Framing Latina/o Immigration, Education, and Activism

© 2007 The AuthorsJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 701–719, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00038.x

Framing Latina/o Immigration, Education, and Activism

Gilda L. Ochoa*1 and Enrique C. Ochoa2

1 Sociology and Chicana/o – Latina/o Studies, Pomona College}

2 History, California State University, Los Angeles

AbstractAlthough Latinas/os have a long history in the USA and represent a growingpercentage of the population, they remain largely invisible or stereotyped indominant images and discourses. Such representations are often ahistorical, andthey camouflage the effects of US power and inequality. However, the spring2006 immigrant rights demonstrations disturbed dominant conceptions. Thedemonstrators called attention to the contradictory US practices that disrupthome countries, recruit labor migrants, and deny immigrants full participation.Likewise, the role of students in these demonstrations spurred reflections on whyyouth would walk out of their schools for immigrant rights. Inspired by thesedemonstrations, we combine materials from multiple disciplines to emphasize thesignificance of US imperialism, exploitation, and exclusion on Latina/o migration,education, and activism. Key to this article is a reframing of how the media,K-12 curriculum, and popular discourse often engage in a cultural cover-up thatsustains inequality.

In spring 2006, millions of Latinas/os from throughout the USA demon-strated their opposition to House of Representative Bill 4437. Otherwiseknown as the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration ControlAct, HR 4437 would have made it a felony for undocumented immigrantsto be in the USA or for anyone to provide assistance to them. Latinas/osof various national origins responded to HR 4437 by proclaiming ‘Si sepuede!’ and ‘Ya basta’ in marches and economic boycotts. Middle andhigh school youth engaged in their own protests by walking out of schoolsand educating themselves about immigrant and student rights.

The spring demonstrations captured national and international atten-tion. However, absent from many US media accounts, K-12 schools, andthe dominant discourse surrounding these events was a critical analysis ofLatina/o migration, Latina/o students and schooling, and Latina/o activism.Much of the framing of these topics continues to be devoid of historical,economic, or political contexts. Instead, the mainstream media, public schooling,and popular discourse often perpetuate a cover-up of the systems of power

702 Framing Latina/o Immigration, Education, and Activism

© 2007 The Authors Sociology Compass 1/2 (2007): 701–719, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00038.xJournal Compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

and inequality. As part of this cover-up, Latina/o immigrants, students,and activists remain largely invisible or stereotyped (Rodríguez 1997;Yosso 2006). These limited conceptualizations reinforce national and globaleconomic and racial hierarchies.

Politicians and the media often paint a scenario of migrants coming tothe USA to flee the horrors of their corrupt governments and to takeadvantage of the freedom and social programs supposedly offered by theUSA (Chavez 2001). Likewise, Latina/o students are confronted withsimilar facile images. They are often depicted as lazy, uncaring students orcriminalized as gang members, teen mothers, or undocumented migrantstaking resources from public schools (Lopez 2003). In terms of activism,dichotomous images are typically used. Latinas/os are either cast as passivesubjects or a ‘sleeping giant’ that occasionally awakens to engage in mili-tant, radical, or irrational acts. Lost in such portrayals are the effects of USpolicies and practices that fuel migration, reduce the opportunities for theworking classes and communities of color, and contribute to the legacyof Latina/o activism.

Until fairly recently, academic scholarship has also been guilty of present-ing incomplete and stereotypical views of Latina/o migration, education,and activism. It is only within the past 30–40 years with developments inethnic studies and the changing demographics of the USA, that sociologistshave expanded the black–white paradigm of race and ethnicity to more system-atically center the experiences of Latinas/os, Native Americans, and AsianAmericans. Among the results has been increased research on Chicanas/osand Latinas/os, but rarely does this literature draw on sociology, history,Latin American studies, and Chicana/o studies scholarship to furtherunderstandings of Latina/o communities (for exceptions, see Gonzalez andFernandez 2003; Ochoa and Ochoa 2005; Vélez-Ibañez and Sampaio 2001).Likewise, despite the growth in literature and the increase in second-generation Latina/o youth, few are exploring the links between Latina/oimmigration, education, and activism – critical topics in the lives of manyLatinas/os. Thus, just as media constructions hinder understanding, to theextent that academic literature remains compartmentalized and removedfrom developments in the fields of Chicana/o studies and Latin Americanstudies, our knowledge of Latina/o communities will remain limited.

Although many mainstream media accounts and academic studies mayavoid a critical analysis of the historical, economic, and political factorsimpacting Latin America and the lives of US–Latinas/os, in spring 2006,it was hard to ignore the millions who took to the streets. Carrying USflags and placards linking the rights of immigrants, students, workers, andfamilies with the struggle for liberty, equality, and justice for all, thedemonstrators provided a visual of the human effects of years of USdomination in Latin America. The demonstrators’ presence challengedfalse images and stereotypes of immigrants. Economic migrants and politi-cal refugees marched alongside US-born Latinas/os, Asian Americans,


Framing Latina/o Immigration, Education, and Activism 703

African Americans, and whites to demand full integration and recognitioninto the USA.

