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Reyes, Daisy Verduzco. Learning to Be Latino : How Colleges Shape Identity Politics, Rutgers University Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sjsu/detail.action?docID=5511010. Created from sjsu on 2021-06-02 14:31:41.

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Learning to Be Latino

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Critical Issues in American Education

Lisa Michele Nunn, Series Editor

Taking advantage of sociology’s position as a leader in the social scientific study of education, this series is home to new empirical and applied bodies of work that combine social analy sis, cultural critique, and historical perspectives across disciplinary lines and the usual methodological bound aries. Books in the series aim for topical and theoretical breadth. Anchored in so cio log i cal analy sis, Critical Issues in American Education features carefully crafted empirical work that takes up the most pressing educational issues of our time, including federal education policy, gender and racial disparities in student achievement, access to higher education, labor market outcomes, teacher quality, and decision making within institutions.

Judson G. Everitt, Lesson Plans: The Institutional Demands of Becoming a Teacher

Daisy Verduzco Reyes, Learning to be Latino: How Colleges Shape Identity Politics

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Learning to Be Latino

How Colleges Shape Identity Politics

VVVVVVVVVVV

D A I S Y V E R D U Z C O R E Y E S

RU TGER S UNI V ER SI T Y PR E SS

NE W BRUNS W ICK , C A MDEN, A ND NE WA R K , NE W JER SE Y, A ND LONDON

VVVVVVVVVVV

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Reyes, Daisy Verduzco, 1983– author.

Title: Learning to be Latino : how colleges shape identity politics / Daisy

Verduzco Reyes.

Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, 2018. | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017059103| ISBN 9780813596471 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN

9780813596464 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813596488 (epub) | ISBN

9780813596501 (Web PDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Hispanic Americans— Education (Higher)— Social aspects. |

Hispanic American college students— Social conditions. | Hispanic

Americans— Ethnic identity. | Group identity— United States.

Classification: LCC LC2670.6 .R49 2018 | DDC 371.829/68073— dc23

LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2017059103

A British Cataloging in Publication rec ord for this book is available from

the British Library.

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press,

106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition

is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of

the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence

of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39 . 48 1992.

www . rutgersuniversitypress . org

Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca

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Para mi mami y papi, Isabel y Jesus, por sus esfuerzos y amor and Nancy for opening doors

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Preface ix

1 Higher Education and Latino Students 1

PART ONE

University Institutional Contexts

2 The Communal Bubble at Liberal Arts College 15

3 Conflict at Research University 35

4 Coexisting at Regional Public University 61

PART TWO

Student Interactions and Meaning- Making

5 Who We Are: (Pan)ethnic Identity and Boundary Formation 81

6 What We Do: Defining and Performing Latino Politics 113

7 Where We Are Going: Ideas about Racial In equality and Mobility 137

8 How Higher Education Teaches Disparate Lessons to Latinos 157

Methodological Appendix: Studying Student Organ izations in Multiple Institutions 169 Acknowl edgments 177 Notes 181 References 185 Index 189

C ON T E N T S

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i x

P R E FAC E

There are many ways to be Latino1 on a college campus. I began to learn about these varied identities in ninth grade when my cousin Nancy took her sister,

Jessica, and me (both high school students at the time) to an event called Raza

College Day at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Nancy was the

first person in my immediate and extended family to attend college and soon

became an active member of El Congreso, a po liti cal Chicano student organ

ization that hosted a daylong event for Latino high school students on the UCSB

campus. At this event, I was first exposed to the Chicano movement, the concept

of “la raza,”2 and the idea that college access for Latinos was part of the legacy of

a po liti cal strug gle. Feeling empowered by the events that tran spired on that

day, I knew not only that I wanted to go to college, but that I would seek out a

Latino community on campus when I did.

Four years later, as an undergraduate at UCSB and like so many Latino stu

dents across the country, I searched for a sense of community through a Latino

student organ ization. I attended a few El Congreso meetings, where members and

leaders recalled and credited the student activism of the 1960s and 1970s for their

access to resources and positions on campus. Over and over these Latino student

leaders reminded us, “We are here because of those who came before us.” recall

ing the past efforts and strug gles of Chicano students. They emphasized the con

tinued need to or ga nize in order to keep the doors of higher education open for

future Chicano and Latino students, specifically through advocacy, mentoring,

and recruitment of high school youth.

I was inspired by the idea of helping a new generation of Latino students. I

agreed with El Congreso’s po liti cal commitments, but was discouraged by the

combative nature of some members. The few meetings I attended were domi

nated by discussions about the inequalities facing Latinos and the importance

of being socially conscious. I viewed the way some members broached these top

ics as contentious and conflictual. And more importantly, I saw some of these

discussions as moments when one’s “consciousness” and loyalty to Latino com

munities were questioned. My impression was that some of these students wanted

to judge who held the “correct” po liti cal views and who was the most “authenti

cally” Chicano/Latino. Po liti cally I agreed with El Congreso, but I disagreed with

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x P R E F A C E

the confrontational tactics of some members as they tried to get students in

line with one po liti cal perspective.

Once I knew El Congreso was not the organ ization for me, I turned to other

Latino organ izations and was overwhelmed by the number of choices available

for creating a Latino niche for myself on campus. At the time, Latinos accounted

for almost 20 percent of the total student population at UCSB, and there were

over twelve Latino student organ izations. I tried Latino student organ izations

that were primarily social and found I was not interested in belonging to a non

po liti cal club. Eventually, I joined, Mujeres unidas por justicia, educación, y revo

lución (M.U.J.E.R.), a Chicana po liti cal women’s organ ization, which also served

as a support group.

Although I had not joined El Congreso, I was still sympathetic to its con

cerns, so I remained attentive to its activities on campus. In Chicano Studies

courses, I observed Congresistas debate and argue with Latino peers who were

members of Latino fraternities, sororities, and other social organ izations. These

arguments emerged repeatedly in such courses, where Latino students from dif

fer ent organ izations came together. Certain Congreso members accused those of

other organ izations of focusing on their self advancement and social activities

rather than “giving back” to Latino communities, while members of other Latino

groups accused El Congreso of being Mexican centric, judgmental, and too

radical.

Contestation occurred outside the classroom, too, particularly when it came

to the graduation ceremony. At the height of the activism, El Congreso began

organ izing graduation for its members, and it continued to so thereafter, even as

the Latino student population grew on campus and members of El Congreso were

no longer the only participants. Today, the bilingual event is open to all gradu

ating Latino students, who can invite their entire families, listen to mariachi,

watch Aztec dancers, and individually express thanks in a short speech. The

gathering is an intimate and culturally salient alternative to the university

wide commencement ser vice. By 2005, however, the planning for this event had

become a continuous battleground.

When I joined the Chicano Latino graduation planning committee in 2004,

a group of fraternity and sorority members sought to gain leadership positions

and, hence, greater decision making power. But even though several were

elected, they were unable to take control of the graduation leadership commit

tee because of a by law stipulating that one co president of the Chicano Latino

Graduation Committee had to be a member of El Congreso. With both Congreso

members and nonmembers on the committee, a battle ensued over which Latino

identities, politics, and symbols would be represented in the ceremony. El Con

greso was intent on keeping traditions such as Aztec dancers because they noted

that indigenous pride is central to Chicano identity. However, other leaders saw

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P R E F A C E x i

the dancing as “Mexican centric” and urged the committee to consider the

increasing diversity among Latino gradu ates. They wanted a mix of musical genres

to be represented, not only those popu lar in Mexico, and so they sought to add

cumbia and merengue. They even suggested that the U.S. National Anthem be sung

because it was the most common thread shared by all members— they were, after

all, Latino Americans. The Congresista leadership refused the national anthem

on the grounds that representing American patriotism on the day of their grad

uation would violate its values.

Observing these prolonged meetings and intense conflicts, I was struck by

the schisms among my peers, divided as they were among dif fer ent Latino stu

dent organ izations. I was particularly struck by how some Latinos drew upon

the history of the Chicano movement as they carved out and claimed their niche

on campus, while others had little regard for the movement’s history. At times

this disregard was by non Mexican heritage students who felt disconnected

based on heritage but it also occurred among Mexican origin students who did

not feel connected to the civil rights era activism in the United States.

I was interested in understanding how my peers understood “their/our” his

tory as a people on campus and how that shaped their actions on campus. The

experiences I had as a Latina undergraduate at UCSB informed the research

questions posed and the identity formation pro cesses examined in this book. My

interest broadened when I enrolled as a gradu ate student in a new institution,

where Latino students constituted a smaller percentage of the student body. I

was curious: What were Latino student politics like on other campuses? Given that

campuses differ in terms of size, prestige, diversity, and much more, how and to

what extent do these differences influence Latino students’ experiences?

Today, there are more ethnically based associations and increasingly

varied definitions of what it means to be Latino on college campuses. Some

Mexican origin and other Latino students continue to join po liti cal campus

associations, while others become members of Latino preprofessional organ

izations, fraternities, sororities, and social clubs. These serve diverse purposes,

including fostering social networks, creating support systems and mentorship

programs, and sometimes organ izing students to advocate for policy change on

and off campus.

Because most colleges moved to meet the social and po liti cal changes

wrought by the civil rights movements by incorporating more Latino students,

staff, and faculty, the context of politicizing ethnic identities has been altered. But

each campus incorporates Latino students differently by adopting and imple

menting multicultural and diversity proj ects in its own way, which, in turn,

shapes the way Latino students come together, or ga nize, and understand their

collectivities, as well as affecting how Latino student organ izations interact with

one another and whether they conflict or collaborate. This book is about how

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x i i P R E F A C E

Latino students interact within organ izations on dif fer ent college campuses and

how these interactions shape the way these students understand their identi

ties, their place in the United States, and how to advocate for change. The pages

that follow examine how colleges create distinct contexts that serve as critical

sites and incubators, where Latino communities are constructed and individual

students develop understandings about those communities.

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Learning to Be Latino

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VVVVVVVVVVV

Higher Education and Latino Students

We know that college cultures shape students’ experiences. This book is about how the specific orga nizational environments of three distinct undergraduate

institutions shape the cultures of these schools, as well as the interactions that

Latino students have on campus with each other, their non Latino peers, faculty,

staff, and administrators. These interactions influence much more than the

students’ academic journeys. Some consequences of institutional differences are

distinct outcomes on several mea sures, including students’ identities, their

sense of who they are, their collective action be hav iors, and their ideas about

in equality and opportunity in Amer i ca. In this book, I show how the par tic u lar

undergraduate institution Latino students attend shapes their lives in impor tant

ways— and how they end up learning to be Latino on campus and beyond.

Latinos in Higher Education

In 2013, Latinos accounted for 17.1 percent of the U.S. population (54 million),

and this number has been growing since. Latino students also constitute an

increasing racial ethnic demographic on college campuses. In 2012, 70 percent

of all Latino students enrolled in college directly after high school, exceeding the

rates of enrollment for both white and black students.1 What is more, during the

2012–2013 academic year, the number of Latinos enrolled in college amounted

to 16 percent of all undergraduates nationwide and 35 percent of all undergrad

uates enrolled in California. Latinos are projected to have the largest growth in

undergraduate education enrollment between 2011 and 2022, when their numbers

are expected to increase by 27 percent (Excelencia 2015).

Thanks to these dramatic demographic shifts and projections, much has

been written about the state of Latinos in higher education, garnering the

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2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

attention of academics and policymakers alike. Much of this research focuses

on the underachievement of Latinos, given that their attainment rates still lag

behind all other ethnic racial groups. Although the high school dropout rate

for Latinos is the lowest it has ever been (13 percent), it is still the highest among

all other racial groups. Twenty two percent of Latinos hold an associate’s degree,

making it the most commonly earned degree among this population. In contrast

to other groups, only 14 percent of all Latinos have a bachelor’s degree, compared

to 33 percent of whites, 19 percent of blacks, and 51 percent of Asian Americans

(Pew Research Center 2014).

It makes sense to look at what happens to Latinos when they get to college,

particularly how connected they feel to their peers and their overall campus

communities. Sylvia Hurtado, Adriana Ruiz Alvarado, and Chelsea Guillermo

Wann (2015, 74) call this a sense of belonging and further define it as “a feeling of

attachment and place within the overall campus community.” Sense of belong

ing is a subjective feeling, which can result from validation in a par tic u lar set

ting. Historically underrepresented students’ sense of belonging is influenced

by campus racial climate, which in turn is a part of the institution’s overall

normative arrangements, or “the features of campus life shaped by structural

constraints, demographics, and policies” (Stuber 2016; see also Ray and Rosow

2010), and including such factors as size, school type, curricular offerings, and

programming, to name just a few (Harper and Hurtado 2007). Taken together,

these arrangements and factors create specific racial climates that shape the

interactions students have with one another, administrators, staff, and fac

ulty. For ethnic racial minorities, these climates can influence their sense of

belonging on campus and, ultimately, their completion rates. Beyond this, cam

pus racial climates can also influence nonacademic outcomes; their impact can

be seen in how underrepresented students think about where they belong, and

how they come to see themselves.

This book focuses on the normative institutional arrangements at four

year undergraduate institutions, where about half of all Latinos in higher

education enroll. I focus on bachelor’s granting institutions because I am inter

ested in how middle class aspirants come to see themselves within the gates

of their campuses, especially as they strive to achieve social mobility through

education. Latinos who have a bachelor’s degree or higher also have a much

higher earning potential than those with lower educational attainment, and

thus are more likely to join the middle class. In 2012, individuals with a four

year degree between the ages of twenty five and thirty two were making a median

income of $45,500 a year, while those with a two year degree made a median

income of $30,000 (Pew Research Center 2014).2 Given their financial poten

tial, the millennial respondents who participated in this study are also more

likely to be civically engaged than their peers who do not hold bachelor’s

degrees (Pew Research Center, 2012). Understanding how college experiences

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H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N D L A T I N O S T U D E N T S 3

shape Latino college students’ sense of self may shed light, in turn, on subse

quent patterns and pro cesses of Latino civic development.

The Study

To understand the relative influence of organ izations and divergent college

campuses, I conducted a comparative ethnography of six Latino student organ

izations at three institutions of higher education in California: a private liberal

arts college (LAC), a public research university (RU), and a regional public uni

versity (RPU).3 The data come from twenty months of fieldwork observations

at organ ization meetings and special events; seventy two in depth interviews

with student members, leaders, and faculty; and eighty surveys of organ ization

members.

The three schools studied vary by type and scholastic ranking and each is

situated and embedded in a broader state (California) and national context.

Located within a forty mile radius of one another, each school occupies a dif fer

ent place in a stratified system of higher education and thus varyies in the

resources it offers and the types of students it serves. Table 1.1 shows the diver

sity across the three campuses in 2008. I consider the ac cep tance rate, size of

TA BLE 1.1

Campus characteristics*

Liberal Arts

College

Research

University

Regional Public

University

Ac cep tance rate Less than 20% 45% 60%

Enrollment 1,500 Over 25,000 Approx. 20,000

Student- faculty ratio

8:1 19:1 20:1

Tuition Over $30,000 About $10,000 Less than $5,000

First- generation college students

12% 25% 62%

Eligible for Pell grants

10% 30% 50%

Latino students 11% 11% 45%

Students living on campus

Close to 100% 40% Less than 10%

* Data obtained from the Office of Institutional Research at each campus.

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4 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

the student body, student teacher ratio, percentage of students eligible for Pell

grants,4 and racial ethnic demographics to capture the structural and cultural

landscape of each campus. These factors are impor tant because, as I argue

throughout the book, they shape how students interact and, ultimately, how

they construct ethnic racial bound aries and identities, po liti cal agendas, and

understandings about racial in equality and opportunity in the United States.

In my search for representative organ izations, I began by collecting institu

tional data about all Latino student organ izations on each of the three campuses

studied. There were several Latino student organ izations on each campus: four

at Liberal Arts College, fourteen at Research University, and fourteen at Regional

Public University. I profiled each organ ization and searched for parity in the

mission and function of the organ izations across college campuses. My sampling

was constrained in several ways. First, I needed to negotiate access to each organ

ization. I initially planned to include Latina sororities in my sample but was

denied access (Greek letter organ izations often maintain strict codes of privacy).

Second, I wanted to conduct observations on a weekly basis at all six organ

izations. Because this necessitated being physically pres ent on three dif fer ent

campuses (sometimes on the same day), I made decisions about orga nizational

se lection based on meeting times. Given these limitations, I selected self

identifying po liti cal, preprofessional, and cultural organ izations. The two organ

izations I selected on each campus were large, active, and stable over a long period

of time (see Figure 1.1 for orga nizational information). Because I expected con

flicts and differences between po liti cal and nonpo liti cal Latino student organ

izations, I chose one explic itly nonpo liti cal and one po liti cal organ ization (which

Regional University (RPU)

Latinos United for Action (LUA)

Hispanics for Economics (HE)*

Public Research University (RU)

Latinos United for Action (LUA)

Latino Fellowship (LF)*

Liberal Arts College (LAC)

Latinos Unidos (LU)

Latino Links (LL)* FIGUR E 1.1. Orga nizational information. * Indicates po liti cal organ ization.

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H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N D L A T I N O S T U D E N T S 5

claimed a po liti cal identity in its mission statement) on each campus. This sam

pling also ensured that I was not capturing dynamics of students only in explic

itly po liti cal organ izations.5

I si mul ta neously conducted fieldwork at all three campuses and all six

organ izations from the fall of 2008 to the spring of 2010. During this time, stu

dents on all three campuses were exposed to the same threats and provoca

tions that Latinos experienced statewide and throughout the country. During

my twenty months of fieldwork, I attended over 150 meetings, in which I sat qui

etly and observed. The detailed fieldnotes I wrote after each meeting generated

rich descriptions of each orga nizational context and allowed me to interpret stu

dent interactions in their natu ral settings (Lofland et al. 2006). I observed how

and when student organ izations invoked Latino collective identities, interests, and

politics. I also took note of how members deliberated during formal meetings,

how members were recruited, the types of events they chose to sponsor, and how

students interacted with one another.

I conducted open ended interviews with ten people from each Latino stu

dent organ ization (both leaders and members). I asked respondents about their

personal experiences in college, their ethnic identifications, their ideas about

politics, and their attachments to their respective organ izations. Additionally, I

interviewed twelve Latino faculty and administrators to get their perspectives

of the campus climate and student organ izing. These interviews were evenly dis

tributed across institutions. With participants’ permission, I audio recorded

interviews.

Colleges recruit dif fer ent types of students who self select into the institu

tions that are “like” them. Thus, for example, wealthier and more academically

accomplished students are most likely to apply to elite schools and to bring exten

sive social and cultural capital to these campuses (Radford 2014). Likewise, it is

pos si ble that the Latino students at the three dif fer ent schools were already

dif fer ent at the outset; to examine this premise, I surveyed the entire active

membership of all six organ izations to acquire a broader picture of who the

members were and to disentangle my understanding of the “typical” student

each university enrolls from the individual biographies of student members of

the organ izations I studied. I asked students for basic demographic information,

as well as about their reasons for joining an organ ization, their perceptions of the

benefits of being a member, their ideas about group sameness, their individual

ethnic identities, and their ideas about politics. I found that Latino respondents

were more demographically similar to each other than their non Latino class

mates (see Table 1.2). Note, for example, the first row of Table 1.2, which shows

the percentage of first generation college going students at each campus. While

this figure for all students varies widely across the three campuses, for first

generation Latino students in my study, it is strikingly similar: 82 percent at Lib

eral Arts College, 82 percent at Research University, and 78 percent at Regional

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6 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Public University. Respondents’ families fell in the same median income bracket

and were alike in terms of immigrant generation. Table 1.2 shows the immigration

generation breakdown of my respondents; the percentages of respondents on

each campus who are third generation Americans and beyond are 17 percent at

Regional Public University, 14 percent at Research University, and 9 percent at

Liberal Arts College. In other words, most students in this study are either first

or second generation Americans and, thus, are similar in being close to the

immigration experience. The students in all six organ izations were predomi

nately Mexican American, but included a few students of Salvadoran, Nicara

guan, Guatemalan, Cuban, and Puerto Rican national origin.

The Argument

Each campus environment distinctly mediated the ways that students interacted

within and across Latino student organ izations. At Liberal Arts College, the

communal feeling of the residential campus produced instances of interor gan

i za tional collaboration between the groups studied. By contrast, at Regional

Public University, the commuter campus, there was no interaction whatsoever

between the organ izations I studied. It was only at Research University that I

found a scenario similar to the interor gan i za tional conflict I had witnessed myself

as an undergraduate, characterized by disagreements between po liti cally ori

ented and nonpo liti cal Latino student organ izations. How does each campus

TA BLE 1.2

Student demographic profile*

Liberal Arts

College

Research

University

Regional Public

University

All students First generation college

students 12% 25% 62%

Study sample First generation college

students 82% 82% 78%

Third generation Americans and beyond

9% 14% 17%

Median family income $26K– $50K $26K– $50K $26K– $50K

* Based on orga nizational member survey.

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H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N D L A T I N O S T U D E N T S 7

cultivate such distinct pro cesses and outcomes? What aspects of each campus

are formative and significant? And how do these dynamics shape students’ lives

in general?

To answer these questions, we must first understand the roots of Latino

student organ izations. It is impor tant to remember that each campus is embed

ded within a broader system of higher education, which takes cues from similarly

situated universities when setting normative policies and procedures. While it

has become normative at institutions of higher education to develop diversity

programming and initiatives, including official procedures for creating and

registering as a student organ ization, how each campus approaches these tasks

can vary in small or drastic ways (Rojas 2007).6 Moreover, normative institutional

arrangements, such as student faculty ratio, student demographics, school size,

and residential patterns, vary a great deal from campus to campus, and they can

have a power ful effect on student interactions. For example, residential arrange

ments influence how much time students spend on campus and how much time

they spend interacting in the community outside the college gates. The amount

of time students spend interacting with others on campus contributes to both

the development of their social ties within the school community writ large and

the nature of the social bound aries between students and the external environ

ment. The strength of social ties to people on and off campus can also influ

ence the relative importance relationships with peers within their respective

organ izations has in students’ lives. Students who spend more time together are

likely to be closer.

In short, campus orga nizational dynamics create distinct contexts in which

students, faculty, and administrators interact and construct meanings and under

standings about how matters are conducted on their par tic u lar campus. College

campuses create complex interactional environments where students are con

tinually engaged in the pro cess of understanding academic and social life. And

each campus’s orga nizational dynamics are specific and lead to disparate under

standings on a number issues.

Imparting Disparate Understandings of Race and Politics

With their overarching goal of achieving diversity, colleges and universities in

dif fer ent parts of the stratified system of universities seek to attract Latino stu

dents. These students are sometimes relatively homogenous demographically

(in terms of socioeconomic status and immigrant generation, for example), but

campuses nonetheless shape their lives and worldviews in distinct ways. In this

book, I show how the par tic u lar institution Latino students attend impart them

with disparate lessons about racial ethnic identity labels, racial in equality and

opportunity, and politics.

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8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Learning about Ethnic- Racial Identities

One latent function of postsecondary schooling is the transmission of lessons

about race relations— where, how, and to what extent dif fer ent racial and ethnic

groups “fit,” not only on campus but also more broadly in a national po liti cal

imaginary. For example, sociologist Gilda Ochoa (2013) finds that high schools

racialize Asian American and Latino students differently in ways that set them

up for distinct academic trajectories. These racialization pro cesses in schooling

continue as students transition to college and often develop a stronger sense of

ethnic consciousness, especially on campuses where they are the minority.7 Given

the highly stratified nature of American higher education, the lessons that col

lege students learn about race relations are varied. Learning to Be Latino shows

how the racial climate of three colleges cultivate par tic u lar types of interactions

that influence ideas about ethnic racial bound aries and identity label prefer

ences and interpretations.

Learning Po liti cal Styles

Through interactions with peers and elders on campus, students learn about

and navigate the normative institutional arrangements of their campus in regard

to politics. As students plan and execute strategies for collective action, they

learn distinct modes of po liti cal engagement that I differentiate as deliberative,

divisive, and contentious— modes that are cultivated interactively within specific

orga nizational settings.

The Latino politics lit er a ture strives to trace the po liti cal interests and

predict the po liti cal be hav ior of Latinos on a national level by looking at voting

patterns.8 Yet a focus on Latino voting be hav ior gets at only some of the ways in

which Latinos engage in politics. Looking at the results, we might assume that

Latinos make decisions and act fairly consistently or that only a few demographic

variables, such as income or country of origin, make any difference. Yet a focus

on Latino voting be hav ior gets at only some of the ways in which Latinos engage

in politics. Voting be hav ior research does not capture the dynamic pro cess by

which Latinos come together to construct their unity, over and over again. It

misses what Cristina Beltran (2010) has identified as a pro cess of doing Latini

dad, when Latino becomes a verb rather than a noun or adjective with fixed

meaning. When it comes to Latino students, a shallow reading of Latino politics

research would also lead us to think that, especially given their demographic

similarities, they will act in a po liti cally similar fashion. This misses the impor

tance of institutional contexts. I found that students across all three campuses

shared positions on and interests in issues of education and immigration, but

that the ways they expressed po liti cal grievances and sought redress varied.

Pundits and scholars interested in Latino politics would do well to consider how

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H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N D L A T I N O S T U D E N T S 9

(and when) the population they are interested in learns to engage in politics,

and how institutions are teaching them these lessons.

More Lessons: Views about Racial In equality and Mobility

Each campus context is constituted through many factors including institutional

wealth, programming, and the demographics of its student body. The distinct

social location of each campus in our stratified system of education ensures that

students leave college with differential exposure to resources and peers with

varying levels of cultural, social, and monetary capital. Through each type of

institution students are exposed to a unique sense of American meritocracy and

in equality. In this way, each campus cultivates distinct ideas about the pros

pects for Latinos as a group to advance socially and eco nom ically. In this book, I

show the pro cesses through which these distinct ideas are cultivated.

By comparing how Latino youth or ga nize within distinct orga nizational

settings, I show how the educational system indirectly channels Latinos’ percep

tions of diversity, their respective communities, and their engagement in poli

tics. These students are an impor tant segment of the Latino population; they are

middle class aspirants. In many ways, they are a Latino elite “in the making” as

they become part of the college educated American population. Actively creat

ing and representing Latino communities on their campuses, they may con

tinue to do this outside the campus gates after college, especially if they go on to

work in the public sector, advocacy, or politics. The students who are forming

Latino collectives in school engage in a pro cess that constantly occurs at local,

state, and national levels. The contents of this book provide a snapshot of the

pro cesses Latino groups face as they seek to represent both their unity and

heterogeneity while in college.

Organ ization of the Book

The book is divided in two parts. This first part focuses on meso level pro cesses

of the three colleges studied and consists of three chapters (2–4), one about

each campus. In each of these chapters, I paint a vivid picture of how things

work on that par tic u lar campus, specifically with regard to the Latino students

in the relevant student organ izations. I give “thick descriptions”9 of each stu

dent organ ization and explain its relationship to and place on campus. I also

thoroughly describe campus level orga nizational arrangements, including their

programmatic and demographic dimensions. In this way, I develop a school

typology that characterize the campuses contexts as follows: LAC as communal

(Chapter 2), RU as conflictual (Chapter 3), and RPU as coexisting (Chapter 4).

These chapters provide readers with a clear picture of how students at each site

interact and how they come to understand their position on campus and beyond.

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1 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

The contextual factors described in these chapters serve as the foundation for

the discussions to follow in Chapters 5 through 7.

In Chapter 2, I outline how Liberal Arts College functions as a communal

space. LAC offers a true residential experience; over 90 percent of students live

on campus all four years. Students live in a bubble, which blocks the outside

world, on the one hand, and, on the other, creates a cohesive community, facili

tating interactions between students who come from diverse backgrounds.

In Chapter 3, I show how Research University is a conflictual environment

for Latino students. The multicultural center offers distinct types of support for

and treatment of each Latino student organ ization studied. For example, one

of the fourteen Latino student organ izations on campus has an office in the

multicultural center, while the others do not. The arrangement with the multi

cultural center fosters feelings of connection and belonging for members of this

organ ization. Members of the other groups feel less connected and in conflict

and competition with the group that gets more resources. The Latino student

organ izations studied differentiate themselves and the conflict ultimately shapes

their interactions.

In Chapter 4, I describe how Regional Public University, a Hispanic serving

institution,10 draws an older, mainly working class, commuter student body. Most

students live in the home they grew up in with their families and work off cam

pus. These students are strapped for time and spend little of it on campus other

than during class. In this environment, students coexist; their relations are neither

communal nor conflictual. Additionally, students report having little contact

with faculty outside class, and in general, the nature of campus programming

does not facilitate cohesive relationships.

The second half of the book focuses on micro level and interactional pro

cesses, specifically focusing on three dif fer ent modes in which students interact

with and within their campus environment. In Chapter 5, I demonstrate how

institutions of higher education create distinct racial climates. As so doing,

campuses mediate the deployment and formation of panethnic bound aries and

the adoption of identity labels in disparate ways. I find that each university cre

ates a distinct Latino demographic by admitting, recruiting, and drawing stu

dents from either the local environment or nationwide. The demographic profiles

of students on each of the campuses studied and the schools’ efforts to incorpo

rate Latino students produce three distinct identity formation pro cesses. For

example, the interor gan i za tional competition cultivated at Research Univer

sity leads students to identify as Latino, but in a qualified manner. The chapter

extends theoretical understanding of how meso level orga nizational settings

influence micro level ethnic and panethnic identity pro cesses. Latino students

appear to leave college having absorbed lessons about who they are and where

they fit in the U.S. racial order, and their doing so reveals a latent function of

higher education.

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H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N A N D L A T I N O S T U D E N T S 1 1

In Chapter 6, I identify dimensions of campus cultures that interact with

students to produce three divergent forms of ethnic po liti cal expression: delib-

erative, divisive, and contentious. I employ inhabited institutional theory to explain

why Latino politics take distinct forms in specific academic contexts, and sug

gest that strong collegiate incorporation serves, paradoxically, to suppress Latino

student engagement in po liti cal activism beyond the campus gates. I find that

each campus incorporates Latinos and their student organ izations distinctly by

providing dif fer ent types of resources, recognition, and support; these paths of

incorporation determine how students participate in and define their politics.

The Latino campus organ izations that received the least institutional support

were most likely to engage in protest politics on and off campus, while those that

received the most support were least likely to venture into contentious politics,

instead employing deliberation and consultation. This suggests that institutional

arrangements not only influence whether students engage in protest but also how

they engage with politics more generally.

In Chapter 7, I note that similar meso level pro cesses that shape Latino stu

dents’ identity formation and po liti cal styles also shape their views of in equality. I

identify two master narratives that students use to understand the social loca

tion of Latinos: meritocratic and oppressive. I find that campus and orga nizational

contexts filter students understanding of racial in equality but to varying degrees.

For example, in the “ bubble” of Liberal Arts College, students deliberate about

inequalities and use elaborate rationales as they explain the way oppression

affects Latinos. I explain how the cultural context of each campus and organ

ization distills students’ ideas.

I conclude with a discussion of how each campus produces par tic u lar

understandings of a range of issues not formally considered part of the campus

curricula. I note that stratification and in equality of institutions shapes Latino

students in ways that are unexpected. And I review how each of the three cam

puses provides students with a dif fer ent view of what it means to be a Latino

in Amer i ca, and discuss the implications of this within and beyond academia.

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VVVVVVVVVVV

University Institutional Contexts

PA RT ONE

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1 5

VVVVVVVVVVV

The Communal Bubble at Liberal Arts College

I entered Liberal Arts College with relative ease both physically and socially. I made my initial contact with the Institutional Review Board, which promptly

answered my query to conduct research on campus and informed me that I had

to have an institutional sponsor. I cold called a sociologist to ask for sponsor

ship, and she quickly obliged. I then began to make contacts with Latino Studies

professors, staff at the Latino Cultural Center, and leaders of Latino organ izations

on campus. I emailed the student leaders of two of those organ izations— Genova

from Latinos Unidos and Tomas from Latino Links— and they granted me per

mission to conduct my research. I would be attending their meetings for two

academic years. I also made an appointment with Professor Nelson Tamayo1 of

the History and Latino Studies departments. I would drive to campus for the

first time to meet with Professor Tamayo, and a week later, I would attend the

2008 Latino Welcome Orientation hosted by the Latino Cultural Center. Both

Genova and Tomas promised to meet me at the orientation.

The LAC campus was as open as the individuals I contacted. The space had

open gates and no guards, and didn’t even have any parking structures. Having

never spent time at a private university or a liberal arts college, I was surprised

by the relative openness of the grounds. The campus is in an affluent, predomi

nantly white, po liti cally right leaning community in California. I parked on a

residential street in front of a private home, walked one hundred feet, and faced

the campus entrance. The entrance is comprised of two tall pillars, one on each

side of the street, with the name of the school imprinted on one of them. The

college was built in the late nineteenth century and features uniquely Califor

nian architecture, such as Mission style stucco buildings, but also more “clas

sic” buildings like those associated with Ivy League schools. With its manicured

lawns and abundant trees, the campus is quite beautiful.

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1 6 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

I found Professor Tamayo’s office and introduced myself. A tall, light skinned

man in his mid fifties, he was wearing a blazer with elbow patches that day. His

immaculate office included several impressive pieces of oak furniture. I took a

seat, and he began to tell me about his time at LAC. Having been there for over

fifteen years, he had extensive memories of students and the institution in gen

eral. We talked for about an hour and a half, during which time several under

graduates visited. Every time a student looked in, he mentioned something

personal about each one. Most of these students were his advisees, and he told

me about each of their theses. The energy was very positive; it appeared that

Professor Tamayo has close relationships with these students and is familiar

with both their proj ects and their personal affairs. As an outsider looking in, I

couldn’t help but think that he seems to enjoy the classic professor’s life as por

trayed by Hollywood— elbow patches and all! He has the master– apprentice style

relationship with his undergraduate students that characterizes most liberal

arts colleges, which enables him to shape a new generation of scholars and to

guide them through the research pro cess.

Professor Tamayo shared his perspective on Latino undergraduates. He

said that many initially have a hard time adjusting to the climate of privilege at

LAC, but admitted he had little knowledge of what students actually do socially,

especially within their organ izations. He did add, however, “I think they have

an organ ization with a silly name. I imagine they do the run of the mill cultural

stuff, like or ga nize carne asadas [barbecues] etcetera. But really, I don’t know

much.” He suggested I talk to younger faculty, who he imagined would be more

informed. This was the only time I met with Professor Nelson Tamayo, although

students did mention events that he or ga nized on campus, such as discussions

about current Latin American affairs.

The following week, I attended the Welcome Week Orientation hosted by

the Latino Cultural Center (LCC). The center is a two story building, with staff

offices on the first floor and a student lounge with cultural artifacts on the

second. As I walked into the lounge I saw Mexican cultural artifacts such as tap

estries, ceramics, and paintings. A burrito bar with flour tortillas, vegetables,

chicken fajitas, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa was set up inside the lounge.

There were students everywhere; I estimated between forty and sixty, several of

whom were wearing t shirts indicating they were Latino peer mentors. Tasked

with welcoming the first year students, a number of these mentors greeted me,

assuming that I, too, was one. They asked, “How are you? Where are you coming

from?” Most moved on to greet other students once I informed them that I was

a gradu ate student at another institution. One student, however, was intrigued

and wanted to know why I was on campus. She was interested in my proj ect and

told me that she was the secretary of Latino Links and would be happy to help in

any way. She asked if I knew Tomas and quickly flagged him down to introduce

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T H E C O M M U N A L B U B B L E A T L I B E R A L A R T S C O L L E G E 1 7

me. Tomas was polite, energetic, and somewhat formal. He said, “I look forward

to introducing you to the members next week,” and then saw someone he knew

and walked away. Despite meeting Tomas as planned, I did not encounter Genova

or a member of Latinos Unidos (LU) at this LCC event.

I scanned the room for the director of the LCC, Nilda Valle (we had emailed,

and she was expecting me). I knew what she looked like because I had already

studied her online biography and soon spotted her: a tall woman in her late

fifties, wearing a pantsuit. I walked over and introduced myself. She was wel

coming, insisting that she was really happy to share the LCC community with

me and assist me in any way. Calling members of her staff over to meet me, she

introduced Hector and Natalie, both of whom were about my age (mid to late

twenties). They handed me the LCC brochure and talked briefly about the ser

vices of the LCC, which range from mentoring to mental health support and just

generally providing students with a “home” on campus. They insisted I eat and

chat with the students. I obliged and spoke to several who were quite shy; this

was their first big event on campus. They were first generation college students

from the local area (within a sixty mile radius). I never encountered these par

tic u lar students again, yet I could speculate as to why they appeared so timid

and disoriented: they found themselves part of a broader student population

that differed from them dramatically.

Who’s on Campus

Liberal Arts College (LAC) is highly selective, admitting fewer than 20 percent of

its applicants. It enrolls approximately 1,500 students and has an 8:1 student

faculty ratio. These numbers afford students ample opportunities to interact

with faculty. The student body is predominantly white (50 percent), with the

remainder distributed among Asian Americans (15 percent), Latinos (11 percent),

and African Americans (8 percent).2 Many of the students in the two organ

izations I studied (Latino Links and Latinos Unidos) are of Mexican or Central

American origins. However, there are some Caribbean– origin students from

the East Coast of the United States, and some Latin American internationals on

campus, as well.

Most of the students at LAC come from affluent families. Only 10 percent of

the student body is eligible for Pell grants, which are awarded to eco nom ically

vulnerable students and are thus an effective proxy for mea sur ing social class.

The transition to LAC for predominantly low income, first generation college

going Latino students is particularly difficult, given the wealth disparity between

them and the general student population. Professor Francine Paredes of the

Latino Studies and Sociology departments at LAC described her impression of

the transition pro cess for students: “Being at a small liberal arts college is

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1 8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

in ter est ing. There’s so much wealth. I think that makes it so hard for Latino

students. It manifests itself in the classroom in how comfortable they are express

ing themselves. I went to a big public university so my experience was very

dif fer ent.”

Professor Paredes went on to explain that students have to interact and live

with peers who are much more privileged. In the classroom, she witnesses stu

dents learning to understand each other and, in par tic u lar, first generation

students coming to realize just how much more wealth their affluent peers

have. Her classes deal substantively with issues related to in equality. She shared

that “racial ethnic minority students express anger with their classmates. They

are especially upset when their classmates do not live up to the things they say

in class on the weekends.” Both the small size of LAC and its residential patterns—

over 90 percent of students live on campus for all four years— ensure that stu

dents will see their classmates most days of the week, so if they are discussing

inequalities and justice issues in class, they are likely to have the opportunity

to find out whether their peers live out the values they express.

Despite the gap between the mostly first generation college going Latino

students and the general student body, respondents at Liberal Arts College

reported feeling a strong community connection to their campus. Students

spend most of their time within campus borders, so much so that they described

LAC as their primary community. Some even considered it a “ bubble” separated

from the outside world. At the same time, LAC functions as a communal space

and this bubble creates a cohesive community, facilitating interactions between

students who come from diverse backgrounds. But what exactly is it like inside

this bubble? What are its characteristics and what do students learn within it?

Resources

Liberal Arts College is rich, with an endowment of over $1 billion. The wealth is

apparent in its facilities but also in its academic programming. Like most col

leges, LAC expresses a commitment to diversity, and the school offers several

campus programs intended to integrate ethnic minority students. This integra

tion effort begins with recruitment: the school’s large endowment allows it to

fly in ethnic racial minority recruits from all over the country. Once enrolled,

Latino students are offered Latino peer mentors through a program run by the

LCC, as well as the opportunity to live in Latino residential suites and even to have

a Latino faculty mentor.3 Additionally, all entering Latino students are invited to

attend a Latino retreat run by the LCC.

Martiza, a student, described the retreat, saying that “I thought it was a

really welcoming environment and you get to know a lot of people. It was really

nice environment because you come to college and there are so many people

here! It can be overwhelming. It’s [the retreat] really welcoming. You go on an

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T H E C O M M U N A L B U B B L E A T L I B E R A L A R T S C O L L E G E 1 9

overnight experience with all these people and you get to know them. They

really felt like the beginnings of a family.” For Martiza, the Latino mentoring

program and retreat had a positive, integrative impact on her transition to LAC.

For other students, Latino faculty advising is also impor tant, as Professor Paredes

explained: “It’s about checking in, about their classes, but way more than that.

Once a week, students are crying in my office. If you look at the students I advise,

they are mostly students of color.” Students corroborated Professor Paredes’s

perspective, saying that they are able to talk about feeling marginalized on

campus with their faculty mentors, who, in turn, can validate their experiences.

Indeed, this relationship is a critical safe space for students’ development.

In addition to receiving faculty advising, students are also networked to

Latino alumni. Each academic department, as well as individual administra

tors, invite alumni for informal lunches designed to provide information about

internships, study abroad programs, and vari ous career tracks. A Latino alumni

dinner is or ga nized every year through the office of the dean of students. Dur

ing one Latino Links meeting I attended, Lorena, vice president, said to the

group: “I strongly recommend freshmen to go to the Latino alumni dinner, so you

can get some internship ideas if you don’t have any yet.”

Classes

Classes are small and intimate at Liberal Arts College. I asked Cassandra, a mem

ber of Latino Links, if I could attend her En glish class with her and she agreed.

There were eight students in the class. They sat at an L shaped table, while the

professor stood in the middle. She ran the class like a discussion based gradu ate

seminar; the class talked about a reading, and she let the students lead the con

versation. The dialogue created a sense of camaraderie, with students actively

and collaboratively trying to decipher the readings. Classroom climates like this

are pos si ble because of class size and pedagogical style at LAC. Students indi

cated that most of their social sciences and humanities classes have a similar

atmosphere of open dialogue.

When I asked Professor Parades about the campus climate in general, she

spoke at the length about classroom dynamics, which then led to our discuss

ing campus politics:

F R A NCE S PA R EDE S (F P): Compared to other schools [LAC] is po liti cally left. But

for students who are more progressive, and grappling with racism, sexism,

and other power structures, liberal is not enough. Students complain that

some of their peers know how to talk liberally in class and live a dif fer ent

real ity on the weekends. Other students live through the racism and clas

sism and that frustrates them. And I don’t know what they do on the week

ends. I don’t know if they are reproducing the very inequalities that they

deconstruct in the classroom.

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2 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

DA ISY V ER DUZCO R E Y E S (DV R4): That’s in ter est ing. Are there conflicts between

these students?

F P: Sometimes, ideologies explode in classrooms. We talk about topics that we don’t

usually talk about in mixed com pany. We’re centering Latinos. I had a student

say, “I just want to learn about the material,” because students were sharing.

They wanted to learn from the book.

Professor Paredes explained that students of color and first generation college

students are often frustrated with their more affluent peers because they want

to spend less class time talking about how the material relates to students’ lives

and more time focusing on the texts. She explained the personal offense her

working class and students of color take when they feel that their life experiences

are undervalued and dismissed by their peers. In Chapter 5, I further explore some

of these racially charged dismissals reported by students. Also of significance

is Paredes’s discussion of LAC’s left leaning po liti cal ethos, which I further dis

cuss in Chapter 6.

Social Life at LAC

Despite self reports by Latino students of moments inside and outside the class

room of classist and racist offenses committed by affluent and white peers (more

in Chapter 5), there is nonetheless a vibrant student social life on campus in

which Latino students are active participants. Overall, the Latino students I

interviewed reported feeling a sense of community. There are several parties on

campus every weekend. Many of these parties draw on the school’s alcohol

funds, which can be requested by any group or club of students; the school then

provides alcoholic beverages and a bartender to distribute alcohol to students

of legal age. The school also frequently offers free snacks to encourage night

time studying. Well known artists regularly display their work, and poets and

authors frequently speak on campus. LAC has hosted several visits by Democ-

racy Now!, and there are musical festivals several times a year. But most relevant

to this study are the four registered Latino student organ izations on campus; I

focus on two here.

Organ izations

Latino Links and Latinos Unidos have the largest membership base among the

four Latino panethnic organ izations at LAC. As noted above, I gained access to

the organ izations with ease, simply by sending emails to the groups’ students

leaders— Genova of Latinos Unidos and Tomas of Latino Links. They both replied

with enthusiasm and expressed general interest in research about Latino student

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T H E C O M M U N A L B U B B L E A T L I B E R A L A R T S C O L L E G E 2 1

organ izations. Through my twenty months in the field, I got to know both groups

intimately. At the same time, I kept in mind faculty members’ diverse opinions

of the organ izations. Recall Professor Tamayo’s assumption that they are silly

and prob ably only host typical cultural events like barbecues. In contrast, Pro

fessor Salvador Carbajal of the Psy chol ogy and Latino Studies departments sees

a very po liti cally active Latino student culture, noting that “I think the Latino

student organ izations are protesting constantly, especially for the workers on

campus and even against the Minutemen,” a right wing group of activists who

oppose immigration.5 And Professor Paredes took the point even further in say

ing that Latino student organ izations are “definitely a social space, a place for

cultural affirmation, talking about identity, and also a place for [Latino students’]

need for politicization. And by that, I mean feeling like they belong, but also

needing to make change.” This professor’s views about the po liti cal nature of

the Latino student organ izations on campus is likely tied to the overall po liti cal

ethos of the student body at LAC (about which I say more in Chapter 6). However,

as I will show in the sections that follow, Latino student organ izations also fill a

niche on campus by providing Latino diversity programming, representing Lati

nidad to the campus community in ways that aren’t always po liti cal, and giving

students some sense (to varying degrees) of camaraderie.

Latino Links

Latino Links (LL) meetings are held in a community hall, which has a kitchen

where students can pick up a togo lunch during daytime hours. From the out

side, the community hall looks like a cabin. Inside are a lot of wooden chairs,

including a rocking chair, a couple of couches, a piano, and shelves filled with

books, mainly fiction. When I walked into the first meeting, students were sitting

in a circle, waiting for it to begin. Tomas greeted me, explaining that he would

introduce me later, and then started the proceedings by welcoming every one to

the first meeting of the fall semester. He identified himself as the president and

pointed out the vice president, Lorena; Natalie, the trea sur er; and Bianca, the

secretary. Each waved as he introduced them. He asked every one in the room to

introduce themselves and say their name and their hometown. Once every one

had done so, Tomas said, “I want to talk to you a little bit about why Daisy is

here. She’s a gradu ate student at University of California Irvine and she’s doing

research on Latino clubs. I hope we will all help her in any way we can. Feel free

to talk to her after the meeting if you have questions.” I waved and smiled.

Tomas continued by running through a list of agenda items and noted some of

the events planned for that academic year, including open houses, activities

fairs, Latino benefit dinners, a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) pre sen ta

tion, film screenings, study breaks, ice cream socials, guest lecturers, artist visits,

a Latino music festival, a Dolores Huerta visit, a Cesar Chavez commemoration,

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parties, and a Latino alumni dinner. Appearing to be genuinely excited about

all the events, Tomas asked members to stay abreast of activities as volunteers

would be needed. He then concluded the meeting, promising to get to business

at the second meeting (a week from that day). Every one quickly dispersed, with

only the officers and one other person, Paloma, a freshman, staying behind. As

I was getting ready to leave, she and Lorena approached me, curious about my

field of study and wanting to know if Latino Links was the only group I was

studying. Lorena shared that she was a sociology major and had assisted one of

her professors with her education based research. Lorena and a few other mem

bers of LL and LU were the only students among all three schools to ask about my

research pro cess; this is a reflection of the type of education students receive

at LAC.

Every Latino Links meeting I attended after the first ran almost identically.

Before meetings, students sat awkwardly in silence; they did not chat with one

another. Members then introduced themselves briefly, stating their names and

answering questions like “What is your favorite ice cream flavor?” or “What mood

are you in today?” Despite these “icebreakers,” the environment was never par

ticularly friendly; students seemed reluctant to share, and some sat with their

arms crossed. Instead of personal discussion, meetings were devoted to address

ing logistics for the many events students were busy organ izing to showcase

Latino diversity on campus. I counted a total of thirty two events in the 2009–

2010 academic year. To host them, the club has a bud get of around $9,000,

according to Natalie, the trea surer (the sum is unusually large and a reflection

of the wealth of LAC). Yet there were only about fifteen to twenty members of

Latino Links at the time.

Since Latino student organ izations at LAC are encouraged to sponsor each

other’s programming efforts on campus and even to support individual stu

dents’ academic pursuits related to Latin Amer i ca, outsiders often come to LL

meetings to request financial aid. The requests tend to be broad. One student

organ ization asked for and received $200 for a Latin American film festival. LL

funded an undergraduate student traveling to Guatemala to conduct research;

they also gave $200 for a forum with guest speakers from Honduras. A white

student asked for funds to host a con temporary Latino film series. She said, “I’m

bringing in documentary makers as part of my thesis and I would really like if LL

would come to the film showing too.” During my time in the field, LL approved

all but one of the requests it received. The exception was a request from an

undergraduate who wanted $140 to host a taco party. Tomas noted that the same

student, who was not pres ent at the meeting, had made a similar request the

previous year and that LL had declined; he added, “The only reason she came to

us was because she’s selling tacos.” A couple of people murmured and some

laughed— a rare display of emotion at LL. They declined her request once again.

Throughout my time observing Latino Links, I found the meetings to be formal

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and often tense, with little sign of personal connections among members, and I

kept wondering the same thing over and over again: Why did these students

join this organ ization? What did they feel they were getting out of it?

JOINING L AT INO LINK S. Students said they joined Latino Links to feel con

nected to a campus group. Cassandra said, “I really wanted to connect more

with first years so that’s why I really was part of the organ ization.” Adalberto

shared Cassandra’s sentiment but added that being around other Latinos was

impor tant to him: “I joined LL to be involved on campus and be around other

Latino students. I always found things in common with Latinos. I heard about it

through Tomas and Lorena because they were my mentors freshman year.”

Karla echoed Cassandra’s and Adalberto’s perspectives, saying, “Last semester,

I was really busy with chemistry, so I said, ‘No, I won’t join any clubs.’ This semes

ter my roommate mentioned going to the meetings, so I thought I should go

because there aren’t very many Latinos here [at LAC].” Despite her busy sched

ule, Karla felt a need for fellowship but also a responsibility to connect with

co ethnics.

But once students joined Latino Links, their perspective on the organ ization

shifted. When I asked members to tell me how they would describe the organ

ization to an outsider, they consistently said they were bringing Latino diversity

programming to the campus community. Adalberto said, “It’s a community

focused group that puts on Latino focused events.” Lorena described it as “a stu

dent collective that focuses on celebrating cultural events and campaigns that

are specific to Mexican Chicanos and other subgroups.” Natalie situated LL in

the broader campus community: “We are a Latino organ ization that sponsors

cultural and social events. We work closely with organ izations with faculty

and staff and committee members.” Paloma said, “We bring awareness. LL is a

space that, if you want something from the college, you can get it. If you want a

poet to come that’s not mainstream, you can bring them down and LL will help

you do that. LL is a community where you work together with the surrounding

communities.”

Members of Latino Links were constantly thinking about their role in rep

resenting Latino diversity. Their focus was directed outward to bringing the

LAC community together around Latino awareness. For example, during one

meeting, Tomas discussed the group’s plans to provide snacks during study

hours for students. He asked every one for suggestions on what should be offered

and who should be included. Most students agreed they should welcome all LAC

students and invite them to get to know Latino Links. One student said, “It’s

impor tant to strengthen the bonds at LAC because I feel people are divided on

campus, so let’s invite every one.” The outward focus of Latino Links toward

the LAC community as a whole is a reflection of the “community feel” of LAC

(that students are invested in the health of the campus community) and the

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financial support given to Latino Links by the administration further fortifies

the commitment to the campus community. Latino Links receives ample funds

to host Latino cultural events on campus.

