Primero Madres: love and mothering in the educational lives of Latina/os

ABSTRACT

This article examines the historical and contemporary role of Latina madres in the educational lives of their children and communities. Latinas, in their work as mother-activists, have played critical roles in the schooling lives of their children, seeking educational equality for their communities in general, amidst the growing racial politics they contended with within US schools. I aim to examine here how these mothers challenged traditional conceptions of feminism, as they bridge a politics of motherhood and activism for survival in their everyday lives. These mothers transform their children’s lives – and by extension their own lives and the lives of their community – through discourses of love that complicate traditional gender roles and forge new articulations of feminist solidarity. I utilize Chicana feminist theory to highlight the intersectionality of Latina identities to examine the quotidian struggles of women occupying multiple roles in the face of inequality in contemporary US society.

KEYWORDS::

• Cultural studies
• motherhood
• historical
• North America
• Latinas

Acknowledgment

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback, as well as fellow panelists at the 2015 Gender and Education conference at the University of Roehampton. I would also like to thank Richard T. Rodrìguez, Norma Marrun, Michele Eodice, and Penny Pasque for their generous feedback as I developed this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Mirelsie Velazquez, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Educational Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oklahoma. As a historian of education her work focuses on Latina/o urban and women’s histories.

Notes

1. Though not interchangeable, I use the terms Latina/o, Mexican, and Mexican-American throughout the article depending on what population or historical moment I am discussing.

2. http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/paula-ml-moya-decolonial-love-interview-junot-d%C3%ADaz.

3. Within a US context, the term ‘Brown bodies’ is used to speak to non-White, non-Black individuals. Within Cindy Cruz’s work, the term is used ‘to develop a critical practice that can propel the brown body from a neocolonial past and into the embodiments of radical subjectivities.’ (Cruz 2001, 658)

4. For a detailed account of Latinos in the USA, see Juan Gonzalez’s Harvest of Empire: The History of Latinos in America. Gonzalez offers an account of the historical processes that have led to the rise and development of the population, beginning with initial European colonization of the Americas to the present-day lived realities of the various groups in the USA.

5. See Lauren Lefty’s work on Evelina López Antonetty at http://educatingharlem.cdrs.columbia.edu/omeka/neatline/show/evelinas-harlem#records/736; Laura Kaplan’s work at https://traue.commons.gc.cuny.edu/volume-iv-issue-2-spring-2016/1050-2/.

6. For more on teacher demographics, see https://www.nea.org/assets/docs/Time_for_a_Change_Diversity_in_Teaching_Revisited_(web).pdf.