Latina Youth, Education, and Citizenship: A Feminist Transnational Analysis

Abstract

This article explores adolescent Latinas’ citizenship identities in school from a feminist transnational perspective. Data were drawn from qualitative research studies on Latina youths’ educational experiences and from a qualitative project conducted by the author. Cultural citizenship theories were used to analyze the data. The analysis revealed that adolescent Latinas experience their citizenship identities’ being-made through two strategies: (i) stereotypical images and (ii) language ideologies. The analysis also revealed that Latina youth self-make their citizenship identities through three strategies: (i) embracing education, (ii) cultural practices, and (iii) new citizenship identities in transnational spaces. Analyses suggest the need for more transnational approaches in educational research and practice on citizenship education. A feminist transnational approach highlights how discourses and images on Latinas, Latina/o immigration, and citizens materialize in school and provide the conditions in which adolescent Latinas negotiate their citizenship identities.

Keywords:

• citizenship identities
• cultural citizenship
• immigration
• Latina youth
• transnationalism

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Latina youth who made this research possible, David Hicks who provided support throughout the review process, and my colleagues who provided helpful feedback, namely Takumi Sato, Sarah Morris, and Claire Robbins.

Notes

1. ¹From October 2010 to December 2010, I conducted three semi-structured interviews, for a total of 24 interviews, with eight first-, second-, and third-generation adolescent Latinas who attended high school in the greater Miami, FL, area. All names used are pseudonyms. For more information on this research, including participant demographics and how and why the data were collected and analyzed, see Bondy (2011). For more information on the citizenship identities of the seven first- and second-generation Latina youth, see Bondy (2014).

2. ²I italicize terms to suggest that by understanding them as socially constructed and contested rather than as natural and normal, the restrictions that limit diverse realities of Latina youth become more visible (Alarcón et al., 1999).

3. ³The Immigration Act of 1924 established a U.S. national origins quota system which created major restrictions in the flow of immigrants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and southern and eastern Europe. For a more detailed discussion of the nuances of the Immigration Act of 1924, see Ngai (2004).

4. ⁴Arizona SB 1070 (2010), Georgia HB 87 (2011), and Alabama HB 56 (2011) aim to legitimate racial profiling of immigrants with or without papers. Arizona HB 2281 (2010) prohibited school districts from offering a Mexican American studies program.

5. ⁵Unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied youth have been arriving from Central America at the U.S./Mexico border. Many are fleeing to escape organized crime violence and poverty in the region and to seek protection and reunite with family in the United States. Rather than seek to understand the root causes of the youths’ migration, many reactions to their arrival have been less than favorable.

6. ⁶Although Hispanic is a contested term, I have kept participants’ original words.

7. ⁷Race and national origin are linked to nativeness in English. The notion that White Americans do not have accents and that people of color and immigrants do is a commonly held view (Lippi-Green, 1997; Shuck, 2006).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer M. Bondy

JENNIFER M. BONDY is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061. She can be contacted at Email: [email protected].