growing pains. The local public schools were just a site where these socio-historical and political realities were lived.

A NEW “COMMUNITY” IN TOWN From newspaper accounts to everyday conversations in school hallways, Korbel residents talked about the growing “Latino


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community.” Immigration and settling patterns suggested that segments of the population had in fact formed relational and geographic communities. However, community cohesion or demographic homogeneity could not be assumed. Despite similarities in immigration patterns and close ties among extended families, the local Latino population varied in terms of nationality and region, race, ethnicity, language, immigration and socioeconomic status, education, and age. There were U.S.-born Latinos and immigrants from Mexico, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, Central and South America, White, Black and Brown. Some were seasonal migrant workers and others were poor-working immigrants. There were also a number of professionals working in the social service and business sectors, university students, faculty and staff. Some Latinos were monolingual in English or Spanish, some were bilingual, and others spoke indigenous Latin American languages alone or in addition to speaking Spanish and/or English. Some were literate and others were not. Most Latinos had been in Korbel for a relatively short time and an important segment of the population did not establish long lasting roots in town (e.g., seasonal workers, university students). Even then there was diversity in immigration history and legal status. Some Latinos in Korbel were U.S. citizens, others immigrants with legal documentation and yet others had an undocumented immigration status. This diversity could be observed at both population and household levels. In terms of housing patterns, while college students tended to live close to the university campus and university faculty and staff in middle-class neighborhoods, most working-poor Latinos in Korbel lived at a trailer park on the northeast end of town, the historical African American neighborhood. Others lived at another low-income neighborhood behind a major strip mall on the northwest side of the city (County Regional Planning Commission, 2003; Wood, 2003, October 12). Despite being a relatively small city where people interacted with each other in multiple contexts, socioeconomic, cultural and language differences separated the population into groups with different forms of social and political capital. As in other places in the U.S. (see for example Bautista, 2000), these differences were often reflected in everyday interactions among people within the “Latino community.” For instance, one could find the same Latino and Latino American immigrant workers, students and professionals at salsa dancing, church, the open house of a bilingual public school and the same graduation

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party. But their needs, resources and experiences could be dramatically different. While middle- and poor-working-class immigrant parents sent their children to the same schools, the first group was typically English speakers or knew enough English to navigate the system while the other depended on translators and cultural brokers to enter the schools. And in general, the first group had access to educational resources that the second group could not readily access (e.g., information about school rankings). Thus, the presence of a sizable Latino/Latino American population in Korbel could not be confused with the existence of a Latino/Latino American community in a political sense (see Heller, 1989). Although there had been efforts to advocate and organize immigrant and migrant Latino Americans to claim workers’ rights (Wood, 1998, April 8; 1998, March 24), these efforts had not left the kind of organizing infrastructure that could wield social and political power.

NOT ALL STUDENTS OF COLOR ARE CREATED EQUAL: THE CLASS-RACE-ETHNICITY DIVIDE People of color were the minority in Korbel. African Americans, the largest ethnic minority group (16% of the local population), had a longstanding history in this town (Kurlakowsky, 2005). As of 2004, 35% of the Korbel public school population was African American (Illinois State Board of Education, n.d.-a). Except for the African American and more recently the Latino American student population, other students of color were considered by school staff as a transient population of “international students” whose parents were associated with the university for a short time. The dominant narrative around “international families” emphasized their desire for Americanizing experiences for their children (e.g., immersion in English-only classrooms). As transpired at a meeting of the English as a Second Language (ESL) Task Force, Many of the fathers of the children are visiting scholars from Korea. One parent stood up and said an ESL program is desired over a bilingual program. Many families are here for only two years. If they receive classes via Korean at school, then speak Korean at home, then return soon to Korea, they won’t have enough exposure to bring much English back. Many parents agreed that academics were not a concern for


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the families. Their goal is that students pick up some English, even if it is only conversational English. The dominant discourse about these students was that they did well in school because their parents could provide the support they needed to succeed. Although conversations about “international students” typically focused on language, class differences between the different ethnic minorities were important factors that shaped what parents provided their children, what they wanted from the schools and what they received. Silence about differences in class privilege was apparent in how school staff talked about foreign-born students. During a conversation at an ESL Task Force meeting about the differences between Latino and Korean ESL students, a staff member talked about how Koreans had the money to provide tutors and institutions like church-based schools “where the kids could work on their Korean.” But I hardly (if ever) heard anyone talk about social class differences among Latino parents explicitly. When people talked about “the parents” (i.e., the Latino and Latin American parents) they rarely distinguished between immigration, social class and/or educational attainment even though middle-class professional Latino parents were also sending their children to the public schools. What seemed to be generally understood was that we were talking about recent immigrants who were poor. Ultimately, African Americans, and more recently Latino American immigrant parents, carried the burden of making schools responsive to their concerns and needs as disempowered minorities. While both communities confronted educational inequities, decades of struggle by African Americans paved the way for Mexican immigrant parents to be heard by the school district.

AFRICAN AMERICANS’ LONGSTANDING STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY IN KORBEL The Korbel School District had a long history of mis-educating African American students. Throughout the time Mexican parents were becoming actively involved in school politics, the school district was under federal monitoring for lack of equity in the schooling of African American students. Thus, the experiences of immigrant Mexican parents with the local schools need to be contextualized within the history of African Americans’ struggle for educational equity in Korbel. It is in this racist context that Mexican parents were attempting

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to make sense of the local school culture and bring about changes in their children’s schooling experiences. For historical, demographic and political reasons, until very recently the debate over educational equity for minority students in Korbel schools focused on long-standing disparities between Black and White U.S. American students. Racial segregation patterns and racist practices by housing developers, realtors and other business people produced and maintained a geographical division along racial lines: Blacks lived in the north and Whites in the south of town. The closing of schools in the north and construction of new schools in the south coupled with dominant racist notions about what was fair led in the late 1960’s to desegregation attempts that relied on “the involuntary busing of African American students” to the White schools in the south part of the city (Kurlakowsky, 2005, p. 35). Since then, members of the African American community had denounced racial disparities in schooling, access to programs and educational outcomes. African American students had been and continued to be over-represented in school suspensions and special education programs and underrepresented in advanced placement and gifted programs (Aber, 2005; Kurlakowsky, 2005; Peterkin & Lucey, 1998). These longstanding inequities and hostile school climate for African American students and staff eventually led members of the community to seek legal action against the school district (Kurlakowsky, 2005). In 1997 members of the African American community filed a complaint with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) against the Korbel School District alleging “illegal and discriminatory practices in student assignment, within-school segregation of students, student discipline and staff hiring” (Aber, 2005). After conducting a compliance review examining multiple contexts of racial segregation in schools (e.g., special education programs, upper-level courses, student discipline, staff composition and hiring), OCR found reasons for concern and mandated an educational equity audit to better assess the performance of the schools. Results from the audit confirmed what African Americans already knew: Black students were over-represented in special education programs and suspensions and underrepresented in gifted and talented programs (Peterkin & Lucey, 1998). A group of African American families then threatened to file a lawsuit in federal district court. To avoid the costs of a trial, the plaintiffs and the school district entered into a consent decree that outlined actions the district would take to address racial


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disparities in the schools. A federal judge would then monitor the school district’s efforts to achieve the goals of the consent decree. As part of the agreement, the school district commissioned a school racial climate survey. The survey showed important discrepancies in how Whites and Blacks perceived and experienced the schools, particularly in regards to school fairness, cultural understanding and sensitivity, need for more African American staff and need for change in the school district, with Whites seeing less of a need to address all these areas (Aber, 2005; Aber, Meinrath, Johnston, Rasmussen, & Gonzalez, 2001, Feb.). In 2000 African American activists and families prepared to file a second suit in federal court. Despite some progress in the last four years (e.g., increase of African American students in gifted programs), substantive changes are still elusive (see Shepperd, 2004) and so community activists continue to monitor (the lack of) progress.

CONSTRUYENDO EL BARCO NAVEGANDO: SCHOOLING FOR LATINO AMERICAN STUDENTS IN KORBEL The rapid growth of the Spanish-speaking population impacted the Korbel School District directly. Although the school district had received Limited-English Proficiency (LEP) students for decades, this population had been low enough that the district was not required to provide services for non-English speakers. Available School Report Cards12 for Korbel indicate that until 1997 the Latino/Hispanic population was under 1% district-wide (R.S. Young, personal communication, October 25, 2004). Illinois State law required school districts to establish a “transitional bilingual education program” for students who share a first language other than English when 20 or more attend the same school (Illinois State Board of Education, 2003). The stated goal of these programs was to accelerate English learning so that students could be placed in English-only classrooms (Illinois State Board of Education, n.d.-b). By 1999, the number of Spanish-speaking students expected to attend one of the elementary schools, W.E.B. Dubois Elementary School, exceeded 19 (Merli, 1999, August 29). The school district then became mandated to provide bilingual education at Dubois Elementary and eligible for funding for those purposes. This meant that the district had to quickly figure out how to teach students in a language other than English without having the experience or the staff qualified to move in that direction successfully. Thus, they were placed

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in a position where they had to construir el barco navegando, or build the boat while sailing. At the time, the Korbel School District had 18 campuses including eleven elementary schools. As of 2004, there were 388 Spanishspeaking students district-wide. There were Spanish-speaking students at all levels and programs for LEP in at least one school per level (elementary, middle and high school). Most Latino/Latino American students (56%) were of elementary school age and a considerable proportion (44%) attended Dubois Elementary (Illinois State Board of Education, n.d.-a). Mexicans in Dubois Elementary School: Entering the Struggle for Educational Equity Dubois Elementary was located in the heart of Korbel’s historically African American neighborhood. This 50-year-old school had been the site of various political battles colored by racism and classism. Dubois was a neighborhood school attended mostly by Black students, founded to alleviate overcrowding at another neighborhood elementary school. In the late 1960s the school experienced its first major transformation: attempts at racially desegregating schools changed Dubois from being an African American neighborhood school to a district-wide magnet school. The school received state and university federal grant funding to support innovative programs (e.g., computer training) that attracted students from across the school district. The dominant narrative of the school describes these as Dubois’ “years of glory.” The school became the sought-after school. It specialized in arts and foreign languages and was populated by a “diverse” group of students chosen by the school district to represent the demographics of Korbel (i.e., mostly White European American students from middle-class families), not the neighborhood (see Haag, 2002, April 20). As the novelty and the funds ran out, demands for space by local African American activists increased and more foreign students needing bilingual services arrived, White U.S. families and transient “international families” pulled their children out of the school. The black-brownization of Dubois Elementary School was accelerated by the advent of controlled school choice. In the late 1990s, as a consequence of the legal battle initiated by members of the African American community to address long-standing educational inequities, Dubois again became a neighborhood school. This made it possible for more African American parents to choose Dubois for their children (see


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Haag, 2002, April 20; Merli, 1998, June 21). At the time of fieldwork for this study, the majority of the students attending Dubois were Blacks (44%) followed by Latinos (32%), Whites (14%) and Asiandescent students (10%) (Illinois State Board of Education, n.d.-a). Perhaps because the school already had experience teaching other languages or because a sizable proportion of the Latino population lived in the north end of town, by the late 1990s Dubois became the only elementary school with a Spanish/English transitional bilingual program. Because a considerable proportion of Spanish-speaking students attended Dubois, the school became a major focus of attention for those concerned with the success of Latino students; a rallying point for Mexican parents working to improve the schooling of Spanishspeaking students. The dominant story about Dubois appeared in the narrative school staff told about the school. Bonnie, one of the European American teachers at Dubois, offered the following story about the history of the school, When we were a magnet school we were drawing children from every neighborhood… And so I had farm kids, the kids from the inner part of the city and had kids that were from the outlying areas and so it was really really a nice well rounded group. I mean, it really was a well, a nice representation of Korbel. But since schools of choice came in, Dubois was a real target because of its location. The African American community believed that that was the only school in that neighborhood because that used to be their only neighborhood school… Dubois was a very tiny little school on the north end and some parents started it because they wanted their children to have a school that was close. And uh, I don’t remember the whole history, but eventually when 1964 desegregation was a big issue, the university got involved and that’s how it became a magnet school and the university actually had offices at Dubois. It was kind of their lab school… But that was when everybody wanted to go there. That was the premier school. And that was good in a way, but in a way it also took the school right back out of the Black neighborhood and they had to share it again. And so I think when schools of choice came in, part of it was to regain access to the school, but it kind of backfired because then there was so much access that it drove

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform other cultures out, they couldn’t get in, there was no place for them anymore. And some of it was fear, you know, then it was this culturally identified school. Well then an ESL school meant that we also had that population too and some of the Asians, I think, also became fearful and started pulling out and all that was left was pretty much Vietnamese, Latino, and African American. And the school had tried to maintain the same programs the whole time like the visual arts and fine arts and it’s I mean it’s a really wonderful program and it draws very strong teachers. I mean you can’t teach there if you’re not a strong individual ‘cause you have to fight for everything you have. And it’s typically then the school that the district forgets. And I don’t know if it’s the location, or the politics that surround it, it kind of gets pushed under the rug. And I still feel like it’s that way, and I find it really interesting that this is the school where it’s kind of becoming the spring board where the Latino parents found a voice. And actually it just kind of follows suit ‘cause this is probably also the spring board for the African American parents finding a voice.

This narrative is filled with silences. It is an ethnicizing talk that leaves out how racism and classism have and continue to shape life at Dubois. It also remains quiet about what it is about the school that has galvanized racial minority parents to advocate for both access and reform at Dubois. Walking the Distance between Theory and Practice: Schooling Conditions at Dubois For the first two years of fieldwork, my activities focused on building personal and institutional collaborative relationships that would support the academic achievement of immigrant students from Latin America. Field notes of that time are filled with instances in which discourse about the schooling of Latino American students and people’s lived experience, theory and practice, clashed. People in professional roles are expected to know what they talk about and do. However, what school staff said about and wished for the Latino American students in their school was often far from the everyday realities of life in it. And even though many staff could see the discrepancies, few would admit it publicly. Barely anyone could say that part of the problem was that they did not know what to do with the growing number of Spanish-


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speaking students or with their families. Teaching foreign English learners English as a Second Language was something that they had some experience with. But they did not know how to build a bilingual program. Although by 1999 the district had the obligation to build a transitional/bilingual program at Dubois, it took them four years to hire a qualified person (part-time) who could articulate the goals of the program and shape it. Until then there was a bilingual program at the school but no one who could guide, supervise, evaluate or support the teachers who were beginner ESL/bilingual teachers themselves. Rather than taking this as an opportunity for building relationships with multiple interested parties, school and district staff placed themselves in the position of having to maintain the illusion that they knew what they were doing. Years of failure creating school communities conducive to the success of African American students presaged the difficulties that lay ahead for Latino American students. However, this connection was rarely part of the analysis. What took place in the space between theory and practice began to become part of conversations with staff as we developed trust and respect for one another. Their critical analysis of the situation, or at least what they would share with me, began to emerge as I became more engaged in local school politics. This was captured in interviews and informal conversations. The aim here is to provide a sense of the level at which, just as African American students were being miseducated, so were Latino American students; a glimpse at the level to which educational inequities were also affecting Latino American students from working-poor families. The Proof is in the Pudding: (Dis)information about Students’ Progress Two ESL/bilingual teachers spoke at a Latin American parents meeting organized by the community-based bilingual after-school program. After the meeting the teachers and I talked for a while. Daniela, one of the most candid teachers I worked with, described how the bilingual program is supposed to work and her uneasiness with the implementation process. Daniela explained that when the children come to Dubois for the first time she assesses their literacy in English and Spanish. If their native language is Spanish they are placed in the bilingual program that corresponds with their grade. The teacher works with the students in small groups according to their ability. Daniela explained that research

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shows children benefit from learning literacy in their first language because it’s the language in which their parents are more proficient, allowing the parents to get involved and the children to value what the parents know. Learning in their native language also allows for the teaching to be more contextual and cognitively oriented (learning concepts instead of plain vocabulary). She said (in front of the other teacher) that she was hablando como una cotorra, just repeating what she is being told research shows. Later when the other teacher was gone, she said to me, “Don’t feel bad. I have the same questions you have everyday. I’m worried that I’m doing something wrong. We are talking about children’s lives here!” She encouraged me to talk to her and ask her questions if I had any; she said it helped her to talk. Daniela explained that she was in a very awkward position; she had to represent the school even though she knew the school and the district administration were not paying attention to the issues they (the ESL teachers) were raising. Although technically it was a transitional bilingual program and bilingual instruction did not happen at every grade level, the narrative about the program at Dubois emphasized its “bilingual” character and the multiple benefits bilingual education13 provides LEP students and their families. The point of contention was whether what was happening in the bilingual and ESL classrooms would actually result in the stated benefits. The ESL task force, composed mostly of school and district staff,14 was charged with advising the district on educational policies for LEP students. They drafted a philosophy statement describing their vision for the district’s programs. ESL/bilingual students must develop oral English proficiency as well as academic English proficiency (including reading and writing) so that they can learn new academic content through English. In addition, so that they do not fall behind their native English-speaking peers, ESL/bilingual students should receive academic native language instruction and/or support so that they can continue to learn and develop cognitively as they are acquiring oral and academic English language proficiency; ESL/bilingual students are legally entitled to have the curriculum made comprehensible to them, regardless of their level of English proficiency... Students and their families should be encouraged to fully develop their


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native language(s)... ESL students are most successful when they are educated in schools that embrace, respect, and build upon the unique cultural and linguistic characteristics students and families bring to the school community. All teachers working at ESL/bilingual schools must be knowledgeable about second language acquisition and able to help students meet their full potential by recognizing the benefits of multilingualism and the unique needs of ESL/bilingual students. Staff at all schools must be committed to excellence in the education of language minority students… Parents and school staff must have regular opportunities to plan, discuss and evaluate the program so that it truly meets the needs of each student... ESL/bilingual students will excel when placed in programs that have been properly planned, coordinated, and funded from pre-kindergarten through grade twelve. The statement reflects what well-intentioned staff wanted to see happening. However, it was close to impossible to know how Spanishspeaking students were progressing academically as a group or individually. Just as it was the case with information on the progress of African American students (Kurlakowsky, 2005), there was little quantitative data available on the academic trajectory of Spanishspeaking students. Neither the school district nor the schools were following the progress of each child longitudinally. Furthermore, the data that was available was unreliable. Students were not being tested consistently within and across classrooms, there was no centralized system for collecting and tracking the data available, and because the goal was to transition the LEP students to English-only classrooms, Spanish instruction was not being systematically evaluated nor the outcomes assessed. I talked about these problems with the Bilingual Programs Coordinator soon after she began in this position and throughout our collaboration. Right away we agreed on the need to look into what the district knew about students’ progress. I’m going to be meeting with our technology head at the district to get his opinions about the district’s ability to track scores and performance of ESL kids. After that meeting I’ll get in touch with you and we can go from there to figure out the best way to go about all this. I’ve had nothing but

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform frustration with the tech people, but I think I should start with them and see what they say they can do.

But the coordinator ran into roadblocks as she tried to get the information, She said that the data project we had talked about before, tracking the progress of the Latino children, is something the district already does but they were sending the information to the state directly and she now has to track down that information. Months later, after I had a more in-depth understanding of how the programs were being implemented and how the district was evaluating the students, I interviewed a school district staff person about a public meeting we organized together so that the district administrator in charge of assessment could inform Latin American parents about students’ test scores. STAFF: So this year finally all of the teachers tested the kids and they have their data that they’re better on things. We have to find a centralized way to get it because they put it into kids’ folders. Two teachers gave me a list of it, but that’s data that people should see. So I know that the kids are achieving year to year... Also, what that means is that it takes six years to become proficient in English… In terms of how kids do academically, this is the thing why I had the assessment person come and present. I wasn’t at a place where I could really see or say, but the district should care. And I sat down and I met with her with the group, with… the principals, and I’m like, “How are we doing? And what are we doing to find out?” And I guess what I got from people is that we at this point can’t say because the program has been changing so much that any data that we have, and I guess with No Child Left Behind we are going to have to start tracking it more clearly. But I feel like a lot needs to be done there… If you look at the kids ISAT15 scores… you’ve got kids a year or two below grade level, like you have with all the other poor kids that are at Dubois.


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MRC: Right. What I also think I heard at that meeting was that not all the kids get tested, that the teachers select which ones are ready for those tests… STAFF: Right, although starting next year that’s not allowed anymore. There’s no way around it because that’s one thing I was concerned about. If we are really going to start taking a serious look at, we can’t have, “Oh I’ll pull this kid out ‘cause…” In terms of grading students’ academic performance in the regular classroom, things were not any better. This was one of the topics of discussion at several ESL Task Force meetings. The group recognized there were inconsistencies in how students were graded and they wanted to tackle the issue. At one meeting where we discussed different issues in small groups, Some talked about how teachers at the elementary and middle school inflate students’ grades. When students get to high school where their grades are based on the points they get, ESL kids end up doing a lot worse than before. The group proposed to do a survey of how teachers go about grading to inform district level policy. At a later meeting, The group agreed that the grading practices in the regular classrooms are pretty varied. Some teachers account for language limitations and increase a grade, others let kids take tests in their native language, others test and grade kids with no accommodations for language. The elementary school does give two report cards, one from the ESL/bilingual program and one from regular education teachers… A task force member commented, “We are testing the student’s ENGLISH ability, not their content knowledge. Is this right, fair, reasonable?” Teachers and students set up to fail The unavailability of systematic data on Spanish-speaking students’ academic achievement certainly made it harder for Latino advocates to make claims about the students’ progress. But the availability of data was just the tip of the iceberg. It reflected deeper problems with the

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implementation of programs for Spanish speakers that, as I illustrate in this and the following chapters, were obvious to careful observers including Mexican immigrant parents. For starters, grade level, not the student’s language proficiency, determined which ESL/bilingual classroom the child was assigned to: kindergarteners and first graders took Spanish literacy, 2nd and 3rd graders Spanish and ESL, and 4th and 5th graders took ESL classes only. The assignment responded to the theory of bilingual education the district subscribed to: it takes LEP students up to 7 years to be proficient in English and the most effective way of teaching them is to begin with literacy skills in their first language and slowly transition them into English. The logic behind this approach is that concepts learned in the native language will transfer to the second language. However, for the program structure to work as theorized it needed to be staffed with qualified teachers who could teach the curriculum content in the appropriate language and all students would have to start the program at the kindergarten level. But most of the teachers in the program were not native Spanish speakers and were in the process of getting their bilingual education training. Moreover, new immigrant students of different ages and schooling experiences arrived continuously throughout the school year and thus the program structure did not respond to the realities of the student body. Teacher training was a major concern for parents, teachers and administrators. At a meeting with Latino American parents, The programs coordinator said the district is currently looking to hire two bilingual teachers (kindergarten and 1st grade) for Dubois. She said the district is aware that they are not providing all the programs they are supposed to provide by law. A Spanish-speaking parent asked if all the teachers were certified. The staff responded that not all were certified. She explained that teachers who are bilingual could get a temporary certification and have 6 years to obtain their full credentials. There were also concerns around the ESL/bilingual teachers’ qualifications to teach literacy to kindergartners in Spanish. For instance, this issue surfaced during an interaction between two of the bilingual teachers and me.


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Jennifer was writing on a sheet of paper an activity for her kindergarten students. She explained she wanted them to write a Saint Valentine’s letter to their parents so she was writing the letter in Spanish to make photocopies and give it to the students for them to copy it. She asked for help translating “Saint Valentine’s.” Daniela and I brainstormed about it for a bit, “Día de los Enamorados. No, that’s not what we want to emphasize. What about Día de la Amistad or Día del Amor?” Jennifer asked us to check her spelling of a word. Daniela and I gave her the correct spelling. I pointed out that another word, “día,” has an accent but she did not correct the error. While Jennifer wrote I said, “What about asking students to write what they want to say to their parents?” Jennifer responded, “No, they are kindergarteners, they don’t know how to write yet so we have to have something for them to copy.” Her pedagogical strategy was at odds with what one of the kindergarten regular classroom teachers claimed as good practice. [White kindergarten teacher at Dubois] talked about how the ESL teachers are not trained to teach kindergarten students, and that her students are doing more advanced work in her classroom than in the ESL classroom. She went on to proudly show me how well one of the Mexican boys was writing in his journal. Not only was teacher qualification a problem, the structure of the programs was not conducive for optimal learning. Students were pulled out of their regular classroom16 for a few hours to go to the ESL/ bilingual class while instruction continued in English for the rest of their classmates. The pull-out implementation strategy has been shown to be the least effective in teaching LEP students. This was explained to the ESL Task Force by a university professor, who was one of the school district consultants on ESL/bilingual issues. Longitudinal research studies show ESL-pullout programs, traditional type, grammar-based, to be the least effective, with a plateau at 4th or 5th grade. The two most effective programs are the late exit two-way bilingual program and the late exit bilingual program.17

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Esteban, a bilingual staff member with experience in bilingual education, expressed his frustration with the program and its implementation. Yo nunca estuve muy a gusto con el programa de ESL en las dos escuelas. Es el programa, menos eficaz de todos los programas que hay en este estado o en el país… y encontré que no había modo de medir el crecimiento o sea que no había modo de ver a qué nivel estaban los niños en su inglés. Y eso es algo muy sencillo que cada programa de ESL debe de tener, un modo de ver, por ejemplo, la lista de una clase de niños, y en qué nivel está su progreso en inglés. Y al pedir eso a las maestras de ESL, o ver en su, en el folleto de cada niño no había nada.

I was never too pleased with the ESL program at the two schools. It is the least effective program there is in this state or the country. I found that there was no way of measuring progress, I mean there was no way of seeing at what level the children were in their English. And that’s something very simple that each ESL program should have, a way of seeing, for example, a list of the students in a class, and their level of progress in English. And when I asked the ESL teachers for that, or looked at the students’ folders, there was nothing.

The situation gets worse when the content of instruction in the ESL/bilingual classroom is disconnected from the regular classroom, as was the case at Dubois. There were no structures in place for regular and ESL/bilingual teachers to coordinate the curriculum. When coordination took place it was usually at the initiative of the ESL/bilingual teachers. I asked Rae, one of the White U.S. American ESL/bilingual teachers at Dubois, about this issue, MRC: When you went about describing your day, I didn’t hear you say “This was the time I coordinated with so and so.” RAE: Because there was no time, there wasn’t any… as far as coordinating with the regular classroom teachers, I did my best to just check in or catch them when I could, and say, “This is where we’re at. What are you guys working on?” you know, and try and take care of that. So, but there was never any planned time to collaborate. Which I thought was also another source of frustration for me… ideally, I thought it would be good to coordinate… so that when I have the kids, they’re not missing language arts or math or some other kind


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of instruction. And that was not always the case because there was no collaboration between the ESL teachers and the regular classroom teachers. If there was, it was just kind of on an accidental note and because the ESL teachers went to them. Bonnie, a regular classroom White teacher, also commented on the lack of structure and support for teacher collaboration. Between phone calls from parents and trying to collaborate with all the other teachers so that we can meet the needs of all these kids the only way you can do it is through communication, and there is not enough time to communicate and teach. So everybody is trying to communicate during their downtime, whatever that is, which is usually before school, right after school or at lunch time… or in the hallway when you’re going back and forth from the office or taking a class somewhere. The absence of structures for collaboration was compounded by the widespread lack of consistency in the content of instruction across classrooms. A district staff person commented, I know that ESL/bilingual teachers met with the regular classroom teachers to find out what it was that they were doing, but any farther than that, nothing. But next year, part of what we asked for grant money for was to be able to really write down what the curriculum is. Another concern regarding the pull-out program was that it reinforced students’ sense of marginalization within the school. As Yoshi, a Mexican mother, explained, En realidad en la escuela son unos poquitos niños que quitan de ESL ¡Son contados! Como en el salón de mi hijo, él era el único que habían sacado de las clases de español… él decía, “Mamá yo soy el único”.

In reality there are few students who are removed from ESL, very few! In my son’s regular classroom, he was the only one who was removed from the Spanish classroom. He would say to me, “Mom I’m the only one.”

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The bilingual programs coordinator confirmed that what Yoshi’s son observed was a widespread practice. I also did some exit tests for the teachers because they never really exit-tested everybody. And so that was one thing I wanted to make sure this year. Not only were Latino American students “lagging behind” their English-dominant counterparts, they were actively being held back. Most of the parents interviewed had at least one child who was retained a grade or was enrolled in a grade lower than the grade the student would be at their previous school. Furthermore, parents with children excelling in middle school spoke about teachers wanting their children to “slow down” and not surpass their Spanish-speaking classmates or were simply held back so that they could remain in the same classroom with the other Spanish-speaking students. LUCERO: De hecho ese fue uno de los problemas que tuve con mi hija en Cleaver. De que venía muy adelantada. Entonces la maestra habló con nosotros de que habláramos con la niña, o que tratara de trabajar más lento o quedarse callada cuando terminaba su trabajo, que nosotros comprendiéramos que hay niños que vienen de zonas más rurales. Pues ella así lo manejó… MRC: ¿No la podía poner en una clase más avanzada? LUCERO: No porque no habla inglés.

LUCERO: Actually that was one of the problems I had with my daughter at Cleaver, that she was already too advanced. The teacher asked us to talk to our daughter, ask her to try working slower or stay quiet when she finished her work, that we should understand there were students that came from rural regions. That’s how she dealt with it. MRC: Couldn’t they place her in an advanced course? LUCERO: No because she doesn’t speak English.

LAURA: A mi me dijo la maestra que mi hijo ya estaba capacitado para tomar matemáticas en clases regulares y todo. Y pues yo le dije “¿Por qué está en estas clases si él ya está capacitado?” Y dijo ella…

LAURA: The teacher told me that my son was ready to take math in the regular classroom and everything. And so I said to her, “Why is he in the ESL/bilingual classes if he is ready for the regular

The Schooling of Mexican Children in Korbel “No es sólo porque pues como habla español pues todos los que hablan español como que tienen que ir juntos”.

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classroom?” And she responded, “It’s just that since he speaks Spanish, it’s like all Spanish speakers have to be together.”

Certainly multiple factors contributed to the haphazard way in which programs for Spanish-speaking students were developed and implemented. The recency of the population and the lack of knowledgeable and experienced staff, the absence of district- and schoolwide structures that facilitated the implementation of programs supporting teachers and students, and the more general climate that jeopardized the success of students of color influenced what happened. Undoubtedly there were staff at both district and school levels troubled by what was happening who were trying within their limited spheres of power to do something about it. But as some school staff pointed out, they were waiting for administrators higher up in the hierarchy of the district to take the lead and address the problems. People’s perceptions and attitudes about the programs, its teachers and students depended on it. Rae was adamant about this, I think that somebody has to say, somebody has to take the lead and say, “This is what the program is going to be”… I would think it would be a district role, but if it’s not going to be a district role, then the principals at the schools, you know, Horizons [pseudonym] and Dubois, need to take the bull by the horns and set programs. And it needs to be very clear. And it needs to be clear to the whole staff, not just the ESL teachers. This is not “us and them,” or “you and them.” This is, “We are a staff…” regular classroom teachers need to understand that this is how it has to be structured. And this is not because I’m power hungry or because I don’t have faith in you to structure your day. It is because of logistics. So when these kids are being pulled out, that is your block to teach this and you have to do that… And during ESL time, that is NOT a time when you can have guest speakers or keep your kids… No! I make plans too! This isn’t recess you know, this is a class! … Are you kidding me!? Would you accept that? Hell no! … It’s like, if the teachers know that, and the teachers give it that respect, then the kids get it and then it’s valid and then

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform everybody, you know? They understand that it’s not a blow off thing. It’s ridiculous!

