CLEARvoz Journal (Center for Leadership, Equity and Research)
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The Slippery Work Of Teaching About Whiteness And Privilege: Two Latinx Professors’ Testimonio
Full text linkUsing testimonio (Reyes & Rodriguez, 2012), two Latinx instructors examine their experiences and thought processes with the kinds of resistance faced from White or White-aligning students constantly “slipping away” from doing the work of reflecting on Whiteness and their privilege. Analyzing the data through a critical race-grounded theory approach (Malagón, Pérez-Huber, & Velez, 2009), we theorize a pattern of self-removal and deflection that White students engage in to maintain their privilege and Whiteness invisible. In our discussion, we consider the role of pedagogy and ideology for teacher educators working with resistance from White students
Khalas!: Institutionalized SWANA Erasure, Resilience, and Resistance In Higher Education
Full text linkThe question of SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) diasporic identity formation has been widely debated in area studies, ethnic studies, and the burgeoning field of Arab American Studies with scholars such as Sarah Gualtieri (2009), Nadine Naber (2012), and Neda Maghbouleh (2017) arguing that people of SWANA descent are racial minorities even though the U.S. government classifies them as white. However, these works have not adequately addressed SWANA racialization in the context of higher education following 9/11. This co-authored paper closely examines institutionalized SWANA erasure from the shared intersectional perspective of one faculty member, one graduate student, and two undergraduate students at a California State University campus in Southern California. Specifically, in this co-authored paper, we draw on our individual and collective co-organizing experiences to illustrate (a) the persistence of specific structural inequities that SWANA heritage people face in the academy, (b) the multilayered impact of these educational barriers, and (c) our wide range of ongoing activist responses to them. We say “khalas!” (enough!) to systemic oppression and argue that the ultimate antidote to institutionalized SWANA erasure is solidarity within and between marginalized subjects at every level of academia in the service of anti-racist education. In conclusion, this co-authored paper uplifts SWANA resilience and resistance in California’s most diverse public university system to shed new light on the understudied issue of how higher education perpetuates SWANA racialization. 
Shallow Inclusion: How Latinx Students Experience A Predominantly White Institution “Doing Diversity Work”
Full text linkA university’s culture cycle includes institutional ideas around racial/ethnic diversity that inform institutional practices and norms, which shape daily interactions and individual experiences of students. Using qualitative methods, we explore how Latinx students experience these elements of campus culture at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) publicly committing to engaging in diversity work. We examine the university’s ideas and institutional practices and compare them with the interactions and individual experiences of students. We discuss what Latinx students’ experiences reveal about how the university’s culture cycle considers and promotes the inclusion of Latinx perspectives, experiences, cultural traditions, histories, and challenges. We supplement our understanding of the culture cycle model with elements of Latinx Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) to account for the pervasive influence of race and racism. We conclude that a race-informed Latinx cultural consciousness is only present in shallow ways within the culture cycle of the university studied. To facilitate an understanding of Latinx student perspectives, meaningfully serve Latinx students, and extend the benefits of diversity to all students, a Latinx cultural consciousness must be infused in all phases of the culture cycle
Losing Hope…But Not Lost Hope: Persistence of Undocumented Students
Full text linkThis article presents a qualitative study of how undocumented students experience a unique dimension of legal oppression in the U.S. that results in diminishing their hope in a country that they consider their home. Throughout this study and with the use of a Critical Legal Studies perspective, the author interrogates the role that U.S. immigration law plays in creating hostile and, many times, hopeless scenarios for undocumented youth trying to receive an education. By identifying the ways that undocumented youth face both de jure and de facto detrimental consequences, this study demonstrates how a double layer of legal oppression is formed that is omnipresent in the minds and lives of undocumented students. It is argued that, as educators, it is important to comprehend that undocumented students live under the constant threat of legal enforcement as they traverse the U.S. educational system from K-12 through college. As classroom instructors, this unique dimension is not always apparent because we either do not know that someone is undocumented, or, unless we are undocumented, we do not sufficiently understand what it means to be undocumented. This article attempts to help better understand this experience through the voices of college-bound, undocumented youth from California and Arizona
Keeping the Freedom to Include: Teachers Navigating “Pushback” and Marshalling “Backup” to Keep Inclusion on the Agenda
Full text linkAbstract: This paper shares K12 educators’ efforts to marshal local support for the act of basic inclusion: welcoming all communities as equally valuable. We share data from a national pilot of #USvsHate (usvshate.org), an educator- and student-led “anti-hate” messaging project. In interviews, participating educators revealed careers of “pushback” against even their basic efforts to include (mention or empathize with) marginalized populations. They also shared five key forms of “backup” they had learned to marshal to keep such topics on the agenda. Building on scholarship positioning basic and deeper inclusion work as the unarguable task of schools, we explore how keeping the freedom to undertake even basic inclusion efforts requires teachers to preserve agency through assembling local backup -- supports from other people
Foreword: Enough is Enough!
