Deliberations Among Latin@ Teachers: Providing Social Support for Latin@ Students in the Hostile University

Latin@ undergraduate students regularly report experiencing the university as a hostile environment (Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005; Hurtado et al., 1998; Brajas & Pierce, 2001). Such reports emerge from undocumented students,... [ view full abstract ]

Latin@ undergraduate students regularly report experiencing the university as a hostile environment (Hurtado & Ponjuan, 2005; Hurtado et al., 1998; Brajas & Pierce, 2001). Such reports emerge from undocumented students, first-generation US citizen students, and even among those emerging from middle-class families with parents who have college degrees. Many Latin@s attend predominantly white institutions, often comprising fewer than 5% of the student body, which adds to their negative experiences (Malave & Giordani, 2015). Even those at campuses with larger populations of students of color regularly feel culturally isolated, misunderstood and underrepresented in curriculum (Feagin, Vera & Imani, 1996; Barajas & Pierce, 2001). Negative feelings are amplified by university-level decisions to cut programs designed to support Latin@ students and ongoing attacks on ethnic studies programs. For Latin@ undergraduate students, faculty, academic staff, and graduate teaching assistants can serve as invaluable lifelines as they may be the few people that share similar linguistic, cultural, or familial experiences. Additionally, research shows that Latin@ students greatly benefit from these sorts of relationships and lifelines while in college (Gross et al, 2013; Gross et al, 2014).

Yet these “lifelines” often struggle with the exact same hostility and isolation as the students they want to help. Such struggles are augmented when educators hold a deep political analysis of the neoliberal university, and are invested in the increasing politicization of college students around issues of racism, labor, and the price of higher education. Such struggles are further exacerbated by a conservative backlash against higher education, often targeting people of color with charges of incivility, unproductivity, and over-sensitivity. Furthermore, since we know these relationships benefit undergraduate students, educators are placed in conflicting conversations about: wanting to help students, not wanting to reify the neoliberal project in academia, while determining how much of our personals lives to give, placing us in the borderlands of incivility.

This roundtable features Latin@ academic staff, junior and senior faculty, and graduate teaching assistants who will each speak from their unique vantage point in the university and are prepared for an undisciplined deliberation on what it means to support Latin@ students in the hostile university. The roundtable will consider the following kinds of questions: When is it okay to refuse to offer social support to a Latin@ student? In what ways may offering support to Latin@ students actually work to reinforce the neoliberal university? How should we balance self-care with social support, and is such a balance actually ever possible? How do we understand ourselves outside of the neoliberal project, that leads us through severe socialization into the academy, and instead look at subaltern understandings of ourselves, our mentors, mentees, communities, and families? How do we express to our students the ways we want to receive support? If not us, then who?