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DESDE ENTONCES, SOY CHICANA: A MEXICAN IMMIGRANT STUDENT RESISTS

SUBTRACTIVE SCHOOLING

Angela Valenzuela

Angela Valenzuela is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University

of Texas at Austin. In her book Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, Valenzuela examines how attempts to "Ameri­

canize" Mexican immigrant students at a Houston high school often end up

stripping away, or at least muting, students' linguistic and cultural identities.

Yet a few immigrant students-sometimes with the support of their teachers,

many times on their own-figure out ways to become trul:y bicultural, holding

on to and valuing their cultural assets, while also navigating the expectations

of the U.S. mainstream. Valenzuela profiles one such student in the following selection.

In a three-year study of immigrant and nonimmigrant youth attending Seguin High School (a pseudonym), an overcrowded, segregated,

inner-city school in Houston, Texas, I observed the existence of power­

ful pressures for immigrants to rapidly assimilate, or "Americanize." I

explore this pattern in my book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican

Youth and the Politics of Caring. 1 There I argue that the Americanization of immigrant students' identities results from the way the curriculum at

Seguin High School is organized-and not organized. Specifically, the

educational process fails to promote bilingualism, biculturalism, and

biliteracy. Instead, schooling is more about subtracting than adding

these competencies, and in so doing compromises the achievement of

immigrant and nonimmigrant youth alike.

"DESDE ENTONCES, SOY CHICANA" 179

Most of the youth I interviewed for the study were members of the "1.5 .generation," those who had immigrated from Mexico at an early age but who, for the major part of their young lives, had a U.S. school­ ing experience and were thus similar in many respects to their more ac­ culturated, U.S.-born Mexican American peers. I conclude that recent immigrants' rush to claim a new identity renders thein marginal not only with respect to the academic mainstream, but also with respect to their families' social identities.

The rapid assimilation of first-generation immigrant youth is often a sign of maladjustment, because identity "choices" are based on a dis­ affirmation of the self and of the family's social identity. While I ob­ .served this pattern, however, I also observed that some students are able ):,oth to assimilate and to learn to value the cultural assets that they bring to the schooling context. Nelda was one such student from whom we can learn a great deal.

NELDA

\.T first encountered Nelda, an eleventh-grader, through her English

\reacher, an Anglo female, who insisted that I meet her. The teacher )found Nelda to be a phenomenal student because she had arrived in ·the United States only three years earlier (in eighth grade) and was al­

)}eady a high achiever. Nelda was virtually fluent in English and ' b!'ended in well socially with the other students in the class. The = ' ,"''teacher was most impressed with the fact that, except for a "very ·;:mild" accent, Nelda seemed little different from "the others" (i.e.,

p,S.-born youth) in the way she carried herself. Explaining to Nelda jny interest as a researcher, the teacher prepared her for my morning

. When I arrived, the students were busy working at their desks. ;Nelda saw tne and, after a nod from the teacher, stepped out into the

all with me, where we talked for the greater part of the fifty-minute :;,period. Our conversation began with questions about her background.

/The entire conversation took place in English, with Nelda occasionally i•\!sking me to translate certain words for her . . , '. ·. Nelda said that she was from the interior of Mexico but had lived

180 CITY CLASSROOMS, Cl.TY SCHOOLS

for several years in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, which is adjacent to. the city of Brownsville at Texas's southernmost border. She explained that her family was lured to the U.S.-Mexican border by the availability of industrial jobs. The pay was still low, however, and to make ends meet her mother crossed the border daily into Brownsville, where she worked as a cleaning woman in various homes. Nelda's family lived in Matamoros for five years, where Nelda and her younger sister had the opportunity to attend secundaria (middle school). An English­ language course was offered at the school one year, but the instruction

was very poor. Nevertheless, Nelda appreciated the opportunity plow through the assigned book for the cour.se. The family's continue ing economic struggles ultimately drove her father to seek better,.·: paying construction jobs' in Houston. Her mother still works cleaning;L:i\

homes. . ;;': I next asked Nelda which subjects she liked the most in school. This?'

question sparked an immediate intellectual exchange. Nelda began b}'i saying that she has always been interested in history, but especiallY.( Mexican and Mexican American history. She said that she had always. wondered if the relationship between Mexico and the United Statei parallels that between Anglos and Mexicans in Texas. "Well, what <lr you think?" I asked. "I think it is very similar," she said. She went ontc\( explain very articulately that Mexico is a poor country compared to the) United States and that Mexican Americans are poor compared to Ang? los, "though they are richer here than they are in Mexico." Already th~'t budding scholar, Nelda said that she wanted to read and study more:(, find out why this parallel exists. Nelda also said that she would loveJ(

attend college and continue with her interest in history. . . I then asked Nelda whether her parents were educated, where he~

interest in history came from, and how she acquired nativelike fluency:; in English in such a short period of time. She told me that her fath¢~.' had attained a secundaria level of schooling, while her mother had re:< ceived no more than a primary education: "They both had to workl'~; support their families. Life is very hard in Mexico." {'

