UndocuTeacher Pathways + Practices: Perspectives From California and Nevada

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Building on their struggles to expand access and equity in education, many undocumented students aspire to become teachers themselves. As Teachers of Color who also experience precarity because of their status, their pathways into the classroom and pedagogical practices are unique. Bringing together a mixed-status group of scholars, practitioners, and students, the symposium will present innovative research from California and Nevada. We discuss experiences of both aspiring and current UndocuTeachers in order to highlight key structural barriers they face and how they navigate the profession. The symposium helps center undocumented experiences that are not often represented in discussions of intersectional teacher identities, especially as concerns over racial justice and diversity of the teacher workforce grow more urgent.

Sub Unit

• Division K - Teaching and Teacher Education / Division K - Section 01: Intersectional Approaches to Teaching and Teacher Education

Chair

• Esa Syeed, California State University - Long Beach

Papers

• Trapdoors, Chutes, and Ladders: A Critical Race Feminista Analysis of Contemporary Inequities in the Nevada Teacher Preparation Pipeline - Marcela Rodriguez-Campo, Nevada State University; Mariana P. Sarmiento Hernandez, Nevada State College

• “I Wanna Be the Teacher I Never Had”: How Undocuteachers Experience Power and Precarity in California - Esa Syeed, California State University - Long Beach

• UndocuTeacher Voices: Testimonios of Best Practices for Empowering Undocumented Students - Estefanny Lopez-Cruz, Nevada State College; Luisa Cano Lima, Nevada State University

Discussant

• Jose Garcia, University of Illinois at Chicago