Using the historical spring 2006 demonstrations as a backdrop andcombining often-disparate bodies of literatures – in sociology, history, LatinAmerican studies, and Chicana/o studies – we offer a multidisciplinary andmultifaceted framework that highlights the significance of global capitalismand white supremacy on Latina/o communities and the intersections ofLatina/o immigration, education, and activism. Key to this framework isa movement away from individual-level arguments and stereotypes to anemphasis on structural factors, such as US imperialism, economic exploita-tion, unequal schooling, and a legacy of resistance. This framework alsocaptures a lesson from the marches – that the struggle for more humaneimmigration policies should be part of a large and inclusive transnationaland cross-racial social justice movement. By broadening the frameworksfor analyzing Latino/a migration, education, and activism, we emphasizethe systems of power and inequality that shape the lives of marginalizedcommunities.

Latina/o diversity and panethnicity

Part of framing Latina/o migration, education, and activism involvesunmasking the heterogeneity that exists among the 41 million peoplecategorized as Latina/o in the USA. Included in this broad category arepeople who may have little in common with one another because of theirdivergent experiences and relationships to power and privilege. However,much of this heterogeneity escapes public discourse and may result inracial/ethnic generalizations (Gimenez 1997).

Statistically, Latina/o heterogeneity is apparent in national origin andracial identifications. According to the 2000 US Census, nearly 60% ofthe US residents who selected the category ‘Spanish/Hispanic/Latino’identified as Mexican, Mexican American, or Chicano. Ten percent iden-tified as Puerto Rican, 4% as Cuban, 2% as Dominican, 5% as CentralAmerican (most identified as Salvadoran and Guatemalan), 4% as SouthAmerican (most identified as Colombian and Ecuadorian), and 16% wrotein Hispanic, Spanish, or Latino (Suárez-Orozco and Páez 2002). Racially,Latinas/os selected various categorizations from the Census, including onethird marking more than one race: 8% identified as white; 2% as black orAfrican American; 15% as American Indian and Alaskan Native; 11% asAsian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander; and 97% as some Other race(Ramirez 2004, 2).

Like racial/ethnic identity, the class variation among Latinas/os is alsoimportant. As a group, Latinas/os who are full time, year-round workers18 and over earn about $15,000 less than white workers. However, giventhe differential treatment of immigrants in US policy and the typicallyhigher levels of education, residency status, and lighter skin of South



Americans and Cubans in the USA, they have median incomes that areon average higher than the median incomes of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans,Central Americans, and Dominicans (Ramirez 2004, 14–16). Likewise,among Latina/o immigrants, Cubans have a net worth of nearly $40,000compared to under $8,000 for Mexicans (Kochhar 2004).

The heterogeneity among the group of people included under thepanethnic umbrella of ‘Latina/o’ is vast. However, even within this diver-sity, there are similar structures of domination that have impacted LatinAmerica’s relationship to the USA and the treatment of poor and working-class Latinas/os. As detailed below, these include a shared history of USimperialism, economic exploitation, educational exclusion, and a legacy ofactivism. Thus, a consciousness of this internal diversity along with anawareness of historical, political, economic, and structural factors mustframe all research and understandings of Latina/o communities.

US imperialism and capitalist expansion in Latin America

Latina/o migration must be understood in the context of US imperialrelations with Latin America. These asymmetrical relationships haveresulted in the unequal economic integration of the hemisphere, fuelingsocial dislocation and migration. Imperial policies and capitalist expansionhave resulted in a boomerang effect in which migrants have become theunintended ‘harvest of empire’ (Gonzalez 2000).

The development of capitalism in the USA demanded a search for newmarkets and resources throughout the Americas, igniting a process ofhemispheric economic integration. In the 1820s and 1830s, US merchantssought to connect markets in Northern Mexico to the East Coast of theUSA. A crucial outcome of such economic interests was the US–MexicanWar in 1846–1848 and the conquest of over half of Mexico’s territory.With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe–Hidalgo that ended the warand established the US–Mexico border between the two countries, com-munities that had once been in Mexico now found themselves in theUSA. Following the treaty, Anglo migration and government policies ledto the Mexican population being systematically dispossessed of land andresources and having a foreign language and culture imposed on them(Barrera 1979).

