Reimagining Careers to Medicine: State of Coyolxuahqui and Resistance of Latinx Premedical Students

• In Event: Making Mundo Nuevo: Advancing an Anzaldúan Theorization of Latinx Resistance in Educational Research

Abstract

Objectives
This study examines acts of resistance through course taking of Latinx premedical students as they persist towards becoming physicians. Applying Anzaldúa’s (2002) concept of Coyolxuahqui and culturally-relevant pláticas methodology (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), this paper advances an understanding of career pathways that is inclusive of culture and community, and resists deficit framing of Latinx student trajectories. This paper’s focus on Coyolxuahqui reveals how Latinx premedical students reimagine their careers as physicians to serve Latinx communities.

Theoretical Framework
This paper employs Anzaldúa’s Coyolxuahqui imperative (2002) as a state where you put the pieces back together and reinvent the self. Coyolxuahqui is based on indigenous myths of Coyolxuahqui being dismembered through painful fragmentation (Anzaldúa, 2015). I apply this concept to understand the Latinx premedical students’ actions and feelings of dismembering in their STEM courses and how Latinx students attempt to heal and resist through their course selections to begin to heal themselves holistically.

Methods and Data Sources
This study uses the culturally relevant methodology of pláticas, which draws from Chicana/Latina feminist epistemology (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016). This study is based on 25 first-generation Latinx college students attending a large research university. Two pláticas were conducted with each participant. The first plática focused on relationship building between the researcher and the research collaborators, explanation of the research project, and learning about the participants’ families and educational backgrounds. The second plática focused on participants’ experiences in STEM. The pláticas also allowed Latinx students to share non-traditional academic measures of success that were important in their college trajectory. Additionally, observations and reviews of documents were conducted. Further, I employed the notion of “cultural intuition,” which is when a Latina researcher brings their professional and personal experiences into the research process (Delgado Bernal, 1998).

Findings
Applying Anzaldúa’s Coyolxuahqui imperative led to critical findings on Latinx students’ resistance to the traditional premedical pathway, which consists of traditionally majoring in Biology. Findings reveal that Latinx students experienced moments of stuckness in STEM and rejected traditional science courses. Instead, Latinx students decided to enroll and double major in Public Health, Global Health, and Ethnic Studies based on their interests in their Latinx home communities and Latinx health disparities. Thus, Latinx students are reimagining their futures as physicians to serve the Latinx community.

Significance
This paper challenges the deficit framing of Latinx students struggling academically in STEM majors and leaving STEM; instead, through the use of Anzaldúa’s Coyolxuahqui, this study reveals that Latinx students experience a state of “stuck” and struggle with STEM course offering and their actions to resist and advance towards medicine through their course selection that infuses Latinx communities and health disparities.

Author

• Katherine Arias Garcia, University of California - Irvine