“If We Don’t Do It, Nobody Is Going to Talk About It”: Indigenous Students Disrupting Latinidad at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Abstract

Hispanic and Latinx are terms that conflate ethnicity, race, and nationality and complicate our ability to generalize what it means for Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) to serve such a diverse student population. Latinidad has also privileged mestizo narratives that obscure enduring colonialities of power and perpetuate the invisibility of Indigenous Peoples. Conceptually framed by Critical Latinx Indigeneities, this study documents the testimonios of 10 Indigenous Mixtec/Ñuu Savi, Zapotec, and Nahua students at HSIs in California. I highlight issues of racialization and Indigenous misrepresentation within Latinx-centered curricula and programming and the ways participants engaged in fugitive acts of learning to claim new forms of visibility on campus. The findings raise important implications for HSIs, including Latinx programming that disrupts colonial perspectives and creates more nuanced understandings of diasporic Indigeneity within Latinx communities.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions as Racialized Organizations: Elevating Intersectional Consciousness to Reframe the “H” in HSIs

“…Our experiences as professors and researchers who often expect to research Latinx students in education could also reflect a diminishing of agency. Additionally, this Mestizaje of research further influences the curricula that privilege Mestizos and White Latinxs to the detriment of Indigenous Latinx students (Kovats Sánchez, 2021). For example, fellowships marketed to Latinx scholars often imply that applicants should demonstrate a record of doing research that reinforces narrow notions of Latinidad or focuses on Latinxs as a unit of analysis.…”

“…In the U.S. context, Mestizaje is used to negate, silence, or trivialize racism among Latinx populations (Godreau et al, 2008). Kovats Sánchez (2021) explained that HSIs employ Mestizaje to invisibilize Indigenous Latinx students through programming and curricula centered on panethnicity—people who share language, culture, and heritage but not race (Taylor et al, 2012). Additionally, Mestizaje suggests that Indigenous people and culture are part of a historical past, negating the current lived experiences of Indigenous students who are very much present and have ties to Indigenous people, land, and culture (Kovats Sánchez, 2021).…”

“…Kovats Sánchez (2021) explained that HSIs employ Mestizaje to invisibilize Indigenous Latinx students through programming and curricula centered on panethnicity—people who share language, culture, and heritage but not race (Taylor et al, 2012). Additionally, Mestizaje suggests that Indigenous people and culture are part of a historical past, negating the current lived experiences of Indigenous students who are very much present and have ties to Indigenous people, land, and culture (Kovats Sánchez, 2021). This violence is often perpetuated by White and Mestizo Latinxs who elevate Whiteness by using Indigeneity as a cover to deny racism.…”

“…Yet this diversity within HSIs also makes understanding servingness for Latinx students a complex issue and not easily generalizable (Cuellar, 2019). In fact, scholars have questioned whether HSIs are serving themselves (Smith-Aguilar, 2022) and White students (Vargas & Villa-Palomino, 2019) while marginalizing Black (Pirtle et al, 2021, Vega, 2019), Indigenous Latinx (Kovats Sánchez, 2021), and Afrolatinx (Abrica et al, 2020; Boveda, 2019a) students. In recent years, researchers have taken a sharper focus to examine how practices related to servingness have been influenced by racial ideologies and perpetuate racial inequities (Abrica et al, 2020; Kovats Sánchez, 2021; Pirtle et al, 2021).…”

“…In fact, scholars have questioned whether HSIs are serving themselves (Smith-Aguilar, 2022) and White students (Vargas & Villa-Palomino, 2019) while marginalizing Black (Pirtle et al, 2021, Vega, 2019), Indigenous Latinx (Kovats Sánchez, 2021), and Afrolatinx (Abrica et al, 2020; Boveda, 2019a) students. In recent years, researchers have taken a sharper focus to examine how practices related to servingness have been influenced by racial ideologies and perpetuate racial inequities (Abrica et al, 2020; Kovats Sánchez, 2021; Pirtle et al, 2021). We build on this body of scholarship about servingness by interrogating how dominant racial ideologies shape practices designed to serve Latinx people at HSIs.…”