White Profs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Radical Revolutionaries or Complicit Colonists?

Abstract

This paper calls for a radical revolution in Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) grounded in the ideological conviction that racism in education is structural, oppressive to all, and distinctly harming to students, staff, and faculty of color. Deconstructing racism in the academy must be viewed as part of the institutional identity of HSIs. This work requires a coalition with those privileged and empowered by current structures and in whose name and shadow racism thrives—White people. We discuss how White professors at HSIs must join the radical revolution to fight against racism and for a cultural change outside the legalized consensus of counting Hispanics without ensuring that funding is utilized to serve them and their communities.

Keywords:

• Hispanic-Serving Institutions
• coalitions
• White professors
• revolutions
• racism

Notes

¹In our discourse we reject the term Hispanic and deliberately use the term Latin@ in the interest of best representing, with imperfect language, people, genders, and ethnicities from all of Latin America. The term HSI itself veils pluralism and complexity. HSIs are each distinct in population. We call for work and terminology that is locally informed and relevant.