Love Letters as Leadership: Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Resilient Futures Through Latina Superintendents’ Testimonios

• In Event: Latina Women in Education

Abstract

This study explores how Latina superintendents in rural and under-resourced districts practice leadership through culturally grounded, emotionally rich, and community-centered testimonios framed as “love letters.” Using counternarrative methodology and guided by transformative leadership, intersectionality, and Latina feminist theory, the study analyzes curated letters from the Radiance Love Letters archive. Four themes emerged: leading with love and lineage, community as resilience infrastructure, identity as praxis, and spirituality as moral grounding. These narratives challenge dominant leadership paradigms by centering cultural memory, affective labor, and relational wisdom. This work, submitted to the SIG: Research on Women and Education, aligns with AERA’s 2026 theme by unforgetting the histories of Latina leaders and envisioning liberatory futures rooted in care, justice, and collective strength.

Authors

• Pinyi Wang, University of Florida

• LeAnne C. Salazar Montoya, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Juanita Galaviz, Texas State University

• Griselda Vargas, Texas State University

• Gina Delgado, UnidoUS

• Tracie Trinidad, Aurora Public Schools