Regarding her interest in history and her facility with Englisn:f Nelda explained Jhat living on the border and having a lot of exposR1 to Chicanas/as, hearing the English language, and reading books'"

181 "DESDE ENTONCES, SOY CHICANA"

English influenced both her thinking and her language fluency. Her mother's experiences as a cleaning woman were pivotal. She explained that in Brownsville her mother worked for many years for a middle­ class Mexican American woman. The woman frequently gave Nelda's mother books in English as gifts, which were soon passed on to Nelda. Nelda said she welcomed the opportunity, dictionary in hand, to im­ prove her literacy in English. She recalled reading such authors as Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel in English. Most important, how­ ever, was her discovery of Rodolfo Acufia's book, Occupied America,

which provides a historical perspective on the taking of the south- .• western lands formerly owned by the Mexican government.' "Desde

. e_ntonces, soy Chicana," she said. ("Since then, I am Chicana.") Interest­

.'ingly, this was the only complete sentence she said in Spanish during · any of our interviews.*

Given the vexed relationship between immigrants and Mexican Americans, her comment about being Chicana stunned me at the time.

he actual terms Chicana and Chicano were rarely used as self­ entifiers by Mexican American students at Seguin, much less by immi­

t females. U.S.-born students prefer to refer to themselves as exican Americans, Mexicans, or Hispanics. Our hallway discussion .{thus more enlightening for me than for her, though I did jot down ',apiece of paper some additional readings that I thought she could

}!e in the public library. @elda said she often talked with her parents at home about how pos- , ,-,_- l

,e/,fr was for Mexican Americans to become middle class. Although ._s exposed to a lot of criticism about Chicanas/os, even in her own

; Nelda felt that through reading history she had come to see 'ttuggles as her own. Nelda further explained that while she will ?consider herself Mexican, she sees herself as different from • exicans who "look down" on Chicanos. Thus, she manages the ciltities of Mexican and Chicana without seeing any conflict be-

},{the term Chicana, Nelda identifies herself not only with her own biculturalism _with her experience living along the U.S.-Mexico border), but also with the Chi-

,. __ _~_n'.t ideology of seeking social justice and a right to self-determination for Mexi­ :·~:~:

182 CITY CLASSROOMS, CITY SCHOOLS

THE EXCEPTION OR THE RULE? N<

Nelda's case strongly suggests the role that ideology can play in mediat­ 1.

ing the assimilation of adolescents. Armed with excellent literacy skills 2.and empowering historical knowledge, Nelda demonstrated the capac­

ity both to achieve and to blend in within her social milieu. I later won­

dered why she was not placed in the honors or magnet level of the curriculum. I speculated that, like the vast majority of immigrant stu­

dents, she had been tracked into regular-level courses during her first

year in middle school.

While living on the border and being exposed to Chicanas/os were

contributing factors, these are arguably not sufficient for any immigrant

to assimilate as rapidly as Nelda seems to have done. Such contexts

abound wherever Mexicans and Mexican Americans are concentrated,

yet rapid assimilation within a three-year period is nevertheless excep­

tional. Clearly, Nelda's passion for history and her desire to understand more fully the sources of both Mexicans' and Chicanas/os' oppression

was gripping. The fact that she bore at least some of the emblems of

Americanized speech, dress, and interpersonal skills is a side note to a

more central awakening within her that helps explain her rapid trans­

formation into a Chicana against the historical and institutional odds of her doing so.

While it is impressive that Nelda was able to arrive at an in-depth

understanding of the Mexican American experience, it is unfortunate that she represents the exception rather than the rule. Inclirectly, her

case embodies an implicit critique of the more general pattern of sub­

tractive schooling, wherein a child's opportunity to develop her or his

existing knowledge base is virtually nonexistent. Most significantly, Nelda's case reveals how schools can support a positive sense of identity

for immigrant students in ways that are "additive" and empowering.

When immigrant youth, and indeed all Mexican American youth, are allowed to maintain their cultural identities-even if that means delib-' ,

erately exploring the distinct challenges they can expect to face as bicul<

tural people-they can develop an enhanced sense of efficacy and personal control over their futures and reap immense psychic, so1:1ru1, ·"

emotional, and academic benefits.

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' 1 DESDE ENTONCES, SOY CHICANA" 183

1. Angela Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of

Caring (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999).

Rodolfo Acufia, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 3rd ed. (New York:

HarperCollins, 1988).