Florida Latina special educators using testimonio to protest their marginalization

• In Event: Black and Latina South Floridian special education scholars resist against the dying of the light

Proposal

We are seven Latinas with ties to various Latin American countries, who have come together within a doctoral cohort situated in South Florida that began simultaneously with the commencement of the pandemic, at a time when marginalized groups, K-12, and higher education are experiencing even more exclusionary practices with the onslaught of recent legislation in Florida. Through this journey, we explore testimonio and question our roles and experiences as Latina special educators, doctoral candidates, and our persistence through our doctoral journey. We seek to understand the mentorship we have received, how we can frame our experiences and understand them, the dissertations we are spiraling towards, and how we fit into a world that was not created for Latinas.
Theory, then, is a set of knowledges. Some of these knowledges have been kept from us—entry into some professions and academia denied us. Because we are not allowed to enter discourse, because we are often disqualified and excluded from it, because what passes for theory these days is forbidden territory for us, it is vital that we occupy theorizing space, that we not allow white men and women solely to occupy it. By bringing in our own approaches and methodologies, we transform that theorizing space. (Anzaldúa, 1990, pp. xxv).
As doctoral candidates, navigating through our dissertations, we have simultaneously reflected on our individual and collective experiences as Latinas in academia, a space that can be antagonistic at times for marginalized demographics. We explore how we navigate, survive, persist, and resist the unwelcoming spaces in special education research and academia from within a doctoral program that seeks to prepare the next generation of leaders to meet the needs of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students in special education (Artiles, 2020). We plan to use testimonio (Latina Feminist Group, 2001) and pláticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016) as methodology to escuchar and support each other as we engage in conformist and/or transformational resistance (Kirmaci, 2022). We are framing our experiences under the theoretical framework of resistance (Kirmaci, 2022; Solorzano & Bernal, 2001) as we discuss the ways in which we protest the structures of academia in the way that we write about our experiences (e.g., not italicizing words written in our native languages), how we frame our experiences (e.g., using testimonio, LatCrit, transformational resistance), how we speak/present about our research (e.g., presenting bilingually, with our families present), how we incorporate the doctoral program into our lives and not the other way around (e.g., balancing being matriarchs/mothers/daughters/wives, with our role as doctoral candidates and infusing it into our daily life while caring for our familias). Recently, a fellow Latina, America Ferrera, stole the blockbuster hit, Barbie (2023), with her monologue and its core message stating "by giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required to be a woman under the patriarchy, you've robbed it of its power." And by giving voice to the cognitive dissonance required of Latinas to be an academic you begin to peel back the systemic oppression that keeps us marginalized.

Authors

• Alejandra Amaris Fernandez Morgado, Florida International University

• Iggy Monsalve

• Ana Paula Fabian Freire, Florida International University

• Arianna Barroso-Ramos, FIU

• Martha Lorena Hernández Flores

• Norma Urquiza

• Maria Silva, Florida International University