Latino Professionals in America

Testimonios of Policy, Perseverance, and Success

Maria Chávez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367203184
• eBook ISBN: 9780429557293
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Labour & Industrial Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In Latino Professionals in America, Maria Chávez combines rich qualitative interviews, auto-ethnographic accounts, and policy analysis to explore the converging oppressions that make it difficult for Latinos to become professionals and to envision themselves as successful in those professions. Recounting her own story, Chávez interviews 31 Latino professionals from across the nation in a variety of occupations and careers, contextualizing their experiences amid family struggles and ongoing racism in the United States. She addresses gender inequality within the Latino community, arguing that by defending, rationalizing, or ignoring patriarchy within the Latino community perpetuates systems of oppression—especially for women; gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals; and others at the intersections. The experiences of these Latino professionals and the author's analysis provide a blueprint for what works—one, both pragmatic and hopeful, that uses real lives to illustrate how a combination of public policies, people, and perseverance increases the presence of America's fastest-growing demographic group in the professional class.

1
Introduction

Metamorphosis

Overcoming Macro, Meso, and Micro Obstacles

One writes out of a need to communicate and to commune with others, to denounce that which gives pain and to share that which gives happiness. One writes against one’s solitude and against the solitude of others. One assumes that literature transmits knowledge and affects the behavior and language of those who read.

(Galeano, 1997: xiv)

I am a child, holding my colorful butterfly made out of construction paper, outside the classroom. My head is at an angle. There is a faraway look on my face. I was three years old in the newspaper picture that captured me holding my work of art. The headlines were promoting the “purpose of Head Start.” I was standing with Billy Spear, another participant in the anti-poverty program established by President Johnson as part of his War on Poverty efforts. The community of my childhood featured much poverty. This policy was to become the start of a new path for me. However, despite the promising beginning with Head Start, many years would pass before I experienced the benefits of another progressive social policy.

Head Start was the first in a series of public policies, along with supportive mentors, that in combination helped me along my life’s journey. Starting out as a rural Latina from a farmworker background, raised in an immigrant household mired in poverty and violence, I became a teenage mother who married and divorced at a young age. Eventually I became an academic who earned a PhD and then was awarded tenure and promotion at a university. I accomplished this, in part, through the help of public policies. What were some of these policies? Subsidized childcare while attending community college while raising a three-year-old, low-income subsidized housing that allowed me to afford a place to live, and work experience gained through the California Mini-Corp—a migrant education program for bilingual undergraduates committed to working with migrant children—that provided me steady work as a teaching assistant in the public schools. These policies allowed me to attend California State University, Chico (CSUC), as a full-time student, enabling me to graduate in four years and then move on to graduate school. Next, I received an affirmative action scholarship and participated in both the Compact for Faculty Diversity and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. These targeted, equity-enhancing public policies and support programs made a profound difference at critical stages in my life.

Mentors also made a tremendous difference on my path. A number of people opened up new possibilities in my life from my undergraduate years through my tenure and promotion. Michele Shover, my first female political science professor at CSUC, helped me to see beyond the sexist and rigid gender roles found in my culture and family, the university environment, and society. I named my twin daughter after her. Byron Jackson, the only person of color in the political science department, became my advisor for my master’s degree. His support continued into my doctoral program. When a faculty member in the political science department at CSUC who was well known as a sexual harasser got a position in the same graduate program I was in, Dr. Jackson called me to warn me not to take classes from this person. Without the committed and caring people I encountered at Washington State University, especially Steve Burkett and Nicholas Lovrich, I would not have finished my PhD. And the road to tenure as a woman of color would have been tremendously more difficult without the advice and support of my first Latino political science colleague and mentor, Luis Fraga. However, I would have never achieved tenure without a solid publication record. Publishing my first book, which had been rejected by close to a dozen presses, would not have happened without the support from another important mentor, Joe Feagin. The faith and support from all these mentors, in combination with targeted public policies, directly led to my entering the American mainstream world of professionals.

There were still many challenges as I ventured into the unknown world of higher education, and I made numerous mistakes, such as applying to only one university for my undergraduate education. It was only after becoming an academic that I discovered people went on college road trips with their parents when deciding on a college. I also didn’t know what the Graduate Record Exam was and had never heard of “analogy problems” until I applied for graduate school. Despite my limited knowledge, supportive mentors guided me during a number of life-changing moments, keeping opportunities open. These encounters with caring people unlike myself are far-reaching and build what Robert Putnam calls “bridging social capital.” Putnam distinguishes between two types of social capital—bonding and bridging. He argues bridging is the more challenging, yet also the more important type of social capital in our increasingly diverse society. My experiences support this.

