Ser Marica es pa’ Machos: Agency, Activism, and Coping While Engineering (Poster 6)

• In Event: Constructing Educational Possibilities for Latin* Engineering Students: Call to Action for the Institutions and Systems That Serve Them

Abstract

Objectives
Our collaborative autoethnography explores our experiences of becoming engineering educators at the intersection of our gay, Latinx, engineering, and educator identities. We engage in a rich discussion given that our histories vary greatly: a Miami-Mexi-Colombian, a Brazilian, a Colombian, and a Puerto Rican. This discussion allowed us to find parallels between our stories that are linked to the identities we share.

Theoretical Frameworks
We drew elements from several frameworks for our findings section. We built on the social connection (Cwir et al., 2011) provided by our shared identities, social exclusion related to physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003), and on self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1989) as we discussed our mechanisms for coping with institutional and/or non-institutional hostilities.

Methods
As researchers and participants, we conducted a collaborative autoethnographic study. Together, we designed and collected data and analyzed one another’s narratives. This collaborative approach fostered a red de confianza [loosely translates to trusting relationship], allowing for deeper engagement and openness about our lived experiences. We conducted data analysis through qualitative coding to answer our guiding research questions, exploring our navigation of engineering spaces in the past and present.

Data Sources
We collected data in three ways. First, we created radar charts to visualize the magnitude with which we expressed our four shared identities across different periods. Second, we created written reflections to narrate the development of these identities. Lastly, we used guiding questions to examine each other’s reflections.

Results
Our analysis found institutional and non-institutional hostilities we experienced for being LGTBQ+ and Latinx while navigating engineering. Institutional hostilities refer to experiences in formal education settings, including the self-repression of our gay identities in higher education or bullying in K-12 education within Latinx and non-Latinx contexts. Non-institutional hostilities refer to homophobic and discriminatory experiences in familiar and communitarian spaces. We developed internal and external coping mechanisms as reactions to these hostilities. Internal mechanisms include “what we did for ourselves to accept reality”—to understand that there are things within and outside our control—to become independent and lessen the pain of the hostilities. External coping mechanisms include actions others have taken for us, what we have done for others, and the effects of our coping mechanisms on others. Lastly, we discuss how our coping processes evolved into activism as we built confidence and resilience to deal with hostilities, a key part of being educators and changing the engineering status quo.

Scholarly Significance
While our experiences are not meant to be generalizable to others who share our identities, they exhibit what engineering students can experience. Our “dealing” and “coping” felt parallel to the persistence and grit frequently discussed in the literature and can serve as an additional lens to view how students endure demanding engineering environments to embody, change, and redefine engineering culture.

Authors

• Héctor E Rodríguez-Simmonds, Boston College

• Leonardo Pollentini Marcos, Purdue University

• Cristian Vargas-Ordóñez, Purdue University

• Kevin J. Kaufman-Ortiz, Purdue University