"¡No Tengo Papeles!" (I Don't Have Papers!): Family Advocacy in the New Latino Diaspora

• In Event: The Visibility and Advocacy of Historically Marginalized Parents in U.S. Public Schools

Abstract

Objectives
Critical scholars have problematized the invisibility of Latino parents’ voices in top-down approaches to education reform (Baquedano-López, Alexander, Hernandez, 2013). In the New Latino Diaspora, where an “increasing numbers of Latinos (many immigrant and some from elsewhere in the United States) are settling both temporarily and permanently in areas of the United States that have not traditionally been home to Latinos” (Hamann et al. 2002, p. 1), educators may not recognize the ways in which policies and practices marginalize immigrant families (Gallo & Wortham, 2012; Mangual Figueroa, 2011). While research has begun to examine the ways that Latino parents advocate for their children's needs in the New Latino Diaspora, little is known about the role that children play in identifying problems and supporting parents’ advocacy. Seeking to fill this gap, this study examines two primary questions: 1) How do Latino parents and elementary-aged children co-narrate education-related concerns and advocate for their needs in New Latino Diaspora settings? 2) How do institutions and organizations support or limit families’ advocacy efforts?

Theoretical Framework
This research incorporates a Language Socialization approach (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1986; Ochs & Capps, 1996) to the study of narratives with theories of New Latino Diaspora as a sociopolitical space (Hamann, Wortham, Murillo, 2002). Given the recent change of demographic, New Latino Diaspora communities have only begun to develop policies and routine practices for educating Latino immigrant students. By adopting a language socialization approach, I seek to illuminate the relationship between macro and micro policies in a New Latino Diaspora context and parent and children’s narratives of advocacy.

Methods and Data Sources
Data was collected as part of 2.5-year ethnographic study of literacy and education in the homes and schools of elementary-aged children of Mexican-origin residing in a Northeastern New Latino Diaspora community. Participants included mothers and children from six families. Data was collected through informal interviews with family members and participant observation during literacy practices such as homework completion and parent-teacher meetings. The corpus of data includes field notes, school-related artifacts such as letters and homework, and audio-recordings of interviews and literacy practices.

Conclusions and Significance
The analysis demonstrates how Spanish-speaking Mexican-born mothers narrated struggles to advocate for children’s educational needs in institutions that did not have translators available. Moreover, the mothers explained how their lack of “papeles (papers)” had prevented them from voting in favor of a referendum for school expansion that voting residents had rejected. Yet, through their participation in a letter-writing campaign led by a non-profit organization, the mothers and their elementary-aged children re-negotiated their identities as visible advocates and voiced support for school expansion to the state commissioner of education. This research is significant for three primary reasons: first, by highlighting the ways in which citizenship status and English-dominant policies in schools and other institutions can restrict parents from advocating for their needs; second, by demonstrating how community organizing can create opportunities for immigrant parents and children to become visible advocates through multilingual critical literacy practices aimed at educational reform.

Author

• Meredith McConnochie, University of Saint Joseph