Latino Immigrant Parents Challenging Dominant Frameworks

• In Event: Partnerships With Immigrant Latino Youth and Families: Aligning Models and Practice From Childhood Through College

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand how Latino immigrant parents of organize to create change on behalf of their children and community. The context of the study is a family literacy program led by a community-based organization. The research focuses on the organization’s work to engage parents in organizing a new pilot/charter elementary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
In exploring parent organizing work of the organization, I draw from two perspectives: parent involvement and community organizing for school reform. Schools often define parent involvement by activities in which parents participate at school, such as volunteering, parent-teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights (Snell, Miguel, & East, 2009). Defining parent involvement this way can ignore many activities Latina/o parents already engage in while defining them as uninvolved and uninterested in their children’s education. In contrast, community organizers for school reform often define parent engagement as activities and interactions structured by parents, designating them as citizens and change agents who can transform urban schools (Shirley, 1997).
This paper addresses three questions: How did leaders of the organization conceptualize parent involvement? How did they put this into practice in parent workshops? To what degree did these practices challenge or reproduce traditional forms of working with Latino immigrant parents?
Methods

Because I was interested in developing relationships based on solidarity and reciprocity with participants of the organization, I rejected the role of “spectator” and instead engaged in roles of “witness” and “active participant.” Engaged ethnography, which involves such building of solidarity and trust, enabled me to gain access to participants’ experiences and perspectives (Nygreen, 2006, 2009).
Data collection and analysis focused on participant observations at the organization’s family literacy program, parent organizing workshops, documentation meetings, video and audio transcripts of staff meetings, and relevant artifacts, including flyers, parent-produced videos, and lesson plans for parent workshops and the youth program.

Results

With regard to the first question, the study revealed the organization conceptualized their goal as parent engagement rather than parent involvement. Central to this is empowering and participation of parents – not just in circumscribed parent roles like fundraising and volunteering, but in all aspects of school governance, curriculum, and vision.
Second, to empower parents to become critical thinkers and active participants in educational reform, the organization provided structures and tools through parent workshops. During these workshops, organizers challenged parents to critically analyze deficit constructs of Latino immigrant parents as passive and uninvolved in their children’s education. And third, organizers and parents alike pushed for an anti-deficit perspective that defined parents as leaders and partners whose voice and experiences matter.

Significance

This paper is significant for school leaders, educators, and researchers who are attempting to understand the possibilities and limits for meaningfully engaging Latino immigrant parents in education reform. On a small scale, this study provides an example of organizers working with the Latino immigrant community from which we can learn. As educators deeply committed to working for social change, what can we do to support more projects like these?

Author

• Ana Paulina Moreno, University of California - Santa Cruz