Unfortunately, staff who felt as passionately as she were few, got burned quickly, and left the district hastily. Those who stayed tended to remain quiet, allowed themselves to be co-opted, or restricted their subversive actions to individual-level interventions.

CHAPTER 4

Ellos nos van a sacar de estarnos arrastrando: Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future

Desgraciadamente, nosotros mexicanos, la mayoría… si venimos aquí a Estados Unidos generalmente venimos de una situación precaria, difícil. Venimos arrastrándonos en la tierra. Y venimos acá para superarnos. ¿Y cómo lo vamos a llegar? A lo mejor yo ya no voy a poder… Pero puedo ayudarle a mis hijos, que salgan adelante y que lleguen a una carrera universitaria. Y a lo mejor ellos nos van a sacar de la tierra. Ellos nos van a sacar de estarnos arrastrando.

Unfortunately we Mexicans, the majority, if we come here to the United States we usually come from a precarious situation, a difficult situation. We drag ourselves across the earth. We come here to overcome. And how are we going to achieve that? Maybe I won’t be able to but I can help my children, to get ahead and get a college education. And maybe they will lift us from the ground. They will get us out of dragging ourselves.

Arrastrarse por la tierra has literal and metaphoric meaning. Undocumented Mexican immigrants who cross the border on foot literally drag their bodies across the dividing line, over and over again, persisting until they make it to the other side. But arrastrarse por la tierra also implies subjugation even when it is just a temporary circumstance. Manuel’s words summarize what the Mexican immigrant parents I met said about their struggle to realize their dreams for their children’s future. But it leaves out the part of the story that speaks to how they get off the ground, everyday, for their children. In this 55

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chapter, I introduce the parents, telling something about who they are, the conditions surrounding their emigration, and some details about their current lives. Then I turn to stories about their engagement in their children’s formal education and schooling: the dominant story and an alternative story. My aim here is to set the stage for the chapters that follow where I narrate more in depth how some parents became visibly, actively, collectively involved in school matters to have a say about the formal education of their children and the social-relational context where those dynamic processes took place.

CIRCUMSTANCES OF EMIGRATION, REASONS TO STAY María and Manuel were barely in their thirties. They had lived in town for 3 years and by theirs and others’ standards, they had accomplished a lot. After a first attempt to live in the United States in the early nineties, a short stint in college, and a return to Mexico, Manuel found his way back to the U.S., to the city of Korbel, where he secured a stable job and a place for his family. As soon as he could, he mandó a buscar (sent for) his wife María and their children. In Mexico, María had reached la prepa, high school, and trained to be a secretary. But their hopes for their children were bigger, heavier. In the north Manuel had been lucky. He became the right hand of an influential man who became his patron, supporting his upwardly mobile efforts including moving out of the trailer park where so many other Mexican immigrants lived. Manuel and María wanted their children to climb up the social ladder, for sure. But they understood their struggle as being less about prestige and more about dignity, about individual and collective empowerment. MARÍA: No es por darnos un prestigio o algo MANUEL: Ni fama ni mucho menos MARÍA: Es por el bien de los niños MANUEL:… que si un niño diga, “Quiero ir a la universidad” que pueda ir… Entonces esa es mi meta para todas las familias latinas, que mejore nuestra situación económica por medio de la educación. Porque yo no creo que

MARÍA: It’s not about gaining status or something. MANUEL: Or fame, nothing like that. MARÍA: It’s for the children’s wellbeing MANUEL: That if a child says, “I want to go to the university” that he could go. That’s my goal for all the Latino families, that our economic situation improves through education. Because I don’t believe

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future un niño o una niña que salga de la universidad va a ir a querer lavar trastes o a recoger basura al parque MARÍA: Recoger un cuarto de hotel MANUEL: Yo creo que esa persona que salga de la universidad va a ser un… manager de un hotel o restaurante de lo que sea… A lo mejor va a ser un contador o un licenciado. Entonces eso es lo que quiero ver yo de aquí, si Dios me presta vida y si puedo verlo llegar, que la situación cambie aquí para todas las familias latinas.

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that a boy or a girl that graduates from college is going to want to wash dishes or pick up trash at the park MARÍA: Or clean a hotel room MANUEL: I think that that person who graduates from college is going to become a manager at a hotel or a restaurant or whatever. Maybe an accountant or a lawyer. So that’s what I want to see come from this, if God gives me life and if I can see it come true, that the situation changes for all the Latino families.

Laura also emigrated from Mexico in the last few years. Like Manuel and María, Laura had her hopes set on seeing her children walk rather than drag themselves through the ground. She lived with her husband and their children and worked cleaning rooms at a local hotel. Yo no vine a darles a mis hijos dinero a este país. Yo quiero darles una herencia y que la herencia quiero que sea la educación, que sea su arma. Yo no les voy a dejar dinero porque en realidad no es mi estilo y no es mi meta. ¡Que se lo ganen! Pero quiero darles armas con qué porque yo no quiero que terminen como yo, limpiando y limpiando y limpiando y mientras más limpio me dicen que está mal y mal y cada vez me exigen más. Entonces yo quiero algo diferente para ellos.

I didn’t come to this country to give my children money. I want to give them an inheritance and that the inheritance be getting an education, that it becomes their weapon. I won’t leave them money because the reality is that that’s not my style and it’s not my goal. Let them earn it! But I want to give them tools so they would be able to do it because I don’t want them to end up like me, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and the more I clean the more they tell me that it’s wrong and wrong and every time they demand more. So I want something different for them.

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Life in the U.S. was good and bad, “es bonita y fea,” pretty and ugly as Graciela would say. It had its pros and cons. Sometimes it was both, good and bad, at the same time, in the same breath. Patricia explained, Tengo tres años aquí de estar viviendo y sí me gusta. Es muy dura la vida aquí, muy dura. Por mis hijos. Es otro modo de vida aquí, muy diferente del de México. Pero nos tenemos que acostumbrar a las costumbres de aquí.

I have been living here for three years and yes I like it. Life here is very hard, very hard. For my children. It’s another way of life here, very different from Mexico. But we have to get used to the customs here.

Patricia and her husband worked and worked and worked, few hours here and there, Por lo mismo de que no le alcanza a uno hay que rebuscar

Precisely because it’s not enough one has to search everywhere

They earned little but enough to buy their own trailer home and rent the lot where it stood. Graciela had been in town for three years. Her husband arrived first. Their priorities were clear: find a job, a place to live for the family, register the children in school. Entonces yo cuando estaba en México yo le dije a mi esposo que investigara sobre las escuelas para llegar y luego luego meter a los niños a la escuela. O sea que no perdieran el año, digamos.

While I was still in Mexico I told my husband to look into the schools so that we could put the children in school as soon as we arrived, so that they didn’t lose the year.

Both she and her husband worked: he did gardening, fixed cars; she cleaned at a hotel. Living in Korbel was a challenge at multiple levels, moral, económico, desesperante … muy fuerte muy difícil, y en momentos muy muy doloroso

morally, economically, exasperating, very hard very difficult, and at times very very painful

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future

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However, she remained cautiously optimistic. Siempre ver para delante ¿verdad? Y creo que se ve un futuro mejor pero, yo creo que lo que quisiera uno que se abrieran las puertas más fáciles.

Always looking forward, right? And I believe that a better future is in sight, but I think what one would want is that the doors would open more easily.

Margarita arrived with her children. Some of her brothers and sisters were already living in town. When she first arrived she lived with one of them. As soon as she could, she moved to a rented trailer home. She found work at a local factory. MRC: ¿Y le va bien? MARGARITA: Pues sí, más o menos. No, un poco bien. No nos quejamos, si quiera para comprar la comida y para la renta.

MRC: Is it going well? MARGARITA: Well, so so. No, ok, sort of. We don’t complain. At least it’s enough for buying food and paying rent.

Luckily, she had been able to arrange her work schedule so that her children were not home alone after school. This was part of understanding how things worked in the United States. Es que ahora aquí ve que uno no puede dejar a los niños nunca solos. Está bien difícil. La policía me los llega a quitar y ¿para qué? Yo quiero bastante a mis hijos. Prefiero desvelarme a las 4 de la mañana… y yo a la 1 ya llego, la 1:10.

It’s that now here, you see how one can never leave the children alone. It’s very difficult. The police could take them away from me and, for what? I love my children very much. I prefer to sleep less and wake up at 4 in the morning so that by 1, 1:10 I’m already home.

Yoshi, like Margarita, was raising her children without a partner. She found work where she could: a hotel, a fast-food restaurant, a factory. However, unlike other undocumented families in town, she talked about having lived differently in Mexico, being used to other things, “better things.” Now she wants to see her children become profesionistas, professionals. “You know how some people can leave money to their children. I’m going to leave them a profession.” She

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wanted their children to accomplish great things and get ahead in life. Her older son would tell her he did school work for her. She would respond, “You should do it for yourself. It is you who will benefit in the future.” The undocumented Mexican immigrant families in this work immigrated to the U.S. from small towns and large cities with the hope of improving their economic situation and providing more opportunities for their children. But other forces move them too, like love and family ties. Reuniting with their partners or siblings, building their immediate families, was vital. Many of the women talked about seeing their husbands leave Mexico for the north. Later, when the time was right, these women crossed the border illegally with one or two of their children. Some children were left behind until their parents were able to bring them across the border. While their husbands were away, some of the women had to live with relatives that were not always supportive and kind. Their choices were limited. Eventually they took the risk and crossed the border. It’s been four years since Isamar reunited with her husband. Both are in their early thirties. He came first, with the support of sisters and brothers-in law. Not soon enough, Isamar and their daughter followed. Lo que pasa que como mi hermano ya estaba aquí… se quería ir, ya ella se quería regresar… no vivía bien pues con mi cuñada mi hermana pues, una cosa es la familia y otra cosa es ya la política… y entonces mi esposo le dijo que él se quería venir, que si lo ayudaba. Y ella le dijo, “Ok, yo te ayudo, te paso y… depende tu como veas, como te sientas… luego yo ya me voy…” “Ok” dice. Y ya fue cuando después ya eran los dos… se querían regresar… dice mi hermana, “¡Ay! Hablaba con ustedes y lloraba y lloraba”… Luego ya después dijeron, “¿Te quieres venir?” “¡Sí!” “Sí, yo me

What happened was that my brother was already here and so my sister also came. But soon my sister wanted to return to Mexico. She didn’t get along with my sister-inlaw, family is one thing and another thing are the in-laws. So then my husband told her that he wanted to come to the U.S., he asked her if she could help him out. And she said, “Okay, I’ll help you, I’ll get you through, and depending on how you see things here, how you feel, then I’ll leave.” He said, “Okay.” But then the two of them wanted to return to Mexico. My sister would say, “Oh! He would speak to you and cry and cry.” Then they asked me, “Do you want

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future quiero” y fue como luego decidimos que por eso pues por, tal vez por cobardes los de acá y por cobardes los de allá porque ¡todos lloramos!… pues igual también, ¿cómo te diré pues? Pues buscando un mejor sitio tal vez para la niña.

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to come here?” “Yes!” and that’s how we decided, because of that, maybe because the ones over here were cowards and the ones there were cowards because, we would all cry! And maybe also, how can I say it? We were looking for a better place for our girl.

Lucero had been in town for a few months. She was also in her early thirties, married with two children. She and her husband tried to live in the United States once before when they were barely in their 20s. But life was no better than in Mexico and, for what? So they returned to Mexico with their first child, until life got economically difficult again and her husband tried making it in the U.S. once more, in a different town this time around. Hazte cuenta que el ritmo que lleva aquí, lo tenía en México. Pero no nos rendía, no nos rendía.

Picture that in Mexico he had the same work pace he has here. But we couldn’t make ends meet, we couldn’t make ends meet.

Between his two jobs and being with his family, Lucero’s husband barely slept four hours a day. But after years apart and many tears shed, the family had finally reunited. She crossed the desert with their youngest child, eating rice, coffee and Coke to avoid getting sick while staying in the safe-houses of strangers along the way. Her daughter tried to cheer her up, ¡Mira que bonita se ve la noche! ¡Mira que bonito se ve el desierto!

Look how beautiful the night is! Look how pretty the desert looks!

Laura and her children also saw her husband leave for the north and struggled after the separation. Voy a hacer tres años que yo vine a este país… mi esposo se vino primero enseguida me vine yo. Mi esposo me dijo, “Es difícil la situación. No se gana dinero

It’s going to be three years since I arrived to this country. My husband came first and soon after I followed. My husband told me, “The situation is very difficult. One doesn’t make

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform como se dice. Cuando vengas lo vas a saber.” Fue muy difícil… desde la pasada para mi fue muy difícil… desde que mi esposo me dejó, para mi la vida fue muy difícil allá porque yo me enfrenté a vivir en la casa de mis padres. Mi padre es una persona muy especial, me corrió, yo con mis hijos sola. No sabía qué hacer. Me sentía desamparada. Decía, “¿Qué voy a hacer?”… “Yo aquí no estoy más. No sé cómo le voy a hacer pero yo me voy a ir.” Entonces, gracias a Dios yo le comenté a mi cuñada… “Si, está bien. Yo conozco a alguien que pasa”… vendí todas mis cosas. Moví mar cielo y tierra y ya… Fue terrible. Pero mi hijo me decía, “¡Mamá tenemos que lograrlo!”… Yo no sé de dónde saqué fuerzas.

money as people say. When you get here you’ll see.” It was very difficult for me, from the moment I crossed the border it was very difficult, from the moment my husband left, life was very difficult for me. I had to deal with living in my parents’ house again. My dad is a very particular person. He kicked me out of the house. I found myself alone with my children. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I felt abandoned. I would say to myself, “What am I going to do?! I’m not staying here any longer. I don’t know how I’m going to do it but I’m going to leave.” Then thank God I told my sister-in-law. And she said, “Okay, alright. I know someone who can get you through the border” and so I came here. I sold all my things. I moved sea heaven and earth and that was that. It was terrible. But my son would tell me, “Mom we have to make it!” I don’t know where I got the strength from.

These parents wanted to see their children succeed in life. In the work realm, success was less about becoming rich and more about doing something one likes, what brings happiness, what earns people respect and a comfortable life. These parents wanted to see their children accomplish more than they had and saw getting a college education as the sure path towards landing a stable, dignified, well-paid job. As Laura would say, Yo siento que uno como padre debe de proyectarle a sus hijos el amor hacia un futuro mejor ¿no? Yo me pongo como ejemplo siempre… Lo que yo quiero es que ellos me vean a mí como su ejemplo, tal vez a no seguir, verdad, o tal vez a seguir en

I feel that as a parent one should project to our children love for a better future, right? I always use myself as an example. What I want is that they see me as an example, perhaps not one to follow, you know, or maybe to follow in some

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future algunas cosas. Pero yo quiero una vida, diferente para ellos… no quiero que sean ni inmensamente ricos… sólo vivir desahogadamente. No’ más eso pido a Dios, que me ayude a darles… Yo quiero que lleguen a la universidad… No sé cómo le voy a hacer… pero vamos a poder. Como yo les digo, “No sé cómo pero, donde tú me digas ‘Quiero’, movemos cielo, mar y tierra pero tu vas a poder ¡Como no!”… Yo soñaba con ser una universitaria y pasearme por la Universidad de México… No es tiempo para lamentarse. Pero yo no quiero que mis hijos pasen lo que yo, que les quiten la oportunidad que yo pude haber tenido

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respects. But I want a different life for them. I don’t want them to become immensely rich. No, only to live comfortably. That’s all I ask God. I want them to reach the university. I don’t know how I will do it but we are going to be able to do it. Like I say to them, “I don’t know how, but wherever you tell me, ‘I want that school,’ we’ll move heaven, sea and earth but you’ll be able to go.” Of course! I used to dream about being a college student and stroll through the University of Mexico. It’s not time for regrets. But I don’t want my children to go through what I went through, that the opportunities that I could have had are taken away from them.

Patricia and Isamar also believed their children could accomplish what they had not. Mira ¡un sueño!… quiero que entre a la universidad. Quiero que se prepare bien, ya que yo no pude estudiar. (PATRICIA) Y yo pienso que todos los papás siempre queremos que los hijos sean más que uno, que tengan lo que uno no tuvo… no tengo que te diría yo, “Ay, yo quiero que sea de esto”. Lo que ella decida cuando se llegue el momento. Pero, yo sí quiero que mi hija sí tenga título cualquiera ¡de lo que ella quiera! De lo que ella le guste porque ¡ay no no! Ella dice luego a veces dice, “¡Ay mami!” dice, “Cuando yo

Look, it’s a dream! I want her to get to college. I want her to be well prepared ‘cause I couldn’t study. (PATRICIA) I think as parents we always want our children to do better than we did, to have what we didn’t have. It’s not like I, how can I tell you, “Oh! I want her to be this.” Whatever she decides when the time comes. But I really want my daughter to have a title, whichever she wants on whatever she likes because, oh no no! Sometimes she says, “Ay mommy! When I’m older I want to get into your hotel

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform este grande quiero entrar a tu hotel porque”… “¡No no! por eso estate en la escuela porque no quiero que trabajes”… dice ella “¡Ay mami no, ¿Qué tu quieres que yo haga? ¿Quieres que yo sea doctora?” le digo “No, lo que tu quieras pero que no andes trabajando” le digo, “que trabajes en un hotel pero o sea ¡de otra cosa! ¡No de lo que yo soy!”… lo que quiera, pero que ella, que ella estudie porque como yo no estudié. Yo nada más la primaria.

because” “No no! That’s why you should stay in school because I don’t want you to work like me” and she says, “Ow mommy no, what do you want me to be? Do you want me to be a doctor?” I tell her, “No, whatever you want but that you don’t end up working like me.” I tell her, “If you work at a hotel you should do something else! Not doing what I do!” I tell you, whatever, whatever she wants but that she studies because I didn’t study. I only did elementary school. (ISAMAR)

Like Isamar, Lucero encourages her children not only to get a college education but to pursue the careers they wish. She sees a connection between doing what one likes and being successful. Yo quisiera que llegaran a la universidad, que estudiaran las carreras que ellas quisieran. Yo por ejemplo, a la mayor la veo muy metida en dibujo. Digo, si ella quiere ser una artista ¡adelante!… A mí luego me han preguntado, “¿Pero tú que quieres que yo sea mamá?” “Yo quiero que seas lo que tu quieras ser, hija. Mientras tú lo hagas porque tú lo quieres hacer, le vas a tener amor y lo vas a poder hacer”.

I would like them to reach the university and study the careers they want. I for instance see the oldest very much into drawing. I say, if she wants to be an artist, let her go ahead! They have asked me, “But what do you want me to be mom?” “Daughter, I want you to be whatever you want to be. As long as you do it because you want to do it you’ll have love for it and you’ll be able to do it.”

Even though not all believe a college education was a realistic goal for all their children, these parents continued to encourage their children to finish school and pursue a profession.

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future MRC: En términos de la educación, ¿qué metas usted quisiera que ellos alcanzaran? KARIME: ¡Uf! ¡La más alta! ¡La más alta! Pero desgraciadamente cuando los hijos crecen, ya no quieren esa meta ellos mismos… ser unos profesionales… yo como no tuve estudio ya quisiera que mis hijos no sufran lo que yo sufrí, lo que estoy sufriendo…O sea, yo sé que los que tienen estudios tienen más garantías, con el tiempo ya se jubilan. Y uno que no tiene estudios no tiene garantías. Pero le vuelvo a repetir si ellos ya no tienen cabeza para eso o que ya no quieren pues, ya no van a querer. Este yo, “Hijo sigue estudiando, sigue estudiando”… Me dice a veces sí pero no me dice cuándo.

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MRC: In terms of education, what goals would you like them to reach? KARIME: Uf! The highest! The highest! But unfortunately when children grow, they don’t want those goals any more, being professionals. Me, since I don’t have studies, I would like that my children do not suffer what I suffered, what I am suffering. I mean, I know that people with studies have more guarantees, in time they retire. And people like me who do not have studies don’t have guarantees. But I’ll say it again, if they don’t have the head for that or they don’t want it anymore, they won’t want to do it. I mean, I tell my son, “Son keep studying, keep studying.” He says yes but doesn’t say when.

STORIES ABOUT MEXICAN PARENTS’ ENGAGEMENT WITH THE LOCAL SCHOOLS That working-poor immigrants come to the Unites States in search of a better life for themselves and their children is not a recent phenomenon or exclusive to Mexican immigrants. It is an ongoing story and a vital part of the master narrative of the U.S. (M. M. Suárez-Orozco, 1998). What is less common is to hear stories about working-poor recent Mexican immigrants challenging the social and institutional structures that could make a difference in their children’s educational outcomes. At issue here is not how often this happens or what percentage of the population of immigrant parents are visibly engaged in their children’s education and schooling. Rather what is of interest here is how people, particularly Mexican immigrant parents themselves, talk about and understand their engagement, what motivates them and what stands in the way of their efforts to advocate for their children. The aim is to bring to the forefront stories about Mexican immigrant parents that

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challenge the dominant discourse, the discourse that depoliticizes their experience with the public schools system. The Dominant Story In Korbel, various stories about Latino18 parents’ engagement in their children’s education and schooling coexisted. The dominant story was full of normative-evaluative claims: these are hard-working and loving parents who are not typically engaged in the expected ways due to a variety of cultural and economic characteristics they posses which make them ill-equipped to participate in their children’s education. In the local context, not speaking English, having minimal formal education, working long hours and being poor were the reasons offered most often to explain the “lack” or the “poor” quality of the parents’ involvement in their children’s formal education. I heard this story repeatedly from White teachers, staff and parents, Mexican parents and Latino staff. In the case of White school staff, people also offered the story to explain the difficulties Mexican immigrants pose to the schools. The students have a harder time in school because they are poor and foreign, not because the school is ill equipped to work with them. In an interview, Bonnie, a White regular classroom teacher, explained, I know that my Latino students come from very hard-working families. And I know that their parents want the best for them… I think they love their children dearly. And I think love takes different forms, ‘cause I think you’re only as good as your model. So some of them are modeling their own parents and maybe it’s not the best model but it’s all you got. I’ve had some really bright students last year. And I had some students that came in that I thought, “Oh my Gosh!” And since their parents bought into working with them at home, it was amazing! I mean, they went to the top of the class. So you can’t judge a book by its cover when it walks in. I mean these are kids who’d never been to preschool or anything! And, so it shows how much impact home has on the school experience. One of the 3rd grade teachers, a White woman in her late 20s, talked about how, “The problem with low income kids is the same, their parents do not care about education. Not that they don’t care, I’m


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sure their mothers care. But parents who do not speak English at home can’t help their kids.” In some respects, Mexican parents’ narratives about the barriers they faced to being involved in their children’s school life fell within the dominant story. For example, parents talked about how language and educational barriers made it difficult for them to provide academic support at home. In a conversation with Lucero when we talked about the problems with the only bilingual after-school program available she talked about regretting pulling her children out of the after-school program. She could not help them with homework; she could not help with spelling because she did not know how to pronounce the words. Lucero explained she had only finished elementary school. Elena, who had lived in the U.S. with her family for almost 20 years, still found language to be a major barrier for helping her children with school work. They lived in other states before settling in Korbel. Hers was among the first working-poor Mexican immigrant families to arrive in Korbel. Her husband had been migrating from Mexico to the U.S. since he was a boy. Elena and her husband finally settled for the U.S. after they got married. At the time they worked at a factory. Elena explained why she relied on teachers and other school staff to see that their children receive the formal education they need. Para eso les está pagando el gobierno para que ellos les den la educación que necesitan los niños, como que les den, pues echen adelante. Sí porque nosotros, los papás, aunque nosotros queramos, porque tu sabes que venimos de un país que allá no se habla inglés, allá son otras cosas, otras civilizaciones otras cosas y no, aunque uno quiera ayudarle a los niños no puede ayudarles porque no habla uno bien inglés, no estudia inglés. Y aquí tú sabes que a los niños como el mayor… no le hablan el español en su escuela. Ya es puro inglés, puro inglés, puro escribir en inglés puro hacer cosas en inglés. Y yo he tratado

That’s what they are being paid for by the government, so they give the children the education they need, so they move ahead. Yes because we, the parents, even if we wanted to, because you know we come from a country where English is not spoken, there are other things there, other civilizations other things and no, even if we want to help the children we can’t help because we don’t speak English well, we don’t study it. And in the schools here you know they don’t speak Spanish to older children like mine. Now it’s only English, just English, only writing in English, just doing things in English. And I have tried

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform a veces de ayudarle en matemáticas pero no sé lo que, es difícil, no sé como son las matemáticas de aquí. No son iguales que las de México.

sometimes to help in math but it’s difficult, I don’t know how math is done here. It’s not the same as in Mexico.

Patricia pointed out how language also becomes a barrier for sustaining ongoing communication with teachers. Pues, en la escuela de mi hija, por el idioma no puedo comunicarme con ellos. Ese es el problema, ¡el idioma! Que no hay quien luego. Pero cuando hay juntas tengo un traductor y pues sí, le digo que me diga detalladamente cómo se porta con cada.

Well, I can’t communicate with my daughter’s school because of the language. That’s the problem, the language! That there isn’t someone available. But when there are parentteacher conferences I have a translator and well yes, I ask to be told in detail how she behaves with each one of them.

Other parents talked about how their living and working conditions made it difficult to participate in school activities. Antes casi no asistía, como yo vivía sola, la verdad casi no asistía a las juntas y eso. Y yo no tenía carro en ese entonces. Yo ahorita pos si más o menos yo voy.

I rarely attended school activities before because I lived alone. The truth is I rarely attended the meetings and stuff. And I didn’t have a car then so. Now I go more often, sort of. (MARGARITA)

When her boss gave her permission, Yuri could go to school meetings and functions. But she would not get paid for time lost. Like Elena, Yuri had lived in the U.S. longer than most, trying to make it in other cities before settling in Korbel. Her older children were born in Mexico, the youngest in the U.S. Yuri had in common with Margarita and Yoshi that she was raising the children without a partner. They all had some family who had settled in town before they arrived.

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future YURI: Pues cuando hay reuniones tengo que sacar permiso porque mi trabajo es de seis de la mañana a cinco de la tarde. MRC: ¿Y se te hace fácil? He oído que por ejemplo a alguna gente le quitan puntos si faltan, ese tipo de cosa. YURI:…no te quitan puntos que yo sepa no te quitan puntos. Si tienes algo que hacer sí te dan permiso. MRC: ¿Y te pagan el día o? YURI: No… No te pagan ni días de fiesta ni permisos ni nada. MRC: Nada. ¿Enfermedad? YURI: No.

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YURI: When there are school meetings I have to get permission from work because my job is from six in the morning to five in the afternoon. MRC: And is it easy for you? I’ve heard that for example some people loose points if they miss a day and that sort of thing. YURI: No they don’t take away points as far as I know they don’t take away points. If you have to do something they give you permission. MRC: Do they pay you for the day? YURI: No, they don’t pay for holidays or permission or nothing MRC: Nothing. Sickness? YURI: No.

At a parent meeting organized in collaboration with a district staff, a father shared that he felt sad and guilty whenever his child would ask him to attend a school function and he couldn’t make it because he had to work. He asked staff to keep their work schedules in mind when organizing activities. The dominant story is not a neutral account of the lives of Mexican immigrant parents. Some stakeholders used it to explain the perceived, assumed, observed, school disengagement of these parents and as a backdrop for contrasting their own behavior. For example, Mexican parents who were publicly and collectively challenging the schools to be more responsive to their children needs often talked about how other Mexican parents do not care enough or are simply content with the status quo and thus were not involved in what happens at the schools. Muchas veces la gente se conforma porque dice, y eso es bien cierto, que dicen, “Mi hijo va a la escuela, le dan todo gratis, le dan la comida gratis. A mi, yo no’ más le compro lo que le piden de lista de útiles y ya si le falta en el año cualquier

Often people are content because they say, and this is very true, people say, “My child goes to school, they give him everything for free, they give him food for free. I simply buy what they ask for supplies and if they need anything

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform cosa a mi no me piden”. Porque tú sabes que la escuela luego regala lápices, regala borradores, cosas así… dicen, “Bueno, con que no me pidan nada y el niño aprenda ya es una ayuda”… dicen, “Yo me doy por bien servido que el niño llegue a high school”. Y ya… yo no me siento bien servida si mi hijo llega a high school. Yo quiero que sea universitario o que tenga más estudios… yo estoy pidiendo más para mi hijo. No me conformo con lo poquito.

during the year they don’t ask me for it.” Because you know the school gives away pencils, erasers, things like that. They say, “Well, as long as they don’t ask me for anything and the child learns, that already helps.” They say, “I feel well served if the child gets to high school” and that’s it. But I don’t feel well served if my child gets to high school. I want him to be a college student or to have more studies. I am asking more for my son. I’m not satisfied with just a little. (YOSHI)

Yo digo que no les interesa verdaderamente, tal vez, lo que aprendan sus hijos. Pero no por ellos no se va a tratar de mejorar, lo que estamos pidiendo. Porque como habemos muchos, habemos mayoría que queremos que mejore… pues entonces se valora. Aunque los demás papás no nos apoyen porque no quieren, porque no tienen tiempo o porque no les interesa pero los que estamos interesados, sí lo vamos a lograr. Y al ver los papás lo que estamos logrando, tal vez hasta lo último estén con nosotros también.

I say that maybe they are not truly interested in what their children learn. But we are not going to stop trying to improve things, what we are asking for, because of those parents. Because there is a majority that wants things to improve and so what we do has value. Even if other parents don’t support us because they don’t want to, because they don’t have time or because they are not interested, those of us who are interested, we are going to accomplish it. And as other parents see what we are accomplishing maybe at the end they will join us. (PATRICIA)

An Alternative Story As it is narrated, the dominant story about Latino American parents is a finished story: it describes challenges that immigrant Mexican parents face, period. It is a story about the parents’ struggles, their shortcomings, the ways they do not fit in the world of Korbel’s schools. The


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story as it is told leaves out how the parents’ strive to find ways to actively participate in their children’s formal education and the role that schools, as social systems, play in maintaining the conditions that reproduce parents’ “inadequacies.” However, as Patricia’s narrative suggests, another story can be told; a more nuanced, complex, contradictory, conflictive one; a story that describes the constraints Mexican parents with limited formal education and economic resources deal with in their everyday lives and the ways in which they get around those constraints, defying assumptions about their engagement in their children’s education. A story that speaks about the ways in which schools both facilitate and hinder their involvement and the inconsistencies in the discourses narrated by stakeholders engaged in these processes. What follows aims to provide material to begin crafting such a story. Yo trataba de hacerlo en los dos idiomas… Porque en primera pues yo estaba aprendiendo inglés entonces eso era como una práctica entre los dos, porque por ejemplo, mi hijo luego me habla en español o yo le pregunto en inglés. Porque eso a mi me ayuda ¿verdad? Aunque a veces, muchas veces dices, “No hables con tu hijo nada de inglés en casa” pero a veces si tu practicas el inglés con tu hijo también, y lo bueno de mi hijo es que no me contesta en inglés si no español, o sea él todo lo hace en español y yo le hago en inglés a él las cosas… Él me dice luego, “Vamos a leer juntos”… él lee en español y yo leo en inglés.

