“They Don't Know Anything!”: Latinx Immigrant Students Appropriating the Oppressor's Voice

Abstract

This article discusses internalized oppression among Latinx 1 communities through a revolutionary critical pedagogy. Data from a two-year ethnography of Latinx immigrant families show that students were developing deficit perspectives toward their parents, claiming that "they don't know anything," based on their positioning as powerless and generationally and culturally out of touch. The article discusses that within-group conflicts support the interests of a transnational capitalist class by severing opportunities for class [and race] consciousness. [Latino, Latina, immigrants, critical pedagogy, Marxist, home-school relations, racism, internalized oppression] Make sure to register on time because if you wait until the last minute then the good classes are full. It's always the black and Latino students that wait until the last minute. You know it's true! We always do that! Why would you want to settle for crumbs when you can have a piece of the pie? -Latina Community College CounselorFor many people of color, internalized oppression is a taboo subject, hidden to preserve our dignity. It has generally been treated in psychological terms as something people of color do to themselves (Pyke 2010). I wrestled with revealing our secret humiliation but recognized the need to disclose internalized oppression as a social process of domination implicated in maintaining white supremacy within capitalism.Our societal discourses present Latinx students through deficit frames: that they lack motivation, have low aspirations, and live with problems in the home (Volk and Long 2005). In the quote above, the Latina college counselor at a community college that the participants and I visited as part of the broader ethnographic study attempted to support the Latinx students seeking information. Yet she unwittingly adopted a deficit perspective, failing to consider that Latinx and black students may be the last to enroll because they lack the economic, social, and cultural capital that helps white students mediate the process. She unquestioningly accepted the normalized view of a first-come, first-served enrollment process that structures inequality. How is it that some Latinxs come to blame their own communities for overwhelming inequities?This all too commonplace scenario exemplifies the concept of internalized oppression, a belief or fear among people of color that perhaps whites have been right all along and that non-whites are not as smart, beautiful, resourceful, good, or deserving of success. For Latinxs and other people of color, this deficit is often attributed to race, culture, language, and immigration. Internalized oppression depicts a deeply ingrained acceptance of dominant ideologies (Pyke 2010) that support existing social relations of production and asymmetrical relations of power and privileges (Darder and Torres 2004;McLaren 2012).Critical pedagogy, stemming from Paulo Freire's work (1970), foregrounds the conditions of inequality of our society and the role of education in critical consciousness and transformatio...

“Are We Not What We Seem?”: Infrapolitical Maneuvers in the Era of College and Career Readiness

“…(Field note, 02/17/15) For youth workers at SGS, engaging with notions of deficits and disparities was central to the balancing acts that characterized hidden transcript at SGS. In this snapshot, Claire articulates how many SGS families are socially and culturally out of touch (Monzó 2016). While infrapolitics is a way to think about resistance, it often requires a kind of balancing act.…”

“We Didn't Have Courage”: Internalizing Racism and the Limits of Participatory Action Research

“…Most recently, scholars have used ethnographic research to explicitly trace how educational policies and practices contribute to internalized racism. Lilia Monzó (), for example, argues that schools perpetuate internalized oppression by cultivating deficit perspectives among Latino/a students toward their parents.…”

Exploring Critical Hope and Agency Through Photovoice

“…Such factors are particularly important to consider regarding the well-being and achievement of Latinx students, who are too often depicted and described (in academic discourses and popular rhetoric) through the lens of deficits (Monzo, 2016). The discourse of Latinx students' education has been characterized by crisis talk, which emphasizes quantitative indicators of educational failure (Fernandez, 2002).…”

“…The discourse of Latinx students' education has been characterized by crisis talk, which emphasizes quantitative indicators of educational failure (Fernandez, 2002). Monzo (2016) notes how this discourse can lead youth to internal oppression, which is a "social process of domination implicated in maintaining white supremacy within capitalism" (p. 148).…”