Mexican Immigrant Parents Advocating School Reform (The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society)

207 Pages·2008·0.67 MB·English

by  Mariolga Reyes Cruz

The New Americans
Recent Immigration and American Society

Edited by
Steven J. Gold and Rubén G. Rumbaut

A Series from LFB Scholarly
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Mexican Immigrant Parents
Advocating for School Reform

Mariolga Reyes Cruz

LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC
New York 2008
Copyright © 2008 by LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reyes Cruz, Mariolga, 1970-
Mexican immigrant parents advocating for school reform / Mariolga
Reyes Cruz.
p. cm. -- (The new Americans : recent immigration and American
society)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59332-236-6 (alk. paper)
1. Mexican American students--Education. 2. Education--Parent
participation--United States. 3. Children of immigrants--Education--
United States. 4. Educational change--United States. I. Title.
LC2683.3.R49 2008
371.19'2086872073

2007047774

ISBN 978-1-59332-236-6

Printed on acid-free 250-year-life paper.

Manufactured in the United States of America.
A los hijos e hijas de las madres y padres en esta historia:
Que su vida esté coloreada por el amor, la paz y la justicia.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments...............................................................................ix
CHAPTER 1: Introduction.................................................................1
Parent Involvement in School Matters and the Reproduction
and Contestation of Social Inequality....................................3
Moments of Reproduction: Parent Involvement, Cultural
and Social Capital, and Power.................................................7
Moments of Contestation: Community Organizing,
Empowerment and Sense of Community..............................11
Latinos and Latin American Immigrants in the United States......14
A Focus on U.S.-Born and Immigrant Mexicans..................15
Immigrant Mexican Parents Legitimizing Their Right to
Be Involved in Schools..........................................................17
CHAPTER 2: From Community Practice to a Critical
Ethnography...............................................................................23
Social Actors.................................................................................25
The Research Process...................................................................25
Preparation of the Ethnographic Material and Data
Analysis.................................................................................28
A Note on Ethnographic Time, Accuracy and Crafting
the Story.................................................................................30
CHAPTER 3: The Schooling of Mexican Children in Korbel.......33
A New “Community” in Town.....................................................34
Not All Students of Color are Created Equal: The Class-
Race-Ethnicity Divide..........................................................36
African Americans’ Longstanding Struggle for Educational
Equity in Korbel...................................................................37
Construyendo el Barco Navegando: Schooling for Latino
American Students in Korbel...............................................39
Mexicans in Dubois Elementary School: Entering the
Struggle for Educational Equity............................................40
Walking the Distance between Theory and Practice:
Schooling Conditions at Dubois............................................42
vii
viii Table of Contents
CHAPTER 4: Ellos nos van a sacar de estarnos arrastrando:
Parents’ Hopes for Their Children’s Future............................55
Circumstances of Emigration, Reasons to Stay............................56
Stories about Mexican Parents’ Engagement with the Local
Schools.................................................................................65
The Dominant Story..............................................................66
An Alternative Story..............................................................70
CHAPTER 5: Para muestras un botón: Parents’ Lived
Experiences of Their Children’s Schooling..............................79
What Parents Know and How They Come to Know It.................80
Mexican Parents’ Ways of Knowing.....................................81
Mexican Parents’ Knowledge................................................85
Knowledge-Claim Battles.............................................................93
CHAPTER 6: El que no tiene voz, no tiene mando: Voice,
Bilingualism, and Power..........................................................105
Monolingualism, Power, and Representation.............................106
English-Learning, Bilingualism and Empowerment...................118
From, For, With? The Role of Bilingual Professionals in
Parents’ Struggle for Educational Equity............................123
CHAPTER 7: Luchando por mantener ‘el dedo en el renglón’:
Challenges to Building Sense of Community and Political
Capital.......................................................................................131
Efforts to Mobilize Parents to Participate in School Decision
Making...............................................................................132
From the Top Down: District and School Staff’s Efforts
to Involve Parents in School Decision Making....................133
From the Ground Up: Mexican Parents’ Efforts to
Advocate for School Reforms.............................................139
Overarching Barriers to Parent Mobilizing.................................153
The Elusiveness of Small Wins..................................................155
CHAPTER 8: Paradoxes of Social Life..........................................157
Democratic Participation in Schools...........................................158
Living the Paradox......................................................................161
Endnotes...........................................................................................167
References.........................................................................................177
Index..................................................................................................195
Acknowledgments
Research and writing for this book was possible thanks to the support
of many people throughout the years. Julian Rappaport, Irene Cruz and
Gloria Soto offered thought provoking guidance and continued
encouragement. Martina Miranda Lugo, Rosalinda Barrera, Andrew
Rasmussen, Martín Nieto, Sue Noffke and Alejandro Lugo believed in
the work and accompanied me during the fieldwork years. Without the
wisdom and generosity of Irene, Humberto, Ivonne, Lupe, Antonia,
Lorenza, Jovita, Osiris, Gloria, Petra, Sandra, Juan, Crecenciano,
Gloria, Kathy, Rachel and many others, this work would have been
nearly impossible.
The Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship for Minorities
supported me during my last three years in Illinois. The Center on
Democracy in a Multiracial Society, University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign, provided a summer grant to conduct interviews with key
stakeholders. In Puerto Rico, writing for this book was supported in
part by grant number 5 P20 MD001112-03 from the National Center on
Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) and the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Institute for Interdisciplinary
Research, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. Finally, I would also like
to acknowledge Christopher Sonn and Tania García Ramos for their
encouraging comments to the last chapter, and the invaluable assistance
of Maricelis Nogueras and Kay Hessemer during the revision,
proofreading and editing of the book.

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