Latina/o Public School Teachers in a Changing Chicago: Testimonios From the Classroom

• In Event: 66.021 - Latina/o Educational Landscapes in Chicago: Testimonios, Resistance, and Praxis

Abstract

Latin@ teachers in the U.S. are highly underrepresented in the public school workforce. In Chicago, 45% of public school students are Latin@, however, only 16% of teachers are Latin@. Through qualitative interviews (testimonios) of 30 CPS Latin@ teachers we gain an understanding of their perspectives about the schools and students they work with, about how to best meet the needs of the growing Latin@ student body, as well as reflections on their own educational experiences.

A substantial amount of scholarship documents the influence that teachers have to mediate or hinder positive educational advantages for students (Hinojosa & Mora, 2009). Scholars posit that teachers are important for students of color because many students begin school with less awareness of the knowledge and behavior rewarded in schools, and it is often the case that teachers are best situated to transmit or withhold this particular information (Delpit, 1988; Stanton-Salazar, 2011; Apple, 2004; Darder 1991). Moreover, authors point to the importance of positioning diverse linguistic and cultural practices as assets in classrooms (Martinez, 2010; Lee, 2005; Yosso, 1999). To establish an assets-based approach to the schooling of students of color, scholars suggest the need for a more diverse teacher workforce, specifically for Latin@ teachers that can more easily relate to the cultural and linguistic needs of Latin@s (Nieto, 2010). Nationally, the public school teacher workforce is predominately White and middle-class; our work contributes to the scholarship about the importance of recruiting, supporting, and retaining Latin@ teachers in urban school districts.

Using a Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) lens, this work is grounded in the premise that racist policies and practices hinder the educational opportunities for students of color (Ladson-Billings, 1998). A LatCrit framework provides the analytic tools needed to understand how the language practices and cultural identity of Latin@ students are viewed/managed/contested within public schools (Delgado Bernal, 2002). Additionally, LatCrit scholars have made visible the power that testimonios have in transforming the experiences of Latin@s. LatCrit scholars are committed to “using literary narrative knowledge and counterstories to challenge the existing social construction of race” and addressing the marginalization of students of color in schools (Parker and Castro, 2013, p. 50).

Analysis of Latin@ teacher testimonios show several findings: 1) Teachers often make the conscious decision to become educators as a result of their own negative educational experiences; many of the teachers’ own schooling histories shaped their professional aspirations, which included positively affirming the linguistic and cultural diversity of their students; 2) Teachers found it an advantage to teach in predominantly Latin@ schools as they feel they were better able to relate to students, speak students’ home language(s), and were better equipped to connect with parents; 3) teachers overwhelmingly asserted that the school district does not provide adequate support and resources to its growing Latin@ student body, that their Latin@ students are often still viewed, by the larger public, in deficit terms, and that their agency, and ganas to succeed educationally, is not often highlighted.

Authors

• Ramona Meza, University of Illinois at Chicago

• P. Zitlali Morales, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Joanna Maravilla-Cano, University of Illinois at Chicago