UCLA

This dissertation tells a story about raced and gendered socialization processes that develop across generations, among a distinct yet growing population: Chicana/Latina mothers and daughters who attend U.S. colleges and universities at the same time. Specifically, I analyze how nine mother-daughter teams (22 women in total) leverage their carework to facilitate their individual and collective movement through U.S. higher education spaces over a 50-year span. The study’s qualitative, phenomenological design employs individual and group pl�ticas (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016) and a qualitative methodology I am developing, the Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Methodology (CRFEM) (Escobedo & Camargo Gonzalez, under review). By triangulating 42 letters, 17 individual and 7 group pláticas, and reflexive journal materials, I inquire: (a) What are the raced, gendered, classed, individual, and joint experiences of Chicana/Latina motherscholars and daughterscholars who attended college between the 1970s and 2020s? and (b) What are the pedagogies the motherscholars and daughterscholars developed and imparted to one another as they navigated higher education? Several findings stand out in the Motherscholar-Daughterscholar Educational Birthstory. First, this research designates the 1970s as the Chicana/Latina motherscholar-daughterscholar point of genesis, and it names the de Uriarte family as pioneers who initiated the birth of the Chicana/Latina motherscholar-daughterscholar phenomena in the U.S. Findings further indicate that Chicana/Latina motherscholars and daughterscholars have historically endured challenges such as internalizing and responding to racial and maternal microaggressions (Sol�rzano & Perez Huber, 2020; Vega, 2019) and struggling to balance academic and domestic demands. In spite of these hurdles, the women traversed the terrains of motherhood, daughterhood, and scholarhood by intentionally engaging in care practices that nurtured their spiritual, physical, and interpersonal wellbeing, practices I have termed Chicana/Latina daughterwork and Chicana/Latina motherwork (Caballero et al., 2017; Collins, 2009). By leveraging their motherwork and daughterwork, the women developed motherscholar-daughterscholar pedagogies. I contend, motherscholar-daughterscholar pedagogies are a microaffirmative (Sol�rzano & P�rez Huber, 2020) socialization tool that Women of Color draw on to facilitate their physical, emotional, spiritual, and academic wellbeing. In addition to complicating the discourse on Chicana/Latina education, this research contributes to a (limited, yet) growing archive of Chicana/Latina educational history.