During the late 19th century, US investors expanded into Mexico andthe Caribbean in what has been widely referred to as the Second Con-quest of Latin America (the first being the Spanish Conquest after 1492).US capitalists came to dominate major sectors of the economies of theregion: controlling 80% of the stock on Mexico’s railroads; dominatingMexico’s booming mining industry; commanding nearly half of its devel-oping oil industry; and holding over one quarter of Mexico’s land surface(Hart 2002, 236). This expansion led to the development of an integratedlabor market, with Mexicans working on US-owned railroad projects,



mines, and agriculture in both Mexico and the USA (Gonzalez andFernandez 2003; Raat 1992). In the circum-Caribbean region, US invest-ment skyrocketed from $21 million dollars to $93 million between 1897and 1914 (LaFeber 1984, 35). In Central America, US companies cameto dominate, the banana industry, mining companies, railroads and othertransportation companies (Langley and Schoonover 1996).

The expansion of the US economic empire was closely linked to itsrise as a military power throughout the Americas and had a spiralingeffect. Between 1869 and 1897, the US government sent warships into LatinAmerican ports 5,980 times to protect US business interests (Grandin2006, 20). The Spanish–American War of 1898–1901 was essentially a USintrusion on Cuba’s struggle for independence and led to the colonizationof Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Between 1910 and 1933, the USinvaded Latin American countries over 34 times and occupied Cuba,Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti for significantperiods (Grandin 2006, 20). US economic investment and military inter-vention fostered a subservient and dependent relationship between LatinAmerica and the USA.

After World War II, efforts to maintain US hegemony in Latin Americaescalated. The Cold War policies of the USA led to meddling in the affairsof Latin American countries that included the support of authoritariandictators, covert actions to overthrow popularly elected presidents, such asin Guatemala in 1954 and Chile 1973, overt efforts to destabilize theCuban and Nicaraguan revolution, and the support of military regimes,such as in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Hondurasduring the 1960s and 1970s.

Coupled with these political and military practices in Latin America, USeconomic polices led to the erosion of subsistence agriculture, resultingin internal and international migration. In the 1950s and 1960s, campesinoswere pushed off of their lands for production of cotton. In the 1960sand 1970s, the production of beef led to community displacement (Vilas1995; Williams 1986). More recently, structural adjustment policies, the1994 implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, andthe pending implementation of the Central American and DominicanRepublic Free Trade Agreement have hastened the movement of USfactories into Latin America as companies cross borders in their quest formaximum profits. Such US capitalist expansion, contrary to neoliberaleconomic doctrine, has increased economic inequality in many regions andfurther destabilized economies in Latin America (Damián and Boltvinik2006; Gonzalez 2000). In these circumstances, migration becomes aneconomic strategy, and migrant and employer networks may sustainmigration in spite of greater US restrictions on immigration (González dela Rocha 2001; Massey et al. 1987).

Coupled with contemporary shifts in the global economy, US foreignpolicy in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s spurred a dramatic



increase in migration from Central America to the US. Families andindividuals, especially from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, fledUS-sponsored wars that resulted in the abduction, torture, and death ofhundreds of thousands of people (Garcia 2006; Hamilton and Chinchilla2001). Given the role of the USA in supporting governments in El Salvadorand Guatemala, less than 3% of refugees from these countries during thisperiod were granted political asylum (Garcia 2006, 11). In 1997, throughthe Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, some Nicaraguans,Salvadorans, and Guatemalans were able to adjust their immigration statusto legal permanent residents. Nevertheless, millions still live and work inthe USA without documents and under the threat of deportation.

This history of economic and military control in Latin America wasjustified by an ideology of manifest destiny that sought to uplift a ‘back-ward population’ as part of the moral obligation of a ‘civilized power’.Stretching back to the early 19th century, racialized discourse by earlymerchants and travelers to Latin America reinforced the notion that LatinAmericans were indolent and unfit for self-government (De León 1983).Charles Savage, the US Consul to Central America remarked in 1832 thatCentral Americas ‘are, have been, and for all ages will remain entirelyunfit for any government under heaven but an unqualified despotism’(Dunkerley 1988, 1). Social Darwinist thought of the late 19th centurycompounded these attitudes, and Anglo capitalists in Latin America por-trayed the population as peons who hindered progress (Gonzalez 2004,81). Thus, American imperialists sought to Americanize Latin Americansas part of the ‘burden of imperialism’. This entailed creating schools and usingthe workplace as sites of socialization to help ‘civilize’ Latin Americans tobe productive members of society (Cabán 2002; Gonzalez 2004).

