"Siempre Hay un Apoyo": Creating Humanizing Spaces Amid an Anti-Immigrant Climate Through Muxerista Organizing

• In Event: Standing With Youth, Parent, and Community Educational Leaders: Case Studies in Subverting Systemic Oppression

Abstract

Objective
This paper focuses on the processes undertaken by Latina mothers to advocate for themselves and their children at the intersections of racial, cultural, gender, anti-immigrant and socio-linguistic marginalization.


Theoretical Framework
A muxerista theoretical approach helped to center a muxerista pedagogy (Revilla, 2004) which we used to deconstruct and (re)construct the Latina organizing initiatives. Thus allowing us to center the organizing initiatives of the mujeres y madres (women and mothers) and also highlight how their lived realities and experiences guided work that was ultimately grounded in love for their children, families and for one another.

Design
We collected data over a period of two and a half years, spending on average three days a week (for at least two hours each visit) in the school, with the parents, and in the community. Data were collected via multiple sources, including; interviews (focus group and individual), field notes, and documents. An iterative thematic analysis (Creswell, 2008) allowed us to focus and identify instances where the parent group was engaging in a muxerista pedagogy which then permitted us to more clearly center their work as transformational and liberatory resistance.


Selected Results
Through the use of narratives, readers learn how three women navigated anti-immigrant and xenophobic enviornments. We then trace how these narratives converge into a muxerista space (Revilla, 2004) where the mothers collectively support one another. A series of study circles for immigrant parents (all women) became a sacred space within which the mothers began to share intimate details of their lives, including hardships related to immigration stories, being undocumented in the US, seeking and maintaining work, domestic violence, and deportation related fears

For example, during one session in particular the parents in attendance, all mujeres y madres, Lucia, Esperanza, Paloma and the other women shared issues and concerns they faced as undocumented parents. Some of those issues ranged from the need for more translators at the school to the racism they experienced within and beyond the local community.

Reflecting on that session, Esperanza and Lucia agreed that being in a space with other women who shared the same fears, anxieties, unknowns, hopes, dreams, and desires for their children was comforting and healing. Eager to see what was in store for the meeting, Esperanza and Paloma discussed the possibility of continuing these meetings beyond the three scheduled study circles. As they approached the school’s parking lot, they agreed that they would propose weekly meetings that they and the other mujeres y madres would organize. It was at this moment both women knew they were and could be one another’s community - a community where they could support one another as mujeres, madres, and comadres.
Significance
This case calls attention to a group of Latina mujeres, madres, and activists who organized and advocated for humanizing and liberatory spaces for themselves, their children, and the broader Latina/o/x immigrant community. As a result of a muxerista praxis the mujeres y madres (re)imagined their own muxerista liderazgo (leadership) identity.

Authors

• Erica Fernandez, Miami University

• Samantha Paredes-Scribner