Participatory Action Research as a Servingness Structure for Latinx Undocumented College Students at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

• In Event: Participatory Action Research Projects at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Co-creating HSI-PAR to Foster Servingness and Community-Centered Transformation

Abstract

About 400,000 undocumented students are enrolled in higher education across the United States (Higher Ed Immigration Portal, 2024). Undocumented students remain underserved despite their continuous presence in U.S. colleges and universities. Even in states with in-state resident tuition rates and state financial aid, undocumented students still face overt discrimination and racist nativist microaggressions on campus (Muñoz & Vigil, 2018; Pérez Huber, 2023). Unfortunately, from admission to graduation, it is common for undocumented college students to encounter institutional structures that are not designed to account for their unique needs, hindering their overall success (Abrego, 2006; Nienhusser et al., 2016). For instance, most college admission applications ask for a social security number even when one is not required to be admitted, deterring numerous undocumented students from applying to college.

Within postsecondary structures, it is also common for undocumented students to interact with institutional agents who are unskilled to meet their needs (Shelton, 2019). This leads to invalidating interactions that impede students’ academic outcomes and personal well-being. For example, when undocumented students conceal their immigration status from institutional agents due to lack of trust, their mental health suffers, and consequently, their college retention is at risk (Nienhusser et al., 2023; Author et al., 2024). Sadly, for Latinx undocumented college students specifically, these adverse experiences are even common at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and emerging HSIs (Author et al., in press), which, in theory, should offer increased access to support structures for all minoritized students (Garcia, 2019). However, HSI initiatives often exclude undocumented students due to federal funding restrictions and/or a lack of innovation and equity vision.

While research overwhelmingly shows that higher education institutions and their agents pervasively underserve undocumented students, recent scholarship emphasizes opportunities to serve this student group. University structures like undocumented student resource centers (USRCs), for example, offer crucial support to undocumented students, helping them connect with responsive key resources on campus (Cisneros et al., 2022). The majority of USRCs are in states with large numbers of undocumented students and many of them are at HSIs or emerging HSIs (Cisneros & Valdivia, 2018). This is promising because the experiences of undocumented students at these institutions have the potential to be positively impacted by such organizational structures, exemplifying key servingness constructs as proposed by Garcia et al. (2019). Hence, it is important to develop and utilize additional organizational structures to serve Latinx undocumented college students at HSIs and emerging HSIs.

In this conceptual paper, grounded on Garcia et al.’s (2019) multidimensional conceptual framework of servingness in HSIs, I discuss how participatory action research (PAR) can function as an organizational structure to serve Latinx undocumented college students. Through an examination of four PAR projects with and for undocumented college students where more than 13 students impacted served as coresearchers, I illustrate how PAR can foster validating experiences, promote academic and nonacademic outcomes, and ultimately serve Latinx undocumented college students at HSIs.

Author

• Cinthya Salazar, University of California - Los Angeles