Florida Latinx gifted educators protest marginalization of themselves and their Latinx students

• In Event: Black and Latina South Floridian special education scholars resist against the dying of the light

Proposal

The demographics of the United States population is growing increasingly diverse. However, that diversity is not visible in certain educational spaces, such as in the underrepresentation of multiply marginalized students being referred for gifted. Students who are multiply marginalized, multilingual, and multicultural (MMMM) students, including English Learners (EL), are persistently disproportionately overrepresented in special education classes and underrepresented in enrichment/gifted/advanced education in K-12 school settings (Gubbins et al., 2018; Peters & Engerrand, 2016; Peters, 2022) – underscoring ongoing systemic inequities related to identification and access (Barajas-López, 2014). As a result of EL students being consistently unrepresented at a national level in gifted and other advanced opportunities to learn (Peters, 2022), often there are problematic short and long-term outcomes. For instance, researchers have explored how the ramifications (i.e., underachievement, disciplinary situations, lower self-confidence) of gifted disproportionality and limited access to enrichment programs (i.e., STEAM, STEM, art-related, music-related, achievement competitions) have lasting implications for MMMM students, as evidenced by the achievement gaps, underachievement, school drop outs, and lack of opportunities to learn that ensue as a result of not receiving needed supports and validation of their gifts and talents (Barajas-López, 2014; Ford & Young, 2021; Peters & Engerrand, 2016). The disproportionate representation of students whose first language is not English as one of the most underrepresented demographics in gifted education (Peters & Engerrand, 2016) and having such limited access to enrichment programs in U.S. schools, is largely due to teacher bias (de Jong, 2011; Peters, 2022). 75% of referrals to advanced education are done by teachers (Fish, 2017), with 80% of the teaching demographic being comprised of mostly White women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019b). Fortunately, Latinx teachers may serve as an important lever by which to alter these outcomes, given their increased rates of student advocacy (Kirmaci, 2022; Monreal, 2022).
Research has shown that Latinx teachers create more culturally relevant/sustaining/responsive learning experiences for their students, have higher rates of identifying students of color for advanced programming such as gifted education (Fernández & Monsalve, 2022), provide more meaningful communication with the families of those students (Kirmaci, 2022), as well as advocate more effectively and consistently for Latinx students (Kirmaci, 2022). However, Latinx teachers must work within systems where they are often the minority and often not in positions of power (Espinoza & Taylor, 2021; Kirmaci, 2022; Monreal, 2022), which is why capturing their experiences in order to change an oppressive system is vital.
This is a testimonio of resistance, guided by the theoretical frameworks of the Hero’s Journey (Campbell, 1949), LatCrit (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001), GT Crit (Novak, 2022), and spiritual activism (Anzaldua, 2007) documenting the experiences of five Latina educators, including myself, as cultural brokers, advocates, and agents of access for our students, while also documenting different forms of endured aggression, our resistance to meet it, and the belief systems (e.g., spirituality, religion) that help us to persist when advocating for EL students and ourselves.

Author

• Alejandra Amaris Fernandez Morgado, Florida International University