On the surface, students went along with this outward focus, constantly

thinking about how they could showcase Latinidad to the campus community

and planning the same events that Latino Links regularly hosts year after year,

such as the Día de los Muertos pre sen ta tion. But how exactly did they feel about

Latino Links? When I asked students to discuss their experiences in Latino Links,

what emerged were critiques about the orga nizational culture. Only one student,

Natalie, had positive things to say about the organ ization: “I really liked the

multicultural spin. It was one of the only clubs that was touching on things cele

brating being Latino and having programs. We were inviting individuals and

challenging the LAC bubble. We challenge the hippie culture.”

By hosting Latino events, Natalie saw Latino Links as activist orienting,

challenging the dominant culture of LAC. Other students, however, had a dif fer ent

perspective. Adalberto, for one, expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of com

munity involvement: “I don’t necessarily like LL but I like helping out in creat

ing Latino events. I figure that we can be doing dif fer ent stuff, specifically more

community ser vice. I guess the executive board does not foster motivation for

community ser vice.” Lorena went further in problematizing LL’s focus on cul

tural events: “I feel that LL perpetuates the discrimination that happens on

campus because they continue to provide Latino diversity regardless of what

the campus does. And I don’t think the organ ization has done a good job of

criticizing our campus and the Latino Cultural Center. They do not support our

students and LL does not criticize them.” Lorena wishes LL would push the

administration more forcefully to address their concerns (in Chapter 5, I will

discuss instances of discrimination that Lorena mentions).

Lorena and Adalberto are the most critical members of the organ ization,

suggesting that LAC’s commitments to diversity are window dressing. Their cri

tiques dealt mainly with the mission of LL and its relationship to the campus

and the broader community, but the most common complaint about Latino Links

had to do with the nature of interpersonal relations and the orga nizational cli

mate. As Cassandra put it, “I don’t think LL was ever supposed to be a support

organ ization for Latino students. I don’t know if it’s in the bylaws but it’s more

about running activities. I never really realized it until my sophomore year. I

feel like there’s no connection. I also know there have been divisions between

former members and new members and that’s created a lot of drama.” Martiza

similarly expressed concerns with the social dynamic:

When I first joined LL, it really wasn’t a family environment. And I was in

a position of having to learn how to be part of the group because I was

nominated to be a historian right away. It wasn’t a chill atmosphere

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during our meetings! I think a lot of people come here because they are

Latino or Latina and they want to check it out. Sometimes they are really

into it and sometimes they see strange faces and they don’t know how to

joke with people. I think LL needs to have a retreat within the club so

that people can get to know each other and create friendship and a sense

of camaraderie.

Not surprisingly, given the tense environment, LL members also reported that

they were not really friends with one another. For Natalie this was not a prob

lem: “I would say I have a couple of friends in LL. But I feel they’re more business

type relationships,” she said, adding, “I like it that way. I think it’s good because

I don’t tend to cling on to a specific group of people. I really turn to other people

outside the club on campus.” Maritza, Karla, and Cassandra said they did not

socialize at all with members of LL. Cassandra was more critical, saying that “I

feel like most people have friends outside the organ ization. I wouldn’t consider

LL members very close friends.” Karla elaborated further: “I feel connected to

professors and my suitemates but not really to the members of LL. I think that

there’s a lot of tension between members because we’re just starting to get to

know each other. I think that if that goes away then we could get along. Like, I

know that other people in LL are first generation college students and we don’t

really talk about it.”

Karla could not identify why social relations are tense in LL, but she did

express a desire to talk about common experiences, such as being a first

generation college student. Cassandra also spoke of wanting more intimate

conversations with members: “I once asked at a meeting if we could share our

thoughts and maybe discuss what we have in common. And the president at

the time said that they had talked about their experiences as Latinos on cam

pus and some students didn’t feel comfortable. It’s not supposed to be a sup

port group.”

Lorena similarly reported that discussing “personal” issues connected to

racial, ethnic, class, or gender identities was discouraged within Latino Links

meetings and gatherings:

The mission statement says that the Latino Links is an organ ization that is

for Latino students to join and participate in activities or issues that

affect Latino communities. There is something about being a support

based group for Latinos on campus. People just say that LL isn’t a support

group and they tried before and that’s it. People said that we could go

and talk about issues with friends but don’t do it within the club space.

The meetings I went to this semester, it seems they didn’t really talk to

each other. I think, even if you’re not close to the members, having a

space where you can share an experience having to do to your race or

class is good but we never have any of those sessions.

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Given that Lorena was the vice president it is clear that the re sis tance of LL

to engage in “identity” and “support based” issues was a prob lem; she wished to

move in this direction and it never came to fruition. The reason for the organ

ization’s re sis tance to more personal, identity based discussions only became

clear when I interviewed Bianca, a fourth year student who had recently resigned

from her position as secretary and then left the organ ization due to interper

sonal conflicts with another leader. Bianca explained that LL’s formal, event

focused meetings and internal tensions were connected to its history:

A few years ago, some people thought LL was cliquish because we were all

friends. So, the organ ization tried to change our meeting and activities

to make them more formal. We wanted people who were not friends with

us to feel welcome. We did this because the dean of students once sat in

a meeting to see how we talked about identity issues. He said some stu

dents had complained that we made them feel not “Latino enough” to be

a member.

When I asked her why she thought those students might have felt that way, she

replied, “Maybe it was language and music, because some third or fourth

generation students didn’t speak Spanish or know about certain music. So, we

stopped talking about identity and worked on planning events because of these

prob lems.” According to Bianca’s account, LL shifted from being identity focused

to being more task oriented due to the history of the organ ization being labeled

“cliquish.” But, importantly, it was the intervention of the dean appears to have

been what forced the group to shift its focus. That is, when LL peers accused

each other of policing ethnic bound aries, the dean put an end to it. This led the

organ ization to focus on planning events.

The dean’s intervention is indicative of the closeness of the relationship

between LAC personnel and students, but this closeness could also generate ten

sions in ways that became apparent when Lorena spoke of Bianca’s resignation

and its further repercussions:

The woman who left the organ ization created a lot of animosity in the

group. I think it’s spewed animosity between LL and the faculty as well.

Faculty began to choose sides between what Latinos were the good ones.

The reason why she left was communicated to the deans and to faculty

and then faculty took sides. I was personally affected by one faculty

member in par tic u lar who would not speak to me, or not the way we

used to. I used to be really, really, close to her. . . . After that situation

happened I had an encounter with her [the professor] and she completely

disregarded me and wouldn’t answer my e mails. It became very evident

that she had chosen sides.

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Although Lorena did not elaborate on the tensions generated by Bianca’s resig

nation, her account of how her relationship with her former mentor professor

deteriorated as a result of events within Latino Links provides further evidence

of the extent to which LAC faculty and administrators are involved in student

affairs and relationships— precisely the kind of thing that happens in a “ bubble.”

Given all the complaints students had about social relations within Latino

Links, I asked whether they would like to change the organ ization in some way.

Some were not particularly hopeful that change could occur. When I asked Adal

berto, for example, what would happen if he took a leadership role and tried to

change LL, he responded: “I’m not exactly sure how to do that especially with all

the events. I feel that LL already has plans. I’m not sure how plausible the kind

of events I would like to do are. There are other clubs like the anarchist co ali tion

that already do those things. So, I’m not exactly sure what I would like to do.”

Karla, on the other hand, was more hopeful:

I expected the organ ization to have a sense of direction and know where

they were going. When I got there, they took half an hour to decide what

they were going to do for the next meeting. So, I thought, “Do I really need

to be here?” But I thought, if I want things to change, I should stick around.

So, my roommate and I met with the vice president and asked . . . for the

mission statement. I hope it gets better.

As I left the field in 2010, evidence of a shifting tide had begun to surface. Latino

Links deci ded to change their orga nizational structure from hierarchical to

horizontal. I say more about this orga nizational restructuring in Chapter 8.

Latinos Unidos

The first Latinos Unidos (LU) meeting I attended during the fall of 2008 was

held in the campus volunteer center office. Although I arrived on time, when

I walked in, members were already discussing how to reserve a room for an

event. There were eight students in the room— three men and five women. They

were all sitting casually on chairs, while one young woman was at a desk with a

computer. My contact, Genova, asked me to introduce myself to the group. I

said I was a gradu ate student from UC Irvine. They did not ask any questions

and quickly moved on to discuss the Día de los Muertos event they planned to

hold in November. Genova said that other organ izations would be donating

$100 worth of some items. One woman asked, “What’s the entertainment?” Genova

said “mariachi,” as she looked at another young woman I recognized from the

open house hosted by the Latino Cultural Center (she was the violin player in

the student mariachi group). She said, “I’m sure we can do it, but no one has

formally asked.” Genova explained that another organ ization was taking care of

decorations and that the dining hall would be providing bread. A few members

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said they were upset that they could not bring the bread because they wanted to

buy pan dulce. One student told Genova, “Next year get dibs on that.” Genova

suggested that the group donate the flowers, although these were expensive.

The woman at the computer suggested that if they could afford only one bou

quet, they should split it up across the dif fer ent altares.

This led to a discussion of altares. Genova said “We have to decide whom we

will dedicate our altar to. Last year’s altar was dedicated to the Peruvian earth

quake victims.” The woman at the computer suggested, “We could dedicate it to

those people who died in Mexico during the In de pen dence Day cele bration.” The

violinist asked, “Did they die because someone shot a gun up in the air?” The

woman at the computer clarified, “It happened because a grenade was thrown

into the crowd.” The violinist made an alternate suggestion; perhaps they could

dedicate the altar to “immigrants that cross over and endure vio lence.” She

elaborated: “Some immigrants . . . were hospitalized last week after crossing.

Some people are calling for a protest against the U.S. hospitals helping them.”

Genova said, “Let’s take a vote.” The woman by the computer interjected, “I really

don’t care either way; what ever people decide is fine with me.” A few students

quietly said the immigrant idea sounded good. The group deci ded their altar

would be dedicated to immigrants. The violinist remarked, “I’m sure someone

will have an altar for Selena.” Genova and the others started laughing. The vio

linist said, “That altar was intense last year, they played the Selena movie all the

way through.”

The meeting adjourned, and I stayed behind to talk to Genova and intro

duce myself to other students. They were approachable and polite. I learned that

the violinist was Josiana, Ana was on the computer, and that one of the male

students was named Bernardo. I also learned that they had a horizontal orga

nizational structure and were essentially leaderless. They had about ten active

members and a bud get of about $2,000 a year. This is notably less than Latino

Links, which has established a very large and expensive cultural event on cam

pus and receives extra funds in support.

Every Latinos Unidos meeting I attended after this one varied. The meet

ings were held in dif fer ent rooms and they rarely started on time— sometimes

beginning earlier than stated and other times later. I also noted that they had a

hard time convincing students to volunteer for their programming events. It was

essentially three women doing most of the orga nizational tasks. Genova and

Ana discussed prob lems with the group’s orga nizational structure and, indeed,

by the end of that spring semester, they began to change it. Before this hap

pened, I saw Genova at a Latino Links meeting (this was the only campus where

members of the other organ ization attended a meeting of the other, which sup

ports the notion of a friendly and collaborative environment between Latino

organ izations). After the meeting, she said to Tomas, the LL president, “Props

on your club. It’s really or ga nized.” Tomas said, “Thanks, I can’t deal with the

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collective stuff.” The change at LU began with outlining the officer positions

and expectations and establishing six leadership positions: two co presidents, a

secretary, a trea surer, a public relations officer, and a historian.

Ana, who helped to lead the restructuring efforts, discussed the new arrange

ment for leadership: “I know it’s a little weird because the group is so small,

and I know we can only add so many positions without having every one doing

something.” Genova, who also led the restructuring, explained the impetus for

the change: “I feel like we have more of an organ ization now, before it used to be

more like a group of people and whoever wanted something done needed to do

it. The structure has changed.” Ana elaborated: “Last year, I feel like me and my

friend took on most of the workload. I think it was just too stressful and it takes

a lot of your enjoyment out of it. Even if you want to continue, you’re not going

to be interested anymore if you do all the work.” Ana was strongly in favor of

change because she personally carried much of the responsibility for organ

izing. But even students with less workload saw the need for change. Selena

shared her sentiments:

I was really in favor of creating a structure for LU. I feel like the organ

ization was so diffuse and I completely understand the reasoning behind

eliminating hierarchy. But we had gone to the point where we were no

longer productive. I feel like no one was accountable for stuff that needed

to get done. People thought that because they didn’t hold a position that

it wasn’t up to them. At one point, we deci ded that every one would have a

week where they would lead the discussion. But it was not sustainable

because not every body would come to the meetings consistently. We opted

for a structured co president and secretary model and we wanted a very

institutional approach, we want to be more efficient. The plan is to go

back to the elimination of hierarchies eventually. I feel like it was really

necessary to get things running. I think that it’s created more structure

in meetings.

The overall assessment by members was that the organ ization has improved.

After restructuring, a consistent pool of students attended each meeting, tasks

were delegated, and agendas were set for the meetings. I also noted more efficiency

in managing the details of the vari ous programing events LU hosted. Meetings,

however, remained largely the same after the restructuring. Members contin

ued to discuss the details of events such as deliberating who to honor on Día de

los Muertos and often went off on tangents. But whereas meetings at Latino

Links also tended to focus on events, at Latinos Unidos the climate was much

friendlier. Planning often involved members joking with one another. For exam

ple in 2009, they talked about the Selena altar of 2007 yet again. One of the

freshmen girls said, “ Didn’t they make an altar to Selena one year?” Several

students broke into song, “Bidibidibumbum.” The room filled with laughter.

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Although LU members were friendlier with each other than LL members

were, LU members still focused their energies externally, planning events to

expose the broader LAC community to Latino culture. During a fall meeting in

2009, for example, they discussed the organ ization’s bud get. Genova said, “We

have over $1,700 left over. Contingent upon our balance, we will give money to

Prof. Paredes for her event, but we need to plan. I think we should put on a big

LU event.” Cristina suggested, “We could have a Little Miss 15 Dance like the ‘My

Super Sweet 16’ [TV] show.” She added, “We can educate people about the quince-

ñera, for people who don’t know what they are or didn’t get one. We can have

tiaras and cake, and have a special money dance.” They all seemed to be very

excited about the idea of having a quinceñera party. Javier asked, “Do we want

this to be a party or like come learn about Latino culture?” Cristina said “Both.”

They discussed making recuerdos (gifts/souvenirs), having a cake, and dancing

a waltz. Soe asked if they would play banda and maybe merengue or bachata.

On another occasion, members talked about hosting a Latino film series

for the campus community. They talked about screening Ladron que roba Ladron,

Antes que Anochezca, and Sin Dejar Huella. Bernardo asked whether they could

bring snacks. Josiana suggested that they also have churritos and other botanas

(snacks). Walter asked, “Do you mean like pork grinds?” Miranda said, “No, they

aren’t pork grinds but they are kinda orange?” Josiana adds, “I just think we

should have Latino snacks.” They deci ded on agua fresca or jarritos, chips, and

cookies. Both the discussions about quinceñera style party and the snacks for

the film series reflected students’ desire both to celebrate and enjoy their cul

ture and to package and share it with the broader LAC community. These two

goals drove most of LU’s activities.

Like Latino Links, LU also dealt directly with administration and faculty,

inviting them to LU events and supporting their endeavors, as noted above

regarding their donation to Professor Paredes’s event. But they also challenged

the administration when their needs were not met. For example, LU took issue

with the Latino Cultural Center (LCC) over Latino graduation and addressed their

concerns to administrators directly. In 2010, for example, they sent the following

email to the dean of students:6

Hello Dean Foster,

We received your email minutes before our LU meeting began.

Thanks for your support. Like you mentioned, LU has been working

on Latin@Grad and we were very excited because this was going to be

an event designed by us, for us. Our concern is that our work will be

dismissed and that LCC will take over the event and not take into

account student input. Of course, we will want to keep as much of our

ideas about the ceremony, and based on how the se nior cele bration

has been handled this year, we will definitely want you and/or Natalia

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Vera at a meeting with Nilda Valle and Hector to assure that this is a

true collaboration. Can we schedule a meeting for this Monday, April 19,

at 4:15pm, pending that you, Natalie Sandoval, Nilda Valle, and Hector

are available?

In solidarity,

Latinos Unidos

The tone is direct and assertive; they clearly expected the administration to

be responsive, even suggesting an exact time to meet. In another email, they

addressed the director of the Latino Cultural Center directly, demanding that

the students employed as mentors through the LCC meet with them and express

ing a desire for more programming from the mentors:

Hello Nilda and Latin@ mentors,

As the programmers of Latinos Unidos, we would like to have a dis

cussion about the role of Latin@ mentors and the work that we expect

them to do on campus. We are disappointed that LU has had to be at the

forefront of collaborating with the Latino Cultural Center, programming

at Liberal Arts College, and outreaching to Latin@ students without the

support of the mentors. We understand that, like the rest of us, you all

are busy, but by taking up the paid position you are making a commit

ment to provide programming and ser vices for the Latin@ community.

It should not be our sole responsibility to program when there are people

who are paid to do this. Can you all meet Friday April 16, at 4pm to talk

about these issues?

In solidarity,

Latinos Unidos

They felt empowered to ask for their needs and the perceived needs of the

Latino community on campus as a whole. Institutional players responded, and

meetings were held.

JOINING L AT INOS UNIDOS. Like new members of Latino Links, new members

of LU were recruited via their assigned Latino mentors and upper classmen.

Vanya explained, “I’m a freshman and I heard about it the first week through

my mentor. He mentioned it, he’s not part of it but he is thinking about joining

too.” Similarly, Genova shared, “I found out about the organ ization because I

was paired up with my mentor, a sophomore, and she told me about it. She was

Latina and also Muslim, so she didn’t know if she wanted be part of a Latino

group because she identifies with her Muslim religion a lot.” The LCC assigned

mentor served as bridge to LU membership for several students. Other upper

classmen also connected new Latino student arrivals to Latinos Unidos. Ana

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told me, “My roommate and I became really close friends to se niors that were

part of the LU. I was invited to the first meeting [and] they really made me feel

comfortable.” LAC students get close to upperclassmen, who invite them into the

organ izations. This mingling of students across dif fer ent class levels is facilitated

not only by the LCC mentor program, but also by the college’s residential pattern:

with 98 percent of students living on campus, they have ample opportunities to

interact.

Furthermore, students stay in LU for several reasons: the connection to

their peers, the desire to be involved, and a sense of commitment to making

the Latino presence known on campus. LU members feel connected to one

another, something that was evident when I asked them to tell me about their

friends on campus. Ana said, “I feel close to friends that are in LU but I still call

other people on campus friends,” while Selena explained:

I do enjoy myself at the meetings, it’s not like it’s purely an extracurricu

lar thing. Two of my really good friends do attend the meetings. After

the group meeting we go back and talk about things. I don’t think every

one in the meeting is really, really comfortable with each other in order

to really say that we are really close and that it serves a total social pur

pose. But overall, I would say a little more than half of my friends on

campus are Latino. I have a very ethnically diverse friend group. I have

my Latina girls and then I have my multicultural friends.

Selena’s words capture the social and interpersonal dimensions of LU well. They

are friendly with one another and kind. However, they are not a completely

cohesive and connected group. In contrast to the students at Research University

(discussed in Chapter 3), for example, LU members do not provide each other

with “a home away from home.” But they are much friendlier with one another

than members of Latino Links.

Beyond friendship, Josiana felt LU served a cultural purpose for Latino stu

dents themselves. She said, “I think it’s really impor tant to have a Latino organ

ization. Special places like this because there aren’t that many Latinos on

campus. We can do things that we think are fun and because Latinos are so

diverse, we can learn about other Latinos.” But seeking a cultural refuge wasn’t

the reason students stayed in LU; more than anything, members of LU wanted

to be involved and saw part of a being in a Latino organ ization as performing a

ser vice. Cristina explained, “I kind of felt a responsibility to be in the club

because of what the club does. As a Latina I thought I should try to be involved

and help out the Latino community or what ever it is that LU was doing.” Selena,

on the other hand, was a bit critical of the sense of involvement students gain

from their membership to Latinos Unidos: “I think LU provides a space for a

limited cross section of the Latino population to feel like they’re active,” she

said. “I feel like it satisfies some sort of ‘I am an activist Latino.’ ” She went even

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further to say that “I feel like the organ ization is sort of social but not in the way

I thought it would be. I thought LU would be the most impor tant community

building ele ment in college. And it continues to not serve that purpose for me.

I’ve gotten that in dif fer ent organ izations and communities at LAC.” Selena is

only one of many students at LAC who reported finding a sense of community at

LAC broadly and not necessarily through their Latino organ ization.

Inside the Bubble

On the campus grounds of Liberal Arts College, students live close together for

four years. They are connected through vari ous forms of programming, resi

dential patterns, ethnically based activities coordinated by the LCC, and rela

tionships with faculty. In short, LAC students’ social ties within the campus are

high. Students are very busy with course work, programming, and other relation

ships on campus, so they spend little time off campus. Latino Links and Latinos

Unidos have amicable relations. The bound aries between the organ izations are

minimal and being part of one organ ization does not preclude one from belong

ing to the other. Both organ izations are focused on bringing Latino diversity to

the broader LAC community, as summarized by Table 2.1. These organ izations

serve the same purpose and are similar, albeit one has a friendlier environment

than the other.

Within the communal bubble, Latinos Unidos and Latino Links continue to

evolve their orga nizational forms. During my fieldwork, LU switched from a

nonhierarchical to a hierarchical structure, while LL began to move in the oppo

site direction. Of the six organ izations studied, only those at LAC played with

orga nizational styles, which is a testament to the left leaning po liti cal ethos of

Liberal Arts College (which I further describe in Chapter 6). On a campus where

students pride themselves as being left of center and po liti cally sophisticated,

TA BLE 2.1

Inside the communal bubble of Liberal Arts College

Strength of student social ties within campus

High

Description of external campus bound aries

Rigid and enclosed

Description of internal orga nizational bound aries

Minimal and nonexclusive

Description of role of Latino organ izations

Contributing to diversity on campus

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3 4 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

it makes sense for them to consider alternative orga nizational forms. The stu

dents are experimenting with structures and agendas as they interact with fac

ulty and administrators— sometimes asking for their assistance, other times

demanding that they address their concerns. With the support of the “adults”

on campus, these Latino organ izations are invested in serving the LAC com

munity and exposing it to who Latino people are. Chapters 5–7 show how Latino

students showcase Latinidad within the bubble of LAC.

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VVVVVVVVVVV

Research University is located in a mainly white and Asian American, upper middle class, po liti cally conservative neighborhood. The neighborhood consists

mostly of new real estate developments and is the epitome of suburbia, with man

icured lawns and pristine roads. You can find virtually every corporate chain

restaurant within a five mile radius of campus and several high end shopping

malls within a ten mile radius. This campus is relatively new, having been built

less than one hundred years ago. Several of the buildings on campus were con

structed to be sustainable and are made from recycled materials. During the

two academic years, I spent at RU, there were on going construction proj ects. On

the periphery of the campus there are several large parking garages, but parking

is relatively difficult to find and costs $8 a day. About 30 percent of the student

body commutes. Wedged in between campus buildings is an open space that

serves as a campus quad, where vendors sell merchandise and students blast

music, set up club booths, and advertise their events.

RU is ranked among the top twenty public universities nationwide. It is a

moderately selective school, accepting approximately 45 percent of applicants.

Obtaining access to RU as a research site entailed a highly bureaucratic and

long Institutional Review Board (IRB) pro cess, and, as at the other campuses, I

needed a faculty sponsor in order to conduct observations and talk to students.

I reached out to six of the fourteen Latino organ izations on campus: a fraternity,

a sorority, a women’s social cultural club, a preprofessional organ ization, and

the two organ izations featured in this study, Latinos United for Action (LUA)

and Latino Fellowship (LF). The Latino fraternity and sorority denied me access.

They were reluctant to allow an outsider into their organ ization because, as one

student told me, “The stuff we do is confidential.” The women’s group and pre

professional group allowed me access, as did Latino Fellowship, a coed social

cultural club, and LUA, a po liti cal organ ization. To keep the gender dynamics

Conflict at Research University

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as equal as pos si ble across my cases, I chose to study only coed organ izations,

and chose Latino Fellowship over the preprofessional organ ization because

their meeting times did not conflict with those of LUA. LUA was crucial in my

study because I was interested in the identity pro cesses occurring in explic itly

po liti cal organ izations. Gaining access to LUA was not without challenges, as I

describe later. First I discuss the demographic profile of the student body and

other institutional dynamics of RU.

Who’s on Campus and Why This Matters

Research University enrolls over 25,000 students, many of whom relocate for

college. About 40 percent of students live on campus, including most first year

students and some second year students; most ju niors and se niors live in the

surrounding area. Only 30 percent of enrolled students are considered perma

nent commuters, or those who do not relocate for college. The student body at

RU is approximately 50 percent Asian American, 25 percent white, 11 percent

Latino, and 2 percent African American. The Latino student members of the two

organ izations I studied, LUA and Latino Fellowship (LF), reported feeling racially

isolated on campus mainly as a result of their under repre sen ta tion. Only one

student disclosed encountering overt racist remarks from non Latino peers on

campus (discussed in Chapter 5).

Most did, however, share an overwhelming sense of culture shock. For

example, Suyeli, a member of LF observed that “ there are only whites and Asians

here. You feel lost. You feel like you stick out like a sore thumb. In LF, you see

yourself in the members and you feel like you can connect. You know where

they come from, and they have the same background and the same strug gle.” Suy

eli highlights the hypervisibility that many Latinos on campus feel and the crit

ical role her LF membership plays in her life on campus. Virtually, every student

I interviewed at Research University shared similar stories of finding refuge in

their Latino student organ izations. Thalia, a member of LF, said her transition to

RU “was . . . really hard” and that “LF made all the difference.”

Orga nizational membership helped students deal with academic chal

lenges as well. At times, students connected their sense of culture shock to their

perceptions that they were not college ready. Belinda, a member of LUA, explained:

“Of course, you get a culture shock when you walk into classes and the majority

is Asian. It was very hard. I guess, I didn’t come from a very good high school so

my writing wasn’t good and my study ethics weren’t, I guess, on point for col

lege. I kind of had to learn all of that as soon as I got here and it was hard.” Lili

ana, a member of LUA, also felt underprepared. She said: “I had a really difficult

time transitioning to college because I went to a subpar high school. I had bad

writing skills. I spent a lot of time trying to fit in and then realized I couldn’t

use my dinosaur computer. But then I found LUA and they helped me make

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C O N F L I C T A T R E S E A R C H U N I V E R S I T Y 3 7

sense of my real ity.” For Liliana, finding a community in a Latino student organ

ization helped her feel less alone and better able to cope with her academic strug

gles. Facing new educational environments, Latino students described experiences

of isolation and insecurity in the classroom. The underrepre sen ta tion of Latinos

gave my respondents a feeling of not belonging. Externally ascribed as “other” on

campus, they found refuge in Latino organ izations. Students described their

respective Latino student organ izations as “a home away from home, and a

family,” and they considered co members some of their closest friends on cam

pus. RU students reported that their orga nizational experiences are their most

significant campus connections and social ties, a theme I address again this

later in this chapter.

On Academics

Unlike the Latino students at LAC, those at RU did not list faculty among the

critical components in their transition to campus life. In fact, academics rarely

came up during interviews and orga nizational events and meetings. The size

of classes at RU plays a role here, as there is a 19:1 student faculty ratio and several

large lecture halls that seat over three hundred students. Students described

feeling anonymous in these large classes, and none disclosed having a close

relationship with a faculty member. On the other hand, at RU, most classes with

more than seventy students have a teaching assistant who is more likely to know

undergraduates by name.

Only two students mentioned academics or faculty during our interview.

Evelyn, a member of LUA, expressed disappointment with the education she

was receiving at RU. She explained: “The schoolwork hasn’t been that bad. It’s

really disappointing. I thought we were going to have really in ter est ing discus

sions and talk about issues. I had a totally dif fer ent perception about college.

People barely know your name here. The TAs, not to be mean, but sometimes

they just talk and talk and talk. Academically, it’s been disappointing.” Evelyn

was the only student to express disappointment in the lack of rigor or in ter est

ing discussions. Evelyn’s feeling of “ people barely knowing your name” is, how

ever, comparable to other students’ inability to name professors with whom they

had close relationships. Jennifer is the only student who had regular contact

with faculty, and this happened through her position as departmental repre

sentative of LUA in the Latino Studies department. LUA has had a student repre

sentative within the department (previously, a program of Latino Studies) for

over twenty years and LUA is the only student group to have such a position.1

DV R : You’re the department rep? What’s that like?

JENNIF ER : It’s ok, but I know they don’t want us there.

DV R : How do you know?

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3 8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

JENNIF ER : They haven’t expressed it to me specifically. But in the past, other reps

have been told that they don’t want LUA taking over the meeting or trying to

change things that they don’t want changed. Some of the professors question

why LUA would be at the faculty meeting. Some professors have asked me

“What is the purpose of you being here?” So, we explained to them that we’re

willing to help the department; we are not trying to change things. I’ve gotten

to know the professors a little more. I’ve learned how to speak to people a

little better ever since then. I’ve gotten some communication skills. I do get

asked for my opinion sometimes. They ask us why students drop classes and

they ask us about evaluations.

Jennifer is treated with suspicion by some faculty and asked mainly to remain

quiet during meetings. However, Jennifer’s experience as representative to the

faculty gave her real benefits, such as improving her communication skills. This

type of skill development is a constant in LAC’s small classes and within their

student faculty relationships. However, Jennifer’s experience is unusual at RU.

Faculty confirmed students’ sentiments about the student faculty relation

ship. I asked RU faculty the same questions I asked professors at LAC. Recall

that LAC’s Professor Paredes spoke in depth about her students’ experiences in

the classroom and their overall transition to campus. I asked Professor of Latino

Studies Hector Jasso, who has taught at RU since 1969 (when he was hired as a

gradu ate student), to speak about the con temporary Latino student.

DV R : What are the Latino students are RU like?

HECTOR JA SSO (HJ): I get the sense that the question of immigration is much

more salient. They are more interested in immediate issues. When I was grow

ing up, the transnational was not a question. I went back to history— the

Mexican American War and racism. Our socialization was that; we had a

barrio consciousness. The police and schools were the prob lems, not la migra.

It was very localized. Now we have to take a broader look. I find students

accepting the broader look. It was not something that would have resonated

in 1971.

DV R : So you think they’re really interested in immigration issues?

HJ: Yes, it’s a real concern for them.

DV R : Other than their po liti cal concerns, what are the students like? Like, how

do you think they look to you as a Latino faculty member?

HJ: I have no idea what students want from me.

Professor Jasso spoke about his curriculum and how he believed it resonated

with students. However, when probed to discuss students further, he had little

to share. Given the 19:1 student faculty ratio at RU, it is not surprising that fac

ulty had few close relationships with their undergraduate students.

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C O N F L I C T A T R E S E A R C H U N I V E R S I T Y 3 9

Multicultural Resources and Programming

Research University, like LAC, promotes diversity through several programs avail

able to Latinos and other underrepresented students. First, there is a Latino

residential hall on campus. Samuel Navarro, the academic counselor who runs

the hall, explained that he admits between fifteen and twenty students per year

on the basis of their application essays. He runs programming about Latino

culture, and residents engage in community ser vice such as beach clean ups. He

also indicated that he admits non Latino students as well, observing, “I didn’t

want the house to be a LUA house or a Chicano house exclusively.” Beside Sam

uel Navarro, there are also a few other Latino staff on campus, including a dean,

an associate dean, and a high level administrator.

Ernesto Telles, the associate dean, runs a summer program for first generation

college students, which is intended to track them into gradu ate schools. This

program gives the students research experience and prepares them for under

standing what gradu ate school might be like. This selective program, which

serves about twenty students every summer, is not exclusively for Latinos. Telles

explained: “I’ve been accused of making it a Latino organ ization. It’s two thirds

Latinos. I demand they do research. They [the students] want to be in sororities,

etc. I just want them to expand their experiences. I want to get them to leave

home. Go to gradu ate school.” Ernesto Telles is committed to mentoring first

generation college students, many of them Latinos, and getting them into the

gradu ate school pipeline. However, he can admit only twenty students a year,

just as Samuel Navarro can host only twenty students a year in the Latino resi

dential hall. Thus, while Research University offers great programs, student

seats are limited. Moreover, while some students are not aware of the opportu

nities, others who are may not receive mentorship through the application pro

cesses. In contrast to their peers at a place like LAC, Latino students at RU are

not automatically pulled into these programs and other non ethnic profes

sional and academic programs.

Research University has a Multicultural Center (MCC) that recognizes five

core student organ izations, one representing each of the five major minority

groups on campus (Asian American, African American, Native American, Mus

lim American, and Latinos). LUA is the official Latino organ ization, and it has

ties to the campus activism of the late 1960s and 1970s and, therefore, a histori

cally protected role in the MCC. The MCC provides LUA with meeting space and

an office and expects it to represent Latinos on campus, as well as to lead and

plan Latino Heritage Month, Día de los Muertos, and Latino graduation. As a

result, LUA leaders typically have a close working relationship with the staff of

the MCC and even hold paid internships within the center. By contrast, Latino

Fellowship has no standing historical tie to the MCC. LF is primarily a cultural

organ ization and collaborates with the MCC only to schedule meeting space

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and add its events to the Latino Heritage Month calendar. Nor does it have a

designated office on campus. The MCC’s differential treatment of LUA and other

Latino organ izations on campus unintentionally fosters competition for resources

among Latino student organ izations. The conflict between LUA and LF shapes

their interactions and leads them to differentiate themselves along po liti cal

(Chapter 6) and identity lines (Chapter 5). Students at RU construct identities

(Chapter 5) and worldviews (Chapter 7) within a climate of intra Latino orga

nizational conflict.

Organ izations

Latino Fellowship (LF) and Latinos United for Action (LUA) have both been active

on the RU campus for at least fifteen years and have the largest membership

base among the Latino organ izations there. In the pro cess of gaining access to

LF and LUA, my initial contact was similar with both orga nizational representa

tives whom I emailed; they responded promptly. LF was open and excited about

the prospect of my attending their meetings, while LUA treated me with quite a

bit of skepticism. Both organ izations, however, were described by their mem

bers as “a home away from home, and a family.” Students considered co members

their closest friends on the RU campus. Students in both groups reported that

their experiences as members of these organ izations create their most signifi

cant campus connections and social ties. In the following sections, I will say

more about my initial entry into these organ izations, how that reflected their

respective orga nizational culture and history, and how students feel about their

“campus homes.” I also discuss how these “homes” develop as exclusive spaces

and how tensions between the nonpo liti cal and the po liti cal organ ization remain

a constant.

Latino Fellowship

I contacted Cruz, the president of Latino Fellowship, before the fall 2008 semester

began. He responded promptly and invited me to join the first meeting of the

semester, which was held in the conference room of the Multicultural Center.

As I approached the room, a tall young man was holding the door open and greet

ing every one with a hug and kiss on the cheek— including me. He then asked for

my name, and when I told him, he said, “Wait, are you the grad student?” I said

yes, and he said, “Oh wow, I thought you were a freshman.” I chuckled and assured

him I wasn’t. He then asked me to join every one and indicated that he would be

introducing me. I sat in the back of the room, in the last of four rows of chairs,

providing seating for approximately 60 people.

The meeting began with the leadership (the board), wearing blue jeans

and t shirts with a pirate printed on them, introducing themselves to every one.

The president, secretary, representatives for external and internal affairs, and

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trea surer introduced themselves. Once they had all stated how long they had

been part of LF, their majors, and year at RU, they called me up to introduce

myself. I told them about my research and encouraged them to talk to me about

any questions or concerns they might have. Cruz asked the attendees to give me

a round of applause, which was pretty loud. (I counted about 60 people in the

room at this point.) He then encouraged all students to get to know me since it

was nice to have a gradu ate student around. After I sat down, a young woman

made an announcement about raising money for the Boys and Girls Club, which

needed funds to buy soccer equipment. The president interjected, reminding

members that “it’s not mandatory.” The young woman passed around a collec

tion box.

Next Cruz and Mireya (the external affairs representative) played a video,

which was about ten minutes long and presented vari ous scenes in which the

board members acted. The video showed how college and high school are dif

fer ent and alike by juxtaposing a scene of a mother waking up her daughter for

school and a student going into a friend’s dorm room to wake her. It also included

a scene in which people were trying to learn how to dance bachata. Another

scene, with the Friends theme song playing, showed group members assisting

others with their homework. Then each of the board members shared his or her

favorite memory in Latino Fellowship. When the video ended, there was a knock

at the door. Cruz said, “Oh, it looks like some of our homeboys from [Latino fra

ternity] are here.” A group of young men came in, and one said, “Can we sere

nade you?” Cruz asked the group, “Should we let them?” Every one clapped, and

they began to sing. They had two guitars and six of them sang “Vale mas un buen

amor,” a Vicente Fernandez song that is also the theme song of the telenovela

Fuego en la sangre.

When the Latino fraternity singers finished, and now twenty minutes into

the meeting, Cruz asked every one to introduce themselves by saying their name,

year, major, where they are from, and a highlight of their summer. With around

one hundred people at the meeting (more students had trickled into the room),

this took a while. Most students said their highlight was going somewhere

local— within a two hour drive— usually to a beach town, or getting good grades,

or coming to a summer bridge program for first generation college students. I

took notice of two very dif fer ent responses from two girls who didn’t appear to

be Latinas but rather looked phenotypically white. They mentioned getting a

new Acura TL and going to Barbados to learn how to surf. They were outliers

and did not attend subsequent meetings.

After all the students had introduced themselves, Cruz said, “LF is a cul

tural group that experiences unity through cultural diversity,” and added that

the organ ization is fifteen years old. The secretary, Gloria, then explained that

in honor of the anniversary, they wanted to have a quinceñera theme for their

winter formal and that they had chosen pirates because they like a pirate song

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that mentions the number 15. Gloria continued to list all the social events the

board had planned for the academic year: night club parties with a group at

another local university, a three day winter retreat, and a karaoke night with

the Chinese Language Club, where LF members would sing Chinese songs while

the Chinese students sang Spanish songs. Mireya explained that LF would also

be doing more community ser vice. Cruz interjected again, saying, “ There’s no

obligation to participate.” Cruz joked about LF as a good place to “check each

other out,” emphasizing that men and women could meet here.

Once LF’s activities for the year were listed, the officers sent students on a

scavenger hunt. At this time, Cruz came to the back to talk to me. He was very

friendly and told me that the impor tant thing to know about LF was that it is a

“no commitment, no obligation” organ ization. He explained that while there

are many organ izations on campus that either have fees or are po liti cal, LF likes to

create a very open space, and it requires nothing from their members. He empha

sized that the group wanted to have many more intercultural events in the com

ing year and build more connections with other cultural groups on campus.

Every subsequent meeting had a playful and light hearted tone and was

or ga nized similarly. The meeting always began with introductions in which

students gave their names and their majors and then answered a specific question,

like what is your favorite ice cream flavor? What place do you want to visit most?

What is your biggest turnoff? These changed every week. They then discussed

upcoming events and ended each meeting with either a game such as a scaven

ger hunt or charades, or a cultural pre sen ta tion about a specific Latin American

country. A student with heritage from that country usually brought in artifacts

from home and food to share with the club members.

After the initial meeting attended by almost a hundred students, there

were usually about twenty to forty people in attendance at subsequent meetings.

I asked Cruz about the membership base, and he responded: “We have forty active

members, more or less. They come to at least half of the meetings throughout the

year. Inactive members— I would say we have about a hundred or hundred and

twenty— people that go to our events, people that go to our parties, people that

are associated but drop off every now and then.” The proportion of students

who attended Latino Fellowship meetings was only about a fourth of the total

students the group reached with their social events and programming. LF hosted

a party at a night club every academic term, held a winter retreat for members,

and hosted a day long event called Encuentro Latino showcasing Latino culture

to the campus community once every academic year. Mireya explained the

funding sources for LF:

We don’t get money from the school. We do all of our fundraising on our

own. The only thing that they do give us money for is for Encuentro

Latino. It’s a free event open to anyone on campus so we ask for funds,

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but they don’t say like “ Here’s eight hundred dollars for Encuentro Latino.”

We have to give receipts and get reimbursed. All the money we have is

because we raised it on our own; club events, TV tapings, selling food,

and like the LF formal that’s a fundraising event. All the money that we

raised throughout the year is to put on events and also for next year’s

board.

Thus, the funding stream for both LF and LUA differs from that of the organ

izations at LAC, which make annual bud get requests, providing a tentative list

of itemized events for the upcoming year and receiving funds for the amount

requested. As we see in Mireya’s explanation above, LF must request funding on

an event by event basis and then provide receipts for reimbursement. At RU,

these requests are presented to the student government, which controls a pocket

of money for student programming. LF makes only one request per year and this

is for Encuentro Latino.

When I asked members what they considered to be the most impor tant

event LF puts on, Gloria said: “Well, it depends. A lot of people go to Winter

Retreat. The members start to get to know each other in the fall. And in the

retreat, you get to know each other intimately and you do form tighter bonds.

But it should also be Encuentro Latino because it’s during this time when we

bring cultural awareness to the campus.” Gloria believes that the winter retreat

is the most significant event LF hosts because of the friendships cultivated in

that space. However, she has a sense that bringing cultural awareness to the

campus should be put at the top of the list. This is the official message about LF,

even according to Associate Dean Ernesto Telles, who observed, “they bring

culture but not in a po liti cal way.” Other students also communicated LF’s role

in raising cultural awareness while emphasizing the importance of solidifying

friendships.

DV R : What is the most impor tant event LF hosts or does on campus?

MIR E YA: First thing, I would say, it’s a social club. It’s not for protesting, it’s not

for a specific career like psy chol ogy or business. It’s just to, you know, hang

out, to have somebody kind of from your own background. It’s a very open

club because we don’t just have Latinos; there are some other ethnicities

too. We’re very welcoming. We don’t just want to learn about you, we want

to learn about where you come from. Cultural pre sen ta tions are in our

motto. It defines us; we are social; we’re cultural. So pretty much those are

the main themes we focus on. It’s so the members learn and be aware and

pretty much learn something about dif fer ent cultures and experience

something dif fer ent.

Differentiating LF’s programming from that of other Latino organ izations on

campus and emphasizing that LF is not po liti cal or preprofessional, Mireya

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underscored the role of culture and ac cep tance. Another student, Lissandra,

expressed similar thoughts when asked the same question:

I think we make friendships and try to be very culturally aware about

accepting other people, and we accept people no matter who they are. We

try to unify and make sure that people feel comfortable with each other.

We try to make sure people know a little bit about culture. We think that

people should know each other and have a second family here. And we

really try to provide awareness. We do party as well but we do a lot of

bonding.

Lissandra echoes Mireya’s words about ac cep tance and emphasizes how friend

ships are cultivated through bonding, even using the words “second family.”

I continued this line of questioning with others, including Cruz.

DV R : What is the most impor tant event LF hosts or does on campus?

CRUZ: I think our goal is to promote cultural diversity. Rather, I’m sorry, to pro

mote unity through cultural diversity and awareness. I think we do a good job

at that because I think by becoming aware dif fer ent cultures, of dif fer ent eth

nicities and every thing, I think they [members] become more comfortable

with it and, because of that, that kind of brings diversity. It brings people to

get along better.

Although cultural diversity awareness is a stated goal of LF, the LF respondents

overwhelmingly mentioned the winter retreat as the most impor tant event. The

cultivation of friendships trumped showcasing Latino culture to the campus

writ large. As Cruz explained:

By far, the most impor tant and the most fun thing we do is actually our

winter retreat. Latino Fellowship is just a social organ ization, really. Like

I’ve been saying, there’s no affiliation with anything. It’s just to be, just

to be social, that is the epitome of what the organ ization is. It’s a family,

it’s a close unit. What happens at retreat, there’s no mistaking it, it’s what

the organ ization is actually about. I’ve been to three of them and I want

to say that I’ve been to at least maybe a hundred events that RU has spon

sored [and] our retreat is by far the best I’ve ever been to. Whether I was

part of it, part of the committee or whether I was just there. The activities

that we have, just the talks that people have, the sharing that people, the

friends that you make, it’s three days but the friends that you make there

usually last. I mean, for me, I made a couple of friends my second year and

I’m still friends with them.

Pablo echoed Cruz’s enthusiasm, saying that “the winter retreat allows us to

bond. During the day, we have a bunch of activities. They’re kind of silly games.”

What he emphasized, though, was that

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the connections you make in LF are very dif fer ent. You get to know people

very personally. We always bond after the retreat. It’s amazing; you get to

know people really well. You might see them all quarter but [at] retreat

you become good friends. Like my friend, Mark: we didn’t really know

each other, but after retreat we lived together.

Even outside of conversations about the retreat, members raved about the

bonds they felt with each other. Tania explained:

I’ve noticed that LF is something that’s very, very dif fer ent than what

anyone else can offer. It’s hard to explain— like the bonds that you make

with the people. These people are people that I’m going to talk to for the

rest of my life. It’s a family environment. LF is like my home away from

home. Every time I’m stressed and I think, ok, who can I call? It’s some

one from LF, like Cruz. Every time I need something, every time I’m super

stressed out.

Like Tania, other students also highlighted the supportive role of LF. They also

replied in similar ways when I asked them how embedded LF was in their social

life on campus and if their friends were in the organ ization. Thalia said, “Yes,

it’s a family away from home. All my friends are in LF and we hang out a lot. And

we see each other around a lot.” Similarly, Gloria said, “All my friends are there.

It [LF] does define me because it’s the people I like being around.” Mireya said

about LF, “Yeah that’s how I met most of my friends so LF has a very strong rela

tionship with my social life.” In reply to another question, about how LF shaped

students’ experiences on campus, Cruz offered:

When I came in, I wasn’t too caring, I wasn’t too affectionate. Spending a

lot of time with people that are in organ izations, just being in a friendly

environment has kind of helped me become that person. I think that’s

prob ably the biggest thing, just being social, just being friendly, being

affectionate toward anybody, and I think that’s just the personality of

the organ ization. We don’t have any kind of, I guess you could say, try outs,

any requirements or anything and that’s mostly because if your person

ality doesn’t fit a friendly, welcoming personality, then you kind of leave

it on your own and if it does, you stay, so I think that’s the biggest way

that Latino Fellowship has reflected me or I reflect Latino Fellowship,

rather.

And within this friendly environment LF has also created a light hearted

atmosphere where joking and banter, sometimes including sexual innuendo, are

commonplace. There is constant heterosexual flirting. When I asked students

if LF members date one another, most said that they don’t but that they do

flirt. “Maybe some of the guys think about it, but I don’t see any dating,” Cruz

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observed. “They do flirt though.” Pablo confirmed, saying that “I don’t date in

LF, but I check out the girls. They’re cute!” Lissandra added that “ people some

times hook up,” and Deidra said that “I think some people in LF date each other.

I think it’s a little weird. I think people do kind of hook up too.”

Although LF seemed like friendly utopia for its members, I wanted to make

sure there were no hidden disagreements. Only one member of the leadership,

Gloria, acknowledged any, but her description of them made it clear that they

were logistical, not earth shattering. “As a board we do have some dif fer ent

opinions. We rarely fight since it’s mostly girls on the board. At the beginning

of the year we were stressed out because we had no money. But we made up all

the money with fundraisers.” Moreover, insofar as there is any tension in LF, it

is external tension, owing to its relationship with LUA, which is a very dif fer ent

kind of organ ization, as I quickly saw.

Latinos United for Action

Latinos United for Action required me to meet with the leadership board before

allowing me access to their meetings. I met with the co chairs, Liliana and Lalo,

the fundraiser chair, the external chair, the internal chair, the secretary/histo

rian, the outreach chair, the community and labor chair, the social publicity

chair, and the student ser vices chair in LUA’s office, located in the MCC. The

office, which is labeled with LUA’s name on the outside, has two desks, three

chairs, and many po liti cally motivated and Latino posters on the walls. All of the

leaders crammed into the room and somehow managed to close the door. They

began the meeting by asking me about my research interests. Liliana took the

lead in asking questions. I mentioned how I’d like to know how student groups

were organ izing across groups and campuses. They informed me that several

years ago, a gradu ate student had gotten involved in their organ ization and

“infiltrated.”2 They explained that the “infiltration” led them to lose members

and have lots of tensions. Lalo said, “We want you to be here because we think

this seems like impor tant research, but we can’t have another infiltration.” I

emphasized to the group that I was not there to sway or shape their organ

ization in any way. One of the students asked if I could stay quiet and maybe sit

in the back. I conceded: I would be a nonparticipant observer. After they were

thoroughly convinced of my commitment, they welcomed me to attend the sec

ond meeting of the school year.

Before leaving the MCC, Liliana stayed behind and told me that I had met

most of the leaders with the exception of the leaders of support groups for

women, men, and LGBT students. She said they had about thirty to forty active

members. I also learned that LUA raised most of its funds but also received

some money from the student senate for programs that are open to the entire

campus. A week later I attended the meeting, along with approximately forty five

students. LUA had an agenda printed on a white board, which read: “Intros— new

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people, Reports, Ice Breaker, Workshop, Announcements.” I arrived a bit early,

so Liliana and Lalo greeted me, telling me that after all the committees made

their reports, I could address the group and tell them about my research. I

thanked them and sat in the back. They then removed all the chairs so every one

could sit on the floor. There was a tele vi sion at the front to the room. I watched

members as they walked in and noticed the majority were wearing Converse

sneakers, blue jeans, and either orga nizational t shirts or t shirts with EZLN

log os.3 Several students also carried morrales.4 Once the room was substantially

full, the leaders began the unity clap, a ritual associated with a variety of unions

and movements.5 All members joined them. Carlos (external chair) took the

floor and greeted every one. He invited the approximately ten people who had

not been at the previous week’s meeting to introduce themselves. Then Lili

ana announced that there would be a multicultural leaders’ retreat (hosted by

the MCC) during the upcoming week and that it would cost $60 per person,

so all those who wanted to come should find a sponsor. Lalo announced that

Estelle had had a birthday the week before and brought out a card that people

had signed the previous week. He handed it to Estelle and asked every one to

sing happy birthday. Liliana announced that the Latino Studies open house

would happen later that week and there would be a son jarocho (folk music)6

per for mance.

Next, each chair stood up and gave an update. First, the internal chair,

Maximiliano, urged people to run for the legislative council (RU’s schoolwide

student government). He advertised the open secretary position, which paid $77

a term. Second, the student ser vices chair, Alicia, announced the orga nizational

mentorship program. She asked anyone who had participated in the program to

speak about their experience. One woman in the back said, “My mentor and I

got along great; she and I are still good friends. She introduced me to the organ

ization and she’s about to finish grad school. This is a great way to make lifelong

contacts.” Alicia then told all who were interested in the mentor mentee pro

gram to contact her after the meeting and fill out an interest sheet. Although

mentorship programs are created by staff at Liberal Arts College, Research Uni

versity does not provide such a program, so LUA members create their own.

Then Alicia told every one about the interest in creating a notes, tests, and book

archive for members of the organ ization and asked every one who had resources

to contribute to see her after the meeting.

Next, Liliana requested that the leaders of the three support groups (men,

women, and LBGTQ) stand up. They were introduced but did not say anything. Lili

ana announced that the outreach chair was not at the meeting, but that, later,

she would bring information about the high school program. The community

and labor committee chair, Evelyn, spoke about the boycott against Forever 21

(a retailer of women’s fashion), explaining that the com pany “has been giving

money to the mayor and now they [Forever 21] want a local farm’s land.” She

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added that people were looking into the donations made to the mayor and that

she would bring more information to the next meeting. The fundraising chair

announced an upcoming carne asada (barbecue) and said she would pass out

volunteer sheets soon. Lastly, the co chairs urged all members to attend next

week’s meeting because it would be the annual orga nizational open house.

