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Higher education research often defines success as retention and graduation, yet for many marginalized student populations who are the first in their family to attend college, many other identities, and experiences factor into this notion of success. For Chicana/Latina first-generation college students, their cultural backgrounds, multiple social identities, and families matter in their respective college and graduate narratives. This dissertation study pushes the boundaries of higher education research by carving out spaces for those narratives and argues that the re-telling of their stories evokes new understandings of how the notion of (be)longing complicates the college experience for these formally educated women of color. (Be)longing, in this study, refers to the separate and/or simultaneous feelings of belonging and longing to belong to a particular community like family and college. The purpose of my qualitative study is to understand how the intersecting identities of Chicana/Latina college graduates influence their experience with and membership in their familias. This qualitative study is grounded in the testimonio/pláticas of 12 Chicana/Latina first-generation college graduates of Research 1 institution in the Southwest U.S. Each participant engaged in two testimonio/pláticas with me and an optional group testimonio/plática with other mujeres of this study. I blend the strengths and minimizes the weakness of Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness (2007) and Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth to craft a conceptual framework I name mujerista consciousness and applies that framework to the analysis of the narratives. I engage in a cyclic analytical process called Chicana intuition narrative inquiry and share three ofrendas. The first ofrenda offers insight into how first-generation Chicana/Latina college graduates embody intersectionality within and outside of their families. The second ofrenda looks at the uncertainties with which Chicanas/Latinas choose t

Since the 1970s, the increase in women’s participation in immigration processes in North America enabled the emergence of a critical feminist perspective on migration studies. The following decades saw the heightened border enforcement and militarization of the borderlands seeking to shift immigration gateways into more deserted and dangerous zones. The feminization of migration opened up new venues of social research to examine the multiple effects of anti-immigrant policies on the lives and livelihoods of immigrants and their communities. The study of immigrants physical and mental wellbeing deserves further research to improve our understanding of the social determinants of their health. This dissertation explores the risk factors of experiencing Postpartum Depression (PPD) Symptoms by Mexican immigrant mothers living in Tucson, Arizona. The perspective of my study challenges the conception of women with PPD as another statistic, and critically examines how the socio-political climate of Arizona might increase the risks for experiencing PPD symptoms by Mexican immigrant mothers. Yet, drawing from the contributions of a critical qualitative methodology, I also explore their agency to overcome the multiple barriers to recover their mental and emotional health. This dissertation research provides significant new insights and directions to improve our understanding of mental health issues faced by Mexican immigrant mothers while promoting the early and effective identification of PPD symptoms to make available adequate treatment and support. Overall, the theoretical and empirical contributions of this research will inform public policy makers, scholars, public health professionals, local organizations; and more significantly, raise awareness on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders that might be experienced by members of immigrant communities while connecting them to local resources available in Tucson, Arizona.

Walls have been a medium upon which peoples imprint their visions and dreams of the world:their world-views. Muralism on national border barriers has become a popular aesthetic and mode of cultural production that has been photographed, archived, circulated, and debated around the globe for many decades. In this dissertation, I analyze the rise of national bordermurals as art that has the potential to disrupt, resist, and decolonize at an epistemic level (epistemic decolonization) and will argue that the “sensations” (in the form of emotional residue, affect, auras, and traces for example) are what give national border murals their provocative capacity. This dissertation is focused on a comparative, rhetorical analysis of national border walls and border wall murals; murals that seem to be connected through a similar symbology across boundaries, make political arguments, and provoke emotional responses from their audiences such as by depicting human rights violations, unlawful detentions, and death. By considering a phenomenology of border murals (the barrier’s histories, discourses, aesthetics, and affects), this dissertation addresses questions of rhetorical importance as it examines how national border barrier murals circulate, materialize, disrupt, and undo the (dis)illusions of nationalism, neocolonialism, and settler colonial logics. The Global Border Industrial Complex (GBIC) is a matrix of seemingly invisible exchanges of power. Border wall murals reveal some of those exchanges and relationships through their explicit imagery as well as their affect. The affect of globalized borders and border arts can be articulated through a decolonial, rhetorical, embodied, research methodology focused on the senses–facultades serpentinas. In this dissertation, using a facultades serpentinas methodology, I will analyze murals at different national borders (Israel, US, Berlin), each for their local or regional geopolitical context, and will specifically examine how they re

The combination of auto-ethnography, testimonio, and performance brings together an approach to research that aligns with the call for Chicanas to share the collective voice of empowerment (Latina Feminist Group, 2001) by telling our stories and claiming space to be heard. This charge calls attention to the political urgency to strengthen the college-going pathway for Latinxs. This research provides a nuanced understanding of what cultural elements keep Latinx scholars persisting to college degree attainment. This dissertation comprises two empirical studies that analyze the inner drive to the persistence of college degree attainment by Latinx students. Familial and cultural values inspire them through challenging situations in their higher educational journey. The first study uses autoethnography in my 36-year journey to a doctorate. The second study examines young adults from the borderland utilizing platicas and testimonio performances. These findings influence a framework presented for reimagining holistic college outreach that is culturally responsive. It includes an introduction to research theory, methodological tools rooted in Latinx scholar’s theory. Through praxis in a developing outreach program, it builds skills fundamental in the college-going process.

Undocumented high school students rely on trusted educator allies to support their academic mobility, often by identifying and interpreting policy. Policy research has shown that educators are capable of shifting and creating policy in an effort to create opportunity, especially, when policy historically limits opportunities for marginalized students. This study aimed to identify the role of educators in the lives of undocumented students and the process by which educators interpret , appropriate, and create policy across two states. My study asks what is the role of educators in policy and practice as it relates to undocumented students. Through a comparative study between educator networks in Arizona and New York, my study aimed to understand how educators defined their roles, engaged with policy, and created networks to support undocumented students in their schools. While previous research on undocumented student support systems utilizes the narratives of undocumented students lived trauma, this study shifts the focus towards educator allies. The analysis of my study demonstrated that educators defined their role to empower other educators, address status-blind narratives, and intervene to support their students. Often this intervention took the form of interpreting and appropriating policies while working within other educators and networks. The results of my study indicated that despite the difference in policy and politics educators across both states share similar practices to advocate for undocumented students. However, with no formalized roles in schools, these educator allies conduct strenuous and consuming work without structure or compensation. Therefore the results of my study make a case for a formalized role within K-12 schools to support educator advocacy and understand educator strategies.