Valuing Counterstories: First-Generation Latinx Women Within Predominantly White Universities

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Storying the Intersectionality of Gender and Race in a White World

Abstract

What were the lived experiences of six Latinx women who graduated from private, predominantly-White institutions? This study applied a critical race theory framework to these experiences. Working together with the researcher in a culturally-responsive, anti-deficit methodology, the participants shared their counter-stories of microaggressions, identity-threats, and the enactment of White privilege. These counter-stories contradict institutional majoritarian narratives of fairness, color-blindness, and diversity. The participants also shared details of family support, a preference for collectivism versus individualism, and the ways in which allies, mentors, and friends had assisted degree completion. Their stories are necessary to the enlargement of first-generation theory. Also, the voices of Latinx first-generation women are crucial to the further development of fair and just higher education policy and praxis.

Author

• Pamela Ezell, Riverdale Country School