I tried to work with my son in both languages. Because first of all I was learning English so then that was like a practice between us, because for example, my son would talk to me in Spanish and I would ask him in English. That helps me, right? Although some times, often you say to yourself, “Don’t talk with your child any English at home” but sometimes you practice English with your child also. And the good thing about my son is that he doesn’t answer me in English but in Spanish, I mean, he does everything in Spanish and I do things for him in English. He would tell me, “Let’s read together” and he reads in Spanish and I read in English. (YOSHI)

Not speaking English fluently in an English-monolingual town and having limited formal education were constraints these parents lived with. These limitations restricted the kinds of jobs they had access to,

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what they could do independently, the assistance they could provide their children with their school work. But it rarely stopped them from doing what they believed they needed to do to take care of their families, including supporting their children’s academic progress. O sea, yo no puedo hacer el trabajo de la maestra porque no estoy capacitada, no estoy estudiada. Pero con el simple hecho de que yo ayude a mi hijo, “A ver, haz la tarea. A ver, vamos a hacer esto”… “Vamos a investigarle aquí.” O sea, que le estoy enseñando a mi hijo a estimularlo… Le ayudamos ¿verdad? De una o otra manera le buscamos. Yo soy una de las personas que, creo que tú me conoces, hablo mucho con las maestras, “Y dígame ¿cómo está su comportamiento?”

I mean, I can’t do the teacher’s job because I’m not trained for that, I’m not a person with studies. But with the simple fact that I help my son, “Let’s see, do your homework. Let’s see, let’s do this.” “Here, let’s look into it.” I mean, I’m teaching my son to stimulate him. We help him, right? One way or another, we look for a way. I’m one of the people that, I think you know me, I speak with the teachers, “So tell me, how is he behaving?” (LAURA)

Despite educational and linguistic barriers, these Mexican immigrant parents performed many of the behaviors researchers and educators claim foster academic achievement. These parents did school-related work with their children at home, monitored their children’s homework and their academic progress, searched for and secured community resources that could support and enhance their children’s achievement, listened to what their children said about school and acted on their children’s concerns, offered support and encouraged their children to work hard and succeed. MRC: Cuando ustedes dicen “trabajar con ella” ¿a qué se refieren? MARÍA: Por ejemplo… Yo me pongo a leer nos ponemos a escribir… tratamos de coordinar lo que están viendo en la escuela para hablarlo aquí en la casa en español. Por ejemplo, le enseñan canciones allá, en inglés, de las granjas. Entonces

MRC: When you say “working with her,” what do you mean? MARÍA: For example, I start reading with the children, we start writing. We try to coordinate so that we can talk at home in Spanish about what they are seeing at school. For example, they teach them songs in English about farm animals. Then here we teach them

Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future aquí nosotros también le enseñamos canciones que están relacionadas con la granja, tal vez no es la misma canción pero está relacionada. Y ella va aprendiendo los animales de la granja en español también. MRC: ¿Cómo es que saben qué es lo que están dando en la escuela? MARÍA: Porque nos mandan una hoja de, noticias de cada semana… Esta semana, nos ponen por ejemplo, “La semana anterior se habló de”, por decir eso, “de los cerditos. Esta semana, vamos a hablar de las plantas”… es ya como nos enteramos de lo que están viendo.

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songs that are related to the farm, maybe it’s not the same song but it’s related, and she starts learning the farm animals in Spanish too. MRC: How do you know what is being taught in the classroom? MARÍA: Because they send us a sheet with weekly news. For example, this week they write, “Last week we talked about little pigs. This week we are going to talk about plants” and so that’s how we find out what they are seeing at school.

Not all parents did what María and Manuel did. For instance, they were one of the few families who removed their children from the only elementary school offering bilingual services. They were also one of the few families who had a bilingual parent and could afford having a parent staying at home. But all the parents I met seemed determined to find the resources their children needed to succeed and looked for creative ways to encourage them. Yo lo que le meto a mi hijo es que estudie. Y lo llevo a caminar a la universidad, le enseño cosas allá en la universidad porque hemos ido a caminar, incluso a comer, allí hay restauranes… me gusta ir cuando hay clases porque los estudiantes están escribiendo, están en la biblioteca, cosas así que ellos o sea, ven… él me dice que él se motiva porque yo lo apoyo, o sea, lo que él hace y a él le da mucho gusto cuando uno va con él a la escuela, que lo acompaña uno, tú llegas a ir a la escuela sin que él

What I try to get in his head is that he studies. And I take him for walks through the university campus, I show him things there at the university. We have gone there to walk, even to eat, they have restaurants there. I like to go when there are classes because the students are writing, they are at the library things like that for them to see. He tells me that he is motivated because I support him, what he does, and he is very pleased when I go with him to the school, when I accompany him,

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform sepa, como ahora que estaba yendo al programa de VIP que él no sabía cuándo yo iba a ir o cualquier rato yo podía caerle ahí. Entonces me veía y como que se sentía más en, más motivado, como más contento, no sé. Yo pienso que eso le ayuda mucho a los niños.

when I get to go to the school without him knowing, like now that I was going to the VIP program and he didn’t know when I was going, I could drop by at any minute, and then he would see me and it was like he felt more, more motivated, like happier. I don’t know. I think that that helps children a lot. (YOSHI)

O sea, como le dije a mi hermana, yo no soy una persona estudiada. Hay cosas en las que yo me atoro y no le puedo ayudar a mi hija. Pero por ejemplo, va a La Escuelita y ahí le, “Mira, esto es así y así.” Viene mi hija y me explica, “Mira mamá que esto era así y así.”

Like I told my sister, I’m not a person with studies. I get stuck on some things and I can’t help my daughter. But for example, she goes to the after-school program and there they, “Look, this is like this and that.” And my daughter comes and explains it to me, “Look mom, this is like this and that.” (LUCERO)

La computadora es de las que regala la universidad… que dicen que son de la universidad que cuando ya no las quieren. Nos llevaron a un programa… Nos tuvieron ahí desde las ocho de la mañana hasta las cuatro de la tarde dándonos explicaciones, cómo se usaba, cómo se conectaba. Por asistir a eso nos regalaron la computadora… Y por eso les digo que sí, cuando hay oportunidades uno las aprovecha.

The computer is one of those the university gives away when they don’t want them anymore. They took us to a program, they had us there from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon giving us explanations, how to use it, how to connect it. They gave us a computer for attending. And that’s why I say yes, one takes advantage of opportunities when they come. (KARIME)

Elena did not participate in school-sponsored activities other than meetings scheduled specifically to talk about her children. She monitored her children’s behavior, how they felt about school, whether they got their homework done, and listened to what other parents and


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children had to say about what was going on at the schools. Talking about her youngest child, she expressed concern about a teacher she heard was “no good.” Me siento ya un poco mal porque me platican que la maestra con la que va a entrar ahora, que esa maestra no sirve, es una señora ya grande y que no oye a los niños, los regaña bastante y que este los niños cuando a veces quieren decirle algo, ella les dice que se callen na’ más la boca… y a veces digo a lo mejor lo voy a cambiar de escuela porque si no, si veo yo que él va ir este, mal ahí, porque tu sabes que los niños luego comienzan como a reaccionar mal, si veo que él reacciona mal ahí en la escuela lo voy a tener que sacar y lo voy a meter a otra escuela.

I feel kind of bad already because I’ve been told the teacher he will have now is no good, that she is an older woman who doesn’t listen to the children. She scolds them a lot and sometimes when the children want to say something she tells them to shut up and doesn’t let them speak. And sometimes I say to myself that maybe I’ll have to change him from school because if I see that he starts doing poorly, because you know children start to have a negative reaction, if I see he reacts negatively to the school I’ll have to pull him out and place him in another school.

Graciela also paid close attention to her children and was ready to intervene with the school when necessary. Cuando yo vi que mi hijo estaba un poquito mal… yo tuve que conseguir una persona que hablara inglés y decirles, “Bueno ¿no hay una manera de que a mi hijo le enseñen inglés? Porque él no sabe”. Él se desesperaba… el no entender nada. Entonces yo le decía, “Bueno ¿y no hay alguna manera que le den algún apoyo para que él no se sienta así?” Porque llegó el momento en que me dijo mi hijo, “Es que yo no les entiendo nada!” Y pues para la edad que tenía entonces era muy

When I saw that my son was doing kind of poorly I had to get someone who spoke English and tell the teachers, “Well, isn’t there a way for my child to be taught English? Because he doesn’t know.” He would despair, he would get very frustrated because he didn’t understand anything. So then I would tell them, “Well, isn’t there a way that you could give him some support so that he doesn’t feel that way?” Because it got to the point that my son would say, “It’s that I don’t understand anything!” And

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform frustrante. Y con mi hija pues sucedió lo mismo.

for the age he had then it was very frustrating. The same thing happened with my daughter.

Laura did what she saw fit to advocate for her children while trying to be fair to the teachers and the school. At a meeting with Latino American parents organized by the school district, Laura spoke about a problem her son was having with the ESL teacher. She explained that although the teacher was from a different Latino American country and could be used to doing things differently, her son felt disrespected by the way she talked to him. The teacher would tell him “¡Cállate!” (Shut up!), and that was disrespectful in Laura’s culture. At first Laura wanted to know how her son was contributing to the problem. But as time passed she came to the conclusion that it was the teacher who did not know how to work with the kids. Laura had already met with the teacher and the school social worker but the situation continued. The behaviors these parents performed challenged the dominant story about Mexican immigrant parents’ involvement in their children’s formal education. They found creative ways to circumvent linguistic and educational barriers that hindered their ability to participate in their children’s academic progress and school life. Moreover, many were directly, publicly, at times collectively, challenging school authorities, forcing them to be more responsive to parents’ and children’s needs, making it clear that school staff and district administrators were also accountable to them. These parents were working to protect and enhance their children’s rights to quality education. On a late Saturday afternoon I called Lucero to remind her about a Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee meeting that night at her daughter’s school. We greeted each other and started to chat. Lucero had received the written reminder but was not planning to attend the meeting because she and her husband had to take care of some business. Somehow we started to talk about one of her daughters. Lucero mentioned that her daughter would not talk to her about school unless she asked her. “Did I tell you about the incident with the ball? How the teacher didn’t believe the ball was my daughter’s and gave it to the girl who spoke English? My husband and I went to the school and walked right to the teacher and explained to her the ball was my daughter’s, she tells the truth, and the teacher should believe her. The teacher got all red. My husband didn’t give her a chance to go look for a translator and talked to her in English.”


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Lucero was a little ashamed of embarrassing the teacher. But she agreed with what her husband had done. I said I completely agreed with what they had done; that teacher had a reputation for not treating her students well and parents had to keep a close eye on her. “That’s the kind of issue I want to address with school officials,” Lucero said. “It’s not just about my daughter but also about how other kids are being treated. Like the transportation issue, I don’t have that problem but others do. And we have to make sure the district addresses it.” Then she asked me, “So when can you pick us up to go to the meeting?” “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your husband! I just wanted to make sure you knew about the meeting and had a ride,” I responded. “¡De veras!” (I’m serious!) When can you pick us up? Could you also take my sisters?”19 A few days later I ran into Lucero and other parents at another school meeting. This time it was an open meeting sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) where the school district superintendent would talk about district-wide and school-specific issues including the future of the bilingual programs. An assistant district superintendent, an African American woman, stood up and said Dubois Elementary was out of compliance with services for non-English speakers and the new district administration was trying to bring the district into compliance. The school did not have certified bilingual teachers, among other things. The new superintendent, an African American man, asserted his administration was not going to make program decisions, they just wanted to bring the certified staff. The ESL Task Force would make programming recommendations and the parents would have to decide what program they wanted for their children. From his experience in Florida, he knew there were a few program options: ESL, bilingual, dual-immersion. But it was up to parents to decide if they wanted their kids in bilingual programs or wanted to waive the services. Laura responded, “Parents need more and accurate information about the advantages and disadvantages of the programs before we can make decisions.” After a long wait for a turn to speak, Graciela stood up and said, “We shouldn’t sign off on anything until we have all the information necessary to make those decisions.” She then turned to the superintendent and asked him, “Are you going to make those programmatic decisions with us?” He responded he would work closely with the Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee and the ESL Task Force.

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During the formal interview with the school district’s Bilingual Programs Coordinator, a White U.S. American woman with experience as a bilingual teacher, candidly acknowledged that the parents were taking care of their end of the bargain. MRC: How do you think Latino families can help their children succeed in school? COORDINATOR: Well, I think that by continuing being involved, kinda at this district level. As much as it’s been painful and difficult that people have different opinions, I think that by them developing leadership skills and being involved and being high profile, I think, kinda on a larger level, that’s very important. I know as teacher, and also being involved at the school, I mean, I know that teachers are spread so thin, but the parents that I knew wrote a note to me that said they didn’t understand this homework or I noticed that Juan doesn’t know his time tables very well, you can’t help but give more attention to that kid, because you know it’s like you’ve got another boss over you, like that parent knows that I’m accountable to them. And you feel as a teacher, you're accountable to everybody. But it’s still different with that mom and dad and so, any kind of follow up and communication with teachers. The problem is… those teachers who don’t speak… Spanish, you know that’s harder to be able to do that. But I think it’s being visible when they can, coming to things and asking questions and, and then just going over with kids each day what they’ve done, asking them what they’ve done. And that whole conversation about things really has been shown to extend learning. Sadly, nearly all parents had at least one child who had been retained a grade in school. What these parents saw their children go through, their rate of progress, their frustration, what the children observed in schools, gave them pause. It also motivated them to do more than what was being done, challenging schools’ pedagogic authority.

CHAPTER 5

Para muestras un botón: Parents’ Lived Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling

The statistics speak for themselves. Last year, the school where they typically send all the Latino children or those who speak Spanish, ranked among the lowest in terms of academic achievement. So there you have it! And what happens when the children get to middle school? High school? They can’t perform. Why? Because they don’t have a strong foundation. And that’s when everyone start to, how do you say it? “dropping out”? Then they can’t get ahead. Then there is no history in this district that one could say, “This child graduated from high school and is at the university in town.” The students who are there now are not from here from Korbel. (MANUEL)

Las estadísticas hablan por sí solas. El año pasado, la escuela a la que están mandando a los niños latinos en general, o los que hablan español, estaba en uno de los últimos lugares en cuanto el nivel académico. Entonces, ahí está, para muestras, ahí está un botón. ¿Y qué es lo que pasa cuando los niños llegan al middle school? ¿High school? No pueden dar rendimiento… ¿Por qué? Porque no tienen sus bases fuertes. Y allí es donde empieza todo mundo a, ¿cómo se dice? ¿dropping classes?… Entonces no pueden seguir adelante… no hay un historial en este distrito donde diga, “Este niño salió de la high school y está en la universidad”. Los estudiantes que ahorita hay en la universidad… no son de aquí de Korbel.

By the time Manuel was talking about statistical evidence showing that Latino/a students were being sent to one of the lowest ranking elementary schools in the district, he and other parents were already 79

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organizing to bring about changes in the schools.20 They had also been meeting with allies who had access to official information about the local schools from the state’s Department of Education. That information was useful. Although it only provided general information about the schools attended by Spanish-speaking students, it bolstered their case in front of school officials with decision-making power. But by then Manuel, María, Lucero, Yoshi, Laura, Patricia, Graciela and others had already been accumulating evidence, first hand data, that spoke directly about how their children were being left behind, tucked away out of view, in a heavily racialized environment. Their knowledge did not come from official school district data. Official information about the academic progress of Spanish-speaking students was not even available.21 Parents’ demands for change were grounded in their own and their children’s lived experiences22 of school. To know what needed to change, they only needed a sample of one. In this chapter I outline the parents’ epistemological stance: what they claimed to know about what happened at their children’s classroom and their school more broadly, and how they came to know it. I will also present ways in which parents’ knowledge about their children’s schooling both confirms and contradicts the knowledge claims teachers and district staff made about issues such as the children’s experience of school, what the schools did to support the children’s success, and parents-school relations.

WHAT PARENTS KNOW AND HOW THEY COME TO KNOW IT Generally speaking, parents have ideas about what schools are about and have different motivations for sending their children to school. Schools are places where children can learn some things that will be useful in their lives. Schools are relatively safe places where children can stay while parents work. In some places, parents are forced to send their children to school because it is the law. When parents send their children to school, they also have expectations about what their children’s experiences would and should be like, what they could get from the experience and the kinds of relationships they could form with those who work at the school. The expectations of the Mexican parents I met were grounded on several sources of knowledge including information they gathered through formal-institutionalized channels (e.g., the news media, what staff said about schools, school report cards), what they learned in conversations with their children and other parents, and what they

Parents’ Lived Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling

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personally experienced.23 Conversations with their children, with other parents in their immediate community, and their lived experience were the most immediate sources of knowledge recent immigrant Mexican parents had about schools. In turn, when parents talked about what they knew and how they came to know it, they made certain epistemological claims about what constitutes valid knowledge. First, at an existential level, learning from others provides opportunities for becoming a better human being by creating a space for living with others in empathic understanding. Second, for knowledge to be legitimate one needs to learn from others but, more importantly, one has to learn from walking in one’s own shoes, learn from personal life experiences.24 Finally, for information to serve its pedagogical function, the person communicating the information has to know what she is talking about from lived experience. Mexican Parents’ Ways of Knowing In conversation about her motivation for getting involved with the parent advocacy group, Lucero summarized the contours of the parents’ epistemological stance as follows. Como persona vas mejorando también porque vas aprendiendo de los demás. Esas son mis metas: aprender de los demás, saber realmente de lo que estoy hablando, y no nada más decir lo que oigo, sino que si yo lo estoy viendo y lo estoy viviendo es más fácil que tú le expliques a una persona porque lo estás viviendo y los estás oyendo a que no’ más, no sé si te ha pasado que cuando pasas una información y pasa como en cinco o diez personas nunca llega la información como era. Se va distorsionando al rato. Entonces es lo que yo, yo no quiero que me pase. Y digo, “Bueno, las cosas son así porque yo las estoy viendo, yo las estoy viviendo y a mi nadie me está platicando”. O sea,

As a person you improve too because you are learning from others. Those are my goals, learn from others, truly know what I am talking about, and not only talk about what I have heard but if I am seeing it and I am living it it’s easier to explain it to someone else because you are living it and you are hearing it rather than just, I don’t know if that has happened to you that when you are sharing information about something and it goes through like five or ten people the information never reaches them like it was. It gets distorted. And I don’t want that to happen to me. And I say, “Well, things are like this because I’m seeing it, I am living it, and no one is telling me

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform no hay nada tan más seguro que tú digas eso.

how things are.” I mean, there is nothing more certain than to say that.

Consistent with their reality as non-English-speaking immigrants and their epistemological stance, parents’ stories about how they learned what they had to do to register their children in school revolved around asking other Mexican immigrants who had already gone through the experience. Family members, co-workers and neighbors were the first sources of information. ¡O! es que yo llegué a casa de mi hermana y ella tenía sus hijos en la escuela.

Oh well when I arrived I stayed at my sister’s and she had her children in school. (MARGARITA)

Entonces, él me dijo eso de que, “Ella llega aquí y creo que rápido la aceptan en la escuela si traemos pues todos los papeles”. Y este le digo, él ya se había enterado desde antes cómo hacerlo y todo o sea ya se había informado por personas que trabajaban pues ahí con él. Y luego ya llegó, llegamos pues, y luego luego fue lo primero que hicimos. Pero te digo ya, por personas pues que tenían ya niños en la escuela, preguntando, ya ellos nos dijeron como, cómo hacerlo.

My husband said to me, “I believe that as soon as our daughter gets here they’ll accept her in school right away if we bring all the paperwork.” I tell you, he had already found out how to do it and I mean he found out through people who he worked with. And then we arrived and right away, that was the first thing we did. But I tell you, we found out through people who already had children in school, asking, and they told us how to do it. (ISAMAR)

Once their children were in school, these parents paid close attention to how their children behaved and what they said about school. As long as parents did not hear from school staff, their children had no complaints and seemed to be doing well (as in doing their homework, attending school, getting good marks on their report cards), parents believed their children were making progress. KARIME: Pues hasta ahorita está bien, hasta ahorita van bien.

KARIME: Well so far it’s good; so far they are doing well.


MRC: ¿Cómo usted se da cuenta de cómo les va? KARIME: Pues sí porque mientras no se quejan ellas. Sí hay veces que pues porque como le dije un poquito de problemas aquí con esta maestra que hubo. Pero cuando no tienen ellos contratiempos con los maestros pues estudian a gusto. Bueno y como yo no les puedo ayudar mucho en inglés porque yo no sé mucho inglés pues eso, por eso a lo mejor digo que van bien pero como quiera cuando voy a la escuela le dicen a uno que van bien o van mal.

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MRC: How do you come to know how are they doing? KARIME: Well because, as long as they don’t complain. There have been times, like the problems with that teacher I told you about. But when they don’t have problems with the teachers then they enjoy studying. Well and since I can’t help them much in English because I don’t know a lot of English, maybe that’s why I say that they are doing well but anyway when I go to the school they tell us if they are doing well or not.

If teachers said their children were making progress, they believed their children were succeeding academically. Most of the times, they just had no other choice. But when their children began to give signs of trouble, parents found ways to learn more about the situation and took action. Eva, one of the Mexican mothers advocating for changes in the schools, and I were canvassing her neighborhood gathering signatures for a petition. A group of parents were demanding the implementation of English/Spanish dual-immersion bilingual programs in the public schools. At one of our visits we began to talk with a Mexican man about the bilingual programs. He said there were families who had removed their children from Dubois and didn’t know what was happening there now. He repeated his statement and Eva replied that she removed her daughter from the school because her daughter was suffering. Other children were constantly teasing her and the teacher would do nothing. Her daughter, llegaba y se ponía a llorar en el baño y cuando yo le preguntaba me gritaba “¡Déjame!” Y me decía, “¡Yo no quiero ir a la

would get home and start crying in the bathroom and when I would ask her she would yell, “Leave me alone! I don’t want to go to school!”

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform escuela!” Y yo le decía que ella era muy chica para ya no gustarle la escuela pero ella ya no quería ir.

and I would tell her that she was too young for not liking school but she already didn’t want to go.

Her daughter’s grades started to go down. Eva talked to the teacher but still no response. By the end of the year the school wanted to retain her daughter and Eva decided to simply take her out of the school. The couple listened attentively. The man’s facial expression softened. His wife exclaimed, ¡Eso era racismo! Es que aquí hay mucho de eso. Cuando uno llega y no sabe cómo son las cosas uno no sabe qué hacer.

That was racism! There is a lot of that here. When one first gets here one doesn’t know how things are and doesn’t know what to do.

Once the children are in school, their lived experiences of schooling become the parents’ most readily available sources of knowledge. La otra vez que yo fui a una junta también estuvo, o sea le estuvieron diciendo una muchacha a otra señora que dice que su niña tuvo que, según quería ir al baño y le estaba diciendo que ya era hora de ir al baño y la maestra no le hizo caso. Y la niña se fue y después la anduvieron buscando y tuvieron que llamar a su mamá pues porque la niña se había escapado. Y pues ahí estuvo que la señora regañó a la chamaquita y dijo la niña, “No es que yo quería ir al baño y la maestra no me puso atención”. “Pues eso no está bien”, dice. Digo pues no. Es que por eso deberían ponerles más atención a los niños.

The last time I went to the school for a meeting there was a young woman telling a lady how her child had to use the bathroom and she was telling the teacher that it was time to use the restrooms and the teacher didn’t pay attention to her. The child left the classroom and then they were looking for her and ended up calling the child’s mother because the child had escaped. And so the woman scolded the little girl and the child said, “It’s that I wanted to go to the bathroom and the teacher didn’t pay attention to me.” “Well, that’s not right,” said the woman. And I say no, that isn’t right. That’s why teachers should pay more attention to the kids. (MARGARITA)


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At the same time, parents’ own lived experiences and the knowledge derived from them took precedence over what others had experienced under the same circumstances. For instance, many parents had been concerned about one of the ESL/bilingual teachers. They had seen her presenting the program at public meetings and her delivery led them to believe she was not qualified to teach. But Laura saw something different. She had reached out to the teacher and the teacher responded positively to her. This proved to Laura that the woman was a good teacher. Entonces ese día al verme allí preocupada me dice, “Señora yo le voy a hacer unos exámenes” y le volvió a hacer… Y trajo un especialista que lo evaluó, me dijo que sí que está un poco bajo y todo. Entonces yo lo que hice fue decirle a ella, “Yo necesito saber más sobre mi hijo, cómo puedo ayudarlo, cómo puedo enseñarle para que mi hijo suba el nivel académico. Yo no quiero que quede tan abajo”… Entonces ella muy amablemente me ayudó. Yo te voy a ser honesta o sea todos dicen, “No es que ella”. Conmigo fue diferente, mi caso fue diferente. Yo no sé si fue por la forma en que yo la traté. Yo hablé con ella, a mi me ayudó, me sacó, le hizo a mi hijo exámenes, me dio tapes. Me hizo una junta con su maestra.

That day when she saw me there worried, she said to me, “Mrs., I will test your child” and she tested him again. And she brought a specialist to evaluate him and said that yes that he was a little below the level. Then I said to her, “I need to know more about my son, how to help him, how can I teach him so that he improves his academic level. I don’t want him to be that low.” Then very kindly she helped me. I’m going to be honest with you. I mean others say, “No it’s that she,” it was different with me. My case was different. I don’t know if it was because of how I treated her. I talked to her and she helped me, she tested my child, she gave me tapes. She scheduled an appointment for me with the regular classroom teacher.

Mexican Parents’ Knowledge As parents gained detailed knowledge about the internal dynamics of the local schools they began to worry. One of the concerns parents expressed repeatedly was that, with some exceptions, teachers did not contact them when their children’s behavior in class changed in ways

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that affected their learning. At first this created the illusion that all was well. But by the time parents heard about their children’s troubles in school, the problems were more difficult to tackle. In time, some parents learned that no news could mean bad news, that progress did not equate to academic success, and that what they expected from their children was often different from the teacher’s expectations. This is when parents began to challenge the school staff’s authority to define their children’s potential. Es que esa es una de las cosas que no tienen aquí, tienen problemas con el niño y no hablan contigo hasta que de veras el problema ya no tiene solución o lo pudiste haber evitado si ellos hubieran hablado contigo. Pues yo digo, a mí se me hace ilógico ¿no? que un maestro esté teniendo un problema y que no trate de hablar. Entonces lo que nos dijo la maestra esa vez, “Es que aquí los papás todos trabajan y trabajan mucho, nunca pueden venir”. ¡Pero que te den la oportunidad de ver qué papás podemos y qué papás no! Hay papás que llegan a pedir permiso en su trabajo con tal de ir a las juntas. O sea, ella no puede generalizar a todos. Es lo que te digo, es ahorita otra de las cosas que estamos peleando.

That’s one of the things they don’t have here: they have a problem with your child and they don’t talk to you until the problem is out of hand, or it could have been prevented if they had talked to you. And I say, that doesn’t make sense, does it? that a teacher is having problems but does not try to talk to you. And at that time what the teacher said was, “Well, it’s that parents here all work and work so much that they can’t ever come to school.” But they should give us the opportunity so they see which parents can and which parents cannot! There are parents that even ask permission at work as long as they can attend school meetings. I mean, she can’t generalize to everyone. I tell you, that’s another thing we are fighting. (LUCERO)

Jennifer, a Latina-descent ESL/bilingual teacher, had witnessed parents’ efforts to go to the school when called upon. “I don't think parent-teacher relations are going well. Teachers do not speak Spanish. Parents are working. But it is interesting because when I’m asked to call a parent to ask them to come in to talk about a problem with their child they come right away or say, ‘Can I come in tomorrow?’” Sandra, the district staff person who served as a liaison between the schools and Latino American parents, shared Lucero’s frustration


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with teachers not reaching out when students were in trouble. At the end of her first year on the job she said, Realmente los maestros, he tenido bien pocos maestros este año llamándome cuando están preocupados por algún estudiante porque la mayoría esperan hasta las conferencias tal vez o, buscan la ayuda de alguna de las personas que hablan español en la escuela.

Actually the teachers, I’ve had very few this year calling me when they are concerned about a student because the majority wait until parent-teacher conferences or maybe they look for another person who speaks Spanish at their school to help them.

By not communicating with parents about their children’s struggles, teachers missed opportunities for working with parents to support the students’ academic progress. This contributed to parents’ sense of disempowerment vis-à-vis their children’s schooling. In response to a presentation from the ESL/bilingual teachers at a parents meeting, one of the mothers said, “I'm glad you are here because we need to hear from you how our children are doing. It’s not the same when the principal comes because she is not present day to day with the children. But you are and we need to hear from you what we need to do to support you.” Yoshi had heard parents express their concern about poor communication with teachers. She had made sure teachers knew she wanted to be informed about what was happening with her child so that she could work together with the teacher to prevent the child from falling behind in school. Yo he platicado con otros padres y dicen que los maestros no se toman la molestia de avisarle al papá, “¿Sabe qué? El niño está bajando o el niño no progresa” sino ya hasta mediado de curso, o a fin de año, que ya no hay nada que hacer… pues yo tuve la experiencia con mi hijo como dos meses atrás andaba mal. En menos de una semana la maestra vio que bajó y me habló por teléfono. Pero porque

I have talked with other parents who say teachers don’t bother to let them know, “You know what? The child is falling behind, he’s not progressing” but rather wait until the middle of the school year or at the end of the year when there is nothing left to do. I had the experience with my child, about two months ago, he wasn’t doing well and in less than a week the teacher saw he was falling behind

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform yo también le decía, “Maestra, cuando usted lo vea que él baje o que no hace las cosas, avíseme por favor, a tiempo para ponerlo al corriente y no se atrase”. Entonces la maestra se tomó la molestia de llamarme y vino a la casa a visitarme y me dijo que, como quería que me avisara… buscamos ayuda, la maestra me ayudó y mi hijo se recuperó rápido… no lo dejamos caer nada.

and called me over the phone. But that was because I had told her, “Teacher, when you see that my child drops or doesn’t do the work, please let me know, early, to make sure he catches up and doesn’t fall behind.” The teacher took the time to call me and came to my house and said she came to me because I wanted her to let me know. Then we got help and my son caught up quickly. We didn’t let him fall behind one bit.