Along the way, however, I still experienced a number of noteworthy obstacles at the macro (societal or institutional), meso (family or group), and micro (individual) levels. These categories or levels of analysis are commonly used in social science research, particularly in the discipline of sociology. These distinct but overlapping levels include at the macro level of analysis, a broad societal or institutional lens; at the meso level, a focus on the group; and at the micro level, an examination of the situations of the individual. Many topics of research include all three levels, as they often work together. For example, in this study, I argue upward mobility and success in their professions is very difficult to obtain for first-generation Latinos due to obstacles at each of these levels.

In this study, macro-level obstacles include institutional education policies, such as being tracked into vocational programs at school rather than being placed on the college track (Lucas, 1999), and the labor economy, which has expanded its exploitation of undocumented workers in farm labor to include the meatpacking industry (Apostolidis, 2010). I also include an examination of our legacy of racism using Feagin’s theory of the white racial frame to address inequality within the Latino community (Feagin, 2013). As Feagin notes, “The dominant frame has persisted now over centuries only because it is constantly validating, and thus validated by, the inegalitarian accumulation of social, economic, and political resources” (p. 16). This inegalitarian accumulation of resources leads directly to meso-level obstacles in most Latino families. Because of the racialization Latinos face as group—we are constructed as threats to society and as illegitimate Americans (Chavez, 2013)—the results have been generational inequality and exclusion (Martinovich, 2017). Thus, Latino parents often lack inherited intellectual capital (Bowen and Bok, 1998), or a blueprint to help their children navigate their way into higher education. Finally, I include a micro level of analysis, examining how first-generation Latinos cope with their new roles and identity as professionals, especially when everything is so new. This can result in ongoing doubts about their current success and a sense that they haven’t truly “made it” in their professions, as I discuss in Chapter 5. However, a healthy and vibrant community of support could alleviate some of the obstacles. For example, high levels of social capital (Putnam, 2000) could minimize incidents of school tracking, greater levels of trust between educational institutions and families could help Latino parents feel comfortable in advocating for their children in the schools, and bridging social capital could make the university a more welcoming and accepting place for people of all backgrounds. However, as Putnam argues, social capital has been on the decline since at least the 1960s (Putnam, 2000). Many of us have witnessed levels of social capital and trust deteriorating at all levels as the nation becomes increasingly divided and increasingly diverse. In this context, I begin by sharing macro-, meso-, and micro-level obstacles from my own life, as a prelude to a discussion of the other Latino professionals’ experiences.

Macro-Level Obstacles Growing Up

The oldest of four children, I grew up in a small farming town in Northern California. Like many Latinos in the Southwest, my childhood was mired in obstacles to my personal development. When I was a child, the town’s population was under three thousand residents, many of whom lived in poverty. It was a community replete with dysfunction in all the major institutions. My siblings and I attended Catholic church regularly, a key feature of life in this town, but the presence of the church only added to the oppressive structure of the community. The area’s predominantly white, wealthy farmers were influential members of the church, and they employed many of the Mexican laborers living in the town, including my father. In my youth, our parish priest was sent back to Ireland after it was discovered he was having sex with several members of the congregation, including one of my close friends. She was 15 at the time. Our public schools were just as awful, and still are. Currently, 82% of all students in those schools fail to meet state math standards.¹ It is worse for Latino students, 89% of whom fail to meet math standards.² I can only imagine what these figures were like in the 1980s before official statewide reporting of school performance.

Because segregation increased in middle school, by high school I was no longer taking classes with many of the kids with whom I grew up. In middle school, I was the student body secretary and participated in the school’s marching band, interacting with the children destined to go on to college. I was a good student, with solid grades. Nonetheless, it was in middle school that I became increasingly aware of discrimination. I remember standing around my English teacher’s desk with two of my friends from the student body council. My white female teacher observed, “I bet your parents want you to meet your husbands in college,” specifically speaking to my friends, but saying nothing to me. At the time, I found it curious that she failed to include me in her remarks about what would lie ahead in our lives. Perhaps the reason I’ve never forgotten her comments is because of how bizarre I found them. At the time, I didn’t have the language to critique her patriarchal statement assuming that my female peers on the student council were mainly interested in going to college to get their “Mrs. degrees.” However, even then I realized that racism was the reason for my exclusion. College attendance was not something that my predominantly white teachers and administrators saw in my future. The expectation for the Latino students was different. My three siblings and I were all placed on vocational tracks in high school. My classes included Medical/Legal Secretary and Bookkeeping. The academic classes I did take, such as English, overwhelmingly featured activities such as listening to music lyrics rather than reading. In one English class, we would listen to the lyrics in the music of Simon and Garfunkel! I knew other English classes had students reading literature instead of listening to music. I struggled to get into the college track to no avail. Even asking the white male vice-principal to place me in college preparatory classes did not work. He refused to move me from the vocational track to which I had been assigned. Disappointed, but also angry, I refused to do any more work in the vocational classes to which I was restricted. Perhaps this was not the best possible reaction on my part, but discouraged 14-year-olds do not make the best choices. This is one example of how macro-level and micro-level obstacles work together.