Although US hegemony in Latin America runs deep, much of thishistory remains forgotten, ignored, or untold in dominant discourse. Thepervasive assumption is that the USA has no role in instigating migration;migrants are just moving to the USA to reap the resources that are supposedlyprovided to them. Thus, without a macroscopic context that includes anawareness of Latin American history, simplistic troupes will continue to frameLatina/o immigration. To help dispel these misperceptions, scholarship onLatina/o migration must be informed by developments in Latin AmericanStudies. Likewise, as detailed in the following section, an awareness of theimpact of economic practices on Latinas/os within the USA is equallyimportant for understanding how just as US wealth has been connectedto Latin America but rarely acknowledged, Latinas/os are part of the invisiblebackbone of the working classes who have helped to build the USA.

Forming the economic base of the USA

Historical patterns reveal how the unequal relationship between the USAand Latin America persists in the treatment of Latina/o immigrants.



Latinas/os, and Mexicans in particular – given their longer history in theUSA – have been treated as disposable laborers who have alternately beenrecruited, deported, and scapegoated to meet US labor demands. The USgovernment and capitalists have engaged in a pattern of recruitment ofmigrants, especially from Mexico, depending on the demands of thedomestic economy and labor market conditions. This demand for laborhas driven immigration and the establishment of a ‘revolving door strategy’where workers have been alternately encouraged to migrate and thendiscouraged to the point of mass deportations (Cockcroft 1986). Further-more, Latina/o immigrants have often been blamed for the social, political,and economic downturns of the USA, but their labor has been ‘indispen-sable’, especially in the agriculture, railway, mining, and service industries(Valadez-Torres 2005).

When there has been a need for laborers – as during World Wars I andII – the USA has actively recruited workers from Mexico. In particular,during World War I, industrialists and agriculturalists pressured US offi-cials to waive sections of the literacy provisions of the 1917 ImmigrationAct for Mexican workers, and labor contractors recruited Mexicans towork in agriculture, railroads, mining, meat packing, brickyards, andcanneries (Calvita 1992; Ruiz 1987; Zavella 1987). From 1942–1964, theUS government implemented the Bracero Program, a contract workerprogram with Mexico that provided the USA with 5 million temporaryworkers during this 22-year period (Calvita 1992, 1). More recently,President George W. Bush, with the support of employers, is proposinganother type of guest worker program for Mexican laborers to temporarilyfulfill low-wage, manual jobs within the USA.

Beginning in the 1960s, global economic restructuring – the demiseof heavy industry, the expansion of the service sector, and the growth oflight industry – and changes in immigration policies accelerated migrationand the use of Latina/o labor (Sassen 1998). Latinas/os have been criticalin maintaining the low-wage service industry, constituting a significantpercentage of the workforce as cooks, janitors, nannies, and domestics.They work behind the scenes doing the labor that helps maintain restaur-ants and offices, and they subsidize the labor of dual-income families bytaking care of their children and cleaning their homes (Hondagneu-Sotelo2001). Likewise, their work is crucial in the electronics industries, and ithas helped to keep the garment industry in Los Angeles at a time whenmany factories have left the USA (Bonacich and Applebaum 2000). Innontraditional receiving areas for Latina/o migration such as in the USSouth and Midwest, Latinas/os are also filling jobs in meat packing, foundries,and construction (Fink 2003).

Despite the historical contributions of Mexicans and other Latinas/osin the USA, during economic downturns, Mexican immigrants and MexicanAmericans have often times been blamed and deported (Acuña 1996; Garcia1989). As Cornelius (2002, 171) describes, ‘Since the mid-nineteenth



century, pressure to restrict immigration usually has been associated withsharp economic downturns and high levels of economic uncertainty.’ Forinstance, the high unemployment rates of the Great Depression triggeredanti-immigrant claims that Mexicans were taking jobs away from citizensand that they should not benefit from public services. Such sentimentwas directed at Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans and led tothe repatriation of nearly 1 million people of Mexican descent during the1930s (Balderrama and Rodriguez 1995, 158). In the 1950s, during thepost–Korean War slump, scapegoating took the form of the governmentsponsored ‘Operation Wetback’ program where the Immigration andNaturalization Service deported about 2 million Mexican immigrants andtheir Mexican American children (Acuña 1988, 267).

Recent economic downturns have also been met with a backlashagainst immigrants. During the 1990s when California was in the midstof a severe economic recession and nearly 1 million jobs were lost, politi-cal attention turned to curbing undocumented immigration rather thanaddressing the economic conditions leading to the recession – militarybase closures and defense industry cutbacks (Alvarez and Butterfield 2000).Undocumented immigrants were depicted as the cause of the shrinkingeconomy, and many politicians such as then-governor Pete Wilson did allthey could to convince California voters to support Proposition 187, the ‘SaveOur State’ initiative. Fifty-nine percent of voters approved this propositionthat sought to deny publicly funded education and healthcare services toundocumented immigrants (Alvarez and Butterfield 2000, 168). In Californiaand other states, similar propositions aimed at eliminating social programssuch as affirmative action and bilingual education followed.

