Suburban schools as sites of inspection: Understanding Latinx youth’s sense of belonging in a suburban high school

U.S. Mexican‐Origin Adolescents’ Well‐Being in the Context of Neighborhood White Concentration

“…Discrimination is implicated in the development of externalizing symptoms among U.S. Mexican (Delgado, Nair, Updegraff, & Umaña‐Taylor, 2019) and Latinx youth (Benner et al., 2018). White peers and adults have been found to racialize Latinx youth, to commodify them as other, and to keep them out of white spaces (Rodriguez, 2020). Discrimination and othering can also make BIPOC adolescents feel like they do not belong in a particular setting (Hussain & Jones, 2019).…”

“…Latinx adolescents described being looked at and made to feel uncomfortable and unwanted when they entered white spaces. Rodriguez (2020) described this look as a form of inspection that white adolescents and adults used to regulate who enters white spaces and who gets to feel comfortable therein. Thus, in the context of the combined forces of classism and racism, the putative benefits of living in neighborhoods with less concentrated poverty may be overwhelmed by the costs of being Latinx in whiter spaces (Lewis, 2003; McCabe, 2009; Spencer et al., 2019).…”

“…Thus, in the context of the combined forces of classism and racism, the putative benefits of living in neighborhoods with less concentrated poverty may be overwhelmed by the costs of being Latinx in whiter spaces (Lewis, 2003;McCabe, 2009;Spencer et al, 2019). That is, even though neighborhood white concentration is negatively correlated with neighborhood concentrated poverty, white neighborhoods likely reify whiteness (Pattillo, 2014;Rodriguez, 2020) and may exclude-physically, socially, emotionally-Latinxs. Exclusion and unbelonging are implicated in the development of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Arnett, 2019).…”

Reframing Suburbs: Race, Place, and Opportunity in Suburban Educational Spaces

“…The extant scholarship also shows that Black, Latinx, and Asian students and families navigate racialized community and educational terrains within well-resourced, suburban districts. Both working- and middle-class Black students and families confront racism and exclusion in these settings (Carter Andrews, 2012; Posey-Maddox, 2017), and Latinx youth are confronted with racialized social and academic boundaries (Conchas et al, 2012; Rodriguez, 2020) as well as limited resources devoted to supporting English language learners in new Latinx diaspora suburbs (Lowenhaupt, 2016). Asian American students and families also face microaggressions from White families and community members who view their presence in suburban spaces as a threat to white status and dominance (Dhingra, 2020; Lung-Amam, 2017).…”

“…Our scholarship would be enhanced by more attention to these historical and contemporary suburban spaces. While recent work has begun to examine the contemporary experiences of other racial groups (Jiménez, 2017; Park, 2020; Rodriguez, 2020), more work is needed that pushes beyond the Black/White binary to examine the experiences of Latinx, Asian American, and Indigenous people in rapidly transforming suburban contexts. For example, we know that while suburban schools have become more racially and linguistically diverse, the teachers, administrators, and school boards in these schools remain overwhelmingly White (Frankenberg & Orfield, 2012).…”