Controlling Images of Space: The Navigation of Racial Distances by Latinas/os in Multiracial Schools

• In Event: 095 - Section on Community and Urban Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 20. Reputations and Images of Space and Place

Abstract

Controlling images has been applied to racial/ethnic minority groups, but much less to space. In this article I apply controlling images to urban space and "ethnoburbs" to argue that American racial/ethnic hierarchies and inequalities set a backdrop in the ways in which Latina teachers navigate race relations with African Americans, Asian Americans and Whites in two Southern California multiracial school districts: Compton and Rosemead. Latina teachers who work in Compton are often asked about their personal safety and are encouraged to leave the city by friends and family for districts that are not associated with the urban “black underclass.” Latinas also express ambivalence about having their own children attend schools in Compton. Latina teachers who work at Goodwill Elementary in Rosemead, on the other hand, enroll their children in the school, live near the community because of their familial networks and are able to access resources the more class heterogeneous Asian American population provides. Despite this contact, they are not on parity with Asian Americans. Ultimately, state and local school district policies compel Latina teachers to exhibit anti-black sentiments, seek proximity to Asians, and to focus much of their teaching efforts to reaching the children of immigrant Latinos who they perceive to need more aid due to their precarious and stigmatizing status in the racial hierarchy.

Author

• Glenda M. Flores, University of California-Irvine