This decade has seen the national ‘War on Terror’, initiated after September11, 2001, and the reorganization of the Immigration and NaturalizationService under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security.Such policies have intensified nativist sentiment and equated undocu-mented immigrants with terrorists (Ochoa 2005). This has led to greaterrestrictions in border patrol policies, resulting in the deaths of numerousLatina/o migrants who cross the border in more dangerous terrain andweather. In neighborhoods and workplaces throughout the USA, therehave been summary roundups such as in meat-packing plants in theMidwest (Cooper 2007). These actions, including the recently dubbed‘Operation Return to Sender’, are reminiscent of past deportation cam-paigns. They instill fear in immigrant communities, divide children fromparents, and intensify the public debate over immigration.

These waves of anti-immigrant sentiment persist with economic fluctuations,even though public opinion polls suggest that ‘the average native-bornAmerican is at least vaguely aware of the macroeconomic benefits the nationreaps from the presence of Latino immigrants’ (Cornelius 2002, 169).

Similar frameworks that may cast Latina/o immigrants as problems anddepleters of resources emerge in the dominant discourse about education.



Just as some may overlook the economic structure and fault Latina/oimmigrants with what is wrong in the USA, there is a tendency to blameLatinas/os for their educational outcomes and to omit the enduringpatterns of educational discrimination.

Schools as reproducers of inequality

Current educational policies and popular discourse on educational out-comes are influenced by meritocratic assumptions and pro-child rhetoricsuch as ‘English for the Children’ and ‘No Child Left Behind’. Suchframing may convey the image that school practices are effective, neutral,rationale, and rooted in the interest of all children. When school practicesare framed in this way, it is harder to see how historical, macrostructural,and contemporary factors perpetuate inequality, and individual and cul-tural deficiency arguments that attribute academic achievement to ability,motivation, and cultural traits may persist. Thus, as with individualizedunderstandings of immigration, popular framing of Latinas/os and educationcamouflage class privileges, whiteness, and unequal school practices. Withattention diverted away from structural and institutional factors, workingclass, blacks, and Latinas/os are likely to be blamed for supposedly notcaring about school and not working hard enough.

Despite the common sentiment that ‘education is the key to success’,schooling in the USA reproduces capitalist relationships of production andwhite supremacy (Bowles and Gintis 1976; Valenzuela 1999). Schoolsconcomitantly prepare middle-, upper-class, and typically white studentsfor managerial and high-wage positions while ensuring a pliable workingclass that fills low-wage and low-skilled jobs (Oakes 1985; Gonzalez1990). This has yielded unequal educational experiences that are mani-fested in the lives of Latina/o students who are pushed out of schools orleave schools at disturbing rates (see Pérez Huber et al. 2006). Accordingto a Harvard University report released in 2005 on California youth, only60% of Latina/o and 57% of African American students graduated withtheir high school class in 2002. These percentages compare with 78% ofwhite and 84% of Asian American students (Confronting the GraduationRate Crisis in California 2005; Helfand, 2005). While these percentagessuggest that too many students across race/ethnicity are not on track tograduate from high school, overall, Latina/o and African Americanstudents are disproportionately being derailed.

The similar forces that have fostered economic disparity between theUSA and Latin America and maintain an exploited class of people arereproduced in students’ schools. Historically, Latina/o students have con-tended with segregated and inferior schools, confinement in vocationaltracks, cultural indoctrination in Americanization programs, and outrightridicule and punishment for speaking Spanish (Gonzalez 1990; Ochoa2004; Valenzuela 1999). Theorists and school officials used biological and



cultural deficiency arguments to support segregation and Americanization(Gonzalez 1990; Oakes 1985). Mexicans were believed to lack the intel-lectual ability or the cultural characteristics to perform in higher-levelcourses and achieve academic success (Gonzalez 1990). A 1930s studyfound that Mexican students were segregated in 85% of the Southwestschool districts that were surveyed, and through the 1950s, specific Amer-icanization programs were aimed at teaching English, US patriotism, andgendered vocational skills to forge good, compliant workers (Gonzalez1990, 21). Such Americanization programs have been part of the largereffort to erase Latina/o cultural identities and can be seen as internalcolonialism – an extension of imperial practices throughout the Americas(Barrera 1979; Gonzalez 2004).

Today, the race- and class-based structure of neighborhoods, unequal accessto housing, and school practices such as curriculum tracking have resultedin a situation where Latina/o students are still overrepresented in vocationaltracks and urban schools and underrepresented in honors and advancedplacement classes (Oakes 1985; Orfield 1996). Thus, many Latina/o studentsare not being prepared to enter 4-year colleges and universities immediatelyafter high school (Oakes 1985). Thus, in our bifurcated economy with low-wage factory and service work on the one side and high-wage, technicalwork on the other, schools function in similar ways as the aforementionedrevolving door strategy of the state in selecting and allocating students toparticular jobs that sustain the contemporary capitalist structure.

