Motherscholar: Queer, Mamá, y Latina Educada

• In Event: Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: Beyond Knowing the Motherscholar: Motherscholars Engaging in Self-Defining Motherscholarship

Abstract

Research on the experiences of women of color, who are also mothers have been recently defined as motherscholars (Matias, AERA 2011 panel). As a Latina mother, who is also queer, my experience of motherscholarship is one that is impacted by the hegemonic power and privilege throughout the academy (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Leonardo, 2009; McIntosh, 2001; and Bonilla-Silva, 2001). In “Mapping the Margins,” Kimberlé Crenshaw (1995) analyzes the different ways in which gender, race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality intersect in shaping the lives of women of color. “The fact that women of color are situated within at least two subordinated groups that frequently pursue conflicting political agendas…is a dimension of intersectional disempowerment which men of color and white women seldom confront” (Crenshaw, 1995, p.360).

The academy privileges those who are white, male, and heterosexual, all three of which queer madres Latinas (Latina mothers) are not. This paper seeks to contribute to the silenced narratives of motherscholars in the academy, especially of queer women of color. More explicitly, this paper seeks to share how the experiences of practitioners outside the protected realm of tenure mirrors what Anzaldúa (1987) describes as living in the borderlands and developing a mestiza consciousness. Delgado Bernal (2002) stated, “the mestiza identity is a dual identity that is located at the cross roads of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and patriarchy found in the dominant society and in Chicana/o communities,” (p.626). These multiple forms of oppression call for a mestiza consciousness to be able to fight against the daily forms of discrimination that they encounter, which become more evident as they become more educated.

This paper aims to provide a counterstory (Delgado & Stefanic, 2001), a testimonio that provides insight to the nuanced existence of being a Latina in higher education, who recently was awarded a doctoral degree, is married to a woman, and a mother of a multi-racial, bi-cultural, and bi-lingual daughter. I seek to share how daily decisions within the academy to how I mother my daughter are informed by my mestiza consciousness, and how these decisions inform what can often be described as acts of transformational resistance (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). Using a CRT methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002), this paper will hold race central in conceptualizing what motherscholarship looks like for queer mothers in higher education. CRT and Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) “help expose the ways in which so-called race-neutral institutional policies and practices perpetuate racial or ethnic subordination” (Villalpando, 2004, p.42). Valdes (1996) describes how other dimensions of Latinos’ identity, such as language, immigration status, gender, sexuality, and class further complicate the educational experiences of Latinos in education. Lat Crit is often viewed as a more valid and reliable lens through which to analyze the intersections of Latinos’ identities, specifically addressing their intersection with oppression of race, gender, and class (Solórzano & Bernal, 2001).

The data sets in this paper include journal entries, graduate work, and critical self-reflections.

Author

• Maria Angelica Garcia, Lewis & Clark