The group then transitioned to an ice breaker. The leaders gave all students

a sheet of paper and told them to walk around the room and get to know each

other’s names and write those names on the paper. This exercise went on for

fifteen minutes. When it was over, the co chairs stood in the front and asked

members to discuss what it means to be Chicano. The community and labor chair,

Evelyn said, “Chicano is a very po liti cal word, and it’s not just a Mexican Ameri

can. It’s someone who fights and talks about issues such as sexism and the

Forever 21 stuff.” Then a young woman in the back raised her hand. She said,

“I’m Central American and I used to think that only Mexicans could be Chicano,

but now I identify as Chicano because it’s about fighting for equality.”

After this statement, Maximiliano, the internal chair, went to the front of

the room with another young woman. He transitioned the group into the work

shop of the day, telling the members that it was time to discuss the Chicano

movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He explained that “the Chicano movement

was several acts and some are unconnected, but they all fought against oppres

sion.” He listed a few, including the student movement, which fought for edu

cational access,” but chose to speak in greater depth about the United Farm

Workers movement, which fought against exploitation and poor living condi

tions, and to describe its five year strike and co ali tion with the Filipino Farmers

Union. Then, a young woman spoke about the fortieth anniversary of the East

Los Angeles high school protests by student who demanded better conditions

in school7 and showed about ten minutes of a video about them on the tele vi sion in

the room.

After the video both Maximiliano and the young woman attempted to

start a discussion about it. One young woman in the back said, “I won der what

their goals were and if they achieved any of them?” One young man said, “I went

to school in south central LA and I didn’t get a good quality education. The

schools aren’t good and I know that the students adapt and they act up. But

there are still a lot of prob lems in schools.” Liliana spoke up and said, “Well, the

movement was able to change the racist tracking, but there is still a lot of voca

tional training in urban areas, less AP classes in urban schools and a lot of

military recruitment.” Carlos stood up in the front and mentioned the fortieth

anniversary of the student movement. He explained that “it started when the

Olympics were going on in Mexico City and stuff was happening all over the world.”

Carlos asked every one to break up into groups of five. He asked people to dis

cuss their view of Chicanismo before and after the day’s discussion.

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I picked one group to observe. One young man said, “I’m from Ec ua dor and

now I know that Chicano isn’t just for Mexicans; it’s about po liti cal values to

change and work together for same goals.” Evelyn said, “I used to think it was a

nationalistic term, but now I see it as po liti cal goals and higher education.”

Another student said that “ people are friendly here and they took me in, and we

are working together for the needs of others.” The fourth student in the group

said, “It’s not just about the social and family but about strug gles.” Carlos asked

each group to report to the whole group. One student said, “You never hear about

the Chicano movement, mostly the black movement.” Liliana said, “I used to think

that Chicano was a negative word especially since my parents are from Mexico

and they said it meant ungrateful. Now I think it’s about workers’ strug gle and

education.” A young woman from a third group said, “I learned that this organ

ization isn’t just about Mexicans, but it’s how it portrays itself. But if we were in

New York, it would be more Puerto Ricans. Like, for example, it portrays Mexi

can issues like Día de los Muertos, although it’s open to people of all back

grounds.” Liliana raised her hand and said, “Just to add, people all over Latin

Amer i ca celebrate Día de los Muertos.” Carlos interrupted and asked people to

attend the Día de los Muertos planning meeting and said the LUA meeting was

officially over. Despite the workshop about Chicanismo and a favorable review of

the label, few students I interviewed used the word to identify themselves. (I say

more about this in Chapter 5.)

Latinos United for Action is self described as a multifaceted organ ization

that works on several issues. In Evelyn’s words, “We are a cultural, social, po liti

cal, and educational organ ization. We do outreach and social events. My empha

sis is outreach but we also do workshops that are educational and fundraisers.

We do go out and do club events.” Evelyn understands LUA as an ambitious

organ ization that promotes a vision of itself as serving multiple purposes on

campus and beyond. The outreach that Evelyn mentioned is to the community

outside the campus. And when she said, “We do go out and do club events,” she

was talking about socializing. Gilda similarly described LUA as “a social, cul

tural, po liti cal, and educational organ ization that works toward helping on issues

that Latino students face in the community and on campus.” She further noted

that “it’s also about educating the campus community about these issues, and

I think it’s also about fighting for social justice. I think it’s a form of campus

retention because it makes people feel connected to the campus.” Lalo continued

in a similar vein, boasting: “What don’t we do? We are a student organ ization

that promotes culture and promotes programs about higher education. We put

on events to get students of color into higher education. We try to promote

awareness about po liti cal issues and culture on campus. There are two ave nues

that we do: promote things on campus and try to get more students into higher

education.”

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When I asked students what they considered to be LUA’s most impor tant

activities, Carlos replied:

I would say our high school day long event. This is the orga nizational

event that we work hardest [on]. Because at RU we have to have programs

that are geared toward students on campus, but this event is for poten

tial students. It takes a lot of preparation. We let people know that we are

here to help and we prepare them. What they need to know to get into

college. It makes you feel really good that they really appreciate it and

they send emails and look forward to seeing us next year if— when they

graduated and get in.

Like Carlos, Evelyn also expressed excitement with the outreach work LUA did

with high school students. She said, “I’m in love with our high school program

right now. Students who are interested slightly in going to college, that program

is a great success for them.” LUA members saw their outreach programs having

results and impacting the lives of the Latino high school students they sought

to serve. Deidra, who was a member of both LF and LUA for a year, also recog

nized LUA’s efforts to focus on promoting educational attainment. She observed,

“I think they [LUA] try to focus on higher education stuff. I know that they really

focused on getting other Latinos into education. I know they also mentor high

school students during the day long event.”

In addition to the perceived positive effects of LUA on high school students,

members also detailed many positive influences on their own personal develop

ment. Liliana, the co chair, claimed to have gained organ izing skills, learning to

work under pressure and “how to get things done” within LUA. She added, “I

learned about my leadership potential, which will help me throughout life.”

Other students, too, saw LUA as having an impact on their approach to work and

even helping them find a path forward after graduation. I asked Alicia, “How

impor tant has LUA been to your overall undergraduate experience at RU?” She

replied: “It’s been super impor tant. It’s been a huge priority. I’ve grown here a lot

and I have really found my passion. And I really like working with my community.

I think now, leaving RU, I will always be an active member in my community. It’s

really helped me get in touch with my cultural roots. Even though I came from a

predominantly Latino community, I found out a lot more here about my culture.”

Alicia has gained connections to her cultural identity and community and has

declared a lifetime commitment to these connections. Alicia’s words confirm

Associate Dean Ernesto Telles’s perception that LUA “fortifies identity.”

Other members saw their experience in LUA as also helping them build

their resumes. Gilda said:

I think it’s been essential in getting access to dif fer ent knowledge of devel

oping as a leader. It also gave me knowledge about how the university

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system runs and it gave me access to mentorship. I know that all of these

positions helped me and prepared me for gradu ate school. When I got to

college, it was more like I had just made it. It [LUA] gave me all these

opportunities to become involved and kind of develop skills as a person

and as a leader. When I look at my resumé, I think, “Wow, I guess I have

done a lot and it’s because of LUA.”

Similarly, Kenya credited LUA with her development: “My experience would’ve

been a 180 without LUA. I think for personal growth it’s been very impor tant. I

think for my education, it’s been very impor tant but it has affected me aca

demically. I think if I wasn’t in LUA, I would be doing much better academi

cally.” This drawback squares with Ernesto Telles’s observation that “the students

that are successful do not get involved in these student organ izations. And I

don’t know what that means.” Telles had a particularly negative assessment of

LUA, which I discuss in more detail later in this chapter. For her part, Evelyn

called attention to the workload that the LUA leadership faces, and this may be

a reason why students who are actively involved seem to suffer academically.

She said:

Some of the older members feel like they’ve already paid their dues to

the organ ization and they’ve left. I think that leaves the newer members

without guidance. I think part of LUA is very stressful and you get tired.

I think LUA is about growth, and some people feel like they’ve gotten

enough from the organ ization and they want to expand, and I think

that’s the point of graduation. I know some people are doing research and

they’re really sucked into the research. I mean I wanted to do research

too. But I need to put something into the organ ization.

Evelyn, like Kenya, may have suffered academically as well due to her leadership

in LUA. She had chosen the organ ization over research experience, and for her,

as for other leaders, this also meant feeling pressure to keep up LUA’s ambitious

programmatic agenda.

Aside from such drawbacks, LUA is similar to LF in serving as a “home away

from home” for its members. Gilda talked broadly about Latino student organ

izations, saying, “Regardless what they do and what they define themselves as, I

think their unwritten goal is to give students a place to feel home on campus

and they develop leadership and really think it is impor tant.” Lalo commented

that “LUA is a sense of familia. A lot of my friends are in LUA. And I have a lot of

close friends in LUA and most of my friends at RU are in the organ ization.” This

was also true for most members of LUA. In Belinda’s words, “All of my friends

are in LUA.” Evelyn echoed the point: “All of my friends at RU are part of LUA. I

don’t really have many other friends at RU that are not part of organ ization.”

Kenya agreed: “All of my friends are in LUA. I think few of us have friends

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outside of LUA.” Carlos observed that while he had some friends from home, “I

would say 75 percent of my friends are in LUA.”

Although LUA appears to be a safe place and a home for its members, the

organ ization had quite a negative reputation on campus. I asked members to talk

about this. Gilda said, “Before I joined, I heard really dumb things like ‘ They’re

crazy, radical, and racist.’ I heard that we were Mexican centric. It was a lot of

stupid, negative things that really had no merit.” Evelyn expressed similar ideas:

“When I tell people I’m in LUA, they think I’m crazy. They think we hate all

white people. They think we are racist group.” Like Gilda, Evelyn asserted that

these critiques of LUA were unfounded. In the next sections, I describe the vari

ous difficulties that LUA faces, given its negative reputation.

Tensions between Latinos United for Action and Latino Fellowship

Membership in both groups, Latinos United for Action and Latino Fellowship,

was seen as incompatible by Latino students interviewed. The exclusivity of these

organ izations was partly a result of university programming. Each organ ization

occupies a dif fer ent space on campus based on its history and structural incor

poration. Latinos United for Action (LUA) is a national student organ ization,

founded during the civil rights era, with chapters across the southwest and an

explic itly po liti cal mission. LUA has a historical legacy and is formally recog

nized by the administration at Research University as evidenced by the campus

resources available to LUA in the Multicultural Center and the MCC’s recogni

tion of the LUA as the representative Latino organ ization on campus. LUA’s and

LF’s differential access to campus resources fuels their competitive and often

antagonistic relationship, as do orga nizational sagas of what Deidra called “old

beefs,” but without going into any details.

When I began my fieldwork at RU, I met three young women, Deidra, Gua

dalupe, and Micaela, who joined both Latino Fellowship and Latinos United for

Action. Guadalupe said of her experience with both, “They know I’m in both

groups. Latino Fellowship members say, ‘I didn’t know you were radical.’ LUA

members say, ‘Oh, you like to party, too.’ ” Each group perceived the other as

quite distinct from itself. As a member of LF and LUA, Gloria noted, “I’ve heard

that LF and LUA don’t get along. Because we’re on dif fer ent sides of the spectrum.

Some of our [LF] members are in LUA, so I don’t think there is drama. We’re just

more social, social cultural, not po liti cal, radical.” Eventually, though, both left

LUA with negative feelings, as did Deidra, who in her second year had both

joined the board of LF and taken charge of planning the Día de los Muertos event

for LUA. The latter, however, became fraught with conflict and led her to leave

LUA. As she outlined the circumstances, she represented LUA at the meeting

of the United Latino Organ izations (ULO), an umbrella council of all Latino

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organ izations on campus which met once every academic term to outline all

the events that each of the Latino organ izations was planning. When ULO began

to plan a combined Día de los Muertos event, its advertising flier in par tic u lar

angered LUA, as Deidra explained:

The flier said LUA pres ents Día de los Muertos with the support of the

United Latino Organ izations. They [LUA] got to the point that they were

really upset with me. The president said this had never happened before. I

was part of more than one club so I didn’t have a prob lem with it. I didn’t

really understand it. But they made a really big deal about doing that.

Then they pulled out their old LUA school binders to talk about how Día

de los Muertos will always be theirs. I guess that LUA wants to hold onto

that event. But ULO wanted to make it bigger.

While Deidra felt that including the name of ULO on the advertisement

should be no prob lem, LUA members used their rec ords to prove their historical

pre ce dent in planning the event on campus. The reaction of LUA leadership

ultimately led Deidra to leave the organ ization. “This made me feel like I’m

obviously not a member of LUA. They made me feel like it was my fault and I

messed up. I think they’re afraid that people will slack off. They always say

things like ‘We have to pick up your slack.’ I think it’s the same thing at Latino

graduation, because LUA is in charge. But I think, ‘Why can’t another organ

ization plan it?’ Their answer is ‘It’s always been LUA’s event.’ ” Other students

also perceived LUA as holding onto events and not collaborating with other

Latino organ izations or ULO. Lissandra, for one, thought that

certain LUA members are not the nicest. I once said something to a girl

that knew I was in Latino Fellowship and she was not very friendly. I

don’t even know why people don’t like each other. That’s drama that

happened before. I won’t get into it. Sometimes I would say, “Oh come to

this event, we’re having a fundraiser,” etcetera. One time I went to LUA

meeting and they noticed I was new and they asked me to introduce

myself. I was there for a while and I kind of feel bad because I had to

leave. I started working at the Grill and one of the girls told me about the

meeting. But she also told me that she didn’t really like things that LUA

would do and say. I remember going to a meeting for Day of the Dead and

they said something really rude. They didn’t want anyone to help them

plan the event. I thought, “Seriously, this is why no one likes you and you

won der why people don’t want to support you or include you in things.” I

also know someone else who had a really bad issue with them.

Lissandra had a lot to say about LUA. She talked about LUA’s bad reputation on

campus for not being “very nice,” but despite this she attended a meeting. She also

talked about LUA’s re sis tance to collaborating with ULO and the organ izations

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within it. As the president of LF, Cruz, too, wanted to collaborate with LUA. He

said, “We’ve been talking to them a little bit. One of their events overlaps with

our Encuentro Latino, and I think we’re going to see prob ably what we can nego

tiate events and dates, maybe collaborate a little bit.” The groups did eventually

coordinate dates for their events, but they did not collaborate. One group hosted

its event a day earlier.

What did LUA members make of Latino Fellowship, and vice versa? Jennifer,

a member of LUA, said, “I went to an LF meeting once. I didn’t really like it as

much. It didn’t really feel like there was a purpose. It seemed mostly social.

Which is ok, but I wanted purpose.” Evelyn, a member of LUA offered a broader

critique:

Before, going to college was about educating yourself and doing stuff

for your community. But the media now talks about college as partying,

joining sororities, and getting drunk every night. And it’s not really

like that, and people who do it every night, well I don’t think that’s a

good experience. In Latino Fellowship, you do nothing but socialize. We

have a member that goes to both meetings, and she says that in LUA,

she actually has to think about things and that turns off a lot of people.

I think they’re leaning towards Latino Fellowship because they want

to socialize. Every body has dif fer ent needs. I wanted to become more

politicized.

Evelyn’s view of LF as being merely social was also shared by other members

who felt alone in organ izing for Latinos on campus. Kenya, a member of LUA,

said “I look at the black po liti cal organ ization and they have the support of

their Greek organ izations. We [LUA] don’t really have the support of anyone

else. I think it’s just us doing all this active stuff on campus. Latinos on this

campus will avoid us because we are po liti cal.” Like Kenya, Gilda, another

member of LUA, was also disappointed with the lack of solidarity around po liti

cal issues:

I feel like the Latino community on campus can use its power. They

could get a lot done if they united. Like for example, we could do a cam

pus campaign on the Dream Act. I think maybe we should do a rally, but

sometimes they think having rallies are too crazy. We brought it up in a

ULO meeting and they said that it was cool but then nobody wanted to

do it. And then somebody had the idea of doing a Latino festival and we

just had dif fer ent booths. It was a like pulling teeth to or ga nize it.

Nobody wants to put the work in; every one’s so apathetic. I think it’s

because these organ izations don’t have a po liti cal component and mostly

they’re just social and they just want to work for their own population.

They don’t want to contribute to the campus community per se. I really

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wish we could’ve worked together and done something because I think

that would have been such a power ful force if the whole Latino commu

nity did something.8

When I asked Gilda whether ULO could be a site for collaboration, she said:

“All the Latino organ izations on campus get together once a month under ULO.

And I think it’s really frustrating because people just give announcements. I

think that we had meetings just for the sake of meeting because we didn’t put

on any events together; there’s only one barbecue at the beginning of the school

year. LUA serves as a liaison to every thing that is going on campus. LUA is so

active in the Multicultural Center and student government.” Gilda expresses

the feeling of many LUA members that they are pulling most of the weight of

representing Latinos po liti cally on campus. Members and leaders of LUA are

intent on keeping their commitments to advancing social justice for Latino com

munities, and as they focus on this goal, ideology takes over as does their con

cern with orga nizational integrity. They scrutinize other organ izations for not

doing enough or perhaps advancing Latino causes in ways that conflict with

their ideology. Despite their well intentioned actions and hard work, even some

Latino administrators held negative perceptions of them.

Latino Administrators’ Perceptions of Latino Student Organ izations

Latinos United for Action had conflicts and tensions not only with other student

groups but also, at times, with some administrators. I interviewed two Latino

administrators at RU. One is an associate dean, Ernesto Telles, and the other is

an even higher level administrator, Lorenzo Flores. Both reflected on their own

experiences as students while talking about the students they now serve. While

they hold complex views of Latinos and the Latino community, at times they

trod close to ste reo types. Ernesto Telles talked about the gendered inequalities

within families:

I talk to these Latinas. For example, I had one student. She was so depressed.

She went to DC for gradu ate school. She said, “This is the first time I

haven’t slept in my bed. I miss my mom.” I asked her, “Does she cook for

you, te plancha [does she iron your clothes]? Te lava los calzones [does she

wash your underwear]?” This is 2010! It’s the same situation as my mother.

The boys can do anything. He can have a 2.1 GPA and his family will sup

port him going to law school but not the daughter.

Telles is expressing his perception of Latino families’ failure to support their

daughters’ educational endeavors. Lorenzo Flores also blamed Latino culture

for the educational attainment rates. He said: “Other cultural groups take their

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education more seriously. We do it on the surface level. Soccer trumps going to

the library every time. There is not enough academic cultivation within our cul

ture writ large. I’m not trying to blame La Raza. I think a major part is institu

tions’ roles in opening up for us. But I’m not blind in our role getting here.” Flores’s

view combines both structural and institutional issues but does not shy away

from the perceived cultural component he thinks is a prob lem. Moreover, he is

aware of how structure shapes his relationship with students. Replying to my

question about his relationship to Latino student organ izations, he said: “I used

to have relationships with the organ izations. They invited me to speak, etcetera.

I have more relationships with individuals now. That’s how the institution

works. It promotes relationships with individuals, individual student leaders.

It’s the meritocratic model. Notice how it handles protests: it doesn’t do well. They

give individual grades not group grades.”

Both Telles and Flores were college students in the late 1960s and lived

through the Chicano movement. Both viewed today’s student through the lenses

of their own experiences:

ER NE STO T ELLE S (ET): I could never understand why the rhe toric of the 1960s is

relevant to the rhe toric of the twenty first century. That’s what LUA stu

dents do.

DV R : Can you say more about that?

ET: They’re still talking about internal colonialism, the periphery, imperialism,

colonialism. In class I say, “Look, we know there is racism and discrimination;

the question is, what are we going to do about it? How are we going approach

it with a public policy agenda? Who are the leaders and how do we educate?

My concern is if we have a student for two, four, or five years, between class

work, research, community ser vice, and student organ izations, what should

they come out with? They shouldn’t forget who they are. History should be

corrected. I deal a lot with Mexicans. At many of the conferences I go to, Mexi

cans talk about the northern population. Even Mexican governors from

Baja, etcetera, Say, “ These people think Mexican American War was last year!”

Attitudes! If you look at extremes here— look at Latino Fellowship. They have

totally dif fer ent attitudes and rationalization for purpose. I’ve always had a

little bit of trou ble with the rhe toric. I will support them either way, no matter

what.

Telles emphasizes that LUA uses what he thinks is outdated rhe toric. He uses

his relationships with con temporary Mexican leaders to strengthen his argu

ment. Regardless, he does take seriously his task of supporting all Latino organ

izations. Flores shared similar perspectives: “I was at the planning of El Plan de

Aztlan. Is Aztlan still relevant? I think we need whole new ideological perspec

tives and tactics to unite our population. We don’t even know how to refer to

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our population.” Flores was directing these comments at LUA. He explained

further.

LOR ENZO F LOR E S (LF): LUA is the only surviving 1960s student organ izations

overcoming SDS and SNCC. I knew all of the individuals, Cesar Chavez,

Corky, Reies Tijerina, I supported them and worked with them. They con

tributed im mensely to the unification and politicization of a people to take

on societal oppressive practices. It only went so far. And it fragmented. There

is a proliferation of Latino student groups. These movements shaped the way

we judge Latino leaders.

DV R : How so?

LF: We ask are you Latino enough? Chicano enough? Do they represent the issues

of our people?

Flores then explained that he often is judged by students, as Kenya, a member of

LUA, confirmed, describing an incident that troubled the group:

Lorenzo Flores is coming next week to our meeting because of a com

ment he made last week. There was a speaker talking about racism and

education. He was a really good speaker. Flores comes in to introduce

him and says, “It’s raining,” and then he said, “Ha ha. Look, I’m all wet

and I won’t say anything if you call me a wetback.” The speaker was talk

ing about racism! Nobody laughed, and then he went to ULO and wouldn’t

apologize for that joke. . . . We asked for a written apology and he said no.

I asked Flores to explain how and if he is challenged by Latino students.

DV R : What do you think about students questioning your per for mance as a

high level administrator and as a Chicano?

LF: What can I think about it? Do your homework! The perception that I have must

not be dif fer ent from an eighteen or twenty year old. My perception as a

Chicano activist now is dif fer ent from theirs. My ideas have changed as

I’ve engaged in change at dif fer ent levels in my life. Each generation has to

determine how they are going to define themselves, how they are going to

connect their energies as human beings. It’s a continuous conversation with

lots of pitfalls.

Telles held similar perspectives about LUA, commenting, “I talk to LUA and

I say something wrong, and they stop talking to me. Then they invite me again

when they forget.” I asked him to talk more about the “wrong things” he says,

and he responded: “I’m not interested in rhe toric. You don’t have to convince

me about the Mexican American War, you don’t have to convince me of Aztlan,

about immigration. I just want reasoning. You are part of the top percent of

California! Don’t isolate yourself! But there are some that are totally committed

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and some students will follow them. There is a variety of views on campus and

the rhe toric used. They’re so desperate and factionalized. And it’s 2010 not 1969.”

While Telles did not appear to be hopeful that the divisions among the Latino

students will dissipate, Flores has a slightly dif fer ent perspective.

LF: We were pioneers. We had a passion for bringing in a new generation of

Latino students to campus. I don’t see that anymore.

DV R : You don’t?

LF: I do but it’s played out somewhat ritualistically.

DV R : What do you mean by that?

LF: They may not be addressing the real issues because they are following tem

plates of previous generations. It might have worked then. They need new

ones.

DV R : Like what?

LF: Using technology: it costs so much more to go to college. They should be pre

paring students to save money for college. And this might sound contradic

tory, but they should be talking to students about what the role of higher

education [is]. It’s not an ipso facto job training degree, not at the research

university. It’s more of a leadership development opportunity with network

ing opportunities. It’s not the end.

Flores continues to think that Latino organ izing is impor tant. He sees work to

be done, but he believes LUA needs new templates. He reflected on his experi

ence: “I began my work as a young Chicano activist against police brutality.

Police were never charged with killing Chicanos. And I started my work in higher

education. I think if we continue to get educated we will have an intelligent sia to

guide the movement and our people.” For Flores, Latino student activists are

essential for the creation of the intelligent sia, but in his assessment they need a

new vision. Despite their perspectives on Latino student organ izing, Telles and

Flores do not have strong or close relationships with them or interact often with

them. It is also ironic that these veterans of the Chicano movement find LUA’s

rhe toric irrelevant and counterproductive. It remains unknown how the critical

assessment of Latinos United for Action might shape the organ ization’s overall

reputation with other Latino organ izations on campus. The critical views of these

administrators might be trickling down.

Inside the Conflicts: The Latino Community at Research University

Inside the gates of Research University, most students live on campus for the

first two years and then choose to relocate to the surrounding areas for their

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final undergraduate years. This makes the bound aries of RU semi permeable.

Ideas and people travel off and onto campus, and students are integrated and

connected to campus through organ izations. Thus, they do not feel totally alien

ated from campus, but then they do not talk about RU as their community the

way LAC students do, and so their social ties to the campus as a whole are mod

erate, when compared to LAC and RPU. Table 3.1 provides a summary of conflic

tual climate of the RU campus.

At RU, the main purpose of Latino student organ izations is to be a “home”

for their members, and this role is critical, given the impersonal dimensions of

RU— large classes, lots of students, no faculty student relationships, and Latino

underrepre sen ta tion. Students’ time is occupied with orga nizational activities.

They have strong friendships within their organ izations, and fellow members

are often their only friends on campus. The bound aries of organ izations are, in

effect, closed, and membership is exclusive in practice (since we know three

women tried but failed to reconcile dual membership). This becomes evident in

the relationship between LUA and LF, which is exacerbated by the MCC’s unequal

treatment of the groups. However, some of the intergroup tensions live on because

of institutional memories and the stories students tell about the orga nizational

conflicts. There is orga nizational continuity at RU, perhaps because it is not a

true commuter campus and students join groups for four years, but perhaps also

because both LUA and LF are highly structured and hierarchical. They keep rec

ords and are able to keep stories alive. Within the campus grounds of RU, the

negative perceptions of LUA and LUA’s fraught relationship with LF live on. And

RU continues to provide a conflictual context for Latino student organ izing.

TA BLE 3.1

The conflictual environment of Research University

Strength of student social ties to campus at large

Medium

Description of external campus bound aries

Semi permeable

Description of internal orga nizational bound aries

Differentiated and exclusive

Description of role of organ ization Family away from home; identity

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VVVVVVVVVVV

Regional Public University is nestled in the mountains, right off a major high way, in a historically Latino, mainly Mexican neighborhood. There are two ways

of entering the campus: on the east side or west side. One entrance leads to the

College of Math and Science and the other to the College of Arts and Letters.

Many students are unfamiliar with both sides of campus; they usually take

courses and park on the side where their major is housed. As Jackie, a member

of Hispanics for Economics, said, “I’m always on this side of campus; I don’t

really know what’s on the other side.” Buildings are surrounded by more than

ten parking lots, and parking is relatively cheap and can be paid by the hour.

I first went to the campus to visit the Institutional Review Board (IRB)

office because an online form was not available. As I walked on the Arts and

Letters side of campus, I noticed a few students sitting outside a student union,

a big square building, which, I found out, had just been opened. Inside were two

fast food franchises, and other rooms were still under construction. A stairway

in the middle of the union led to a series of offices on the second floor, includ

ing the Multicultural Center. I walked into the center and was greeted by a

student employee at a front desk. There are four student resource offices housed

within the Multicultural Center: Asian Pacific Islander, Chicano and Latino,

Pan African, and Gender and Sexuality. The resource offices had some decora

tion on the walls and pamphlets outlining what they provided, such as study

space, computers, workshops, and a list of affiliated student organ izations. I was

familiar with the organ izations listed on the Chicano Latino pamphlet because

I had already found a similar list on the Office of Student Life’s website.

There wasn’t anyone in any of the rooms, so I grabbed a Chicano Latino

pamphlet and went to the IRB office, where I was instructed to fill out the form

and turn it in in person. Expecting to need a faculty sponsor, I turned to Assis

tant Professor of Sociology Walter Chen, whom I knew through a mutual friend,

Coexisting at Regional Public University

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6 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

and emailed him before my first visit to the RPU campus to arrange a meeting.

We met in his office, which he shared with another faculty member. He told me

that most sociology professors shared offices. The building looked as if it hadn’t

been renovated since the late 1980s. Pieces of the ceiling were falling down, and

the lockers in the hallways appeared to be relics of the past. Chen described his

heavy teaching load, of up to seven courses a year and lamented that he did not

have more time or resources for his own research. He invited me to attend one

of his undergraduate sociology classes at some point in the semester.

Reaching out to four of the fourteen Latino organ izations listed on the stu

dent life website, I purposely included Latinos United for Action, as it was the

only Latino po liti cal organ ization on campus and I was also studying another

chapter at Research University. I received only two responses from the remain

ing three organ izations I contacted. I corresponded with leaders from both

groups: one was a Latina social support group and the other was Hispanics for

Economics (HE), a group with a preprofessional focus. To keep in line with the

other coed groups in my sample, I chose HE. At HE, I was in contact with Yvette,

who was listed on the webpage as the president of the organ ization, and at LUA,

with and Gilma, who was listed as its president. Yvette invited me to attend the

next meeting of the semester. Gilma invited me to meet with her. I did both.

Who’s on Campus

Regional Public University is the least selective school in my study; it accepts

approximately 60 percent of its applicants and enrolls approximately 20,000

students. It has a student faculty ratio of 20:1. RPU students are mostly local,

nontraditional, and low income. More than 50 percent of the student body is

eligible for Pell grants. Regional Public University is also a Hispanic serving

institution, enrolling many first generation college students of Latino origin.

Moreover, Regional Public University is located in a Latino enclave. RPU’s student

body is 45 percent Latino, 20 percent Asian American, 10 percent white, and

8 percent African American. The Latino majority at RPU distinguishes its racial

climate from those of Liberal Arts College and Research University. RPU respon

dents did not report experiencing racial isolation even when pushed to discuss

instances of discrimination or prejudice (more in Chapter 5). For example,

Amalia, a member of LUA, said, “I feel comfortable in most of my classes. The

demographics are similar to my high school.”

Regional Public University is a commuter school: fewer than 10 percent of

students live on campus. Most live with family in the predominately Latino

communities in which they grew up, and they work off campus. These students

are strapped for time and spend little of it on campus other than during class.

For example, Teresa, a member of LUA, explained, “I started working at com

munity college. I work four days out of the week, including weekends. I balance

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C O E x I S T I N G A T R E G I O N A L P U B L I C U N I V E R S I T Y 6 3

full time school and part time work. It’s a strug gle.” Ernesto, also a member of

LUA, described his schedule: “I work in the morning and I come to school in the

after noon so I never really joined an organ ization until later for that reason.” Due

to time constraints, few students participated in events on campus and thus

RPU had the least vibrant student life among the three campuses studied. On

this topic, Amalia, who doesn’t work and is one of the few students who live on

campus because she relocated from over six hours away, commented, “It’s hard

to make friends with people here because they don’t live on campus. I don’t

have a car. I can’t go visit anyone.” Given that most students spend little time on

campus outside of class, and there is little interaction between students and the

organ izations studied, their environment is predominantly one of coexistence.

Additionally, students reported having no mentor like relationships with fac

ulty, and campus programming does not facilitate cohesive relationships.

I asked all students to talk about what they considered to be their commu

nity and describe what and who were included in it. Of the students at all three

campuses, only RPU students referred to communities outside of campus. Many

of them took this question as an opportunity to discuss the ser vice they provide

to these outside communities. For example, Alex, a member of LUA, said, “I give

a financial aid workshop at my high school. I helped them fill out their FAFSA

[ Free Application for Federal Student Aid]. I especially helped the undocu

mented students. I talked to fifteen families about what to do for college. They

had no idea what to do, and their sons and daughters were se niors.” Likewise,

Hector, also a member of LUA, talked about ser vice: “I was involved in a Latino

coffee shop. They were offering free En glish classes for the community and I did

help with that.” And Yvette, a member of HE, followed suit: “The city has this

program where they choose three houses that they have to fix. They belong to

el derly people. I was able to participate in that and it was really cool because I

got to meet people that I would prob ably never have met.” Other students talked

about their involvement in church. Amalia, the residential student, said, “I’m

still connected to people back home. I’m not part of any community organ

izations here. I am part of the church at home. I used to read lectures at mass. I

only go to church when I visit my uncle around here because I don’t have a car.”

Sara, a member of HE, also noted, “I am involved in my church and I do some

work with the youth.”

Ernesto, Mayra, and Josefina talked about their neighborhood and parents.

For example, Ernesto, a member of LUA, said, “My community is where I see

myself influencing the people around me. I feel that work and at home, I feel

that’s my community. My mom has a relationship with all the neighbors, and all

the neighbors have gone to my house. She says, ‘Come in,’ and there are a few

random people at my house. My mom talks to all the moms. I feel connected

because we know that we want to do the best for the community.” Mayra, a

member of HE, talked about ser vice in similar terms: “I volunteered at my

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niece’s school. My niece is sort of like my daughter because my sister worked a

lot. I really wanted to meet her teachers and make sure that I knew what she was

learning. My family does a lot of volunteer work with the church. On the street

where my parents live, people do know each other and they’re connected.” Like

Ernesto and Mayra, Josefina, a member of LUA, also has connections in her

neighborhood. She spoke very proudly of her community.

Yes. I love where I live. People talk bad about the ’hood and the ghetto, I

hate the word “ghetto.” I love being here. I love walking down the street

and saying hi to people and recognizing their faces because I’ve lived

here so long. I like saying “Buenos dias, que le vaya bien [good morning, I

hope you have a great day].” I know other neighborhoods are friendly,

but, like, I really like this community. I know a lot of people want to get out

of the ’hood. When I was in high school, people would not come to my

house; they said they were going to get shot up in my ’hood.

RPU students were the only ones to talk so deeply about their families, neigh

borhoods, and local organ izations. This is likely due to the locus of their social

ties and networks, which are off campus rather than on campus, in contrast to

LAC students, who live on campus all four years, and RU students, who usually

relocate to the neighborhood surrounding campus while they attend.

When prodded to talk about their transition to RPU, many students indicated

that they transferred from a local community college. Joel reflected on his arrival

at RPU: “This is my first year here because I transferred from community college.

In community college, I was part of an economics organ ization so I joined HE to

continue to be part of a club that was economics based.” Joel went on to explain

that his transition to RPU was not easy. “I am the first person in my family to go

to college. I felt really isolated entering RPU. I had a very bad experience. I didn’t

have correct advice in picking my classes. I have had a bad experience here. I

asked for some help and people weren’t very helpful, at all! I kind of had to figure

every thing out on my own because people are, like, ‘Look at the wall; that’s what

the information is’ at the counseling center.” Joel laments the lack of guidance

he received at RPU, especially while seeking answers at the counseling center.

The academic advisor for Hispanics for Economics, Carlos Cedillo, is also

an academic advisor for the Business Department. He attended the first HE

meeting of each school year, sitting at the back of the room and announcing

advising ser vices. When I spoke with him about the students he served, he said,

“Unfortunately, many of our students have no models or guidance. They come

to HE for any information they can get. I see them in my office and they are

hungry for knowledge to navigate their time here.” Hector, like Joel a transfer

student and member of LUA, also described a tough transition. “I had a sluggish

transition. I think for a lot of Latinos, they don’t make it past their first or

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second year, unfortunately.” And Alex, a traditional student, likewise com

mented that “it was a really big transition for me because I had to figure things

out for myself. For example, knowing where to sign up for classes. I grew up a

little bit. I learned how to find certain things. I now know how to find books at

the library— like it’s four floors! And I can find books.” While Alex did not know

at first how to maneuver through the institution, Teresa lacked guidance earlier

on, through the college application pro cess. Yet she also described her transi

tion quite differently from the others:

I am the first person in my family to go to college. My transition to col

lege was scary because I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t have an

older brother or cousin to tell me how to do it or how to apply. I got

accepted to RPU as a freshman but didn’t come until I transferred from

community college. Academically, every thing came pretty easy. I have

been pretty lucky in terms of professors. I’ve only had to challenge myself

a very few times. Every one says I’m pretty crazy for saying that and that I

should be proud of it. I haven’t really been challenged, but I’ve always

been into school.

Compared to Teresa, who was one of the few students who found her courses

easy, many others were more focused on challenges in the classroom. For instance,

in referring to the placement exams required of all entering students, Antonietta,

a member of LUA, said:

It was a difficult transition because I never practiced for the exams. I

guess it was kind of my fault. You take the test, get the results and then

from there decide the classes you have to take for En glish and math.

En glish, they gave me really low. I did advocate for math because they

told me that I needed to take a really, really low math. I was like “I think

all that math is basic so I think that I should go to another level.” So,

what I did was I took the exam again and got into the next level.

In an interview, Joaquin Tovar, the chair of the Chicano Latino Studies pro

gram, said that “the prob lem with our students here is their preparation. Ninety

percent of students have not passed the placement exams for math and writing.

The public school system has not prepared them for their college education.

They have been trained in the model of sitting back and waiting for me to

divulge the truth. Sixty five percent of students are women and many are single

mothers.” As Tovar continued to talk about the challenges of teaching the RPU

student population and the difficulties students faced in their transition to

RPU, he fixated on the lack of guidance before their arrival on campus. Many

students strug gled to learn how the bureaucracy worked; others lacked aca

demic preparation. But unlike students at Liberal Arts College and Research

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University, RPU students’ transitions were not marked by experiences of racial

underrepre sen ta tion and isolation.

Resources

When primed to discuss relationships with faculty or administrators, students

mentioned only their organ izations’ academic advisors. Carlos Cedillo, who

served as the advisor to HE during both academic years of my study, was the

only staff person that HE members mentioned during the interviews. Several

talked about meeting with Carlos for advising. I also noted the way Carlos inter

acted with students during the HE meetings he attended at the beginning of

each school year. He appeared to know them and laughed and joked with many

students; at times, he appeared to be flirting and leering at some of the young

women. His interactions were very informal. LUA changed advisors from one

year to the next. The first year the advisor was Armando Gonzalo, a part time

lecturer at RPU who was also a doctoral student at a local university. Armando

attended one meeting and helped plan one of LUA’s big events by providing

musical contacts for it. The students referred to him as Profe Gonzalo and joked

with him as well. Despite the friendly rapport that students had with Carlos and

Armando, they were also very deferential to these advisors. The second year,

Belem Hernandez, Associate Professor of Chicano Latino Studies, served as LUA’s

academic advisor and attended one meeting at the beginning of fall semester.

Students had a more distant and formal relationship with her; several had taken

her introduction to Chicano Latino Studies course. I heard her name only one

more time when, during an LUA meeting, Josefina asked the group if it could

co sponsor an event in which she was going to be discussing her research of a

Chicano movement archive.

In addition to meeting Carlos, Armando, Belem, and Joaquin, I also inter

viewed Ester Figueroa, Associate Professor of Chicano Latino Studies. She was

curt in our interview, which lasted only twenty five minutes. She had little to

say about students, other than two gradu ate students whom she was mentoring

and taking to a professional association meeting to pres ent their research. She

did not disclose relationships with undergraduate students.

I also followed up with Walter Chen and attended his sociology of race

ethnicity course. The classroom was located in the same building as the sociol

ogy department. There were about fifteen students sitting in the room, but

more trickled in as Walter arrived. The room eventually filled up with about

twenty five to thirty students. Walter pulled out a piece of chalk and wrote the

term “internal colony” on the board. He asked the class, “Do you remember last

class, we discussed this term? What does it mean?” A black woman quickly

raised her hand and said, “Oh, that’s about the Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and

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black people.” Another student, an Asian American man, interrupted: “Also

Native Americans!” Walter asked, “What about them?” The black woman again

jumped in, saying, “Something about how they’re treated in the country, unfairly?”

“Yes,” Walter continued. “It’s the idea that these populations are treated simi

larly to colonies. Remember, it’s in your reading.” He then asked the class to

break into two groups, reread the text, and then discuss it. Meanwhile, he and I

chatted, and Walter observed, “Yeah, a lot of these students really strug gle with

the reading, you know? It’s a comprehension issue a lot of times.” Walter echoed

Joaquin Tovar in lamenting the under preparation of students, yet both also

flirted with deficit oriented evaluations of their students (assuming their stu

dents were ill prepared for college).

Like all public institutions, RPU has a commitment to diversity. RPU has a

Multicultural Center, which I visited during my first time on campus, and an

Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), which has been on campus for over

thirty five years. RPU’s EOP offers a summer bridge program for freshmen and

provides counseling ser vices, but of the twenty students I interviewed, only one

had used its ser vices, and many students did not know what the EOP was.

As discussed earlier, the Multicultural Center houses four resource centers,

which provide students with information about the campus, employment, and

other opportunities, as well as a space to hold meetings. The Chicano Latino

resource office occupies a small room with three tables and is staffed by a stu

dent employee who sits behind a desk. There are flags of every Latin American

country on the walls and a mural painted by a local Cuban artist. A few more

paintings decorate the plain white walls: one is of an agricultural worker in the

fields; another is of bright sunflowers. There are also a few veladoras (candles

often found in Catholic churches, many times featuring a saint) and skulls rep

resenting Día de los Muertos. LUA held all of its meetings in this room.

Organ izations

Gaining access to these organ izations was easy. My identity was not questioned

or scrutinized by LUA as it was at Research University. Gilma, the president of

LUA, invited me to meet with her, and Yvette, president of HE, welcomed me to

attend the next HE meeting. In the following sections, I talk more about the

actions, dynamics, and roles of these organ izations on campus. The primary issue

shaping how these organ izations function is the commuter identities of students.

Teresa, a member of LUA, explained: “I know it’s pretty difficult for students to

join a group because some students have two jobs. So, time and energy runs low.

People can’t be as involved as they would like to. But the organ ization makes you

feel a little connected to campus and helps you get to know staff and what’s going

on campus.”

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6 8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Given the lack of student life on campus and time constraints, these Latino

organ izations at RPU fill institutional gaps in student ser vices, primarily focusing

their energies on giving students information about resources and opportunities

on and off campus and providing a semblance of student life. However, Latinos

United for Action and Hispanics for Economics had no interaction with one

another— neither cooperation, as at Liberal Arts College, nor competition, as at

Research University. These organ izations coexisted.

Latinos United for Action

The Latinos United for Action chapter at RPU differed in many re spects from

the chapter at Research University. Mostly notably, when I got in contact with

Gilma, she was struggling to revive the organ ization. Since no orga nizational

meetings were scheduled, she invited me to meet her on campus and discuss

the status of LUA. I found her outside the Multicultural Center, and we chatted

outside of a Starbucks. She began by telling me that in community college, she

had had a boyfriend who introduced her to Latinos United for Action, so when

she arrived to RPU, she looked for the campus chapter. This is what she found:

When I got here, it was destroyed or inactive. It’s been really hard. The

student union was torn down so there was no visibility for the organ

ization. It was really hidden in the basement. Some people have explained

it to me in that way. People also say there was an “infiltration.” This is

what I heard; it’s all second hand. I heard that LUA was pretty big and had

many members, but there was a rally against immigrant rights close to

the border and some students got arrested and they were members of

LUA. I guess someone in LUA pushed people to be a little more radical,

and because of this person, they got in trou ble so they really thought

that this person was an infiltrator. From what I found out later, this person

was part of a progressive party movement; they were more like a com

munist or socialists. And from what I’ve heard, his tactics were a little

more radical, and LUA didn’t want to associate with something like that.

Gilma related LUA’s institutional memory as told to her by the remaining mem

bers when she first arrived on campus. The idea of LUA being “infiltrated” reso

nates with the experience of LUA at Research University. While Gilma could not

report directly on the “infiltration” incident, the hearsay surrounding it reflects

the kind of suspicion that followed this type of po liti cal organ ization.

Gilma also noted that when she arrived, the group was small, with fewer

than ten people. “The atmosphere was very unwelcoming when I would go to

the meeting,” she added. “I felt like I didn’t know anything. There was a hierar

chy. The members of LUA acted like they knew every thing.” By the time we met,

however, these members had graduated, and as Gilma explained, “It’s pretty

much only been me lately, because LUA died on this campus for, like, the last

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two years.” She felt optimistic, though, since some students expressed interest,

and she said that she would contact me when the first meeting was to be held.

She did as promised, and when I walked into the resource center, there

were three students sitting on the tables, each reading something. I asked if they

were there for the LUA meeting, and when they said they were, I introduced

myself. They did not ask followup questions. Gilma walked in twenty minutes

late and apologized. The first meeting consisted of three students, Gilma, and

me. They talked about the importance of having an active chapter of LUA on

campus and emphasized the need to recruit members. Gilma asked each of the

three students to bring someone new the following week. But the two subse

quent meetings were similarly attended, and no real orga nizational business

was discussed. By the fourth meeting, Gilma said to me, “I feel bad telling you to

come because we have such a bad turnout, but then I think it’s good for you to see

how we’re struggling. I don’t think the students think that it’s necessary to talk

about issues because they think every thing is ok.” When I asked, “What do you

mean, issues?,” she replied, “It is hard ’cuz Latinos are 60 percent on campus and

they don’t think it’s impor tant.”

As the semester progressed the group grew to between six and ten regular

attendees, including Gilma. They began to think about organ izing their first

event, a Día de los Muertos booth, where they would sell food to raise money

for the organ ization. As Gilma saw more members consistently attending LUA

meetings, she suggested, during a meeting, “I think we should have roles,

because I am a very disor ga nized person and I want LUA to go on even if I’m not

here.” Only Anthony responded: “I don’t think we should focus on that because

the semester is almost over. I think we should focus on what LUA is about and

recruiting.” They spent 2008–2009 rebuilding their membership base and left

the question of leadership for the next academic year.

One day, Cesar, a transfer student and LUA member, told me that “some

LUA chapters have hierarchies but we don’t.” Antonietta interjected: “Maybe we

should, but we don’t.” She continued, “Right now, we are just focused on

recruiting; we need more members.” Cesar added, “Yeah, we have, like, four to

five members who take upper division courses or are close to graduating, so

we need more new members.” These upcoming graduations were part of the

challenge of maintaining an active organ ization at RPU. Because many students

transfer from community college, their tenure at RPU is often shorter than the

average four or five years at most colleges. Without a stable leadership to con

tinue orga nizational operations from one year to another, it was difficult for

LUA to maintain orga nizational memory. RPU’s LUA chapter lacked continuity.

Given the orga nizational continuity prob lem, many meetings were dedi

cated to recruitment strategies, which often emerged from conversations about

what LUA was as an organ ization. At a meeting during the 2009 spring semes

ter, Gilma shared: “I heard the LUAs on UC campuses are better because they

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7 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

are more or ga nized and they have more money.” Antonietta said, “I’ll have to

ask my brother about that.” Gilma said that she had many ideas about organ

izing LUA. She would like to form committees, create a youth outreach program,

and talk to members about how they might benefit from joining LUA. Anthony

agreed with the youth program. He said that LUA is essentially about retention

and access. Alex asked, “How are you recruiting members? Have you tried other

organ izations?” Anthony asked Alex, “From your experience, why do you think

students don’t join organ izations?” Alex explained that time constraints are the

biggest obstacle for students. He thought that the organ ization should be flexible

with meeting times.

Anthony asked the group if they would agree to meet a couple of times over

the summer to brainstorm and plan for the fall to make sure they recruited

members early on. Alex suggested that they recruit through Chicano Latino

Studies classes. Anthony said, “We’ve asked Chicano Latino Studies professors

in the past, and they never help.” Antonietta added, “Maybe we can make it clear

that we don’t need financial support, but we want them to come to our speaker

events.” Antonietta added more about recruiting, saying, “ Here, where there are

50 percent Latinos, it’s harder to recruit.” Gilma interrupted, and said she would

like to have a multicultural event with other organ izations in order to attract

new members. Anthony asked, “How will a multicultural event help promote a

Chicano identity? The prob lem is that so many students already don’t identify

that way.” Gilma responded, “I think we need to show that LUA is multicultural

and not Chicano centric. People think we are radical, but they shouldn’t just

think that about LUA. I like how some of the frats are or ga nized. They are social

and friends.” Cassandra responded: “But frats are not conscious, so that’s another

issue. Let’s not go there.”

As LUA members strategized about their recruitment strategies, they also

navigated what they perceived as a stigma of being militant. Alex explained:

“Whoever wants to join us is welcome. We will not deny anyone the right to be

at our organ ization because of his or her background. People think that LUA is

radical, and we want to reclaim our lands for Chicanos only. But why would we

do that if we know that other races and other people of color are going through

the same thing? Why would we oppress other people of color? We have to help

each other out.” Ernesto also talked about the stigma of LUA: “If I could change

one thing about LUA, I would show that we are not po liti cal or radical. For some

reason, people think that LUA is just radical, like back in the sixties, like

the movement.” Amalia talked about the stigma: “I heard that LUA were brown

supremacists, and I was so confused.”

Conflating radicalism and militancy, these students thought of LUA as

focusing only on the advancement of Chicanos and Latinos, at least in the past.

For their part, they sought to emphasize openness. Alex said: “When people

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think of LUA, they just think of Mexico, and they don’t want to join because

they think we are only open to Mexicans. But we’re open to Guatemalans and

other nationalities. We want to promote higher education and support other

groups at school that are fighting for something that’s needed, like the bud get

cuts.” LUA members at RPU, as at Research University, were concerned with the

pro gress of Latinos in higher education. They did not hold regular thematic

workshops designed to educate their membership on issues, as did the RU chap

ter. However, they did talk about educating each other about vari ous kinds of

issues and increasing their awareness and consciousness.

At a meeting during the fall semester of 2009, Anthony read excerpts of the

founding document of LUA and then asked the group to discuss it. As they pre

pared to do so, Erika, who was in the army, interrupted the group and asked,

“What is the point of this exercise?” Anthony answered, “Well, we are going to

recruit people. We want to make sure we are all on the same page that day so we

can answer any questions.” Erika responded, “Yeah, but when we are recruiting,

we need a pitch line and we need to show people the activities that we are

doing. I wouldn’t join an organ ization [that didn’t have that]. Talk is good but it

feels like you’re not doing much else.” Adriana, a master’s student in Chicano

Latino Studies, responded: “I think it’s impor tant that we figure out who we are

as a collective so we can be strong and on the same page. We need to help each

other out in becoming conscious. Like, I might be in one level of consciousness

and someone else might be at indigenismo,” meaning that that individual was

versed in a critical perspective that focuses on the history of the Amer i cas and

the social location of indigenous peoples. “Master’s students can help every one

else become more conscious,” she added. Erika then pointed out, “I have a lot of

experience recruiting and it works when you’re more or ga nized and I see no

organ ization here.” Rafael responded, saying “I’m sorry that you don’t feel any

power here and we have no hierarchies and maybe it’s your military background.

But I transferred from a community college to be here. I feel a lot of power in

this room with my compañeros [comrades] because we’re trying to figure out

what we want to do about every thing affecting our community.” Erika’s reply was

“most of us are se niors and we will not be here next year. It’s impor tant we get

more people to join.” Adriana said, “I agree, but let’s figure out who we are first.”

The same discussion dominated the first semester of my second year in the

field. What was LUA? How would they draw more students? The answers to these

questions were not clear. When I asked Ernesto, “How are you recruiting mem

bers?,” he replied, “We give them a flier. We tell them the name of the organ

ization and just give them a flier. I tell them to feel free and come give input to

the organ ization. I don’t really know about the history, so that’s all I say.” Ernesto,

then in his third semester attending LUA meetings, still did not know the

history.

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7 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

LUA continued to strug gle with orga nizational continuity. Students did not

learn from one generation to the next about the mission and purpose of the

group because LUA did not require much of its members; nor did it have a for

malized leadership structure to pass on institutional knowledge. However, this

was exactly what Hector liked about LUA.

I really feel like these people are not going to judge me because I missed

a meeting. I know people prefer if we had more dedication, but they will

take what I can offer. I think if people aren’t respecting other people’s

ties— people have kids and they have jobs— then that’s a prob lem. I don’t

like it when people frown upon when you can’t make it to an event. . . .

I don’t think you should put that pressure on them.