Combined with these unequal and long-standing practices are newforms of injustices that are part of the neoconservative movement towardgreater privatization of public resources such as schools. Although shroudedin the pro-children rhetoric of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), thisneoconservative movement camouflages the continuing significance ofracism and class disparity in schools and society. At the core of NCLB isaccountability through strict standards and high stakes testing where testscores are used to evaluate students, schools, and teachers. An assumptionunderlying NCLB is that standardized tests are fair and accurate measurementsof student ability. Little consideration is given to how the construction oftests, school and societal inequalities, and students’ language abilities influ-ence test performance (De León and Holman 2002). Thus, tests areadministrated in English to students, including to students who have beenin the USA for as little as 1 year. The stakes of these tests are high forstudents and schools. Students are labeled based on their test performance,and with high school exit examinations, students may be prevented fromgraduating. If schools do not meet their targeted competency scores, theyface various sanctions that divert money and resources away from them topay for students to transfer to other schools, or schools may be taken overby the state or closed entirely.

Under the policies of NCLB, the negative effects of test preparationand scripted teaching over critical thinking and student-centered learning



are greatest for students in non-college preparatory courses and in working-class areas with large percentages of English-language learners. Teachers inthese schools are pressured to improve their test scores for fear of losingfunding and closing schools. Since Latina/o students are overrepresentedin non-college preparatory courses and poorly funded schools, their cur-riculum is often the first one targeted for change (McSpadden McNeil2005). However, schools in wealthier and English-speaking communitiestypically have the luxury of making few curricular or pedagogical changesbecause their students often have the language skills and cultural capitalthat most closely matches the tests (Robles 2002). All of these schoolpractices have fostered a system of ‘subtractive schooling’ where schoolpractices generally devalue Latina/o cultural traditions, languages, andvalues (Valenzuela 1999). They also reproduce the class structure by pre-paring and treating students unequally (Bowles and Gintis 1976).

The nearly 60,000 undocumented students who graduate from UShigh schools each year find themselves at the intersection of exclusionaryimmigration policies and educational constraints. Even in states, such asCalifornia, where undocumented students who have attended some highschool and may pay in state tuition, exclusion from state and federalfinancial assistance severely restricts students’ abilities to pay college tu-ition. The effects of being undocumented can take a toll psychosocially.Students may be forced to hide their documentation status – intensifyingfeelings of invisibility and not belonging, especially during times ofincreased xenophobia and nativism (Coronado 2007). There are also manyexamples of high achieving undocumented students who scale back theirperformance and educational aspirations when they confront the hurdlesto funding college or acquiring work after graduation (Abrego 2006).

As with the past, contemporary rhetoric and practices cover-up and main-tain unequal schooling. This camouflaging is buttressed by the limited mediafocus and academic scholarship on Latina/o activism. Without an awarenessof a long activist legacy, dominant frameworks minimize the severity of injus-tices, perpetuate the stereotyped idea that Latinas/os are passive, happy peo-ple, and reinforce the false assumption that USA and school policies arewell received and beneficial for all.

An activist legacy

Until the past 15–20 years, sociological literature on Latina/o activism hasbeen rather scant. Through the 1970s, much of the scholarship wasframed by a black/white dichotomy that largely excluded the experiencesof Latinas/os as well as Native Americans and Asian Americans (Martínez1998). Also, until fairly recently, much of the scholarship on activismcentered on elections, strikes, and demonstrations – activities that occurin official and public arenas such as unions and political parties. Suchtraditional conceptualizations overlook the less structured and more



individual forms of resistance and the ways that formal political activitieshave often excluded the poor, working classes, and women (Collins1990; Ochoa 1999). Turning our attention to Latinas/os and broadeningconceptions of activism makes transparent the long history of resistance.

US imperial expansion, anti-immigrant practices, and systems ofinequality in the USA have fostered cultures of resistance throughout theAmericas. Current activist movements should be seen as part of thislegacy. Just as Latina/o immigrants are bringing their histories of organ-izing with them to the USA and transnational mobilizing is underway,today’s youth are learning from contemporary struggles in Latin Americaand engaging in their own creative organizing movements.

Within Latin America, resistance to US interventionist policies hasexisted since the 19th century. Central Americans and Mexicans resisted thenumerous filibustering attempts to take over their countries by Americanssuch as William Walker in the middle of the 19th century. Intellectuals suchas Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó, Cuban José Martí, and NicaraguanRubén Dario expressed trepidation over the emerging imperial aggres-sions of the USA in the early 20th century and warned fellow inhabitantsof ‘Nuestra America’, as Martí referred to Latin America, that they hadbetter be on guard. Resistance to US occupation of numerous countriesin the 20th century was widespread and varied. For example, in Nicaragua,guerilla leader Augusto César Sandino waged war against the US marinesand their Nicargauan allies between 1927 and 1933. Sandino became anirrepressible force in the countryside and an important symbol of resistanceto US imperialism throughout the Americas. The African American pressproved to be an active champion of Sandino’s war against the USA and tiesof solidarity developed in a number of US communities (Vincent 1985).

