A History of Latina Teachers

Latinas/os were projected to be the largest ethnic group in the state of California by 2014 (Lopez, 2014), and approximately one-fifth of the entire U.S. population by the year 2020 (Fry, 2008). Immigrants, particularly those... [ view full abstract ]

Latinas/os were projected to be the largest ethnic group in the state of California by 2014 (Lopez, 2014), and approximately one-fifth of the entire U.S. population by the year 2020 (Fry, 2008). Immigrants, particularly those from Latin American countries, are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population (Portes & Rumbaut, 2005), with children of immigrants comprising more than 20 percent of the school-aged population (Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001; Zhou, 1997) and higher in urban school districts ((Kao & Taggart Rutherford, 2007). In 2012, Latinas/os made up 23% of the elementary and high school student population nationwide (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015), and the majority of the school population in 22 states (Fry & Gonzales, 2008). While the student population has increasingly become more diverse, the ethnic and racial composition of K-12 educators has not matched that of the students. The National Center for Education Information’s Profile of Teacher’s in the U.S. (2011) highlighted that 84 percent of teachers in the U.S. were White, with Latina/os being the fastest growing segment of teachers of color at six percent. In the state of California, however, there has occurred a “browning of teachers” over the last thirty years (Flores, 2011), where the percentage of Latina/o teachers was 17.4% in 2010 (California Department of Education, 2010). Irrespective of race and ethnicity, however, one factor has remained consistent: education remains a femininized profession—84 percent of all public school teachers were female, as well as 78 percent of Latina/o teachers (Feistritzer, 2011; U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010. While there has been growing interest in Latina teachers in recent years due to the Latinization of schools (Irizarry & Donaldson, 2012), there continues to exist a dearth of research about Latinas in the teaching profession, with the majority of research concentrating on the experiences of White teachers.
This paper examines the history of Latinas in the teaching profession, first by reviewing how the profession became feminized, then by tracing the history of Latinas/os and schooling, and finally looking at the recent increase of Latina teachers and its implications for the future of Latinas/os and education.