While Hector preferred the light commitment, by the middle of the fall semes

ter of 2009, the group had deci ded to choose an official president in order to get

more done. Josefina explained: “As of right now, I’m the president because

we did the paperwork, but I was really against it. But I’m also honored to be the

leader. They wanted me be leader, but I don’t like the hierarchies. I think we

should be an organ ization where we are all on the same level. I think, obvi

ously, we’re not on the same level of consciousness. I don’t want people to say

that I have the palabra [word] or I get to facilitate.” Despite accepting the lead

ership position, Josefina made it clear that she was against hierarchies and

that she did not intend to have the last word or be the only one to lead the

meetings.

Josefina did indicate that she would continue to focus on recruiting mem

bers. “At RPU the chapters are always really small and sometimes plan stuff and

then the group dies out. I want to change that.” But she also recognized the chal

lenge of being at a commuter school: “My best friend goes to school in Iowa and

they’re all forced to live on campus. When they go back to their dorms and

people can say, ‘Hey what are you doing now’ and every one knows what he or

she is doing. And it’s really easy to encourage people when you know see them.”

As she notes, residential patterns at another type of campus can lead to higher

participation rates by students (in the chapters that follow I discuss how these

patterns play a role in Latino student life). In addition to recruiting, she

ex pressed a desire to do more activities. “Last year, we only had El Día de los

Muertos. I want to do more than that. We’re going to do a Mexica New Year

cele bration.”1

During the 2009–2010 school year, LUA held two dif fer ent fundraiser sales

on campus. They held a bake sale and sold nachos and aguas frescas (cold drink

made from fruit), and used the funds raised, along with money from student

government, to host their Mexica New Year cele bration. Alex recalled, “I think

Mexica New Year was in ter est ing; a lot of people went, about 100 people went.”

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That year, LUA also hosted a Día de los Muertos booth on campus. This was the

extent of the group’s on campus activities that academic year.

JOINING L AT INOS UNI T ED FOR ACT ION. As LUA strug gled to expand its mem

bership, I asked members to talk about why they joined the organ ization and

what they got out of their time in LUA. Alex and Ernesto were recruited in a

Chicano Latino Studies course. Alex said, “I thought it was in ter est ing and sad

because they only had four members. And this school is where the movement

really began.” Ernesto commented: “I had classmates that were very active and

intellectual. They invited me, dragged me into the organ ization. I consider them

very intellectual. That’s how I started joining. They were in Chicano Latino

Studies courses. They were out spoken about certain issues. And they shared

their thoughts about it. They could talk the issue out. They had events going on

and invited others to come and help. I thought I could help and just asked what

they were working on.” Ernesto was drawn to LUA not only for the prospect of

helping, but also for the “college experience,” as he put it: “It’s a good space to

communicate with people and create events. Having the space to communicate

and talk about certain issues and be part of something. And LUA is one of those

groups that being part of it gets you the college experience. It’s good to help you

get through college and get skills and network. I think LUA makes it easier for a

transfer student to become a university student.”2 Ernesto feels connected to

others on campus through LUA. He sees LUA building his skill set and net

works. Hector expressed similar sentiments. “I feel like, as an undergrad at this

school, that is commuter school, you don’t really have a social network. You

meet a whole network of people when you join the club. It gives you the college

experience, which a lot of people lack here.” Teresa agreed. “It’s impor tant to be

active, not just be commuters. It [joining LUA] helps promote school spirit. It’s

good to learn about others on campus and know who else is here.”

To summarize, members of LUA were recruited during recruitment drives

when the organization tabled and in classes. They talked about LUA as a pleas

ant disruption of their routine of going from their car to class and then home or

to work. They believed that LUA was giving them networks and skills and the

college experience. By contrast, the LUA chapter at Research University pro

vided a “home” and had a very clear and or ga nized po liti cal agenda.

Hispanics for Economics

After exchanging emails with Yvette, the president of Hispanics for Economics

during the 2008–2009 academic year, I was invited to attend the first meeting.

It was held in the building that also houses the Business department. Every stu

dent I saw in the halls was either Latino or black. As I stood outside the meeting

room, which was a classroom, I saw a group of young women and one young

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man waiting outside the room as well. I asked them if they had seen Yvette, and

they told me that she wasn’t there yet. I asked, “Are you in the executive

board?” They replied, “Yes.” I told them that I was the gradu ate student from

UCI, and they seem to know who I was. They asked, “Are you Daisy?” I said yes

and walked into the meeting room with them. Sandra, the membership officer,

wrote the word “announcements” on the board. Within a few minutes, the list

was complete, and the room was full of students. Saul, the vice president, and

Sandra read the announcements aloud. He mentioned the three upcoming

socials with students from four local universities. He asked people to please

first chair from the door and in the front. She reminded people to please pay their

membership dues, explaining that they would receive their HE t shirt once they

did. Next, Marta, HE’s publicity officer, said, “I want to make a shout out to our

advisor, Carlos Cedillo, who is an academic advisor in the department. You should

all go see him!” Carlos smiled and stood up from the back of the room and

walked up to the front. He shook Marta’s hand and addressed the group. “Thank

you, Marta. I am available to all of you. If you have questions about courses,

schedules, or you just want to figure out what you’re doing here. Come see me!”

Students applauded, and he returned to the back of the room.

Marta then took the floor and informed every one that they would begin

their recruitment incentive. She told the members that if they brought a new

member to the meetings, they would get a Starbucks card in return. Next, Saul

began to discuss a few more plans for the semester. He mentioned their national

umbrella organ ization and a baseball game fundraiser. Selena added that this

would be a great chance to meet Latinos from all other campuses. She also said

that they would have a reading volunteer event. She asked Jackie, the group’s

media designer, to elaborate. Jackie told the members that in honor of Dr. Seuss’s

birthday, there would be an event to read to elementary school children. She

asked people to sign up to volunteer and told them that the school was nearby.

Saul pleaded with members to join a committee. Sandra mentioned all the

committees: publicity, social, membership, community ser vice, and fundrais

ing. Then Marta asked all the members, “Who hasn’t signed up for a commit

tee? Why not? I want to know why people don’t want to sign up. It’s not going to

take all of your time, I promise. And it’s not very hard.” She went on to explain

what her role as the publicity officer was: “I want to plaster the campus with

posters of HE to make our presence known. If you joined this committee, I would

need help doing this.” No members responded.

Then Saul said, “The speaker is supposed to be here by now. Sorry that he is

late.” A young man in the crowd raised his hand and asked, “So what do you guys

usually do when a speaker is late, which I’m sure has happened before?” Saul

responded, “Well, it happened once, two years ago, and we had an icebreaker

instead.” Another young man asked, “So do you always have speakers?” Saul said

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“Yes, and food, which the speakers usually sponsor, but someone needs to pick

it up, that’s why our president is late.” Selena interjected: “It’s raining; that’s

prob ably why they are late. But keep in mind that we need people to join com

mittees so they can pick up the food.”

The young man who asked the speaker questions said, “I was asking if you

always have speakers because I was wondering if you ever have workshops.” Saul

responded, “Yes, sometimes we have resume tips workshops.” Marta interjected,

“But the speakers are almost never late; like, next week Telemundo will be here;

then JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory].” The speaker was still nowhere to be found, so

Sandra suggested that every one in the room introduce themselves (say their

favorite music, major, and year). I introduced myself to the group at this time.

Among those students pres ent, there was a club promoter and a salsa dancer who

both offered their networking skills and connections to the group. There was also

an older gentleman who said he had been an actor for many years and had just

come back to college. He said he acted in Zoot Suit. Another young man said he

played in una banda Sinaloanse (which performed regional music from the state of

Sinaloa in Mexico). Marta asked him what his instrument was, and he responded,

“Accordion, and I sing.” Once every one had introduced themselves, Sandra said

she had personally baked a cake for all members with birthdays last month. Then

someone in the crowd asked, “How many members do you have?” Saul responded,

“Thirty nine members, not including the ten executive board officers.”

After this question, the speakers fi nally arrived: an Asian American woman

and a white man who were, roughly, in their forties. They were soaking wet. The

woman introduced the man as her boss and soon to be president of the com

pany. He thanked her and said, “I am so glad to be here at the HE because my

com pany is launching in Mexico next week. We need young Latinos like your

selves to work for us.” As he continued to talk about his com pany, I realized they

were pitching a pyramid scheme. He said things like, “We aren’t like corporate

Amer i ca; our com pany is about residual income. We help others; it’s relationship

building.” He later spoke about their product, a video phone, which he called an

“insulated field.”

When the speakers were done, every one went into the other room to eat

pizza. I looked for Yvette to introduce myself. She apologized for their disor ga ni

za tion and said speakers are usually not late. I told her they were very or ga nized

and that I had not seen any other group that brought in so many speakers. She

responded, “Thank you,” and went on to explain the orga nizational structure.

HE has ten officers: president, vice president, media officer, trea surer, secretary,

internal affairs officer, external affairs officer, web design officer, and community

ser vice officer. She also confirmed that they had forty six paid members during the

prior semester. She was optimistic that this year would draw similar numbers.

Unlike LUA, HE does not have a recruitment issues, and they keep binders

for each leadership position, which they give to the newly elected officer every

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year. They also maintain a club website. They hold fundraisers, some of which

(baseball games, for instance) are held off campus, and club parties. They also

receive money from student government, which funds most of HE’s requests,

although they rarely exceed $100. Yvette explained: “The student government

on campus funds us most of the time. Whenever we have a fundraiser, we spend

around one hundred dollars. They have basically funded every event that we’ve

catered on campus, with the exception of the first one, because we turned in

our paperwork late, but for the most part they’ve always funded our events.”

HE continued to be highly structured and formal throughout the two years

I spent in the field. Mayra, the 2009–2010 president, explained the changes she

made when she became leader: “I feel like we’ve hyped up our professional

aspects. For example, we have Power Point now. I did that because I have really

sloppy handwriting and didn’t want people to see. I really think that we promote

more campus events, like, for example Homecoming. I always tell people, this is

where your fees go, you pay for it. You need to go to these events.”

JOINING HISPA NIC S FOR ECONOMIC S. Mayra, Yvette, and others on HE’s exec

utive board recruited students by emphasizing how open they were. Yvette

explained, “You know we’re a professional organ ization. We’re not biased

towards any culture. We welcome all majors and all ethnicities and we encour

age them to visit our website, [which] tells them more about us.” Like members

of LUA, the leaders of HE also emphasize that they are open to individuals of all

backgrounds (which I talk more about in Chapter 5). However, unlike LUA, HE

has a website and resources for potential members to look at to help them decide

if they are interested in joining the organ ization. During recruitment, officers

talked about the resources they offered members, including their speaker series,

networks, and skill building workshops.

Members talked to me about the skill building and networking benefits of

joining HE. Sandra, the membership officer, said: “I think what really makes us

stand out is our networking. We have the largest membership base in any of the

organ izations in the School of Business and Economics. We bring speakers; they

talk about getting a job or how to have a successful interview or what kind of

attire to wear.” Students acquired information from the speaker series. Sara

reflected on this: “I think they [HE] offer great opportunities by bringing the

speakers and giving us good information. I have learned a lot through the club.

For example, I didn’t know they had social events where you get to meet corporate

employers.” Students found the connections made to be very valuable. Jackie

commented, “Networking is the most impor tant thing for professionals and

nonprofessionals. And they do that here.” Mayra thought the speaker series was

more significant than creating connections because Latino speakers operate as

possibility models for Latino members: “I think by bringing Latino speakers,

there’s inspirational aspect and it’s very impor tant. I think it’s especially

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impor tant when we bring Latino people in high executive positions. I would

want our members to say that they were inspired by Latino leaders.”

HE also transmits professional skills. Mayra shared: “We try to educate our

members and provide them with the skills that they’re going to need when they

go on to gradu ate or interview. But it’s not only a business organ ization. We also

create an environment where we are approachable for academic reasons and

other reasons. We ask members to tell us what they need.” Yvette is a testament

to the skill building imperative of HE. She observed, “I think I grew a lot as far

as being able to market myself, market my school and market my organ ization.”

Students also learned more about campus resources in general through their

membership. Mayra encouraged students to go to homecoming and other campus

wide events. They also explored the other side of campus. Sara said, “I never

knew about the other side of campus and the resources on that side of campus.

And even when I found out there was a new student union, I would never go take

a look.” She shared that through the encouragement of HE she deci ded to explore

the student union.

Like members of LUA, HE members feel that the organ ization gave them

the “college experience.” Mayra commented, “I wanted to make memories in

college. I didn’t want to come to college, go to class, and go home. I really wanted

that experience because I’m a transfer student and I feel that I’m a little older,

but I never wanted to feel like I graduated without that experience.” HE broke

the routine of going to class, then home or to work for many students. Sara

shared, “I had nothing else to do after class so I would just go home instead. I

was not comfortable staying on campus and studying here.” Sandra similarly

shared: “I really felt disconnected from school. I think it’s really boring when

you just go to school and go to class. And when class is over you just get your car

and go home and don’t know anyone.” Jackie commented, “I didn’t know any

one. I would just go to school, go to work and go home.” Hispanics for Econom

ics gave students connection and integration on campus, just as LUA did for its

members, but HE did not serve as a “home” the way that the organ izations at

Research University did.

Coexistence at Regional Public University

Regional Public University differs from Liberal Arts College and Research Uni

versity in many ways. Some are related to the availability of resources on cam

pus, but the commuter dynamics are what make RPU so distinct. Since most

students live off campus in the communities where they grew up, they main

tain strong relationships to the people they knew before college. These rela

tionships continue to be their main social ties. Because most students commute

from class, to work, and then home, their social ties with others on campus are

weak. Students cite communities off campus as their main and most significant

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communities. The bound aries of RPU are open as students go in and out (as

discussed earlier many students transfer into RPU and they many have a shorter

than four year tenure on campus). The campus does little filtering of their

ideas, identities, and politics as you will see in the chapters to come. Table 4.1

summarizes these campus dynamics.

Students join LUA and HE to break the commuter routine and gain the

“college experience.” However, they also claim to gain skills and networks,

which were not mentioned by students at LAC or RU. RPU students cite instru

mental connections as benefits to joining an organ ization. These differ from

the kinds of connections sociologist Janice McCabe (2016) observes in settings

where students gain academically from friendships and activities such as peer

editing assignments. For RPU students, on the other hand, gaining information

and access to resources and opportunities on campus and beyond are crucial.

On a campus with little student life, students interact only minimally with

other students outside of class. Latino student organ izations fill a niche on cam

pus by letting students know what resources they can find at RPU, like the

student union or the homecoming activities. HE and LUA meet on opposite

sides of campus and have no contact with each other. They coexist on the RPU

campus.

Because the racialized orga nizational setting of RPU also matches the adja

cent community outside the campus gates, Latino students do little relearning

of their ethnic racial knowledge as compared to LAC and RU students. There is

more cultural similarity between RPU students’ home lives and campus lives

than between RU and LAC students’ home and campus lives. This has real con

sequences, which I discuss further in the chapters to come.

TA BLE 4.1

Commuter culture at Regional Public University

Strength of student social ties to campus at large

Low

Description of external campus bound aries Open and permeable

Description of internal orga nizational bound aries

Minimal and nonexclusive

Description of role of organ ization Instrumental connections

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VVVVVVVVVVV

PA RT T WO

Student Interactions and Meaning- Making

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8 1

VVVVVVVVVVV

Who We Are

(Pan)ethnic Identity and Boundary Formation

Given that all the students in this study are part of a Latino student organ ization, how do they conceive of their unity?1 What do they believe they share

with one another? How do they understand what it means to be a Latino stu

dent on their campus? I explored these questions through ethnographic obser

vations of student interactions during orga nizational meetings and in depth

interviews in which I asked students what they thought about dif fer ent labels

and which they preferred for their own self identification. Consider the follow

ing responses from students at each of the three dif fer ent campuses. Selena, a

student at Liberal Arts College, explained, “I identify as Latina because it’s the

most all encompassing term. ‘Latino’ allows for panethnic identification and

doesn’t distinguish between citizenship statuses. Someone in Argentina could

be just as Latino as someone in Chicago. It allows for difference while retaining

a cultural tie.” Deidra, a student at Research University, similarly identified as

Latina but described it differently, saying, “I say ‘Latina’ although I’m light skinned.

My parents are from Mexico.” In contrast, Josefina, a student at Regional Public

University, rejected the Latino label completely, stating, “I don’t use ‘Latino’ or

‘Hispanic.’ They are racist terms. ‘Hispanic’ means Spaniards to me and it

reminds me of colonization. I think it puts too many of us together. You can be

from Nicaragua or Mexico, anywhere. It reminds me of people thinking we’re

fiery and other ste reo types, like in the media. I try to refer to where people are

from. I try to be more specific.” These remarks reveal the speakers’ individual

efforts to negotiate a sense of identity using existing categories and terminol

ogy, but more broadly, they are also representative of the pattern of responses of

students at the three dif fer ent colleges.

Selena, the Liberal Arts College student, connects with “Latina” as a broad,

all encompassing term that espouses solidarity. For her, the label “Latino” high

lights the heterogeneous nature of Latinos— she even notes the category’s

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inclusion of vari ous nationalities— while si mul ta neously providing a framework

that finds unity in that diversity. This differs from Deidra’s understanding of

“Latina” at Research University, where the category seems to come with implicit

bound aries and assumptions against which she feels compelled to qualify her

own identity. When she mentions that she may not fit all of the markers of a Latina

(such as skin color), Deidra reveals an understanding that the label comes with

specific phenotypical criteria. Meanwhile, Josefina, at Regional Public Univer

sity, rejects any single panethnic category or label precisely because she sees so

much heterogeneity among the Latino population. Indeed, from Josefina’s perspec

tive, any effort to impose overarching criteria or terminology has oppressive

implications. These student observations capture the patterns that distinguish

each institutional environment; Selena, Deidra, and Josefina voice the views

largely shared by their campus peers. I identify three distinct patterns of self

identification that corresponded closely with the campus students attended:

inclusive Latino identification signifying solidarity above all at LAC, qualified

Latino identification mediated through specific orga nizational membership at

RU, and the rejection of panethnic identities in favor of national origin identifi

cation at RPU.

Selena, Deidra, and Josefina share similar socioeconomic backgrounds and

are all second generation Americans. Attending college at the same time and in

the same geographic area, all three are integrated into a community of other

Latinos through a college club on their specific campus. Yet they express dis

tinct preferences and understandings of vari ous identity labels. The crucial

difference is the par tic u lar campus context in which they are embedded; each

campus creates a distinct and specific environment for students as they inter

act with one another, members of other organ izations, the student body at large,

faculty, administrators, and even the community outside the campus gates.

Within these settings, students are ascribed statuses and then, through vari ous

and ongoing forms of interaction, actively construct their own sense of who

they are and to which community or communities they belong. It is a dialectical

pro cess of identity formation, through which external ascription and self

identification co create ethnoracial understandings and categories.

This chapter examines how students respond to ethnoracial ascription as

they co construct and negotiate their own ethnoracial understandings and

identities. First, I discuss students’ subjective experiences on campus to explain

how they understand the racial climate therein. I draw from interviews and

ethnographic observations of student interactions during meetings. It is notable

that the amount of data is not balanced across campuses. Students at Regional

Public University had very little to say about racial marginalization, while stu

dents at Liberal Arts College spoke in depth on this topic. This does not reflect

an absence of racial inequalities at RPU per se as much as does the difference in

how students come to know and talk about their ethnoracial experiences.

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W H O W E A R E 8 3

Second, I describe how subjective experiences within each racial climate

shape how students interact with one another and form understandings about

bound aries and identities. I lay out the three dif fer ent patterns by which stu

dents deploy panethnic and ethnic bound aries, specifically, as they adopt and

define identity labels: inclusive Latino identification signifying solidarity above

all, qualified Latino identification mediated through specific orga nizational

membership, and the rejection of panethnic identities. The three identification

patterns reveal distinct racial socialization pro cesses on each campus. Campus

contexts provide distinct breeding grounds for specific ideas and understandings

of Latinidad. At Liberal Arts College, students learn about ethnic racial identi

ties mainly through external ascription in the form of racial microaggressions,

tokenization, and marginalization, but they maintain rather fluid bound aries of

Latinidad among one another. More clearly, they recognize the heterogeneity

among Latinos and allow individuals to define bound aries as they wish. Their

number one concern is solidarity. Because LAC Latino students recognize their

heterogeneity and hold solidarity as a goal, they maintain fluid bound aries of

Latinidad within their communities on campus.

At Research University Latino students deploy ethnic bound aries con

stantly. Within Latino United for Action and Latino Fellowship students make

assumptions about what an “au then tic Latino” does, wears, and believes in. In

LF, these messages are delivered through humor and banter, while at LUA the

messages are delivered through discussions, mainly po liti cal. Both of these

boundary deployment strategies shape how students identify and perform Lati

nidad. Because students espouse par tic u lar understandings of what it means to

be Latino, they feel a constant pull to qualify their identities—to prove that they

are indeed, Latino enough. Ethnic identity per for mance has interpersonal con

sequences for Latinos at RU. Choosing how to display who they are amongst

their Latino peers has high stakes.

By contrast, at Regional Public University the lessons learned about ethnic

racial identities are mostly unexamined. Unlike students at LAC and RU, stu

dents at RPU did not disclose instances of external or internal Latino boundary

deployment on campus. How these students choose to perform their identities

have little consequences for their interpersonal relations on campus.

The sections that follow explains these observations in greater detail.

Essential Vocabulary for Understanding Identity Formation

Before delving into the students’ experiences, it is useful to define some terms

and talk about identity formation in general. I mentioned the dialectical nature

of identity construction above; this is what Brown and Jones (2015) have called

ethnoracialization. It is a pro cess that is a result of both ascription, which is exter

nally imposed, and self- identification, which is agentic. Ethnic bound aries are

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intrinsic to the pro cesses of ethnoracialization. Ethnic bound aries tell individ

uals to which groups they do and do not belong. It is through interactions with

other individuals and with institutions that we learn where these lines are drawn

and, in turn, where we belong and thus who we are.

In everyday life, individuals confront sociopo liti cal par ameters shaped by

race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Ethnoracial bound aries can be overt, like Jim

Crow laws in the South, or they can be covert and symbolic, operating as often

subtle cultural norms and expectations. Consider, for example, a Latina inter

acting with a group of white friends who respond with disbelief when she is not

familiar with a par tic u lar musician; she learns in that moment that her cul

tural knowledge is distinct (and, all too often, considered inferior). Such bound

aries communicate difference and similarity to individuals, telling them who

they and others “are.” Such understandings shape the groups with whom people

socialize, how they form social networks, and where they see potential to or ga nize

for collective interests.

Externally imposed bound aries can be deployed at the macro level by nations,

when par tic u lar groups are excluded from government benefits, as was the case

for African Americans and Mexican Americans who were treated quite differently

from Eu ro pean immigrants during the New Deal (Fox 2012). However, bound

aries can also be drawn at the meso and micro levels. At the meso level, insti

tutions such as schools and universities, voluntary associations, and many other

types of groups can choose to exclude or include people of par tic u lar ethnic,

racial, gender, and class backgrounds. Bound aries may be drawn and deployed

within orga nizational settings simply in order to acknowledge difference, but not

necessarily in order to exclude others. Moreover, these boundary deployments

can also occur in small groups or one on one interactions at the micro level.

Although ethnoracial bound aries are products of social structures such as

the law or policy, ethnic groups and individuals have agency in terms of when

and where they deploy and patrol such bound aries. The Latino youth in this

study confront ethnoracial bound aries created by the university, their white

peers, and their Latino peers, but they also draw ethnic bound aries that include

and exclude one another. In addition, individuals exert agency in their own self

identification— which label(s) they adopt to describe themselves and when and

where they use them. When the students featured in this book decide what to

call themselves, they choose from the labels available on a national scale to

designate people of Latino national origins. But their choices are also embed

ded within and shaped by specific local contexts (such as their home commu

nity, campus, and family) which influence how they come to understand these

labels. As clusters of cultural meaning, ethnic labels and categories are not

static entities, but rather constantly negotiated understandings that take on

dif fer ent inflections and emphases in dif fer ent contexts. And as Selena, Deidra,

and Josefina’s observations demonstrate, students in dif fer ent spaces arrive at

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W H O W E A R E 8 5

varying understandings. This is significant in that Latino students are likely to

carry with them competing and disparate understandings of Latinidad outside

of the campus gates especially after graduation.

In this chapter, I demonstrate how students interact within the racial cli

mate of their campus and develop a sense of where and with whom they belong—

on campus, within their organ izations, and broadly in the United States. The

differences across campuses, I argue, are not coincidental, but rather shaped

by the par tic u lar dynamics that prevail in each space. I identify the vari ous

factors that shape identity formation on each campus (see Table 5.1). Table 5.1

outlines these factors and their dif fer ent results. Rows 1–3 compare the charac

teristics that contribute to a campus’s racial climate: racial ethnic composition

of student body, residential arrangements, and diversity programming. These

TA BLE 5.1

Boundary and identity formation across campuses

Liberal Arts

College

Research

University

Regional Public

University

1. Student body demographics

Majority white and affluent

Majority Asian American and middle class

Majority Latino and working class

2. Residential arrangements

Residential campus

Mixed residential campus

True commuter campus

3. Diversity programming

Abundant, guaranteed funds for diversity events

Funding available for diversity events; orga nizational competition

Minimal funding for diversity events

4. Inter- organizational dynamics

Cooperative Competitive Coexistent

5. Self- reported experiences with racism on campus

Micro aggressions

Culture shock and some micro aggressions

None

6. Intragroup ethnic bound aries

Solidarity above all

Based on culture and color

Based on gender and family arrangements

7. Most common identity- label preference and meaning

Latino (solidarity)

Latino (but qualified) and some Chicano

National origin

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8 6 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

characteristics are external to the student organ izations examined and, together,

create the orga nizational contexts within which students interact with one

another. Row 4 describes the intergroup relations of the Latino student organ

izations studied on each campus— how the groups view and interact with one

another. Row 5 then compares how the campus and orga nizational characteris

tics in Rows 1–4 shape students’ racialized experiences on campus. In Row 6, I

summarize how my respondents construct and define ethnic bound aries on

each campus. Fi nally, Row 7 illustrates the preferred identity label of the respon

dents on each campus.

Liberal Arts College: Inclusive Panethnic Identification and Cooperation

As described in Chapter 2, Liberal Arts College provides a community oriented

ethos, such that students often describe feeling integrated in the LAC commu

nity. Fittingly, Latinos Unidos and Latino Links, the two Latino student organ

izations I observed at LAC, have a cooperative relationship. During my time in

the field, I observed members of one organ ization attend the meetings of the

other. For example, Lorena and Adalberto (members of Latino Links) attended

at least two dif fer ent Latinos Unidos meetings, and Ana and Genova (members

of Latinos Unidos) attended a few Latino Links meetings. During these meet

ings they offered support for each other’s upcoming events. The members of

both organ izations also shared similar sentiments about being a Latino student

at LAC. Students shared experiences of initial culture shock, marginalization,

continuous tokenization, and frequent microaggressions.

Given the prestige of LAC, the affluence of the student body, and the low

percentage of Latinos on campus, many of my Latino respondents faced a diffi

cult adjustment to campus life. During a late spring semester meeting, the pres

ident of Latinos Unidos, Fabian, asked members to introduce themselves and

answer the question: “Why did you choose LAC? And did the issue of how many

Latinos are on campus matter to you?” The responses were varied. When it was

her turn, Jane said, “I’m from East LA so I didn’t know that having no Latinos on

campus would be an issue. I was used to every one being Latino.” In contrast,

Soe said, “It was a non issue because I always knew that most colleges have little

Latinos. And I didn’t even consider the colleges that do have many Latinos.”

Vanessa jokingly called her an elitist. Jovita echoed Jane’s comments and said

she did not know that having very little Latinos on campus could be an issue.

Jovita shared that she considered attending a college on the East Coast until a

school counselor informed her that there would not be many Latinos, especially

not Mexicans. Fabian shared that he was deciding between Swarthmore and

LAC. He said “I really considered Swarthmore because they have many more

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W H O W E A R E 8 7

Salvadoran students and at times, I think I am an honorary Salvadoran because

of my close circle of Salvi friends.” This conversation reveals several perspectives

that students brought to their college decision making, and, with the exception

of Soe, most considered the repre sen ta tion of Latinos on campus impor tant.

That is, most students were primed to think about and consider this underrepre

sen ta tion before even stepping on the campus grounds, and this consideration

likely shaped their experience from the onset.

Once enrolled at LAC, the Latino members of LL and LU faced the real ity of

being part of a small community of Latinos on campus. Students’ early encoun

ters with a new cultural environment, white peers, and university personnel

left many feeling out of place. Many of the Latino youth at Liberal Arts College

are also the first in their families to go to college, and for many, this is their first

time living in a non Latino community. These “firsts” lead to feelings of disori

entation and culture shock and, coupled with Latino underrepre sen ta tion, stu

dents feel racially marginalized on campus, at least initially. Many also reported

dealing with tokenization. They talked about the pressure to be “the diversity”

on campus and being singled out in class to give the “Latino perspective” on

vari ous issues. Paloma, a member of Latino Links, shared: “I think that the

school claims that they have diversity and they use us to have diversity. At times,

I feel that I am the school’s diversity. I think that the school uses us to lure stu

dents. I don’t like that very much. I’m the only Latina in my po liti cal philosophy

classes.” Several students disclosed their experiences with alienation and cul

ture shock upon arriving on campus. Paloma, for one, became aware of her dif

ference as soon as she met her suitemates: “My suitemates were okay. Most of

them were white and they talked about things that I couldn’t connect with.

Like, they talked about their vacations and I had nothing to add. My family

didn’t go on vacations.” Everyday conversation quickly revealed the classed dif

ferences between Paloma’s lived experiences and those of her more affluent

white suitemates.

Other students shared similar stories of initial culture shock. When I asked

Bianca, a member of Latino Links, about her transition to LAC, she exclaimed, “I

felt racially isolated at first.” Vanya likewise described a frustrating interaction

with a white suitemate to illustrate how a sense of not belonging and racial

isolation could develop: “The other day I was in the rest room and my suitemate

was telling me that she was talking to her mom about where she would live

after college. I told her that I’m expected to go back home. She asked, ‘Why do

your parents expect that? Didn’t they go to college?’ I told her they didn’t, and

that my uncle went to college, but he stayed home. She was so shocked. She was

so shocked she had never met anyone that was first generation college student.

I told her to expand her lens.” Latino respondents at LAC often expressed a dis

appointment in their white peers’ reactions; they believed that their white peers

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8 8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

too often assumed that every one shared the same experiences and outlooks

and, in doing so, invalidated non white, first generation college going and

working class students’ experiences.

Such assumptions constitute a type of microaggression. Microaggressions

are a subtle expression of racial and other types of ste reo types through interac

tions; they can occur as a microinsult, microassault, or a microinvalidation (Solór

zano, Ceja, and Yossa 2000; Sue 2010). These microaggressions are not trivial; they

are consequential. Latino students at LAC communicated several experiences of

racial microaggressions, which further challenged their fragile sense of belong

ing on campus and shaped the ethnic bound aries they constructed and deployed

with one another. In the face of microaggressions from non Latinos on campus,

LAC students attempted to promote solidarity first and to avoid emphasizing

internal bound aries or differences.

For some students, microaggressions led them to question whether they even

belonged on campus. For example, Karla shared: “I get the feeling that a lot of

these colleges just accept us for being Latino. Because my SAT scores were not

stellar and sometimes I feel they just accepted me because I’m a Latina. And

people treat me that way. One of my suitemates has a full ride here and she

wasn’t born here, she’s Latina. My white suitemate wasn’t accepted to all the

schools that my Latina suitemate was. The white girl told me she is really

upset that the other girl got into those other schools.” In asserting that she did

not believe her Latina friend was deserving of a full scholarship or admissions

to the other schools, Karla’s white peer called the Latina student’s qualifica

tions into question. This racial microinvalidation made Karla question not only

why her friend received admission and scholarships, but also whether race and

ethnicity played a role in her own admission to LAC. Racial micro invalidations

came in other, less explicit forms too, as Martiza explained: “I’ve experienced

racism on campus. There was an event on campus, and it was at the same time

that we [Latino Links] had an event. We were returning a cart and this white

woman asked us if we were part of the janitorial staff. She thought we were the

staff and I told her we were students here. I didn’t realize what she was saying

until my mom said, ‘That was racism, mija.’ My friend and my mom were ada

mant that it was racism.” Maritza grew up in a predominantly Latino neighbor

hood in Los Angeles and attended a private high school with mostly Latino

peers. Liberal Arts College has been her first experience in a context in which

she is an ethnic racial minority. She did not recognize the racist undertones of

the white woman’s comments until her mother and her friend pointed them

out. But once she came to understand that to others her body read as janitorial

staff, not as a student on campus, the experience of racial microaggression

reduced her sense of belonging on campus.

And yet, there were instances of more overt racial aggressions on campus,

as Lorena disclosed:

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W H O W E A R E 8 9

My mother and I went to the school garden to pick fruit because I

received an email from the school that fresh fruit was available and they

didn’t want it to go bad. We picked oranges and lemons and we had two

bags. We were putting the bags in the truck and one of the directors of

the garden started yelling in Spanish “Alto! Alto! [Stop! Stop!]” Then he

accused us of intending to sell the fruit on the street. He called us

orange pickers. I told him I was a student and showed him my ID, but

then he asked why I took so much fruit and I mentioned the e mail. Then

he said that the fruit is only for community members and we’re only

allowed to take two or three oranges. And I was very, very upset.

Following this incident, Lorena wrote to one of the deans of the university

asking for an apology to her mother for being ste reo typed as a poor, unedu

cated immigrant who did not belong to the university community. At the time

of our interview the dean had refused to write an apology, but had questioned

the director of the garden. Unfortunately, this was not the only instance of

racial targeting of Latino students. During a fall LU meeting in 2009, Fabian

told the group: “Apparently someone put a sign up by a dorm this weekend that

said that ‘LAC has been white since its founding, Mexicans cook, clean or con

form.’ ” He criticized the Latino Cultural Center for excusing the comment by

saying it was a disgruntled employee rather than an attack on Latinos. Fabian

proposed that Latino Unidos engage in some action against the racist sign but

members did not respond to his proposal and quickly moved on to the next

agenda item.

Some LAC Latino students also encountered racism right outside the cam

pus gates in the predominately white, conservative, and wealthy community

where the school is located. During one Latino Links meeting, Gerardo shared,

“Yesterday I borrowed my friend’s car and went to fill up at the gas station

across the street. This truck in front of me almost hit me, then he rolled his

win dow down and said, ‘You immigrant scum, you are taking all my benefits

and you prob ably wanted me to hit you so you can send the money to your

family.’ I felt so riled up and shaken. I wanted to bring it up, and tell every one

that there is racism!” Paloma, the president of LL at the time, asked him, “Do

you want to do something?” Harriet added, “You should write an article.”

Paloma added that “the local town is not like campus.” The campus, she said,

is “a little weird, like a bubble.” Soon after Paloma’s comment the topic was

changed to other agenda items. During another Latino Links meeting Natalie

told the group that a restaurant across the street from campus was scheduled

to host a meeting with Jim Gilchrist and the Minutemen, a nativist vigilante

group,2 but that LAC students and community members called in complaining

to the restaurant management, who ultimately deci ded to close the restaurant

on that day.

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9 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Keeping the Bound aries of Latinidad Open at LAC

In the face of culture shock, tokenization, marginalization, microaggressions, and

instances of overt racism on campus, Latino students at LAC discussed their

experiences with their Latino suitemates, faculty, peer mentors, and at times,

fellow members of Latino student organ izations. Liberal Arts College has sev

eral programs in place to integrate Latino students in the campus and to help

them acclimate. Once enrolled at LAC, each new Latino first year student is

assigned a Latino peer mentor and connected to the Latino cultural center. Each

LAC student is assigned a faculty advisor, and since many Latino students choose

one of the few Latino faculty on campus, these faculty are often over burdened.

Still, students found them very helpful. For example, Bianca indicated that Latino

faculty played a critical role in helping her to feel less racially isolated. She said,

“My Latino professors encouraged me, they told me to get out of my comfort zone

and not only stick to my kind.” Small ethnic studies and sociology seminars also

served as spaces for students to discuss their identities and the racial climate on

campus. LAC’s student faculty ratio ensures that there are many small classes

which foster feelings of safety and intimate discussions.

As discussed in Chapter 2, Liberal Arts College also supports Latino student

organ izations by giving them ample funding to or ga nize cultural events on

campus. This, in turn, facilitates solidarity and cooperation among the Latino

student organ izations, which are further encouraged to share funds and co

sponsor each other’s events. Latino Links and Latinos Unidos did so, whereas

inter organizational cooperation did not take place at RU or RPU. Moreover, at

LAC, there were no antagonistic feelings toward members of other Latino organ

izations. These inter organizational relations along with the racial climate shaped

how panethnic bound aries and identities were constructed.

The racial climate of LAC with its predominantly affluent white demo

graphic and occurrences of racial microaggressions, coupled with its community

ethos of LAC, shaped how students understood Latinidad and its bound aries.

The students of LAC chose to deploy expansive and inclusive bound aries amongst

each other given the at times hostile environment on campus and off. For exam

ple, during one LU meeting, Fabian asked members to indicate whether they

spoke Spanish. When all indicated that they did so, Fabian expressed his sur

prise and noted that another member (not pres ent at the meeting) did not speak

Spanish. This interaction underscored that one did not have to speak Spanish

in order to belong to the group.

Indeed, if anything, Latinos at LAC were vigilant about remaining open and

hyper aware of the risk of being Mexican centric. They wanted to ensure that

they were inclusive and open to non Mexican members and cultures. Latinos

Unidos especially took issue with the Latino Cultural Center’s (LCC) focus on

Mexican related issues and outlined their grievances in a letter:

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W H O W E A R E 9 1

Although we understand the Chicano focus of LCC is founded in the

location of the southwest—we feel that it is for the betterment of the

Latino community here on the campus that LCC address the other sig

nificant segments of the Latino population in the United States, which

include Ca rib bean, Central American, and South American groups. By

hosting special events, speakers, and identity workshops that deal with

the Latino identity beyond Chicanos and Mexican Americans, we feel

that this could be achieved.

Members of LU complained about not only the Mexican centric programming

but also the age of the staff and their po liti cal leanings. They felt that the staff

was conservative and too old to understand the issues of the con temporary

Latino student at LAC.

For their part, LU members avoided focusing on Mexican culture too much

in their programming. During a meeting Cristina, the president of Latinos Uni

dos, asked the group what they thought about creating club t shirts. They then

talked about designs. Selena said, “We could do Black and white negative image

with Chente” (Vicente Fernandez, an iconic Mexican singer). Walter chimed in

and suggested, “We could have that circle that the Latino cultural center has on

their logo.” Genova interrupted, “You mean the Aztec calendar?” A few members

laughed because Walter did not know what the “circle” was, but then Genova

continued, “I don’t want an Aztec calendar because it’s Mexican centered.” Ana

and Cristina agreed. Janelle said that she liked “the cube design.” Cristina

described the cube: “It’s a cube with dif fer ent kinds of skin and hair with LU

printed in the middle.” Selena seemed confused and asked, “Dif fer ent types of

skin and hair?” Cristina clarified “Yeah, like dif fer ent types of people.” Janelle

added, “You know to show diversity among Latinos.”

In another instance, Latinos Unidos students discussed a wall they would

be painting on campus for Latino Heritage Month. They spent quite a bit of time

deciding whether to paint the flags of all Latin American countries or select

only a few. Rafael suggested randomly assigning each flag a number and draw

ing them from a hat. Cristina was concerned: “What if the main ones don’t get

picked?” Javier added “Yeah, like Mexico.” Rafael said, “Yeah, but we can’t leave

anyone else out and we can’t do all of them.” Fi nally, Marina said, “Ok, let’s

paint the ones that are most represented on campus and then send an email to

the school that others can come paint their flag.” They all agreed this was the

best strategy to ensure all groups felt included.

It is notable that while a majority of the students in LU are of Mexican ori

gin, they place great importance on being open. I asked Ana, the only East

Coast Latina in the group (of Puerto Rican descent), if she felt comfortable talk

ing to the group about inclusivity. She responded, “I’ve always felt comfortable

to speak up and remind the group that they’re becoming Mexican centric. I get

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9 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

it though for a lot of the members that’s their background. I think we’ve done a

good job with our events, like our music for parties. I had never heard banda

before college, but we also play reggaeton, merengue, and bachata.”

This is not to say that no one ever draws bound aries within or around Lati

nidad on the LAC campus. On a few occasions, I heard members of Latino Links

and Latinos Unidos use the term “box checkers.” When I asked Ana to explain

this term, she said: “We have a specific joke to talk about people, who are Latino

that we know don’t identify. We call them box checkers. I think it’s sort of con

fusing, like we don’t know why they don’t really identify. I think we are aware

that it’s bad that we’re doing it.” “Box checkers” were usually brought up when

members discussed the reasons why some individuals of Latino origins did not

join a Latino specific organ ization on campus. However, as Ana’s remark reveals,

even as they drew this distinction, students at LAC were self reflexive and

critical about it.3

Constructing Identities at LAC

Liberal Arts College students not only established highly inclusive bound aries

of “Latinidad” in their interactions, but also expressed them in their definitions

of identity labels during their interviews. Recall Selena in the opening of the

chapter: she held a broad understanding of “Latino” as including people across

national borders and emphasized heterogeneity within the Latino population.

Josiana similarly stated, “Latino has kind of become this thing about solidarity

in the US. We have a similar story, like we were all colonized by the Spanish.

Latina is someone who was born in Latin Amer i ca or the US with parents from

Latin Amer i ca.” Natalie likewise explained her identity label preference as

rooted in its broad basis for solidarity: “Latina is more accepted and encom

passes a group experience of colonialism, neo co lo nial ism, and exploitation.”

Adalberto, a member of Latino Links, expressed similar sentiments about

embracing multiple, overlapping identities:

I identify as Chicano, Mexican American, and the broader term “Latino.”

Chicano is not from Mexico, born in Amer i ca but not completely Ameri

can and you still have Mexican origins. Mexican Americans are those

born here. All four of my grandparents were from Mexico. My grand

parents on my mother’s side were part of a mi grant cycle following crops

from Florida to Nebraska to Bakersfield. My grandparents on my father’s

side were also migratory but just migrated up and down California fol

lowing crops. “Latino” means from Latin Amer i ca. It’s a really broad term.

People tend to think that Latinos are just Mexicans so Latino helps include

others.

Adalberto, like other members of Latino Links and Latino Unidos, privileges

solidarity and explained that “Latino” is an appropriate term because it “helps

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W H O W E A R E 9 3

include others.” But he also combines this identification with that of Chicano

and Mexican American.

Cassandra, a member of Latino Links, also identified with more than one

category and explained how doing so was context dependent: “Usually, in gen

eral, I identify as Latina but in contextual terms, where my more specific iden

tity is more impor tant I identify as Mexican like with my friends. For my race

and politics class, I would say it’s a more general term like ‘Latina.’ I feel like in

the classroom it’s a more general identification and it’s very significant because

I’m talking about politics so I say ‘Latinos,’ it’s more general. I think that iden

tity changes from place to place.” This pro cess of switching, as needed, from

general to specific identities was one that many students at LAC described. Ana,

a member of Latinos Unidos, similarly identified in both broad and specific

terms: “I identify as Latina, Puerto Rican and Boriqua. My mom and dad would

definitely identify as a Puerto Rican and Latino and they are very proud of their

background.” She then explained what “Latino” means to her: “Latino is defi

nitely related to a panethnic awareness and an affinity with other peoples. I

think it’s about being dif fer ent racially and some have dif fer ent experiences

with discrimination and prejudice. Some people identify as Afro Latino, some

Latinos are more light and have long hair.” Cristina, a member of Latino Unidos,

also uses both general and specific identities but in dif fer ent contexts, as she

explained: “I say ‘Mexican American’ because I was born here. My parents are

from Mexico. Sometimes I just say ‘Latina,’ when I speak in general. . . . So, I

kind of just use words depending on what other people say.”

The one category LAC students rejected almost across the board, however,

was “Hispanic.” Many explained that the term “Hispanic” is a po liti cally

incorrect, artificial imposition by the U.S. government, created for the 1980

Census. Paloma described the pro cess by which she came to understand the

term as problematic: “I really didn’t have a prob lem with the word Hispanic

growing up because of the Census and dif fer ent surveys used it. I was always

told to mark it because I’m not white or Asian. But here, I learned it’s very disre

spectful because the Spanish took over these countries. But I know that we are

not seen as Spanish in the color hierarchy. We are not seen as Eu ro pean so I

think using Hispanic and being discriminated against at the same time, it just

doesn’t work.” Paloma learned at LAC, in the classroom, and among her peers

that “Hispanic” is not the “right” identity label to use. Adalberto put it this way:

“ ‘Hispanic’ is not a word that should be used. It means of Spain. I know we have

Spanish influences in Mexico but it’s still Mexico, not Spain.” Cristina, on the

other hand, did not object personally to the term “Hispanic,” but she did not

use it much out of re spect for her peers’ preferences, as she explained: “I say

‘Latino’ not ‘Hispanic.’ I know that we’re not Hispanic because we’re not from

Spain and we were colonized but I really don’t have a negative connotation

toward it.”

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9 4 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

In summary, pro cesses of ethnic identification at LAC appear to be shaped

by experiences of racial marginalization, which produce particularly coopera

tive relations among Latino student organ izations and inclusive understandings

of Latino identity more generally. Students faced initial culture shock, tokeniza

tion, racial microaggressions and overt racism at LAC, and these experiences

are consequential. This racial climate led students to focus on solidarity and

cohesion across dif fer ent “types” of Latinidad and across Latino student organ

izations. Both the low numbers of Latinos on campus in general and the pres

ence of Latinos of vari ous origins, including international students, seem to

foster a definition of Latinidad at LAC that combines heterogeneity and unity

and perhaps provides the strength in numbers. A similar dynamic is found in

Okamoto’s (2003) research of pan Asian coalitions— namely, that when specific

national origin groups are marginalized they reach out to panethnics for soli

darity. In my observations of orga nizational meetings over the course of two

academic years, LAC students never drew bound aries around ethnic authentic

ity. Rather than seeking to define the be hav iors or characteristics that make

one “Latino,” they emphasized Latino diversity and embraced a range of cul

tural consumption patterns or identities.

Research University: Qualified Panethnic Identification and Competition

At Research University, Latino student organ izations play a central role in stu

dents’ experiences on campus. The relationship between the two organ izations

I studied was competitive and sometimes even contentious— something I explore

further in Chapters 3 and 6; in this chapter, however, the focus is on the impor

tance that members of Latinos United for Action (LUA) and Latino Fellowship

(LF) ascribe to their organ izations and their role in campus life. In both organ

izations, co members form students’ primary community and friend groups.

Many call their respective organ ization “a home away from home.” They serve

as ethnic refuges or safe spaces. Recall that the ethnic breakdown of the stu

dent body at RU is approximately 50 percent Asian American, 25 percent white,

11 percent Latino, and 2 percent African American; thus, not unlike students at

LAC, Latino students at RU reported feeling racially isolated and experiencing

culture shock on campus.

Kenya, a member of LUA, described her freshmen year: “It was a big culture

shock coming here. I didn’t see any brown faces, I’m not too brown but you

know. I remember saying that what I miss the most was pulling up at a stop

sign and hearing someone bump banda.” Lissandra, a member of LF, likewise

described missing having more co ethnics around: “I am the only person from

my high school here. I didn’t really know anyone and I was used to being around

only Latino and black people so it was really weird.” She felt disoriented in the

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W H O W E A R E 9 5

new racial landscape of RU, where Latinos and blacks are in the minority. For

Gilda, a member of LUA, even having a non white roommate was not enough to

ease the sense of isolation; she shared that “freshman year I was friends with

my roommate but not people in my dorm. I felt very ostracized because I felt that

no one really understood me. My roommate was ethnically Indian, but adopted

by a white Jewish mother. Most of my schooling was really diverse.”

The underrepre sen ta tion of Latinos gave my respondents a feeling of not

belonging. Externally ascribed as “other” on campus, they found refuge in Latino

organ izations. Joining a Latino student organ ization helped ameliorate the feel

ing of being out of place. Mireya, a member of LF, described her transition to life

at RU in the following manner: “It was really dif fer ent because I was used to a

really strong Mexican community, and here, you could count the Mexicans. So, I

really wanted to find those people, find people that come from my background. . . .

I found the Latino organ izations and that helped me the most. It was familiar to

me.” Finding other students with the same background was crucial to finding

one’s “place” on campus. During one LUA meeting, a freshman stated, “I don’t

really fit in, I mean most of my high school was Latino. So, I like coming to this

organ ization because I feel at home.” Deidra, a member of both LF and LUA,

explained her transition to RU: “My dad really wanted me to go to a closer col

lege and not move. I would really cry on the phone. I just felt like that quarter

was so long. I didn’t relate to the Asians in my hall. I just felt really dif fer ent. I was

excited to find anyone like me in LUA and LF.” Jennifer, of LUA, also stressed the

importance of the organ ization in her transition: “I think that LUA has helped

me meet people and create a little family. If I didn’t have LUA, I think I would

not have as many friends or as good as a time. It’s really kind of bland here and

there aren’t enough Latinos.” Gloria, a member of LF, took it a step further and

described the empowering effects of being among co ethnics:

We are a minority on campus and our population is not that big. If there

weren’t any Latino organ izations on campus, I don’t think we would

know that there are so many Latinos on campus. That’s the way we feel

comfortable, if you want to speak Spanish, come and speak Spanish.

Being a minority in such a big campus and actually having a little place

where you can come and hang out with all the Latinos. It’s reassuring

like . . . yeah, we can party but we’re here for a reason. And it’s like, if

you can make it, then I can make it, and we can do it together. We are

going to gradu ate and do all these things and that’s why we are here.

Gloria’s words make it clear that these Latino organ izations play an impor tant

role in students’ lives at RU.

Although Latinos are a minority at RU, as they are at LAC, RU students did

not report experiencing with microaggressions. Indeed, Belinda, a member of LUA,

was the only respondent at Research University who disclosed encountering

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overt racist remarks from non Latino peers on campus: “I felt really, really lost

when I first got here, especially in housing where it was mainly Asian. They

would make a lot of remarks that didn’t make me feel good at all— very racist

remarks against Latinos. They would say things like ‘The only Mexicans in our

school are retarded like the janitors’ and things like that.” That students at RU

did not talk much about such experiences in meetings or interviews should not

be taken to mean that there are no microaggressions or overt racism on the RU

campus; rather, it speaks to the intensity of simply feeling isolated and out of

place, though not necessarily negatively ste reo typed or invalidated per se. At

the same time, the circumstances wherein racial microaggression, tokenization,

and marginalization were not identified as frequent occurrences at RU seemed

to produce a difference in how Latino students themselves thus engaged in draw

ing ethnic bound aries when compared to LAC student boundary deployment.

Recall that in the face of racial hostility, LAC students drew broad and inclusive

bound aries among each other whereas RU students ended up creating more

narrow intragroup bound aries. Latinos respondents at RU focused on finding a

space that felt like “home” on campus and these “homes” became sites for con

stant boundary deployment.

Drawing Latino Bound aries around Culture and Color

In their quest for a “home,” both student organ izations engaged in pro cesses of

marking and patrolling ethnic bound aries. Cristina Beltran (2010) theorizes

that as po liti cal groups seek to create a sense of home, they often misread this

home as a presence of homogeneity and agreement. Quoting Bernice Johnson

Reagon (1983), she argues that home is seen as a “refuge— the space of sameness,

a potentially nurturing place where you act out community and decide who you

really are” (Beltran 2010, 65). Thus, it is not surprising that as students come to

see these organ izations as homes, they actively define the bound aries of belong

ing. They did so in dif fer ent ways and to dif fer ent degrees, but collectively, their

doing so differentiated both RU organ izations from those at LAC.

