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In this study, Michelle M. Espino uncovers the ways in which twenty-five Mexican American women PhDs made meaning of conflicting messages about the purpose of higher education as they navigated within and through educational structures and shifting familial expectations. Participants received consejos, or nurturing advice, from parents and extended family members that simultaneously promoted educational attainment and raced-gendered heteronormativity as a means of survival within and resistance against cultural and societal constraints. Lessons learned from conflicting consejos later informed how the participants resisted racism and sexism they encountered in their professional careers. Reflecting a Chicana feminist perspective, the findings illustrate the various social, psychological, and cultural locations that participants (re)crossed in conceptualizing Mexican American womanhood in the United States. This study offers an opportunity to explore and interrogate the systems of oppression that affect Mexican American women and their educational advancement and adds to understandings about the complexities and constraints that Mexican American women encounter during their academic life course.
My mom is from Mexico . . . and her family was not extremely supportive of education . . . [She] made up her mind at a very young age that she wanted to be a medical doctor. My grandfather forbade her to go to the Prepatoria, which is what would prepare you to go to the university . . . And she just refused that. . . and took the entrance exam for the other school. Education . . . has always been very important to her. I think that's always affected me in one way that she fought so hard to have this education and she's been able to be successful. She met my father while she was in medical school, and had me, actually, but still managed to finish . . . She then started her practice while my father was a stay-at-home dad . . . My mom has always said that that's what's allowed her to be who she is and . .. have her career. That's definitely one of my mom's lifelong lessons to me .. . "Money can come and go and men can come and go, and you always need to be independent and you always need to become as educated as you can."
-Victoria, Mexican...