What parents were learning about their children’s schools worried them. In their own dealings with school staff and through their children and others’ stories about school, parents began to see differences between teachers’ expectations and their own beliefs about what Latino American children could accomplish. They also learned about school structures that perpetrated educational inequities along racial-linguistic lines (e.g., ESL/bilingual programs) and about a general school climate that fostered interracial misunderstanding and animosity. Public school teachers are often overworked, underpaid, and work with inadequate and limited resources. On the other hand, the narratives of Mexican parents in this study reveal a discrepancy in teachers’ and parents’ expectations about what parents can and will do to support their children’s success and the children’s actual academic potential. Teachers expected Latin American children to make progress (e.g., move up one reading level a year regardless of how low their level was) while parents wanted to see their children succeed (i.e., do as well as mainstream students or better). The discrepancy was expressed in explicit and subtle ways. Students and parents were reading the messages. At a school meeting organized by Laura to discuss her daughter’s performance, the regular classroom teacher cheerfully declared, “Your daughter has made a lot of progress!” He showed Laura the child's scores in a district-wide math and vocabulary test. The child had gone from a score of 1-20 on a previous test to a score of 40-60. Laura asked, “What’s the maximum score they could get?” The teacher responded, “A 100.”


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Perhaps the teacher was attempting to communicate a positive message about Laura’s daughter. After all, the child was showing signs of improvement on test scores. But compared to the standard Laura’s daughter was measured against, the teacher was portraying a distorted image of the student’s academic progress. Hers was not the kind of achievement associated with college-bound students. What parents like Laura really wanted to know was if their children were making the kind of academic progress that would lead them to a college education. The discrepancy in expectations was racialized25 in school-related discourse and institutional practices. Yoshi related a situation happening at one of her children’s regular classroom that revealed to her a racial hierarchy in teachers’ evaluation of students’ academic progress. En su salón de ellos acostumbran a tener una lista de colores, donde les van poniendo al nivel. Cada niño tiene un color ¿verdad? Está desde el más alto hasta el más abajo. Pero tu siempre vas a ver que los anglosajones están hasta arriba. Y los mexicanos, los hispanos, gente hispana, y los morenitos siempre están así más abajo. Mi hijo nunca llegó hasta arriba. Yo no sé por qué porque en realidad yo veía el avance de mi hijo. Nunca llegó hasta arriba pero siempre estaba en el azul. O sea, le faltaban tres hasta llegar hasta arriba.

At their classroom they have a list of colors to show their academic level. Each child has a color, right? There they have from the highest to the lowest. But you will always see that Anglo-Saxons are all the way to the top. And Mexicans, Hispanic, Hispanic people, and Blacks are always at the lower level. My son never reached the top. I don’t know why because I really saw my child’s progress. He never reached the top but remained always in blue. I mean, he had three colors left to get to the top.

She learned about this by talking with her son. ¡Pues por él lo supe! Porque él me decía, “¡Ay mamá! ¿Qué crees? Ya llegué hasta tal color” y le decía yo, “¿Cómo está eso de que llegaste a tal color?” “¡Sí!” y siempre llegaba contento cuando avanzaba a un color. Le decía yo,

I learned about it through him! He would say, “Hey mom! Guess what? I reached such color” and I would say, “What’s that about reaching a color?” He would always come happy when he reached a higher color. I would ask him, “Why?” and

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform “¿Por qué?” Decía, “Es que tenemos en el salón una lista donde van todos los colores de todos, todos tenemos un color”. Y siempre decía, “Mami yo soy el más alto de todos los mexicanitos”. ¡Porque así dicen! O sea, yo pienso que ahí se dan cuenta cómo los señalan porque donde ellos mismos dicen eso yo pienso porque alguien o sea los señala en el salón o ven más apoyo para los otros niños y hacen a un ladito a los otros niños… Yo pienso que aunque digan que no, hay discriminación. La verdad. Porque él siempre me dice, “¿Por qué siempre los güeros hasta arriba mami?”

he would say, “It’s that we have a list in the classroom that has the colors of all the students, we all have a color.” And he would always say, “Mom, I’m the highest of all the Mexicans.” That’s how they talk about it! I mean, I think that that’s when they realize how they are signaled out because if they say that I think it’s because someone I mean they are being signaled out in the classroom or they see more support for the other students and some children being pushed to the side. I think that even if people say there isn’t, there really is discrimination. Because he always tells me, “Mommy, why is it that Whites are always at the top?”

For parents and their children, it seemed evident that los americanos26 were the standard for academic success. Thus, parents wanted their children to do as well or better than los estudiantes americanos. Then their children might just get a chance to achieve the higher social status associated with being americano. Lucero learned about this racialized academic hierarchy through her daughter. Nosotros como padres no entendemos lo que pasa en ESL, cómo se estudia, cómo lo llevan, nada de eso. Yo tenía entendido que tenían una sola maestra para estudiar lo que es matemáticas, ciencias sociales y ESL, una sola maestra para esas tres materias. Yo sé que una maestra debe estar certificada para darte la materia. No se me hace lógico… porque los americanos sí tienen sus maestras de cada clase. Y estas clases que te

We as parents do not understand what is going on in ESL, how it is studied, how it is done, none of that. It was my understanding that they had only one teacher to teach math, social sciences and ESL, only one teacher for those three subjects. I know that a teacher should be certified to teach a subject. It doesn’t make sense to me because Americans do have their teacher for each subject. And those ESL classes that I’m telling

Parents’ Lived Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling estoy diciendo las toman en un saloncito, en un saloncito…Pues yo sé que la educación que están teniendo los niños latinos es un 50%, que los que la están aprovechando más son los americanos por el hecho de ya saber bien su idioma a ellos sí se les están dando las materias al 100%. Y pues eso es triste ¿no? porque pues desde ahorita se les está empezando a marginar. Imagínate si desde niño empiezas con un 50% llegas a adulto y llegas con ese 50% no te vas a poder igualar con un americano porque desde chicos llevan una materia más alta… yo lo he visto tanto en los estudios de la grande y de la chiquita. La más grande me estaba comentando el otro día… “Oye mamá, los niños que van en mi mismo grado, están viendo otras materias que yo no conozco”. Y le digo, “¿Pero no que van en el mismo grado?”… “Pero es que ellos llevan otra materia ¡ya como de preparatoria!”

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you about are being taught in a very small room, a very small room. I know Latino students are being educated at a 50%, that American students take advantage of it the most due to the fact that they already know their language well and they are being taught their subjects at a 100%. And that’s sad, isn’t it? because Latino students are already being marginalized. Imagine if from the time you are a child you start with a 50% you become an adult with that 50% and you won’t be able to catch up to Americans because from childhood they are taking classes at a higher level. And that’s true, I have seen it in my oldest daughter’s school work as well as with my youngest. My oldest child was telling me the other day, “Mom, students in my grade are seeing material I have not seen.” And I tell her, “But aren’t you all in the same grade?” “But they are seeing high school level material!”

Parents talked about wanting their children to be fully bilingual: being able to read, write and speak in English and Spanish fluently. However, they believed that to make it in the U.S. their children will have to master English. Without mastering the dominant language their children were bound to be left out of the educational opportunities this country offers them and thus their life paths will replicate their parents’. Por ejemplo a mi me gustaría más que sí les enseñaran a los niños bien el español, bien el inglés. Y si

For example, I would like it better if they teach the children Spanish and English well. And if they don’t

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Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating for School Reform no les dan un buen programa en español, que no lo tienen el que queremos no lo tienen… pues que nos los preparen bien en inglés al cien por ciento, para que uno tenga derechos a otras escuelas.

provide them with a good Spanish program, because they don’t have the program we want they don’t have it, then they should prepare them well in English, at a 100%, so we have the right to other schools. (YOSHI)

Karime had negative experiences with the language instruction program for Latin American students. Some of her children had been held back a grade because they were not making academic progress in English. In that process she learned that her children’s progress was measured against the progress of mainstream English-speaking students and that the way in which the language instruction program was structured led Spanish-speaking students to fall behind others academically. Thus, being in bilingual or ESL classes was not a sign of academic progress. Si veo de que no puede llevar los dos idiomas que le están dando, yo la voy a sacar de uno, que se vaya al inglés pa’rriba. Que se vaya al nivel de los ¡de todos pues! Porque los sacan para llevar el español y es cuando ellos se atrasan. Porque mis hijas tomaron todas esas clases desde que estuvieron ahí y todavía siguen ahí. Porque iban bajas, ¡según! No iban al nivel de los otros. Porque pues uno se pone a pensar que todos esos ratos que se las sacan pa’ que se vayan a tomar la otra clase, es cuando ellos se bajan más. De por sí que no saben bien el idioma ¡pues menos los alcanzan!

If I see that she doesn’t do well in the two languages she is learning, I will take her out of one, let her take English and get ahead. Let her go at the level of, well, everyone! Because they are being pulled out of the classroom to go to Spanish class and that’s when they fall behind. My other daughters began to take those classes since elementary and they are still taking them because their grades were low, that’s what they said! They were not at the level of others. Then well, one begins to think, all those times they are pulled out to take the other class is when they get further behind. They already don’t know the language well, then it’s going to be harder for them to catch up!


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Not all about the schools was negative. But it was not enough. In the parents’ eyes, the schools could have been doing more to guarantee their children made it to college. ¿Qué me parece que están haciendo bien? Pues, por todo lo que te acabo de decir yo pienso que bien bien, nada. O sea, como que todo está a medias. Y si tu eres una persona que te conformas con mandar a tus hijos a la escuela y ya, entonces podríamos decir que todo está bien. O sea que no, ahorita no te puedo decir que están haciendo algo bien porque no. No.

What do I think schools are doing well? Well, given all that I have already told you I think that doing very well, nothing. I mean, it’s like all is half way. And if you were a person who is satisfied with sending your children to school and that’s it, then we could say that everything is ok. So no, right now I can’t tell you they are doing something well because they are not. No. (LUCERO)

KNOWLEDGE-CLAIM BATTLES If there is truth to the notion that knowledge is power, it must also be said that power is knowledge: those with power in a particular context and time determine what counts as legitimate knowledge. Delpit (1995) argues that there is a culture of power in schools that contributes to the gap between the professionals from the dominant racial-economic class (e.g., White middle-class school teachers and administrators) and those belonging to marginalized communities (e.g., African American teachers, working-poor parents). The culture of power in schools (a concept reminiscent of Bourdieu’s cultural capital) reflects the culture of the dominant class and is used as the standard against which people are measured. In the racially and socioeconomically segregated structure of Korbel schools, the knowledge Mexican parents gained through conversations with members of their primary community and from their own lived experience was the kind of knowledge that representatives of the official establishment challenge on the grounds of its validity and generalizability.27 The challenge took the form of “what the professionals say vs. what parents say.”28 The professional discourse took precedence even when it was in contradiction with the actor’s own ways of knowing and best intentions. Sandra, a Mexican immigrant and school district staff member, expressed her ambivalence when settling knowledge-claim battles on

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Latin American students’ academic performance. Just as other staff who considered themselves representatives, supporters and/or allies of Mexican parents, Sandra was caught between supporting parents’ sense of empowerment to participate in the school and doubting their capacity to know what was happening and was best for their children. Esa idea hay que metérsela siempre, de que ellos tienen el derecho de irse a parar a la clase, de irse a parar a la escuela, de ir a observar. Y mucha gente todavía tiene la idea de que no, de que a lo mejor no te van a dejar estar en la clase. ¿Cómo quieres darte cuenta de lo que está haciendo tu hijo si no estás ahí viéndolo? Entonces es bien difícil, es bien difícil, porque escuchas una cosa de los papás, a veces cosas bien negativas de los maestros, de la escuela o del programa. Pero tú hablas con la maestra y la maestra te da una idea más, más firme, de que está bien, de que está avanzando lentamente porque está tratando de aprender el otro idioma, que su nivel de lectura es bueno. Entonces, y sin embargo si la familia se siente de esa manera entonces lo que trato de hacer es enfocarlos, de que van a poder recibir un poco más de apoyo.

That idea has to be reinforced, parents have the right to go and stand there at their children’s classroom, go to the school, and observe. And there are a lot of people who still think they are not going to be allowed in the classroom. But how are you going to know how your child is doing if you are not there seeing it? So then it is very difficult, very difficult, because you hear one thing from the parents, sometimes very negative comments about the teachers, the school or the program. But you speak with the teacher and she gives you more certainty, that the child is doing well, he is making slow progress because he is trying to learn the other language, his reading level is good. So then, if the family feels that way what I try to do is help them focus, letting them know they will be able to receive a bit more support.

Sandra accepted the teachers’ knowledge claims as a higher truth and took care of the parents’ feelings by appeasing their concerns. Even though she shared the parents’ epistemological stance (gaining knowledge through lived experience), her membership in the professional class took precedence. Moreover, she also shared with parents a subordinate status: none made decisions about what went on in the


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schools and had to trust either their own empirical assessment of a situation or the knowledge claims of the professionals. In the context of contested knowledge between stakeholders with unequal power, some are arguably left with the choice of either trusting the knowledge claims of others (and trusting those people) or challenging their authority and risking seeing their claims bulldozed by the power of those who have authority. Here is where establishing an illusion of caring is key. If all agree that stakeholders with the power to dictate how things are will take care of those who do not share that power, then those with legitimized power could feel like they are doing good while those without a say could feel safe. The power hierarchy is left intact and people remain in their places. Again, these processes are enacted in explicit and subtle ways. At an informational meeting for Latino American parents organized by the school district knowledge-claim battles were played out between parents and school district staff. The meeting had been organized to present the district’s plan for changing the assignment of students to the middle schools. One of the district assistant superintendents was outlining the assignment options being considered while a Latina staff translated. The assistant superintendent said the district would gather data about all students (race, standardized scores, economic level) and use computer software to figure out the best distribution of children per school. Since only one school would have an ESL program, the information about ESL students was not going to be entered. I commented, in Spanish and English, that the changes proposed by the district would create a racially identifiable school of Latinos. The assistant superintendent nodded. A Mexican mother asked if students would be forced to attend a specific school. She said yes. Others began to ask whether Latino students would have to attend Cleaver even if they didn’t need ESL services. Laura, one of the Mexican mothers, said she wanted her children to learn English from other children so that they would learn the right intonation. A father followed that comment saying that if all the Latino children were in one building it could affect how they saw themselves, they could think of themselves as less than the others. The Bilingual Programs Coordinator, asked if the computer program would cluster individual students or schools. The assistant superintendent clarified the program “will decide” which schools cluster better together in terms of student distribution, then students would be assigned to the middle school that corresponded to their cluster. Parents

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continued to comment and ask questions. The programs coordinator said in Spanish, “We know it is best to have all the ESL services in one building with all the resources in one setting where people care about the students and where their language is not seen as a deficit.” A Latina university professor attending the meeting responded that what the coordinator said was true in an ideal situation but the issues parents were raising were the same issues she had been hearing for over three years: busing, overcrowded classrooms, lack of basic materials and resources. The coordinator nodded. Later on, the Latina staff repeated the phrase “research shows that.” Soon after that meeting two district staff (Sandra and Diana) and I had an emotionally charged conversation. We had been collaborating to organize the Bilingual Parent Advisory Committee29 and had scheduled a planning meeting. But we spent most of our time discussing what had happened at the meeting with the assistant superintendent. Diana was very upset about the stance the Latina professor took at the meeting and wanted to discuss it. She talked about Dr. González, calling her by her first name. “Clarisa left me alone there defending bilingual education. Do you know what it’s like to have a Latina professor there not supporting the program? She knows what research shows!” Diana’s eyes got watery. She said she gets emotional about it. I responded, “I know this is very hard” and she began to cry. Diana said Dr. González did not see that the district was taking steps to improve their relationship with the Latino community and the education of Latino kids; the creation of the positions Sandra and she held were proof of that. Diana was afraid that Dr. González’s comments about the poor quality of services provided by the ESL schools could stir Latino students to schools that did not have bilingual staff and Dr. González had no idea about the treatment Latino students were getting at other schools. She believed Dr. González would be the perfect person to collaborate with but Diana warned her that if she was going to the upcoming ESL orientation meetings to discredit the program she was going to do a disservice to the families. DIANA: At least at Dubois there are people who care about the kids! I’ve had to deal with teachers at other schools who wanted to hold back Latino students just because they didn’t speak English! MRC: So that is what you have to tell parents.


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DIANA: I can’t say that to parents because what the staff is doing is illegal. MRC: You are in a very difficult position. You care about the education of Latino students and at the same time you work for the district. Given the current circumstances, there is no way you can please both the district and the Latino parents. You’ll have to figure out where your loyalties are. DIANA: I know everything about being co-opted, getting invested in one’s role, representing what people are fighting against. But how can we talk to parents now if they don’t trust us! Tell me, how should we talk to parents? MRC: I think you need to be as honest and transparent as possible, even about constraints you are facing. And letting all parents know about meetings is one step forward. Let parents talk to each other about their experiences at the different schools. DIANA: I understand but there is something I struggle a lot with. What am I going to do if parents end up saying they do not want bilingual education, they only want their children to learn English? I don’t know what I would do with that because I know that is not right, students should be taught to be bilingual. MRC: We know all students should learn as many languages as they can. All students should be multilingual! But we need to understand the experiences that lead parents to want their children to master the English language. That is the language they will need to know to get good jobs, go to college, become professionals. If the schools are not teaching quality Spanish, why would the parents want the teachers to teach their language? Several things were happening during this conversation. First, Diana was claiming to be an ally to the Latino parents and such status should suffice to legitimize her position in front of parents and other Latinos. She alluded to research-based knowledge in an attempt to settle the knowledge-claim argument with the Latina professor and presented her position as the correct one not only pedagogically but also politically and ethically speaking: bilingual education is the best education for Latino American children and the schools that offer bilingual programs are the least racist. If parents believed that school and district staff had the children’s best interests in mind and knew what they were doing, then

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parents would trust that staff were making the right decisions. At another level, Diana seemed invested in maintaining the illusion that the school district cared about what happened to Latino American students even though she knew they were attempting to catch up with equity legislation requirements to avoid another civil rights case against them. In her case, maintaining the illusion took precedence above and beyond her own experience, expressed feelings, level of consciousness and political alliances. The dominant narrative about the process of acquiring a second language was couched within two discourses: one about academics that was grounded on research-based knowledge claims, and an emotionally charged discourse about culture and identity. In this latter sense, the professionals who supported bilingual education saw themselves as the experts and guardians of the families’ cultural heritage. A few months after the middle schools assignment meeting, district staff called for a meeting of the Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee. In an attempt to allay parents’ concerns about the rate of their children’s academic progress and garner support for the district’s programs for Spanish-speaking students, the Bilingual Programs Coordinator and the bilingual speech therapist (a woman of Latino American descent) explained to parents that it takes children from five to seven years to learn a second language well enough to do academic work (reading, writing, comprehension), that children learn to speak in a second language faster than they learn how to read and write. In a separate conversation with one of the ESL teachers she asserted, “Teaching the students English and Spanish is the key to building their self-esteem, showing them that you value them and their language and their culture.” At one level, local supporters of bilingual education for Latin American students wanted to see these children have full mastery of both Spanish and English. But they were rarely willing to publicly recognize what many parents knew: in practice it was unclear that the way the programs were being implemented led students to become proficient bilinguals and have access to the same educational opportunities Englishmonolinguals have. In practice, Spanish-dominant students missed much of the content of what was being taught in regular classrooms because the majority of the teachers were not bilingual or familiar with strategies for teaching English learners. Furthermore, there were no structures in place for regular classroom and ESL teachers to work together and align the curriculum taught in their classrooms. Despite the good intentions of


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most, the program was not running as teachers and administrators portrayed it. Mrs. Thomas, an African American regular classroom teacher, asked me to help her with one of her Mexican immigrant students. She was unsure about how much the boy understood what went on in the classroom and wanted to find out how much English the child understood and what he knew about the classroom routine. I introduced myself to the boy [who was a sweetheart!] and started to chat about the classroom routine, asking him to walk me through what he did in class. He seemed to understand the mechanics of the day: writing in his notebook the “morning message,” the “day schedule,” the spelling and math exercises the teacher wrote on the board. There were some things about the spelling exercises that he understood (like working on punctuation) but he did not seem to understand the meaning of all the words. He also seemed to know the mechanics of the math problems but the teacher said he was not completing the work. She wanted to communicate to him that it would be ok for him to take extra time to finish the math problems. I worked with the teacher and the immigrant student for a couple of weeks. On the second week, Mrs. Thomas asked me to read in English with him. I asked her what his reading level was so I could choose the appropriate ESL book. She said she did not know. She had been told he was a beginner reader but she thought he knew more than he was letting others know. The teacher pulled a booklet from his desk. The booklet had exercises that required the student to color pictures based on instructions in English, like color coding. He had gotten all the exercises right. We looked at each other puzzled. I offered to find out from the ESL teacher his reading level and she agreed. There had been changes in the ESL program staff that year and I went to the main office to ask where I could find the student’s ESL teacher. Jennifer, a Latino-descent teacher I had known for a few years then, walked in and overheard the conversation. She asked me what I needed. I explained the situation with the Mexican student in Mrs. Thomas’ classroom and that we needed to know his English reading level. “Is he the student who just arrived to the country?” said Jennifer. “Well, I understand he attended Dubois last year.” Jennifer pulled his record, looked at the cover and pushed it back in the file cabinet. “He arrived in April, he is surely a beginner English reader. Just start him on the ABCs.” I explained that his work in the classroom led the teacher to believe he knew more than the ABCs. The new ESL teacher walked in and Jennifer pulled her in the conversation explaining I wanted to know

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the child’s reading level. The teacher, a White woman, said, “Sure, let’s go to my office and look.” We left the main office to walk over to the ESL teacher’s office. She showed me where his class was at in the social studies textbook and said she was going to test how much he had understood before giving him the official exam. I asked her if she knew his reading level. “You should ask the Reading Specialist. She knows.” I returned to the main office looking for the specialist and ran into Jennifer again. She explained that the specialist had just been hired and showed me where I could find her. When I explained to the specialist (another White woman) what I needed, she replied, “If I have assessed him his teacher has the assessment results. I handed the teachers all the results and have not gotten them back from them yet.” As I walked back to the classroom I ran into Jennifer in the hallway. She asked me what I had found, I told her, and she replied, “Well, the reading specialist has been working for only a couple of weeks. Just get the boy started with basic reading.” I walked over to Mrs. Thomas’ classroom chuckling in disbelief. When Mrs. Thomas saw me she put her hands on her hips and asked half joking, half serious, “Did you get me in trouble?!” I told her what I learned. “I don’t have any assessment for the boy. I haven’t received pretty much any information about how to teach Spanish-speaking students or how to evaluate their work. We need to talk to the principal.” But we did not manage to speak to the principal that same day. The following week, when I went to check in with Mrs. Thomas, she said things had moved along, a couple of tutors were now working with the boy. But the tutors only came during the ESL class. That meant she was still not getting support for him during regular classroom hours. Rae, one of the White ESL teachers I became friends with, was particularly upset about the lack of structures for teacher collaboration. In fact, we have like a mini-task force that the staff is divided up into on how to make things better for next year, and that was something I brought up and it was, at least within the group I was in, warmly received. They thought it would be a good idea too. But the problem is, you know, just logistics. Because there are so many things the ESL students get pulled out for, trying to create a time for the ESL teachers to be able to meet with different grade levels was really difficult.


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Another knowledge-claim that fell apart in practice had to do with teachers’ bilingualism. Despite claims of professional expertise, not all the teachers teaching Spanish literacy were fluent in Spanish. For example, describing her teaching credentials as an ESL/Spanish literacy teacher, Jennifer explained, You have to be certified, which requires basic courses to be a teacher, pass basic skills test, apply for certification. The required courses depend on your area. In my case, elementary education (K-9) certificate. I have a degree in reading fundamentals and taught at a reading clinic. I’m also taking classes in bilingual ed, ESL, and multiculturalism in the classroom. I became interested in bilingual education because I’m a native bilingual speaker and saw a growing need here. However, she would make basic spelling and grammar mistakes and often needed to consult Latin American colleagues. The problem was evident to some of the parents. María and Manuel commented on the issue of teachers’ qualifications for teaching Spanish. MANUEL: Técnicamente lo están haciendo. Pero en realidad no lo están haciendo. Están enseñándoles un español, discúlpame la palabra, pero se me hace mediocre. Porque en primer lugar las maestras no están capacitadas al cien por ciento MARÍA: Hay una maestra que, esa maestra no tiene su base en español. Por decirte, yo no voy a decir, “Dame la vaso”. Eso no es un español bien. Entonces enseñarles todo eso, todo gramaticalmente bien. Y esta maestra no sabe, no sabe eso, la gramática bien como va. Entonces a eso es a lo que nos referimos.

MANUEL: Technically they are doing it but in reality they are not. The Spanish they are teaching, excuse my language, is quite mediocre because, in the first place, the teachers are not trained at a 100%. MARÍA: There is a teacher, that teacher doesn’t have a good Spanish foundation. For example, I’m not going to say, “dame la vaso” [reference to a grammatical mistake] that’s not good Spanish. And so it’s about teaching them all that, correct grammar. And that teacher doesn’t know correct grammar, how it’s supposed to be. So that’s what we are talking about.

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Rae talked about her sense of inadequacy teaching Spanish literacy to Latino American students at Dubois, hinting to pressures from coworkers to maintain an illusion of knowledge. The town I was before was great! I had wonderful relationships with the families. I felt that, however bad my Spanish may or may not have been, the parents were so supportive and so pleased that I was even trying to communicate with them, like they were just so grateful that I tried to speak to them in Spanish, that I felt comfortable using my Spanish even though I knew that it wasn’t perfect. And here, I did not feel that way. And I don’t think it was because of the parents. I don’t feel like that came from the parents. I think that came from the people that I worked with. Regardless of how well-intentioned or well-informed the staff were, parents were learning about their children’s experiences in the regular classrooms through their children. Their children’s stories narrated the frustration and isolation they experienced in their regular classrooms, where they received most of their formal instruction. On my first day at the bilingual after-school program, a staff member gave me a sheet of paper. “Here! Help that girl do this worksheet. It’s sort of academic work” and pointed to a little girl who was seating beside me. I asked the girl what language she preferred to speak. “Spanish” she said. The girl told me she had just turned six and was in first grade. I asked her about school and she said she was at Dubois. She didn’t like her school. The teacher “Asks us to be quiet all the time!” “Do you have homework to do?” “No, they never give us homework.” Fue bien importante el hecho de que si la maestra la estaba atacando por el hecho de que la niña no sabía hablar el inglés, que nosotros estuviéramos presentes. Porque si nosotros no hubiéramos estado presentes la maestra hubiera hecho leña con ella. A lo mejor ¿no? por ignorancia, simplemente por el idioma. Para

It was very important that we were there when the teacher was attacking her simply because the child didn’t know how to speak English. If we had not been there the teacher would have destroyed her, out of ignorance, because of the language barrier. For her it was easier to say, “Sit down” and have her sitting than talking to her.

Parents’ Lived Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling ella era más fácil agarrar, “Sit down, sit down” o sea, tenerla sentada… ¿Por qué? Porque no la entendía. Una vez no sé qué estaban alegando que una niña le pegó y que no sé qué. Lo único que atinó la maestra a decirle y que ella entendió era, “Be quiet”. Me dice mi hija, “¡¿Cómo me voy a quedar callada mamá?! Si la otra niña me había pegado a mí. Pero como ella sí sabe hablar inglés, ella bien que le explicó y la maestra no me hacia caso. Y como yo le hablaba puro español, la maestra na’ más decía, ‘Be quiet, be quiet’”.

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Why? Because the teacher didn’t understand her. Once, I don’t know what they were arguing about, my daughter hit someone or something. All the teacher was able to tell her that she could understand was “Be quiet.” My daughter says to me, “How am I going to stay quiet mom?! The other girl hit me. But since the girl knows how to speak English she explained the situation to the teacher and the teacher didn’t listen to me. And since I was speaking to her only in Spanish, the teacher would only tell me, ‘Be quiet, be quiet!’” (LUCERO)

After hearing these stories, parents became more concerned about their children being respected and their real chances for social mobility than about becoming bilingual under precarious circumstances. Moreover, parents saw that in the process of becoming “bilingual” as defined by the schools, their children were in fact being left behind. Mis hijos llevan los dos idiomas si tienen capacidad, y lo llegan a lograr, ¡que bueno!… pero… si yo veo que mi niño se va atrasando porque está muy confundido… lucharía porque lo dejaran en clases de puro inglés. Porque el español… a lo mejor no aprenderán a escribirlo y a leerlo perfectamente pero como en la casa hablamos español… si ya pensamos quedarnos, mejor que aprendan el idioma bien de aquí.

My children will learn the two languages if they have the ability. If they accomplish that, well great! But if I see that my child starts to fall behind because he is too confused I would fight so that he stays in an English-only classroom. Because with Spanish, well, maybe they won’t learn how to read and write it perfectly, but we speak Spanish at home. And since we are already thinking about staying here, its best that they learn the language of this country well. (KARIME)

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MRC: ¿Qué quisieras que aprendieran en la escuela? GRACIELA: Pues todo lo necesario. Lo que tiene que aprender un estudiante. O sea lo mismo que aprende una persona americana, lo tienen que aprender ellos porque están en esta cultura. Ellos se están preparando en esta cultura, entonces, pues yo digo que lo que sepan los demás lo tienen que saber ellos. Y lo que sepan en español lo tienen que saber en inglés. Yo creo que eso sería, la prioridad principal, que deben de aprender todo lo que los demás saben, llevar un mismo nivel.

MRC: What would you like your children to learn in school? GRACIELA: Well all that’s necessary. What a student has to learn. I mean, they have to learn the same things an American person learns because they are in this culture. They are preparing themselves in this culture and so I say they have to know what others know. And what they know in Spanish they have to know in English. I think that would be the main priority: that they learn all that others know, that they are at the same level.

There was a sense of urgency embedded in parents’ narratives about their children’s schooling experiences. They identified with their children, with their sense of frustration. And saw the haphazardness of the schooling process as a threat to the hopes they had for their children. Y entre la desesperación de ellos pues participábamos nosotros como padres ¿verdad? Entonces por eso es de que nos hemos enterado de cuanto derecho puede tener un niño y que, qué es lo que les pueden dar. ¡Por eso es de que ahora pues pedimos que se los den! Porque creo que a estas alturas no les están dando todo el apoyo que deben de darles.

We as parents participated in their desperation, you know. That’s why we have looked into the rights that a child has and what the schools can provide to them. That’s why now we are asking for those rights! Because I believe that, at this point, they are not providing all the support the children should have. (GRACIELA)

And so, this is what drove their efforts to get involved in school politics.

CHAPTER 6

El que no tiene voz, no tiene mando: Voice, Bilingualism, and Power

Está bien que no sepamos el inglés pero no somos tontos para no entenderlo, creo que, tenemos la capacidad para entender lo que está pasando pero que no nos mientan porque nos dicen que sí pero realmente no se ve nada. Y creo que a lo mejor tengo unas, unas respuestas o en este caso, expresiones malas con respecto a las escuelas pero yo no puedo decir algo que no lo siento y que no, sé que no es. Entonces si hay alguna persona que pues que se llegara a molestar por esto pues que me disculpe. Pero yo creo que se trata de hablar lo que uno siente ¿no? Y si nos dieron esta oportunidad de hablar, pues yo creo hay que despojarnos todo lo que tenemos que decir.