During my interviews, members of both LUA and LF described LUA as a site

where the bound aries of Latino authenticity are carefully guarded and deployed

according to such criteria as cultural consumption, Spanish fluency, and even

skin color. Tania, a member of LF, recounted her experience with LUA:

I tried LUA once, and I felt completely out of place. Every one told me that

I’m whitewashed, which I am. I didn’t really grow up around a lot of His

panics and we always had financial stability and stuff, so I never had to

deal with that kind of thing. I just had a lot of white friends, Asian

friends— I don’t know I just didn’t have the vocabulary and stuff— I don’t

speak Spanish, which is like a big thing. I’m a Latina, but I’m not, I don’t

fit the characteristics or what ever like I don’t speak Spanish, you know I

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W H O W E A R E 9 7

haven’t eaten all the Hispanic foods, that kind of stuff, like in a lot of the

other clubs they integrate a lot of Spanish.

Tania’s remarks reveal several indicators used to define and patrol Latinidad:

language, culture, social class, and friendship circles. Several other students

also felt that Latinos United for Action members judged their Latino authentic

ity by evaluating their social relationships (whom they dated, whom they were

friends with, and so on). Gloria, a member of LF, used a Spanish language prov

erb to describe the pro cess: “Dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres [Tell me

who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are].”

Deidra and Gilda shared the experience of having LUA members draw bound

aries around skin color. Deidra, who has fair skin and green eyes, reported: “Some

times people think you have to be brown to be Latina. Sometimes LUA members

say, ‘Brown is beautiful and brown pride,’ but I’m not brown. I want to say ‘Hey,

we’re not all brown, maybe inside we’re brown and culturally we’re brown, but

like, I’m not brown.’ ” When she first joined LUA Deidra felt that her presence

was constantly questioned and she was mistaken for “the white friend” of other

members. Deidra described feeling like she had to “prove that I could be there.”

Gilda also claimed skin color was used as an indicator for Latino identity at LUA.

She described her girlfriend’s experience attending a meeting: “At one point, she

did go to a meeting, but I guess she had really bad experience when the co chair at

the time said, ‘Wow! You’re dark! That’s good for the organ ization.’ And her friend

didn’t know Spanish so they told the co chair, and she kept speaking Spanish.”

Gilda went on to explain that the leadership believed darker skin would amplify

their claims that Latinos are an oppressed ethnic minority. At LUA, skin color

became a proxy for experiences with discrimination and racism and a po liti cal

commitment to racial ethnic equality and justice. In this way, skin color is con

structed as a relevant boundary of Latinidad.

Pablo, a member of LF, shared: “Sometimes I warn people about LUA,

because I know people who have gone and they say they are not Latino enough

to go there.” When I asked whether members of LUA explic itly told people they

were “not Latino enough,” Pablo responded: “I think so, or they just say other

things.” Even when members of Latino Fellowship could not describe exactly

how LUA members restricted the bound aries of Latinidad, they felt excluded

nonetheless.

But aside from the perceptions of Latino Fellowship members, were such

efforts to patrol and restrict ethnic bound aries indeed going on in Latinos United

for Action? In my observations of LUA gatherings, I did see these pro cesses at

work, but I also saw and heard about LUA problematizing such practices and try

ing to remain open to dif fer ent ways of being Latino. Every LUA meeting con

sisted of a discussion of po liti cal and/or social issues. These discussions created

many opportunities for members to voice their opinions about Latinidad and its

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bound aries. For example, during one meeting in the fall of 2009, the leadership

deci ded to have a discussion about Teatro4 and how it can be used as a tool for

liberation. They opted to have groups discuss a topic first— immigration— and

then imagine a play that would highlight the main issues that emerge. The goal of

the session was to have members understand how Teatro could be empowering

and raise awareness around impor tant issues. Giovanna began the meeting by

asking the group to talk freely about the issue of immigration. The conversation

did not go as expected. Gustavo began by saying, “I think it’s really hard to be an

undocumented student, like a lot of them are called white washed from their

families and friends for succeeding in school.” Miriam quickly jumped in and

steered the conversation in a dif fer ent direction: “Yeah, like when I go to Mexico,

my family and their friends make fun of my accent.” Giovanna and a few other

members exchanged looks. She cautioned, “I want to remind every one that there

are privileges that we have being in this country, and we need to check our

selves.” Carlos, another member of the leadership, said, “All this talk reminds me

of authenticity, which is always problematic. I’ve experienced this a lot because I

don’t speak Spanish.” In this exchange, Giovanna attempted to remind members

to think about how their experiences are shaped by their own privileges, such as

being born in this country; specifically, she was implying that Miriam should

remember that privilege when she’s “made fun of for not speaking Spanish” in

Mexico. Carlos also reminded the group that it is problematic to draw bound

aries around Latino identity on the basis of language.

Although Gilda, a member of LUA, described an incident when the leader

ship continued to speak Spanish even when non Spanish speakers were pres ent, at

least some members were determined to keep the space accessible to audience

members who spoke only En glish. For example, when an artist from a local

community center came to a LUA meeting to discuss son jarocho (folk music)

and began by speaking in Spanish, Kenya and Lalo quickly interrupted him

and asked if he could switch to En glish. They said, “Thank you, we know that not

every one understands Spanish.” LUA members were, nonetheless, aware of and

sought to dispel perceptions that they were Mexican centric and exclusive to

Spanish speakers. Jennifer said, “I know some people think LUA is predomi

nantly a Mexican space. But in my experience it is not. Not every one in LUA is

Mexican. We do deal with issues that pertain to Mexico but I’m not full Mexican.

Also, I don’t speak Spanish and nobody cares.” Still, whether accurate or not, the

prevailing understanding of LUA is that it is a site where ethnic bound aries are

drawn around language and even national origins.

Yet patrolling ethnic bound aries is something that happens at Latino Fel

lowship as well, only there it happens in a very dif fer ent manner— one that,

ironically, is much harder to explic itly address. In Latino Fellowship, members

frequently draw ethnic bound aries through jokes and banter. This was particu

larly common during cultural pre sen ta tions, which happen several times a

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W H O W E A R E 9 9

semester. During these pre sen ta tions, students showcase the culture of a par

tic u lar nation in Latin Amer i ca. The official rationale for the pre sen ta tions is to

expose members to each other’s cultures, with each pre sen ta tion being led by

students whose heritage is the par tic u lar country. Suyeli explained, “I think we

do cultural pre sen ta tions to spread our culture. A lot of people think, ‘Oh, she’s

Latina, oh, she must be Mexican.’ People don’t know that there are other coun

tries besides Mexico in the Latino culture. Latino Fellowship is a place to come

and learn about culture.” During one meeting, Suyeli and Thalia, both of whose

parents are from El Salvador, were presenting about Salvadoran culture. I sat

next to Pablo and a young woman I did not know. Pablo asked, “Who is present

ing today?” The woman responded, “El Salvador.” “Oh, Salvis. It must be negrita,”5

Pablo replied. The young woman exclaimed “Racist!” and then chuckled. When

the pre sen ta tion started twenty five minutes late, Pablo noted, “Yeah, we’re on

Latino time.” Suyeli and Thalia stood in front of the room with a Salvadoran flag,

some pupusas (a Salvadoran dish), and an indigenous artifact. There were about

forty members at the meeting, and a few men were teasing in a flirtatious fash

ion. One young man asked Suyeli if they could “have a pupusa before the pre sen

ta tion.” She quickly and sternly replied “No.” Pablo said, “Damn! She is Salvadoran!”

As they began to talk about El Salvador, one member bellowed something about

Mexico being better than El Salvador in soccer. There were laughs.

Suyeli continued to explain that “El Salvador is part of Central Amer i ca, it

is not part of Mexico like Cruz says all the time.” Cruz responded, “Yo, it’s smaller

than LA.” Suyeli continued to tell the group about the structure of the govern

ment and the civil war and briefly mentioned US involvement in the war. When

Pablo asked what tribe people of El Salvador come from, Suyeli responded, “The

Mayans and they call themselves pipil.” Thalia and Suyeli spent more time talk

ing about food; they mentioned pan con chumpe (turkey sandwiches), pupusas

and horchata (rice based drink), emphasizing that “[the horchata is] dif fer ent

from the Mexican one and it’s served in a bag usually.” Cruz interrupted, “I for

got, what part of Mexico is El Salvador?” More laughter. Suyeli then asked a young

man to come up and recite a poem that described common words and slang used

by Salvadorans. The young man concluded by saying, “Salvadorans are better

looking than Mexicans, it’s a proven fact.” The room exploded in laughter, and

they all ran up to the front of the room to eat pupusas and platanos fritos (fried

plantains).

Students laughed as they joked about each other’s national origins. It was a

common occurrence during pre sen ta tions for groups to make jokes with ethno

centric undertones. The collective mood of the room always remained light

during these discussions. At LF meetings there are many instances of boundary

deployment between Salvadorans and Mexicans. But there are also racial com

ments, such as when Pablo referenced Suyeli’s dark skin by calling her “negrita.”

Recall Deidra, a member of both LUA and LF, who said LUA members did not

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think she was Latina. At LF, she found attitudes that were even more intrusive,

with members asking, “Are you sure you’re not a little bit white?” Although stu

dents have a perception that the bound aries of Latinidad are foreclosed only in

LUA, the difference between the two organ izations lies more in how bound aries

are established and patrolled.

In general, ethnic boundary deployment is constant at Research University.

This is reminiscent of pro cesses Beltran (2010) identified among the Chicano

activists of the 1960s, when they questioned each other’s allegiances to the

movement. She quotes a poem by Audre Lorde, “Between Ourselves,” to describe

the conflictual pro cess amongst co ethnics. Lorde’s words resonate here too:

Once when I walked into a room

My eyes would seek out the one or two faces

For contact or reassurance or a sign

I was not alone

Now walking into rooms full of black faces

That would destroy me for any difference

Where shall my eyes look?

Once it was easy to know

Who are my people.

Lorde’s poem speaks to the perceptions that many students held about inter

personal relations at LUA and between LUA and other Latino organ izations on

campus. The specter of “acting Latino enough” is palpable on this campus.

Although members of both organ izations describe LUA as a place where ethnic

bound aries are delineated, my ethnographic observations reveal that leaders

and members of LUA often work to keep the bound aries open by explic itly not

ing whenever ethnic lines are drawn and seeking to address the issue. Conversely,

at LF, where such boundary maintenance is achieved through ethnic banter and

humor, such pro cesses are more likely to fly “ under the radar,” allowing the

group to appear more neutral and inclusive.

Constructing Identities at RU

When asked to discuss their own self identification, students at RU overwhelm

ingly used the “Latino” label, but their rationales for using it were dif fer ent from

LAC students, who chose “Latino” because of its unifying potential. Members of

both organ izations chose to identify as Latino, while some LUA members also

identified as Chicano. Cruz, a leader of Latino Fellowship, explained his identity

label preference: “I identify myself as Latino. My parents are from Mexico; how

ever, I’m not. To identify myself as Mexican, I feel is inaccurate. I think the term

‘Latino’ kind of includes people from all over Latin Amer i ca, including the

United States. I am from California, I was born here, but I’m not Caucasian, but

at the same time, I’m not from Mexico. A lot of people identify themselves as

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W H O W E A R E 1 0 1

Mexican— I can’t say that.” Cruz highlights the complexities that many Latino

youth grapple with as they try to understand who they are, in light of their own

and their parents’ birthplaces. Similarly, Thalia, another member of LF, sees

herself as Latina rather than Salvadoran; she explained, “I’m Latina. I don’t say

I’m Salvadoran or Salvadoran American. I will say my parents are from El Salva

dor. And I’m definitely not going to say I’m American.” Both Cruz and Thalia

consider the place where they were born and where they reside as part of their

identity. Similarly, Pablo said, “I’m Latino. Latino is anyone who is from the con

tinent from Mexico and under.”

For some students, however, identifying as Latino was more problematic.

For instance, Mireya, a member of LUA, said, “My parents are from Mexico. I’m

Mexican American. But I also always say that I’m Latina. But all of this is just an

ethnicity, it doesn’t define me. It’s just a name. I’m just me.” Like Mireya, others

expressed some uneasiness with the “Latino” label. Tania, a member of LF, said,

“I identify as Latina but I don’t fit all the characteristics, like I don’t speak Span

ish and I haven’t eaten all the Latino foods.” Both Tania’s signaling that she is

not representative and Mireya’s refusal to allow Latina to define her are rhetorical

strategies used to distance the speaker from some imagined “ideal” Latino/a.

Such strategies both acknowledge that others patrol the bound aries of “au then

tic” Latinidad and seek to preempt potential questions about the speaker’s

claims to the category.

Still, for many of these students, the term “Latino” was preferred precisely

because it was perceived as more inclusive and unifying. When I asked Gloria, a

member of Latino Fellowship, “How do you identify?” she replied “Latina . . . I’m

Latina because I am from Latin American and I don’t want to differentiate

myself.” Kenya of LUA similarly explained, “I call myself ‘Latina.’ I use it when

including myself with Central Americans.” And Gilda of LUA put it this way: “I

think the word ‘Latino’ is more about a Latin Amer i ca type of idea. I don’t really

think about it as an imposing, it’s more descriptive. I like Latino because it’s a

Spanish word and it’s more reflective of the culture.” For Gilda, the Latina label

is not an imposition, unlike the perception many students held of the term

Hispanic, which was created by government officials (discussed later in the

chapter).

In addition to identifying as Latino, several student members of LUA also

identify as Chicanos. These Chicano identifiers have been part of the organ

ization for several years. In my survey and interviews, I did not encounter any

first year members who identified as Chicanos, which is consistent with stu

dents’ understanding of this identity as volitional and something one grows

into. Students in this historically po liti cal group saw claiming a Chicano

identity as a state of consciousness. As Lalo, a leader at LUA, described it: “It

wasn’t until my third year that I started to call myself ‘Chicano.’ It was a slow

transition to call myself ‘Chicano’ and it happened because we read the founding

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1 0 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

orga nizational documents of the 1960s. And I know at least in this chapter,

we think about it [Chicano identity] as a po liti cal ideology not a nationality.”

When I asked Lalo to say more about what it meant for Chicano to be a po liti

cal ideology, he elaborated: “I’m conscious about the social injustices that

our communities have gone through. And I believe in giving back to our

communities who identify as Chicano or Latino. My brother says he’s Chicano

and I tell him, ‘No, you aren’t.’ He doesn’t know what he wants to do yet. I ask

him questions like ‘Why do you identify this way?’ Sometimes he says things

like ‘I thought Chicano meant being born here.’ ” For Lalo, one has to grow

into an identification as Chicano— more specifically, one has to understand

the history and po liti cal consciousness that comes with the category. Lalo

expects his brother to have a clear idea of what he wants to do and how he

wants to contribute to the Latino community before he adopts a Chicano

identity.

This idea of “Chicano” as a po liti cal term was reinforced through interac

tions. Recall in Chapter 3, where I described a workshop in which members

were directed to discuss what it meant to be Chicano. There, while it became

clear that the term and even LUA itself were sometimes perceived as being

“only about Mexicans,” members were also pleased to learn other wise as stu

dents of non Mexican origins disclosed relating to the Chicano label. Kenya

addressed such perceptions head on: “ ‘Chicano’ has dif fer ent definitions depend

ing on who you talk to, it doesn’t just mean Mexican born here. I think people

of other ethnicities get turned off by it. We tell people that it’s not just for Mexi

cans it’s for people who want to address inequalities. . . . Chicano means to me

to have the heart to sympathize but also have action and work to better the

community. Chicano means that I’m close to my indigenous roots and that I

don’t forget about them.” These students often si mul ta neously identified as

Latino.

Fi nally, like students at LAC, students in both organ izations at Research

University almost universally disliked the label “Hispanic.” Evelyn, a member of

LUA, explained:

I use “Latino” or “Chicano” depending on the context. Latino is being

from Latin Amer i ca. I think it’s more like a nationality like where you’re

from. I think Chicano is more than just a nationality or not nationality at

all because you don’t have to be Mexican American. Being Chicano

means that you’re active and that you’re po liti cally conscious. “His

panic,” I don’t like it because of the history of the word and Reagan and

how he tried to make himself a friend of the immigrants and that was

bullshit, he could care less.

Here, Evelyn echoes commonly held perspective about the origins of the word

“Hispanic,” noting its connection to the government and a seemingly

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W H O W E A R E 1 0 3

disingenuous effort to connect with immigrants. Kenya made the same point: “I

think ‘Hispanic’ was created by the government to put some sort of number on

us. So, I really don’t call myself ‘Hispanic’ and when someone calls himself His

panic I feel like it’s a really strange.” For Gloria, the term’s connection to the

Spanish language is too restrictive: “I feel ‘Hispanic’ is just like a word that the

government uses for the Spanish speaking but not every one in Latin Amer i ca

speaks Spanish.” She also reacted strongly against it: “I cringe when I hear it. I

read all these articles about where the word ‘Hispanic’ came from. I think of it

as an imposed identity. It’s a way of defining all these people. I think that it

homogenizes every one. I really don’t like the word. From my understanding the

word ‘Hispanic’ comes from the U.S. government.”

Aside from the consensus among LAC and RU students regarding the prob

lematic nature of the label “Hispanic,” the identity pro cess varied between these

two campuses. The competition and conflict between Latino Fellowship and

LUA further shaped the identification patterns. First, members of LF felt the

need to qualify their identification preferences. They often claimed a term, but

then listed presumed requirements they did not meet. And members of both

organ izations perceived LUA to be the space where ethnic bound aries were more

carefully patrolled, even though, as I noted above, similar pro cesses were at

work in LF, only in dif fer ent ways. LF was a space where ethnic boundary deploy

ment happened constantly, albeit with humor. The term ‘Chicano’ differenti

ated LUA and LF members because it as associated with the realm of politics, and

it came to belong to LUA (further discussed in Chapter 6).

Regional Public University: National Origin Identification and Missing Interactions

As explained in Chapter 4, Regional Public University is quite dif fer ent from

both Liberal Arts College and Research University in many ways. First and fore

most, RPU is a commuter campus. Students spend little time on campus beyond

the classroom and interact very little with other students outside of the class

room. The two organ izations I studied at RPU, Latinos United for Action (LUA) and

Hispanics for Economics (HE), didn’t interact at all— they neither cooperated as

at LAC, nor competed as at RU; rather, the organ izations were autonomous and

simply coexisted. Second, recall this campus is a Hispanic serving institution,

where over 45 percent of students are Latino; the next largest group are Asian

Americans at 20 percent, followed by whites and African Americans at

8 percent. The Latino majority at RPU makes it quite distinct from Liberal Arts

College and Research University.

This difference became especially clear when I asked RPU respondents to

discuss their transition to college. In stark contrast to LAC and RU students,

who described experiences of culture shock, racial isolation, and microaggression,

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RPU students reported no such experiences, even when probed further to dis

cuss instances of discrimination or prejudice. They also did not express the

need for a Latino space or a “home away from home” on campus. Instead, when

prompted to discuss race, many members of Hispanics for Economics, in par tic

u lar, emphasized the organ ization’s openness to non Latinos and deemphasized

the importance of ethnic identity on campus. As noted at the start of the chap

ter, these findings should not be taken as evidence that students at RPU have

no experience with racism on campus; the findings suggest, rather, that such

experiences are not a predominant characteristic of RPU students’ experi

ence. In other words, though RPU students, like students at LAC and RU, are

learning about who they are and where they belong, they are not doing so

through experiences of racial discrimination and marginalization on campus.

Keeping Ethnic Bound aries Open at RPU

A common narrative reiterated by members and leaders of Hispanics for Eco

nomics was the importance of keeping their organ ization open to all students

on campus regardless of their ethnic background. For example, during my

interview with Yvette, the president of HE, I asked her to tell me why she joined

the organ ization. She discussed the first meeting she attended: “I sat down and

met people! I thought, ‘Oh, this is pretty cool.’ You know, they weren’t all Lati

nos so for me it was kind of like, it’s called Hispanic for Economics, but the

diversity of the group really encouraged me. Even though segregation isn’t really

big deal, you do see how certain groups are like, ‘Oh, here are the Asians, here’s

the blacks, and here’s the Latinos.’ So, knowing that we can interact in a busi

ness kind of way, it really impacted me.” Members continuously described HE as

a diverse organ ization. Of the approximately fifty registered members that HE

had every term, about ten were not Latino.

According to Yvette, this openness was a central and long standing feature

of the organ ization: “We’ve been here since 1986 and it was predominantly

Latino, obviously it was the eighties. I think in the early nineties we opened it

up to non Latino students on campus.” When I asked how that came about, she

replied: “I’m not too sure about that but I’m assuming it’s because, you know

racism wasn’t such a big deal anymore. We were more open to dif fer ent cultures

and we really try not to discriminate against other races and plus, I’m assuming

like other organ izations were not biased towards a certain race or anything like

that.” Yvette’s narrative of HE’s history reveals a colorblind approach toward

race relations. She implies that discrimination has dissipated and the organ

ization seeks to remain open to all ethnic racial groups. Her narrative treats

ethnic and racial diversity as if it is disconnected from power and resources; all

groups are simply and unproblematically equal.

Many other HE students reiterated this type of narrative. For example,

Yareli, a member of HE, explained:

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I think when the organ ization used that word [Hispanic] it was impor

tant to have a place where Latinos had a place to claim as their own. I

really like that they’re open to other ethnicities but I do get a sense that

it’s a Latino business organ ization because it’s called that. I think it’s

good and it’s bad. I can see where it was born and the need for it. I think

that maybe the found ers needed to call it that but I think that it takes

away from the business part. And I think if anything we should know

better than to exclude anyone.

Yareli emphasized the importance of remaining open to all and questioned

whether a Latino specific organ ization was even necessary. Lucy, another mem

ber, said, “HE is open to all minorities and ethnicities. Some people think it’s

only for Mexicans and Latinos. When they started it, they did want some sort of

club for minorities. We do have an African American member but he says he

joined because there is no black business organ ization. Our media officer is Fili

pina!” This message about diversity was expressed not only during interviews

but also during meetings. For example, at the beginning of one, Yvette stood at

the front the room and said, “I know Hispanic is not the po liti cally correct word

but that’s how we started and we want to honor that. Plus, we are very happy

that there are people here who are not Latino. We are open to all students, so

please keep coming.”

Despite, the official narrative focusing on openness, some of the guest

speakers did address the organ ization as being specifically Latino. For example,

when a se nior executive at Telemundo came to discuss jobs in broadcasting,

before mentioning the type of work available in broadcasting, he discussed his

upbringing and occupational trajectory. He shared that he grew up in Compton

and went to community college. He asked the group, “Does anyone know what

Affirmative Action is?” No one in the room reacted. He quickly said, “It’s a nega

tive word now but it wasn’t then. I was the first class of Affirmative Action that

transferred to UCLA.” He then urged the group, “Become bilingual if you are

not. We need Latinos everywhere. We even need them to help fix the prob lems

in Wall Street.” Although the speaker felt he was being empowering and encour

aging, this was lost on some of the members. Yareli, for one, said of the speakers:

“I really do not care if they are Latino; I want them to tell me something I don’t

know. Like this person from Hollywood came to tell her story, which is fine, she

was Latina but she didn’t really have anything to offer me.” For Yareli, the eth

nic background of the speakers was secondary; she wanted to know what useful

information they could provide to all students.

For others, such as Sandra, the secretary of HE, the prob lem with speakers

addressing Latinos specifically in the organ ization was the potential of alienat

ing other members. As she put it, “It makes me really sad when our speakers

talk to only Latinos. We are open to all ethnicities and we try to emphasize that

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to all our members. I don’t want any of our members to feel discriminated

against. Last semester, we actually had a black member who was very proud of

her race.” Sandra worried about the non Latino members’ feelings of belonging.

Her remarks also speak to the transitory nature of HE’s membership (as she

mentions the membership changes semester by semester), which results from

RPU’s status as a commuter campus and a place that attracts transfer students

(as discussed in Chapter 4). They tend not to relocate for college and often spend

less than four years at RPU given their previous work at community college.

While Latinos United for Action was characterized by the same quick mem

ber turnover as well, they lacked the orga nizational structure to keep operations

running. They often canceled meetings and spent less time together overall.

When they did meet, they tended to focus on organ izing events. Occasionally,

they did discuss ways to pres ent the LUA message to the student body. They

valued honoring the indigenous roots of Latinos, in par tic u lar Mexicans, and

thus kept this as an impor tant boundary. For example, when planning a cele

bration of the Mexica New Year, Josefina suggested they have salseros perform.

Monica countered by suggesting they include cumbia rather than salsa, because

it has “more indigenous type rhythms.”

Given RPU students’ tendency to deemphasize the importance of race on

campus, I asked them to discuss what it was they saw themselves and other

Latino students as having in common. They consistently responded “culture.”

When pushed to define that “culture,” men emphasized the goal of supporting

their families financially, while women mentioned the expectation that they

live at home while in college and before marriage. Jackie said, “When I think

of Latinos, for example, our parents won’t let us leave the house until we get

married. My mom won’t let me move out until I get married and I have a cur

few.” Mayra, a member of HE, described her perception of traditional Mexican

culture as consisting of strong gender norms and obedience to a patriarch: “I’ve

had a few friends that their parents, especially the father, didn’t let them leave.

I would say I didn’t grow up traditional to a certain extent. I didn’t grow up tra

ditionally Mexican. My dad hates makeup and really girly stuff and I told him I

wanted to do cosmetology and he never questioned it.” Mayra described her

father, who let her undertake a subject of study he “hated” as exceptional, but

she also referred to Mexican culture as involving family systems where fathers

control their daughters’ life choices. Respondents at LAC and RU did not give

any examples of an imagined “traditional” Latino family when asked to describe

what it meant to be Latino and what Latinos had in common. Only RPU respon

dents’ referenced commonalities among families when defining the bound aries

of Latinidad. This tendency was prob ably a result of differences in residential

patterns and the fact that RPU students lived with their families in predomi

nantly Latino communities. At times, members even colloquially mentioned ste

reo types about Latinos. For example, Yvette, the president during the 2008–2009

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school year, approached me after one of the first meetings I attended. She apol

ogized because the meeting started late. She said, “I’m sorry the speakers are

usually not so disor ga nized or late.” I eased her concerns and told her that HE

was one of the most or ga nized student organ izations I had seen. She answered,

“Well, Latinos tend to be cohibidos [shy] so we bring people to them so they get

used to talking to others,” suggesting that being shy is a Latino trait.

Choosing Identities at RPU

As many of the quotes in the last section reveal, HE members do use paneth

nic terms such as “Latino” in conversation. But when it comes to their own

self identification, they overwhelmingly choose not to use such terms, in con

trast to students at the other two schools. Regional Public University respon

dents rejected both “Latino” and “Hispanic” panethnic labels, despite their

membership in organ izations named “Hispanics for Economics” and “Latinos

United for Action.” Indeed, some RPU students viewed all panethnic labels as

problematic and even racist. For example, Vanessa explained: “I don’t use the

words ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ at all. I’ve always thought that people from Spain

came over and raped our mothers and then just left, so why would I use that

word [‘Hispanic’]? And I always think of the word ‘Latino’ as derogatory to dark

skinned people. I don’t use words that are about the physical. For example,

people say, ‘Oh, she has dark hair, she must be Hispanic or Latino.’ ”

Like Vanessa, Alex also found both terms disempowering, saying, “I iden

tify as Mexican. I don’t like the word ‘Hispanic’ it is like recolonizing yourself.

‘Latino,’ I say, ‘What does that word mean?’ ‘Latino’ means ‘Latin.’ Mexicans

are not Latins. ‘Latino,’ it’s just a word to categorize us.” Inter ethnic dynamics,

specifically relations between Mexican and Central American populations,

were another reason for rejecting panethnic terms, as Alex further explained:

“Like I know Salvadorans don’t like to be called Mexican, so I think ‘Latino’ and

‘Hispanic’ are not the words to use.” Teresa echoed Alex’s concern, “Some people

think ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’ are the right things to say. They say ‘I don’t want to

call a Salvadoran Mexican or a Mexican Salvadoran.’ I tell them to ask people

what they want to be called.” Several members of HE expressed this preference

for labels that specified national origins: Sandra was typical in saying, “I con

sider myself Mexican because my ancestors are from Mexico.” Yvette similarly

explained, “I’m half Cuban and my mother is Salvadoran so that’s what I say.”

Despite their preference for national origin identities, a few RPU students

did indicate they used panethnic identification if necessary. When I asked Lucy,

“Do you call yourself ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latina?’ ” she replied: “No. I call myself ‘Mexi

can American.’ People are getting the hang of ‘Mexican American.’ But that

doesn’t include people whose parents are not from Mexico, [it] doesn’t include

Central Amer i ca or South Amer i ca. I call myself ‘Mexican American’ or ‘Chi

cana.’ ‘Chicano’ means I’m not Mexican or white American. ‘Hispanic’ sounds

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like Spanish or Eu ro pean. If I have to I’m more comfortable calling myself ‘Latina.’ ”

Lucy identified foremost as Mexican American and even Chicana, though her

understanding of the latter did not have the po liti cal undertones that it had for

members of LUA at Research University. Thus, terms have distinct meanings

in dif fer ent institutional contexts. She conceded that she might call herself

“Latina,” but only if she “had to.”

Students offered two other reasons for not identifying panethnically at

RPU. First, some were not born in this country; theirs is commonly referred to

as the “1.5 generation.” Sara, a member of HE, explained, “I say I’m ‘Mexican.’ I

never say ‘Hispanic’ but if some people say ‘Are you Hispanic or Latina?’ I’ll say

yes but it will not come from my mouth. And I have never ever said ‘Mexican

American.’ I was born in Mexico and migrated at the age of ten. I don’t think

‘Chicana’ is a word for a person of my generation in the United States.” Jerry, a

member of LUA, called himself ‘Mexicano’ or ‘Mexican’ because he was born in

Mexico. He did not use ‘Chicano’ because for him, it meant “someone who thought

they knew more about being Mexican than every one else.” Jerry, a member of

LUA, had very distinct ideas about the label ‘Chicano’ compared to his peers at

Research University who are also members of LUA. Jerry also spoke at length

about tensions between U.S. born Mexicans and immigrants in his high school,

noting that “they used to call me wetback. There was a lot of brown on brown

friction.”

Second, some members were mixed race. For example, Marta, a member of

HE, said, “I’m half Mexican and half Filipina. I’m Flipxican.” When I asked her “Do

you use words like ‘Latina’ or ‘Hispanic’ to identify yourself or other people?,” she

responded: “I think I use ‘Latino’ sometimes. Like I say, ‘Do you like Latin men

or do you like Latin women?’ ” Jesus, also in HE, similarly indicated that he used

the term ‘Latino’ but he also usually qualified this: “I primarily say ‘Latino.’ But

I am mixed ethnicity. I do let people know that I’m not just Mexican, I am also

Armenian and Native American. I do say ‘Latino’ but if we do get into conversa

tion that I do emphasize that I’m not just Latino.”

Only one student whom I interviewed at RPU indicated a preference for

panethnic terms, ‘Latino’ in par tic u lar. Yareli is a member of Hispanics for Eco

nomics, but she spent the first two years of college at the University of Califor

nia, Santa Barbara. Medical issues forced her to return home and transfer to

RPU. When I asked her how she identified, she responded: “I say ‘Latina.’ I sup

pose sometimes I may say ‘Hispanic.’ For a while I would say ‘Salvadoran’ and

then people ask me exactly from where. I would have to emphasize that I was

born here so I don’t say that anymore. I think ‘Latina’ is what I’m comfortable

with. I don’t say ‘Hispanic’ too much because ‘Latino’ sounds more Spanish.

Anyway and ‘Hispanic’ reminds me of ‘spick.’ I don’t say ‘Salvadoran American’

because I don’t say ‘American.’ ”

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W H O W E A R E 1 0 9

As a Hispanic serving institution, RPU has a critical mass of Latinos. There

are both panethnic and national origin based organ izations on campus. How

ever, both LUA and HE had members from Central Amer i ca and Mexico. The

large Latino population on campus draws student attention to interethnic dif

ference rather than panethnic similarities. When asked to discuss co ali tions

between Salvadoran and Mexican organ izations and label these co ali tions, stu

dents emphasized that panethnic labels were unnecessary. RPU Latino respon

dents were less likely to identify panethnically. Like my respondents at LAC and

RU, most of my RU respondents are the first in their families to go to college.

Yet, as college students who continue to live at home, they did not confront

culture shock or racial microaggressions in college. Unlike the racial climate at

LAC and RU, in which student identities were ascribed externally on campus,

RPU’s racial climate did not appear to “other” Latino students categorically.

They were part of a majority Latino, working class student body. Again, this is

not to suggest that there is no racial in equality on campus; it is to say only that

none of my respondents reported instances of perceiving racial animus.

RPU’s commuter campus dynamics also make orga nizational involvement

less salient than at Liberal Arts College and Research University. Students spend

most of their time off campus with friends and family not associated with their

university, not dealing with co ethnics on campus. When I prompted my respon

dents to discuss the ethnic bound aries of Latinidad, they identified family and

gender arrangements as shared commonalities. The racial climate is predomi

nantly Latino, but characterized by little interaction among the student body in

general. Respondents did not disclose a pro cess of renegotiating ethnic bound

aries and identities, perhaps because they feel little need to do such negotia

tion. As the majority, they did not face a new racial environment on campus that

forced them to re process their ethnic identities.

Conclusion

Latino students’ experiences varied across the three campuses studied, in part

because of the following constellation of institutional factors: (1) the percentage

of Latino students on campus, (2) the economic origins of the student body,

(3) student residential patterns, (4) diversity programming and policy, and

(5) interor gan i za tional relations. These institutional characteristics create the

racial climate in which Latinos learn, interact, construct panethnic bound

aries, and choose to self identify.

At Liberal Arts College, the racialized orga nizational setting is character

ized by an institutional prioritization of diversity coupled with affluence and

privilege among the predominantly white student body. This fosters coopera

tion and solidarity among Latino students. Research University similarly promotes

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1 1 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

diversity but its orga nizational structures unintentionally foster competition

for resources among Latino student organ izations, as demonstrated by the dif

ferential treatment LUA and LF receive from the Multicultural Center (as described

in Chapter 3). One consequence of this competition is that Latinos at RU draw

intra ethnic bound aries and question their peers’ panethnic authenticity. In

contrast, Regional Public University, located in a Latino enclave, serves mostly

local Latino students. This Hispanic serving institution’s racialized orga nizational

setting matches the adjacent community outside the campus gates; thus Latino

students do little re learning or “discursive reinterpretation” (Brown and Jones

2015) of their ethnic racial knowledge when compared to LAC and RU students.

Respondents at Liberal Arts College disclose experiences with culture shock,

racial microaggressions, and tokenization, in line with pro cesses of external

ascription. The large gap between the experiences of the mostly affluent stu

dent body and those of the first generation working class Latino students creates

a sense of marginalization for the latter, which, in turn, fosters their panethnic

identification on campus. LAC students live on campus among affluent peers, and

they choose to prioritize solidarity with other Latinos in this environment. This

elite institution draws students from all over the country; thus, LAC’s Latino

population, though mostly local, Mexican, and Central American, includes

some Puerto Ricans and Dominicans from the East Coast as well.6 In planning

Latino cultural events, students were careful to be inclusive of all national origin

groups’ cultures. This national origin diversity also fostered an inclusive and

broad perspective about who exactly is Latino and what Latinos look like.

Through a mutually constitutive pro cess of ascription and identification, LAC

Latino students come together to form a collective sense of being that focuses

on embracing heterogeneity to establish solidarity.

In contrast, students at Research University perceive that ethnic bound

aries are deployed at LUA in par tic u lar around skin color and Spanish language

fluency. Even some members of Latino Fellowship shared anecdotes about

friends who deci ded not to join LUA because they were made to feel not “Latino

enough.” Students described LUA as exclusionary, although my observations

indicate instances where LUA attempts to be open and avoid authenticity

discussions. Also, LF is not immune from deploying ethnic bound aries, but

its members use banter and humor in doing so. Orga nizational competition

and division at RU resulted in intra ethnic boundary deployment. Students

thought that Latinos Unidos for Action, the po liti cal organ ization, defines the

par ameters of both belonging to the organ ization and representing au then tic

Latinidad by questioning participants’ po liti cal commitments, Spanish flu

ency, and skin color. Issues of ethnic authenticity were significant factors in

the division between LUA and LF at Research University; no such division was

pres ent between the organ izations at Regional Public University or Liberal

Arts College.

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W H O W E A R E 1 1 1

Though there are large differences between Research University and Lib

eral Arts College, there are also some similarities in the ways that Latino students

identify at these schools. Latino students are in the minority at both institu

tions, accounting for 11 percent of all students on each campus. Latinos in eth

nic organ izations at both LAC and RU have a heightened sense of ethnic identity

because of their underrepre sen ta tion. Respondents at both institutions over

whelmingly identify as Latino and use national origin identities secondarily,

with a subgroup of LUA members also adopting the Chicano label.

Like to the students in other studies (Umaña Taylor 2004; Tovar and Feli

ciano 2009), my respondents at LAC and RU became hyperaware of their panethnic

similarities and the power that identifying as Latinos afforded them on cam

pus. There, where Latinos are a small minority of the population, their experi

ences with isolation, a new culture, and discrimination remind them that they

do not belong and cannot identify simply as Americans. Instead, students dis

covered the potential for solidarity in defining themselves as Latinos, even

though some RU students felt the need to justify and defensively qualify this

identification.

In contrast, RPU respondents overwhelmingly rejected all panethnic iden

tities. They were reluctant to identify with broad terms such as “Latino” and

“Hispanic.” In the Latino majority classrooms at RPU, students highlighted

their specific national origins instead of their panethnic similarities. Even in

panethnic organ izations, students specified their Mexican, Salvadoran, and

Guatemalan uniqueness. RPU students, unlike LAC and RU students, mentioned

intra ethnic relations and differences among Latino groups and cite these dif

ferences as reasons to avoid panethnic identification. Moreover, many HE stu

dents downplayed the significance of race while emphasizing the need to keep

the organ ization open to all groups. Latino students’ identity preferences at RPU

are consistent with Dina Okamoto’s (2003) theory of segregation among ethnic

groups. Like the Asian Americans she studied, the critical mass of Latinos at

this Hispanic serving institution meant that student could separate and form

national origin groups, which ultimately highlighted differences between

groups rather than similarities.

What this comparative analy sis shows is twofold. First, ethnoracial identi

ties are locally negotiated. The fact that students in two chapters of the same

organ ization (at RU and RPU), Latinos United for Action, drew ethnic bound

aries and adopted dif fer ent identity labels demonstrates that the campus envi

ronment is formative. Second, identity formation pro cesses are activated by

dif fer ent conditions on each campus. Residential patterns mattered on all three

campuses, but for Latino respondents at LAC, they mattered because they were

interacting with predominantly affluent white peers with whom they lived for

four years. At RPU, not living on campus foreclosed students’ opportunities to

interact in a new racial environment. And at RU, living in a new setting, coupled

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1 1 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

with scarce resources, created an optimal environment for competition between

Latino student organ izations. What this analy sis demonstrates is that it is impor

tant to avoid making blanket statements. Institutional characteristics create

unique settings across campuses. The bound aries of Latinidad are fluid in some

contexts and rigid in others, externally deployed in some settings while mainly

internally deployed in others. And thus choosing identities can have a significant

impact on interpersonal relationships on some campuses while being inconse

quential on others.

Within, these college orga nizational dynamics Latinos are learning and

creating ideas about who they are ethnically and panethnically. As such, racial

understanding may be part of the hidden curriculum of college— a curriculum

that teaches students distinct lessons. In the next chapter, I turn to another

“unit” in the hidden curriculum of college: learning how to engage in politics.

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1 1 3

VVVVVVVVVVV

FA BI A N: Oh my God, I was so mad with the commencement speaker decisions

made this week by the committee. I think we need to talk about an action

because they totally disregarded Latino students. It’s disrespectful to us

because we have families that are undocumented and this speaker is

anti immigrant.

BER NA R DO: Well, is the decision final? Can we change it?

FA BI A N: I talked to them and they said the announcement is official so they

can’t take it back.

M A RCUS: Well maybe we can have noisemakers and when she comes up we can

make noise?

VA N YA: Or maybe we can stand up and give her our back?

FA BI A N: Yeah, I like that!

JA NELLE: I like that too!

BER NA R DO: Well, I think that’s a little disrespectful.

FA BI A N: Maybe you’re right, and the school might get mad at Latinos Unidos,

and we don’t want that.

M A RCUS: So, maybe we can wear like white sashes in solidarity with immigrants.

This discussion took place during a 2010 Latinos Unidos meeting at Liberal Arts

College.1 Members were frustrated with the commencement speaker chosen by

the college, whose immigration views they found abhorrent. They chose to react

deliberatively and symbolically rather than contentiously, opting out of protest

and ultimately deciding to wear white sashes at commencement. The insulated,

supportive, and communal aspects of LAC foster deliberation and discour

age contention as students consider their relationships with administrators in

What We Do

Defining and Performing Latino Politics

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1 1 4 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

making tactical choices. Although this is only one example of how LAC Latino

students engaged po liti cally, it is emblematic of their deliberative po liti cal

style.

In addition to distinct racialized experiences and identity preferences (as

discussed in Chapter 5), Latino students also defined and engaged in po liti cal

action in quite distinct ways on each campus: LAC students talked, while RU

students quarreled with each other, and RPU students protested off campus. In

this chapter, I explain the pro cess by which Latino students learn how to engage

in politics within the orga nizational culture of their campuses and demon

strate how institutions of higher education mediate collective action. Students

make po liti cal selves and choose specific tactics depending upon the context,

according to the institutional, orga nizational, and cultural settings in which

they live and study. To illustrate this pro cess, I build on inhabited institutional

theory, which posits that cultural schemas are implemented, modified, or inhab

ited within each specific setting (Hallet and Ventresca 2006; Nunn 2014). As

Latino students pick ways to do Latino politics they are not only making calcu

lations about what might work, but also considering the norms that surround

them and suggest what is appropriate.

Latino politics, like other ethnic politics, constitute a cultural schema because

actors subscribe to them, enact them, and imbue them with meaning. Latino

politics are adopted at the local level but also on a broader scale— nationally

and, increasingly, internationally, given the growing transnational ties and

immigration policies that affect and connect Latinos across the globe (Abrego

2014; Golash Boza 2012; Roth 2012; Smith 2006). By socially constructing politics

within each campus, students give meaning to Latino politics and inhabit them

in specific ways. In this chapter, I demonstrate how the contextual factors out

lined in Table 6.1 interactively influence students’ po liti cal understandings and

decisions.

For example, I show that just as the all encompassing bubble of LAC shaped

students’ ideas of Latinidad, it also shaped politics by keeping students com

mitted to on campus politics. Residential arrangements also influence how much

time students engage in life outside of the campus gates by reinforcing or weak

ening the bound aries between the campus community and the outside world.

Furthermore, the extent of cooperation or competition among student organ

izations, largely a function of resources and contact, affect the development of

their po liti cal programs. And, of course, each campus has its own po liti cal cul

ture or sense of how to go about engaging and trying to effect change. Within

each of these unique institutional dynamics, members of student organ izations

crafted po liti cal understanding and actions. In the sections that follow, I show

how these dynamics cultivate three distinct po liti cal approaches among Latino

students.

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W H A T W E D O 1 1 5

Liberal Arts College and Institution- Making

Liberal Arts College is a residential campus. The strong LAC community bound

ary that encloses students’ lives keeps them almost totally engaged within the

campus gates, and the student organ izations studied for this book rarely par

ticipated in events off campus. There is a vibrant student life on campus, and

social ties among the LAC community are strong. Members of both Latino

Links and Latinos Unidos actively participated on campus and regularly reiter

ated their commitment to bringing and representing Latino culture to the LAC

community.

TA BLE 6.1

Summary of contextual factors shaping po liti cal styles

Liberal Arts

College

Research

University

Regional Public

University

Strength of student social ties to campus at large

High Medium Low

Description of external campus bound aries

Rigid and enclosed

Semi permeable Open and permeable

Description of internal orga nizational bound aries

Minimal and nonexclusive

Differentiated and exclusive

Minimal and nonexclusive

Role of organ ization for members

Contributing to diversity on campus

Family away from home; identity

Instrumental connections

Po liti cal style Deliberative politics as campus ethos

Politics as a divisive boundary between organ izations

Issue oriented and contentious politics

How Latino politics are inhabited

Po liti cal talk and event planning

Po liti cal talk and event planning exclusively by one organ ization

Protest

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1 1 6 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

LAC’s po liti cal legacy skews left of center. Several LL members described

the campus culture as critical of government, liberal, and “hipster.” “The LAC

bubble is a hippie culture,” as Tamara put it. But, she said, “My parents were not

part of the sixties movement and eating green doesn’t really resonate with me.

Being green is really expensive and eating organic food is really expensive.” Many

respondents described the campus culture as leftist and environmentalist, and

they attributed this culture to an institutional legacy and the politics of the par

ents of the broader student body. Like Tamara, other Latino students reported that

their views often differed from those dominant in the larger campus culture, which

complicated their ability to relate to peers.

Despite Latino students’ initial feelings of alienation from their mainly white

peers’ politics, they absorbed their po liti cal tactics and styles of expression. They

practiced and inhabited Latino politics mainly through po liti cal conversation,

deliberation, and event planning for the LAC community— activities that I refer

to as “institution making,” Although Latinos Unidos’ and Latino Links’ institution

making mainly took the form of programming, such as hosting speakers or cul

tural festivities, and creating a Latino presence on campus.

Members of Latino Unidos revealed their impulse for institution making on

several occasions. During their election for new leadership, for example, Renata

advertised during her campaign for co president: “I will expand our culture to the

rest of the student body.” Fabian offered similar visions in a campaign email to

the entire organ ization:

My work has focused on building sustainable relationships with profes

sors, deans, student groups and staff; my past programing has included

student dinners, cultural and po liti cal trips, the execution of Latina/o

Graduation, volunteer ser vice work, retreats, and numerous conversa

tions with deans and professors about the state of Latina/o students at

LAC in an effort to increase outreach. As a co president, I would con

tinue my efforts to build community and assure that we are providing

efficient and critical programing that promotes our mission statement. I

hope to build a demo cratic space that builds on the diverse backgrounds

of our community so that we may all find empowerment. In solidarity.2

Fabian’s campaign narrative is packed with the po liti cal language of institution

making. He highlights his experience “building sustainable relationships with

professors, deans, and student groups” and his “numerous conversations with

deans and professors about the state of Latina/o students at LAC in an effort to

increase outreach.” He is internally focused on community building, relation

ships, dialogue, and conciliation on campus. Moreover, his goal is “to build a

demo cratic space that builds on the diverse backgrounds of our community.”

Here, while he seeks to persuade LU members to vote for him by pledging to

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fight for their repre sen ta tion on campus, he does so by using the most open

definition of what it means to be Latino, emphasizing diversity.

In line with these politics of institution making, members of Latino Unidos

were also concerned with changing the orga nizational culture and focus of the

Latino Cultural Center (LCC), especially during the 2008–2010 academic years.

During a meeting, Fabian said, “We are very disappointed that LCC has not taken

a more active role in responding to the hateful incidents that occurred across

campus. These incidents have created an unwelcoming, to say the least, environ

ment for students of color and we sincerely regret that the LCC did not take a more

active role, within the administration, representing the concerns of Latino/a stu

dents.” Here Fabian is referring to some of the instances of racism detailed in

Chapter 5. LU spent a significant amount of meeting time brainstorming ways to

reform the LCC, as well as criticizing the staff and programming. Their preferred

solutions were hiring a new director and expanding LCC workshop topics.

LAC Latino students were even concerned with faculty hiring, another form

of institution making politics. Both LL and LU discussed the retirement of a

se nior Latino Studies faculty member. During an LU meeting Genova said, “I

think it’s really impor tant that Latino Studies gets to keep the line and that we

are involved. We are one of the oldest departments in the nation and students

started it forty years ago.” In dedicating meeting time to discuss faculty hiring,

LL and LU members signaled their interest institution making at the depart

mental level and some understanding of the acad emy.

Beyond reforming the LCC and influencing hiring in the Latino Studies

department, both LL and LU had an extensive list of events, po liti cal in nature,

that they invested time in developing. Many of these events embodied a kind of

symbolic politics designed to represent Latinos yet also build up the impact of

Latinos within the institution. For example, both organ izations regularly hosted

events for Hispanic Heritage Month, the Day of the Dead, and Cesar Chavez Day.

Every year both LU and LL created an altar for Día de los Muertos on November

first. During a meeting, Fabian suggested they dedicate the altar to Luis Ramirez,

an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was murdered in Shenandoah,

Pennsylvania, by two white teen agers. Cristina suggested they dedicate their

altar to Mercedes Sosa, an Argentine folk singer who explic itly sang about left

ist po liti cal issues in Latin Amer i ca. After much discussion, the students ulti

mately dedicated their altar to immigrants who died in the desert crossing the

U.S. Mexico border. The Día de los Muertos altares have become an institution

alized ritual on campus, and even non Latino organ izations participate in the

activity by creating their own altars.

Latino Links and Latinos Unidos regularly support the efforts of other

organ izations on campus, especially when they are related to Latino issues. Non

members regularly asked LL and LU for funds to support their Latino related

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activism and research. For example, a white student (not a member of LL) once

asked LL to help fund her trip to Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest the School of

the Amer i cas for its role in Central American civil wars; LL provided funding.

Some members also attended a vigil hosted by this student upon her return

from her protest. In addition, members of both organ izations attended a vigil

or ga nized by a human rights organ ization to support the Dream Act. These vig

ils are clear examples of the symbolic politics that LAC students regularly par

ticipated in.

Deliberative Politics at LAC

In addition to institution making and symbolic politics, LAC students also

engaged in deliberative politics. Latino students initially expressed feeling dis

connected from the leftist po liti cal culture of LAC, but as they became accul

turated, they began to express an elaborate understanding of that culture. LAC

respondents held expansive views of what it meant to be po liti cal and articu

lated them mainly through deliberation. Members of the po liti cally oriented LU

constantly questioned what it meant to be po liti cal and how po liti cal they

should be. For example, in one meeting, students debated having weekly

lunches that would be dedicated to po liti cal discussions:

JA NELLE: I would like to avoid heavy conversations during my hour break.

M A NUEL: Then we need to think about it, should LU be more po liti cal?

JA NELLE: Well, Fabian likes to say that having a table of Latinos in the dining hall

is po liti cal because there are so few of us, so if we get together then that says

something.

No one responded to Janelle’s comment and the conversation continued, with

some members expressing the desire to be more po liti cal without alienating

current or potential members who were uninterested in focused po liti cal

discussions.

M A NUEL: How about more group volunteering?

M A R IBEL: Can we get involved with the Dream Act?

No one responded to Maribel’s comment, and the group fi nally deci ded to or ga nize

weekly dinners to show their presence on campus. The students considered

their discussion intrinsically po liti cal. In their expansive view of politics, any

thing, including dining together, could be considered political—an attitude

that underscored the value of symbolism at LAC. Moreover, they saw their pres

ence in the dining hall together to be significant, a type of symbolically repre

sentative politics that was common at LAC. Maribel and Manuel suggested

alternative, more community oriented actions, but the group deci ded not to

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pursue them, reflecting the ethos of their university by inhabiting Latino poli

tics through symbolism, po liti cal conversation, and deliberation.

Po liti cal deliberation was constant especially among the expressly po liti cal

group, Latinos Unidos. A few weeks before Columbus Day,3 the students discussed

their plan to commemorate an alternative cele bration on campus, Día de la Raza.