In addition to institutional obstacles found in the church and schools, economic macro-level obstacles, such as the farm labor economy in which my father and his father worked for so many years, posed additional barriers. Throughout the Southwestern United States, Latinos have been used as a principal source of cheap labor for generations. My grandfather was part of this system of cheap labor known as bracero, the documented guest worker program. The Bracero Program, which began in 1942, was established during the period of labor shortage during World War II and lasted until 1965. It is estimated that five million workers from Mexico were brought into the United States to provide labor in 24 states (Calavita, 1992).

U.S. dependence on Mexican labor, which continues to this day, has expanded from agriculture to exploitation in the meatpacking industry (Apostolidis, 2010). It has a long and shameful history, from outright recruitment and encouragement by government officials working with agricultural and business interests, to mass deportations during rising unemployment that accompanies economic declines (Massey and Malone, 2002; Gutierrez, 1995). Due to the shortage of labor after the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1908, Mexicans were encouraged to migrate to the United States by government officials serving agricultural interests (Gutierrez, 1995). Promoted by government officials and agribusiness representatives alike as a source of cheap, racially inferior, and temporary labor, an estimated one million Mexican nationals entered the United States to join the domestic workforce between 1890 and 1929 (Gutierrez, 1995). By the time of the Great Depression, however, Latinos in the Southwest became the scapegoats for the region’s economic difficulties. Between 1929 and 1939, it is estimated that half a million Latinos were literally rounded up and sent to Mexico under the Repatriation Program; as many as 60% of those Mexican-heritage persons who were “repatriated” were U.S. citizens (Hoffman, 1974: 95).

Despite the current dehumanizing and ahistorical rhetoric surrounding the immigration debate, the U.S. dependence on vulnerable Mexican labor continues to this day, with equally oppressive results for the families stuck in the cycle, especially for the children who have grown up in these circumstances (Chávez et al., 2015). For example, the documentary East of Salinas by Independent Lens highlights this entrenched system of exploitation for undocumented migrant workers through the eyes of a young boy named Jose. Jose changes schools many times a year, often doesn’t have food to eat at home, and can’t even go outside because of the crime in his neighborhood. He and his siblings spend hours each day unsupervised, watching television and often hungry. Jose’s mother works in the lettuce fields from dawn to dusk, leaving Jose and his siblings at a babysitter’s house before dawn. Jose’s stepfather follows the crops to Arizona for part of the year, leaving the family in an even more vulnerable and precarious state for months at a time. Yet, despite these circumstances, he’s a sweet boy who loves school, especially math. This is the reality of life for millions of young people like Jose in the United States. The nation benefits from cheap agricultural labor while demonizing immigrants and Latino families like Jose’s. It contributes to macro-level inequalities, deeply ingrained features of the political economy, which have existed in the United States for generations.

Finally, perhaps the most significant macro-level obstacle—and at the foundation of the institutional and economic macro-level obstacles discussed previously—includes the larger racialized political system, which is the primary way societal resources are allocated. Joe R. Feagin, one of the most influential sociologists in our generation and arguably the most accomplished scholar on race and racism, argues that because government has been and continues to be controlled by elite white males, it does not adequately provided resources for the benefit of racialized communities in the same way as it does for whites (Feagin, 2012). Building on David Easton’s classic definition of politics as the “authoritative allocation of values for society,” Feagin states,

The actual authoritative allocation of society’s important material resources, as well as of less tangible items such as power and prestige, has been dramatically inegalitarian, massively skewed toward the elite’s group interests, and aggressively legitimated by a dominant white political, racial, and class framing of society.

(2012: xii)

For example, Feagin describes how adequate funding for education or housing program assistance occurs more readily when the benefits go mostly to middle- and working-class whites. He argues that public support for policies such as these ends when blacks or Latinos stand to benefit. Feagin refers to policy benefits in the form of government resources and opportunities directed at whites as “affirmative action for whites.”³ Other scholars such as Johnson and Martinez have also found that as Latino students represent a greater percentage of children in California’s public schools, spending by the state per student has decreased and segregation has increased (2000: 1241–1242). Obstacles found in our institutions, our economic system, and in our highly racialized society are examples of macro-level barriers Latinos experience in American society. Together, they have profound consequences for our liv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Metamorphosis
• Chapter 2 The Pioneers: How Latino Professionals Overcame Obstacles Through Public Policies and Mentors
• Chapter 3 The Warriors: Testimonios From Latino Professionals
• Chapter 4 The Leaders: “Our Lived Experiences— That’s Where the Power Resides”
• Chapter 5 On Making It, Motivations, and Persistent Systemic Barriers
• Chapter 6 Conclusion: Solutions for Increasing the Number of Latino Professionals
• Appendix A: Interview Questionnaire
• Appendix B: Respondents’ Demographic Background
• Index