"...Fight and Work for What You Want in Life": Understanding the Foundations of Latina/o/x Excellence Cultivated at Home

• In Event: 25.057 - Our Hemispheric Legacy: Reclaiming Educational Excellence Through the Voices and Experiences of Latina/o/x Youth

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes
This paper situates Latina/o/x excellence as identified by high school youth as a culturally-embedded practice born, taught, and cultivated through the eyes of family members in students’ homes. Our objective is twofold: 1) to examine how excellence is learned and cultivated in the home of Latina/o/x families and 2) address how excellence is a fundamental practice in the everyday lives of Latinx youth.

Perspective(s) or Theoretical Framework
To highlight excellence as a culturally-embedded practice in the lives of Latina/o/x, we use Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005). Community Cultural Wealth includes social, linguistic, resistance, navigational, and familial capitals. Through these capitals, Yosso (2005) highlights the assets in Communities of Color that are often underused and overlooked. Community Cultural Wealth looks at individuals and communities through their assets, rather than their deficits while still acknowledging institutional barriers and material deficits.

Methods, techniques or modes of inquiry
The Loteria Cards project created an opportunity for 9th graders to identify and interview someone at home who exemplified excellence in the eyes of the students. Most students selected a close family member such as their mother or father. Students asked four standard questions about excellence including how excellence was generally defined and where it was learned, and what excellence looks like in the home, school, and community. Students interviewed their family member at home and captured their responses in writing. Then students created a Loteria card capturing a representation of the person they interviewed using interview data.

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Data sources include 17 Loteria cards and the interview protocols used by students to interview a family member in the home. Each member of the research team received copies of each interview with the accompanying Loteria card. Each interview was analyzed line-by-line looking for salient codes and themes. Themes were named, described, situated within the context of the study, then linked to participants’ verbatim data, and finally analyzed in reference to larger questions guiding the overall study.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Findings from the Loteria cards and interviews of the family members who students believe reflect excellence in the home reflect two key points: 1) Excellence in the home of these Latina/o/x students is focused on the inner workings of the family and 2) Excellence is learned intergenerationally in the home and in turn influences student definitions. Being able to identify the ways in which excellence is being cultivated in their home provides insight as to how these students and their families have been practicing excellence in their everyday lives that serve as evidence of generational teachings.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
In spite of historical and pervasive social injustices and inequalities, especially in education, Latinas/os/xs have demonstrated a level of resistance, persistence, and existence, even in historic times that marginalizes, criminalizes, and demonizes the population on micro- to macro-levels. One way to counter injustice is to intentionally focus on excellence particularly in education.

Authors

• Lorena Gutierrez, University of California Riverside

• Yajaira Calderon, University of California - Riverside