Full text linkThe Center for Leadership, Equity and Research (CLEAR) was established on the premise and promise for joining the fight towards equity and social justice through action-oriented leadership and scholarship. As such, it promotes a culture of activism through engaging participants in difficult and courageous conversations especially during the era of dominant cycles of ignorance, noisy empty rhetoric, and grotesque passive silence. One of the key aspects of CLEAR’s mission is to amplify the voices that need to be heard, despite those desperately seeking to silence them. It also serves as a tool for disenfranchised minority scholars and social justice leaders whose counter-stories do not fit the narrative of the mainstream “elite” professional organizations as they seek to disseminate their empirical accounts and research. Consequently, the Journal for Leadership, Equity, and Research (JLER) has attracted novice and veteran social justice pioneers to share their research efforts and authentic accounts in an attempt to help us understand and face the challenges in society’s educational and social institutions
Cultivating The Chicano/Latina/O/X Faculty Pipeline Across Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Systems: The Potential Role Of HSRIs In Transforming The Professoriate
Full text linkThe production of Chicano/Latino faculty has remained stagnant over the past 20 years, in part due to limitations in the production of doctoral students, hiring Latino faculty, and uneven experiences in graduate school. This article provides important findings related to the production of Latinx doctoral students and faculty in California, at a time when all public systems of education are HSI systems in the state. Latinx ladder rank faculty remain below five percent and doctoral student enrollment has remained stagnant, between 9 to 11% since 1998. Implications and recommendations for improving Latinx graduate student outcomes are also presented
Book Review
Full text linkBook review of Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy by April Baker-Bel
The Right To The University: The Experiences Of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx Students At A Predominantly White University In Upstate New York
Full text linkHaving the right to a space is not only the right to be present without being harassed or bothered, but it also includes the right to have a say in how that space should be experienced. Yet, spaces have long been contested and not everyone has equal access to shared spaces. This paper examines the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at a predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, plagticas, and document analyses, I argue that MMAX students do not have the right to their respective university because their university does not address their specific needs as Students of Color. The denial of the right to their university is experienced through a lack of resources and institutional support. This includes, but is not limited to, (a) Inconsiderate University Investment Patterns; (b) Inadequate University Services; (c) Unequal Housing Accessibility; and (d) Unfair Treatment by Campus Police
Making Movidas: Cultivating Leadership Through Conocimiento In An Undergraduate Student Retreat
Full text linkThis educational case study examines the efforts of one Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) to counter deficit narratives and provide institutional as well as interpersonal supports for Latinx student success through a Student Leadership Retreat. We consider these activities and students’ experiences therein through the lenses of Latinx leadership and Gloria Anzaldúa’s notion of conocimiento. To do so, we rely on established methods in Chicanx Studies that center the voices of participants and communities to foreground emic systems of knowledge and activity qualitatively. Specifically, we examined students’ experiences in programming undergirded by conocimiento (iterative and dialogic understanding of ourselves and others), cariño (care for self and others), and confianza (trust) in contrast to more traditionally individualistic, competitive, and transactional arrangements within higher education