The Magic Key : The Educational Journey of Mexican Americans From K-12 to College and Beyond

Mexican Americans comprise the largest subgroup of Latina/os, and their path to education can be a difficult one. Yet just as this group is often marginalized, so are their stories, and relatively few studies have chronicled the educational trajectory of Mexican American men and women. In this interdisciplinary collection, editors Zambrana and Hurtado have brought together research studies that reveal new ways to understand how and why members of this subgroup have succeeded and how the facilitators of success in higher education have changed or remained the same. The Magic Key 's four sections explain the context of Mexican American higher education issues, provide conceptual understandings, explore contemporary college experiences, and offer implications for educational policy and future practices. Using historical and contemporary data as well as new conceptual apparatuses, the authors in this collection create a comparative, nuanced approach that brings Mexican Americans' lived experiences into the dominant discourse of social science and education. This diverse set of studies presents both quantitative and qualitative data by gender to examine trends of generations of Mexican American college students, provides information on perceptions of welcoming university climates, and proffers insights on emergent issues in the field of higher education for this population. Professors and students across disciplines will find this volume indispensable for its insights on the Mexican American educational experience, both past and present. This book is dedicated with deep admiration to all Mexican American pioneras and contemporary men and women who have with strength and courage tackled the higher education system successfully. Their success has opened doors of opportunity for future generations who will continue to enter into unwelcoming spaces but know they can resist and succeed. We also acknowledge all the educational administrators, teachers, and scholars who, in a long period of national retrenchment, which has rekindled racial tensions in this country and on university campuses, continue to challenge the "lens of failure" and propose new strategies of resistance, hope, and support for Mexican American students in the educational pathways. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ## Contents Foreword ix patrICIa gánDara A Personal Narrative xv sally alonzo bell, phD Acknowledgments xix Abbreviations xxiii PART I. Setting the Context 1. Locked Doors, Closed Opportunities: Who Holds the Magic Key? 3 ruth enID zambrana anD sylvIa hurtaDo 2. History's Prism in Education: A Spectrum of Legacies across Centuries of Mexican American Agency; Experience and Activism 1600s-2000s 25 vICtorIa-maría maCDonalD anD Jason rIvera 3. Trend Analyses from 1971 to 2012 on Mexican American/ Chicano Freshmen: Are We Making Progress? 53 sylvIa hurtaDo PART II. Conceptual Understandings 4. An Intersectional Lens: Theorizing an Educational Paradigm of Success 77 ruth enID zambrana anD sylvIa hurtaDo viii Contents 5. Parental Educational and Gender Expectations: Pushing the Educational Trajectory 100 ruth enID zambrana anD rebeCa burCIaga 6. Examining the Influence of K-12 School Experiences on the Higher Education Pathway 122 ruth enID zambrana, anthony De Jesús, anD brIanne a. DávIla PART III. Contemporary College Experiences 7. The Ivory Tower Is Still White: Chicana/o-Latina/o College Students' Views on Racism, Ethnic Organizations, and Campus Racial Segregation 145 nolan l. Cabrera anD sylvIa hurtaDo 8. Campus Climate, Intersecting Identities, and Institutional Support among Mexican American College Students 168 aDrIana ruIz alvaraDo anD sylvIa hurtaDo PART IV. Implications for Educational Policy and Future Practices in P-16 Pathways and Beyond 9. Mexican American Males' Pathways to Higher Education: Awareness to Achievement 193 luIs ponJuán anD vICtor b. sáenz 10. The Role of Educational Policy in Mexican American College Transition and Completion 215 franCes Contreras Notes 239 Bibliography 247 Contributing Authors 281 Index 287 A Personal Narrative xvii house chores, part-time employment, and classes, 11:00 p.m. was when I often got around to studying. But necessity is the mother of invention; I learned to read under the covers with a flashlight, as they would check for light filtering from under the door. School also posed its own obstacles. When I entered kindergarten, I spoke only Spanish, but the school went ahead and administered an IQ test, and a borderline mentally retarded label was promptly affixed. This hounded me until junior high school, when it occurred to someone that I was receiving excellent grades. Junior high (Belvedere Junior High in East Los Angeles) was no fertile ground either; I had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed into the college track. Throughout this time no one, especially school counselors, spoke to me about college, but it was a notion that somehow floated in my head, placed there by these "bad Anglo" novels I had read. Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles was likewise no fountain of inspiration for Chicanos. There, my counselors, through their benevolence, advised me to take a vocational course-cosmetology. They felt that I would at least have a trade that I could support myself with, since my inability to finish high school and equal potential for an early pregnancy seemed clear. Fortunately, I did not take their advice. I took a college prep track, became a school council leader, joined the honor society, and earned many athletic awards (but no letter sweater, as we could not afford it). I entered East Los Angeles Junior College in 1962 with a Roosevelt Alumni Scholarship, and then Helen Miller Bailey, PhD, "happened to me." She encouraged, cajoled, and inspired me and the few other Chicanos on campus. She helped me realize that my dream of a baccalaureate was more than a remote wish. During this time I received three honors, full scholarships to study a summer each in New York; Maryland/Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico. I received the Associate of Arts Degree in 1966 and received a Happy Latins Businessmen's Award. I transferred to California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). I attended CSULA from 1966 to 1967 and dropped out when I married. My family would not accept my marriage without my working full-time for at least one year and contributing financially to the household: "All this time in college and you go off and get married without our benefiting?" Under all this stress, my grades plummeted and I was forced to leave. In 1968, I married and resigned myself to working, helping put my husband through his senior year, and forgetting the silly notion of a baccalaureate. My husband graduated in 1969, turned to me, and said, "Now it's your turn." I was terrified and refused the idea. He persisted, dragged me to a ate student. I am deeply grateful to her. Ms. Wendy Hall was a critical member of the team, and I also owe her a deep debt of gratitude. She engaged all the technical aspects of press requirements and produced a manuscript ready for copyediting. I also express a strong sense of gratitude to Ms. Theresa J. May, former editor in chief at the University of Texas Press, for her enthusiasm, support, and generosity with her time in shepherding the manuscript through all the initial phases of approval. I am deeply grateful to all the organizations, graduate students, and staff, especially at UCLA and the University of Maryland, that helped to fulfill the goal of bringing this book to fruition. For the second editor, Sylvia Hurtado, understanding the experiences of Mexican American students was a driving force in my becoming a researcher in the first place. I think perhaps I sought to unpack my own experiences as a Chicana in a campus climate where the representation of both Chicanos and women was extremely low. In some ways, not that much has changed, and in our social and academic connections at every stage of our educational journey, we have much for which to be grateful. I would like to thank Frank Ayala, former assistant dean of students at Princeton University, for personal support and for making a space for and supporting the Chicano Caucus and other Latinas/os in college; Juan González, who gave me my first job at the Higher Education Research Institute, allowing me to prove my potential as a graduate student researcher; Sandy Astin for teaching me how to think like a researcher; and Walter Allen and Michael Olivas for supporting my career as a scholar. I want to thank my past and current graduate students for the knowledge and expertise they provide in moving important research forward so that it reaches the right audiences. This book would not be possible without the involvement of the senior and next-generation Latina/o scholars featured here. Victor Sáenz, Luis Ponjuán, Nolan Cabrera, and Frances Contreras diverted their attention to focus their work on Mexican Americans specifically, and readily agreed to contribute. My colleague Adriana Ruiz Alvarado is a collaborator and sounding board about research and life in general. I also want to thank Patricia Gándara, a pioneer in the area of educational policy, reform, and equity, for writing the foreword in the midst of many other important deadlines. I also thank Ruth for walking into my office one day and suggesting that we coauthor on the topic of Mexican American education; working on this book has made me remember why I wanted to ask questions and find answers as a career.