All the Losers Go There: Challenging the Deficit Educational Discourse of Chicano Racialized Masculinity in a Continuation High School

Abstract

I ask these unsettling questions: what does it mean for me to write as a Chicano in the final years of the millennium, 506 years after the full-scale invasion of the Americas--the usurpation of lands, the wholesale rape and slaughter of indigenous peoples, the forced importation and brutal enslavement of African peoples; and the institutionalized criminalization and marginalization o fthe Chicana/o community, etc.? --Aldama. Millenial Anxieties: Borders, Violence, and the Struggle for Chicana/o Subjectivity (1998) Introduction Aldama renders important questions that critical scholars must grapple with as they engage in challenging the deficit accounts that have distorted and/or erased the experiences of Students of Color. Chicanas/os, who for the purpose of this article are defined as people of Mexican descent living in the United States, carry with them a history of not only a physical colonization but also the lasting imprint of an intellectual apparatus of representation that reifies their status as inferior. Today, even 500 years after the initial invasion of the Americas resulting in the subjugation of indigenous peoples, we cannot come to fully understand the complexity of the continued marginalization of the Chicana/o community without acknowledging the lasting effects of colonization and the permanence of white supremacy. In regards to the Chicana/o community, Aldama argues that we must recognize that there are four negative constants facing this population: (1) Continued economic marginalization; (2) Sub-standard housing, schooling, and general public services; (3) Extremely high incarceration rates, and (4) An increase in the sophistication and deployment of violence especially towards Chicana/o youth and Mexican immigrants. These constants are critical in understanding the various factors that work against young Chicana/o students. Given the importance placed on educational attainment as an avenue for economic and social mobility, it is important to understand and acknowledge how these combined constants allows for a more critical frame that contextualizes how schooling institutions replicate sub-standard conditions and opportunities for Chicano youth. This article locates the Chicano racialized male body within the education discourse surrounding research and practice. In order to more appropriately understand the experiences of these youth, I draw from critical race theory (CRT) and Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) in education as well as Chicana feminist epistemologies to more specifically examine the racialized and gendered experiences of Chicano male students. A critical examination that interrogates Eurocentric epistemologies works at deconstructing the racialized and gendered discourses inscripted upon these young bodies. In order to illuminate these experiences, I draw from participatory research and extensive oral history interviews that examine the educational trajectories of Chicano male high school students in a California continuation high school. I place these narratives within a historical context that takes into consideration the pathological marginalization of these Students of Color. The Need to Examine Chicano Males in Continuation High Schools The overall educational attainment of males, specifically pertaining to Chicanos and Latinos, has become of increasing concern in the past decade (Kleinfeld 1998; Ginorio and Huston, 2001; Lopez, 2003; Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004). According to Kleinfeld, male Students of Color lag far behind their female counterparts. These students are more apt to believe that the school climate is hostile towards them, that teachers do not expect as much from them, and that they are given less encouragement to do their best. Current research on Latino boys reveals consistent results in terms of how they in general have lower interest in studying, low educational goals and a less optimistic outlook towards their future (Lopez, 2003; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). …