“Lessons That Will Not Stay Taught”: Dismantling Cultural Deficit Discourses of Mexican Mothers and Schoolchildren

• In Event: A Critical Look Into History: Implementing Our Cultural Intuition in Educational Research

Abstract

In the absence of federal mandates, local school district policies were the basis on which students of Mexican descent were segregated in the early 20th century (see San Miguel, 1986). Deficit frameworks also operated throughout that historical moment, relying on pseudoscientific arguments to portray students of Color as the intellectually inferior offspring of culturally inferior families (Valencia, 1997). My paper examines the way Chicana/o educational segregation was supported in Pasadena, California by public discourse in local newspapers.
From 1911 to 1936, over seventy articles were published in the Pasadena Star that dealt with the opening and operation of "Mexican schools". I utilize a Chicana feminist epistemology in education research to make sense of the raced, gendered, and classed elements of the discourse published in that print media. Twp theoretical frameworks also inform this paper. The first, LatCrit, helps me examine how educational theory and practice have been used to subordinate and marginalize Chicana/o students (Delgado Bernal, 2002). The second, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), operates critically by interrupting “common sense” language/approaches, as well as operating constructively by allowing me to see how texts position people and uphold relations of institutional power (Luke, 1995). As the great-granddaughter of one these mothers, I employ my cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998) to both identify the ways race, gender, and class intersect in discourse, and also to connect this intellectual project with the lived experiences of my own family.
I initially coded the articles for themes of “citizenship”, “language”, and “vocation” (per Donato, 1997; González, 1990; Moreno, 1999). Yet I also discovered themes related to “cleanliness”, “family” and “benevolence”. I thus came to realize that I was not only learning generally about the educational segregation of Mexican-heritage students in Pasadena, but also gaining insight into how Mexican motherhood specifically has historically been portrayed in the city.
My analysis consequently reveals the ways in which segregation was rationalized through a "benevolent pathology" of the family. Specifically, Mexican motherhood was constructed as loving yet educationally detrimental to students. Amongst my findings were the dominant printed beliefs that White schoolteachers not only struggled to teach Mexican students, but they also struggled to teach Mexican mothers lessons of cleanliness, homemaking, and parenting that would not “stay taught”. Articles did note that Mexican mothers showed an interest in their children’s schooling. Yet the interest was portrayed more as a well-meant curiosity that could not be translated - literally or figuratively - without White philanthropic intervention. Issues of class further qualified the notion/amount of blame that Mexican mothers carried for what their children were perceived to lack in school.
My purposeful combining of theoretical frameworks, interdisciplinary literature bases, and familial history in my research contextualizes Mexican mothers in early 20th century Pasadena in ways the dominant discourse overlooked. This mixture reflects the engagement of my cultural intuition that undergirds this scholarship. Furthermore, I offer this paper as a social justice project intent on restoring humanity and agency to the Mexican/Chicana women and Chicana/o schoolchildren who have historically called Pasadena home.

Author

• Michaela J. López Mares-Tamayo, University of California - Los Angeles