Bienvenidos,
Welcome to Volume 15, Number 3, of the Journal of Latinos and Education. With your support, the journal has grown in stature and impact as a premier research publication. The journal provides a cross-, multi-, and interdisciplinary forum for scholars and writers from diverse disciplines who share a common interest in the analysis, discussion, critique, and dissemination of educational issues that affect Latinos.
We have seven contributions to this issue’s FEATURE ARTICLES. The first, by Karen Vocke, Carl Westine, Brooks Applegate, and Ilse Schweitzer VanDonkelaar, is titled “Serving Latino Farmworker Students in Michigan Summer Migrant Programs: Directors’ Perspectives.” This contribution is extremely timely, as it addresses the issues affecting migrant farmworker families, who for years have faced issues of poverty, social and cultural isolation, sometimes limited or no knowledge of English, and fragmented educational experiences due to constant mobility. This article provides readers with a glimpse of what summer migrants experience and explores the perspectives of 30 directors of summer migrant programs in Michigan. This study reveals the complicated and political nature of running summer programs for migrant farmworker families and the need for increased communication and policy changes.
Next, Maritza Concha, Maria Elena Villar, Rocio Tafur-Salgado, Sandra Ibanez, and Lauren Azevedo present us with an article titled “Fatherhood Education From a Cultural Perspective: Evolving Roles and Identities After a Fatherhood Intervention for Latinos in South Florida.” Using mixed methods the authors utilize gender-role theory to consider the involvement of Latino fathers in their children’s lives as a result of participating in a fatherhood educational intervention. This article explores issues of identity among fathers and calls for its redefinition, particularly among certain aspects of the Latino culture. The authors give a thought-provoking analysis of the findings and offer suggestions for how studies like this can help create culturally competent behavioral interventions for Latino fathers.
Next, Sarah Gallo and Holly Link present us with “Exploring the Borderlands: Elementary School Teachers’ Navigation of Immigration Practices in a New Latino Diaspora Community,” which reports on a 5-year ethnographic study that explored the school experiences of Mexican immigrant children in a New Latino Diaspora community. The authors investigate how teachers understood and responded to increasing deportation-based immigration practices affecting children’s lives. This article explores the varying ways teachers deal with the complexities of working with Mexican American children in the New Latino Diaspora and provides an argument as to why teacher education programs need to prepare teachers to become border crossers who engage with aspects of difference, such as immigration status, among other issues often ignored in schools.
Emily R. Crawford and Noelle Witherspoon Arnold have contributed an article titled “Exploring the Meaning and Paths of Advocacy for Undocumented Students’ Access to Education.” They speak to the widespread national debate over how to address and advocate for undocumented immigrants in the United States. Grounded in phenomenology, their article asks how individuals describe their decision-making process or choice to advocate for undocumented students. This article identifies the conceptualizations, strategies, and thought processes of advocate educators for undocumented students. Their contribution reveals that advocates’ backgrounds and resources, goals, and identity and the communities in which they advocate influence perceptions and practices of advocacy.
Gabriela Chavira, Catherine R. Cooper, and Yolanda Vasquez-Salgado, in “Pathways to Achievement: Career and Educational Aspirations and Expectations of Latina/o Immigrant Parents and Early Adolescents,” draw from sociocultural and related theories to examine four questions about career and educational aspirations and expectations among 24 immigrant Latina/o early adolescents and their parents as predictors of students’ grades. First, adolescents’ career aspirations and expectations were correlated, and both parents and adolescents held educational aspirations that exceeded their expectations. Second, most adolescents and parents held congruent educational aspirations. Third, alignment between students’ career and educational aspirations was uncommon. Fourth, parents’ educational aspirations and adolescents’ career–education alignment predicted students’ grades. The authors go on to discuss students’ ongoing reconciliation between aspirations and academic skills and the multiple ways immigrant Latino parents contribute to their adolescents’ future.
Isabel Martinez contributes with “Supporting Two Households: Unaccompanied Mexican Minors and Their Absences From U.S. Schools,” which examines minors’ lives on both sides of the Mexico–U.S. border. Her article demonstrates how these teenage minors first develop ideas about supporting their Mexican families with U.S. dollars and, on carrying these ideas to New York City, are able to fulfill both them and the extra burden of additional residential household expenses by forgoing any sort of school going. The article discusses how the unaccompanied Mexican minors find that the employment they are eligible for is seemingly bountiful but its features allow for only one or the other: supporting themselves and their households or attending school. She concludes by reviewing several alternative educational programs that could serve these youths, including a new initiative that may provide a model for educating unaccompanied immigrant teenage minors in the United States.
Sonia Enid Maldonado Torres contributes with “Understanding the Relationship Between Latino Students’ Preferred Learning Styles and Their Language Spoken at Home.” Statistical analyses were run for all of the variables included in her study and are discussed in detail, which in the area of language sheds light on the learning preferences of students who speak Spanish, English, and both languages at home. Identifying the learning styles of ESL students could serve as a steppingstone to help teachers develop approaches geared toward facilitating second language acquisition.
We have one contribution to the ESSAYS, REVIEWS, AND INTERVIEWS section. José Molina-Naar writes an essay titled “Current Sociopolitical, Sociocultural, and Sociolinguistic Issues of Latino Immigrants in Julia Álvarez’s Novel How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.” Looking at Julia Álvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, the author illustrates how many young Latino immigrants currently strive to fit into American society and struggle to achieve success in a linguistically and culturally foreign environment. At the same time, he explores the sociopolitical, sociocultural, and sociolinguistic issues many Latino immigrants face in their new lives in the United States.
Last, we have one contribution to the BOOK AND MEDIA REVIEWS section. Tiffany A. Flowers reviews the book Adult Literacy and American Identity: The Moonlight Schools and Americanization Programs by Samantha NeCamp and provides a critical review the book, its intent, and the content of each chapter.
Continue to read ahead and enjoy the full value and complexity of the articles presented in Volume 15, Number 3, of the Journal of Latinos and Education. We want to extend our appreciation to the authors for their manuscript submissions and commend them for their contributions to the field of Latinos and education. The editorial staff looks forward to supporting your continued research and practices that illuminate the myriad circumstances in which Latinas/os and their families continue to struggle for educational excellence and equity. Your support and this volume affirm the importance of scholarship and creative analysis that attempt to give voice to a community of learners that is silent no longer.
Thank you—muchisimas gracias.