UCLA

Latinos are the nation’s largest and fastest growing population in the United States and are increasingly represented on college and university campuses. Despite the fact that Latinos pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees as often as their peers, Latino degree completion rates lag behind those of other demographic groups. In an effort to better understand Latino persistence in STEM, this qualitative dissertation study explored the non-cognitive persistence strategies of Latino men pursuing engineering degrees at two highly selective, four-year institutions. While prior higher education research has established that noncognitive, or nonacademic, strategies are especially important for racialized minority students, there has been insufficient attention paid specifically to students’ understanding and responses to race and racism. This study explored Latino engineering students’ understanding and responses to race and racism, with attention to ways in which understanding and responses differed by immigrant generation. A total of 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed. Findings indicate that immigrant generation shaped levels of ethnic belonging and critique of racism in society. Responses to racism resembled the organizational behaviors of bridging and buffering, in that participants engaged with the environment to take advantage of available resources but managed to buffer themselves from negative elements of the environment (e.g. racial discrimination, stigmatization, stereotypes). Participants’ bridging and buffering strategies counter the implication that Latino persistence strategies are devoid of cognitive processes and, thus, are herein referred to as cognitive racial reappraisal persistence strategies.