Silence and Erasure: Life Histories of Mexican-Origin Girls in California Reformatory Schools, 1942–1955

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: Historicizing for Racial Justice: Reform Schools, Student Activism, and Affirmative Action

Abstract

This paper explores the experiences of Mexican-origin women into a sociohistorical narrative that explores discourses of patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism, capitalism, and nationalism in the convergence of the educational and juvenile justice system in the state of California. From 1913-1962, the Ventura School for Girls (VSG) operated during a key period in California’s formation of the state’s juvenile justice system. While very limited records and documentation about the school exists, this ethnographic study centers the experiences of former students who attended VSG between 1944-1952, through the use of oral history and archival research. During this key period, the majority of young women referred to reformatories were sentenced due to what were often referred to as “status” or “sex-related” crimes, which included being victims or rape or incest, staying out late, running away, or for performing gender non-conforming practices. Young women and girls in these reformatories were seen by state agents and social workers as “tainted” and “shamed for good” and they, nor their parents had much choice in being sent to these schools. Some research has been conducted of Mexican-origin young women during this time period which provides great understanding of a significant period of time where massive population shifts and war brought forth many social anxieties regarding this population (Chavez-Garcia, 2012; Escobedo, 2013; Ramirez, 2009).
This project seeks to add to the historical and cultural work that other scholars have pursued, by exploring and situating the narratives of these women as significant to the discussion of how deficit cultural pathologies emerge which inform institutional discourses, practices and policies. Utilizing critical race history and Chicana feminist framework the central theme in this work examines how these young women engage in acts of refusal and resistance acknowledging the significance of how Mexican-origin women navigate through the borderlands of dominant culture. As colonized and exploited bodies, these women inherit legacies of conquest and become heir to numerous forms of erasure and presence. These social constructions inform the daily curricular and pedagogical practices which reproduce deficit discourses concerning this population in schools today. These histories and narratives expose systems of power and ask broader questions of what roles these discourses play in society, and how they impact the experiences of youth in the U.S.
As Michel-Roplh Trouiloit (1995) argues that in writing history, not everything gets remembered or recorded. There is a silencing in the creation of archives—the repositories of historical records. This work contributes to a gap in understanding the colonial discourses, practices, and policies of how non-dominant women experience a distinct pathological genealogy of criminalization. The focus of such project and the methodological approach addresses a major historical gap in bringing to light the voices of women whose stories have been erased or distorted from the archive. Such work becomes critical as there is a need to unpack the connection between raced-gendered constructions of the body and the current social relations that reproduce inequitable educational and social conditions.

Author

• Maria C. Malagon, California State University - Fullerton