Okay we don’t know English but it’s not like we are dumb and can’t understand. I believe we have the capacity to understand what is happening but they should not lie to us because they say something will be done but in reality you don’t see it at all. And I think that perhaps I have bad things to say about the schools but I can’t say something I don’t feel or something I know it’s not true. So if there is someone who gets upset about what I say, well I offer my apologies. But I think this is about saying what one feels, right? And if we were given this opportunity to speak, well then I think we have to say everything we have to say. (GRACIELA)

In a place where an increased number of residents are from a disempowered and foreign group, talking about “voice” (or voices) is more than an empowerment metaphor. Most Latino American immigrant parents in Korbel were not only from a marginalized social class, they were also monolinguals in a marginalized language. The 105

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parents in this study undoubtedly speak, they have much to say, they have voices. But in order for their voices to be audible to those who do not speak their language, first they must be translated. And almost inevitably, things get lost in translation; not only what people say but also how they say it, what they feel, and the power of their words. This is not to say that parents were being completely silenced or that they were passive subjects in this process. Many of the parents I got to know found ways to make sure they were heard with as much fidelity as possible. However, the need for translation became a site for the struggle for power and representation in Korbel. From the parents’ perspective, this struggle was more about attempts at silencing than about “having” or “giving” voice. Parents’ voices were silenced at various levels: from the translation process, having someone who would actually listen, and, more importantly, someone who would be moved by what the parents had to say. In this chapter I illustrate how these dynamics became increasingly public as Mexican parents were more visibly involved in local school politics.

MONOLINGUALISM,30 POWER, AND REPRESENTATION Oral translation is a relational transaction in which typically one person serves as bridge between other parties who cannot verbally communicate between each other. In translation events all those in need of translation lack direct access to reach a deeper understanding of the other. But these situations are often colored by power differentials between those who speak the majority language in a particular context (in this case English) and those who do not. The language hierarchy affects people differently precisely because they have different levels of power. In the case of Korbel, whether one was in the position to, for instance, need services or provide them, inform others or fight for one’s rights, made a difference in people’s everyday lives. Thus, although the need for translation can be a barrier for monolinguals at different levels of power, those who speak the minority language bear the brunt of the power asymmetries. During my fieldwork I met many English monolinguals for whom not speaking Spanish was a source of considerable frustration. This was the case with some of the Dubois parents involved in the PTA. They had been struggling to find ways to reach Dubois’ Spanishmonolingual parents, understand interpersonal dynamics within the “Latino community” and maintain sustainable relationships with Spanish-monolingual parents. One of the White mothers involved,

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Wendy, expressed this struggle in a communication about conflicting plans for a Mexican festivity. One of Dubois’ Mexican mothers actively involved in school politics had become a member of the PTA but they needed a translator to make their work possible. In the meantime, a Latino staff began a separate Latino parent group at Dubois with a selected group of parents. The Mexican mother had already asked the PTA to organize a Children’s Day when they found out the Dubois Latino parent group was also planning to celebrate the same event and wanted the PTA to fund it. Wendy said to me, When us English-only-speaking folks tried to understand how what she wanted was fitting in with what these other parents are planning, things got a little strained, especially when we were asked to reallocate some PTA funds to help this group and the activities they were planning for the children. The Latina coordinating Dubois group said that our Latina PTA member didn’t want to participate in what the other group was doing. Do you see why it was a bit confusing? I happen to know that they don’t get along. But it makes it hard for those of us who are trying to be inclusive of the Spanish-speaking parents yet aren’t privy to the issues and can’t seem to get all the parties to talk to each other and to us. I don’t want people to get their feelings hurt or feel like the PTA is being unsupportive of our Spanish-speaking parents, but it is hard to understand what to do. Monolingualism also affected the quality of the work Englishspeaking school staff did with Spanish-monolingual students and families. In a conversation with one of the White teachers at Dubois, she presented her monolingualism as a barrier for engaging the parents of one of her Mexican students. But her monolingualism also provided an excuse for disregarding her student’s needs. Beth was telling me about a conversation she had with one of her Mexican students. She was telling him how well he was doing in class and how proud she was of him. He got really excited and asked her to call his parents and tell them she was proud of him. She told the boy she would call his parents but she really hadn’t because she didn’t speak Spanish. I suggested asking one of the bilingual staff to translate for her or even one of my students. Beth nodded.

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Sandra, a Mexican immigrant who worked for the school district, also noticed how English-monolingual staff would use language as a justification for not addressing the needs of Spanish-monolingual parents. De veras me da mucho coraje cuando veo que alguien llega a una escuela y que los tratan diferente… no les dan la ayuda que pudieran haberles dado si hubieran ido con un traductor. Y es notorio en unas escuelas… Me hablan por teléfono y me dicen, “Ay es que fuimos a la escuela a solicitar esto y nos dijeron que no podíamos hacerlo” “¡¿Cómo que no pueden hacerlo?! Vamos otra vez a la escuela”… ¡y lo hacemos! Entonces la diferencia de que vas con alguien que puede hablar inglés y que puede exigirlo, ¡eso no debería de ser así!

Seriously, I get very upset when I see parents go to a school and be treated differently, they are not given the assistance they could have received if they had gone with a translator. Parents would call me and say, “Oh, we went to the school to ask for this and they told us we couldn’t do that” “What do you mean that you couldn’t? Let’s go to the school again” and we get it done! So then the difference is that you go with someone who speaks English and can demand it, and it shouldn’t be that way!

Although the language “deficiency” was shared by both English and Spanish monolinguals, it was more common to hear English speakers underestimating the capacity and potential of Spanish speakers than the other way around. These dynamics were obvious to monolingual Mexican parents. En la primer junta que yo me recuerdo haber ido, que yo me aseguré de que hubieran personas que hablaran… español y el inglés… dijeron que estaban preocupados por las personas que no se presentaban a la escuela. Entonces yo estuve escuchando toda su versión y al último me indignó tanto que levanté la mano y les dije, “A ver ¿Cómo quieren que nosotros nos presentemos a la

At the first meeting I remember going, when I had made sure there would be people who spoke Spanish and English, they said they were worried about parents not going to the school. And so I listened to their whole version and at the end I was so offended that I raised my hand and said, “Let’s see, how do you want us to show up at school if there isn’t anyone who understands us? I mean, why

Voice, Bilingualism, and Power escuela si no hay ni quien nos entienda? ¿Por qué no ponen una persona que realmente sepa lo que le estamos diciendo y nosotros sepamos lo que nos está diciendo? Yo creo que por donde tienen, antes de empezar a juzgar que no nos presentamos a la escuela, primero necesitan saber por qué nosotros no nos presentamos.

109 don’t you have someone who could really know what we are saying and that we know what the person is saying to us? I think that before you start judging us for not coming to the school, the first thing you need to find out is why we don’t show up.” (GRACIELA)

Lucero narrated a situation with her daughter’s teacher that raised issues around monolingualism and power asymmetries. Her daughter was just beginning to learn English and was being unfairly treated by her teacher because, as Lucero said, the teacher did not speak Spanish. The teacher’s expectations of Lucero’s daughter were low and the child’s sense of efficacy was being threatened. Te digo fuimos en siete ocasiones a la escuela, así en un mes, que esto, que lo otro. Yo siento que fue bien importante para mi hija todo esto porque mi hija desde ahí se fue levantando. Este, después para una última junta que tuvimos con la maestra, la maestra sorprendida porque mi hija había aprendido más de lo que era normal, o sea de lo que ella tenía una meta para la niña, la niña subió más de esa meta. “Así es que a mí ella me tiene sorprendida. Yo no pensé que pudiera”. O sea imagínate, hasta eso. Ella no pensó que la niña pudiera absorber más de lo que se le estaba poniendo.

I tell you, we went to the school seven times, in a month, for this or that. I feel like it was very important for my daughter all of this because from then on my daughter began to lift herself up. And later at the last meeting with the teacher, the teacher was surprised because my daughter had learned more than what was normal, in other words, more than the goals she had for the girl, the child surpassed those goals. “I’m so surprised by her. I didn’t think she could.” I mean, imagine, to that extent. The teacher didn’t think the girl could absorb more than what was being given to her.

This was one of those instances where Mexican parents’ persistent advocacy for their children was successful in improving their children’s schooling experience in spite of language barriers and maltreatment.

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However, most often, monolingualism equated disempowerment in parents’ everyday interactions. It limited their access to information, the choices they could make, and the actions they could take. Being monolinguals in the minority language threatened parents’ independence and sense of empowerment. The lack of information about schools in Spanish affected parents’ ability to make informed and independent decisions about which schools to send their children. When asked about the process of “selecting” a school,31 parents candidly reported how being a recent immigrant and not speaking the majority language forced them to depend on what translators said and send their children to the schools most Latino students attended. Fue ella la que llenó todos los papeles… Ella nos sugirió también las escuelas porque pues realmente nosotros no, pues no sabíamos, de cómo se tenía que hacer el proceso… Simplemente nos dijeron, “Se iban a ir a”… Pero pues creo que ninguna información que nos dijera, “Esta escuela le conviene, ésta no, ahí les enseñan esto, allí no les enseñan”, nunca nos dieron ninguna información sobre eso. Y hasta la fecha creo que no nos han, bueno, los tres años que yo tengo aquí nunca me han dado una información de otra escuela donde quizás compare yo y decir, “Bueno esta escuela es mejor que Dubois” o “Esta escuela es mejor que Cleaver” o así todo tipo de información no la recibimos.

It was the staff woman who filled out all the paperwork. She also suggested the schools because the truth is we didn’t know the process. We were simply told, “They are going to go to.” But I think we didn’t receive information that said something like, “This school is better for you, that one isn’t, at that one they will be taught this, at that other one they don’t teach that.” They never gave us any information about that. And to this day I think we have not been given, well in the three years that I’ve been here, I’ve never got information about another school that I can compare and say, “Well this school is better than Dubois” or “This school is better than Cleaver” or like that. We haven’t received all kinds of information. (GRACIELA)

Having to depend on translators was problematic for monolingual Mexican parents at various levels. At first the main issue was locating a translator to gain access to information and resources. Once a translator


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was identified, then their concern was about the accuracy of the translation. Parents worried not only about what translators were saying but also if they were conveying the emotional tone of the communication. Parents were also concerned about whether the translators were editing, omitting or toning down parts of what was being said, particularly during sensitive conversations and heated exchanges with authority figures. After all, the translators were not passive or neutral participants in the process. Most often, they were also teachers, district staff, local professionals, family members, allies and foes, who at times had something at stake in what was being said.32 Thus, ultimately “the issue” of translation was a matter of trust, power and representation. School district meetings with Spanish-speaking parents were instances where most concerns surrounding the translation process would surface at once. One such example was a meeting with one of the school district assistant superintendents who was going to talk to Spanish-speaking parents about changes in the assignment of students to middle schools. I noticed that a Latina staff was translating most of what the district administrator was saying but only part of what parents were saying. At times more than one parent talked simultaneously and comments quickly followed others. The Latina staff listened to parents but did not translate all their comments. She would respond to parents’ questions without translating the question for the district administrator. In response to parents’ comments about overcrowding, the Latina staff said, “Mexicans are used to having 50 students in a classroom!” At times, she would talk to the district administrator in a low voice while parents were making comments and asking questions. I couldn’t tell whether she was translating or just talking with the district administrator. At some point one of the Mexican mothers asked a question and the Latina staff began to reply. The mother said to her, “I want you to translate for the administrator what I’m saying. This is our chance to be heard and we are here to talk to the district.” Another Mexican mother who was seating by my side was trying to follow the conversation in English. She commented, “All of this sounds like racism to me. I don’t trust translators. That’s why I use my English even though it’s not that good. I had a problem with an ESL teacher at Dubois because of that.” A year later one of the mothers, Laura, continued to have concerns about translation. She called me to ask if I could accompany her to the Parent-Teacher conference at Dubois. She had arranged for a meeting with all the school staff involved with her daughter, including the principal, and wanted to make sure she had someone who would,

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“Translate everything I say.” She had noticed people translating some things and not others. During the meeting the principal asked Laura to encourage her daughter to go to them when other students bothered her and they would take care of the situation. Laura responded that her daughter, “No les tiene confianza,” which I translated as “Her daughter does not trust you.” The ESL teacher corrected me saying that what Laura said was that her daughter “Didn’t feel comfortable” talking with them about her troubles. I replied that “confiar” was not the same as “sentirse cómoda.” The teacher then asked Laura in Spanish what she meant and Laura responded her daughter didn’t trust the staff would actually listen to her. Although a limited number of translators were readily available to support parents, when there was a choice parents preferred translators they felt they could trust: people who would translate accurately and make them feel safe and respected. For Isamar, feeling ignored by a bilingual staff member once was enough to make her hesitate about relying on that person for translation ever again. Hay una señora ahí que no me gusta la mera verdad ocuparla… esa señora como que luego yo, yo siento que no le caigo igual, como que no, no… te digo y como que yo no me siento a gusto con ella, yo no me siento a gusto con ella a que me traduzca pues, yo siento… No sé si la conoces tu… yo la conocí por acá fuera. ¡Y ella me habló bien! Pero luego ya después un día que hablaba cuando mi hija estaba cursando para kinder ella me vio y se hizo que no me miró. Y miró que yo no entendía ni jota y andaba ella ayudando y yo vi como que no me quiso y ya como que, a lo mejor no le caí o no sé.

There is a lady there I don’t really like asking her for help. I feel like she doesn’t like me, I’m telling you I don’t feel comfortable with her. I don’t feel comfortable having her translate for me. I don’t know if you know her. I met her outside the school. And she talked to me just fine! But later, one day, when my child was in kinder, I was talking with staff about my child, she saw me and pretended not to see me. And she saw that I didn’t understand anything and she was helping others and I saw that she didn’t pay attention to me. Maybe she didn’t like me or I don’t know.

In this case, the lack of trust limited Isamar’s pool of available translators within the school system but she was able to get access to other resources and negotiated the school process. In other cases,


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parents had no option but to negotiate with people they did not fully trust because often translators had multiple roles that intersected with the lives of Spanish-monolingual parents. In addition to translating, bilinguals usually held professional positions as classroom teachers, aides, social workers, or school district staff. Some also held positions in other local organizations such as the bilingual after-school program, adult education or Head Start programs. A few were also landlords renting property to some of the same parents they served as school staff. In an aside from a meeting, two of the Mexican women and I chatted about recent events, including Celia’s recent move. I learned that Celia was renting from one of the bilingual staff, who has a couple of places she rents and presumably owns. Celia said the woman did not return their security deposit arguing they did not give advance notice. Celia said her husband reminded the woman she had not renewed their lease. He said to her, “You must need the money more than we do.” His reply embarrassed Celia. A little over a week after they moved, the place was rented. Celia had not heard from the woman since, not even about school matters. Celia commented, “Before she used to call me for things but now she doesn’t.” Relationships became more complicated when the staff who worked with the Latino American children, translated for parents and had access to information about other local resources, also acted as advocates and representatives of the Latino American parents. The relationships between parents and these bilingual staff would become conflicting when they disagreed on their assessment of a situation, the goals they wanted to accomplish, and how to meet those goals. In these instances, trust, voice and representation became entangled with the power of being the translator. I attended an open house at Dubois for the Spanish-speaking parents where English-monolingual and bilingual staff were present. Some of the Mexican mothers that I knew were also there. Towards the end of the official presentations, a Latina staff said to the parents in Spanish, Y esto sin que ellos entiendan. Quiero que sepan que en esta escuela están trabajando bien fuerte para mejorar las cosas. Yo veo otras escuelas y la verdad es

And this in Spanish so they won’t understand what I’m saying. I want you to know that this school is working very hard to improve things. I see other schools and the

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que ésta es la mejor, lo que tienen aquí es lo mejor. A esta gente les importa.

truth is that this is the best. What you have here is the best. These people really care.

A Mexican mother replied, Pues es lo que tienen que hacer. Es su responsabilidad porque ésta es de las escuelas más bajas del distrito.

Well, that’s what they have to do. That’s their responsibility because this is one of the lowest schools in the district.

The Latina staff looked at her, gesturing with her hands on her neck as if someone was choking her. The mother looked at me and said, ¿Verdad que ésta es de las escuelas que están más bajas? Ellos tiene que mejorar las cosas.

Isn’t it right that this is one of the lowest schools? They have to improve things here.

In a relatively short time, Spanish-monolingual Mexican parents began to let their presence be felt in the schools, expressing their concerns persistently. At first, before this change was apparent, I heard teachers encouraging parents to become involved in school politics and advocate for changes in schooling conditions. At a parent meeting organized by the bilingual after-school program, two ESL/bilingual teachers from Dubois told the parents about how there were too many children in their classrooms, that even though they had told administrations over and over again, they would respond with “Yes yes yes” without anything being done. One of the teachers said, “In this country parents have more power than teachers. If the parents organize to ask the administration for more classrooms and teachers, the administration has to respond.” Conditions coalesced and soon after a number of Mexican parents began to actively participate in school matters and speak out about their concerns. At times parents’ claims did not coincide with the staff’s views. This created frictions with bilingual staff who saw themselves as the representatives, the voice, of Latino American parents. While for bilingual staff representing the “Latino community” provided status and power within the school organization and the broader community, for the parents it was a struggle for personal and collective empower-


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ment. Parents did not want to be represented by others. They had their own voices. Sandra, a district staff, wavered between wanting to maintain her role as a representative of the Latino American parents and supporting parents’ empowerment. Mi rol era otra vez un poquito difícil porque en cierta forma creo que yo tenía que traer el punto de vista de los padres, así a la mesa… Y sin embargo siempre tengo que mantenerme también en las reglas de lo que el distrito dice, lo que el distrito está haciendo, lo que el distrito está trabajando. Entonces es otra vez estar como un poquito en el medio. Afortunadamente después empezaron empezamos a tener estas reuniones con los padres para escuchar de ellos directamente lo que ellos querían… creo que mi papel en todas estas reuniones con los padres y todo esto fue importante por el hecho de que podía traer información que las familias me daban, las familias que me comparten esa información. Hay muchas familias que no lo hacen. Y ellos mismos lo hacían en las juntas y cosas así. Pero el hecho de tener yo acceso a esa información y poderlo compartir… otros no tienen manera, o no tenían manera de saber muchas cosas que pasaban en la escuela que yo por estar en la escuela podía saberlo. Entonces por eso, por eso se me hace tan difícil pensar que personas de la administración estén teniendo reuniones con los padres sin tomar en cuenta las otras personas que

My role was again a bit difficult because in a way I believe that I had to bring parents’ point of view to the table. However, I always had to remain in line with the district’s rules, what the district is doing, what the district is working on. So then again it’s like being a bit in the middle. Fortunately later on they started, we started these meetings with the parents to listen to what they had to say from them directly. I believe my role in all those meetings with the parents and all that was important due to the fact that I could bring information the families had given me, those who shared information with me. There are families who do not do that and they speak out for themselves at the meetings and things like that. Others don’t have or didn’t have a way, a way of knowing a lot of things that were happening at the school that I knew because I was there. So then that’s why it’s so difficult for me to think that there are district administrators, having meetings with parents without taking into account the people

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estuvieron envueltas en todo eso durante un año completo.

that have been involved in all this through the whole year.

As Sandra recognized, there were parents who insisted on having their own voices be heard. They did not want others to represent them. Rather they wanted to be taken seriously on their own terms. Graciela insisted on it. Y yo soy de las personas que me gusta que me contesten de acuerdo a como les estoy preguntando… Y es que yo quisiera, no sé, mi, mi desesperación, mi frustración de no poder hablar el inglés, me desespero tanto que no le digan… Yo siento que les cuesta mucho contestarme porque a veces siento, bueno me da la impresión que no están preparados o, o no quieren darme esa información. Porque pues no es una información que les este yo pidiendo confidencial. ¡Es algo que tengo que saber! ¡Que me interesa saber! ¿Por qué? Porque en determinado momento pues yo puedo decirle a esa persona, “¿Por qué no lo están haciendo?”… ¿Pero a quién le voy a reclamar? No tengo a nadie a quien reclamar, a reclamarle sobre lo que yo veo que está pasando, y por eso es mi angustia más fuerte… Y me presento a todas las juntas que hacen que últimamente están haciendo muchas. Y me presento y trato de entender, es que salgo con un dolor de cabeza. Porque digo, ¿por qué no me contestan lo que yo les pregunto? ¿Por qué sólo me están diciendo cosas que no las están haciendo? ¿Y por qué quieren engañarnos? ¿O sea nos ven la cara de tontos?… Es que no somos

I’m the kind of person who likes to get answers to exactly what I’m asking. And I wish, I don’t know, my desperation is such, my frustration for not being able to speak English, I get so frustrated when translators don’t say what I want to say. I feel that it is hard for school staff to answer me because some times I feel, well I get the impression that they are not prepared to respond or don’t want to give me the information. Because well, it is not like I’m asking for confidential information! It’s something that I have to know! That I’m interested in knowing! Why? Because at a certain point I could say to a person, “Why aren’t you doing what you are supposed to do?” But then where would I go to make a claim? I don’t have anyone I could go to make a claim, question what is happening. That’s the source of my deepest agony. And I show up to all the meetings that they are having lately because they are having many lately. And I show and I try to understand, and I get such a headache. Because I say, why aren’t they answering my questions? Why are they only talking about things

Voice, Bilingualism, and Power niños chiquitos… Y tenemos la capacidad para entender lo que está pasando y lo que no está pasando. Entonces por eso, sí me indigna mucho.

117 they are not really doing? Why are they trying to fool us? Do they think we are dumb? We are not little kids. We have the capacity to understand what is and is not happening. That’s why I become indignant.

These parents carefully observed the attitudes of Latino staff. They wanted to know who was on their side, who they could count as an ally, even if they did not see eye to eye on everything. Rather than looking for representatives, these parents simply wanted to be supported on their efforts to have a say in school matters. One late afternoon I was chatting with María and Manuel at their home. They were truly disappointed at a Latino staff after witnessing how she reacted during the last meeting organized by the parents. They believed she was upset because they did not invite her directly to the meeting but she ended finding out through others. They were puzzled, saddened, upset by her attitude. “She doesn’t realize parents are noticing she is not supporting our efforts. We might not have the power to fire her but we could ask the superintendent to do so,” Manuel said. “We were told by district administrators they would remove staff if they were not doing their job well.” I suggested they talked to the woman about their concerns but they had tried numerous times without an affirmative response. “We run into her at different events and talk about getting together to have a cookout and talk but she never responds.” “Bueno, I don’t know what is going on with her, but maybe she fears losing her position. What you are all doing shouldn’t be in conflict but she might believe it is. Sometimes people in positions of power forget what their roles are meant to be,” I said. Manuel shared that was something everyone who had helped him has always said to him, not to forget where he came from. “She seems to have forgotten,” said María. “Well, I think you should talk to her, show up at her office or something. I’m going to see her on Monday but I don’t want to intercede for you.” “No no, you shouldn’t talk for us,” said Manuel. At a get-together after a meeting sponsored by the school district, parents discussed their concern regarding the staff member who was translating at the meeting. One suggested talking to the staff and letting her know about their concerns. One of the Mexican fathers responded, “We don’t have to talk to her about it. We just have to ask her whose side she is on.”

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ENGLISH-LEARNING, BILINGUALISM AND EMPOWERMENT In Korbel, where there was a visible hierarchy of languages and few bilinguals, being able to speak the dominant language was central in people’s struggle for power, empowerment and representation. Knowing the dominant language was crucial for Spanish-monolinguals set on maintaining their independence and their own voice in Englishmonolingual spaces. Many of the Mexican parents I met knew this and did what they could to learn the dominant language. They also wanted their children to learn English, learn it well. At the same time, some of these parents thought that learning the others’ language was not their sole responsibility: English-monolinguals also had a stake in learning Spanish. As some Mexican parents would assert, all would benefit if they could communicate with each other. Bilingualism could facilitate building shared understanding and respect and thus more positive relations between different racial/ethnic groups. But parents were not willing to risk the personal independence and the possibility of social mobility that accompanied being fluent in English by holding their children to ineffective “bilingual” programs. They did not want their children to go through the pain and frustration of being monolinguals in a marginalized language. Speaking the minority language placed parents in emotionally draining and stressful situations. Not being able to communicate in English with their bosses, the grocer, the doctor, the bus driver, the police, robbed these adults of their sense of self-efficacy and empowerment. Parents had to rely on their children, strangers or relatives to negotiate the English-monolingual world and were often left feeling misunderstood and misrepresented. Consequently, they did what they could to learn the dominant language. Patricia explained, Estamos en un país donde el primer idioma es el inglés y que es muy necesario, para no sentirse uno menos, porque yo así me siento, muchas veces me siento menos, me siento cohibida, el no poder entenderme con jefes en el trabajo. ¡Pero eso se va a acabar porque yo voy a aprender!

We are in a country where the first language is English and speaking it is very necessary to avoid feeling less than others. That’s how I feel, I often feel less than, I feel inhibited, not being able to understand my bosses at work. But that will come to an end because I’m going to learn!


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Karime had been trying to learn English for years. Even though she still did not know enough to feel independent, she could now count on her children to navigate interactions with English-monolinguals. Ya sé que ellos están oyendo y ya saben lo que nos están diciendo. Ya no me da miedo de ir yo con mis hijos, yo sola sí, pero con mis hijos pues no. Pero que pasa que cuando vinimos de México, que no sabemos ni cuando nos dicen “Buenos Días” la verdad, viene uno como si la metieran a uno en un pozo que no salió ni… Anda uno como perdido porque a mi me pasó una vez. Yo lloraba, la verdad, yo lloraba.

Now I know that my children are listening and now they know what people are saying to us. Now I’m not afraid of going out with my children, if I’m by myself I’m still scared, but not with my children. But when we arrived from Mexico, when we didn’t even know when people were saying “Good morning” to us, honestly, it was as if one was placed inside a well and never left for nothing. One walks like a lost soul because that’s what happened to me once. I used to cry, really, I used to cry.

Graciela felt angry about the language barrier. Not being able to speak for herself, not being able to defend herself and get the answers she wanted infuriated her. Me desespero tanto que no le digan, o sea la persona que yo le pido de favor que me traduzca, que me traduzca como yo le estoy diciendo y que le digan que me contesten cuando yo les esté preguntando, porque a mi me desespera mucho de que yo hago preguntas y no me contestan.

I get so impatient when translators don’t say, I mean, when the person I asked the favor of translating, that they translate exactly how I’m saying it and ask people to answer when I’m asking a question, because it is very exasperating for me when I ask questions and people do not answer them.

Learning English sufficiently well to be independent from translators was not feasible for most. Some parents had learned rudimentary English before moving to Korbel. A few, particularly some of the mothers, could afford not having a paid job and took advantage of free ongoing English classes. Others had taken a few classes here and there. But most parents I met did not feel they mastered the language and could not count on learning it by taking classes. Most had

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grueling and constantly changing work schedules that made it very difficult for them to take enough classes and attend consistently. Some even hinted at how being able to take classes was a class privilege. Como persona pues yo trato de superarme verdad. Yo estoy yendo a la escuela… pero pues no me es suficiente porque yo sólo voy dos veces a la semana y son dos horas, de seis a ocho de la noche. Y a veces ya estoy muy muy cansada que tengo que llegar de trabajar a hacer comida, sentar a los niños a comer y, “¡Apúrense rápido porque yo me voy a la escuela!”Y realmente a veces ya no se aprovecha al mismo. O sea no tiene uno la misma capacidad… Pero pues también les damos la muestra de que queremos prepararnos. Entonces pues es muy difícil. Digo, no imposible, verdad, pero para que yo pueda ir hablar inglés, me va a costar algo de tiempo. Necesito dejar de trabajar, y irme a la escuela. Pero pues eso va a estar difícil. Aquí el que no trabaja no come.

As a person, I try to improve myself, right? I am going to school. But it’s not enough because I only go twice a week and for two hours, from six to eight in the evening. And sometimes I’m so so tired. I have to come home after work to cook, seat the children at the dinner table and, “Hurry up! Quick! ‘Cause I have to go to school!” And truly, well, one really can’t take advantage of the classes the same way. I mean, one doesn’t have the same capacity. But at the same time we show them that we want to educate ourselves. But it’s very difficult. I mean, not impossible, right? But for me to be able to speak English it’s going to take time. I would have to stop working and go to school. But that’s unlikely. Here who doesn’t work doesn’t eat. (GRACIELA)

On the other hand, some parents believed that Englishmonolinguals also had the responsibility to learn Spanish. After all, their worlds were increasingly intersecting and being able to speak each other’s language could facilitate mutual understanding and better relationships among the different groups. Yo pienso que mucha relación entre padres y maestros no sé si la haiga, tu sabes, por el idioma, no te puedes comunicar con ellos. O hay padres que no saben, ni una

I don’t know that there is much communication between parents and teachers, you know, due to the language, you can’t communicate with them. There are parents who

Voice, Bilingualism, and Power letra en inglés, hay padres que tampoco quieren esforzarse en aprender y los maestros que tampoco se quieren esforzar si quiera a decir, “¿Cómo estás?” en español o “¿Cómo está tu niño?” O sea, cosas que ellos pueden aprender que son sencillas, no lo hacen. Entonces no hay ninguna comunicación.

121 don’t know even a word in English. There are parents who don’t want to make an effort to learn either. And teachers who don’t want to even make an effort to at least say, “How are you?” in Spanish or, “How’s your child?” I mean, things they could learn that are simple like that, they don’t do it. Then there is no communication. (YOSHI)

Parent-teacher relationships were affected by language barriers just as the relationships between students and teachers and between students themselves. The academic progress of the students was a main concern for parents, just as it was the relationships people could form across cultural differences. Lucero narrated the following story about interactions between her daughter, a couple of Black children and herself at a public library located in the African American neighborhood. Sus amiguitos ¡todos hablan inglés! Y se pone a platicar con ellos y luego nos sé qué me platican los niños y dice mi hija, “Dile que es ‘pretty’ dile que es ‘beautiful’”... son de la edad de ella, de siete años, me los siento en una pierna y ella acá y ya están armando rompecabezas allá en la computadora y muy contentos. Eso me hace sentir bien a mí… otra cosa bien chistosa, que los niños tratan de hablarte español… y ya para la tercera ocasión que vi a la niña, “Hola, ¿cómo está?” Y eso que hasta me da risa en su tonito que tiene. Y le digo, “¡Yo muy bien!” Y me dice mi hija, “No le hagas así mamá. Es como nosotros, apenas está aprendiendo…” pero te digo ellos tratan también, eso es

Her friends all speak English! She starts chatting with them and I don’t know what the kids start telling me that she says to me, “Tell her she’s pretty, tell her she’s beautiful.” They are my daughter’s age, seven. I seat them on my lap and have her by my side and they happily start making puzzles in the computer. That makes me feel good. Another funny thing, the children try to speak to you in Spanish. By the third time the girl was greeting me in Spanish “Hi, how are you?” And I thought it was funny, the tone she had and everything. And I responded to her jokingly in Spanish and my daughter goes, “Don’t do that mom. It’s just like us, barely starting to learn.” I mean but they

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lo bonito ¿no? que para nosotros es importante aprender el inglés pero estás viendo que para ellos es importante aprender español. O sea vas a la biblioteca y hay morenos que te hablan en español pero con mucho trabajo, pero con tal de que tú estés bien y estés ahí, tratan… tú sientes también en ellos la necesidad que tienen de, que quieren relacionarse contigo.

also try and that is beautiful, don’t you think? For us it’s important to learn English but you are seeing that for them it’s important to learn Spanish. You go to the library and you see Black staff speaking to you in Spanish, with a lot of effort but as long as they can make you feel alright there, they try. You feel the need, the desire they have to relate to you.

