"Home" in a Pandemic: Exploring the COVID-19 College Transition for First-Year, Latinx Undergraduates

• In Event: The Impact of the Pandemic on Student Success

Abstract

This case study explores interviews with six Latinx graduates of a charter high school in Los Angeles. Following their first year of college in Southern California, participants describe their experiences returning home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We combine Ray’s theory of racialized organizations and Yosso’s (2005) theory of community cultural wealth (CCW) to describe how students endured an especially challenging transition to college. In addition to the typical structural barriers that students face, COVID-19 brought about shifts in learning modalities, family circumstances, and students’ experiences with institutional responses and decision-making. Participants in this study were not equitably supported by their host institutions, which forces us to consider whether college campuses are truly “homes” to minoritized students.

Authors

• Liane I. Hypolite, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona

• Alex H. Hazard, University of Southern California