Getting There Cuando No Hay Camino (When There Is No Path): Paths to Discovery Testimonios by Chicanas in STEM

Abstract

This essay outlines how the book, Paths to Discovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering (Cantú, 2008) came about. I then use testimonio theory to analyze the narratives in this book as the data of a qualitative study, and I describe the general themes that the analysis highlights. ¹ I scrutinize the factors that affected the authors’ success in school and career, including the roles of parents, teachers, extended family, and community; I also describe the impact of the intersection of gender, race, and class on their academic journeys. This article looks at Chicanas ² in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and concludes with policy recommendations for increasing the number of Chicanas and Latinas in STEM.

Notes

1. Testimonio as theory (Latina Feminist Group, 2001) is useful when looking at life stories of abject or marginalized subjects, for it allows them a voice and agency that the conditions described may not allow.

2. I use the term “Chicana” or “Chicano” for the Mexican origin population because it is the preferred term of our book contributors who are all of Mexican origin. I use the term “Latina” or “Latino” to refer to the larger group of Latinas/os that includes Puerto Ricans and those of Central and South American origin.

3. Because demographically the Latinidades is the largest group of all, and because I am Chicana, I have chosen to focus my academic work on Chicanas. The MALCS annual meetings, while not limited to Chicanas, is attended predominantly by Chicana students and professors. I do not know of any study that has tracked the stories of Latinas in STEM, but my own personal observation is that often immigrants from Latin America and Puerto Ricans are more likely than Chicanas to be in graduate school or in jobs in the STEM fields, albeit this number is also miniscule.

4. The Latina Feminist Group (2001) is a collective of Latina scholars who came together to create a theory of testimonio-based epistemologies.

5. Latinidades refers to the various origins for Latinas and Latinos in the United States; in other words, it is an umbrella term for the peoples and cultures from, for example, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Central America, Columbia, Cuba.

6. At least one other MALCS annual meeting also secured NSF funding for a similar effort: the MALCS meeting held in 2008 at the University of California in Santa Cruz.

7. For the final publication, we added an engineer and two other working scientists who had been unable to attend the conference.

8. The title was changed several times as we attempted to find one that would reflect the book's content. The editor discouraged us from using the term, “testimonio” as she feared that it might be misunderstood as being more akin to the religious concept of bearing witness to a spiritual event. While I resisted, I queried the participants and they agreed to using “autobiographies,” instead of testimonios.

9. Funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 2001) refers “to the historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being” (p. 133). In a later work (González, Moll, & Amanti 2005), they developed these ideas further, especially in reference to classroom practices.