The parents who began to actively and publicly participate in school politics had a sense that ultimately it was up to them to fight for their children’s rights. And yet, they still depended on sympathetic translators. MRC: ¿Cómo supieron sobre los derechos que tienen los estudiantes? GRACIELA: Oh porque había otras personas… que dicen, “Pero pues es que los niños no están recibiendo lo que ellos necesitan… ustedes tienen derecho de esto”… pues de ahí nos ha interesado tanto porque del interés de nosotros depende la educación de los niños… Y creo que por eso hemos estado, en lo personal hemos estado preguntando y organizándonos a ver qué es lo mejor para ellos. Por eso es de que, pues hemos tenido algunas reuniones donde nos han invitado porque pues anteriormente por medio de la escuela Dubois nunca en dos años nunca supe de una reunión de principal con padres o que hubiera una persona que nos

MRC: How did you find out about students’ rights? GRACIELA: Oh because there were other people who would say, “Well it’s that the children are not getting what they need. You have the right to this.” From then on we’ve become very interested because the education of the children depends on our interest in it. And I believe that’s why we’ve been, well, personally we’ve been asking and organizing ourselves to see what’s best for them. That’s why we’ve had some meetings that we’ve been invited to because before at Dubois there was never, in two years, I never knew about a meeting between the principal and parents or that there was a person who would translate for us. And I think that

Voice, Bilingualism, and Power tradujera. Y creo que, pues poco a poco hemos entendido muchas cosas de las cuales ignorábamos completamente.

123 little by little we’ve begun to understand a lot of things that we ignored completely.

Ultimately, Spanish-monolingual Mexican parents in Korbel needed intermediaries to access information and resources. But they did not need people speaking for them. These parents had their own voices. What they seemed to need the most was space for their voices to be heard on their own terms; rather than claiming voice, they were claiming for a hearing (Fine, 1993). They wanted to be taken seriously, treated respectfully, with dignity, as fellow human beings with equal rights. From, For, With? The Role of Bilingual Professionals in Parents’ Struggle for Educational Equity One of the women interviewed was a Latino American professional who had children in Korbel’s public schools. She was not involved in the parents’ mobilizing efforts but was well connected to other professional Latinos providing services to Latino American immigrants. Towards the end of the interview we began to talk about the different efforts by Latino professionals to serve working-poor Latino American immigrants. She summarized the state of relations between these two groups as follows, De la comunidad, para la comunidad pero sin la comunidad.

From the community, for the community but without the community.

In the struggle for educational equity for Latino American students in Korbel, being bilingual in Spanish and English was central for gaining access to information, engaging the English-monolingual school structure, and being able to speak for oneself. Although most of the parents mobilizing to challenge school practices had taken at least some English classes, only one was fluent. This parent had a leadership role in the advocacy group, but his daily responsibilities and recency in Korbel seemed to keep him from acting as a bridge between Englishand Spanish-speaking stakeholders. Thus, individually and collectively, parents had to rely on others to negotiate the English-monolingual world. That role was mostly performed by Latino bilingual students and

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professionals33 who had relationships with school and district staff and access to information and resources; people with a measure of valued social and political capital. But identifying who to work with was not always a straightforward matter. People, particularly students, would come in late in the process, disengage quickly, engage only superficially or sporadically. Some of the most active Latino professionals would not take parents seriously, change their position vis-à-vis the parents’ agenda, or would simply see their role as telling parents what to do. And efforts to bring professional community organizers from the nearest city were unsuccessful. A mi me dieron a firmar unos papeles que yo firmé sin leer porque todavía no sabía yo mucho inglés ni leerlo y nada más los firmé. Y según la que me estaba traduciendo, me traducía a su conveniencia porque no me traducía bien. Y luego yo ocupé a otra persona que fuera a traducirme y la persona en lugar de traducirme se puso a platicar con la maestra porque eran amigas. Y ya no pude ni decir ni discutimos bien el problema ni nada y se quedó así. El chiste es que ¡no encontré solución!

They gave me some papers to sign and I signed them without reading them because I didn’t know much English then, didn’t even read it, and so I signed. And the woman who was translating, she would translate at her convenience, she was not translating well. And then I asked someone else to go with me to translate and the person, instead of translating, started chatting with the teacher because they were friends. And then I couldn’t say or discuss the problem in detail or anything and things remained the same. The irony is that I didn’t find a solution. (YOSHI)

Identity politics also became a factor; actors tended to assume correspondence between Latino ethnic identity and school politics. More specifically, Latino staff assumed their ethnic identity alone proved they had the best interest of Latino American families at heart, that all agreed on what that meant, and they knew what was best for the families even when parents voiced disagreement with the staff’s postures. On the issue of teaching English and Spanish to the Latino American children, one mother talked about how a ESL/bilingual staff had been insisting on moving one of her children from the English-only


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classroom, where the child was reportedly doing well, to the Spanishonly classroom based on the impressions of a bilingual staff member who was not at the regular classroom. The mother asked the staff why she thought her child would be better off in the Spanish-only classroom and was not satisfied with the woman’s response. She asked her child whether she wanted to be moved from her classroom, the child said she didn’t, and the mother made sure the child stayed where she was. This mother also narrated how she ran into another ESL/bilingual staff whom she had met briefly before and the staff said, “I’ve seen you before, right? Well, we’ll see each other again at Dubois.” The mother explained she did not register her children at Dubois and the staff questioned her decision, insisting her children should be in the ESL/bilingual program. Assuring the survival of the Spanish and bilingual programs appeared to be a very personal matter for some of the staff. This made it difficult to distinguish the needs of the parents from the needs of the staff. In a conversation with Alma, a Latina staff member, she narrated how other Latina staff were talking about “discovering their identities.” One of them spoke to her about beginning to rediscover her Latina identity in Korbel as she interacted with the immigrant parents. On one occasion a Latino American mother called her by her Spanish nickname and it had an emotional impact on her. It reminded her how her parents used to call her. Another Latina staff (who did not identify as Latina when I first met her but talked about having learned Spanish volunteering in South America) began to talk about her Mexican ancestors. We then reflected on the fact that both were such strong supporters of the Spanish literacy and bilingual programs, did not master the Spanish language, and had said they did not want the children to lose what they had lost. In contrast, immigrant Latino American staff seemed more open to discuss their own doubts about the programs and their own ability to do the work. One of the challenges was to sort through people’s discourse and see how their discourse matched their actions. When the conversation was at a general level they spoke positively about parents’ empowerment. But when the conversation was about the concrete implications of parents’ empowerment, the discourse tended to shift towards reasons for limiting parents’ individual and collective power. This is illustrated in the interview with one of the Latina staff. As the conversation progressed, she moved from a general stand in support of parents’

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efforts to become independent from professionals to an aloof attitude towards parents’ organizing. La idea no es el darles el apoyo y el seguírselos dando indefinidamente. La idea creo que es el darles el apoyo y irlos ayudando a que sean autosuficientes, a que ellos mismos vayan abriéndose después camino hasta que lleguen a un punto en que ellos mismos puedan ayudar a otros a hacerlo. …A mí me gusta mucho cuando tengo que estar, cuando puedo estar hablando con las personas, cuando puedo estar conociendo, cuando puedo tener acceso a lo que necesitan, a lo que ellos piensan, a lo que les gustaría ver porque de esa manera yo me doy una idea de qué es lo que puedo hacer. …Pero creo que el hecho de que ahora los papás estén más envueltos en la escuela y estén más informados esto puede llegar, puede beneficiar eh, mucho. Pero también creo que tenemos que dar un poquito más de responsabilidad a los mismos padres y ayudarles a que estén más informados y ayudarlos también a ellos a que no nada más sea el exigir a la escuela que provea los servicios si no también el decir de qué manera puedo yo apoyar a que eso suceda o de qué manera pueden orientarme a mí para yo poder motivar a mis hijos para yo poder seguir creándoles la idea de que pueden llegar más alto.

The idea is not to give them support indefinitely. The idea I believe is giving them support and start helping them to be self-sufficient, so that they start charting their own path to a point where they could help others do the same. I like it very much when I have to be, when I can be talking with people, getting to know them, when I can have access to what they need, to what they think, to what they would like to see happen because that’s how I can get a sense of what I can do. But I think the fact that now parents are more involved in the school and are more informed can be of great benefit. But I also believe that we have to place a bit more responsibility on the parents themselves and help them to be more informed and also help them to not just demand that the school provides the services but also to ask themselves, “How can I provide support so this happens or in what way can I inform myself so I can motivate my children, so that I continue reinforcing the idea that they can reach higher goals.”

Voice, Bilingualism, and Power …MRC: ¿Qué piensas de la relación entre los padres y las escuelas? ¿Qué relación te parece que existe, cómo es la comunicación entre ellos? STAFF: ¿Qué relación existe ahora? No sé, porque ahorita estoy totalmente desligada de las conversaciones que han tenido con las personas de la administración. La verdad no sé, no sé cuáles son las ideas de los papás que se han reunido, no sé cuáles son las ideas de la administración, no sé por qué se ha hecho de esa manera… Y nadie me ha comentado nada respecto a cuáles son sus sentimientos sobre las escuelas o qué es lo que sienten ellos en referente a la comunicación entre ellos.

127 MRC: What do you think about the relationships between parents and the schools? What kind of relationship is there, how is the communication between them? STAFF: What relationship is there now? I don’t know, because right now I’m totally disconnected from the conversations parents have been having with people from the administration. The truth is that I don’t know, I don’t know what are the ideas of the parents having those meetings, I don’t know what are the ideas of the administration. I don’t know why it has been done this way. And no one has mentioned to me anything regarding parents’ feelings about the schools or what is it they feel regarding the communication between them.

Parents also found themselves in the position of having to clearly establish for others that, although they needed translators and cultural brokers, it was they who were collectively organizing and mobilizing to bring about changes, not the professionals. Mucha gente está confundida. Por ejemplo ahora que estuvimos con el director del Centro, él tenía entendido que este grupo de padres los estaba representando personas del distrito, que ellas nos estaban representando. O sea, habló María, hablé yo, “No, es que este grupo es un grupo de padres. Estamos solos y solos estamos aquí porque sentimos la necesidad”. O sea ya más o menos le platicamos a él por qué

Many people are confused. For example, now that we were with the director of the Center, he was under the impression that this parent group was being represented by people from the district, that they were representing us. Then María spoke, I spoke, “No, this group is a parents’ group. We are alone and we are here because we feel the need.” And we more or less told him why we had formed the

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se había hecho este grupo, cuál era la necesidad de nuestro grupo.

group, the need for creating the group. (LUCERO)

Parents’ efforts to own their voices were not unequivocally welcomed by Latino professionals who had something at stake in representing Latino concerns. For instance, months after a group of Mexican parents formed their own advocacy group, Latino staff organized a school-based Latino parent group at Dubois. The staff handpicked the parents limiting participation to only those they invited. Only one of parents in the parent-led group was invited to join. When she attempted to focus the agenda on school and academic issues she was consistently rebuffed by the staff leading the group. Certainly some Latino staff were more supportive of the parents’ efforts than others. This situation not only provoked frictions between working-class parents and Latino professionals but also between the professionals themselves. At some point one Latina staff began talking about another Latina staff, Alma. She said, “I’m worried that the parents could be saying what Alma tells them to say.” Alma had “a different style” of doing things and “she can help her children with school work. But these families cannot.” She said Alma was “talking about teachers she didn’t know and that wasn’t right.” Alma would simply call parents to tell them about meetings without asking the staff if parents were already being called. At some point I interjected and asked, “Do you see Alma as an enemy? Is that what I’m hearing?” The other staff at the meeting said, “‘Enemy’ is too strong of a word. Not an enemy, we are just concerned.” I then asked if they had talked to Alma about their concerns. They said they had not. “It’s too bad that we are so few and can’t work together. There’s way too much work to do. There is no way you guys can take care of all the schools. If you could work together you wouldn’t have to worry about attending all the schools.” They responded in disbelief, “We still worry.” Frictions over representation and legitimacy between Latino professionals were displayed publicly when some Latino professionals reacted negatively to a county-wide assessment of the needs of Latino Americans in Korbel conducted by a mostly Latino team. In an email distributed widely, Latino family liaisons in the county wrote,


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…in several areas of the findings the report does not accurately portray the situation of Latinos in the area. Furthermore, the report in many ways reflects badly on the ongoing efforts of Latino professionals who are working for the benefit of the immigrant families for many years. The “findings” in the K-12 Education section were especially disturbing. The report does not mention the accomplishments of the family liaisons or coordinators in the school districts… This information in many instances was collected but was omitted from the report. In addition, the report only describes negative experiences of Latino parents with schools. These negative statements imply that there were no efforts on the part of the Latino liaisons to advise parents and students of their rights. This is simply inaccurate… Although the authors of the report were well intentioned, the report omits the many years of work by Latino and non-Latino professionals benefiting the marginalized Latino families. Overall, the report compromises the integrity of the services they have been providing to Latino families over the past decade. The battle over who “knew the community” best, who could speak about it legitimately, and did the most to address its needs was such that it led professionals to indirectly sanction the status quo. Not all Latino professionals were engaged in these debates at the same level. Some were working hard to support the parents without taking over or opposing their efforts. Others observed from afar, often lamenting the situation, but did not engage personally. However, there was a vocal group who felt threatened by the parents’ growing political and social capital, independence and sense of empowerment. As parents began to publicly own their voices, Latino professionals had to opt to either redefine their roles in such a way that would allow them to continue supporting parents’ empowerment, stand in their way, or disengage completely. Feeling threatened by parents moved some school staff to stand in the parents’ way. Some eventually disengaged. And even those who were supportive of the parents could not continue doing so publicly for long without compromising their own positions in the larger community. After all, Korbel was a small city and

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professionals did not have many options to work in their area of expertise if it was not with the very same institutions parents were challenging.

CHAPTER 7

Luchando por mantener ‘el dedo en el renglón’: Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital

I met many Mexican parents in Korbel who struggled day-to-day to negotiate life in a foreign place, improve their living conditions and do all they could to see their children succeed. But only some were publicly fighting for reforms in the public schools. María, Graciela, Laura, Yoshi, Lucero, Manuel, and Patricia were among the parents who in a very short time mobilized to collectively claim for Spanishspeaking students’ rights to quality education. These parents shared more than a country, a language, a common immigration experience. They shared a sense of urgency; they wholeheartedly believed formal education would improve their children’s life chances and they had the tenacity to challenge the schools to do their part. The educational opportunities their children had in the U.S. were, in important ways, better than what they had in Mexico. But that did not keep them from seeing that the schools were giving their children less than what they had a right to and these parents wanted no less than what their children deserved. However, claiming their children’s rights was a challenging task. Their sense of urgency would not subside. But the process was slow and individual needs pressing. This group of Mexican immigrant parents found themselves wrestling with pressures to obtain immediate individual gains and the need to advocate collectively for system-wide changes. This process unfolded in a frustratingly mystifying environment where well-intentioned school professionals wavered 131

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between encouraging and hindering parents’ efforts to organize around educational equity issues while their interventions addressed the bare minimum. In their efforts to keep el dedo en el renglón and not lose sight of what their struggle was about the parents ended up caught between a rock and a hard place. While important small wins were gained, the struggle for building collective community power barely began.

EFFORTS TO MOBILIZE PARENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN SCHOOL DECISION MAKING Generally speaking, parents, teachers and administrators agreed that parent involvement in schools was a good thing. Parents could support teachers’ work by volunteering in the classroom, organizing and chaperoning school activities and raising supplemental funds for the school. Parents’ presence in school also fostered students’ expected behavior by enforcing the rules established by the school. On the other hand, most school professionals and many parents believed it was the professionals’ role to determine school policy and practice. Parents could voice their opinions but ultimately it was not their place to make decisions about pedagogical or policy matters. This posture became increasingly problematic as the discrepancies between school staff discourse, actual schooling practices, and the experiences of Mexican parents with their children’s schools became more salient. What school personnel said was best was not necessarily what they did day-to-day. And what they said and did frequently failed to meet parents’ expectations. As opportunities for parent participation in school decision making became available, many parents began to voice their concerns about what they saw was happening at the schools. The school district was already under pressure to improve education for students of color. The situation provided the impetus for the school district’s efforts to address educational inequities affecting Latino American students. It also gave Mexican parents a degree of leverage. Efforts to increase parent participation in decision making were spearheaded from within and outside the school district. But the school personnel were not prepared to fully engage parents as equal partners in shaping school practices. Conflicts within and between the different groups of stakeholders emerged. Ultimately, the balance of power in school decision making remained unchanged. Nevertheless, in the process, the Mexican parents involved gained a better understanding of

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 133 the dynamics that shape their children’s schooling and the power they could wield to transform schools. From the Top Down: District and School Staff’s Efforts to Involve Parents in School Decision Making One of my earliest collaborations with school staff to foster parents’ involvement started with a casual conversation with a Latina staff during one of my visits to Dubois Elementary. She was overwhelmed by the burden of being one of the few bilingual Latinas in the district with access to information. Parents were calling her for every little thing. She was frustrated, tired. “You’re going to burn out!” She agreed. Somehow the issue of organizing a parent meeting to assess their needs came up. She mentioned she was facilitating informational meetings at the adult education center after the ESL/GED classes. Although these were supposed to be half hour meetings, they always ran a lot longer because people had many questions. I observed that while informational meetings were important it was also necessary to organize meetings where parents could meet and find how they could help each other. She nodded. “There is only but so much you could do. Helping can lead people to depend on you instead of learning how to do what they need done on their own.” She agreed. Already people were depending on her too much and it wasn’t good in the long run. And so we began to make plans for a parent meeting. In the process, the staff person began to share doubts about whether it was a good idea to get involved in organizing that type of meeting. She was being advised by an influential African American professional not to get involved in organizing the kind of meeting we were thinking about. The woman was telling her she would get in trouble for stepping out of her responsibilities; she should stick to organizing informational meetings. The staff person was not sure about what her responsibilities were and tried unsuccessfully to get clarification from her supervisors. She was concerned about her job security and about being able to do for the parents what she thought was right. We continued with our plans. However, when she opened the parent meeting, she had already changed the focus. She introduced herself and explained her position in the district. She said she had organized the meeting with me to find out from parents how things were going with their kids in the schools and what they needed from the schools. She would then use the information to

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organize meetings for next semester on issues that were important to parents. Providing a space for parents to voice their concerns was part of the process. But the original goal of the meeting was to find ways in which parents could work collectively and with school staff to find solutions to the problems they identified, and hopefully build their sense of community, empowerment and capital (social and political) to make decisions about school policies. Instead, the staff member presented the meeting as a tool for gathering information to develop her work plan for the following year. Weeks later when we got the chance to talk about the meeting, I asked her why the goal of the parent meeting had changed, if she had changed her mind about what we had discussed. She replied she had little faith parents would get involved. She had seen how, in the town she lived before, the schools had made efforts to get parents involved. Parents attended activities at the beginning but then stopped. I pointed out how at the end of the meeting some of the parents commented, “So many meetings and nothing happens.” “Maybe parents get discouraged when they see that getting involved does not change the situations they are concerned about.” She agreed that was a possibility. “I’m afraid that’s just what’s going on.” I pondered aloud, “If we could find a way in which parents could get involved in meaningful ways, like having parent liaisons in each school who would guide new parents, then you could concentrate on working with school staff educating them about the families.” She still believed parents should be more involved in school politics and we continued to collaborate organizing meetings, securing translation and calling parents to inform them about school and district meetings. I continued trying to influence how she defined and practiced her job. But she wavered between wanting to facilitate more parent participation in school matters and maintaining her loyalty to the school district. She became increasingly apprehensive about parents’ independent efforts to become part of the process. A few months after the first meeting, we met right before a parent meeting at the after-school program to coordinate an informal poll to get parents’ input on imminent changes to the ESL/bilingual programs. I asked her if she knew about the upcoming meetings on students’ assignment to the middle schools. “No.” She looked surprised. I showed her an article in the local English newspaper where the district was announcing a series of public meetings about the middle schools,

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 135 including one for Spanish speakers. She seemed anxious, worried, her lips tight, her face tensed. “People are going to think I don’t want to tell them what is going on.” No one at the district had told her about this information coming out or that a meeting for Spanish speakers was scheduled to take place. No one asked her to translate. “Today we have an opportunity to inform parents about the meetings,” I offered. Her phone rang and she began to speak in Spanish. When she hung up she was alarmed. “Who told this father about today’s meeting?! He said he received an email, but how? He was on the task force a while ago but… Do you have the email with you? I want to see the addresses.” “Maybe he learned from another parent. But what difference does it make? The more parents the better, right?” I saw the expression on her face and asked, “Are you scared?” “Yes. I’m scared about talking with the parents about those meetings.” As parents became more proactive about participating in school politics, this woman became increasingly wary about her role and her relationships with people outside the district. Thus, when another opportunity for collaborating with other staff to create a space for parent participation appeared, I pursued it. On a communication to the ESL task force for an upcoming meeting there was a brief note about constituting a Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee. I asked the programs coordinator about it and eventually she expressed interest in working together to organize the committee. School districts that receive federal monies for transitional language programs are expected to have an advisory committee consisting mostly of parents and a few staff who would assess the needs of the programs and approve the budget for the following year. Until then, the school district had not made concerted efforts to form this committee. As one staff candidly explained, for years the school district had been making believe there was a committee and the new coordinator was trying to get one going “with real people.” This appeared to be a new opportunity to develop an institutional context for parent participation in decision making, opening a space for parents to get a closer look at the internal dynamics of the district. The mandate of the Bilingual Programs Coordinator was to make sure the school district was in compliance with legal requirements for students learning English, and the coordinator used the ESL Task Force to address multiple educational equity issues. Among the areas the group attempted to address were: developing a district-wide “philosophy statement” outlining the district’s position regarding the

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education of students with limited-English proficiency, developing district-wide guidelines for evaluating students’ academic performance in the ESL/bilingual and regular classrooms, establishing a curriculum for the ESL/bilingual classroom consistent with regular classroom instruction, and developing a plan for accommodating the growing Spanish-speaking student population. The coordinator also attempted to develop a reliable system for translating documents, secure training for regular classroom teachers, identify bilingual tutors for regular classrooms, make sure students’ English skills were assessed when they arrived to the district (entrance tests) and as they progressed through the program (exit tests), and form a Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee. We had a few preliminary conversations about the district’s goals for the committee, the coordinators’ concerns regarding educational inequities, bringing the district into compliance without losing students for the ESL/bilingual programs, and the ways in which we could collaborate. We also talked about forming a working group to coordinate the committee meetings. Initially, the coordinator and the also new Latino Families Liaison wanted to set the agenda for the meeting and hand-pick a small group of parents to participate. Participating in the working group meetings gave me the opportunity to talk with them about the importance of making an open call so that all parents who wanted to join could do so. I argued that it was an opportunity to get parents involved in the schools, talk to them about the district’s plans and goals, learn what parents thought about the programs, and show good faith on the part of the school district. In order to make the committee meetings more participatory, I also talked with them about the benefits of holding a first meeting in which both parents and staff could talk about the different issues they thought relevant and letting the group set the agenda for the next meetings. We discussed strategies to make sure the word got out and parents could actually come: written communication in Spanish, phone calls, childcare, transportation, and appropriate days and times. Finally, I suggested inviting a Latina teacher assistant I knew to help us contact parents. She had been working closely with the parents of her students and knew many people in the immigrant community. Ultimately, they agreed on asking the teacher assistant to be part of the working group, sending out letters and making phone calls inviting all parents to the meeting, and leaving the agenda for the first meeting relatively open.

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 137 The Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee met five times in three months. Parents brought up multiple areas of concern including transportation problems, lack of information in Spanish and adequate number of bilingual personnel at the schools, concerns about the quality of the ESL/bilingual programs and teacher’s training, inadequacy of classroom size, need for better communication between schools and parents, and lack of school choice. The coordinator tried to address what she could, bringing parents’ concerns back to her supervisors and dealing first hand with what was, to some extent, under her control. At the second committee meeting the coordinator reported on district responses to issues parents raised at the previous meeting: the Latino Families Liaison would now work one day a week at Main High School as a bilingual resource for parents; the district would hire a bilingual secretary for Main, extend the work day of the bilingual teacher at Cleaver Middle School to a full day, and make efforts to get more public buses for students. The district also informed they were in the process of recruiting two bilingual teachers for Dubois. The coordinator reassured the Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee that the district was aware they were not providing all the programs they were required to provide by law. The staff coordinating the meetings also encouraged parent involvement at a higher level, in order to influence not only the school district but also the School Board. In a communication to the working group one staff member proposed new topics for the agenda, including attendance at an upcoming School Board candidate forum. She wanted parents to attend and ask questions with a dual purpose: letting Board candidates know Latino parents were watching and finding out which candidates would be “bilingual programs” friendly. She also wanted the Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee to draft and sign a letter addressed to the “higher-ups” introducing the committee and exhorting them to consult the committee on Latino education matters. “I just want to make it clear to all at the district that this group exists, that it is informed, or will be soon, and hope to be consulted. I want to make sure that if another decision needs to be made with Latino input, no one up there can say, ‘Well, we didn’t know who to consult’.” The coordinator, the family liaison, the teacher assistant and I met several times between committee meetings to “debrief” and prepare for the following committee meeting. These meetings were difficult at times. Some of us were also involved in efforts outside the school structures to inform and mobilize parents and this created tensions,

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raising trust and loyalty issues for some of us. However, the working group managed to survive the school year intact and the committee provided a context for parents to get a close first-hand look at how the school district worked, what kinds of decisions were being made and where parents stood in the power hierarchy. One of the areas of contention during committee meetings was the structure of programs for Spanish speakers learning English. The coordinator and the bilingual staff were adamant about the benefits of bilingual education. The coordinator wanted to make sure parents had an understanding of the theory and research that supported bilingual education, hoping this would bring parents and staff to a shared understanding of the importance of the program and its needs. The district indicated they wanted parent input on what types of programs would be implemented in the upcoming years and the coordinator wanted to make sure parents made informed decisions. For several meetings district staff described different models and their effectiveness (e.g., English as a Second Language, dual-immersion) to the parents. During the discussions it became evident that parents understood some programs were better than others (i.e., dual-immersion was more effective than ESL pull-out) and that the district was offering the program shown to be the least effective (pull-out transitional program). Parents and staff talked about this issue during the individual interviews. Lucero, for instance, highlighted how having a dualimmersion program would facilitate the students’ bilingualism, support parent-child relationships by strengthening the children’s knowledge of the home language, and equalize the academic-racial hierarchy of the schools. Hasta ahorita el programa que más me ha convencido es el de dual immersion… Ahora sí, no sé quién me dijo, “Estamos en Estados Unidos, tenemos que aprender inglés”. Entonces, pero uno también como madre no quiere que sus hijos sólo agarren inglés. Imagínate al rato ¿qué comunicación voy a tener con ellos?… A lo mejor si se llega a hacer lo del dual immersion sean

So far the program that has convinced me the most is dual immersion. Now, I don’t know who said, “We are in the United States we have to learn English.” But as a mother I don’t want our children to learn only English. Imagine then, what kind of communication am I going to have with them? And maybe if they end up having the dual immersion program things will be more equitable because

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 139 equitativas las cosas porque tanto como los americanos se van a tener que esforzar para aprender la materia.

Americans would also have to make an effort to learn the subjects [in a second language]. (LUCERO)

When parents and staff finally met to decide what program they wanted implemented at Dubois, district staff presented models that had not been discussed with the parents before and were not the models they were told were the most effective. A mother asked the staff leading the meeting, “What do you know about the effectiveness of these program options?” The district staff replied those were the options other districts were implementing; although they did not know how effective the programs were they believed it would be better than what the schools currently had. From the Ground Up: Mexican Parents’ Efforts to Advocate for School Reforms Although at the end it was the school staff who decided which language program would be implemented, the ground for parent participation in school politics had been laid. The Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee provided parents a space to experience firsthand the district’s power structures and see the difference between good intentions and desired outcomes. They also had the chance to exercise their power individually and collectively: they said what they had to say and officials had to listen. Soon parents realized they were not going to get what they wanted for the schools by talking to lower ranking administrators, and a group of parents who had been part of the committee mobilized to collectively exert pressure from the outside. At the end of a Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee meeting two Mexican parents approached the Mexican women I was with, trying to hide they were collecting signatures. I said, “Can I sign it too?” “Well, but this is for parents. It’s about the same things we are talking about at this meeting.” In a few months, this group of Mexican parents organized and managed to schedule monthly meetings with the district superintendent to bring their concerns directly to him and monitor the progress of changes at the schools. An article in the local Spanish newspaper written by one of the Mexican mothers and me (García & Reyes Cruz, 2004) told the story of Familias Latinas por una Educación Digna y de

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Excelente Calidad (FLEDEC, “Latino Families for a Dignified Quality Education”), the advocacy group Mexican parents formed. Hace algo más de un año un grupo de padres latinoamericanos encontraron que no sólo compartían sueños y esperanzas para sus hijos, si no que también tenían experiencias y preocupaciones en común en torno a las escuelas públicas de Korbel. Entre los problemas que agobian a muchos están la escasez de información en español y personal bilingüe en las escuelas, comunicación limitada con maestros y administradores, poco apoyo para estudiantes que acaban de llegar y no cualifican para programas en español, y la falta de aprovechamiento académico de los estudiantes. Estas preocupaciones sobresalieron en las juntas del Comité Asesor de Padres Bilingües organizadas por el Distrito Escolar de Korbel el año pasado. A estas juntas asistieron un nutrido grupo de padres, maestros, administradores y otros miembros de la comunidad interesados en los programas para estudiantes aprendiendo inglés. Durante estas juntas los padres pudieron obtener más información sobre los programas, expresar sus preocupaciones sobre la calidad de los mismos, y evaluar las necesidades económicas de éstos. Sin embargo, muchos padres terminaron frustrados. A pesar de que se discutió qué programas educativos dan mejores resultados, el distrito determinó que no estaba preparado para implementar dicho programa. Fue entonces que un grupo de padres decidió reunirse para

A little over a year ago a group of Latin American parents realized they not only shared dreams and hopes for their children but also had experiences and concerns in common regarding Korbel’s public schools. Among the issues of concern for many were: the scarcity of information in Spanish and bilingual staff at the schools, limited communication with teachers and administrators, little support for recently arrived students who do not qualify for Spanish programs, and the lack of academic progress. These concerns became evident last year during the meetings of the Bilingual Parent Advisory Committee organized by the school district. A large number of parents, teachers, administrators and other community members interested in the programs for English learners attended these meetings. At the meetings parents were able to gain information about the programs, express their concerns about their quality and evaluate their budgetary needs. However, at the end, many parents felt frustrated. Despite discussing what educational programs would give better academic results, the school district determined they were not prepared to implement such a program. It was then when a group of parents decided to meet and work together to help improve

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 141 trabajar juntos en ayudar a mejorar la calidad de la educación que reciben los niños que están aprendiendo inglés.

the quality of the education that English learners receive.