Fabian argued, “We should or ga nize a talk about the word raza because the

National Council for La Raza always gets a lot of pressure from conservatives. They

are called racist. I think we should be prepared to talk about this.” During this

same meeting Fabian shared that the campus groundskeepers, janitors, and

dining hall employees had received permission to paint a common wall on cam

pus. This wall is regularly painted by dif fer ent student clubs and then painted

over by a new group every week. The workers would be painting the wall orange

for their cause of improving working conditions. The next group in line to paint

the wall was an LGBTQ student group who would paint a rainbow over it. Fabian

shared during an LU meeting that he was trying to convince the latter group to

use only part of the wall so that the workers’ cause would remain highlighted.

But, he reported, “Gay students want to paint over it, drama!” Selena said, “I love

oppression Olympics.”

LU’s discussions spanned a broad range of po liti cal subjects— those affect

ing Latino students at LAC and Latinos beyond the campus gates. During a

meeting Fabian asked the group, “Should we discuss the [University of Califor

nia] bud get cuts and fee increases? Although we’re privileged to be at this insti

tution, we gain from the UC system. Like Manuel and I did a summer program at

Berkeley. Many of our professors and the work we read come out of those schools.

And unfortunately most of our Latino brothers and sisters get funneled into

that system.” Genova asked, “Are there actions of students on those campuses

that we can join or maybe we can think about ways to show our support?” Fabian

responded, “Maybe we can all keep our eyes open and think about this.” I fol

lowed up with LU leaders about this: they never made connections to collaborate

with students in the UC system.

Deliberation occurred amongst Latino Links members during a meeting at

which members discussed the purpose and mission of their organ ization. This

discussion was prompted by a question posed by Ines, a nontraditional student,

prob ably in her early fifties, who was attending an LL meeting for the first time.

She sat quietly as the leadership ran through a list of planning items for the

next two weeks, which consisted mainly of speakers and events on campus.

Ines fi nally interjected and asked, “What is this organ ization doing? What is

your purpose? What kind of pro gress are you pushing for? When I was at local

community college in the 1970s, we were pushing for so much.” Tomas responded,

“Latino clubs can’t be po liti cal if there isn’t the need to be po liti cal. There’s

always need, but not as much as there has been historically; therefore, we can

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be a social rather than po liti cal club for now. This means we are an outlet for

Latinos to hang out, a place to feel safe, get to know people like each other. But

at the same time I know there is always the po liti cal side— it’s not as hard as it

was in the 1960s for Latinos to get into college, but it’s still not easy.”

This kind of deliberation was typical at LAC: students talked about whether

there was a need in the pres ent to have a po liti cal Latino organ ization on cam

pus. Tomas suggests that there is but that some of the pro gress made to date

had given Latino students the space to also engage in social activities. In this

conversation, as students touched on the issue of racial pro gress and its rela

tionship to politics, they extended their perspective beyond the campus.

The commencement discussion quoted at the beginning of the chapter,

along with another discussion about whether to attend the May Day march in

the local community or an alumni dinner that conflicted with it, shows that

members of LU chose not to engage in contentious politics out of deference to

their relationships with the college administration.

CR IST INA: So we need to talk about the May Day protests because Dean Marlo

planned the alumni dinner the same day. What should we do?

SELENA: Well, Dean Marlo has been really helpful to Latinos Unidos and I don’t

think we should skip it. I think LU should show up to the dinner.

FA BI A N: Yeah, I can always attend May Day.

Students entertained the idea of participating in contentious action but ulti

mately chose not to; they wanted to keep close, personalized relationships with

administrators. That LU members wanted to keep these relationships amicable

demonstrates how they negotiated their campus commitments with their alle

giances to a broader Latino community. Within the communitarian context of

LAC, students inhabited Latino politics through deliberation, dialogue, and

even pre professional pursuits like meeting alumni. In other words, LAC’s cul

ture created a “ bubble” for students, which filtered their engagement in ethnic

po liti cal action.

Although LAC students were concerned about national issues affecting

Latinos, especially immigration policy, they expressed this concern in ways that

reflected the LAC ethos. They discussed immigrant rights and justice, but they

did not protest or engage in advocacy. For example, Angel began an LL meeting

in April of 2010 by reading a Los Angeles Times article that explained Arizona’s

SB 1070,4 and he asserted that it was impor tant to fight the policy. He then intro

duced one of the student leaders of the Young Demo crats, who asked LL to join

a protest outside the office of a local congressperson who was working to end

birthright citizenship. Angel responded to this call, saying “Well, I interned for

[Congressperson] even though he’s Republican and I’m Demo crat. Obviously, I

can’t protest because of conflict of interests, but I’ll tell you that this summer

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W H A T W E D O 1 2 1

some people came into the building and protested inside. This got some serious

news coverage and he was forced to speak to them. So if you do protest, don’t just

do it outside.” Angel offered the Young Demo crat advice on how best to protest

but did not endorse the protest himself. The Young Demo crat passed around a

signup sheet and received four signatures. The following week, I asked the LL

students if they attended the protest and was told that, due to time constraints,

they were unable to do so. Despite this opportunity to engage in contentious

politics, Angel chose to protect his relationship with the congressman, and LL

as an organ ization declined to endorse the protest. In this instance, students

engaged in reproductive agency, choosing to act in accordance with the pat

terns of LL and the ever present script at LAC of talking about issues while avoid

ing conflict.

The above example also highlights another aspect of politics that was more

pres ent on the LAC campus than at RU and RPU— students’ engagement in and

connections to conventional politics. It is not a far stretch for students who

attend an elite liberal arts college, accustomed to talking politics, to also be

involved in conventional politics. Students’ ties and alliances to local politicians

were revealed on several occasions, like Angel’s in the scenario above. Another

student, David, a member of LL, consistently offered to bring U.S. Representa

tives Linda and Loretta Sanchez to campus because they had just written a book

and wanted to speak at the school. David emphasized that they were family

friends. In another case, during a meeting students discussed a Latino po liti cal

candidate because he is an alumnus of LAC who had served in the state assem

bly. Natalie said, “All Latino politicians sell out like Mayor Villaraigosa. But I

know that he advocates for the Dream Act.” Lorena asked, “Why do you think he

sold out?” Natalie responded, “He’s been using money for dinners and stuff.”

“Well he can use as much money as he wants as long as he passes the Dream

Act,” said Lorena. In these instances, we see that LL and LU students at times

did have direct links to politicians, which they could pursue if interested. How

ever, I did not see any of these representatives on campus during the 2008–2010

academic years.

Communitarian Impulse at LAC

Although the primary form of po liti cal engagement at LAC is through institution

making and deliberation, some students tried to get their peers involved in

community proj ects off campus. However, they failed in almost every case. For

example, during a Latino Links meeting, Adal made several suggestions:

A DA L: I think we should take a border trip with a community studies class.

They go every semester.

TA M A R A : I’ve never been and I think it would be a great thing to do as a

group.

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A DA L: Also, we can do a toxic tour of the city, which is relevant to Latino issues

because Latino communities is where we find the most environmental

injustices.

TA M A R A: Another great idea.

Despite the enthusiasm expressed by Adal and Tamara, there was no major buy

in to either of these tours, and Adal went on his own. He was constantly trying

to mobilize his classmates to take more action in the local community. Towards

the end of another meeting he said, “I know you are all itching to leave the

meeting but I would like every one to think about how LL is doing as a club in

the Latino community and LAC? Maybe we should do other things like go to ICE

checkpoints? I know organ izing as Latinos today is hard because issues aren’t

blatant and it’s hard to see them, and act on them.” There was no response and

the meeting was quickly adjourned.

Adal was not the only voice in LL to express disappointment. Bianca shared,

“The other day I bumped into an alumnus who was a member of LL years ago.

She asked me, ‘What kind of significant action is the organ ization doing this

year?’ I said, ‘Not much.’ I guess during the first years of LL they did meaningful

action like translated financial aid forms.” The involvement of LL in “meaning

ful action” became the topic of conversation on several occasions especially in

relation to several faculty led community engagement proj ects with local Latino

populations, related to worker rights, immigration justice, and educational

inequalities. Some of the members of LL and LU participated individually in the

programs, either through research credits or paid employment. However, much

of the LAC student involvement was non Latino. This was discussed on several

occasions.

SA NDR A: Professor Jimenez came up to me; he’s wondering why there isn’t a

larger Latino student presence when there are protests in the community

about immigrant raids.

TOM A S: There are more non Latino students participating in immigrant rights,

even though it’s a human right. But we would expect more Latinos to be

motivated. But how do we get people motivated—if it doesn’t happen on

campus, it’s hard to get the students to care.

C A SSA NDR A: The prob lem is that these programs aren’t here.

TOM A S: They’re dealing with a Latino population, concerning immigrants’

rights. Let’s or ga nize across Latino groups.

M A RCO: I will go to meetings of other Latino organ izations to get more stu

dents to sign up for events.

LOR ENA: But people need to follow up on what they commit to, if you put your

name down you have to go.

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W H A T W E D O 1 2 3

M A RCO: I know. I saw people in dining hall and they aren’t motivated to come.

Let’s get people to commit and stay committed.

The discussion above shows students’ interest in being involved in programs

and initiatives that serve Latinos outside of campus. However, as Lorena points

out, students sign up to attend and do not follow up. This was a constant strug

gle and not unique to LL or LU. This is the prob lem that most social movements

deal with— the prob lem of recruitment.

An iteration of the same discussion occurred at LU. Another student organ

ization, the Worker Student Alliance, gives the janitorial workers breakfast

once a week. LU participates once a year in this breakfast but does not lead the

effort. At one meeting members reflected on the breakfast, to which they had

brought pan y choco late. Fabian said, “They [the workers] don’t think we’re Lati

nos! They say, ‘Oh, you speak Spanish.’ I think we need to increase our efforts

with the Worker Student Alliance, so they can know there are Latinos on cam

pus too!” LU reached out to the Worker Student Alliance and asked if they could

possibly or ga nize a hike with the workers to bond with them. Fabian reported

back, “We just heard back from the workers and they would not like to go on a

hike with the students because they are tired enough. I think we should have

a spa night for them instead. You know how the school brings a masseuse for

the students during finals.” There was an echo of agreement in the room. But

the spa night did not take place.

Students seem to want to be involved with Latino communities outside of

campus, but despite the presence of community engagement programs on cam

pus run by faculty, most of the involvement is by non Latino students. The students

in LL and LU are concerned with social justice issues affecting Latinos, but they

choose time and time again to engage in deliberation versus action and advo

cacy. They cite fears of losing the support of administrators when they think

about protesting, but mainly they focus on talking about issues that affect Lati

nos and organ izing speakers and cultural events on campus.

Research University: Politics as a Symbolic Boundary

Most of my Latino respondents at RU were living away from home in a new envi

ronment, and RU does not provide the integration and cloistering that LAC’s

residential experience does. For example, RU Latino students are not paired up

with a Latino peer advisor and do not have a faculty advisor. RU could be quite

isolating especially for first generation college goers, who tend not to seek

resources or community. For members of Latinos United for Action and Latino

Fellowship, orga nizational membership is particularly significant. Students

repeatedly referred to their organ ization as a “home away from home,” a state

ment not used to describe organ izations at LAC or RPU. But these two “homes”

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had quite distinct identities due mostly to opposing perspectives on politics.

Politics was the defining symbolic boundary between LUA and LF. LUA actively

engaged in politics mainly through consciousness raising workshops and event

planning, while LF avoided engaging in anything po liti cal.

Students viewed the organ izations as incompatible and membership was

exclusive— simultaneous membership was difficult to sustain As mentioned

in Chapter 3, three young women tried to join both groups, which members of

both organ izations considered strange. Within both organ izations these three

women were constantly questioned about their membership in the other group

and reminded that no student was able to balance membership in both. Deidra

described the perceptions that members of each organ ization held about the

other:

Some LF members do make fun of us [LUA members] sometimes. And

one LUA girl did say, “Oh it’s really cool that you’re bringing people

together.” We were always asking questions about the divide. People told

us that it was old beef that’s continued, so people continue to be sepa

rated. But I guess at the beginning, people always go to both meetings

and it’s natu ral that they choose one; they never choose both. The LF

people always said, “LUA people are always like fight the power.” And then

there was a LUA girl that would say, “LF doesn’t do anything and LUA

does so much, so what’s the purpose and what’s the point of LF?”

Members of Latinos United for Action saw their group as “ doing so much” in

contrast to Latino Fellowship, which “ doesn’t do anything.” Members of LUA

who attended an LF meeting while shopping for an organ ization criticized the

content of LF meetings, which typically consisted of introductions, announce

ments about upcoming social events, and either a cultural pre sen ta tion about a

specific Latin American country or a game. In comparison, a typical LUA meet

ing involved a workshop about an issue, such as immigration, gay rights, or

Latino identity, which was intended to spark discussion. LUA regularly held

po liti cal discussions and events on campus, but unlike chapters of LUA on

other campuses, such as RPU, the organ ization was not involved in conten

tious politics, especially off campus. LUA focused mainly on talking and hold

ing consciousness raising workshops about po liti cal issues. They felt they were

“ doing something,” which meant engaging po liti cally, as opposed to LF mem

bers, who played games or ate ethnic food.

Some RU Latino students had attended high schools with Latinos United

for Action chapters, so they were drawn to the LUA welcome meeting upon

arriving on campus. However, not all of the attendees ultimately joined the

organ ization. For most, electing to join Latinos United for Action also meant

explic itly choosing not to be part of Latino Fellowship. Their choices demon

strated an allegiance to a par tic u lar po liti cal Latino identity on campus. This

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W H A T W E D O 1 2 5

division was historical and fostered through structural arrangements and

access to resources on campus. LUA and LF had differential access to resources

at the Multicultural Center on campus, which I discussed in Chapter 3.

Latino Fellowship: Avoiding Politics

In choosing LF over LUA, students effectively chose a nonpoliticized Latino

identity over a politicized one. During LF meetings members did not discuss

po liti cal issues whereas LUA frequently explored a variety of po liti cal issues. In

fact, politics was deflected by LF leadership and members.

LF’s active avoidance of politics became most clear when Cruz, president of

Latino Fellowship, shifted away from orga nizational norms in 2008. During the

national presidential campaign, he invited members of the Young Demo crats

and Young Republicans to attend an LF meeting and speak about Obama’s and

McCain’s po liti cal campaigns. This event went smoothly, with LF members ask

ing questions about each party’s stand on immigration and education and

receiving straightforward answers. Yet afterward, LF alumni and other officers

reprimanded Cruz for organ izing the event, reminding him that LF avoided

po liti cal activities in order to appeal to Latino students who were uninterested

in politics. Their reprimands reinforced an orga nizational identity distinct from

that of LUA. In the following year, this po liti cal debate was frequently cited by

LF leaders, who emphasized the importance of remaining apo liti cal. Lissandra,

the organ ization’s president from 2009 to 2010, explained, “Last year Cruz or ga

nized a presidential po liti cal campaign debate. Most of the alumni and us

didn’t like it. Old members found out and they didn’t like it; they said, ‘Latino

Fellowship is not po liti cal.’ They told us not to do anything so extreme.” Lissan

dra’s statement recapitulated the collective and historical perspective that

po liti cal engagement was too “extreme” for LF. Cruz’s actions revealed transfor

mative agency as he tried something new and attempted to change the organ

ization’s approach, but other members challenged him and steered their

organ ization in a way that reproduced LF’s cultural script. LF’s orga nizational

identity was firmly entrenched on the RU campus.

Although Cruz broke protocol by allowing space for discussion of the 2008

po liti cal campaign, he did voice LF’s apo liti cal emphasis in many other instances.

When I first attended an LF meeting, Cruz told me that “LF is a no commitment,

no obligation organ ization. There are many organ izations on campus that either

have fees or are po liti cal. We like to create a very open space. We require noth

ing from our members.” Cruz emphasized this point in several meetings. For

example, recall that during LF’s first meeting (discussed in Chapter 3), a young

woman made an announcement about collecting money for the local Boys and

Girls Club to buy soccer equipment, and Cruz quickly interjected, “It’s not man

datory.” As the young woman passed around a collection box, Cruz again pro

claimed, “It’s not mandatory.” During another meeting, an officer of external

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affairs explained that LF was going to try to do more community ser vice. Again,

Cruz interjected, “ There’s no obligation to participate.” Donating money or vol

unteering is not necessarily po liti cal, but Cruz still felt compelled to give mem

bers a way out.

Members of LF shared similar preferences for avoiding engaging in politics

and gave several reasons for doing so: it was not their interest, they were much

more reserved, and they did not understand the reasons for engaging. For

example, I asked Pablo to discuss politics and its place in LF.

PA BLO: We’re not a po liti cal group and we don’t want to turn off our members

who don’t want to be po liti cal. Like, for example, last year two people running

for positions in the student government wanted to talk to the LF members

and the board said “no” because it’s not in the interest of the members.

DV R : How do you feel about politics?

PA BLO: I’m not opposed to politics, but I rather not take part because they don’t

interest me.”

Suyeli voiced similar sentiments.

DV R : How do you feel about politics?

SU Y ELI: I’m not very po liti cal and I’m not into news. I don’t really care about

politics. It’s not me.

DV R : How do you define po liti cal?

SU Y ELI: Po liti cal is like into laws and the Chicano thing. I know it’s impor tant

because I’m also Latina but it’s just not for me. Every one is here for a reason.

People do politics but I’m a scientist.

For Suyeli, politics is equal to science in that it is an area of study and she does

not have to like or take interest in both. Mireya also saw politics as a language

she did not know. She explained, “I’m not very involved in politics besides vot

ing. I lean more towards liberal. I don’t really know a lot about politics. I don’t

really follow politics. It’s boring. It’s like Chinese to me; it’s like another lan

guage for me, I don’t know.” Mireya equates politics to a foreign language: hard

to learn.

During the 2009–2010 academic year, college students across the state

staged protests against the cuts in education funding. I talked to Deidra, who

was temporarily part of both organ izations, but ultimately chose LF. She explained,

“I really want to support the protests. My brother asked me if I went to class

because of the protests happening today. He told me, ‘ You’re not supposed to go

to class!’ My brother has a little bit of the LUA mentality; he likes history. I told

him, ‘I have class. Why would I leave class to protest? I don’t see the logic. I’m try

ing to avoid getting more costs for education because I value my education. Why

would I ditch class to protest?’ ” Deidra seems to agree that the rising cost of

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college is a prob lem, but she does not think it’s a smart strategy to skip class in

protest. She believes that if she truly values education, she should focus on her

academics by going to class.

Other students thought that engaging po liti cally did not match their per

sonalities, like Gloria, who explained, “It seems that LUA is to express yourself

and be able to come up and not keep yourself as a minority. But I’m not that type

of person so I don’t feel comfortable.” Gloria not only explains how she is not

comfortable with politics, but does so by highlighting LUA’s po liti cal foci. Lis

sandra also discussed her ideas about politics in reference to LUA, explaining,

I think that LUA is very po liti cal because they are on top of things and on

top of issues. I’ve been around them when they’re not in their meetings.

I went to my friend’s house, who lives with a bunch of people from LUA.

She just made a comment like “I don’t like Sarah Palin.” Every one asked

her, “Why do you say that?” They asked her if she’s read every thing. They

were already attacking her. They wanted to know if her sources were

good. She said a small comment and they were all jumping on her. It

really bothered me.

It is clear from LF members’ comments that they perceived LUA to be not only

po liti cal, but the Latino po liti cal voice on campus. But how did LUA members

think about their role on campus? Did they agree? And how did they engage in

politics?

Politics within Latinos United for Action

LUA members’ perspectives on politics were quite dif fer ent from those of LF

members. For example, in an interview, Kenya, the 2009–2010 LUA president,

explained the organ ization’s position on campus: “I look at the Black Student

Union; they have the support of their Greek organ izations. And if you look at LUA,

we don’t really have the support of anyone else. It’s just us doing all this active

stuff on campus. Latinos or Chicanos5 on this campus, they will avoid us because

we are po liti cal.” Kenya communicates an understanding of LUA’s position among

the Latino student community on campus as one that stands alone among the

other organ izations. Moreover, she sees more unity among the black student

organ izations.

LUA members expressed opinions about politics with ease. Gilda, a mem

ber of LUA and a former president, explained:

GILDA: I think politics is in your everyday life; it is in every thing. I remember

the first LUA meeting of the year: I told people not to be scared to be po liti

cal because being on this campus is a po liti cal statement. I think there’s a

fear of politics on campus.

DV R : Why do you think that is?

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1 2 8 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

GILDA: Campus is so apathetic. I think a lot of students come in with pressure

from their families to do good in school. And then they have scholarships

and they depend on their GPA. So they get scared or they think they don’t

have time.

DV R : What do you think makes LUA dif fer ent from other groups?

GILDA: I think our programs help us stay consistent and po liti cal so that we don’t

become pan dulce [sweet bread], just like some social groups. I think as long as

we have the programs we run, we will keep our responsibility to have po liti

cally conscious workshops for the students. I think having a close relationship

with each other is good because we feel comfortable around each other but

we can challenge each other.

Gilda brings several issues to light. First, she underlines what she perceives as

the po liti cal climate on campus. She thinks that students are “apathetic” and

attributes this to the pressures of keeping a high enough GPA to maintain their

scholarships. Second, when I asked her to reflect on how LUA is dif fer ent from

other organ izations, she quickly mentioned the programs and “consciousness

raising” workshops LUA runs and contrasted them to what social groups do,

calling socially groups’ programs pan dulce. Gilda’s estimation of LUA’s actions

is correct. The po liti cal actions that LUA mainly engaged in were workshops

intended to raise consciousness among members. They covered many topics: labor

rights, immigration, militarization of the U.S. Mexico border, white supremacy,

feminism, LGBTQ issues, legislative proposals at the state and federal levels,

HIV, educational inequalities, and human trafficking.

One meeting a year was dedicated to discussing the origins of LUA and its

role on campus. This meeting began with a reading of the foundational docu

ments of LUA. Foremost, members discussed reclaiming their ethnic identity

and empowering students. They mentioned the need to keep the Chicano move

ment alive and away from opportunists who sought to divert it, including some

administrators. They discussed working with other organ izations, but believe

they should not do so just for the sake of unity. Franky mentioned United Latino

Organ izations (an umbrella group of which all Latino organ izations on campus

are members) and explained that LUA does not work with them because of ideo

logical differences. They also discussed competition with other organ izations

for members. Max proclaimed that “fraternities come to LUA flaunting their

Greek letters and recruit the straight men.”

Several students raised concerns about LUA having few straight male Latino

members. One working theory was, as Franky mentioned, that other organ izations

did a better job recruiting straight Latinos. However, other members hypoth

esized that it was the LGBTQ friendly workshops LUA sponsored that turned off

straight men. There were several such workshops each year. During one, Carlos,

Jennifer, and Maximiliano went to the front of the room at the beginning of the

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meeting and announced that this meeting would be about Queer Aztlan. They

began by distributing sheets of paper with either a term or a definition on it.

They asked people to find their match (definition and term). At this time all the

students stood up and started to talk to each other. Their papers had terms

such as “queer,” “gender,” “transgender,” and “androgynous.” This activity took

about ten minutes. The workshop leaders then asked every one to take a seat

and started calling out terms. They asked whoever had that term if they found

their definition. Maximiliano and Jennifer defined most of the terms because

many students did not find their definition. These terms included “intersex,”

“gender queer,” “queer,” “transgender,” “transsexual,” “bisexual,” “questioning,”

“fluid,” “transvestite,” “drag,” and “androgynous.”

The workshop leaders spent a little more time describing joteria, or the

study of Latino people whose lives include dissident practices of gender and

sexuality,6 and Queer Aztlan. Carlos elaborated:

Homophobia is a fear that is not logical— a lot like racism. In the 1960s,

heterosexual men dominated the [Chicano] movement and there were

prob lems with sexism and heterosexism. The feminists and gay members

of the Chicano movement strug gled to get equal recognition within the

Chicano movement. They had to learn to deal with intersectionality, which

was their simultaneous strug gles against racism, sexism, and heterosex

ism. This strug gle was difficult because people thought they were infil

trators! But they succeeded and added to the orga nizational constitution

that all future chapters are required to address gender and queer issues by

having workshops. It gave us a place in the mythical history of Aztlan.

He then asked all the members to walk to each of the corners of the room where

a print of a painting hung. These pictures played with classic Mexican images and

transformed them into LGBTQ portraits. For example, there was a print of an

Aztec guerrillero (warrior) holding another guerrillero. This picture traditionally

features a man and a woman. This activity took about five minutes. Then Carlos

asked every one to sit in a circle.

Carlos, Max, and Jennifer asked the members to talk about their reactions

to the pictures. Liliana said that she really liked the picture of the two Aztec

warriors (one carry ing the other) because usually it’s a woman being carried

and the new image challenges that. She added that society is more comfortable

with female homo sexuality and that this was also being challenged. Alicia said

she liked the sirena (mermaid) image, which was transposed on the portrait of

the virgin of Guadalupe. “I like it because it places a sexual object with the reli

gious,” she Alicia. Carlos interjected: “Sirenas symbolize infertility and the vir

gin is asexual.”

The conversation developed into a discussion about terminology and what

words are acceptable to use.

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C A R LOS: Many words that used to be offensive have been re appropriated and politicized, like the word “Chicano.” It’s not offensive anymore; you can

say it.

JENNIF ER : I used to think “queer” was an offensive word.

LILI A NA: I felt the same way about joto.

GILDA: Some students that used to be part of LUA called each other joto very

casually. I thought it was so offensive at first. Now I think it is beautiful

because they re appropriating the word.

LILI A NA: But, who decides what words are ok?

No one addressed Liliana’s question because Lalo pointed out that they were

out of time. But several other meetings were about LGBT issues. LUA also held

workshops about many other issues, including one about white supremacy and

the prison industrial complex, in which they discussed the three strikes law,

crack and cocaine sentencing disparities, racial profiling, capitalism and pov

erty. LUA members engaged in politics through consciousness raising.

To sum up, at RU, my Latino respondents’ choice of organ ization determined

their participation in politics. Whereas LF avoided politics wholesale, and LUA

claimed to be the only Latino po liti cal organ ization on campus. How Latino

students at RU were incorporated shaped this firm division between the two

organ izations. First, because the campus and its classes were large, students felt

a need to find a sense of belonging within a par tic u lar Latino organ ization. Sec

ond, RU afforded these groups dif fer ent resources and recognized LUA’s histori

cal legitimacy on campus, creating a disparity between the organ izations. These

factors contributed to a situation in which Latino organ izations were consti

tuted as mutually exclusive. In this context of competition, students inhabited

Latino politics in dif fer ent ways.

Regional Public University: Not a Bubble nor an Incubator for Organizational Conflict

Regional Public University lacks a particularly vibrant student life; as discussed

in Chapter 4, fewer than 10 percent of students live on campus, and most stu

dents leave when they are not in class. With little to no student activity on cam

pus, students report few strong social ties to their peers and professors, and no

salient school identity. The average RPU student spends most of the time off

campus; many work and commute from the communities in which they grew

up. Thus, in stark contrast to LAC, RPU is the opposite of a bubble and does not

keep the outside world, including politics, outside the campus gates. Unlike the

organ izations at the other two campuses, Hispanics for Economics (HE) and LUA

were not primed to consider their orga nizational reputation, relationships with

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administrators, or the po liti cal culture of their campus when choosing how to

react to po liti cal threats directed at Latinos. Unlike Liberal Arts College, which

has a long standing culture of being po liti cally left of center, RPU does not have a

salient po liti cal cultural identity, although during the Chicano movement of the

1960s and 1970s, students were very active at RPU. Gilma, leader of LUA, shared

that few current students had any knowledge of the activism of their antecedents.

Because there was no transmission of a po liti cal legacy, RPU students’ actions were

unrestrained and unfiltered by the campus culture. RPU’s porous nature, with a

weak boundary between the outside world and campus life, also provided no fil

tering of intra organizational bound aries. Unlike organ izations at Research Uni

versity, RPU organ izations were not in competition or conflict; they did not even

have contact. Neither organ ization exercised a mono poly on Latino politics on

campus, as did the LUA chapter at Research University.

Since politics was not a hard line or a boundary at RPU, members of both

LUA and HE expressed some interest in politics. For example, both Yareli and

Yvette discussed its importance to them:

DV R : Do you consider yourself a po liti cal person?

YA R ELI: Yes.

DV R : What does that mean to you?

YA R ELI: I think it means to be informed and to form an opinion. I may be wrong

and not have all the facts but I know what I feel and I know what I believe.

What I read might be biased because almost every thing is biased, but I try to

be informed and try to form an opinion. And I may not be correct because I

don’t have all the facts, but I think if I stand with something and I defend it,

then I am po liti cal. I live with that Republican and she finds holes in what I say

and we go back and forth. But I find holes in what she says, but I don’t shoot it

down for no reason. I think there are fundamental things that are not going

to change. I think you have an opinion and you state the opinion; that makes

it po liti cal. If you have an opinion and you don’t state it, then you’re not po liti

cal. The point of politics is debate. I think po liti cal means you let people know

how you feel and you take a chance of being wrong.

Yareli’s ideas about what it means to be po liti cal do not seem to be filtered by

campus culture. Her narrative does not mention her peers on campus or her

professors. Recall that LUA and HE members’ paths rarely crossed. The organ

izations held meetings on opposite sides of campus, and members almost never

took courses together. Administrators had limited interaction with student

organ izations, and Latino groups were not concerned with each other. Instead

of on campus politics, Yareli, like other RPU respondents, was vested in local,

statewide, and national politics. Yvette, an HE member, told me, “I just make

sure that what ever I decide, as far as politics, I always make sure that it benefits

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me and what I’m going to be doing in the future. I think it’s really impor tant

that we follow politics because, really, if you don’t, you’re just blind. If you don’t

practice politics, then please just don’t complain about what happens in your

economy or your world or your community.” At first glance Yvette may sound

like a typical market oriented student, but her comments show she had a more

expansive view of “me” that encompassed “the other” and looked beyond herself

to the needs of her community at large.

The following sections show how the missing filtering pro cess at RPU

allowed organ izations and individual student members to participate in politics

off campus in the local environment, reacting to national issues and engaging

in a politics of contention.

Outside Politics Enter the RPU Campus Gates

It was not solely RPU student organ izations that discussed politics happening in

the world outside of campus. Students across all three campuses discussed

po liti cal issues relevant to Latino communities. At RPU, however, I saw outsid

ers come into the organ izations from time to time, as well as students becom

ing collectively involved in po liti cal actions off campus. For example, a Latino

candidate for state senate came to discuss his candidacy with members of HE

during a meeting. Mayra introduced him: “Hi every one. We are very lucky to

have Adan Mendoza today, founder of a huge Latino professional network in the

area. He’s going to talk to us about his campaign.” She turned the floor over to

Adan, who said, “Hi every one! Thank you for giving me the chance to talk to all

of you. This organ ization holds a really special place in my heart. I was part of

an organ ization just like this when I was in college. I am an attorney and the

founder of a Latino professional network. How many of you have been to our

parties?” A handful of students cheered and about two thirds of those in the

room raised their hands. Adan continued, “I built that network because I think we

can create something power ful together as Latinos. I’m here to talk to you about

my campaign for state senate.” Adan gave a ten minute pitch about his family’s

trajectory in the United States, his experiences in college, and the American

Dream. Students seemed relatively engaged, and when he was done, Mayra

thanked him and encouraged those who could to vote for him. The presence of

Adan on RPU’s campus contrasts with the discussion of po liti cal candidates at LAC’s

Latino Links, whose members, despite their connection to po liti cal leaders,

were suspicious of candidates and never sought the opportunity to invite them

on campus.

Adan’s speech was not the only time that outside politics penetrated HE.

For a few weeks in a row, Mayra and a few other leaders urged members to vote on

a local initiative that would tax oil companies at a higher rate to fund the pub

lic higher education system in California. And another time, Mayra urged mem

bers to volunteer at a local food bank. She said, “ We’re in a recession so a lot of

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people are struggling. The food banks are running out of food so let’s get involved.”

HE pushed its members to participate in politics, by endorsing candidates and

initiatives and, especially, volunteering. This contrasts with LF at RU. Recall

Cruz’s constant reminder to members that volunteering was not mandatory.

Latinos United for Action at RPU were also visited by outsiders on several

occasions. However, the visitors were not businessmen or po liti cal leaders but

rather grassroots activists and community members. Some of the visitors included

a leader of a local LGBTQ organ ization who spoke to group about Proposition 8,

a statewide ballot initiative that eliminated same sex couples’ right to marry.

Other times, the visitors came with random requests. For example, one day a

man in his later twenties walked into a meeting and introduced himself as

someone involved in real estate. He said, “I am here because I want information

about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo because I thinks it relates to my busi

ness.” Most members looked stunned, and Jerry suggested he go to the library.

Another meeting was attended by an MBA student who was asking LUA to host

a commemoration of Ruben Salazar, a Mexican American journalist who died

during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War in

1970. Several members agreed to discuss this as an option, but they never hosted

such a commemoration.

The makeup of LUA meetings was never as random as on the day the mem

bers discussed the meaning of LUA. At this meeting, there was a female member

of the local Brown Berets in full costume and some gradu ate students. Gilma

asked members to explain their organ ization to the guests.

A LEx: It’s about social justice and giving our communities the things they need

to sobresalir [get ahead, succeed].

A DR I A NA: We are a social movement organ ization that tries to mobilize people.

ER NE STO: Are we exclusively Latino or open?

A NT HON Y: We accept anyone who cares about social justice.

R A FA EL: I think that we really have to understand our past, like in order to go

forward.

JOSEF INA: Yes, it’s empowering to know our past and fight for justice by any

means necessary.

A LEx: Yes, but we have to make sure not to scare people, like when I was in

high school; I thought it was too radical. Let’s not be that militant.

GILM A: But maybe we need to remove the stigma from radical. We need to

advocate for things against the status quo.

JOSEF INA: Yeah, I think that protesting and educating others is not radical.

A LEx: Yeah, I agree but we are not guerreros [warriors] or violent.

A NT HON Y: Yes, you are right, but books are our bullets.

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At this point the Brown Beret interrupted and said, “Actually LUA started with

the Brown Berets, and it all started with pre Columbian history and we were

guerreros. We are from Aztlan, which is in Arizona, I think.” Anthony lost his

patience and exclaimed, “You can’t actually find Aztlan. It is philosophical, not

geo graph i cal. And you, mujer [ woman], are infiltrating our organ ization and you

need to leave!”7 She responded, “I’ve been honest about who I am.” Gilma jumped

in, asking Anthony to be more respectful. Hector asked the woman, “Please give

us more time as students to figure out who we [LUA] are as a collective.” The

meeting adjourned at this point, and the woman never returned, but Hector’s

comment about “figuring out who we [LUA] are” penetrated and shaped most

meetings. Like LUA members at RU, those at RPU also discussed current po liti

cal issues, including the plight of undocumented students, the killing of Oscar

Grant (an unarmed man killed by a transit policeman in Oakland), and the

meaning of Thanksgiving. However, they spent more time rethinking the

organ ization. They read the founding documents as they charted a way forward.

They discussed the meaning of radical versus nonradical politics. And they got

involved in politics off campus.

HE and LUA members reacted to off campus national and local provoca

tions far more frequently than members of RU and LAC organ izations. RPU

organ izations had more options to participate in contentious po liti cal action in

the broader society because they did not have the pressures that Liberal Arts

College students felt to appease administrators or the full agenda of events to

or ga nize that LUA did at Research University. The relative weakness of RPU’s

campus culture provided few constraints of or distractions for students, who

staged protests off campus to address salient po liti cal issues.

Inhabiting the Politics of Contention

In late May 2010, members of Latinos United for Action at RPU discussed the

implications of Arizona’s SB1070, a bill that gave police authority to inquire

about an individual’s legal status. But this was not the first time Arizona had

been mentioned during an LUA meeting. In early 2009, Gilma had called for an

entire meeting to be dedicated to discussion of Arizona. She said, “I have been

watching Sheriff Joseph Arpaio on YouTube and it’s really bad. He ties immi

grants together and displays them on the street to humiliate them. This is dan

gerous because they serve as a model for other states.” LUA or ga nized a trip to

Arizona to protest SB 1070. Vanessa, a first year student member of the group,

expressed her concern over the issue: “All the people who are there now are

going to be stuck. What are they supposed to do? And you know they’re going to

profile anyone who looks Latino. We need to do something.” The student mem

bers caravanned to Phoenix, Arizona, where they carried signs that read, “You

are on stolen land” and “Immigration Reform Now.” Meanwhile, individual mem

bers of Hispanics for Economics showed their opposition to SB 1070 by joining a

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local protest in California. Among all my respondents, RPU students were the

only ones to engage collectively in protests off campus. This is not only because

their campus culture did not control student action, but also because the institu

tion provided no clear forum for students to express their grievances.

At RPU, both HE and LUA members were concerned about communities

outside the campus gates. The college did not mediate my RPU respondents’

reactions to local and national politics. Though the two organ izations were not

in contact with each other, members of both HE and LUA mobilized against

statewide education bud get cuts. HE member Jesús told me, “I made some flyers

for the downtown LA march. I’ve seen a lot of changes, for example, the quality

of the professors here is . . . declining. . . . I know that it’s hitting people hard.

They can’t get in to classes.” Josefina, a member of LUA, also discussed the pro

tests: “I’ve been working a lot of ways, and I’m really focused on fighting against

bud get cuts. We or ga nized a big rally in November. We want to have more classes

added because we’re paying more anyway. We been advocating for the march.

All my classes are on furlough that day so I plan on being there.” Neither Jesús

nor Josefina saw po liti cal participation as incompatible with his or her orga

nizational identity, unlike LF members at RU. The campus and the organ izations

failed to provide a foundation for students to seek redress, so they took their

concerns to a broader platform, inhabiting Latino politics through contention.

The RPU campus was marked symbolically by permeable external bound

aries and weak interor gan i za tional bound aries. The RPU campus did not filter

out the larger world; students were mainly embedded in their local environ

ments and reacted to local and national Latino po liti cal issues. The college pro

vided organ izations with few campus resources, so LUA and HE both operated

largely autonomously and were able to participate in po liti cal demonstrations

off campus and react to issues affecting Latino communities broadly. The cul

ture of RPU was weak and had little reach; it did not channel action, leaving

students open to respond to the outside world.

Conclusion

Campuses mediate the way Latino student organ izations engage in and respond

to politics. The interaction of campus cultures, residential patterns, and rela

tionships between student organ izations explains why students at RPU protest

and mobilize off campus, while LAC and RU students do not. But what campus

characteristics matter? Where do they matter? What are the operative mecha

nisms on each campus?

Liberal Arts College is a true residential “ bubble.” Students’ social relation

ships are bounded by the campus. Latino Unidos and Latino Links see their

actions as significant and consequential within their campus environment.

They learn discursive and symbolic politics within the leftist campus culture at

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LAC. When they do engage po liti cally, they get responses on campus and are

rewarded by administrators and faculty for doing so with resources as well as with

legitimacy. These type of politics keep them focused within the campus gates.

They do not have the time to address concerns about anything larger or beyond

their campus.

The size of Research University and the lack of programming that integrates

students makes Latino student organ izations critical in developing a sense of

belonging on campus. Students search for a “home” and community within eth

nic organ izations. Meanwhile, however, the Multicultural Center allots unequal

resources to Latinos United for Action and Latino Fellowship. The need for com

munity, differential resources, and historical conflicts breed competition between

the organ izations studied. Students are focused mainly on maintaining their

organ ization. Although Latinos United for Action claims a po liti cal identity, it is

not really engaging outside the group; rather, it works to maintain bound aries

and solidify its group identity. The recitation of po liti cal positions is a way to build

identity on campus, and the expression of them is bound to the campus and to

the organ ization. Notably, they advance LGBTQ politics, which LUA at Regional

Public University does not even touch. This is evidence that dif fer ent chapters

of the same organ ization can vary by campus and that local contexts and actors

really help shape po liti cal styles and approaches. LUA’s po liti cal work is a vehi

cle for supporting their members and their own orga nizational survival. In an

effort to maintain their identity, Latino Fellowship avoids politics wholesale.

Regional Public University’s residential arrangements do not foster relation

ships or interactions between organ izations. RPU offers no incentives or distrac

tions, and no bound aries. The world gets in, the students get out, and they

express their concerns in ways that they see as most promising. In this way, RPU

is an open arena for mobilization.

Interestingly, the interactive pro cess of forming po liti cal understanding

looks quite dif fer ent across institutional contexts. The interaction of the cam

pus characteristics outlined in the chapter are dynamic and shape who stays

engaged and how. Campus characteristics are all worth considering. These find

ings make a case for studying how Latinos learn to do politics across dif fer ent

types of colleges and universities. This is especially impor tant because, after

graduation, they will likely interact and engage in po liti cal work with other Lati

nos and individuals who learned how to be po liti cal in distinct settings.

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VVVVVVVVVVV

How do students see the social and economic prospects for Latinos in Amer i ca? How do they view racial in equality, mobility, and opportunity as they relate to

Latinos? Do their perspectives vary by campus or orga nizational affiliations? In

this chapter, I examine how students think about the first two questions. I asked

each of the students interviewed if, in his or her view, Latinos were a disadvan

taged group in the United States. I purposely chose the word “disadvantaged”

instead of “oppressed” because I wanted to get a sense of the meaning systems

through which students viewed race and inequalities without leading to one par

tic u lar way of understanding. Natasha Warikoo (2016, 45) defines these meaning

systems as racial frames, arguing that they are “lenses through which we observe,

interpret, and respond to social phenomena that shape how we understand the

world and act within it.” Further, she explains that frames are not always explicit

but rather that they can be implicit and unconsciously affect understandings of

race, imbuing it with meaning.1 By asking students to discuss the social location

of Latinos in the United States, I was able to bring these (at times) unconscious

ways of understanding race and in equality to the surface.

I think of students’ narratives about Latino disadvantage as connected to

cultural pro cesses. Students’ ideas about racial inequalities and mobility are

drawn from their experiences before college, on their college campus, and within

their peer groups, including in orga nizational settings. When thinking about

the social location of Latinos, students draw on ideas found within their cultural

toolkits, or cognitive frameworks used to interpret their experiences (Swidler

1986). The “toolkits” students have to understand mobility in Amer i ca come from

society at large, institutions, and organ izations. Some students hold broader ide

ologies that shape their perspectives on in equality. These ideologies are under

stood as “systems of meaning that couple assertions and theories about the

nature of social life with values and norms relevant to prompting or resisting

Where We Are Going

Ideas about Racial In equality and Mobility

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social change” (Oliver and Johnston 2000, 43). More encompassing than cherry

picked ideas, ideologies give students a worldview that may appear to be coherent

and consistent. Moreover, ideologies often lead individuals to question the ori

gins of their assertions and theories (Oliver and Johnston, 2000).

Some students had an ideology for understanding racial in equality and

thus a coherent narrative, while others espoused narratives that seemed unde

veloped and at times contradictory. These differences varied by organ izations

and campus because each of these contexts mediated or filtered students’ ideas

about the world to varying degrees. Each campus has a distinct environment,

shaped by the level of affluence among the student body, structure of courses,

relationships with faculty, and the intensity of peer interactions. For example, as

we learned in Chapter 2, attending Liberal Arts College is all encompassing

experience, as most students live within the “ bubble” all four years, and their

peer interactions are constant. In contrast, as a predominantly commuter school,

Regional Public University offers few mechanisms for distilling ideas on cam

pus. Student organ izations also mediate and shape students’ understandings

about the social location of Latinos in the United States, albeit to varying degrees.

For example, Latinos United for Action (LUA, a po liti cal organ ization) at Research

University holds consciousness raising workshops, as detailed in Chapter 3, while

Latino Fellowship at the same institution holds no events or discussions about

issues related to inequalities. The members of Latinos United for Action at

Regional Public University discusses the po liti cal mission of the organ ization

as they make plans for recruitment (as discussed in Chapter 4); in this way, they

are advancing par tic u lar ways of knowing how in equality works. And Hispanics

for Economics, a nonpo liti cal organ ization at RPU, does not address equity issues

and focuses instead on holding professional workshops.

Members of the nonpo liti cal groups— Hispanics for Economics at Regional

Public University and Latino Fellowship at Research University— expressed mer-

itocratic narratives that at times downplayed the role of race, reinforced ste reo

types, or claimed that Latinos were not quite disadvantaged, thus putting the

onus and responsibility for the disparities plaguing Latino communities on

Latinos themselves. These narratives sounded like “culture of poverty” explana

tions, which depict intergenerational poverty as a product of deficit worldviews

and aspirations fostered at home. Some of the students who expressed merito

cratic narratives acknowledged inequalities but then asserted their belief in

merit and that the effort individuals exerted triumphs over any in equality. This

perspective is reflected in the American Dream, the idea that in the United

States individuals can start from the bottom social strata and, through hard

work, rise. Neither nonpo liti cal group (Hispanics for Economics or Latino Fel

lowship) provided an ideology or a lens that countered the narrative of the

American Dream, and neither the Research University nor the Regional Public

University campus provided a context for the filtering the American Dream

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W H E R E W E A R E G O I N G 1 3 9

narrative that dominates our national rhe toric. Thus, without campus or orga

nizational filtering systems, the members of these two organ izations reflected

ideas in society at large. No students at Liberal Arts College or members of

LUA, the po liti cal groups at Research University or Regional Public University,

expressed these perspectives.

Some students listed a variety of ways that Latinos are disadvantaged,

including educationally, eco nom ically, racially, and by immigration policy.

These were expressed in students’ oppression narratives. There was variation,

however, in the how students discussed the origins of these inequalities and the

extent to which Latinos are affected. For example, some students merely noted

educational and economic disadvantages and spoke only implicitly about oppres

sion, while others took their analy sis further in explic itly considering historical

oppression and institutional inequalities. The perspective that explic itly articu

lates oppression is most clearly related to the power analy sis frame employed

by Warikoo’s respondents at Brown University, who viewed “the significance

of race in society according to unequal power relations between groups” (2016, 54).

However, I found implicit and explicit expressions of the oppression narrative,

which alludes to the presence of systemic inequalities. Such narratives operate

on a scale from implicit to explicit. Virtually all Liberal Arts College students

employed oppression narratives explic itly, as did a few members of LUA at

Research University, while most members of LUA at Regional Public University

expressed them only implicitly.

Of course, not every member of these organ izations espoused these views,

but a majority did. In the sections that follow, I look at the oppression and meri

tocratic narratives and the mechanisms that shape them, and indicate which

students espouse them. See Table 7.1 for a summary of narratives.

Meritocratic Narratives

The meritocratic narratives ranged from those that acknowledged structural

inequalities while si mul ta neously attaching some blame to Latinos, to those that

blamed Latinos entirely for their social location. Joel, a member of Hispanics for

Economics at RPU, said, “I guess what’s happening in Arizona doesn’t favor Latinos.

In other ways, too, like economic issues and knowledge, like financial knowledge.

I worked at a bank. I had so many experiences. Like people don’t know when you

borrow money from the bank; they give you the money, but if it doesn’t clear later

they try to get it back.” Joel acknowledges that inequalities plague Latino com

munities through immigration policy and the economy. I was unclear which bank

procedure Joel was explaining but understood clearly what he implied: Latinos are

ignorant of this pro cess. Joel, however, offered no solution for alleviating this

prob lem. Was it Latinos’ responsibility to learn? Did the education system fail in

teaching them? Should understanding the banking system be in the curriculum?

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1 4 0 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Lissandra, a member of Latino Fellowship at Research University, similarly

acknowledged disadvantages, but at the same time also denied them:

I do not think they [Latinos] are in a disadvantage because there a lot of

opportunities to take,2 but I do feel that there a lot of walls. I think that if

you’re Latino there are a lot of ste reo types that come with it. I feel like

sometimes people think that we are not that smart. I’ve only ever had

one person tell me that I wasn’t good enough because I was Latina and I

got so mad. I think that sometimes Latinos take it to heart too much.

TA BLE 7.1

Narratives about Latino disadvantage and mechanisms for learning

Narrative

type Description Who uses it

Location of

filtering

mechanisms

Meritocratic Might acknowledge inequalities or not acknowledge them at all, but overwhelmingly believes that merit is rewarded across groups and individual effort triumphs

Members of nonpo liti cal groups at Research University and Regional Public University

Society at large; organ izations do little to no filtering

Oppression Implicit

Acknowledges systemic inequalities without explic itly stating so or discussing origins of inequalities

Members of po liti cal groups at Research University and Regional Public University

Organ izations filter ideas; LUA offers ideology for understand ing the social location of Latinos in U.S.

Oppression Explicit

Explic itly acknowledges systemic inequalities connects them historically to the con temporary period

Members of both organ izations at Liberal Arts College and some members of LUA at Research University

Campus at large; Liberal Arts College bubble filters ideas

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W H E R E W E A R E G O I N G 1 4 1

Sometimes we think, “I can’t do this because people might think that we

can’t do it.” And we did have teachers in our elementary school that

would tell us that we couldn’t do stuff, and I think that sometimes you

believe what people tell you. But it’s up to us to change how we think because

the opportunities are there.

Lissandra acknowledges the outside forces that shape Latinos’ economic trajec

tories, such as “walls,” ste reo types, and negative messages from teachers, but

she si mul ta neously says that there are “opportunities to take.” Her view that

“Latinos take it to heart too much” makes the issue psychological and effec

tively puts responsibility for change in the hands of Latinos themselves.

Thalia, a co member of LF at RU, held similar view, acknowledging that

“Latinos are disadvantaged,” but adding that “you can’t blame the system com

pletely because Latinos don’t want to do anything to advance, sometimes.”

Thalia assigns blame to Latinos more directly than Lissandra by accusing them

of not wanting to advance. Mireya, also a member of LF at RU, said “I think we

can overcome all ste reo types. We made it into a four year university and we didn’t

get pregnant in high school. We’re still here, and that’s why we [members of LF]

want to let people know that, you know, any ste reo types, they could overcome

it.” By positioning herself and her peers at RU as outliers who beat the odds and

are breaking ste reo types, she both reinforces those ste reo types and delegitimizes

the structural nature of inequalities.

Cruz, a member of LF at RU, also positioned himself as an outsider among

other Latinos.

DV R : Do you think Latinos are a disadvantaged group in the U.S.?

CRUZ: Where I came from, the community (I still talk to them every now and

then when I go back home), they— I guess the easiest way to put it is that

they are content with being stuck.

DV R : Are they Latino?

CRUZ: Yes, you know, four years later— I used to be nostalgic. When I talk to

the same people, they’re working the same jobs, you know part time, you

know eight dollar an hour jobs, still hanging out with the same friends,

still going to the same parties, still you know, doing the same activities

on the weekends and nothing much has changed. I mean, they get drunk

and do drugs every weekend, it’s kind of like—it was fun in high school but

you know, you’re twenty two and you’re about to have a kid, it’s time to

move on.

Cruz laments the be hav ior of his friends back home and he identifies him

self in contrast to them. He blames them for their social realities, not acknowl

edging larger social forces at play.

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1 4 2 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Other students did discuss the social forces shaping the lives of Latinos,

but they more forcefully espoused a meritocratic narrative. Mayra, a member of

HE at RPU, responded to my question about whether she thought Latinos are

disadvantaged in this country by saying:

No, I think a lot of the time we feel that we are. And I think that’s our crutch.

But I think that it’s more about the geographic thing. I think it’s because

where I live, they don’t foster education and don’t highlight academic achieve-

ment. I wouldn’t say that Latinos as a whole are disadvantaged. Most of

my family lives in another neighborhood and the public school system

is better there. So, I think it’s more about a geographic fact because that

affects your education.

