UCLA

My research study reveals the racial, gender, and maternal experiences among nine first-generation Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous Motherscholars enrolled in Ph.D. programs in U.S. Southwest Universities. Nationally Latina, Chicana, and Indigenous women are less likely to complete post-secondary degrees. Further, academic mothers with children under five years of age, pursuing professorate positions, are less likely to receive tenure. Through an ethnographic research approach and in-depth interviews, my research agenda captured the following: (a) Educational trajectories and the interventions of femtors/mentors and Ethnic and Gender studies; (b) Negotiations in navigating higher education and family formation as everyday movidas, or hustles; (c) Naming and addressing marginality and microaggressions as Maternal Microaggressions; and (d) Spiritual activism(s)—in multiple manifestations—as resilience, resistance, and survivance in the home and academia. Although my findings reiterate painful stories of “push-out” culture grounded in gender-racial discrimination, the narratives are challenged by Motherscholar resilience, survivance, and resistance. I draw from Critical Race Theory in Educational Methodology (Sol�rzano & Yosso, 2002), Chicana Feminist Theories (Delgado Bernal, Elenes, God�nez, & Villenas, 2006), and Critical Maternal Theories to identify and analyze the social condition and oppression of doctoral Motherscholars at the complex intersections of identity, education, and family. To honor the complex intersections of race, class, gender, and motherhood (amongst others) in the liminal spaces of education and motherhood, I offer a Critical Maternalista Matrix as theoretical and methodological approach.