The Chicana/o/x Promise: Testimonios of Educational Empowerment through the Enactment of La Facultad among First-Generation College Students

This article explores how Chicana/o/x[i] first-generation college students navigate through the educational realm that is built upon coloniality. Drawing on four testimonios, we show how multiplicative forms of marginalization to which Chicana/o/x college students are subject inform their academic trajectory and empowerment. The article focuses on four main sources of oppression—class (capitalism), familial immigrant documentation status (racist nativism), disability (ableism), and sexuality (heteronormativity)—and how Chicana/o/x students turn them into sources of self- and community- empowerment.  Employing Chicana feminist perspectives and intersectional approaches further allows us to reveal sociopolitical and cultural processes that limits Chicana/o/x students’ access to resources and opportunities and how these processes inform the ways in which these individuals proactively achieve and represent the Chicana/o/x Promiseof hope, resistance, and success.

Perceptions Of Inequality As Racial Projects: Uncovering Ethnoracial And Gendered Patterns Among First-generation College-going Asian American Students

Through a Racial Formation Framework, this article explores how Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese American first-generation college students at a large research university perceive inequality in the United States. Drawing on 129 interviews, our findings suggest that students operate under a Racial Formation Inequality Spectrum in which they conceptualize contemporary racial projects through distinct structural-to-cultural explanations. Korean American students in this sample deploy a cultural understanding of inequality embedded within structural frames, while Chinese and Vietnamese American students employ more structural perspectives integrating critiques of cultural explanations. We also find that gender shapes these factors, as most women respondents are more likely than men to view inequality from a structural lens and utilize more sophisticated conceptualizations where they critique purely cultural explanations. Ultimately, we argue that the discourse about perceptions of inequality can serve as a form of racial projects. The results of this research shed light on how social locations such as ethnorace and gender contribute to divergent understandings of inequality in the United States as described by Asian American college students. The findings have direct implications for student sense of belonging and success in higher education contexts