Within the present-day USA, a brief review captures the range anddepth of activism in the struggle for social justice. As early as the 1780s,indigenous Tongvas and mestizos organized to reclaim their lives andfreedom from Spanish priests and soldiers. In the 1850s, under US dom-ination, Californios and working-class Mexicans opposed Anglo powerand racism (Pitt 1966). Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries,organizing continued in the form of mutual aid societies and workers’strikes, and the mid-1900s were characterized by civil rights struggles inthe courts, the fields, the factories, the streets, and the schools.

Since the 1960s, economic transformations – resulting in a decline inunionized jobs and a growth in subcontracted labor and part-time work– rendered traditional forms of labor organizing ineffectual, but Latinas/oshave helped to reinvigorate the labor movement. While the AmericanFederation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations concentratedon heavy industry and did not exert significant effort to organize newsectors, workers began organizing themselves. One of the most visibleexamples was the drywall workers who paralyzed the construction industrywhen they went on strike in 1992. The drywall workers, many of whom



were undocumented Latinos, mobilized at a time when no establishedunion was organizing drywall workers. Once on strike, they turned to theCalifornia Immigrant Workers Association, an organization affiliated withthe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organiza-tions, and they successfully improved their working conditions (De Paz1993). Such movements have been particularly strong among janitors andin the hotel and restaurant sector where Chicana labor leader María ElenaDurazo headed the local chapter of HERE (Hotel and RestaurantEmployees Union) and now runs the Los Angeles Country Federation ofLabor (Milkman 2006). Throughout the 1990s, many community-basedimmigrant right’s organizations also began to work with individuals inindustries where no unions existed, such as among domestic workers andday laborers. These organizations have mobilized and educated workerson various social, political, and labor-related issues (Calderon et al. 2005;Ochoa 2005).

In their organizing campaigns, many Latina/o immigrant rights andlabor activists draw on their cultural capital and political activism fromtheir native countries (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Ochoa 2005). For example,Justice for Janitors has been successful in organizing a large number ofLatina immigrants by engaging in street performances and civil disobedi-ence, speaking in Spanish, and including children in their demonstrations(Gutiérrez de Soldatenko 2005). Such strategies have helped to invigoratethe labor movement at a time when unionization has diminished with thedecline in high-wage, durable goods manufacturing jobs in the USA.

Activist movements in the USA have also been shaped by recent effortsto form transnational social justice ties. Since the 1980s, spurred by grass-roots activism, organized labor has attempted to form alliances acrossborders. Among the more well known of these is the alliance between theUnited Electrical Workers Union in the USA and the Frente Auténticode Trabajo in Mexico, who have worked together on several organizingcampaigns along the border to help workers in the maquiladora sector.This alliance between two progressive unions has yielded important resultsin building transnational solidarity (United Electrical Workers 2007).Likewise, Latin American indigenous populations in USA have formedsome of the most impressive transnational organizations where they sendremittances to their native communities for development efforts (Fox andRivera-Salgado 2004).

Indigenous organizing strategies are also shaping movements within theUSA. For example, the Zapatista uprising in Mexico in 1994 helped togalvanize sectors of the Chicano/a community to transcend traditionalnationalist and hierarchical politics and move toward more decenteredcollectivist politics. In Los Angeles, several community centers and organ-izing projects have emerged applying the democratic and decentralizedpolicies inspired by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (Zugman2005).



That thousands of Latina/o students – immigrant and US-born –participated in the spring 2006 demonstrations and engaged in their ownforms of activism by walking out of their schools was not new. Chicana/o and Latina/o youth have played critical roles in civil rights struggles,and boycotting schools to demand change has been an important strategyin these movements. For example, the 1968 East Los Angeles High Schoolblowouts where students walked out of their schools to demand a justeducation is credited with being the start of the Chicana/o Movement.Chicano and Puerto Rican students in the 1970s were an integral part ofthe anti–Vietnam War Movement, and many helped to organize workersand advocate for a world ‘sin fronteras’ (without borders) (Oropeza 2005).Students have also been at the forefront in the fight for Ethnic StudiesDepartments, affirmative action, and educational justice (Soldatenko 2005).

Overall, this history of activism and resistance to US practices is growingmore complex as globalization from below develops, and as we saw fromthe immigrant rights marches of 2006, today’s youth are learning from andcontributing to these struggles. Their approaches and perspectives offercritical lessons and possibilities for the future.

