Para mi Mamá: A Mexicana Mother's Educational Her-story Told by Her Daughter

• In Event: 70.030 - Honoring Legacies of Resistance: Engaging Oral Life Histories of Mexican Immigrant Parents

Abstract

In this paper, I use my mother’s educational oral her-story to illustrate the lived experiences of Mexicana students growing up in a state of migration between the United States (U.S.) and México. I focus on my mother’s educational experiences in Santa Barbara, CA and in the pueblos of Tepehuaje de Morelos and San Martín de Hidalgo in Jalisco, México. Through the performance of a monologue I illustrate how Mexicana students both experienced and resisted educational practices associated with immigrant Mexican students in the 1970s and 80s.
To analyze my mother’s educational oral her-story I use Critical Race Theory (CRT). While CRT acknowledges that race and racism are endemic and permanent factors in examining and understanding the experiences of People of Color, it also accounts for intersectionality, claiming that other systems of oppression like social class, gender, and sexuality are as imperative in understanding the experiences of People of Color (Solórzano, & Yosso, 2001; Yosso, 2006).
Moreover, because I am interested in understanding the experiences of immigrant Mexicana students, in particular my mothers, I draw on Dolores Delgado Bernal’s (1998) Chicana feminist epistemology. This methodology is concerned with the knowledge production of Chicanas and emphasizes the political and ethical issues involved in the research process. A Chicana feminist epistemology, “demonstrates that our experiences as Mexican women are legitimate, appropriate, and effective in designing, conducting, and analyzing educational research” (p. 563).
I conducted my mother’s educational oral her-story in two sittings. In total the oral her-story lasted about two hours and covered her educational trajectory beginning in primary school to high school. We also talked about future educational goals and the type of pedagogy she employs with her own children. The oral her-story was transcribed by myself and analyzed in conjunction with my mother.
Using my mother’s educational oral her-story, along with educational historiography on Chicanas/os, I found that Mexicana students experienced a two-tiered educational system from the 1970s to the mid 1980s, both in the U.S and México. In the context of the U.S., I point to the hygiene practices, informal school rules, media representations, tracking, and school culture, to illustrate the unjust treatment of Mexicana students. I assert that it is a system of white supremacy that sustains these practices and ultimately makes it the “norm” for Mexicana students. In the context of México, I focus on gender expectations, as well as class-affiliated practices in schools. While there are connections and divergences between the schooling experiences of Mexicana students in the U.S. and México, I ultimately show how Mexicana students experienced an oppressive form of education due to their intersecting identities as Women of Color.
In the field of educational history, one pattern remains today, Chicanas continue to be understudied and underrepresented. My mother’s educational her-story sheds light on the multidimensional experiences of Chicanas throughout the educational pipeline. Most importantly, it highlights the struggle for women, specifically Mexican-American women, to pursue higher education.

Author

• Alma Itze Flores, University of California - Los Angeles