How White-Presenting Latina Undergraduate Students Make Sense of and Experience Their Racial Identity

• In Event: Making Sense of Youth Voice: Commenting on and Critiquing the Social Contexts of Schooling

Abstract

How Latin* people experience their racial identity is unique when viewed through the Black and white racial dichotomy that exists in the United States. Given that Latin*/Hispanic is considered an ethnicity not a race, this study explored how Latina undergraduate students who may be perceived as white make sense of and experience their racial identity. With testimonios as the methodology, this study centered the experiences of six white-presenting Latina students at an emerging Hispanic Serving Institution in the state of Florida. Focusing on the hyphenated identity of being both white-presenting and Latina allows for more nuanced discussions surrounding race and whiteness to occur, while simultaneously investigating how being white or having proximity to whiteness is valued in the Latin* community.

Author

• Claudia Janel Acosta, Florida State University