As a group, FLEDEC parents accomplished what other workingpoor, marginalized parents had not been able to do in Korbel before: get enough attention so that the school district had to at least show they intended to address the system-wide issues parents raised. This was a considerable accomplishment, especially bearing in mind that members of the African American community had been fighting for educational equity for decades. A federal judge was overseeing the district’s efforts to address the situation of African American students but working-poor parents rarely got the opportunity to talk to the superintendent directly. The most recent efforts by members of the African American community had been spearheaded almost entirely by middle-class professionals who directly negotiated with schools and district administrators. During their first year FLEDEC recruited and collaborated with bilingual/bicultural Latinos (including myself)34 who had access to information and resources. These were allies in their struggle for educational equity who could broaden the parents’ sources of knowledge and support, serving as cultural brokers, to build parents’ social and political capital. With the support of their allies the parents organized and facilitated meetings with district staff, including the superintendent himself, to address concerns and monitor progress; participated in the hiring of bilingual staff; influenced the creation of new positions and changes in current positions; pressed for the establishment of the most effective program for second language learners; and influenced the removal of staff. PATRICIA: Pues yo me interesé a la hora de oír los comentarios de las mamás que tienen ya más tiempo aquí y pues al oír todo lo bueno que uno quiere de los hijos porque todas queremos lo mejor, la mejor preparación de los hijos, por eso fue que yo me involucré más en las reuniones y estar más preparada para pedir lo que nuestros hijos tienen

PATRICIA: I became interested when I began to hear comments from mothers who have been here longer and heard about all the good things we want for our children. We all want the best, the best preparation for our children. That’s why I got involved in more meetings, to be better prepared to ask for what our children have a

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derecho… Estar enterada de cómo se maneja la escuela, los maestros, el distrito, ¡todo! Porque es algo muy interesante, saber, quién trabaja bien y quién no, te piden las opiniones, muy importante para mí… MRC: ¿Y qué te gustaría lograr por medio de esta participación?… PATRICIA: Pues lograr lo que nosotros queremos, que hayan buenos maestros, buena enseñanza, buena responsabilidad de la principal, y que hayan buenos resultados con nuestros hijos. Eso es lo que nosotros queremos, eso es lo que esperamos… nosotros queremos ver buena enseñanza, nosotros lo vamos a ver si se da, en el español y el inglés… MRC: ¿Y cómo piensas que se pueden lograr estas metas? PATRICIA: Luchando. Yendo hasta arriba, hasta donde se tenga que ir. Luchando, exigiendo pidiendo, porque sí se puede hacer… se puede y se va a hacer.

right to… Be more informed about how the school works, the teachers, the district, everything! Because it’s very interesting, to know who works well and who doesn’t, they ask your opinion. That’s very important for me. MRC: What would you like to accomplish through this participation? PATRICIA: Well, obtain what we want, good teachers, good instruction, responsibility on the principal’s part, and see positive results in our children. That’s what we want, that’s what we expect. We want to see good teaching and we’ll see if it actually happens, in Spanish and English. MRC: And how do you think that could be accomplished? PATRICIA: Fighting. Going as high as we have to go. Fighting, demanding, asking, because it can be done. It can be done and it will be done.

Le digo a mi hermana, ya ahorita les estamos pesando porque nos estamos empezando a juntar papás. Cuando recién llegué yo aquí no había eso. Cada quien para su santo. Entonces ahorita somos poquitos… Pero ya de hecho pueden ir jalando y si ahorita llegamos a conseguir lo que queremos, que lo del dual immersion, yo sé que van a jalar más padres. Pero o sea, es como te digo, hay veces que te desanimas y es como todo, ¿no? Pero igual, volverte a cargar la pila y

Like I tell my sister, now we are starting to weight on them because we the parents are starting to get together. When I got here it wasn’t like that; it was each to their own. We are just a few now. But now in fact we can start getting more parents. And if we get what we want, dual immersion, I know more parents will join our efforts. But it’s like I tell you, there are times when one gets discouraged, right? But just the same, you

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 143 tratarlo de intentar… nos íbamos conociendo por las juntas, ya vimos cuales éramos los padres más interesados, nos empezamos a invitar y mira, desde ahí hemos seguido adelante… O sea te digo, y así es como yo creo que se va agrandando esto, ¿no? De que tú dices, “Pues yo puedo conseguir cosas mejores voy a tratar”. Y todos queremos lo mejor porque no hay nadie que te diga, “Pues yo no más voy a esperar a del cielo a ver que me cae”. No. Todos, todos, ahora sí, aunque no tengamos estudio ¡sabemos lo que queremos! Y también sabemos pelear por lo que queremos. Entonces ahí andamos.

recharge your batteries and try it again. We started to get to know each other at the meetings, there we saw which parents were most interested and started to invite each other and you see, from then on, we have continued forward. I mean, I tell you, that’s how I think this starts to get bigger, right? When you say, “Well if I can get better things I will try.” And we all want the best because there isn’t anyone who will tell you, “Well I’ll just wait to see what falls from the sky.” No. All, all of us, even though we don’t have an education, we know what we want! And we also know how to fight for what we want. (LUCERO)

Parents understood their struggle was about rights, respect and dignity, and building a collective sense of empowerment. Y yo siento que esto va a servir para la superación de todos, tanto como padres como nuestros hijos que se superen. Porque pues es necesario. Y antes de ser necesario es yo creo que lo estamos pidiendo a gritos. No con palabra ¡Ya lo estamos pidiendo a gritos a ver si así nos escuchan porque nadie nos escucha! Ojalá y que puedan entender, nos puedan entender, la posición que tenemos para pedir. Y que no, no estamos exigiendo, estamos pidiendo que nos ayuden. Que haya una persona que realmente les interesen nuestros problemas

I feel this will serve for everyone’s betterment, so that parents as well as our children overcome. It is necessary. More than necessary it is what we are screaming for. Not with words, now we are asking at the top of our lungs, to see if this way they hear us because no one is listening! Hopefully they’ll be able to understand the position we are in. That we are not demanding, we are asking for help, so that there is someone really interested in our problems because apparently they are not

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porque aparentemente como que no les interesan… Que somos personas que lo único que buscamos es un futuro mejor para nuestros hijos. Y que no nos nieguen ese derecho, porque, pues yo creo que, como personas nos merecemos un lugar, y nos merecemos respeto.

interested. We are people who are just looking for a better future for our children. And that we are not denied that right, because I believe as people we deserve a place, we deserve respect. (GRACIELA)

These parents recognized that in the Unites States their children had educational rights they did not have in Mexico. At the same time they saw the difference between having a right and actualizing it: there were rights that were not given but had to be fought for. Moreover, they had to confront the differences between having rights and having the resources necessary to materialize those rights. In multiple instances school and district staff would use the lack of bilingual resources as a justification for not providing the services needed. The parents had to balance the constraints the district faced (e.g., building a pool of qualified bilingual staff, acquiring the required classroom resources, developing a coherent program) with the district’s lack of urgency to accomplish the task. Some parents were adamant about expecting the district to do what they had to do to ensure the educational rights of their children were secured right away. For Graciela it was obvious that precisely because not all parents were in the position to advocate for their children and the school staff were the experts, it was the schools’ job to make sure students’ needs were met so they could succeed academically. Yo me molesté mucho porque sólo me daban puras evasivas verdad, en este caso de decir, “Sí sí se la vamos a hacer la evaluación pero, es que no hay psicólogo”. Para mí se me hizo, muy, pues sí muy desesperante el que me dijera, es que no hay psicólogo. Estamos en un país donde hay los recursos y para que a mí me hubieran dicho es que no hay psicólogo ¡me imaginaba como que estaba yo en la sierra! Que estaba yo

I got very upset because they only gave me the run around really. They would say, “Yes yes, we are going to do the evaluation but there is no bilingual psychologist.” For me it was very exasperating that they would say that. We are in a country where the resources exist and the fact that they would say there is no psychologist, it felt like I was in the mountains! That

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 145 en la selva donde me dicen, “No hay esto, no hay agua, no” ¡Carambas! ¿Cómo es posible que no haya un psicólogo? Entonces este yo sí me molesté mucho y le dije que pues que me disculparan, pero que como yo veía que no daba solución para ese problema de mi hija, que yo ya se los estaba pidiendo a gritos, entonces que me dieran, que me dijeran el nombre de otra persona para yo ir y hablar con ellos. Y dice, “Pero es que sólo habla inglés” “No, no me interesa. Yo voy a conseguir una persona”. Anteriormente ya le había estado pagando a una persona para que me tradujera en la escuela… Entonces ya fue cuando pues yo creo que me vio un poco molesta y pues ya agilizaron más rápido, la evaluación del psicólogo, que por cierto ella necesita educación especial. Entonces este digo ¿por qué tenemos que llegar hasta ese extremo si es un derecho que les tienen que dar? A mí se me hace, indignante que esperen a llegar al extremo de enojarnos de molestarnos… ¡dos años!… Entonces digo, si yo no me hubiera puesto en un plan, pues sí digamos pesado, verdad, de exigirlo, no me lo hubieran dado… Yo creo que eso no, no, no se vale… y creo que pues yo creo que no se trata de estar viniendo constantemente. Se trata de, pues de que hagan lo que tienen que hacer, ¿verdad? Y que no, no esperen a que uno se los pida porque ellos tienen la capacidad de ver qué

I was in the middle of the forest where people would tell you, “There’s none of that, there’s no water, there’s no.” ¡Caramba! How is it possible that there is no psychologist? Then I got very upset and said to them to forgive me but I saw they could find no solution for my child’s problem and I was already asking at the top of my lungs so then to please give me or tell me the name of another person so I could go talk to them. And they said, “But they only speak English” “I’m not interested. I will find someone who would translate.” I had already been paying someone to translate for me at the school. That’s when I think they saw me a bit upset and they speeded up the evaluation with the psychologist, and actually my child needs special education. Then I say, why do we have to get to this point if it’s a right they have to honor? I think it is outrageous that they wait to the extreme of getting us this upset. Two years! Then I say, if I had not taken that attitude, right? demanding, they would not have given it to me. And I think that’s not fair. I think it’s not about having to come to the school constantly. It’s about them doing what they have to do, right? Not to wait until one asks because they have the capacity to see which child is functioning well, making progress, and who

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niño está dando su funcionamiento bien, su rendimiento como estudiante, y los que no. ¿Y por qué tienen que esperar a que uno se los diga? Ahora de todas maneras se los dice uno y, y no, no hacen las cosas. Las hacen hasta que ellos quieran.

is not. So why do they have to wait until one says something about it? Now, even when one tells them, they don’t do what they have to do. It’s like they do it whenever they want to do it. (GRACIELA)

Some saw how the district seemed to ignore resources that could have benefited the Spanish-speaking students. La escuela, o si dijeras el distrito, quisiera ayudar a los latinos, pero no tienen los medios necesarios. No me estoy refiriendo al dinero sino a, al personal adecuado a lo mejor. Y a las personas que tuvieron en este año pasado, no muy lejano, que pudieron ayudar en el sistema educativo, y me estoy refiriendo a la misma principal que se acaba de ir, este, y que hablaba español, que pudiera, que pudo haberla llevado a la escuela latina por decirlo así, seguir adelante, la dejaron ir. Entonces, en realidad, están desperdiciando los recursos, recursos humanos que creí yo que eran buenos.

The school or, well, the district, would like to help Latinos, but they don’t have the necessary resources. And I don’t mean money but adequate staff maybe. But then the people who were there this past year, recently, who could have helped in the educational system, and I’m referring to that principal who just left who spoke Spanish and who they could have moved to the Latino school, they let her go. So then, in reality, they are wasting the resources, the human resources that I thought were good. (MANUEL)

Others thought the schools could only do but so much with the resources they had. Some parents believed (as many staff would claim) that asking for the establishment of bilingual programs in additional schools would stretch already meager resources too thin. A lo mejor también sería bueno que implementaran el programa para la Horizons. Pero o sea, así como van las cosas es difícil… como que es un arma de doble filo ¿no?

Maybe it would also be a good thing if they implement the program at Horizons. But seeing how things are going it would be difficult. It’s like a double-edge

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 147 Digo, yo estoy bien en esta escuela, a mi me gusta lo que tengo. Nos hace falta más material en español, nos hace falta libros, nos hace falta el espacio para español, nos hace falta una buena maestra, en la escuela Dubois. Entonces para mi es difícil que pasen el programa para allá, digo, si tengo cuatro libros me van a pasar dos de este lado, si no tengo la maestra certificada, menos me la van a dar. O sea que ¿me entiendes? Sería dividir lo poquito que tienes entre dos.

sword, right? I say, I am ok at my school, I like what I have. We need more material in Spanish, we need more books, we need the space for Spanish instruction, we need a good teacher at Dubois. So I think it would be difficult that they put the program at Horizon. I mean if I have four books they are going to send two over there. If I don’t have the certified teacher it would be less likely that they would get it for us. I mean, do you understand what I’m saying? It would be dividing the little that we have in two. (LUCERO)

But all understood they had to continue to exert pressure in order for the district to get moving on addressing the needs of Spanish-speaking families. The parents quickly learned that good intentions did not necessarily match people’s actions; that they had to keep el dedo en el renglón, making sure small and superficial changes did not distract them from their larger goals. El superintendente no puede ser una persona que nos esté engañando porque el día que estuvimos en la junta a mí me gustó todo lo que dijo… él nos dijo muy bonito todo esto y cuando se empezaron a hacer las juntas individuales ya con las personas que lo representan a él ¡todo me lo cambiaron!... ahí fue donde no nos empezó a gustar. El programa como nos lo presentaron, “Bueno, los latinos acá y los americanos allá. Pero ellos van a poder interactuar cuando estén en

The superintendent can’t be deceiving us because the day we were at the meeting with him I liked all he said. He said all those wonderful things and when the meetings with people who represented him started, everything had changed! That’s when we started to dislike what was going on. The program how they presented it, “Well Latinos here and Americans there but they’ll interact during physical education.” And I say, what’s happening? I mean, that’s not preparing my

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física”. Y digo ¿qué pasa? O sea, es lo que tu dices ¡así no están preparando a mi hijo!… Ahora, te digo… fuimos directamente con él. Pues yo no sé qué va a pasar en la reunión hoy en la noche… quiero ver si de veras va a hacer el cambio o quién es ¿no?... si él nos está prometiendo lo que no nos va a dar se va a ver también.

child! Now I tell you, we went directly to him. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight at the meeting. I want to see if he will make the changes, see who he really is, right? If he is promising something he is not going to give us, it’s going to be obvious too. (LUCERO)

María and Manuel described what it would take for the group to reach the broader goals they had set forth. MARÍA: Pues estar, yo creo estar firmes en lo que queremos, llegar a las personas indicadas, hacérselo saber a esas personas y ser persistentes. Estar pidiendo la educación que queremos para los niños. Y que nos sientan ahí presentes siempre. MANUEL: Y supervisando precisamente de que sea así. Eh, ahora, yo creo que sí debemos de tener, poner mucha presión, poner mucha presión. Y a lo mejor es presión para nosotros mismos… en cuanto, “Okay, esto es lo que quiero, es lo que quiero, es lo que quiero. ¿Cuándo me lo vas a dar? Si no me lo diste ahorita, ¿cuándo me lo vas a dar?” y este, no sé, las metas, yo sé que corto plazo, las metas que teníamos cuando nos empezamos a reunir ya se cumplieron… Ahora las de largo plazo es que siga todo esto, que siga todo esto y que siga adelante.

MARÍA: We have to be firm in what we want and get to the right people, let them know and be persistent, asking for the education we want for the children. Always letting them feel our presence. MANUEL: And supervising, making sure things are the way they should be. Now, I think we need to put pressure, a lot of pressure. And perhaps pressure ourselves. In the sense that, “OK, this is what I want, this is what I want, this is what I want. When are you going to give it to me? If you don’t give it to me now, when are you going to give it to me?” And, I don’t know, the short term goals, the goals we had when we started to meet, have been met. Now the long-term goal is that all of this continues, that it continues moving forward.

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 149 FLEDEC mobilized to influence school district decisions and organized to gain additional parent support for their efforts. The parents attended school board meetings, made a petition to the board requesting more support for the bilingual programs coordinator, and wrote two articles for the Spanish monthly newspaper recounting their efforts. Additionally, the group organized a petition-signing drive to gather support for a dual-immersion program, coordinated a tenant’s rights workshop, and, by the end of their first year, they were planning a social event to build sense of community among the Latino American parents. The petition-signing drive seemed to energize parents the most. In our team, the two moms did pretty much all the work: from knocking on doors and describing the petition to other parents to answering all kinds of questions. They would tease me and try to get me to knock and talk but I teased them back saying, “¡No! Ustedes lo hacen” (No! You do it). The dynamic was relaxed and cheerful. However, the parents struggled to keep the group together. Differences in personality, styles and needs as well as mixed feelings about the need for a critical mass of parents participating in collective efforts eroded the fragile cohesiveness of the group. They made various attempts to get past their personal differences and remain united on their collective goals. They knew from personal experience how difficult it was for parents to get involved in activities outside their daily responsibilities: not all could make time to participate in school matters, let alone community organizing. But at times they interpreted the lack of participation of a broader constituency as lack of support or interest. The dominant discourse about parent involvement equates visibility with interest and support. The parents from FLEDEC were not immune to that discourse. PATRICIA: Yo me he dado cuenta de que hay padres que no les interesa… MRC: ¿Cómo te das cuenta que no les interesa?... ¿Por que no los ves? PATRICIA: Exactamente. No es, a las juntas, yo digo porque no les interesa o ¿cómo? Porque si yo voy a las juntas es porque me interesa lo mejor para mis hijos.

PATRICIA: I have noticed there are parents who are not interested. MRC: How can you tell they are not interested? Because you don’t see them? PATRICIA: Exactly. It’s like, with the meetings, I say they are not interested because then, why? Because if I go to the meetings it’s because I want the best for my children.

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Lucero emphasized the importance of having a critical mass in order to maintain credibility and develop political capital. Es igual que diga el superintendente, “Van dos padres de familia”. Y si es que nosotros quedamos en esto y lo otro y él que vaya a la junta … “Bueno ¡y qué están pidiendo si yo no veo más padres de familia aquí!” ¿Me entiendes? Tienes que estar presente para pedir lo que quieres y que sepan que sí hay más gente ahí. Es como te digo para mí va a ser una decepción hoy si no hay un buen número de padres. Tenemos que estar para que él vea que de veras hay gente que lo está pidiendo.

It’s the same as if the superintendent says, “Two parents attended.” And if we agree on something and he goes to the meeting and says, “Well, what is it that you are asking for when I don’t see more parents here!” Do you understand? You have to be present to ask for what you want, let them know there are more people here. For me, it’s going to be a disappointment if there isn’t a good number of parents today. We have to be there so he truly sees that people are asking. (LUCERO)

Moreover, the general perception that Latino American students were “making progress” was hard to challenge. At a FLEDEC meeting, Celia raised the issue of how to answer questions such as, “Who are you and why should I sign this petition?” She had tried to motivate other parents to join the group but people “were not interested,” as long as their children were “doing well” they did not care to do more. I asked if it would make sense to talk to parents about how Spanishspeaking students were doing academically district-wide, if we could present to them data on this. Pablo, another of the group’s allies, said the problem was the district did not have that data; even if we wanted to talk about that, we would not have a place where we could find the information. We talked about what a major constraint that was for getting people involved in school issues. The limited scope of the gains they had achieved also undermined their determination. Both their frustration and willingness to persist came across in the difficulties getting the group together, at meetings and in their communications to their professional allies. In an electronic communication to their allies, one of the FLEDEC members said, Después de unas vacaciones que nos hemos tomado el grupo yo creo

After a vacation the group has taken I think it would be good to

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 151 que sería bueno reunirnos antes de que Mariolga se vaya… Ya vimos el periódico el domingo y estamos en la primera página. No sé si ustedes ya lo tienen también. Los vecinos dicen que ellos están dispuestos a reunirse de nuevo es cosa nada más de decirles el día. Yo quedé con Mariolga de dejarle saber esto ahora pues ustedes díganos el día que pueden… nos enteramos que la mesa directiva no eligió a nadie de los candidatos para director de Dubois. ¿Qué sigue ahora? ¿Qué vamos a hacer? Tampoco tiene secretaria la señora coordinadora. Ayer hablé con ella y otra vez ella está haciendo el trabajo sola. ¿Ustedes saben si el puesto vacante se anunció en el Web o si están haciendo algo al respecto? Porque ella necesita la ayuda, ya que está planeando ya las clases de ESL para los padres, y por supuesto haciendo todo lo demás…Así es que ustedes digan cuándo pueden…

get together before Mariolga leaves. We already saw the newspaper on Sunday and we are on first page. I don’t know if you already have it. The neighbors say they are willing to meet again so it’s just a matter of telling them when. I told Mariolga I would let her know so just let us know when you could meet. We found out the School Board did not choose any one of the candidates for the principal position at Dubois. What’s next? What are we going to do? The coordinator doesn’t have a secretary either. I spoke to her yesterday and again she is doing all the work by herself. Do you know if the position has been announced on the web or whether they are doing something about it? She needs help now that she is planning ESL classes for parents on top of all the other things she is doing. So then just let us know when you could meet.

A few months later I called María to talk about a School Board meeting FLEDEC attended. She responded, No pasó nada. En realidad no sé ni para qué fuimos.

Nothing happened. I don’t even know why we went.

There wasn’t anything on the agenda directly relevant to the group’s efforts except, she said, a discussion about a hiring freeze and some problems with the budget. I asked her if the freeze meant the district was not going to replace the Latino Families Liaison who we heard had resigned over the summer. “Yes, that’s right, they are not going to replace her.” That meant the Bilingual Programs Coordinator was

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going to be doing all the work by herself. “And now people are going to be worse than they were before.” María had spoken with another Mexican mother, who had attended some meetings and continued to express interest in being involved with FLEDEC, who said just that. The woman had heard others saying that now they don’t even have the liaison to help out; she was doing a good job and now she’s gone. María said to her, Yo no sé si tú recuerdas pero había gente que estaba teniendo problemas con ella desde el principio. Y el grupo siempre quiso hablar con ella para resolver las cosas, nunca pedimos que la echaran.

I don’t know if you remember but there were people having problems with her from the start. And the group always wanted to talk to her to solve things, we never asked that she be fired.

I observed that, even with all the problems, the previous liaison was serving a necessary function. “Sometimes I get a little paranoid when these kinds of things happen. It feels like the district is taking away power from the community by cutting their links to information and resources.” María responded, Sí, tienes razón. Y le estaba diciendo a Pablo si hasta esto de habernos dicho que iban a hablar sobre el programa bilingüe puede haber sido para ver si nos estaban dando información desde adentro… Fue una pérdida de tiempo ir, no sé ni para qué fuimos.

Yes, you are right. And I was saying to Pablo that maybe even this thing about telling us they would discuss the bilingual program at the meeting was to see if someone was giving us inside information. It was a waste of time. I don’t even know why we went.

I responded, Es una lástima porque así es que desalientan a uno de ir a las juntas. Son tan largas y secas que la gente no quiere ir y entonces ellos pueden tomar decisiones sin que nadie los cuestione.

It’s too bad because that’s how they discourage people from going to Board meetings. The meetings are so long and dry that people don’t want to go and then they can make decisions without anyone questioning them.

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 153 María observed, Al menos los sorprendimos porque… también había padres como yo. ¡Pero tienen que ir más padres! A veces me desanimo y le digo a mi marido y él me dice, “Esto va a ser un desastre”. Pero le digo que hay que animarse porque si no somos nosotros, ¿quién?

At least we surprised them because there were other parents like me. But more parents have to go! Sometimes I get discouraged and I tell my husband and he says, “This is going to be a disaster.” But I tell him we have to cheer up because if it’s not us, then who?

OVERARCHING BARRIERS TO PARENT MOBILIZING Parents faced numerous challenges to their mobilizing efforts. Some of the most obvious barriers were the need to depend on translators and cultural brokers to navigate the school system, the recency of the Latino American community and the consequent lack of established social and political organizations that could support mobilizing efforts. The quantity and quality of their social and political capital needed to be raised. Less obvious and perhaps more insidious were the psychosocial barriers to organizing and change. The Mexican immigrant parents who were challenging the schools realized that although they could address some of their immediate personal needs through individual action they needed to mobilize collectively to push for system-wide changes. But as they began to talk to each other, raise their consciousness about school and broader politics, and get organized, they struggled to balance individual and collective needs within a context that discouraged collective action and reinforced a colonial mentality.35 Certain cultural practices promoted individual over collective interventions couched in a colonial discourse that emphasized the deficits of marginalized families and their debt to those who helped them. Most of the people involved, regardless of their position in the power hierarchy, would at times adopt the colonial discourse. This discourse served to squelch dissent with dominant school practices. At a school meeting organized by Laura, she expressed her concerned with what she described as lack of respect in the school, particularly between teachers and students, and among students. She had seen staff mistreating children, particularly African American students. Her child was also being mistreated by other children and the adults were not intervening. The regular classroom teacher responded,

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“The staff works very hard at encouraging respect among students. Look at the messages about respect posted on the classroom walls. The school pledge, recited every morning, also speaks about respect. Children are told all the time they have to keep their hands to themselves.” The principal explained that not all parents had the same vision as Laura, they were not interested in getting involved in the school or what their children do, they didn’t teach their children respect, and that was what the school had to deal with. Laura insisted the issue was a school-wide problem. She suggested that the staff could work on the staff end and she could work with other parents to try to get parents involved on this issue. No one from the staff said anything about it. The principal broke the silence, “You should encourage your daughter to come to the staff when others are bothering her and we will deal with the situation.” On our way out of the room after the meeting was over, Laura said to me, “No pueden ver más allá (They can’t see beyond their noses), they do not want to address the issue of respect at the school level, they want to make it about my child.” I said I was thinking the same thing and was glad to hear she saw through that maneuver. She said, “Like I told them, I’m not here just to look out for my children. I’m here for all the children.” On that occasion Laura readily saw the school staff’s attempt to minimize the systemic problem she was raising and focus their efforts on an individual intervention. But she did not challenge the discourse about parents’ lack of interest in school matters. Actually, she, like other parents involved in organizing, would repeat the same discourse which in turn separated them from the rest. Porque muchos padres no se paran ahí, la verdad. Si tú eres honesta, si tú has observado en realidad muchos padres no van más que a firmar el día de la boleta, más que el día de la inscripción. No les interesa. ¡Si están más preocupados por el trabajo y por el dinero!

Many parents do not go to the school, truth be told. If you are honest, if you have observed, in reality many parents go only to sign on the report cards, only on registration day. They are not interested. They are more worried about work and money! (LAURA)

When Latina staff talked about the recent efforts to address the needs of Latino American students and families, the discourse about

Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political Capital 155 gratefulness would come across. One commented on the important role parents had in change efforts. I asked what she thought had happened that year that began to move things in the direction of parent participation. Yo creo que el hecho de que tuvieran la coordinadora de los programas bilingües yo creo que desde ahí fue donde se empezó, se hizo todo. A mí me parece un poco difícil de pensar, por no decir injusto, el que haya padres que no se den cuenta o el que hayan padres que no valoren el trabajo.

I believe the fact that they had the bilingual programs coordinator I believe that from then on was when it all began, when all was done. I find it a bit difficult to think, or rather a bit unfair, that there are parents who don’t realize or do not value the work done. (SANDRA)

Although in other conversations she would recognize how the schools were not fully meeting their responsibilities to Latino American students, she could not acknowledge the parents’ right to make such claims. Among the practices that supported the colonial discourse was also the school district systematic disinformation about the educational outcomes of Spanish-speaking students. Even though the school district was already under close monitoring for lack of equity educating African American students, Latino American parents did not have access to official data on the academic progress of Spanish-speaking students learning English. This created a situation of “our word against theirs” and thus the legitimacy of the parents’ claims was constantly challenged by professionals’ discourse on “students’ progress.”

THE ELUSIVENESS OF SMALL WINS FLEDEC’s accomplishments were unprecedented for a group of monolingual working-poor Mexican immigrant parents in Korbel. However, by the time I left Korbel, many of their concerns remained unresolved: from meeting their basic need for information in Spanish and access to Spanish-speaking staff at the schools, to participating in decision-making processes. Moreover, these parents shared with African American parents their concern regarding lack of access to gifted programs, low quality of education for students of color, and detrimental racial climate in the schools. Nevertheless, what constitutes a “win,” an “accomplishment,” or “progress” is always contested. At times parents

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felt they had made major progress. Other times they felt what was lost in the process had made things worse for some families. María and Manuel asked me what I thought about a previous meeting with the superintendent. “After the meeting I realized the administration did not say anything new. They said the meeting was for parents to decide what they wanted to see happen at Dubois next year but they didn’t discuss that.” María and Manuel stayed quiet for a second and said that it was true. María commented that she had talked to another of their allies about how nothing had changed. Manuel said he still felt the parents had made a lot of progress; they will just have to keep up the pressure to see the changes they want to see happen. “I’m amazed at how quickly we have been able to reach the superintendent. If it was not for the people who have supported us we would not have known where to begin. All the information you guys have been giving us about whom to talk to and who was who has been key. The monthly meetings we will now have with the superintendent are very important.” A year later parents’ spirits were low. The group had lost half of its members, the meetings with the school district administration had led to limited changes, and integrating new parents to the effort was proving very difficult. After an informational meeting the parents organized on tenants’ rights, they struggled to keep their hopes up. The meeting was poorly attended and it discouraged FLEDEC parents greatly. Once the resource from the Tenant’s Union left Manuel exclaimed, Pues ya ven, tanto esfuerzo que uno pone ¡para esto! Creo que no vale la pena organizar más cosas así.

See, all the effort one puts in it for this! I don’t think organizing more things like this is worth it.

Others nodded. I exchanged looks of sympathy with some of them. Pablo said, Sé lo frustrante que es esto pero creo que ya que empezamos lo de la petición debemos continuar al menos con eso…

I know how frustrating this is but since we already started the petition drive we should continue with that at least.

María responded, Sí, yo creo que debemos seguir porque las cosas están hasta peor.

Yes we should continue because things are even worse than before.

CHAPTER 8 Paradoxes of Social Life

“It is necessary to reverse the common opinion and acknowledge that it is not the harshness of a situation or the sufferings it imposes that lead people to conceive of another state of affairs in which things would be better for everybody. It is on the day that we are able to conceive of another state of affairs, that a new light is cast on our trouble and our suffering and we decide that they are unbearable.” (Sartre, 1957, cited in Bourdieu, 1990, p. 42) Public schools are “open systems” with boundaries that extend beyond their physical walls (Good et al., 1997). Paradoxically, these are spaces where dominant oppressive social patterns are reproduced and where the development of citizens with critical consciousness, active in the life of their communities, could be (and are at times) nurtured. This is in part because schools are political institutions where conceptualizations of power are enacted by and taught to (directly and indirectly) their different constituencies (Peschard, 2006; Sarason, 1996). The dynamics that shape parent participation in schools illustrate schools’ role in maintaining social injustice and their potential to become spaces for democratic citizen participation in public matters. It is precisely the parents’ imagination, their ideas about what schools could be, what they could mean in their children’s lives, that moves many to work towards transforming schools. This critical ethnography aimed to narrate a story about recent Latino American immigrant parents’ school involvement seldom heard in schools and academic discourse: a story that talks about workingpoor immigrant parents fighting to be considered equal partners in school decision making; a story about an emerging community going 157

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through growing pains to claim rights, respect and dignity; a story about their attempts to exercise full citizenship despite political and institutional constrains. The parents’ efforts take place in a patronizing environment where they are seen as hard-working loving parents who need to be told what is best for their children. Their struggle for respect and empowerment is not unique or without contradictions; it is simply a marginalized story that must be heard. Without intense, critical, prolonged and participatory engagement, without in-depth conversations grounded in trusting relationships (the research methodology), close witnessing of the processes described in this work would have been unlikely. And the dominant story about immigrant Latino American parents’ school engagement in Korbel would have remained unchallenged. In this final chapter I discuss some of the lessons and limitations of this work. First I will summarize the major findings and implications of the study for understanding and promoting authentic democratic participation in schools. I then turn to some implications for a community praxis for social justice.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION IN SCHOOLS The dominant discourse on the educational outcomes of public school Latino students describes their performance as wanting, placing the responsibility for students’ failure on the students and their families. The discourse is supported by “scientific data.” As a group, Latino youth are not doing well in school. In the case of immigrants, 44% drop out of school (C. Suárez-Orozco et al., 2004). And while the literature on academic achievement arguably shows a relationship between academic success and what is typically called “parental involvement” (e.g., reading at home with children, working with them on homework), Latino American parents seem to take a passive role vis-à-vis the formal education of their children. Compared to U.S. Latinos, recent Latino American immigrants who are poor and have few years of formal education tend to: 1) have lower expectations and more positive views about teachers and schools; 2) be more tolerant of schools known to be failing; 3) rely on schools to provide their children a formal education (e.g., reading and writing skills, mathematics); and 4) are minimally engaged in schools due to language and cultural mismatch between parents and schools, long working hours and subsequent limited time to participate, lack of or limited knowledge of how schools work and how to advocate for their children, and uneasiness speaking

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to school staff and voicing concerns (Martinez & Velazquez, 2000; Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Foundation, 2004; Romo & Falbo, 1996; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2004; Valdés, 1996). My field observations over a period of four years in Korbel, Illinois, tell yet another story about the role of parents in their children’s academic success. Despite having to deal with educational, cultural and language barriers, the Mexican immigrant parents in this study performed most of the behaviors described as “effective” parent involvement. When they could not, they made sure to secure other resources that would support their children’s academic achievement. However, some of them were seeing that their children were not moving in a path that will lead them to college and did not believe their progress reflected their academic potential. These parents learned that their children’s schools ranked among the lowest in test scores and the programs offered to Spanish-speaking students were the least effective. Moreover, their children told them about a racially and linguistically segregated environment that marginalized them. This is why some of these parents also began to claim their right to participate in decisions that affected what happened in their children’s schools. They were claiming their right to democratic participation: a process of equitable, respectful, and peaceful dialogue “in which citizens have meaningful input into decisions that affect their lives” (Prilleltensky, 2001, p. 754). These parents knew that to get to college their children first had to succeed in school. They paid attention to what their children said about school, how they felt about the schooling process, and how they progressed academically. When their children were happy and the teachers said they were making good progress, then everything seemed alright. But when their children complained, became frustrated or sad about school, regardless of what teachers said, parents knew something was not right and something had to be done. Some called the school, talked to teachers, secured additional resources (like a space in an afterschool program). Others also got organized. In a few months, a group of recent Mexican immigrants, with support of a few bilingual allies, took and created opportunities to become involved at the school policy level by joining district-sponsored committees (e.g., Bilingual Parent Advisory Committee, hiring committees, ESL Task Force), and formed an advocacy group to put pressure on school administrators to address issues that concerned them (e.g., establishing the most effective and equitable program for teaching English learners, improving the

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quality of teaching, improving communication between schools and parents). These parents challenged the pedagogical authority of school and district staff. So when parents voiced their concerns, those with power in schools attempted to reestablish their authority by making normative-evaluative knowledge claims, claims about what others should recognize as good, correct, appropriate (Carspecken, 1996). When knowledge-claim battles became explicit, social reproduction and contestation processes also became more apparent to the actors involved. Findings from this study suggest that when segments of the school community with different levels of power attempt democratic participation, the structures and processes that maintain the power structure become more evident to the actors. A greater concientization of these processes and about a different array of possibilities leads some marginalized social actors to believe change is not only possible but necessary, and take action. However, their actions are also met with resistance from outside and within. The dominant school discourse on student success and parent involvement discourages collective action in exchange for immediate individual gains. Despite parents’ growing social and political capital,36 reminders of colonial relationships kept people in their places, battling feelings of gratitude, entitlement, and power over those who “need help.” At the end of my involvement in local school politics, FLEDEC parents were struggling to stay hopeful that they could have a role in reforming schools. They had seen how their efforts had been rebuffed, silenced and co-opted. Internal differences had overpowered their common concerns. Unfortunately, it is ultimately up to the targets of oppression to keep el dedo en el renglón, the eye on the prize. This is not because it is their sole responsibility or because they are the only ones who can or would know how to challenge the status quo. In any social context, if the marginalized carry the burden of their liberation it is because, as Frederick Douglass (1857) said, “power concedes nothing without a demand, it never did and it never will.” But let’s be clear, this is not a new brand of victim blaming. It is rather the painful realization that, as Douglass, Freire, Memmi, and others have insisted, it is the oppressed, the marginalized, who could experience (for real) the sense of urgency necessary to keep up with the challenge of confronting oppressive relationships. Without that nagging sense of urgency, things will remain as they are.


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LIVING THE PARADOX The nature of the community work in which I was engaged in Korbel was like living in a borderland—that “vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary… a constant state of transition” (Anzaldúa, 1999, p. 25). As a brown Puerto Rican woman, a colonial subject, immigrant, bilingual, heterosexual, unmarried and childless, a doctoral student at the time, raised in a progressive/professional middle-class home, my social locations connected and separated me in multiple ways from other social actors in this ethnographic work. As a community psychologist I have been trained to develop the kinds of relationships and authority that will legitimize my presence in different settings and facilitate collaborations with multiple stakeholders with an eye for opportunities to advance social justice. But this was at times at odds with the realities of my social locations vis-à-vis other actors. This implied walking a very fine line; a moving line, jagged and slippery, at times painfully artificial, that forced me to stay still when all I wanted was to cross and stay on one side. One of the first and ongoing challenges I faced doing this work was getting a grasp of who I was working with/for. In line with previous work (see Good et al., 1997), here the “clients” were the kids, the Latino American immigrant students in Korbel public schools; the goal to support the development of settings that would nurture the children’s potential; the interventions hopefully self-sustainable. At first I worked to develop collaborative relationships with people in organizations committed to improving the schooling conditions for Latino American students. Working at the organizational level held the potential for fostering system-wide changes. However, in the process I realized that focusing on the organizational level reproduced the dominant power relationships that disempowered the children’s parents. Ultimately, even the most liberal and well-intentioned professionals believed they knew what was best for Latino American children and their families leaving little room for “authentic democratic participation”37 (Anderson, 1998). On the other hand, working with the parents held the potential for being the ultimate self-sustainable intervention; it was they who (generally speaking) would stay for the long-haul, nurturing, defending, and caring for the children and their schools. However, because the group I wanted to ally with formed an emerging community with no roots in Korbel, there was no clear way of “entering the community”

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and so the question of who to work with was a very concrete one. Moreover, working with only one group of stakeholders (i.e., Latino school staff or Latin American parents) exacerbated an already toxic school climate that affected the students I wanted to support to begin with. Parents’ activism challenged school staff authority, many staff members resented the parents for that, and the kids were breathing the resentment in the air. I was staring squarely at a paradox of social life. Rappaport (1981) argues that community life is paradoxical. Social problems are dialectical, pulling us in opposing directions at the same time. Paradoxical, dialectical problems require divergent thinking. We cannot afford to believe that walking in only one direction, attending solely to one of the opposing sides, will provide a satisfactory solution. In fact, what seems a good solution today will become a problem tomorrow precisely because, as they are institutionalized, solutions become one-sided. And so, as we worked towards opening spaces for democratic parent participation in school matters, devising strategies for diversifying and amplifying marginalized voices, the authenticity of that participation became increasingly suspect. Anderson (1998) challenges us to work towards what he calls “authentic participation,” taking a close look at the micropolitics of participation without losing sight of the “broader politics of exclusion” (p. 575). He contends that opening spaces for the participation of the historically marginalized under conditions devoid of the means to implement decisions could only reproduce social inequities. Asking questions such as who gets to participate, in what specific areas, under what conditions, and toward what end, bring authentic participation into clear view. In our work in Korbel, while it became evident that, for the most part, the district was opening symbolic and inauthentic spaces for participation,38 we were still betting for what Scott (1990, cited in Anderson, 1998) would describe as turning liberal (or even progressive) discourses about “community participation” as leverage for claiming what was just. Yet again, even working solely to protect and enhance people’s rights could be problematic. As Graciela pointed out repeatedly, what good is a right without the resources to realize it? Another unrelenting challenge was the struggle to define (for others and myself) my role in the local school processes. While acting as a translator, facilitator, consultant, driver, sounding board, was at times problematic, the roles that were most difficult to negotiate were those of ally, collaborator and friend. Certainly, I did not develop the same level or quality of relationship with everyone I encountered. But


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my own sense of urgency and recognition of the need to build meaningful empathic relationships to avoid Manichean views of the other moved me to engage with other social actors at a closer range than what a “consultant” would typically entertain. Maintaining a critical distance from which I could at the same time walk along, gaze, act and critique what was happening was incredibly challenging. Supporting the parents and their allies’ efforts unconditionally implied losing a critical distance from where to challenge, among other things, remnants of a colonial mentality in all of us. I had already seen how problematic at times that became within the local African American community. At the same time it was hard to conceive of a different way of finding and fueling a collective sense of urgency that was not at close range, being really there. And so I left the field wondering how to stay with the paradox and resist the impulse of becoming one-sided. If I have learned anything from being raised in a colony it is that, no matter what political changes take place (and how post-colonial we think we are), one cannot assume liberation. The chains of colonization and slavery are powerful and enduring; they transcend the past to be part of who we are day to day. The task of challenging oppression requires tireless, reflexive, uncompromising work, even if it shakes the relationships one cares about the most. That is a difficult, emotionally exhausting but fundamental task. But as Ramón Emeterio Betances said, querer ser libres es empezar a serlo (“Wanting to be free is/requires starting to be free”) (Suárez Díaz, 1988). Finally, I must say a few words about the role of the university in the dynamics played out in Korbel. The university, the idea of the university, kindled parents’ hopes for their children’s future. They came to the United States, and Korbel specifically, believing in what the university represents, and they worked hard to make sure their children had the opportunity to graduate from college. The university held promises of social mobility, respect, dignity, knowledge and a secured future. It also provided immediate opportunities for their children, material and intellectual resources, and access to relationships with people with valued social, cultural and political capital. After all, their close allies, those who were giving them information they could use in their struggle, were in one way or another connected to the university. At the same time the university was producing the kind of knowledge, expertise and labor force that supported the dominant discourse and relationships in schools.39 The experts called upon to “explain” the educational programs for Spanish speakers to school staff

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and parents and provide bilingual and multicultural training to teachers, came from the university. But the knowledge that challenged the dominant discourse rarely left the university. At another level, although there is a growing recognition of the vital role marginalized parents and their communities play in the successful revitalization of their public schools, traditional academia has failed to address the key questions concerning community-school relations (Schutz, 2006). In his recent review of the research literature on school-community (and community-school) relations, Schutz laments the poor job education scholars have done in the area, leaving the task to foundations, non-profits and think tanks. I do not lament that there are others engaging the issue outside traditional academic circles. Rather, I fear that by not joining those efforts we continue to reinforce the status quo from the academia. Manuel confronted me with these paradoxes. As I write these lines, I continue to struggle to figure out how I will avoid perpetrating this state of affairs.40 Nosotros aquí en Korbel tenemos la universidad. Y la universidad es una caja… que todo el mundo jala y saca y mete. Entonces, yo lo que quisiera sacar de este tipo de investigaciones que se hace es que la información llegue a todo mundo. Que llegue a los que entrevistaste y a muchos otros más. Porque lo importante para cualquier persona es la información. Estar informados. Saber cómo hacer las cosas. Saber cómo llegar a las metas… Que informaran a la gente de lo que está pasando y de lo que puede pasar en el distrito… porque hablar de universidad es hablar de algo grande. Y sobre todo que se maneja mucha política, mucho dinero, y de ahí desde organizar a la gente preparada para guiar a la sociedad… por eso es que estoy

Here, in Korbel, we have the university. And the university is a box from which everyone pulls at, takes out and puts in something. Then what I would like to get out of this kind of research that’s being done is that the information reaches everyone. That it reaches those you interviewed and many more. Because the important thing for anyone is to have information, be informed, know how to do things, know how to reach one’s goals. I want the university to inform people about what is happening and what could happen at the school district. Because to speak about the university is to speak of something big especially because they deal with a lot of politics and a lot of money. And so from there, from organizing educated

Paradoxes of Social Life participando en esto. Porque no quiero que eso se quede aquí y ya lo tiene la universidad para un dato. Quiero que lo tenga la universidad pero para que oriente a nuestra gente también, no no’ más a los que hablan inglés y están allá arriba.

165 folks to guide society. That’s why I’m participating in this because I don’t want it to stay here just for the university to have some data. I want the university to have it but also to guide our people, not just those who speak English and are up there.

And so, if we are to pursue the paradox in social life and work towards balancing the stakes, towards creating increasing opportunities for collective empowerment, we need to maintain our commitment to working on the ground, nurturing our sense of urgency. As Rappaport and Stewart (1997) challenged us ten years ago, it is precisely participating and documenting what unfolds when marginalized people (collectively!) attempt to gain a measure of control over what happens in a particular setting that can keep us community psychologists committed to social justice close to social movements that matter to us. Documenting the “end result” (e.g., empowering settings) is important. Working with professionals in organizations that could become empowering settings is necessary. However, if as social scientists we are serious about collectively contesting oppression, if we are determined to work from the ground-up with those with devalued capital and social power to strengthen social movements, we need to be more at the heart of the action, closer to the ground, to reflect and make explicit the workings of oppression in everyday life. We need to be in those spaces where the struggle for empowerment is about to happen or already happening, even work with others to create it, become just a bit onesided, less like consultants and more like organizers, to balance the stakes. This kind of praxis would move us towards the center of social action, not to become leaders but to walk along with (and be one of) those making it happen; not to control the process but to find ways for facilitating and fostering authentic, transformative social change; witnessing, documenting, telling, acting… imagining how things could be while working towards the utopia.


Endnotes

1.

In the United States, U.S. citizens of Latin American descent and immigrants from Latin America are commonly referred to as “Hispanic” or “Latino.” I align with those who argue that the terms “Latino/Latina” better reflect the gender, racial and ethnic diversity of people of Latin American descent. But for ease of narration, “Latino” will be used here as a “gender neutral” term to refer to both U.S.-born and immigrants simultaneously. This study focuses on one group of “Latinos,” Mexican immigrants. Gender and ethnic specific terms will be used when appropriate and possible.

2.

Many of the Mexican immigrants I worked with had an undocumented immigration status. This is not however, a static characteristic of individuals or families. Any given family had members with different immigration status and some were U.S. citizens. Moreover, the immigration status of some changed during the course of this study. I chose to characterize families as undocumented when at least one of the parents fell into that category because of the social and economic constraints that not having a legal immigration status imposes on individuals and families (e.g., job insecurity, sense of vulnerability, social stigma).

3.

Borrowing from recent anthropological discussions on culture as “emergent,” Dr. Alejandro Lugo and I began to play with the concept of an “emergent community” as a way of understanding both the recency of the Latino American “community” in Korbel and how the idea of “community” itself, in any given context, is not static but a work in progress.

4.

“School community” here refers to all the social actors that participate directly or indirectly in the life of a school and those who are affected in one way or another by what happens in the 167

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Endnotes school: children and their families, school staff, administrators, neighbors and others interested citizens.

5.

More than ten years ago Fine (1993) made similar observations about attempts to increase parent involvement in urban schools. She noted how then, in an effort to attend to the needs of marginalized families, parental empowerment initiatives turned to crisis intervention leaving “power issues, among and between families, schools and districts” buried and reproducing discourses that “depoliticize the needs of” marginalized families (p. 690).

6.

A notable exception in this trend is work aimed at informing schools about the rights of undocumented immigrant families. In digests and fact sheets, some authors take a parent advocate role and call for structural and cultural changes in schools that would respect and enhance immigrant and undocumented students’ rights to equitable education (e.g., Hunter & Howley, 1990; Morse & Ludovina, 1999).

7.

Selecting a label to identify Mexican-descent Latinos is not a straightforward matter. For example, people may identify as Mexican, Mexican-American, Chicano, Cholo, Hispano, and/or Latino (e.g., Gutiérrez, 2004; Matute-Bianchi, 1991). Choices of identity labels reflect the complex ways in which people see themselves and are seen by others in a particular sociopolitical context. Because this research will focus on the experiences of Mexican immigrants, I will describe people of Mexican descent by highlighting their place of birth. This choice should not be interpreted as a statement on identity politics.

8.

The emphasis on legal immigration status here is not gratuitous. In the U.S. a cultural climate prevails that fosters the exaltation of “hard-working” Mexican immigrants while they are dehumanized as “illegal aliens” and hunted down, thus, sanctioning their exploitation. For detailed discussions on the subject see, for example, Chavez (1998), Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco (1995), M. M. Suárez-Orozco (1998) and Trueba and McLaren (2000).

9.

Norms for psychological writing dictate the use of the term “participant(s)” to describe subjects of research. Typically, “participants” are involved in studies designed and controlled by researchers. In ethnographic participant-observation however, the researcher is herself a participant in others’ lives who observes

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them and herself in interaction. Thus, the terms “social actor” and “actors” are used here to reflect that level of engagement where people (the researcher included) reflect and act on their and others’ lives. 10. Here I am playing with a musical work metaphor. The idea of describing ethnographic work that moves through different settings and levels of engagement as “several self-contained sections that make up a large-scale musical work, often differentiated from one another by different tempos and characters” (Encarta World English Dictionary, 2003) strikes me as quite appealing. 11. There are discrepancies between different U.S. Census documents on the number of Mexicans in Korbel. General population information comes from data in Summary File 1, which reports information collected using the census short form. This form asks respondents who identify as “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” to specify their ethnic group membership as “Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano,” “Puerto Rican,” “Cuban” or “other Spanish/Hispanic/ Latino.” There are no questions about place of birth on this form. Data on the foreign-born is based on Summary File 3, which describes information collected from a sub-sample of Korbel’s population surveyed using the Census long-form (see U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). When one looks at the data on the foreign-born population of Korbel, the number of Mexicans decreases considerably. 12. Illinois public school Report Cards began to be issued in 1986. 13. In everyday conversations with staff and parents, the terms “bilingual education” and “bilingual program” were used quite loosely. Rather than referring to a pedagogical or instructional approach, in most instances people used the terms to refer to instructional services for LEP students whether what actually happened in the classroom was English instruction (as in ESL), Spanish literacy, or instruction using both languages. 14. I became involved in this task force at the invitation of a teacher at Dubois. It was through my engagement with this group that I got a more in-depth understanding of the struggles that the school and district staff faced, and where the district was in terms of equity issues. It also provided a context for developing a close collaboration with district staff to address mutual issues of concern.

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Endnotes

15. Statewide test in English of academic achievement. 16. In the local schools’ jargon, the “regular classroom” was the classroom where most instruction took place; the classroom that all students attended. The “regular classroom” teacher was typically a White U.S. American woman who did not speak Spanish. If a “regular classroom” existed it was because there were other classrooms that were somehow irregular. The “irregularity” could be, for instance, the teaching of art or ESL classes. However, not all “irregular classrooms” were created equal. Some were classrooms where all students would go (e.g., art), which communicates that there was something worth learning for all students. The ESL classroom (which could also be called the “bilingual” or the “Spanish-literacy” classroom) was the one where only some students, those who were not like all others because they lacked something, went. A third kind of “irregular classroom” was the “Foreign Language” classroom; a space that was available only to children who did not need ESL/bilingual education. 17. “Two-way bilingual programs,” also called “dual-immersion programs,” are those where, for example, native Spanish and English speakers are in the same classroom receiving instruction in both languages. “Late exit bilingual programs” are those designed to offer instruction in both languages throughout, ideally, K-12th grade. 18. In Korbel, when actors used the term “Latino” or “Hispanic” in the context of schooling, they typically referred to Spanish-speaking working-poor immigrants. 19. The language I used to write my field notes did not always correspond to the language in which conversations took place. For example, Lucero and I always spoke in Spanish but some of my notes about these conversations were written almost entirely in English. In some instances I moved from English to Spanish without even noticing it. This is perhaps a reflection of my own bilingualism and the rather unconscious association I make between writing and the English language. After all, I have spent most of my postsecondary academic career in the United States. 20. The story about the advocacy group spearheaded by Mexican parents is presented in Chapter 7. 21. Throughout the time I was involved in the efforts to improve the educational outcomes of Latin American children, we were unable

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to get official disaggregated data on the academic progress of Latin American students. Among the problems with the available data were limitations and inconsistencies with their sampling procedures, discrepancies between the language in which content knowledge was tested and the language in which children were taught the content, and lack of information on their progress in Spanish. 22. Here “lived experiences” refers to personal engagement in a particular context (or walking in one’s own shoes) and the learning that takes place in that process. This is in contrast to learning vicariously be it through observation, conversation, reading and so on. 23. From a poststructuralist perspective one can also say that what people know reflects the social discourses available to them (Weedon, 1987). This is particularly important in thinking about how the creation of alternative discourses of what schools are about, what Latino American students need, and what their parents can do, contribute to the contestation of dominant/oppressive social hierarchies in schools. To the extent that alternative stories that challenge received discourses could open possibilities for different “knowledge” and social relations we ought to work towards crafting such stories. 24. Not surprisingly, the epistemological stance described here resembles Hill Collins’ (2000) description of Black feminist epistemology in important ways. As she argues, “the actual contours of intersecting oppressions can vary dramatically and yet generate some uniformity in the epistemologies used by subordinate groups” (p. 269). 25. Racialization is “the extension of racial meaning to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group” (Winant, 1994, p. 59). Urciuoli (1996) argues that racializing discourses talk about social groups that are different from Whites in language, habits and values. 26. Although in Spanish as in English americano purportedly does not explicitly denote race or phenotype, Mexican parents used the term to distinguish themselves and their children from White U.S. Americans. When they talked about African Americans they specifically said morenos or morenitos. As they learn the dominant politically correct discourse some also began to use the term

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Endnotes afroamericanos. On the other hand, in other instances, americano was also used to distinguish English-monolinguals, irrespective of ethnic or racial categorization, from Spanish-monolinguals.

27. This dynamic is not unique to the context of schools. For example, Hill Collins (2000) described similar processes shaping what counts as valid knowledge in the academia. 28. Sarason (1996) noted that when he asked school staff members the question of who owns schools or who should participate in decision-making processes about what goes on in them the answers ranged “from ‘professionals only’ to ‘everyone who will be affected by decisions’” (p. 89). He showed that one of the assumptions behind professionalism is precisely that professionals know what is best and should not be told what or how to do their job. Moreover, it would be “unprofessional to allow others who do not possess your knowledge and skills to determine your actions” (p. 91). These assumptions are enacted, supported and contested in everyday practices. 29. This committee became an important event in the process of parent organizing and will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 7. 30. I am using the term “monolingual” in a rather narrow sense to distinguish between those who do not speak English or Spanish from those who speak both languages. This convenient oversimplification should not be interpreted as implying that, for example, “English monolinguals” do not understand a word of Spanish or do not speak another language in addition to English. The same assumption should be avoided about people described here as “Spanish monolinguals.” 31. Actually, Spanish-speaking parents who wanted their children enrolled in bilingual programs did not have school choice. Only one school per level (i.e., elementary, middle and high school) offered bilingual services. 32. I too found myself in the situation of having to prove I was a reliable translator and having to negotiate the translation process in heated and politically sensitive situations. Parents would often ask me to translate for them at school, hospitals, the courts, and educational programs. School administrators and PTA officials would ask me to translate at their meetings. I tried to negotiate the translation process with those asking for translation: “Do you want me to translate simultaneously?” “Let me know when you want me

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to translate?” “Please make sure to pause often so that I can translate what you are saying.” At times conveying emotions was uncomfortable especially when parents were upset with school personnel. I tried to be aware of my own reactions to avoid letting my feelings determine the translation process. When possible, I openly recruited other bilinguals in the room to check my translations and chime in when they deemed necessary. I believe doing all of this contributed to gaining the trust of different stakeholders and relieved staff from the pressures of translating. Although eventually it became obvious that my primary commitment was to the parents, it seemed like I succeeded in conveying that I was more interested in facilitating a process than in controlling it. After all, because of my temporary and “independent” status in Korbel, I had less at stake than other stakeholders did. 33. For the most part potential allies came from a pool of transitory Korbel residents. The students involved with the local Latino American community were undergraduate and graduate university students who were not planning on staying for the long-haul (including myself). The professionals were women and men employed by the school district and the university, some of whom also had plans to move in the near future. 34. All but one of the allies were temporary residents of Korbel or had jobs directly related to the school district. Thus, although useful, our collaboration was bound to be short-lived. More importantly, FLEDEC parents were clear they needed to maintain control of the group process and agenda. They decided which were the issues they wanted advice on, who and when would be approached to collaborate with them and recruited bilingual/bicultural allies accordingly. They listened to advice and determined amongst themselves their course of action. 35. Here the term “colonial mentality“ refers to the psychological consequences of oppression for both dominant and oppressed groups. I am trying to connect Memmi's (1983) psychological profile of the colonizer and the colonized with the attitudes and discourse of both school officials and parents themselves. Memmi argues that the colonial condition is such that the colonizer has to justify for him/herself the unfairness of the colonial situation and his/her privileged position in it. This justification takes the form of downward comparisons between the colonizer and the colonized

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Endnotes where the colonizers always comes out on top. This in turn legitimizes the colonizers’ relationship to the colonized as the latter needs to be civilized and the first has what is needed to do so. The colonizer then expects nothing less but appreciation and gratitude from the colonized. Memmi states that even the most “open-minded” of colonizers (“the paternalists”) would become enraged when the colonized demand their rights. On the other hand, the oppressiveness of the colonial relationship cannot be fully legitimized without the adherence of the colonized. He/she has to accept the colonizer’s portrait of him/her even when resisting it, and often adopts the attitudes of the colonizer vis-à-vis their fellow colonized. Memmi’s analysis is particularly germane here because the battles for educational equity are marked by race, racism, and the racialization of marginalized groups, a set of dynamics that go back to historical colonial times.

36. Although Mexican parents were also building cultural capital in the sense of becoming “bicultural” in their culture and the culture of power in schools, they were still not in a position to establish their cultural codes as the standard for evaluation in what would make a tangible difference in their children’s academic outcomes. For instance, while parents learned they were expected to be visibly present to be taken seriously and school staff became increasingly aware of Mexican festivities beyond the “Cinco de Mayo” celebration (which is actually not Mexico’s Independence Day), Mexican parents had little influence over the Spanish being taught in classrooms. Whether the Spanish taught was from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina or Puerto Rico made tangible grammatical differences. 37. Similar dynamics are played out in other contexts where academics engage matters of power in attempts to build transformative collaborations (see for instance Sonn, 2004 and Smith, 1999). 38. Following Anderson’s (1998) argument, the participation promoted by school and district officials in Korbel was inauthentic to the extent that it reflected public relations strategies in “response to a crisis of legitimation” and resulted in increased control by those traditionally in power (i.e., district and school staff), thus supporting the status quo. 39. Perhaps I should clarify that I believe not all the knowledge being produced at the local or other universities necessarily supports the status quo. But it is the research that supports current unjust

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conditions the one that is typically valued and claimed by those in power to justify and legitimize their authority. And there were only a few academics at the local university working on the ground to challenge that practice. 40. In these times of neoliberal globalization and savage capitalism, critical academics of color are, for the most part, working in isolation, struggling to find intellectual and institutional support (including the increasingly sought after “external funding” for research) to speak from the academia (see Weis & Fine, 2004). Institutionalized racism and colonizing practices make it very difficult to find settings where a critical mass of researchers are engaging issues of oppression in theory and practice, collectively and collaboratively. Fortunately, there are other ways of building intellectual and political communities of mutual support and legitimacy, including working alongside activists and building virtual networks among critical social scientists. In this sense, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Claudio Moreira and Christopher Sonn, my colleagues across continents of difference, for their poignant work and generous commitment to opening spaces for accompanying each other on this road.


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Index

democratic participation. See authentic democratic participation dominant discourse, 3, 37, 66, 149, 158, 163 Dubois Elementary School, 39–42

African American community, 37, 40, 43, 93, 141, 163 Alinsky, Saul D., 11 Anderson, Gary L., 162 authentic democratic participation, 158–62 Bilingual Parents Advisory Committee, 76, 98, 135–39 bilingual program, 41, 43, 49, 77, 83, 97, 125, 134, 136, 146, 169 Bourdieu, Pierre, 7–9

emergent community, 2, 167 English as a Second Language (ESL), 36, 42, 44, 47, 138 ESL Task Force, 47, 49, 77, 135, 159 Familias Latinas por una Educación Digna y de Excelente Calidad (FLEDEC), 139, 141, 148, 150, 155, 160 Fine, Michelle, 5, 6, 12, 123, 168, 175

Carspecken, Phil K., 29 colonial mentality, 153, 163, 173, 174 community consultation, 2, 26 community organizing, 11, 19 community psychologist(s), 23, 161, 165 community psychology, 9, 24, 27 critical ethnography, 24, 30, 157 cultural capital, 8–14, 19

knowledge claims, 80, 94, 160 Korbel, Illinois demographics, 33 Korbel School District, 37, 38 195

196 Lareau, Anette, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 Latino community, 14–17, 20, 34–36, 106, 114 Latino emigration, 56–65 Limited-English Proficiency (LEP), 39, 44, 48, 136, 169 Memmi, Albert, 160, 173 Mexican immigrants. See Latino community Mexican parent involvement, 17–21, See also parent involvement parent involvement, 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 21, 132, 149, 157, 159, 162 parent participation. See parent involvement

Index political capital, 11, 17, 19, 34, 124, 129, 134, 141, 149, 160, 163 psychologists, community. See community psychologists Rappaport, Julian, ix, 23, 26, 162, 165 Sarason, Seymour B., 19, 172 school community, 2, 45, 167 sense of community, 11, 14, 19, 131, 149 social capital, 7–10, 20, 34, 35, 124, 129, 134, 141, 160 social contestation, 2, 11, 31, 160, 171 social power, 9–13, 165 social reproduction, 2, 7, 11, 31, 160

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