First-Generation Faculty of Color

TRACY LACHICA BUENAVISTA is a professor of Asian American studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the co-editor of Education At War!: The Fight for Students of Color in America’s Public Schools,  and “White” Washing in American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies.DIMPAL JAIN is a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at California State University, Northridge. She is the coauthor of Power to the Transfer: Critical Race Theory and a Transfer Receptive Culture.MARÍA C. LEDESMA is a professor of educational leadership and the founding director of the Higher Education Leadership Program at San Jose State University.

"Stories of love, affirmation, and resistance can find themselves in many places-real and imagined. We search for those stories, or they find us. Those powerful stories of First-Gen Scholars are here in the pages of this book. These are the chronicles previous generations of First-Gen Scholars would have benefited from reading. I know I would have. First-Gen Scholars of Color today and future generations will see themselves and be served by this gift." - Daniel Solorzano (author of Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism) "Stories of love, affirmation, and resistance can find themselves in many places-real and imagined. We search for those stories, or they find us. Those powerful stories of First-Gen Scholars are here in the pages of this book. These are the chronicles previous generations of First-Gen Scholars would have benefited from reading. I know I would have. First-Gen Scholars of Color today and future generations will see themselves and be served by this gift." - Daniel Solorzano (author of Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism) "This book stands alone in elevating voices of first-generation faculty of color who nuance what it means to gain access to academia while not always thriving in it. This volume unapologetically demands for us to honor the full humanity of first-generation faculty of color as they embark on breaking down traditional notions of research, humanizing teaching, and challenging the overburden of service in inhospitable campus climates. If universities, particularly those seeking designation as minority serving, seek to create an environment where first-generation students of color will feel as though they belong, they need to learn from the varied experiences of first-generation faculty of color who have been doing this work, uncompensated and unacknowledged."  - Elizabeth Montaño (Associate Professor of Teaching at UC Davis and Chair of the Capital Area North Doctorate in Educati) "This book stands alone in elevating voices of first-generation faculty of color who nuance what it means to gain access to academia while not always thriving in it. This volume unapologetically demands for us to honor the full humanity of first-generation faculty of color as they embark on breaking down traditional notions of research, humanizing teaching, and challenging the overburden of service in inhospitable campus climates. If universities, particularly those seeking designation as minority serving, seek to create an environment where first-generation students of color will feel as though they belong, they need to learn from the varied experiences of first-generation faculty of color who have been doing this work, uncompensated and unacknowledged."  - Elizabeth Montaño (Associate Professor of Teaching at UC Davis and Chair of the Capital Area North Doctorate in Educati)

• Foreword CAROLINE SOTELLO VIERNES TURNERPreface TRACY LACHICA BUENAVISTA, DIMPAL JAIN, AND MARÍA C. LEDESMAIntroduction: Toward a First-Generation Faculty Epistemology MARÍA C. LEDESMAPART ONEResearch Illustration: Research with Community, Not on Community 1 Food on the Table: The Hidden Curriculum of the Academic Job Market DIMPAL JAIN2 Neoliberal Racism and the Experiences of First-Generation Asian American Scholars VARAXY YI AND SAMUEL D. MUSEUS3 A Nanny’s Daughter in the Academy MARIA ESTELA ZARATE4 On Navigating with Flavor: A Reluctant Professor on the Pathway Here DARRICK SMITH5 What Are We Willing to Sacrifice? Mental Health among First-Generation Faculty of Color OMAR RUVALCABAPART TWOTeaching Illustration: “Échale Ganas” 6 The Classroom as Negotiated Space: A Chinese-Vietnamese American Community College Faculty Experience CINDY N. PHU7 Taking Up Space: Reflections from a Latina and a Filipino American Faculty Teaching for Racial Justice NORMA A. MARRUN AND CONSTANCIO R. ARNALDO JR.8 Ambitions as a Ridah: Using Lived Experience as a Professional Asset Instead of a Liability PATRICK ROZ CAMANGIAN9 Sage and Tissue Boxes: Critical Race Feminista Perspectives on Office Hours JOSÉ M. AGUILAR-HERNÁNDEZ AND ALMA ITZÉ FLORESPART THREEService Illustration: Service Perception versus Service Reality 10 Financial Redistribution as Faculty Service: “The Hustle” and Challenging Racist Classism in the Neoliberal University TRACY LACHICA BUENAVISTA11 Mexicana and Boricua First-Generation Scholars: Serving Our Communities with Alma, Mente y CorazÓn JUDITH FLORES CARMONA, IVELISSE TORRES FERNANDEZ, AND EDIL TORRES RIVERA12 Continuing Cultural Mismatches: Reflections from a First-Generation Latina Faculty Navigating the Academy REBECCA COVARRUBIAS13 Fugitivity within the University as First-Generation Black-Pinay, Indigenous, and Chicanx Faculty: Cultivating an Undercommons NINI HAYES, DOLORES CALDERÓN, AND VERÓNICA NELLY VÉLEZ Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index