Mayra acknowledges that school districts differ and, by proxy, economics shape

students’ educational trajectories. However, as she continued to explain her

experiences and the opinions of some Latino parents, her meritocratic mindset

became clearer: “I used to volunteer at an elementary school. The teacher didn’t

speak Spanish. It was really difficult to tell the parents that the children were

not up to par. And it kind of went in one ear and out the other. I remember thinking if

people tell me my children were not reading at the right level, I would reach out to them

every day. I think it’s ignorance and it’s easier not to go find a better way.” While

acknowledging that school districts differ in resources, Mayra si mul ta neously

blames some Spanish speaking parents for not being more involved and others

for choosing to remain ignorant about new and dif fer ent ways to advance. She

continued:

I’ve kind of grown from not wanting to be a statistic and not letting my

ethnicity or my background generate who am. I know I’m an outsider for

that reason. I don’t fall into that category because I do not allow my past to

dictate my future. Just because you’re female or just because you’re a Latino,

it does not mean you can’t do what you want to do. And I tell people, if

you think it’s a little bit harder, then work harder. I’ve seen enough suc

cessful people to know that it’s a possibility. A lot of times I see that a lot

of people close the door before they even get there. Or sometimes they say,

“I’m not eco nom ically able to study” and are set to live a certain standard.

I always tell them, “Well, sure, if you tie yourself, you’re not going make

it there.”

Mayra uses her success and that of others as evidence that Latinos can advance,

that they are not totally disadvantaged. She positions herself as an outsider and

“not wanting to be a statistic.” She uses the word “crutch,” which both implies a

critique of the belief that inequalities exist at all and questions whether acknowl

edging them helps advance individual and group status.

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W H E R E W E A R E G O I N G 1 4 3

Marta, a member of HE and RPU, also used the term “crutch” when she

answered my question:

To a point, I do. Not ste reo typically. One prob lem that I’ve seen a lot here

at RPU is people saying, “That’s not fair, that’s not fair.” I can’t take full

advantage of internships because I have to support myself and a lot of stu

dents here have to work. If I had a parent that was rich, I could take advan

tage of unpaid internships. But I do come across people who have been

cared for by mommy and daddy and you give them a simple prob lem and

they can’t solve it. Eco nom ically, Latinos are disadvantaged. Color of skin:

and I don’t think is an issue. I’ve heard people say things. But I don’t like

people to blame things on the race. I don’t use the race card as a crutch.

I’ve never had to pull it.

Marta unequivocally sees herself as eco nom ically disadvantaged, but she down

plays the role of race. She also complains about her peers who claim things are

not fair.

Yareli, also a member of HE, similarly lacked compassion for her co ethnics:

I do think we have a little bit of a disconnect between realizing that we

are all on the same boat. For example, Arizona and immigration: you

have uppity Latinos who have been successful and who are well incorpo

rated, but they don’t feel the need to say, “Hey, that’s not cool.” Or a couple

years ago, when they tried to boycott stuff, I think our own people aren’t

as united as we should be. If someone says, “This is for a Latino cause,”

some people say, “Why would I need to go?” There are so many of us. I

think the power is in the numbers, but if the numbers don’t show up,

then that’s not cool.

Yareli blames Latinos’ failure to advance on their inability or unwillingness to

join forces and forge the solidarity necessary to push back on po liti cal issues.

Yareli’s words could sound like an oppression oriented narrative critiquing the

lack of mobilization among Latinos. However, she takes her analy sis further by

blaming Latino culture and individual Latinos for their disadvantages.

I think Latinos are a disadvantaged group, but it’s maybe our own doing,

except for the currently undocumented students. I was given full oppor

tunities in this world. I don’t need to have a million dollars to have oppor

tunities. With what my parents gave me, I had the tools in my hands and

education was what I needed to make my own way. If we are disadvantaged,

it’s because we do it ourselves. As far as the workplace, obviously, there’s dis

crimination against every one. I’m a woman, I’ll be discriminated against. I

think we can rise above that and don’t let it get to you. If someone really

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1 4 4 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

hates Latinos, they are not going to hire me. I think all races deal with

discrimination. I think once we start getting an education and stop having

babies at a young age, then we won’t have this prob lem. I feel like, “Why

don’t we have such a large Asian population of unwed mothers? Why

are we in gangs?” My parents worked day and night, literally, so I don’t

understand when people say that absentee parents are making students

not focused. I think that that’s incredibly selfish. I wanted to go to col

lege because my parents wanted it but also because it was the way out. I

said if I can’t afford to put my child in a car then I can’t have a child. I

knew that the only way I was going get out of my parents’ house was to go

to college.

Yareli’s narrative exposes the most extreme version of the meritocratic narra

tive, overtly blaming Latino culture by juxtaposing it with Asian American

culture.

Pablo, a member of LF at RU, also blamed individual Latinos for their socio

economic status and denied the existence of inequalities.

In education, I know we have all kinds of opportunities. I was part of an

early academic outreach program. Most Latinos were not in the program

because it was based on your grades. They give you guaranteed admis

sions to RU. We can get loans and grants just like every one else. I know a

lot of people from USC who have graduated, like my cousin [who] is get

ting a double Masters and PhD and makes good money and is only

twenty six. I don’t think there was any kind of disadvantage. They were

given a chance and they succeeded. I think the only disadvantage is not

being American enough. I think older generations that just came to the

country are disadvantaged. I feel like I’m American compared to my

mom. The language is an issue: she speaks broken En glish.

Pablo espouses a meritocratic perspective on life in the United States and sees

only immigrant generations as disadvantaged.

The narratives shared by the members of the two nonpo liti cal groups, His

panics for Economics and Latino Fellowship, are reflected in mainstream Ameri

can national narratives about in equality. Students espouse beliefs in American

meritocracy, holding that their successful efforts place them above other Lati

nos. At times, these students dismissed the structural challenges their co ethnics

faced. Was this an effort to exert agency over their futures or was it a defense

mechanism against the negative portrayal of Latinos nationally? It appears that

the students who use the meritocratic narratives at times contradict themselves

by both acknowledging that inequalities exist and blaming their co ethnics for

their social location. Members of HE and LF lack orga nizational and institu

tional sites to pro cess their ideas about mobility and in equality, since neither

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W H E R E W E A R E G O I N G 1 4 5

group dedicates time to discussing these issues and students receive little

attention from faculty; nor do they have small seminar style classes where these

types of conversations might take place.

Oppression Narratives

Aside from members of Hispanics for Economics and Latino Fellowship, all

other students explained Latinos’ social location in the United States using

oppression narratives. Their oppression narratives were deployed along a scale

from implicit to explicit (see Figure 7.1). The explicit narratives seemed to be

connected to an ideology for understanding how Latinos have come to occupy

the social location they do in Amer i ca.

Members of both organ izations at Liberal Arts College spoke about the

institutional, structural, and systemic origins of Latino disadvantage in explicit

ways. Members of LUA at Regional Public University spoke of these systemic

inequalities but did so in more muted language, while some members of LUA at

Research University talked explic itly about oppression.

Implicit Oppression Narratives

When asked, “Do you think Latinos are disadvantaged?” Vanessa, a member of

LUA at RPU said:

Every thing that’s happening in Arizona, just because people came and

wanted to work. People are in a disadvantaged . . . because it’s hard. And

I think that these people are trapped in Arizona. It’s either go home or be

trapped. I know fieldworkers will prob ably just stay there and the kids

are prob ably the ones that are supposed to go to college. But nobody told

me how to do it. I don’t know if it’s because of the color of my skin or no

one really tells us how to get ahead. I’ve been told by many people, even

here, that they were not told how to go to college or how to get hired or

anything. I don’t even think I have a counselor here. I think you can

look at the positions of work that people do, and usually you see like

house keepers and babysitters. And it means they can’t live in a house

and they have to live in an apartment with twenty people. And I don’t

think they can be comfortable living.

Oppression Implicit Oppression Explicit

FIGUR E 7.1. Oppression narrative scale.

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1 4 6 L E A R N I N G T O B E L A T I N O

Vanessa touches on the many ways in which Latinos are disadvantaged eco

nom ically, in housing and education and by race and migratory status. She has

a broad scope yet does not quite connect all of these factors as operating under

one system of in equality. Likewise, Hector, a member of LUA at RPU, said, “Based

on personal experiences, there is poverty. There are laws, like, for example, Ari

zona’s immigration law. I think that citizenship sets a lot of Latinos back. I think

you can’t have access to resources. You’re also seen as criminal and when you

are criminalized it’s easy to exploit that population.” While Hector touches on

several issues— migratory status, economic disadvantage, and racial profiling—

he offers no explicit explanation of the origins of these inequalities. Also of

note is that Hector mentions Arizona’s SB 1070, which was proposed when I was

in the field and was on students’ radar. Many students mentioned this legisla

tion as one of the main ways that Latinos are disadvantaged.

Other students focused their attention on one specific way that Latinos

are disadvantaged. For example, Alex, a LUA member at RPU, said, “Latinos

lack the opportunities in society. If you want to see a Latino community, you

know where to go: where there is a lower income community. Latinos lack

resources and money to do certain things so Latinos are disadvantaged.” While

Alex was squarely focused on economics, other students connected economics

and education. In response to my question “Are Latinos disadvantaged in the

United States?,” Antonietta, a LUA member at RPU, and I had the following

exchange:

A NTONIET TA: Yeah. I think that they should provide workshops in schools.

Financial aid workshops! Before they didn’t have that. My brother was

the first one to be provided the workshop for financial aid. They tell you

what financial aid is, how you can apply, what are the benefits of applying,

all that kind of stuff. He got the advantage of that workshop, even though I

already knew the pro cess because I already went through it. I think, they

should announce it more on the TV. When I was going to college, they didn’t,

so now I think they try to do that like, “Oh, no se le olvide [ don’t forget]” to

give information about financial aid, like, on Univision. It has to be Span

ish channels like that.

DV R : So you think Latinos are disadvantaged in education, knowing about

higher education. What else?

A NTONIET TA: The newspaper once in a while, they can try to tell us there. The

only thing they tell you about is the Cal Grant; that’s the only thing they

tell, Cal Grant.

DV R : Do you think Latinos are disadvantaged in other places besides education?

A NTONIET TA: Like what you mean other places?

DV R : In other ways?

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W H E R E W E A R E G O I N G 1 4 7

A NTONIET TA: Hmm . . . maybe. Like, they’re not really aware about like dif fer ent

cultural events going on, for example, opera music: they don’t know what it is.

They don’t know about musical plays, music cultural kind of things.

Antonietta’s comments reveal an understandable fixation on financial aid. Pos

sibly, it was the most relevant to her experience. She was resistant to thinking

about other ways inequalities might cut across Latinos’ experiences. When fur

ther questioned, she mentioned the lack of exposure to cultural events and

forms, but she did not discuss systems of inequalities in an explicit way.

Ernesto, a LUA member at RPU, was more explicit than Antonietta in con

necting economic status to educational trajectories:

I think they [Latinos] haven’t been able to use resources. I feel a lot of

families are not involved in the family. Like mom and dad worked two

jobs and that is a disadvantage for kids because they don’t get any atten

tion. And the kids can do what ever they want. The economics is a disad

vantage. I think education is another prob lem. I can’t really generalize

because educational systems are dif fer ent, but where I live, I don’t see

much pro gress. The administrators and teachers are not affecting or

influencing the students. They [administrators and teachers] see them

[students] as just a paycheck. They just want to meet the time and go

home. I don’t think they are influencing kids. They don’t try to impact

the kids in a positive way. I do notice those things and it bothers me. It

does put us at a disadvantage: they are getting paid and they’re not mak

ing pro gress.

Ernesto implies that economic status shapes family life and the schools one

attends. He has had some experience with the K–12 elementary system, and he

aspires to join Teach for Amer i ca.

Two members of Latinos United for Action at Regional Public University,

Jerry and Amalia, had more explicit understandings of oppression. Jerry drew

on his personal experiences in the workforce in a very elaborate discussion on

in equality:

I think if you see the statistics, we are a working class community. That’s

the reason our people value education: because they see it as a way to get

out of poverty. Another barrier, for sure, is the language. Latinos that

were born here may also have an accent and the language barrier. Sadly,

sometimes people hear an accent or you can’t develop your ideas right

on the spot, they misjudge you. . . . Some people think that people that

speak with an accent are not intelligent. I also want to say that race is a

disadvantage, like when you go get a job. I have experienced that racism

through my accent. I was applying for a position where I would have to

answer the phone and I would be the first image for the com pany; it was

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a concierge. It was a very high end place. He [the man ag er] did tell me

that for that position he wanted a higher level of communication. He did

say that some people didn’t want to hear the accent. I remember thinking

that he had an accent himself! He was this Jewish guy. I especially think

lack of resources and information are a disadvantage. We lack informa

tion about how to follow your dreams to education. That’s our disadvan

tage, like how to get financial aid. I have known people who gradu ate

from high school and they don’t know how to put an essay together. So, I

think that the schools are bad sometimes.

Drawing from his personal experiences on the job market, Jerry provides an exten

sive view of how inequalities operate. He reflects on how his accent and racial

ization have put him at a disadvantage, points to a lack of financial aid information,

like his peer Antonietta, and highlights educational inequalities, as so many

other students did, including Amalia. Looking back to her time in high school,

she discussed how discrimination plays out in some young Latinos’ lives:

There is still ste reo types and discrimination. Like at my old school, the

principal and the vice principal said that we couldn’t wear blue or red.

They said it was gang related. I felt like they were targeting Latinos. But I

saw this kid wearing a blue shirt: the vice principal was there and he didn’t

say anything! Later my friend was wearing red sweatshirt and she got in

trou ble. The vice principal told her to take it off. It wasn’t fair. The other

kid, was light skinned, might’ve been white. And another day, they said

we could wear the American colors on Flag Day. On Cinco de Mayo, I

wore a red and green shirt, and this girl had a Mexican flag on her shirt.

She had to take it off because it had red. It wasn’t fair. Why do we get to

wear blue and red on your day and we can’t wear those colors on our day?

Both Jerry and Amalia draw on personal experiences to talk about how racism

operates to oppress Latinos. From the words of Ernesto, Jerry, and Amalia, we

can see that we are moving closer to the high end of the oppression narrative

scale, as they more forcefully connect inequalities to systemic issues.

Deidra, who belonged for a time to both LF and LUA at Research University,

made the similar systemic connections based on her and her sister’s experi

ences at work. She said:

I think, yes, in the sense of our social environment. My older sister is a

teacher so I feel like if it wasn’t for her, a lot of her students wouldn’t

have school supplies. I feel like a lot of kids come from single homes and

that puts them at a disadvantage. My sister pays out of her pocket for her

students’ school supplies. I don’t think that’s part of her job. Also, there

are rats in the school and the kids laugh because they are used to it.

When I compare that to the nursery school that I work with here. Some of

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the kids were coloring, and this kid was coloring outside of the lines

and the teacher told me to give him a new piece of paper. I wanted her to

use the back and the teacher said these kids pay to come here, so they

can use another piece of paper. She said if they want to color on 50 pieces

of paper then they can color on 50 pieces of paper.

In comparing two distinct settings— the school where her sister works and the

nursery center on campus— ,Deidra reflects on inequalities in the educational

system and in so doing comes closer to explic itly articulating a narrative of

oppression.

Explicit Oppression Narratives

Evelyn, also a member of LUA at RPU, was more explicit than Deidra. She said:

The system does not work in our favor. I had a conversation with a fellow

student about how Chicano Studies courses are easier; and he gets better

grades. I think it’s because what we’re learning is about ourselves versus

in K–12, we’re taught about dif fer ent cultures. And I feel like a lot of

times it has nothing to do with us. I feel like sometimes, you’re in the

school learning about other people’s cultures and I think that that’s a

disadvantage. Even in the workplace, there’s a lot of racism. It’s not overt.

It’s more institutional.

Evelyn talks about “the system” and uses the word “institutional” to talk about

the social location of Latinos. Some members of LUA at RU also used these

words. This is not surprising given the po liti cal nature of LUA. The manifesto

of this national organ ization espouses a framework for understanding the place

of Latinos in the United States, and this framework uses the language of inter

nal colonialism, explic itly arguing that Latinos/Chicanos belong in the United

States. When I asked Alicia, a member of LUA at RU, if Latinos are disadvantaged,

she said:

Yes, because of institutional racism. I think a lot of institutions work or

don’t work for the benefit of Latinos. The perception that people have of

Latinos is that we’re immigrants. I think most Latinos know people who

are undocumented and I think that that puts us at a disadvantage. The

best way to say it works is institutional racism. I would say that the edu

cational system also: I think Latino students go to the worst schools. And

the criminal system targets Latinos.

Kenya also talked about the institutional nature of racism, and Gilda, a

member of LUA at RU, spoke about the role of history in the construction of

Latino disadvantage. In response to my question as to whether Latinos are a

disadvantaged group in the United States, she observed:

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Within the United States, yes, and in terms of their histories of coloniza

tion in Latin American countries. But I also think there are [Latin Ameri

can] subgroups that faced oppression in dif fer ent ways. I think that

people are disadvantaged in terms of po liti cal repre sen ta tion and eco

nom ically. I think our culture is also repressed because it’s not the domi

nant culture. I think we’re disadvantaged in the way that we are framed

as an enemy and in a way that keeps the country together.

Gilda’s narrative is far reaching, including history, politics, economics, and

even the role of cultural repre sen ta tion.

Why were members of LUA at Research University more likely to use words

like “institutional” and talk about the “system” than LUA members at RPU? Recall

from Chapter 3 that LUA at RU dedicated ample time to advancing a par tic u lar

po liti cal perspective through their consciousness raising workshops. Some of

these workshops even advanced an oppositional consciousness, which sociolo

gist Sharon Nepstad (2007, 63) defines as “an empowering mental state that

prepares members of an oppressed group to act to undermine, reform, or

overthrow a system of human domination. It is usually fueled by righ teous

anger over injustices done to the group and prompted by personal indignities

and harms suffered though one’s group membership.” When discussing the

conquest and annexation of the Mexican southwest by the United States,

members of LUA at Research University connected these historical experi

ences to the social realities and the inequalities they face in the pres ent. Thus, it

is not surprising that Evelyn, Gilda, and Kenya linked the origins of inequali

ties to institutional racism. Jane Mansbridge and Aldon Morris (2001, 238)

outline four steps in the creation of an oppositional consciousness: (1) identi

fication with other members of a subordinate group, (2) recognition of the

injustices suffered by the group, (3) opposition to those injustices, and (4) an

awareness that the group has a shared interest in working to ameliorate those

injustices.3 These steps are pres ent in the workshops run by LUA at Research

University.

The students at Liberal Arts College also had expansive explanations, par

ticularly regarding the origins and manifestations of the inequalities plaguing

Latino communities. Like Gilda, Valerie, a member of LL at Liberal Arts College,

acknowledged the role of history in Latino disadvantage. “We [my class] had a

discussion about the East LA schools and the walkouts in the 1960s. And if I think

about it, I don’t think much has changed. My high school was mostly Latino. We

had a really small library. We competed with other schools and people had really

nice football fields. I would say that a lot of these schools that are in Latino

communities are really at a disadvantaged.” Like students across the other two

campuses, Valerie and other LAC students used education as a primary exam

ple to discuss inequalities. Josiana, a member of LU at LAC, said, “Latinos are

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disadvantaged. They are immigrating to the United States. They may not have

the same educational resources for their kids. This has a pipeline effect because

these kids don’t have access to the same opportunities.” Josiana’s reference the

education “pipeline” suggests that she understand the origins of the inequali

ties to have con temporary consequences.

Servino, a member of LU at LAC, connects the macro level inequalities to

the micro by discussing his experiences:

Yes. Latinos have been marginalized historically, I’m learning about Lati

nos in con temporary society in my classes. A lot of us live in areas of pov

erty and don’t have the same benefits that other people do. We get more

debt. I think that in education we tend to get the worst. My middle school

wasn’t one of the best schools. There were a lot of fights and it was

thought of as a dangerous place. My high school, where I was supposed

to go, was considered a bad school. I didn’t want to go there, so I went to a

new charter school, which I know have their own controversies.

Servino has had the space to discuss these themes in his course on Latinos.

He connects his personal experiences to historical pro cesses. Karla, a mem

ber of Latino Links (LL) at LAC, talked about how education has shaped her

perspectives:

I’m learning a lot here. It’s difficult because I can tell the difference in

the educational system at my home and other students’ homes. Last

semester, I took a lot of math and science. I’m really good at that. But this

semester I took humanities and it was really hard for me. These kids are

just so smart and they analyze things really quickly. I feel like I have to

catch up to their level. I think we are not given the same opportunities

as other people. When I was in high school, I never really wrote essays

only in lit er a ture class. A lot of the teachers gave up on the kids. They

only focus on the kids they thought had a chance.

Exposure to classmates with drastically dif fer ent socioeconomic origins has

shaped Karla’s perspective on inequalities. She sees that relative to her non Latino

peers, she is disadvantaged. Moreover, Karla talks about the role teachers play

in perpetuating inequalities.

Genova, a member of LU at LAC, also talked about teachers: “We have been

disenfranchised in general. Even if you control for economic variables, Latinos

still receive less healthcare than any other group. Most of the students in low

performing schools are Latinos. I think teachers still believe, they are not going

see advancement in their students. For example, my cousin said his teacher

would say, ‘I don’t care what you do.’ ” Genova talks about broad disenfranchise

ment and the role of individual teachers. Natalie, a member of Latino Links at

LAC, also emphasized the dearth of mentors for Latinos:

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I think we are at a disadvantage because we don’t have any mentors.

Beginning from the application pro cess, we don’t have people to help

us. Not that many people read our personal statements. We don’t have

counselors look over applications. We come from overpopulated schools

and communities. And we don’t really have much social capital. We’re not

challenged to think critically because we don’t really have ethnic studies

classes or we don’t talk about colonialism or really in ter est ing things

that you can talk about at a private high school. And I think education

affects every thing. It affects housing, financial stability, and all your

opportunities. And there’s racial discrimination: that’s institutional.

Natalie’s view is thorough and, in addition to discussing the role of mentors,

she introduces the concept of social capital and its role in perpetuating inequal

ities. Tamara, a member of LL at LAC, used similar language, saying, “I think

there are institutional apparatuses that are inherently racist. I think that it’s in

our historical foundation. I think that the way our society views ‘the other’ has

made it so.”

While Tamara introduces the concept of the other, Ana, a member of LU at

LAC, introduced the concept of redlining in response to my question about Lati

nos as a disadvantaged group. “Yes, because of ste reo types, such as laziness and

vio lence. In terms of housing there’s redlining, excluding practices, like having

a realtor showing you some communities only and getting only some bank

loans approved. This keeps you from going to the schools that you want. A lot of

the discrimination is historical and it does persist over time and its impacts do

get built up across generations.” Similarly, Fabian, a member of LU at LAC, talked

about how inequalities compound over time:

Yes, historically we aren’t in the position to accumulate the monetary

wealth like other groups. We haven’t had all that’s required to access

routes to gaining more wealth. And when I think about Latinos, I think

about those who have recently migrated to the U.S and they don’t have

the En glish knowledge to navigate schools or how to create more wealth.

And even those who have been here for a long time, there’s racism.

Microaggressions do exist.

Fabian, like his peers at LAC, introduces new terms to the narratives of in equality,

including the concept of microaggressions. His peers talk about pipeline effects,

disenfranchisement, social capital, redlining, and the “other.” LAC students

employ the most developed iteration of the oppression narratives among students

at all three colleges and the most critical. Two students even had a prob lem

with my wording. Lorena, a member of LL at LAC, responded sharply to my ques

tion “Do you think Latinos are disadvantaged in the U.S.?”: “What do you mean?

I think it’s a very structural and institutional in terms of the issues that people

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of color face. There’s a status quo that does not incorporate a large Latino popu

lation. I think there are class, racial, and gender differences. I would guess that

that’s a disadvantage but going beyond institutions, no.” After our interview,

Lorena wrote a followup email in which she apologized for her tone: “I took

your question to allude to some type of cultural deficiency model,” she wrote,

introducing yet another concept.

Selena, a member of LU at LAC, likewise had a prob lem with my question:

I think it depends on how you define disadvantage. I don’t think there’s

anything inherent about being Latino that puts us at a disadvantage or a

category that makes us inherently disadvantaged. I think there are struc

tural forces in place that discriminate against Latinos and other people

of color. I think that that maintains the social hierarchy that keeps Lati

nos in a low income bracket. And it keeps us unaware of even knowing

how things work, like structural things— voting, healthcare, and rights,

like renters’ rights. I think Latinos are disadvantaged by ste reo types of

being lazy and not being educated and things like that. I think those are

forces; I think that those barriers have been structural and societal.

People love Mexican food but they don’t want Mexicans in California.

There are lots of ste reo types about Latinos and in this context about

Mexicans. I think that Latinos are strong and intelligent. I would not

really identify myself as a disadvantaged person. I am incredibly grateful

to be Latina. I would prob ably use the word “oppressed” much more than

“disadvantaged.”

Acknowledging the institutional nature of Latino inequalities and si mul ta

neously asserting pride in her Latino heritage, Selena pushes back against my

use of the word “disadvantage,” since for her it implies some presumed defi

ciency in Latinos that is, as she says, “inherent.” Instead, she makes it clear that

the issue is oppression.

Thus Selena and the other students at Liberal Arts College voiced the most

coherent oppression narratives, and they often used complex terminology to

explain social phenomena. I attribute this to the impact of small seminar courses,

interactions with and mentoring by faculty advisors, and the deliberative nature

of social life within the “ bubble of LAC.” As we saw in Chapter 6, at LAC students

are encouraged to have debate and discussion with peers, faculty, and adminis

tration, and through this pro cess, they create cohesive oppression narratives.

Conclusion

Students employed two master narratives when explaining their understanding

of Latinos as a disadvantaged group in the United States: meritocratic and

oppression. Students at Liberal Arts College have the most coherent narratives

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about how to understand the social location of Latinos. This is likely connected

to the residential environment of LAC, where students interact with more affluent

and white peers. Through these interactions, they are likely to draw comparisons

to their lives and see inequalities relative to their peers. Many of the students at

LAC talked about learning new ways of understanding their social realities in

their classes and through their experiences at the college, in general. They had

thought about these issues before meeting me and developed their narratives.

Their responses to my questions were elaborate and they introduced new con

cepts into our conversations. Two of the LAC students even problematized my

wording. Certainly, students are learning about inequalities in courses across all

three campuses, but it is only LAC students who attribute their learning about

inequalities to their academic experience and environment. At Liberal Arts

College ideas are filtered by student experience in the “ bubble.”

Research University and Regional Public University are not mediating stu

dents’ understanding of in equality as much, and their students’ narratives are

more varied. That members of LUA (the po liti cal group) at both RU and RPU used

oppression narratives can be attributed to the mission and purpose of LUA (dis

cussed in Chapter 3), which offers a clear narrative and ideology for understand

ing Latinos’ social location specifically through its overt po liti cal focus and its

connections to the civil rights movement. But members of these two chapters

varied on how implicit or explicit their oppression narratives were. Those in the

Research University chapter articulated more explicit narratives, likely because

of the consciousness raising workshops they held (as we saw in Chapters 3 and 6).

The LUA chapter at Regional Public University was rebuilding and focusing all

energies on recruitment. Its members strategized about how best to recruit stu

dents and in doing so discussed the place of a po liti cal Latino organ ization on

their campus. These discussions included thinking about inequalities, but they

were more informal and not as developed as the workshops run by LUA at

Research University. In short, the nationalized organ ization of LUA provides an

ideology for understanding the world and some students espoused it clearly,

while others implicitly narrated oppression. The local chapter played a role in

shaping students’ perspectives.

Members of the nonpo liti cal groups at RPU and RU had dif fer ent narratives

than the po liti cal groups on their campus. This suggests that these two campus

contexts do not advance one dominant way of understanding in equality. The

nonpo liti cal group members were more likely to use meritocratic explanations.

As illustrated in Chapters 3 and 4, members of HE and LF are not offered an

overt message from their organ ization through which they can understand

inequalities. They espouse the dominant American narrative of meritocracy,

appearing to get their ideas from society writ large.

Students’ narratives are developed by discussions, whether it be in class,

with faculty, or with their orga nizational peers. How much time students have

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to pro cess these ideas determines how sophisticated and consistent their nar

ratives are. In this way, the level of pro cessing is filtered by campus life to dif fer ent

degrees. The question “Are Latinos a disadvantaged group in Amer i ca?” is not

easy to tackle if one has not thought about it. Are Latinos disadvantaged or not?

What happens when you ask a group of students who are “making it” education

ally, albeit to dif fer ent places in our stratified system of higher education? Does

their answer vary by where they go to college? How do they understand their path

toward success while so many others are not succeeding? Do they see themselves

as exceptional?

The narratives of Latino students at LAC, RU, and RPU tell us about how they

grapple with understanding their own mobility despite their origins and the

social location of the broader Latino community in the United States. At LAC

students regularly receive the attention of faculty, and they interact intensely

on a residential campus, which leads them to develop a sophisticated under

standing of the social, economic, and po liti cal position of Latinos in the United

States. However, there is a mismatch between students’ visions of meritocracy

and their actual economic prospects. Paradoxically, students at LAC develop a

cynicism about the American system as they see affluence daily and have mul

tiple opportunities to develop ideas and language to understand these inequali

ties. Students at Research University and Regional Public University have less

exposure to affluence, yet members of Latino Fellowship and Hispanics for Eco

nomics subscribe to the ideals of a meritocracy. These organ izations emphasize

individual students’ achievements and mobility, thus reinforcing the idea that

Latinos who are not upwardly mobile are to blame for their disadvantage, while

at the same time likely giving these students a sense of agency and self efficacy.

These findings suggest that campus institutions and cultures play an

impor tant role in developing students’ worldviews, as do some student organ

izations (although this is the only outcome that varied by organ ization). In the

final chapter I suggest that examining how students’ perspectives about inequal

ities develop as they gradu ate and search for jobs is impor tant, followup research.

Do the campus and orga nizational differences still hold among alumni?

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1 57

VVVVVVVVVVV

Every fall Latino students enroll in four year colleges across the country. Although social scientists use “college” as a catch all for a supposedly standard four year

experience, student experiences differ widely. To be sure, their expectations are

similar— they want to take courses, socialize, develop personally, and acquire

socioeconomic mobility— and they enter college with varying visions of how

they will balance them. Generally, students expect to develop and grow by the end

of the four to five years they will spend on campus; however, few predict they will

change how they engage po liti cally, identify ethnically, and think about in equality,

especially in ways that are shaped by the par tic u lar college they attend.

Consider for example the experiences of two students, Josefina, a member

of Latinos United for Action (the po liti cal organ ization) at Regional Public Uni

versity, and Deidra, a member of Latinos United for Action (for a while) and

Latino Fellowship at Research University. These two young women attended the

same high school; both of their parents are Mexican immigrants and have the

same median income. Josefina identified as Chicana and Mexican American,

while Deidra identified as Latina foremost and then Mexican American specifi

cally. As we saw in Chapter 5, Josefina believed the panethnic labels “Hispanic”

and “Latino” were racist terms, while Deidra embraced the “Latino” label. Deidra

talked about feeling racially isolated among Asian Americans in her residence

hall and having her ethnic authenticity questioned by members of Latinos United

for Action because of her light skin. Their experiences with co ethnics and the

campus at large shaped how they viewed their ethnic identities. They both

joined LUA at their respective institutions, self selecting into a po liti cal Latino

group, but Deidra left the group, citing tensions around ethnic bound aries and

the practice of contentious politics.

Josefina was actively engaged in contentious politics and was interested in

protesting, as we saw in Chapter 6. Deidra, on the other hand, chose not to

How Higher Education Teaches Disparate Lessons to Latinos

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attend the education bud get cut protests on campus. Recall that she said, “Why

would I leave class to protest? I don’t see the logic. I’m trying to avoid getting

more costs for education because I value my education. Why would I ditch class

to protest?” When asked to discuss Latino disadvantage, both women expressed

the oppression narratives, but only Deidra drew on comparative experiences in

her narratives about in equality. Deidra talked about preschoolers having ample

sheets of paper in the town adjacent to Research University, in contrast to the

preschoolers her sister teaches in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Given

the socioeconomic differences between Deidra’s hometown and her college

home, she saw deprivation. Josefina’s and Deidra’s college experiences varied in

ways that mattered for their understandings of what it means to be Latino in

Amer i ca.

In this book, I have examined how campuses structure and shape students’

interactions and have an impact on their experiences in a variety of ways. In this

chapter, I outline how these findings can inform the sociology of education—

including how to approach the study of institutional characteristics and how to

expand the lens of college outcomes beyond the focus on academic attainment.

I provide suggestions for administrators on how to support Latino undergradu

ates. I end the chapter with a discussion about how campuses’ institutional dif

ferences might inform how we understand the formation of Latino communities.

Studying Institutional Characteristics

Sociologists of higher education are consistently concerned with the study of

institutions and how characteristics within them shape the lives of students,

albeit with an overwhelming emphasis on the academic and occupational

impacts. Through my comparative ethnography of three types of higher educa

tion institutions, I discovered that each campus produces a par tic u lar context

given its institutional characteristics. Rashawn Ray and Jason Rosow (2010) and

Jenny Stuber (2016) talk about the “normative institutional arrangements” of

higher education institutions as “the features of campus life shaped by struc

tural constraints, demographics, and policies.” In this book, I have shown how

the normative institutional arrangements of each of the three campuses studied

set the stage on which students interacted with each other, faculty, staff, admin

istrators, and communities off campus (Chapters 2–4). I have also shown how

these interactions created distinct experiences, shaping how students con

structed and deployed ethnoracial bound aries and identity labels distinctly

across campuses (Chapter 5), how they engaged in collective action be hav ior

(Chapter 6), and how they understood in equality (Chapter 7). But which specific

institutional characteristics shaped students’ experiences?

The five main institutional characteristics that are relevant to Latino stu

dents’ lives on each campus are: (1) school size, (2) the demographic profile of

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the student body (ethnic and socioeconomic composition, as well as propor

tion of first generation college students), (3) residential arrangements, (4) the

relationship between students and faculty and administrators, and (5) how well

diversity programs integrate students through cultural centers and retention

centers.

At Liberal Arts College (LAC) the interplay of several campus arrangements,

including the wealth of the student body, the underrepre sen ta tion of Latinos on

campus, and the residential arrangements (living on campus all four years),

created an environment that initially felt shocking to my primarily first generation

college going Latino student respondents. Of students from the three campuses

studied, those at LAC reported the most incidents of racial microaggressions.

However, the campus provides support to assist Latino students in their transi

tion: peer mentors, a Latino cultural center, faculty advisors, first year student

experience classes, and Latino suitemate options. The college also supports Latino

student organ izations with ample funding, and administrators frequently attend

their events. Both organ izations studied had relationships with deans. Given

these dynamics, students identified broadly as Latinos and espoused solidarity

and open ethnic bound aries.

At RU, a combination of factors interact and leave students searching for a

community: a dearth of programs designed to integrate Latino students, the

underrepresentation of Latino students, and large classes. The members of the

two organ izations studied, Latinos United for Action and Latino Fellowship, find

refuge in their group. These organ izations become members’ main communities

on campus and a salient part of their identity. The two organ izations studied

had varied access to resources on campus, due mostly to the Multicultural

Center’s policies, and this difference not only fueled some competition between

groups but also contributed to the antagonistic relationships and experiences

that some students (like Deidra). Members of LF and LUA identified as Latino

but felt the need to explain and authenticate their experiences. Unlike LAC stu

dents, RU students drew narrow ethnic bound aries.

In contrast, RPU’s intersecting institutional arrangements, including its

being a predominantly commuter campus whose students live where they grew

up, its having little student life, and Latinos representing a majority minority on

campus (45 percent), do not ignite or trigger a pro cess of renegotiating ethnic

identities. Not facing racial microaggressions, underrepre sen ta tion, or tension

between co ethnics over racial identities, students at RPU (like Josefina) down

play racism and are wary of panethnic identities. In effect, RPU students inhabit

the same world they did before arriving at the university.

There is strong evidence that institutional characteristics matter, but dif

fer ent characteristics produce dif fer ent outcomes. The all encompassing “bubble

like” atmosphere on LAC ensures that students are on campus all the time. This

means they focus their politics internally and have little time to exercise their

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po liti cal beliefs off campus. Additionally, the support of administration influ

ences students to avoid contentious tactics as they care about maintaining their

relationships. The leftist activist po liti cal culture of LAC also channels students’

po liti cal styles toward deliberative tactics. At RU, the same institutional charac

teristics that shape Latino students’ ethnic identity formation shape their engage

ment in politics, and although only one Latino student organ ization has a

po liti cal identity, students learn a divisive Latino politics on campus. The inter

play of campus arrangements for RPU’s largely commuter student body creates

little to no filter for politics, so the politics of the outside world easily permeate

campus life. Because students do not learn one single, generally accepted way

to engage in campus po liti cal activity, they default to community tactics and

protest.

There is a large wealth gap between the general student body and my Latino

respondents at Liberal Arts College. Through this gap, Latino students learn

about in equality on another level: they see first hand what they did not have in

their home communities. Through small seminars and relationships with fac

ulty, however, they are able to develop their understandings of inequalities

and their origins. One outcome of this exposure is that Latino students at LAC

express the most elaborate oppression narratives compared to their peers on

the other two campuses. At RU and RPU, students are divided on their views of

in equality. The members of the nonpo liti cal groups at both Research University

and Regional Public University espouse the meritocratic narrative, while mem

bers of LUA, the po liti cal group at both Research University and Regional Public

University, use the oppression narrative. On both campuses LUA members see

barriers in the life trajectories of Latinos.

Together, several characteristics create an environment that influences

how Latino students interact, identify, and come to understand their place on

campus. We need large scale quantitative studies and qualitative comparative

analy sis of institutional characteristics to assess which characteristics shape

which outcomes and how. Education scholar Sylvia Hurtado (1992) distinguishes

between distal and proximal characteristics. Distal characteristics are contex

tual variables, such as size, type of institution, selectivity, racial composition of

the student body, and campus expenditures. Proximal characteristics are stu

dents’ perceptions of the campus environment, including their ideas about

the institutional priority given to cultural diversity, the school’s reputation, and

how student centered the campus is. The extent to which a student feels a col

lege prioritizes its students versus its reputation is often the key difference

between a research oriented campus and a more teaching focused institution.

Because research universities push faculty to focus their energies on publishing

and acquiring grants, teaching responsibilities and student relationships are

often a lower priority. Recall how Evelyn reflected, in Chapter 3, about missing

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relationships with faculty. Liberal arts colleges vary quite a bit from research

institutions in this regard. As Alexander Astin (1999) notes, they are likely to

promote frequent student faculty interactions, interdisciplinary and humani

ties courses, courses that emphasize writing, infrequent use of multiple choice

exams, and frequent involvement of students in in de pen dent research. Moreover,

liberal arts colleges spend generously on student ser vices and promote frequent

student student interactions. These practices create big differences in the col

legiate experiences of students at large public institutions versus small residen

tial colleges (Astin 1999). Most salient are the types of relationships that are

fostered through the practices listed above between peers and students and

faculty, as I observed at Liberal Arts College.

What Hurtado calls “proximal characteristics” many sociologists conceptu

alize as orga nizational culture. Natasha Warikoo and Sherry Deckman (2014)

consider campuses to be “organ izations and purveyors of culture,” an idea that

has gained increasing popularity among sociologists of education.1 Campus cul

tures shape how par tic u lar understandings become taken for granted, as being

simply part of the landscape. The combination of orga nizational characteristics

and interactions together create and shape campus cultures.

The characteristics I mention are not meant to be generalizable to all

liberal arts colleges, research universities, or regional public universities but

rather to offer suggestions for future studies. Also of note is that institutions

and organ izations change through the years— some more than others. This book

captures how these campus organ izations created shared meanings over one

period of time. Recall that, in Chapter 3, I discussed how Latino Links (a nonpo

liti cal group) was seeking to change its structure at the time I was exiting the

field. During the second to last meeting of the 2010 school year, LL members

did something that had never been done in my two years of observation there.

They discussed the structure of their meetings and the tension felt during

the meetings. They mentioned forming committees so that there would be

less business to discuss during the meetings. Tomas said that forming com

mittees would make the meetings less business like and open up space to

discuss other issues and get to know each other. He said, “This might remove

some of the tension some people feel.” Tomas also mentioned the vari ous

ways that he could shorten meetings by creating a list of resources to “pass

the torch.” They briefly mentioned LUA and how its members “ were friends”

and sought to create a less awkward, more comfortable space. Tamara sug

gested that the group should read the LL by laws and consider changing the

structure of the club, and Karla suggested holding consensus building and

decision making workshops. They deci ded to have only a trea surer and secre

tary and remove all other hierarchies and even considered having bonding

experiences. Such structural changes suggest that when studying peer cultures

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on campuses, it is also impor tant to track cohorts to understand the effect of

individuals on institutions.

Expanding the Study of College Outcomes

There are many types of college outcomes. The most common written and talked

about are educational, such as the attainment of degrees and credentials. Recently,

scholars have begun to expand the definition of educational college outcomes

to include what is learned and what skills are developed. In their book, Aca-

demically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (2011), sociologists Richard

Arum and Josipa Roksa track the learning outcomes of students enrolled in

twenty four four year colleges nationwide. Their finding that students leave

college with little improvement in their critical thinking and other higher

learning skills has opened up the study of college outcomes beyond degree

attainment.

Another college outcome is the development of career options. Amy Binder,

Daniel Davis, and Nick Bloom (2015) look at how specific college campuses fun

nel students into the financial, consulting, and high tech sectors.2 Astin (1999)

refers to some of these career trajectory outcomes as “fringe” advantages that

students receive from having a degree from a specific college. He suggests that

such benefits influence the networks, job placement, and overall economic tra

jectories of alumni.

When people worry about college outcomes, they rarely think beyond aca

demic and career trajectories. Astin (1999), however, identifies another category

of outcomes— the existential, which refers to the quality of the experiences that

students have on campus and how they evaluate the meaning of these experi

ences. Astin (1999) argues that this existential dimension of college life can shape

students’ patterns of be hav ior, self concepts, attitudes, values, and beliefs. Sev

eral studies have opened up new ways of thinking about these existential

dimensions by focusing on culture. In their book, Paying for the Party: How Col-

leges Maintain In equality (2013), Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton show

how college cultures shape peer cultures and students’ social lives. They note

how campuses set distinct pathways for low income and middle class women

by facilitating their access to Greek life and party scenes. Through in depth

analy sis, Armstrong and Hamilton highlight the significance of social scenes

on campus and how access to these, too, is often unequal across class origins.

In another study, Amy Binder and Kate Wood (2014) compare conservative stu

dents at two dif fer ent universities and find that students engage in two distinct

po liti cal styles: deliberative and contentious (as I similarly found among Latino

students; see Chapter 6). They argue that these styles are shaped by the cul

tural and orga nizational norms of the respective universities. Thus, college

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has implications for the types of po liti cal engagement in which students will

likely participate.

Ann Mullen (2010) compares Yale students and Southern Connecticut State

University (SCSU) students and finds that one outcome of the par tic u lar college

attended is the transmission of dif fer ent types of cultural capital, specifically

students’ understandings of the school to work connection. Yale students learn

to delay career choices and focus on self discovery, while SCSU students focus

on the immediacy of finding a job. This finding holds true across students from

all social backgrounds. In other words, the schools transmit understandings of

the school to work connection so effectively that even working class students at

Yale, for example, receive the same message about self discovery. In a similar

vein, Stuber’s (2011) qualitative comparison of a liberal arts college and a public

state college examines social and cultural capital cultivation as a significant

outcome of college. Fi nally, Warikoo (2016) examines racial frames as a college

outcome. She analyzes how orga nizational cultures at four elite colleges shape

their approaches to multiculturalism and diversity and finds that dif fer ent

approaches cultivate distinct understandings of race among their students. I

report similar patterns in Chapters 5 and 7.

Building on this wave of scholarship, I take an organizational analytical

approach and identify and trace Latino student peer relationships and their

interactions with each other and the campus at large, noting the dif fer ent types

of learning that happen on campus. I identify what we might think of as a kind

of hidden curriculum that greatly extends colleges’ pedagogical effects. I show

how each campus’s par tic u lar orga nizational setting promotes dif fer ent sorts of

ethnic and racial identity development pro cesses, po liti cal lessons, and under

standings of the social position of Latinos. Future quantitative research could

follow the tradition of the National Longitudinal Survey for Freshmen and the

Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshmen Survey at the Uni

versity of California, Los Angeles,3 to assess the ideas and identities that stu

dents walk into college with (using some of the outcomes identified in this

book). Mea sur ing these before college would help us understand the influence

of college on a range of outcomes and on a broader scale.

What Administrators Can Do for Latino Students

What can administrators do to help alleviate some of the challenges that Latino

students face on their college campus? There is no a one size fits all solution. I

believe LAC administrators are doing well in supporting Latino students by

providing peer mentoring programs and fostering faculty student relationships.

However, administrators can work to avoid some of the feelings of not belong

ing and racial microaggressions that Latinos face on campus by increasing the

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percentage of Latino students on campus so that it is more representative of the

national or local population. Some private liberal arts colleges are making

strides on this effort. For example, Vassar received the Jack Kent Cooke Founda

tion’s Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence, which comes with a $1 million

award to further its commitments to enroll and retain more low income and

first generation college going students (Kosmacher 2015). Additionally, admin

istrators could have the entire student population learn about educational

inequalities and microaggressions on campus so that the weight of making a

change does not rest mainly on Latino students’ shoulders. Administrators could

create pipelines that bring first generation students to elite research institutes

and gradu ate schools and guide them toward par tic u lar career paths. I believe

most LAC students are already encouraged to apply to prestigious programs,

but programs, for their part, could target Latinos specifically.

At Research University, there are many areas for improvement. First, the

administration can treat all student organ izations equally. This would mean

removing any special access to resources that a group might have (even if

gained historically through activism). One fear of taking these away is that the

history of these organ izations, which originated in the civil rights era, will be

forgotten. Latino Studies departments across the country battle this as they shift

from ethnic specific “Puerto Rican” or “Chicano Studies” to a broader, panethnic

classification as “Latino Studies.” Administrators could honor that history by

requiring that the history of ethnic organ izing at that par tic u lar college be taught

in the curriculum. Also, administrators could honor the historical activism on

campus that led to the creation of certain institutional structures, such as ethnic

studies and cultural centers. Such efforts could create more dialogue between

groups and promote a similar view on the part of Latino students, what ever their

orga nizational affiliation. In the absence of differential access to resources, stu

dents might also promote collaboration, and campus politics might not be as

divisive.

Students at Regional Public University face inequalities in their commu

nities and their college. There are clear disparities in resources between this

campus and the other two studied. One outcome of this segregated (mostly

minority) college experience is that students do not list microaggressions or

feelings of “not belonging,” and this is one positive aspect of the RPU experi

ence. However, because graduating students take dif fer ent jobs in contexts in

which they may be a minority, administrators could prepare them by expos

ing them to professional settings through workshops that model this possi

bility. They could also create career track programs to well paid jobs in STEM

fields, government, or policy. If administrators would like students to focus

more of their energies on campus grounds, they could provide more resources

to organ izations. They could also require a first or transfer year experience

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class that requires students to spend more time on campus and exposes them

to resources, student life programming, and politics on campus.

Campuses as Critical Sites for the Construction of Latino Communities

Given the growing repre sen ta tion of Latinos in higher education, it is impor tant

that we understand the experiences of Latino millennials in four year colleges.

Understanding how their college experiences shape their sense of self may shed

light, in turn, on subsequent patterns and pro cesses of Latino community devel

opment. What types of consequences might arise from students learning dif fer

ent ways of (1) defining what it means to be Latino, (2) engaging po liti cally, and

(3) viewing Latinos’ place in American society? Will these disparate lessons

carry over after college? How will they affect Latino communities?

Take, for instance, the broad understanding of Latinidad and sense of soli

darity that students at LAC develop: these could serve them well as they leave

college, or ga nize, and work with Latinos who come from diverse national ori

gins and economic means and differ in generational status. Having had college

courses that nurture their abilities to deliberate about ethnic bound aries and

navigate difficult conversations, LAC students may be better equipped than

Research University students to or ga nize broad co ali tions of Latinos. At RU, the

competitive environment between Latino organ izations may teach students to

distrust one another, and to the extent that they do, students might carry this

attitude off campus and to the Latino organ izations they encounter throughout

society writ large.

The po liti cal lessons might also have consequences for organ izing Latino

communities. The Latino students attending Liberal Arts College are learning a

politics of deliberation, which fits well within conventional politics. The skills

they develop will serve them not only in their further careers, but also if they

choose to advocate for change within institutional channels. At Research Uni

versity, students who are not part of the explic itly po liti cal organ ization are

being de mobilized. They are shying away from politics and often avoid them

wholesale. This avoidance could continue after college, resulting in a subset of the

Latino college educated population with an aversion to politics. If two groups of

Latino students on one campus can come to view the world so differently that

they are unable to work together on campus, what are the prospects of them

working together as alumni? Future research can examine these college differ

ences and their potential to develop or to fracture communities.

Regional Public University students remain embedded in their hometown

communities, and this has mixed consequences. Thus, one strength of their

connection to their communities is their willingness to engage in community

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collective action during college. At the same time, one limitation of focusing on

external community engagement is that students do not have the time to “prac

tice deliberation,” as LAC students do, and since that is the way of institutional

politics, RPU students’ access to par tic u lar leadership positions may be impeded

as a result.

LAC students have more academic attention, more access to elite networks,

and more mentorship. Although seemingly advantaged, Latino students at

Liberal Arts College are worlds away from their hometown communities (even

if, most of the time, very close geo graph i cally). LAC students have a sobering

view of in equality as they gain exposure to this new world. However, they are

gaining these insights while they live in in the LAC bubble. As they gradu ate

and gain access to prestigious careers, professional schools, and fellowships, their

lives will take them further from home. What implications might this have for

Latino communities? The LAC experience might be one of “social decapitaliza

tion,” which Angela Valenzuela (1999, 21) defines as a pro cess of severing ties

and removing meaningful relationships and resources from communities. This

pro cess is exactly the opposite of what the student craf ters of “El Plan de Santa

Barbara” foresaw in 1969, when they sought to reform higher education to be

inclusive and open to Chicano and Latino students. Quoting the Mexican Sec

retary of Education José Vasconcelos, they wrote, “At this moment we do not

come to work for the university, but to demand that the university work for our

people.” They envisioned that Chicano and Latino students would create a bridge

from Latino communities to the university and that the education of any Latino

would benefit the community broadly. They imagined a relationship of solidarity

wherein educated Latinos would return home and invest their energies in the

cultivation of prosperity for all Latinos.

Unfortunately, their vision of higher education has not been fully realized.

The elite and exclusive nature of higher education in Amer i ca still plays a part in

fracturing Latino communities in that it gives access only to a few and removes

many from their communities, at least during the four years they attend col

lege. Future research could examine the life trajectories of Latino alumni who

attend colleges in dif fer ent places in the stratified system of higher education.

How do their lives develop after they gradu ate and search for jobs? Do the cam

pus and orga nizational differences still hold among alumni?

This book is about Latino millennials who attended college from 2008 to

2010. During that time I captured one po liti cal moment characterized by Obama’s

election, bud get cuts in state funding for education, and anti immigrant legis

lation, most notably Arizona’s SB 1070. It remains to be seen how Latino students

today will or ga nize, given a po liti cal climate characterized by the emergence of

Black Lives Matter, the explosion of campus protests for racial justice after the

University of Missouri football players threatened to boycott, the election of

Donald Trump, and the seeming legitimation of racist and nativist rhe toric.

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Now more than ever it is impor tant to think about Latino students— who experi

ence marginalization— and challenge institutions to meet their needs.

There is a huge impetus to increase Latinos enrollment in higher educa

tion, and in fact institutions vary quite a bit, and these differences can have

consequences in every conceivable way.

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M E T H O D O L O G I C A L A P P E N D I x : S T U DY I N G S T U D E N T O RG A N I Z AT I ON S

I N MU LT I P L E I N S T I T U T I ON S

I made a series of methodological decisions in the design of this research. First, I chose to examine Latino student life at three very dif fer ent types of institutions

of higher education: a public research university, a regional public university, and

a private liberal arts college. Each occupies a dif fer ent place in a stratified sys

tem of U.S. higher education and serves distinct segments of the population,

although the Latino students in my sample were quite similar demographically.