Making connections: Lessons and looking toward the future

Do they want to keep us in or them out? It’s almost like we’re in jail.–Los Angeles-area high school student, April 1, 2006

On April 1, when a high school student serving detention for walkingout of school as part of the immigrant rights struggle raised his hand andasked, ‘Do they want to keep us in or them out? It’s almost like we’re injail,’ we were moved by his insightful critique of the criminalization ofLatina/o immigrants and students. His use of ‘us’, ‘them’, and ‘we’re’allowed for important comparisons to be made: migrants are beingexcluded from the USA, and students are forced to stay in schools wherethey are punished for organizing. The jails he was referring to include nationstates and schools. Both are controlled by members of the power elitewho sustain policies that create borders and barriers that serve capitalistinterests, reproduce vast inequalities, and negatively shape the lives ofthose with less power – immigrants, students, the working classes, andcommunities of color. Although few academics have made these connectionsexplicitly, the student’s analysis of the similar treatment of Latina/oyouth and immigrants was a powerful framing of the spring 2006 studentwalkouts.

Linking Latina/o immigration, schooling, and activism is more importantthan ever. Not only because Latinas/os represent the largest of today’ssecond generation youth and their connections to immigration and schoolare intimate, but because similar systems of power and inequality are atwork that shape these critical arenas in Latina/o communities.



However, there is a cultural cover-up that ignores systems of power andinequality that have hurt Latin American communities, relied on Latina/o migrants as sources of disposable labor, used schooling to maintaininequality, and fueled a legacy of resistance. This cultural cover-up allowsfor the scapegoating of the very groups that have been exploited in theUSA while the status of privileged classes and races are protected. Exclu-sionary policies and dominant ideologies of meritocracy remain intactand marginalized individuals and groups continue to be blamed for theirpositions in society.

For too long, the mass media, educational curriculum, and politicians haveperpetuated simplistic and sensationalized understandings of immigrationand education. The history and roots of migration and US schooling havebeen ignored, and individuals have been blamed for doing nothing morethan following the dictates of the market economy. This has led to signifi-cant misunderstanding among the general public about immigration andLatinas/os, while big business has continued exploiting immigrants andreproducing unequal schools. However, the student’s comments and thespring 2006 demonstrators sent powerful messages about resistance andworking together. They helped to expose the seemingly contradictorynature of US economic imperialism with its hemispheric integration ofthe labor market and scapegoating of Latina/o immigrants.

As the processes of US capitalist development and domination and itsracialized and paternal discourses continue to breed inequality, there is thepotential for growing opposition and coalition building. Coalition buildingacross borders, classes, and races/ethnicities is being stepped up to con-front the challenges posed by neoliberal globalization where privatization,deregulation, and free market approaches put corporate interest over socialprograms and community welfare. There is a long history of activismamong the working classes and communities of color, and the 2006demonstrations are part of that history and suggest increased resistance inthe future. By thinking across disciplines, macroscopically, transnationallyand about the points of connections between immigration, education, andactivism, we gain a more profound look into the interlocking systems ofpower and inequality in contemporary Latina/o communities, and we geta glimpse at the possibilities for the future of organizing.

Short Biography

Gilda L. Ochoa is Associate Professor of Sociology and Chicana/o-Latina/oStudies at Pomona College in Southern California. Her work exploresschooling experiences amd the factors influencing Mexican American-Mexican immigrant relationships and Latina/o-Asian American relationships.She is the author of Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community(University of Texas Press 2004) and Learning from Latino Teachers ( Jossey-Bass Publishers 2007). She also co-edited with Enrique C. Ochoa Latino



Los Angeles (University of Arizona Press 2005). Currently, she is completinga qualitative study on the educational aspirations and outcomes of Latina/oand Asian American students at a southern California high school.

Enrique C. Ochoa is a professor of History at California State Univer-sity, Los Angeles and is currently visiting at Cal Poly Pomona as the Michiand Walter Weglyn Endowed Chair of Multicultural Studies. His researchfocuses on Mexican and Central American political and economic history,the welfare state, revolution, critical pedagogy, and transnational Latina/ocommunities. His publications include Feeding Mexico: The Political Uses ofFood Since 1910 (2000) and Latino Los Angeles (2005) edited with Gilda L.Ochoa. He is a member of the editorial collectives of the journals LatinAmerican Perspectives and the Radical History Review. He is currently work-ing on a book on capital, labor, and culture in the transnational tortillaindustry.

Note

* Correspondence address: Sociology and Chicana/o – Latina/o Studies, Pomona College, 420North Harvard Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711, USA. Email: [email protected].

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Documents

Framing Latina/o Immigration, Education, and Activism