Latino/a Student Racial and Ethnic Identity Development

The Vermont Connection Volume 26 The (Un)Changing Academy Article 5 January 2005 Latino/a Student Racial and Ethnic Identity Development Malika Carter Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons Recommended Citation Carter, Malika (2005) "Latino/a Student Racial and Ethnic Identity Development," The Vermont Connection: Vol. 26 , Article 5. Available at: https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/tvc/vol26/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Education and Social Services at ScholarWorks @ UVM. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Vermont Connection by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks @ UVM. For more information, please contact . Latino/a Student Racial and Ethnic Identity Development Malika Carter Many college and university students, particularly Latinos/as, interact with higher education via racial and ethnic lenses magnified by selfconcept, the educational institutions they attend, and other internal and external factors. While unraveling such lenses, the author assesses Latino/a racial and ethnic identity development and its inextricable relation to the health of the academy. I know who I am, and who I may be if I choose. Don Quixote (Cervantes, 1964) Racial and ethnic identity have been distinctly linked to self-concept and perception in relation to group membership. While student affairs research has been conducted regarding the racial and ethnic identity development of certain racial and ethnic groupings such as the identity development models of Chickering and Reisser (1993); Helms (1990); and Cross, Parham, and Helms (1991), limited research on Latino/a student racial and ethnic identity development has surfaced. Compared to the number of other existing identity development models, there are very few studies available for administrators, educators, or practitioners attempting to acquaint themselves with the experience of the Latino/a college student. Such understanding has precedence: lack of understanding “can lead to inappropriate and ineffective responses to volatile racial situations on campus” (Hardiman & Jackson, 1992, p. 21). For higher education institutions to effectively meet the needs of the Latino/a population, it is necessary first to understand “students’ background and the critical role it plays in shaping their educational decisions, actions, and resilience” (Eaton, 2004, p. 3). The National Center for Education Statistics (2003) reported that the Hispanic population makes up approximately 12% of the total population in the United States of America (p. 6). In spite of this, Latinos/as are dismally represented in U.S. institutions of higher education. As a result, Latinos/as, depending upon their institution of choice, may experience college in unique ways. Specifically, how they come to formulate their racial and ethnic identities can be influenced by a number of internal (e.g., family, religion, etc.) and external factors. Unlike mainstream identity development models customarily prominent among student affairs and higher education practitioners, Latino/a racial and ethnic identity development has long been a peripheral topic. In fact, methods for how to study such development are indistinct. Because institutional and national data are rarely disaggregated by race and ethnicity, we know little about how the educational needs, achievements, or problems of Latino/a students differ from students of other ethnicities and their White counterparts. Author as Advocate As a first-year Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration student at The University of Vermont, I became increasingly aware of the theories student affairs practitioners use to serve students attending colleges and universities today. This realization became more pronounced in a class entitled College Students in America where I was introduced to several identity development theories, including the Black identity development model of Cross et al. (1991), Helms’ (1990) White identity development model, and models of sexual identity development. However, little evidence exists documenting Latino/a identity development. It appears that student affairs is in an unfortunate predicament that could, in light of the growing population of Latino/a people in the United States of America (U.S.A.), someday backfire leaving the profession ill-prepared. Concurrent with College Students in America, I took a course entitled Cultural Pluralism in the Academy where I studied the concept of social justice and its importance to the field of student affairs. While in class, I voiced my concern regarding the need for Latino/a student advocates and research. I also mentioned my apprehension to pursue such work because my racial and ethnic background is dissimilar to that of Latinos/as. My professor replied, “It is not required that one share an identity to advocate for it” (B. T. Kelly, personal communication, 2004). The professor’s words clung to my moral imagination, calling me to hope and work for a better-equipped student affairs profession. In this article, I consider myself both an author as well as an advocate. In May 2004, I communicated with Latino/a students from a predominately White university, The University of Vermont, and a university that is 54% Latino/a, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, in order to gain an understanding of Latino/a student racial and ethnic identity Malika Carter graduated from Cuyahoga Community College in 1999 with an Associate of Arts degree. In 2002, she graduated from Cleveland State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Middle Childhood Education. She is currently a second-year HESA student and the graduate assistant in Academic Support Programs at UVM. development at each type of educational institution. Through an examination of these comments, this article will discuss the racial and ethnic identity development of Latino/a students and the implications for the field of student affairs. Terminology Race Dr. Silvia Spangler of the Human Genome Project stated, “Race is neither biological nor scientific” (Santiago-Rivera, 2004, p. 2). Scientific thinkers, such as Silvia Spangler, would sustain the notion that “race is something we do to one another” (Santiago-Rivera, p. 2). Another researcher stated: Identity itself is a myth-a myth of origin, or destiny, or both. We ‘make up people’ inventing categories, giving each category not only a label but an imagined history and an imagined behavioral script-and then deciding, Yes or No, whether particular individuals should be assigned to the category. (Johnson, 1998, p. 158) Much of the literature read for this study suggests that race is defined as a classification of sociological humanity; I choose to utilize the notion I understood to be the most comprehensible: race is a sociological classification of humanity. Ethnicity Similar to race, the term ethnicity has proven to be just a (...truncated)