Title: Overcoming Barriers: Latinas in the U.S. Education System

Name: Lucilla Limón
Mentor: Dr. Crescencio Lopez

For decades, the Latinx youth have struggled in the U.S. education system; however, the female experience is quite different from the male experience. Latinxs have been an underrepresented population in the educational system, resulting in higher high school dropout rates and decreased number of college degrees. Latinxs faced multiple marginalities within higher education, their household, their schools, and society. In our research we utilize the life challenges that Latinas have to overcome, narrated through the films: Walkout (2006) by Edward James Olmos, Stand and Deliver (1988) by Ramón Menéndez, The Graduates|Los Graduados (2013) by Bernardo Ruiz and Real Women Have Curves (2002) by Patricia Cardoso. Within their homes, they are expected to be mujeres de hogar (women of the household) and find themselves trapped in the inferior gender role of women. Subsequently, they would be considered traitors to their family if they were to leave home in pursuit of higher education. The lack of support and low expectations from administrators in the education system result in academic non-persistence and lower graduation rates as well as the societal restraints that are placed on Latinas, such as racial discrimination and gender stereotyping. These restraints marginalize and hold them back from pursuing their dreams of higher education and of becoming more than society has told them they could be.