Ley de la Vida: Latina/o Immigrant Parents Experience of Their Children’s Transition to Higher Education

ABSTRACT

Using an emerging model of family engagement in higher education and the concept of parental role construction as a framework, this study presents the Ley de la Vida (Law of Life) process to explore how Latina/o immigrant parents experience their children’s transition to higher education. Centered on the experiences of 15 parents of first-generation Latina/o students, the study illuminates how parental experiences of their children’s transition and new learning ultimately shape their supportive behaviors. Findings suggest that parents interact with colleges and universities both directly and indirectly—as their children transition to a college context, their own identities as parents transition and they re-construct their parental roles. This transition is conflicting for parents—while they are extremely proud of their children for going to college, they also experience frustration, sadness, and depression. Findings have important implications for the potential of institutions and families to work together to improve the academic outcomes of first-generation Latina/o undergraduate students.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental support
• Latina/o undergraduate students
• first-generation students
• parent and family engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Since this study focuses on biological parents’ support, I use the term “parental” engagement to refer to this relationship and dynamic. Nevertheless, research and practice are now moving to use the term “family engagement,” acknowledging that parents are not the only individuals who support students in their educational trajectories (Henderson & Mapp, 2002).

2. In this study, “first-generation student” refers to students who are first in their family to attend a higher education institution in the United States.

3. The in-vivo term “Ley de la Vida,” or law of life, emerged from a participant’s description of the process of coming to terms with her daughter leaving home for higher education.

4. All names used in this paper are pseudonyms.

5. Family is broadly defined here to include a variety of household arrangements, including single-parent households, combinations of households, and/or all extended relatives.

6. Empty nest syndrome refers to the period of transition experienced by parents or caregivers, after children leave their childhood home, and they experience feelings of depression, sadness, or grief (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

7. In other work, I conceptualize and explore undocumented parents’ sacrificios (sacrifices), defining them as the conscious decisions and investments undocumented Latina/o parents make to support their children’s educational attainment, which come at a very personal cost due to constraints they face as undocumented immigrants (Cuevas, in press).