Because I wanted to conduct simultaneous ethnographic observations dur

ing the 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 academic years, the campuses needed to be

within a con ve nient driving distance; and so, they are located within a forty

mile radius of each other. In addition, given my research interest in how race

and politics intersect, I chose to study one explic itly po liti cal organ ization on

each campus and one nonpo liti cal group. Before contacting any student organ

izations, I obtained Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from my home

institution and the IRB office at each of the three campuses. As highlighted in

Chapters 2–4, I worked to gain entry into six dif fer ent organ izations and had to

negotiate my involvement and identity in each of these settings.

I attended over 150 meetings between 2008 and 2010. All organ izations,

with the exception of Latinos United for Action (LUA) at Research University

(RU), allowed me to actively participate. I took a seat within the circle or in the

back row of each meeting. I generally observed and remained quiet except when

participating in the ice breakers at the beginnings of most meeting, which

entailed introducing myself and answering an easy question like: How was your

day? How do you feel today? What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? During LUA

meetings at RU, however, I sat in the back of the room and did not participate,

respecting the students’ stipulation for allowing me access to their meetings

(described in Chapter 3). I maintained this position for two academic years.

I interviewed ten members of each organ ization and the leadership in all

organ izations. However, in groups like LUA at RU and Hispanics for Economics (HE)

at Regional Public University (RPU), I made sure to interview rank and file mem

bers as well, given the many leadership positions existed. This way I balanced the

ten interviews between rank and file members and leaders (see Table A.1 for

respondents’ information). I also interviewed a total of twelve Latino faculty and

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administrators formally as well as informally. In the last month of fieldwork, I

conducted a survey of the existing orga nizational membership by distributing a

questionnaire during a meeting. I asked students demographic questions as

well as their reasons for joining the organ ization, and their perceived benefits

of being part of the organ ization.

Data Analy sis

There were several phases of analy sis of the data. I began by transcribing each

of the seventy two interviews and typing up field notes after observing each

meeting. I uploaded these notes and transcripts into Atlas.ti qualitative soft

ware to begin line by line open coding. Examining the data line by line, I looked

for emerging concepts and codes (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007; Huberman

and Miles, 1994; LeCompte and Schensul 2010). I was particularly attuned to

themes related to identity, race, and politics and to ideas about in equality. I

came up with an extensive list of broad codes including “identity labels,” “defi

nitions of Latinidad,” “racial boundary,” “type of politics,” and “in equality idea.”

I then began second cycle coding, which consisted again of line by line coding,

looking for these same concepts (Miles, Huberman, and Saldana 2014). In this

second phase of open coding, I came up with more specific subcodes, such as

“Hispanic label rejection,” “panethnic solidarity,” “po liti cal talk,” and “belief in

meritocracy.” Then, in the third phase of line by line coding, I took a tally of all

my subcodes. The patterns revealed par tic u lar outcomes for each campus and

organ ization, as presented in this book.

Ethical Considerations

One of the greatest challenges in conducting this institutional research was hid

ing the identity of each school while providing enough information to tell the

story. Maintaining the anonymity of the institutions was particularly impor

tant, given the vulnerability felt by some respondents and especially by stu

dents of color at the predominantly white Liberal Arts College. I worked to blur

some of the campus characteristics while maintaining the integrity of the social

real ity. This practice is common, and in adopting it, I followed the suggestions

of the editor and anonymous reviewers at the journal Sociology of Education.

In each setting, with each interaction, I negotiated my multiple identities: a

first generation college going student, a second generation Mexican American, a

woman in her late twenties, and a Ph.D. candidate. We could say I was an “outsider

within” (Collins 1986) in each student organ ization, fitting in with the students

as a Latina student myself yet having a privileged position as a gradu ate stu

dent. Glenda Flores (2016) calls this a “hidden privilege” of the Ph.D., wherein

par tic u lar status and re spect is accorded given the credential. My gradu ate

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student status was treated with suspicion by the leadership of LUA at RU, who

feared I would infiltrate their organ ization and co opt it (as described in Chap

ter 3). However, individual students from LUA looked to me for advice about

gradu ate school both informally and formally, and I reviewed some personal

statements for gradu ate school. Members of the nonpo liti cal organ ization at RU

and both organ izations at RPU also asked for some mentorship. I offered to

or ga nize a gradu ate student panel for all organ izations and three requested that

I do so (Latino Fellowship at RU, LUA at RU and RPU). These panels consisted of

my Latino colleagues and friends at the University of California, Irvine, who

graciously agreed to participate.

The personal statement review, the panel, and talks about gradu ate school

were the extent to which I served the students. A fellow Latino scholar once

asked me, “How are you helping these students?” She further asked how I was

helping them or ga nize or think about some of the issues they were grappling

with. This question was particularly difficult to hear as I wanted to make sure I

was not exploiting my research respondents and that I was providing them a

ser vice. However, I took a tip from LUA at RU by deciding not to actively shape

the orga nizational activities. I wanted student actions to emerge organically

and freely, even if I did not always agree with what they were doing. I continue

to believe that Latino students should be given the autonomy to engage po liti

cally and collectively as they see fit.

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2 01

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17 7

Foremost, I would like to thank the Latino students who allowed me to be part of their lives for two academic years. They welcomed me as if I were a part of

their communities. I am grateful to have watched them create vibrant Latino

spaces on their campuses and develop as individuals.

I was very fortunate to receive vari ous grants that supported this study. I

thank the Department of Sociology, the Center for Research on Latinos in a

Global Society, the Center for Orga nizational Research, and the Center for the

Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of

California All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (UC/ACCORD). At

the University of Connecticut, I am grateful for support from El Instituto: Insti

tute of Latina/o, Ca rib bean & Latin American Studies, the Department of Sociol

ogy, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the College of Liberal Arts

and Sciences’ Fund for Interdisciplinary Research Endeavors (FIRE).

I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my dissertation com

mittee: David S. Meyer, Cynthia Feliciano, and Belinda Robnett Olsen, who sup

ported this proj ect from the idea stage to the completion of the dissertation. In

addition, I thank Francesca Polletta, Michael Montoya, and David Snow, who

provided direction during the research proposal stage.

I am particularly indebted to David Meyer, who has continuously and gen

erously given his time, reading many, many drafts. Without his guidance and

per sis tent encouragement, my career would not be where it is today. David has

been a dedicated mentor, providing me with the vital professional socialization

I needed as a first generation college student.

I am grateful to my colleagues Marysol Asencio, Ruthie Braunstein, Eliza

beth Holzer, Matthew Hughey, Nancy Naples, and Mark Overmyer Velasquez for

advice on navigating the book writing pro cess. Laura Hamilton and Amy Binder

provided indispensable feedback on drafts of my book proposal. I received criti

cal feedback during meetings at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for

Research of Educational Opportunity, the Sociology of Education Association,

and the New England Consortium of Latino Studies. I workshopped several

chapter drafts in the Social Movement working group at Smith College, where

AC K N OW L E D GM E N T S

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1 7 8 A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Steve Boutcher, Mary Ann Clawson, Rick Fantasia, Jasmine Kerissey, Joya Misra,

Marc Steinburg, and Nancy Whittier provided invaluable feedback. Jenny Stuber,

Kelsy Kretschmer, and Diana Pan generously read several drafts of chapters. Kim

Greenwell and Elizabeth Mahan copyedited several drafts of chapters.

I have benefited im mensely from the informal mentorship of Nella Van

Dyke, Irenee Beattie, Gilda Ochoa, Carlos Alamo, Mari Casteñeda, Ginetta Can

delario, Silvia Spitta, and Lisa Nunn and from the encouragement of Janice McCabe,

Glenda Flores, Leisy Abrego, Erica Morales, and Veronica Terriquez. I am appre

ciative of the friendships I have made with colleagues throughout the years.

Diana Pan and Megan Thiele are my gradu ate school besties and are both like

family. They are constant sounding boards.

I thank the National Center for Faculty Diversity Development and Kerry

Ann Roquemoore. I participated in her boot camp during my first semester on

the tenure track, and the skills I learned have changed my life. Although not by

any means perfect, I have some habits, skills, and even language to talk about

the challenges academic writers face. Christin Munsch and I connected during

our interview over the teachings of Kerry Ann Roquemoore. I am grateful for

Christin’s friendship. I wrote the bulk of this book in the library with Amanda

Denes and at a Berkins Coffee Shop with Milagros Montoya Castillo. I’m grate

ful to both scholar/friends for making an isolating experience feel communal. I’m

especially grateful for Milagros— for a few years now, we’ve set goals, checked in

once a week, cried/pouted over rejections, picked up each other’s spirits, and

celebrated victories.

I am thankful for the support I received from friends throughout the data

collection and writing stages of this proj ect. I am grateful to Irene Barajas, who

provided me with warm meals and a place to stay in between campus visits.

Jennifer Kalker let me stay at her house as I finished writing the dissertation.

Jasmin Ramirez, Lesley Meza, Consuelo Hernandez, Rita Duarte, and Kavetha

Sundaramoorthy provided much needed support, distractions, and laughs.

Esteban Martinez is a dear friend and brainstormed some beautiful cover ideas

for the book. Araceli López Arenas and I talk weekly, and she has given me

ánimo y apoyo for over a de cade, especially as I wrote this book.

I am extremely lucky to be part of a huge Mexican family, with eigh teen

aunts and uncles and sixty two first cousins. I dedicate this manuscript to all

members of the Reyes and Verduzco clans. Our family story is one of migration,

of so many members carving out their individual paths in the United States. I am

indebted to my grand mother Elena Verduzco Abundiz, a widow and mother of

nine who migrated to this country alone when in her thirties. I hope this book

and my career are a testament that her efforts paid off. My life and career are

indebted to my grandparents Mami Maria and Papi Pedro, who birthed a gen

eration of children who migrated to the central coast of California a piscar fresa.

The list would be too long if I mentioned every one by name, but I thank my Tio

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S 1 7 9

Chepe y Tia Adriana por su cariño. Nancy Reyes, Jessica Reyes, and Jairo Reyes

have been like siblings. I still remember the day I got the courage to voice a crazy

idea to Nancy: “I think I want a Ph.D.” It was her unwavering encouragement

and belief that I could do it that pushed me to apply to gradu ate school. Mis

primos and plus ones, Deyanira, Peps, Brian, Anthony, Jorge, and Sonia, fill my

life with fun along with Francesca, Joaquin, Bianca, and Julieta, who provide a

new generation filled with hope.

I have two wonderful siblings, Christy and Jesse, who are incredibly intelli

gent and thoughtful individuals. They remind me that life is always better when

family is close. And lucky me: Christy is close, having left sunny California and

relocated with me to Connecticut for my tenure track job. I can’t imagine what

the often grey skies and winter days in New England would have been like with

out her wit, encouragement and hugs. I thank my parents, Isabel and Jesus

Reyes, for their hard work and selfless love. Their perseverance and resolve has

been a constant inspiration to me. Their sustained encouragement and affec

tion has made me feel capable of anything. Los adoro. I became a sociologist

because I questioned why things were the way they were— from gender norms

to religious practices. I thank my parents for putting up with all my “whys,”

and my cousin Nancy for giving me spaces and outlets early on to explore

those questions.

I had the fortune to find a wonderful partner as I wrote this book, Stanley

Esteban Gromala III. Not an academic, Stanley read up on the pro cess of writing

an academic book and how to best support someone who was. I thank him for

the coffee, daily meals, and unwavering patience as I talked constantly about

the book. He showers me with encouragement and support daily. I am so grate

ful to have you and Tiberius in my life.

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1 8 1

PREFACE

1. I use the term “Latino” as a descriptor throughout the book but unpack student label preferences in Chapter 5. Since I conducted my fieldwork from 2008 to 2010 there has been a push to de gender the Spanish language by Latino LGBTQ+ activists. This move began with the use of Latina/o, then Latin@, and most recently Latinx. I recog nize the shifting terminology, but use Latino throughout the book as this was the term used by my respondents at the time.

2. “La raza” literally translates to “the race”; however, when used by social movements or advocacy groups like the National Council for La Raza (now UnidosUS), it is intended to mean a community of Latino origin individuals with a common destiny. The term was coined by Mexican scholar Jose Vasconcelos in his book La Raza Cósmica (1925), in which he espoused the idea that Mexicans were the product of a mixture of all races.

CHAPTER 1 HIGHER EDUCATION AND LATINO STUDENTS

1. Approximately half of all Latino students enrolled in higher education attend two year institutions. According to a report by Excelencia in Education, “Almost half of Hispanics in higher education were enrolled in community colleges (46%) or private 2 year institutions (3%)” (2015, 8). This is disproportional when compared to other ethnic racial groups.

2. This statistic includes gradu ates of all racial ethnic groups.

3. To protect the identities of respondents, I gave every campus, organ ization, and indi vidual a pseudonym.

4. Pell grants are a good proxy for the percentage of low income students on campus.

5. I coded an organ ization as “po liti cal” if it explic itly said so in its mission statement, but I took a constructivist perspective that left the specific definition of politics to the students.

6. College campuses can vary in their diversity initiatives in many ways. Some may have broad programming, including cultural centers, residence halls, mentorship pro grams, counseling ser vices, and academic programs focused on ethnic racial minor ities, while others may have only a few or none of these programs.

7. For more on racial identity shifts in college see Feliciano 2009; Tovar and Feliciano 2009; Umaña Taylor 2004.

N OT E S

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8. See de la Garza et al. 1992; DeSipio 1996; Lopez and Taylor 2009; Michelson 2005; San chez 2006; Segura and Santoro 2011.

9. See Geertz 1973.

10. In order to be considered a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) at least 25 percent of a school’s student population must be of Latino origin. HSIs are eligible for federal funds designed to help schools serve first generation college going and low income Latino students.

CHAPTER 2 THE COMMUNAL BUBBLE AT LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE

1. As a reminder, this name along with every other name in the book is a pseudonym.

2. The remaining 16 percent are international students and those who report “other” as their racial ethnic category.

3. Since there aren’t many Latino faculty on campus, they are often over burdened.

4. Henceforth, DVR will be used to identify me as a speaker in sections of dialogue.

5. Minutemen patrol the U.S. Mexico border, are often armed, and try to catch unau thorized people crossing the border.

6. I was granted access to all orga nizational emails by the leaders in 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 academic school years.

CHAPTER 3 CONFLICT AT RESEARCH UNIVERSITY

1. Latinos United for Action has historically had repre sen ta tion in Chicano Latino Stud ies since its inception as an academic program. The creation of this program was a demand of Chicano student activists during the civil rights era, which is when stu dent repre sen ta tion in the academic unit was established.

2. A few years prior to entering the field, a gradu ate student tried to get LUA involved in labor issues on campus, pleading for the organ ization to stand in solidarity with the groundskeepers and cafeteria workers as they tried to end the university’s subcon tracting practices. When LUA did not prioritize this issue, the gradu ate student and some undergraduates splintered and started a new organ ization.

3. The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) is a revolutionary leftist group based in southern Mexico.

4. These bags are made from fiber material and are popu lar in Mexico. Morrales come in vari ous colors.

5. This clap starts out slowly and increases in speed and tempo, and ends with cheering as well. It has been used by many movements but is associated with the United Farm Workers.

6. This Mexican folk music originates from the state of Veracruz.

7. In 1968, a Chicano high school student protest movement emerged, when students walked out of classes demanding better conditions within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

8. The “Dream Act” to which Gilda referred is formally titled the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. First introduced in the U.S. Senate in 2001, it stipulates several conditions under which individuals who migrated as children can be granted legal status.

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N O T E S T O P A G E S 7 2 – 1 2 0 1 8 3

CHAPTER 4 COExISTING AT REGIONAL PUBLIC UNIVERSITY

1. Mexica New Year is based on the Aztec calendar.

2. Use of italics in interview quotes is my emphasis.

CHAPTER 5 WHO WE ARE: (PAN)ETHNIC IDENTITY AND BOUNDARY FORMATION

1. A shorter version of the findings in this chapter are featured in my Du Bois Review article (2017).

2. Jim Gilchrist is the founder of the Minuteman proj ect, a nativist vigilante group that patrols the U.S. Mexico border with the aim of preventing unauthorized immigrants from entering the United States.

3. Most of the interactive data in this section comes from Latinos Unidos’ meetings, which are quite unstructured and afford ample time for informal interaction, humor, and banter between members. Latino Links, in contrast, has a very formalized orga nizational style, with little informal interaction and banter between members during the meetings. I observed fewer interactions at Latino Links where bound aries were actively deployed. However, as the next section will show, interviews with Latino Links members revealed that their ideas about the bound aries of Latinidad were similar to those of LU members.

4. Teatro originates from Teatro Campesino, which was founded by Luis Valdez in the 1960s. Its mission was to bring drama and the arts to the people and to carry out a po liti cal mission of raising consciousness of history, particularly the strug gles of farmworkers.

5. Negrita is the diminutive version of the word negra, which refer to a black woman in Spanish. In this context, Pablo is using it to ridicule Suyeli in a joking fashion. There is a historical denial of blackness in many parts of Latin Amer i ca including El Salva dor, Nicaragua, and Mexico (some of the countries that represent the origins of the students at this LF meeting).

6. I am not claiming that there are no East Coast Latinos at RPU or RU but rather that students at these campuses did not mention this factor, while LAC students made a point of doing so.

CHAPTER 6 WHAT WE DO: DEFINING AND PERFORMING LATINO POLITICS

1. A shorter version of the findings in this chapter are featured in my Sociology of Educa- tion article (2015).

2. With permission of the orga nizational leadership, I was added to their listserv. With the understanding that I was conducting research and would use their communica tion to understand their organ ization, I was granted access to their emails.

3. A federal holiday observed by most states in the United States. However, California has removed the paid holiday status of this date, and some cities, such as Los Ange les, have replaced it with Indigenous People’s Day.

4. Arizona’s Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB 1070) man dated that noncitizens carry immigration documentation at all times and granted law enforcement the right to inquire about immigration status and demand appro priate paperwork.

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5. Note that Kenya is using the term Chicano as a descriptor for Mexican Americans on campus rather than po liti cally identifying Chicanos, who assert the identity as an agreement with the mission of the po liti cal movement.

6. See Bañales (2014) for a more thorough and critical analy sis of joteria.

7. Anthony believed this woman was “infiltrating” because she was representing another organ ization and trying to shape their (LUA’s) direction/understandings. The organ ization is open to people but I guess according to Anthony not open to other organ izations promoting their separate missions.

CHAPTER 7 WHERE WE ARE GOING: IDEAS ABOUT RACIAL IN EQUALITY AND MOBILITY

1. Unlike Warikoo, I refer to these ways of understanding as narratives rather than frames. Snow et. al (1986, 464) define frames as cognitive structures that individuals use “to locate, perceive, identify, and label occurrences.” Moreover, they conceptual ize frames as action oriented. Coming from a social movement tradition, I under stand frames as embodying three steps: the first identifies the prob lem, the second offers a solution, and the last one constructs a moral justification for the prior two (Benford and Snow 2000). When I asked students to think about disadvantage and whether it affected Latinos, most missed one of the three steps and had either no solution or no moral justification.

2. Use of italics in interview quotes is my emphasis.

3. See also Nepstad (2007, 662).

CHAPTER 8 HOW HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHES DISPARATE LESSONS TO LATINOS

1. See also Armstrong and Hamilton (2013); Binder and Wood (2013); Clark (1992); and Stevens 2007.

2. See also Rivera (2015).

3. The survey is given to incoming first year college students to mea sure “background characteristics, high school experiences, attitudes, be hav iors, and expectations for college.” It was been conducted for fifty years.

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Page numbers followed by the letters f and t indicate figures and tables, respectively.

academic advisors, at Regional Public University: to Hispanics for Economics, 64, 66, 74; to Latinos United for Action, 66

Academically Adrift (Arum and Roksa), 162 Adalberto (pseudonym), 23–24, 27, 86,

92–93, 121–122, 173t administrators: at Liberal Arts College,

involvement in Latino Links, 26–27; at Liberal Arts College, involvement in Latinos Unidos, 30–31; recommendations to, 163–165; at Research University, views on Latino Fellowship, 43, 56; at Research University, views on Latinos United for Action, 50–51, 55–58

Adriana (pseudonym), 71, 133 Alex (pseudonym), 63, 65, 70–73, 107, 133, 146,

175t Alicia (pseudonym), 47, 50, 129, 149, 174t alienation, at Liberal Arts College, 87 alumni network, at Liberal Arts College, 19 Amalia (pseudonym), 62–63, 70, 147–148, 175t American Dream, 138–139 Ana (pseudonym), 28–29, 31–32, 86, 91–93,

152, 172t Angel (pseudonym), 120–121, 173t Anthony (pseudonym), 69–71, 133–134, 184n. 7 Antonietta (pseudonym), 65, 69–70, 146–147,

175t Arizona, immigration legislation in, 120–121,

134–135, 146, 183n. 4 Armstrong, Elizabeth (Paying for the Party),

162 Arpaio, Joseph, 134 Arum, Richard (Academically Adrift), 162 ascription, in ethnoracialization, 83–84 Asian American identity, 94, 111 Astin, Alexander, 161, 162 attainment. See educational attainment

Belinda (pseudonym), 36, 51, 95–96, 174t

belonging, sense of: definition of, 2; lack of (See racial isolation)

Beltran, Cristina, 8, 96, 100 Bernardo (pseudonym), 28, 30, 113, 172t “Between Ourselves” (Lorde), 100

Bianca (pseudonym), 21, 26–27, 87, 90, 122 Binder, Amy, 162 blackness, historical denial of, in Latin

Amer i ca, 183n. 5 Bloom, Nick, 162 “box checkers,” 92 Brown, Hana, 83 Brown Berets, 133–134 bud get: of Hispanics for Economics, at

Regional Public University, 76; of Latino Fellowship, at Research University, 42–43; of Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 22; of Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 28, 30; of Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 72; of Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 46

California: gay marriage in, 133; student protests of 1968 in, 48, 182n. 7

capital: cultural, 163; social, 152, 163 Carbajal, Salvador (pseudonym), 21 career development, 162 Carlos (pseudonym), 47–50, 52, 98, 128–130,

173t Cassandra (pseudonym for LAC student), 19,

23–25, 93, 122, 173t Cassandra (pseudonym for RPU student), 70 Cedillo, Carlos (pseudonym), 64, 66, 74 Cesar (pseudonym), 69 Chen, Walter (pseudonym), 61–62, 66–67 Chicano(s): meaning and use of term, 48–49,

102, 184n. 5; as po liti cal term, 48, 102; self identification as, 92–93, 101–103, 107–108

Chicano movement: administrators’ perspectives on, 56–58; gay men in, 129; Latinos United for Action’s discussion of, 48–49

CIRP. See Cooperative Institutional Research Program

clap, unity, 47, 182n. 5 cognitive frameworks, for understanding

racial in equality, 137 college enrollment rates, for Latinos, 1,

181n. 1

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college outcomes: expanding understanding and study of, 162–163; types of, 162. See also educational attainment

colorblindness, in Hispanics for Economics, 104

Columbus Day, 119, 183n. 3 communitarianism, at Liberal Arts College,

121–123 communities, Latino: campuses in

construction of, 165–167; involvement of Liberal Arts College in, 121–123; involvement of Research University in, 49–50

consciousness, oppositional, 150 consciousness raising workshops, 124, 128,

130, 150 contentious politics, 8, 11; in college

outcomes, 162–163; at Regional Public University, 114, 115t, 130–135

Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshmen Survey, 163, 184n. 3

Cristina (pseudonym), 30, 32, 91, 93, 117, 120, 172t

Cruz (pseudonym), 40–42, 44–46, 54, 99–101, 125–126, 141, 174t

cultural capital, 163 cultural pre sen ta tions, of Latino Fellowship,

at Research University, 42, 43, 98–99 cultural schemas, 114 culture, Latino: educational attainment in,

55–56; gender norms in, 55, 106; student descriptions of, 106

culture, orga nizational, of campuses, 161–163

“culture of poverty,” 138 culture shock: at Liberal Arts College, 87; at

Research University, 36, 94–95

David (pseudonym), 121 Davis, Daniel, 162 Deckman, Sherry, 161 Deidra (pseudonym), 46, 50, 52–53, 81–82,

95, 97, 99–100, 124, 126–127, 148–149, 157–158, 174t

deliberative politics, 8, 11; in college outcomes, 162–163; at Liberal Arts College, 113–114, 115t, 118–121

Democracy Now!, 20 demographics, student: at Liberal Arts

College, 5–6, 6t, 17–18, 182n. 2; at Regional Public University, 5–6, 6t, 62–66; at Research University, 5–6, 6t, 36–37

departmental representatives, from Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 37–38, 182n. 1

Día de los Muertos: at Liberal Arts College, 27, 117; at Regional Public University, 69, 73; at Research University, 49, 52–53

disadvantaged groups, use of term, 137. See also racial in equality

distal institutional characteristics, 160 diversity initiatives: differences in

approaches to, 7, 181n. 6; at Liberal Arts College, 18–19; at Regional Public

University, 67; at Research University, 39–40

divisive politics, 8, 11; at Research Univer sity, 114, 115t, 123–130

Dream Act, 54, 118, 121, 182n. 8

educational attainment, Latino: culture in, 55–56; income linked to, 2; rates of, 2

Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), at Regional Public University, 67

elections: Latino voting be hav ior in, 8; presidential, of 2008, 125

Encuentro Latino, 42–43 enrollment rates, college, for Latinos, 1, 181n. 1 EOP. See Educational Opportunity Program Erika (pseudonym), 71 Ernesto (pseudonym), 63, 70, 73, 133, 147, 175t Estelle (pseudonym), 47 ethnic bound aries: in ethnoracialization,

83–84; at macro , meso , and micro levels, 84; overt vs. covert, 84; pro cess of identifying, 84; skin color in, 82, 97. See also panethnic identity formation

ethnic racial identities, transmission in college of, 8. See also panethnic identity formation; self identification

ethnoracialization, definition of, 83–84 Evelyn (pseudonym), 37, 47–52, 54, 102, 149,

160–161, 173t events: of Hispanics for Economics, at

Regional Public University, 74, 76; of Latino Fellowship, at Research University, 41–44; of Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 21–22; of Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 27–30; of Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 69–70, 72–73; of Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 39, 47–50, 52–53. See also specific types

existential outcomes, 162 explicit oppression narratives, 139, 140t, 145,

145f, 149–153 EZLN. See Zapatista Army of National

Liberation

Fabian (pseudonym), 86–87, 89–90, 113, 116–120, 123, 152, 172t

faculty hiring, at Liberal Arts College, 117 faculty mentors: at Liberal Arts College, 18,

19, 90, 182n. 3; at Research University, 39 faculty participation: in Hispanics for

Economics, 64, 66, 74; in Latino Links, 26–27; in Latinos Unidos, 30–31; in Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 66

faculty student relationships. See student faculty relationships

Figueroa, Ester (pseudonym), 66 finances. See budget first generation college students, 5–6; at

Liberal Arts College, 3t, 5, 6t, 17–18; at Regional Public University, 3t, 5–6, 6t, 62; at Research University, 3t, 5, 6t, 39

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Flores, Glenda, 170 Flores, Lorenzo (pseudonym), 55–58 frames, racial, 137, 163, 184n. 1 Franky (pseudonym), 128 fraternities, Latino, lack of access to, 35

gay marriage, 133 gay men: in Chicano movement, 129; in

Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 128–129. See also LGBTQ issues

gender norms, within families, 55, 106 generation, immigrant, of students in case

studies, 6, 6t. See also first generation college students

Genova (pseudonym), 15, 27–31, 86, 91, 117, 119, 151, 172t

Gerardo (pseudonym), 89 Gilchrist, Jim, 89, 183n. 2 Gilda (pseudonym), 49–52, 54–55, 95,

97–98, 101, 127–128, 130, 149–150, 173t Gilma (pseudonym), 62, 67–70, 131, 133–134,

175t Giovanna (pseudonym), 98 Gloria (pseudonym), 41–43, 45–46, 52, 95, 97,

101, 103, 127, 174t Gonzalo, Armando (pseudonym), 66 graduation ceremony, at Liberal Arts

College, 30–31, 113–114 Grant, Oscar, 134 Guadalupe (pseudonym), 52, 174t guest speakers, at Hispanics for Economics

meetings, 74–77, 105–106, 132 Guillermo Wann, Chelsea, 2 Gustavo (pseudonym), 98

Hamilton, Laura (Paying for the Party), 162

Harriet (pseudonym), 89 HE. See Hispanics for Economics Hector (pseudonym), 17, 63–65, 72–73, 134,

146, 175t Hernandez, Belem (pseudonym), 66 Hispanic: meaning and use of term, 81, 93,

102–103; rejection of term, 81, 93, 102–103, 107–108

Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs): definition of, 182n. 10; Regional Public University as, 62, 103

Hispanics for Economics (HE), at Regional Public University, 73–77; academic advisors to, 64, 66, 74; bud get of, 76; events of, 74, 76; guest speakers at, 74–77, 105–106, 132; lack of interaction with Latinos United for Action, 68, 78, 103; meetings of, 73–75; meeting space of, 73; member opinions on, 76–77; narratives of racial in equality in, 138–145, 154; national origin identities in, 103–109; number of members, 75, 104; orga nizational structure of, 75–76; po liti cal engagement by, 130–135; profile of case study students from, 176t; reasons for

joining, 76–77, 78; recruitment efforts of, 74, 76; se lection for study, 62, 67, 169

HSIs. See Hispanic Serving Institutions Hurtado, Sylvia, 2, 160, 161

identity. See ethnic racial identities; panethnic identity formation; self identification

ideologies: definition of, 137–138; in understanding of racial in equality, 137–138

immigrant generation, of students in case studies, 6, 6t

immigration policy: activism at Liberal Arts College on, 120–121, 121–122; activism at Regional Public University on, 134–135; in Arizona, 120–121, 134–135, 146, 183n. 4

implicit oppression narratives, 139, 140t, 145–149, 145f

inclusive panethnic identity, at Liberal Arts College, 82–83, 85t, 86–94, 109–111

income, median: educational attainment linked to, 2; of families of students, 6, 6t

in equality. See racial in equality Ines (pseudonym), 119 “infiltration”: of Latinos United for Action,

at Regional Public University, 68, 134, 184n. 7; of Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 46, 182n. 2

inhabited institutional theory, 11, 114

institutional arrangements, normative: definition of, 2, 158; differences among schools in, 7, 158

institutional characteristics: approaches to studying, 158–162; distal vs. proximal, 160–161; of Liberal Arts College, 3–4, 3t, 15, 159–160; of Regional Public University, 3–4, 3t, 61, 159–160; relevant types of, 158–159; of Research University, 3–4, 3t, 35, 159–160

institution making: definition of, 116; at Liberal Arts College, 116–118

intersectionality, 129 isolation. See racial isolation

Jackie (pseudonym), 61, 74, 76–77, 106, 176t Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, 164 Jane (pseudonym), 86 Janelle (pseudonym), 91, 118 Jasso, Hector (pseudonym), 38 Javier (pseudonym), 91 Jennifer (pseudonym), 37–38, 54, 95, 128–130,

174t Jerry (pseudonym), 108, 133, 147–148, 175t Jesus (pseudonym), 108, 135, 176t Joel (pseudonym), 64, 139, 176t Jones, Jennifer A., 83 Josefina (pseudonym), 63–64, 66, 72, 81–82,

106, 133, 135, 157–158, 175t Josiana (pseudonym), 28, 30, 32, 92, 150–151,

172t Jovita (pseudonym), 86

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Karla (pseudonym), 23, 25, 27, 88, 151, 161, 173t Kenya (pseudonym), 51–52, 54, 57, 94, 98,

101–103, 127, 149, 173t

LAC. See Liberal Arts College Lalo (pseudonym), 46–47, 49, 51, 98, 101–102,

130, 174t Latino(s): alternative terminology for, 181n. 1;

identity formation of (See panethnic identity formation); vs. national origin identity, 107–108; as percentage of U.S. population, 1; reasons for self identification as, 81–82, 92–93, 100–101, 108; use of term, 181n. 1; as verb, 8

Latino Cultural Center (LCC), at Liberal Arts College: building housing, 16; graduation ceremony of, 30–31; Latinos Unidos’ conflicts with, 30–31, 90–91, 117; peer mentorship program of, 18, 31; retreat run by, 18–19; Welcome Week Orientation at, 16–17

Latino Fellowship (LF), at Research University, 40–46; administrators’ perceptions of, 43, 56; bud get of, 42–43; in conflict with Latinos United for Action, 40, 52–55, 59, 124; cultural pre sen ta tions in, 42, 43, 98–99; events of, 41–44; meetings of, 40–42; meeting space of, 39, 40; in Multicultural Center, 39–40; narratives of racial in equality in, 138–145, 154; number of members, 42; panethnic identity formation in, 83, 94–103; po liti cal engagement by, lack of, 123–127, 136; profile of case study students from, 174t–175t; racial isolation in, 36; reasons for joining, 36–37; se lection for study, 35–36, 40, 169; in social life of students, 43–46

Latino Links (LL), at Liberal Arts College, 21–27; bud get of, 22; events of, 21–22; faculty and administrator involvement in, 26–27; funding offered by, 22, 117–118; meetings of, 21–23, 183n. 3; meeting space of, 21; member criticism of, 23–27; mission of, 23–25, 119–120; narratives of racial in equality at, 139, 145, 150–153; number of members, 22; orga nizational structure of, 27, 33–34, 161; panethnic identity formation in, 86–94, 183n. 3; po liti cal engagement by, 115–123, 135–136; profile of case study students from, 173t; reasons for joining, 23; se lection for study, 15, 20–21, 169

Latino student organ izations. See student organ izations; specific organ izations

Latino students. See students Latinos Unidos (LU), at Liberal Arts College,

27–33; bud get of, 28, 30; in conflict with Latino Cultural Center, 30–31, 90–91, 117; events of, 27–30; faculty and administra tor involvement in, 30–31; meetings of, 27–29, 183n. 3; meeting space of, 27, 28; member opinions on, 32–33; narratives of racial in equality in, 139, 145, 150–153; number of members, 28; orga nizational

structure of, 28–29, 33–34; panethnic identity formation in, 86–94, 183n. 3; po liti cal engagement by, 113–123, 135–136; profile of case study students from, 172t; reasons for joining, 31–32; se lection for study, 15, 20–21, 169

Latinos United for Action (LUA), at Regional Public University, 68–73; academic advisors to, 66; bud get of, 72; events of, 69–70, 72–73; “infiltration” of, 68, 134, 184n. 7; lack of interaction with Hispanics for Economics, 68, 78, 103; meetings of, 69–71; meeting space of, 67; narratives of racial in equality in, 138–139, 145–150, 154; national origin identities in, 103–109; number of members, 68–69; orga nizational structure of, 69–72; po liti cal engagement by, 130–136; profile of case study students from, 175t; radical reputation of, 70; reasons for joining, 73, 78; recruitment efforts of, 69–73; vs. Research University LUA, 68, 73; se lection for study, 62, 67, 169

Latinos United for Action (LUA), at Research University, 46–52; administrators’ perceptions of, 50–51, 55–58; bud get of, 46; in conflict with Latino Fellowship, 40, 52–55, 59, 124; consciousness raising workshops of, 124, 128, 130, 150; depart mental representatives from, 37–38, 182n. 1; events of, 39, 47–50, 52–53; “infiltration” of, 46, 182n. 2; meetings of, 46–49; meeting space of, 39; member opinions on, 49–52; in Multicultural Center, 39–40, 52; narratives of racial in equality in, 138–139, 145, 149–150, 154; negative reputation of, 52, 53–54; number of members, 46; office space of, 39, 46; origins of, 52, 128; outreach to high school students by, 49–50; panethnic identity formation in, 83, 94–103; peer mentor program of, 47; po liti cal engagement by, 123–125, 127–130, 136; profile of case study students from, 173t–174t; racial isolation in, 36; reasons for joining, 36–37, 95; vs. Regional Public University LUA, 68, 73; se lection for study, 35–36, 40, 46, 169; in social life of students, 51–52, 95

LCC. See Latino Cultural Center leftist po liti cal ethos, of Liberal Arts

College, 19–20, 116, 118 LF. See Latino Fellowship LGBTQ issues, at Latinos United for Action

meetings: at Regional Public University, 133; at Research University, 128–130

Liberal Arts College (LAC), 9–10, 15–34; characteristics of campus, 3–4, 3t, 15, 159–160; classes at, 19–20; communitari anism at, 121–123; conclusions about communal climate of, 33–34, 33t; in construction of Latino communities, 165–166; demographics of students at, 5–6, 6t, 17–18, 182n. 2; faculty mentors at,

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18, 19, 90, 182n. 3; institution making at, 116–118; leftist po liti cal ethos of, 19–20, 116, 118; methodology of study of, 3–6, 169–176; oppression narratives of racial in equality at, 139, 145, 150–155; panethnic identity at, 82–83, 85t, 86–94, 109–111; peer mentors at, 18, 31, 90; po liti cal engagement at, 113–121, 115t, 135–136; profile of case study students from, 172t–173t; recommenda tions to administrators at, 163–164; resources of, 18–19; se lection of organ izations at, 4–5, 4f, 169; self identification at, 81–82, 92–93; social life at, 20. See also Latino Cultural Center; Latino Links; Latinos Unidos

Liliana (pseudonym), 36–37, 46–50, 129–130, 174t

Lissandra (pseudonym), 44, 46, 53–54, 94–95, 125, 127, 140–141, 174t

LL. See Latino Links Lorde, Audre, “Between Ourselves,” 100 Lorena (pseudonym), 19, 21–27, 86, 88–89,

122–123, 152–153, 173t Los Angeles (California), student protests of

1968 in, 48, 182n. 7 LU. See Latinos Unidos LUA. See Latinos United for Action Lucy (pseudonym), 105, 107–108, 176t

Mansbridge, Jane, 150 Manuel (pseudonym), 118–119 Marco (pseudonym), 122–123 Maribel (pseudonym), 118, 172t Marina (pseudonym), 91 marriage, gay, 133 Marta (pseudonym), 74–75, 108, 143, 176t Martiza (pseudonym), 18–19, 24–25, 88, 173t Maximiliano (pseudonym), 47–48, 128–129 May Day, 120 Mayra (pseudonym), 63–64, 76–77, 106,

132–133, 142, 176t McCabe, Janice, 78 McCain, John, 125 meaning systems, 137 meetings: of Hispanics for Economics, at

Regional Public University, 73–75; of Latino Fellowship, at Research University, 40–42; of Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 21–23, 183n. 3; of Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 27–29, 183n. 3; of Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 69–71; of Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 46–49

meeting space: of Hispanics for Economics, at Regional Public University, 73; of Latino Fellowship, at Research Univer sity, 39, 40; of Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 21; of Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 27, 28; of Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 67; of Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 39

member recruitment, at Regional Public University: by Hispanics for Economics, 74, 76; by Latinos United for Action, 69–73

members, number of: in Hispanics for Economics, at Regional Public University, 75, 104; in Latino Fellowship, at Research University, 42; in Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 22; in Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 28; in Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 68–69; in Latinos United for Action, at Research University, 46

Mendoza, Adan, 132 mentors. See faculty mentors; peer mentors meritocratic narratives, 11, 138–145;

conclusions about, 153–155; definition of, 138, 140t; at Regional Public University, 138–145, 154–155; at Research University, 138–145, 154–155

methodology, 3–6, 169–176 Mexican Americans, self identification as,

92–93, 101, 107–108 Mexican centrism: at Liberal Arts College,

90–92; at Research University, 98, 102 Mexica New Year, 72–73, 106, 183n. 1 Mexicans, self identification as, 100–101,

107–108 Micaela (pseudonym), 52, 175t microaggressions: definition of, 88; at

Liberal Arts College, 88; in narratives of racial in equality, 152; at Research University, 95–96; types of, 88

microassaults, 88 microinsults, 88 microinvalidations, 88 Minutemen, 21, 89, 182n. 5, 183n. 2 Mireya (pseudonym), 41–45, 95, 101, 126, 141,

174t Miriam (pseudonym), 98 mobility. See racial in equality and mobility Monica (pseudonym), 106 morrales, 47, 182n. 4 Morris, Aldon, 150 Mullen, Ann, 163 Multicultural Center (MCC), at Regional

Public University, 61, 67 Multicultural Center (MCC), at Research

University, 39–40, 52 multicultural programs: at Liberal Arts

College, 18–19; at Research University, 39–40

narratives, 11, 137–155; conclusions about, 153–155; vs. frames, 184n. 1; meritocratic, 11, 138–145, 140t; oppression, 11, 139, 140t, 145–153

Natalie (pseudonym), 17, 21–25, 89, 92, 121, 151–152, 173t

National Longitudinal Survey for Freshman, 163

national origin identities, at Regional Public University, 82–83, 85t, 103–109, 111

Navarro, Samuel (pseudonym), 39

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negrita, 99, 183n. 5 Nepstad, Sharon, 150 networking, in Hispanics for Economics,

76–77 normative institutional arrangements:

definition of, 2, 158; differences among schools in, 7, 158

Obama, Barack, 125 Ochoa, Gilda, 8 Okamoto, Dina, 94, 111 oppositional consciousness, 150 oppressed groups, vs. disadvantaged groups,

use of terms, 137 oppression narratives, 11, 145–153; conclu

sions about, 153–155; definition of, 139; explicit, 139, 140t, 145, 145f, 149–153; implicit, 139, 140t, 145–149, 145f; at Liberal Arts College, 139, 145, 150–155; at Regional Public University, 139, 145–150, 154; at Research University, 139, 149–150, 154

orga nizational characteristics. See institu tional characteristics

orga nizational culture of campuses, 161–163 orga nizational structure: of Hispanics for

Economics, at Regional Public University, 75–76; of Latino Links, at Liberal Arts College, 27, 33–34, 161; of Latinos Unidos, at Liberal Arts College, 28–29, 33–34; of Latinos United for Action, at Regional Public University, 69–72

outcomes. See college outcomes; educational attainment

Pablo (pseudonym), 44–46, 97, 99, 101, 126, 144, 174t, 183n. 5

Paloma (pseudonym), 22–23, 87, 89, 93, 173t panethnic identity formation, 10, 81–112;

conclusions about, 109–112; dialectical nature of, 82, 83–84; essential vocabulary for, 83–86; inclusive, at Liberal Arts College, 82–83, 85t, 86–94; qualified, at Research University, 82–83, 85t, 94–103; rejection of, at Regional Public University, 82–83, 85t, 103–109

Paredes, Francine (pseudonym), 17–21, 30, 38 Paying for the Party (Armstrong and

Hamilton), 162 peer mentors: at Liberal Arts College, 18, 31,

90; at Research University, 47 Pell grants: at Liberal Arts College, 17; as

proxy for low income students, 4, 181n. 4; at Regional Public University, 62

“Plan de Santa Barbara, El,” 166 po liti cal engagement, 11, 113–136; as college

outcome, 162–163; conclusions about, 135–136; context of learning about, 8–9; divisive, 8, 11, 114, 115t, 123–130; through institution making, 116–118; at Liberal Arts College, 113–121, 115t, 135–136; at Regional Public University, 114, 115t, 130–136; at Research University, 114, 115t, 123–130, 136; symbolic, 117–118; types of, 8,

11. See also contentious politics; delibera tive politics

po liti cal ethos, leftist, of Liberal Arts College, 19–20, 116, 118

po liti cal student organ izations: criteria for identifying, 181n. 5; se lection for study, 4–5, 4f, 169. See also specific organ izations

population, student: Latinos as percentage of, 1; at Liberal Arts College, 17; at Regional Public University, 62; at Research University, 36. See also demographics

population, U.S., Latinos as percentage of, 1 “poverty, culture of,” 138 presidential election of 2008, 125 private colleges. See liberal arts college professors. See faculty Proposition 8 (California), 133 protests, student, of 1968 in Los Angeles, 48,

182n. 7 proximal institutional characteristics, 160,

161 pseudonyms, use of, 181n. 3, 182n. 1 public universities. See regional public

university; research university

qualified panethnic identity, at Research University, 82–83, 85t, 94–103, 109–112

Queer Aztlan, 129

race relations, transmission of lessons about, 8

racial climate: factors in creation of, 2, 85–86, 85t, 109; influence on students, 2; in sense of belonging, 2

racial ethnic identities, transmission in college of, 8. See also panethnic identity formation; self identification

racial frames, 137, 163, 184n. 1 racial in equality and mobility, 11, 137–155;

cognitive frameworks for understanding, 137; conclusions about narratives of, 153–155; ideologies for understanding, 137–138; meritocratic narratives about, 138–145, 140t; oppression narratives about, 139, 140t, 145–153

racial isolation: at Liberal Arts College, 87; at Regional Public University, lack of, 62; at Research University, 36–37, 94–95

racialization: ethno , definition of, 83–84; school as setting for, 8

racism: at Liberal Arts College, 88–89, 117; at Research University, 95–96. See also microaggressions; racial in equality

Rafael (pseudonym), 71, 91, 133 Ramirez, Luis, 117 Ray, Rashawn, 158 raza, la, meaning and use of term, 181n. 2 Raza Cósmica, La (Vasconcelos), 181n. 2 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 96 redlining, 152 Regional Public University (RPU), 9–10,

61–78; challenges of transition to, 64–66;

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characteristics of campus, 3–4, 3t, 61, 159–160; conclusions about commute climate at, 77–78, 78t; in construction of Latino communities, 165–166; demograph ics of students at, 5–6, 6t, 62–66; meritocratic narratives of racial in equality at, 138–145, 154–155; methodol ogy of study of, 3–6, 169–176; Multicul tural Center at, 61, 67; national origin identities at, 82–83, 85t, 103–109, 111; oppression narratives of racial in equality at, 139, 145–150, 154; po liti cal engagement at, 114, 115t, 130–136; profile of case study students from, 175t–176t; recommenda tions to administrators at, 164–165; resources of, 66–67; se lection of organ izations at, 4–5, 4f, 61–62, 169; self identification at, 81–82, 107–108. See also Hispanics for Economics; Latinos United for Action

Renata (pseudonym), 116 Research University (RU), 9–10, 35–59;

characteristics of campus, 3–4, 3t, 35, 159–160; classes at, 37–38; conclusions about conflictual climate at, 58–59, 59t; in construction of Latino communities, 165; demographics of students at, 5–6, 6t, 36–37; faculty student relationships at, 37–38; meritocratic narratives of racial in equality at, 138–145, 154–155; methodol ogy of study of, 3–6, 169–176; Multicul tural Center at, 39–40, 52; multicultural programs at, 39–40; oppression narra tives of racial in equality at, 139, 149–150, 154; panethnic identity at, 82–83, 85t, 94–103, 109–112; po liti cal engagement at, 114, 115t, 123–130, 136; profile of case study students from, 173t–175t; racial isolation at, 36–37; recommendations to adminis trators at, 164; se lection of organ izations at, 4–5, 4f, 35–36, 169; self identification at, 81–82, 100–103. See also Latino Fellowship; Latinos United for Action

residential patterns: at Liberal Arts College, 6, 18, 32; at Regional Public University, 62–64; at Research University, 35, 39

Roksa, Josipa (Academically Adrift), 162 Rosow, Jason, 158 RPU. See Regional Public University RU. See Research University Ruiz Alvarado, Adriana, 2

Salazar, Ruben, 133 Sanchez, Linda, 121 Sanchez, Loretta, 121 Sandra (pseudonym), 74–77, 105–107, 122, 176t Sara (pseudonym), 76–77, 108, 176t Saul (pseudonym), 74–75 SB 1070 (Arizona), 120–121, 134–135, 146, 183n. 4 SCSU. See Southern Connecticut State

University Selena (pseudonym for LAC student), 29,

32–33, 81–82, 91–92, 119–120, 153, 172t

Selena (pseudonym for RPU student), 74–75 self discovery, as college outcome, 163 self identification: as Chicano, reasons for,

92–93, 101–103, 107–108; definition of, 84; in ethnoracialization, 83–84; as Latino, reasons for, 81–82, 92–93, 100–101, 108; at Liberal Arts College, 81–82, 92–93; as Mexican, reasons for, 100–101, 107–108; as Mexican American, reasons for, 92–93, 101, 107–108; at Regional Public University, 81–82, 107–108; at Research University, 81–82, 100–103

Servino (pseudonym), 151, 172t skin color, in ethnic bound aries, 82, 97 Snow, David A., 184n. 1 social capital, 152, 163 social decapitalization, 166 social life: at Liberal Arts College, 20; at

Research University, 43–46, 51–52, 95 Sociology of Education (journal), 170 Soe (pseudonym), 86–87 solidarity, as goal at Liberal Arts College,

83, 92 son jarocho (folk music), 47, 182n. 6 sororities, Latina, lack of access to, 4, 35 Sosa, Mercedes, 117 Southern Connecticut State University

(SCSU), 163 Spanish language: in Latinos Unidos

meetings, at Liberal Arts College, 90; in Latinos United for Action meetings, at Research University, 97, 98

speakers, at Hispanics for Economics meetings, 74–77, 105–106, 132

ste reo types, Latino: in microaggressions, 88; in narratives of racial in equality, 138, 140–141, 148, 152–153; student use of, 105–106

Stuber, Jenny, 158, 163 student faculty relationships: at Liberal Arts

College, 17–19; at Regional Public University, 66; at Research University, 37–38

student organ izations, Latino: number per campus, 4; se lection pro cess for study of, 4–5, 4f, 169. See also specific organ izations

student protests, of 1968 in Los Angeles, 48, 182n. 7

students, Latino: college enrollment rates of, 1, 181n. 1; educational attainment rates of, 2, 55–56; as percentage of all students, 1; population of (See demographics; population)

Suyeli (pseudonym), 36, 99, 126, 174t, 183n. 5 symbolic politics, at Liberal Arts College,

117–118

Tamara (pseudonym), 116, 121–122, 152, 161, 173t

Tamayo, Nelson (pseudonym), 15, 21 Tania (pseudonym), 45, 96–97, 101, 175t teaching assistants, at Research University,

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1 9 6 I N D E x

Teatro, 98, 183n. 4 Telles, Ernesto (pseudonym), 39, 43, 50–51,

55–58 Teresa (pseudonym), 62–63, 65, 67, 107 Thalia (pseudonym), 36, 45, 99, 101, 141, 175t Theresa (pseudonym), 175t tokenization, at Liberal Arts College, 87 Tomas (pseudonym), 15, 16–17, 21–23, 28–29,

119–120, 122, 161, 173t Tovar, Joaquin (pseudonym), 65, 67

United Latino Organ izations (ULO), 52–55, 128 unity clap, 47, 182n. 5

Valdez, Luis, 183n. 4 Valenzuela, Angela, 166 Valerie (pseudonym), 150 Valle, Nilda (pseudonym), 17 Vanessa (pseudonym), 86, 107, 134, 145–146,

175t Vanya (pseudonym), 31, 87, 172t Vasconcelos, José, 166; La Raza Cósmica, 181n. 2

Vassar College, 164 Villaraigosa, Antonio, 121 voting be hav ior, 8

Walter (pseudonym), 91 Warikoo, Natasha, 137, 139, 161, 163 whitewashing, 96, 98 Wood, Kate, 162 Worker Student Alliance, 123

Yale University, 163 Yareli (pseudonym), 104–105, 108, 131,

143–144, 176t Young Demo crats: at Liberal Arts College,

120–121; at Research University, 125 Young Republicans, at Research University,

125 Yvette (pseudonym), 62–63, 67, 73–77,

104–107, 131–132, 176t

Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), 47, 182n. 3

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A B O U T T H E AU T H O R

DAISY VERDUZCO REYES is an assistant professor in the Department of Soci

ology and El Instituto: The Institute of Latina/o, Ca rib bean, and Latin American

Studies at the University of Connecticut. She conducts research at the intersec

tions of Latino sociology, education, politics, and sexualities.

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