Todo sobre mi madre: Latina teachers’ lives and the burden of maternal approval

Abstract

In this article, we draw from an in-depth interview sequence to story how a Latina’s delayed professional trajectory into the New South schoolhouse was, in large part, due to her mother’s warning that K-12 teaching was a dead-end career for losers. Our analysis underscores the emotional tensions that Janet Castillo (a pseudonym) navigated as she struggled to reconcile the burden of her mother’s approval with her own professional dreams. We suggest that even as contemporary research has voiced Latinas’ multi-layered resistance to their essentialization as subaltern women in oppressive educational and professional spaces, more nuanced inquiry is needed to understand the profound influence that Latina mothers exert on their daughters’ choices to (not) teach. We conclude with recommendations for research and praxis surrounding the dynamics of families in growing the Latinx teacher pipeline.

Keywords:

• Latina teacher pipeline
• Latina teachers
• Latina teacher recruitment and retention. Familismo
• Educación

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alicia H. Reid

Alicia H. Reid, PhD, is an independent scholar and alumna of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA.

Spencer Salas

Spencer Salas, PhD, is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA.

Delma Ramos

Delma Ramos, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA.

Carmen Serrata

Carmen Serrata, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA.