Latina Teachers: Creating Careers and Guarding Culture — Study Notes
Cultural Guardians: Definition and Scope
Latina teachers who are upwardly mobile and in direct daily contact with low-income co-ethnic students and their families.
They consciously deploy a range of sanctioned and unsanctioned strategies to protect and help children they see as sharing their cultural roots.
They typically do not enter the teaching profession with a preexisting sense of social responsibility to Latino children; this sense develops after they begin teaching.
Scarcity of professional Latina role models who share immigrant/Latino origins contributes to their perceived value to co-ethnic students and families.
Their social location as college-educated daughters of Latino families, plus experiences of discrimination in school, increases their desire to help their own students succeed.
Cultural guardianship is not exclusive to Latinas from working-class homes; Latinas from English-speaking or middle-class backgrounds can also be guardians, indicating the role spans generations and backgrounds.
Cultural guardians can be multiracial (e.g., Mexican and white) or from later generations who have experienced exclusion in spaces that privilege whiteness; thus even Latinas who do not speak Spanish can be guardians in multiracial environments.
In short, cultural guardians shield students from hostile reception contexts and help them navigate educational spaces that are often antagonistic toward their families.
They are not merely traditionalists; they selectively draw on elements of American and Latino cultures to help co-ethnic students thrive in hostile environments.
They may function as guardians beyond the classroom, aiming to transcend or challenge structural inequalities in the larger community (e.g., combat racial inequality, challenge biased testing).
They can act as guardians of extended families and friends, offering support beyond formal duties.
See Flores (2017) for the conceptual framework and examples.
Cultural Guardians: Core Concepts and Distinctions
Cultural guardians are distinct from cultural brokers:
Cultural brokers use bilingual skills to mediate between immigrant parents and those in authority; guardians draw on immigrants’ social origins and human capital to embed them in work life and make educational spaces more welcoming for low-status students and parents.
Guardians may serve as agents of ethnic mobility, helping minorities gain access to bureaucratic institutions and social advancement (Maynard-Moody & Musheno; Moody & Musheno; Dodson).
The guardians’ work blends classroom strategies (ethnic capital transmission) with non-institutional acts to support families, including advocacy, navigation, and sometimes informal resource provisioning.
Backgrounds, Motivations, and Personal Narratives
Mrs. Claudette Díaz (epigraph speaker for the chapter): a 33-year-old Latina teacher who grew up as the American-born daughter of immigrants (parents from El Salvador and Cuba). Despite familial Spanish language skills, she struggled to express herself in Spanish.
Her own educational obstacles—lack of guidance, under-resourced schools, discouraging professors—shaped her mission to help Latino students, especially girls, succeed academically and pursue lucrative careers.
Like Díaz, many Latina teachers developed a quotidian capability for guiding Latino students through the labyrinth of the U.S. education system after becoming teachers.
They describe entering teaching as a serendipitous or accidental career that becomes a professional mission once they experience the limitations and barriers their students face.
Personal experiences with discrimination and cultural conflicts in schools inform their commitment to shield Latino students from similar experiences.
The life course of these teachers (first-generation college graduates from working-class roots) fosters a sense of obligation to give back to their communities through education.
Theoretical Framing: Street-Level Bureaucracy and Ethnic Mobility
Latinas teachers function with a heightened sense of social responsibility that mirrors the “street-level bureaucrat” role described by Lipsky (1980).
They operate in a highly regulated workplace and regularly make judgment calls about how to work around or with policies and administrative mandates to meet students’ needs.
They exercise discretion and sometimes ignore or challenge directives to help needy clients (students and families) while navigating state policies and school district rules.
This street-level discretion is contextualized by broader research on race, class, and education (Lipsky 1980; Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003; Marrow 2011; Dodson 2009).
The concept of “moral underground” (Dodson) describes how middle-class professionals balance acts to secure others’ well-being when formal structures fall short.
Latina guardians are portrayed as agents who translate and implement ethnic resources (cultural capital, language, familial ties) to promote educational inclusion and mobility for Latino students.
Guardianship as Ethnic Mobility and Social Reallocation
Guardians are framed as agents of ethnic mobility: highly educated minority professionals who guide minorities through bureaucratic institutions for social advancement.
They establish and run programs within schools that provide supplemental educational resources to Latino children—creating pathways that extend beyond standard curricula.
They often stay in teaching roles because they can connect with Latino families and want to help the community and Latino kids.
Vallejo & Lee (2009) highlight how professional Latinas/os from working-class backgrounds give back socially and financially to their families and to the school community; guardianship grows from a shared life trajectory (working-class to middle-class).
Guardian activities can include non-traditional tasks (e.g., filling out immigration forms, helping with naturalization tests) that extend well beyond formal job descriptions.
Case Studies and Practice: How Guardianship Materializes in Schools
The chapter foregrounds Mrs. Díaz’s experiences to illustrate how guardianship emerges in daily life.
Open-house and field experiences at Rosemead, Compton, and Goodwill demonstrate how Latina teachers enact guardianship in real settings.
Key practices include:
Translating and bridging language barriers during school events (e.g., open houses in Spanish, bilingual communications).
Providing extra support by raising funds for field trips and paying out-of-pocket for meals or activities to ensure Latino students have experiences beyond their means.
Extending care to families (e.g., helping undocumented parents with services or navigating bureaucracies).
Implementing off-policy or informal practices to expand opportunities (e.g., taking students on weekend home visits, hosting activities at their own homes).
Example: Mrs. Madrigal (Compton) conducts a large-scale open house with multiple stations (Spanish-language tasks, email account creation, computer usage) to engage parents, many of whom are Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Parents often need direct handholding with technologies (Yahoo Mail, creating accounts, drafting emails to teachers).
The event reveals parents’ anxieties about English-only school spaces and demonstrates the guardian role of providing language access, culturally responsive guidance, and emotional support.
The event also surfaces tensions: some parents prefer English forms, some African American parents navigate the same process differently, and some parents require translation support from teachers.
Other guardians include:
Ms. Maciel, who recalls growing up in poverty and devoting long hours to support Latino students; she explains that many students never had such support and she wants to provide those experiences now.
Mrs. Cadena and Ms. Sánchez (Rosemead) who fundraise for field trips and cover costs to ensure every Latino student can participate.
Mrs. Franco, who organized multiple field trips and sometimes funded them herself, sometimes beyond school policy.
Mrs. Arenas, Mrs. Franco, and others who collaborated to ensure Latino students could have experiences (e.g., Disneyland trips, UCLA visits).
Mrs. Madrigal’s group used social and financial means to help families (e.g., paying for meals, driving students home when guardians were unavailable).
These examples illustrate the “more-than-routine service” ethic (Flores) where guardians provide resources and experiences beyond standard schooling to uplift co-ethnic students.
Language, Multilingualism, and Cultural Maintenance in Guardian Work
Latina teachers often encourage students to retain their native languages, viewing bilingualism as an asset rather than a deficit.
Contrast with broader policy debates: some language policies push assimilation into English, but these teachers emphasize preserving home languages as a foundation for cognitive and academic benefits.
Rosemead’s multilingual environment supports home-language maintenance and cross-cultural exchange (Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc.).
In Goodwill Elementary, Spanish maintenance is encouraged and celebrated, with teachers advocating for linguistic and cultural diversity.
Some schools (e.g., Compton) faced more restrictive views on native-language use; guardians navigated these policies, translating documents, and assisting families through bilingual communication where possible.
Specific attitudes toward Spanish use vary by school context, but many Latina teachers view language as a bridge, not a barrier—believing that students who retain Spanish can achieve higher levels of literacy and cognitive development with bilingual support.
The chapter discusses how native-language use intersects with broader educational policy and the dynamics of school governance.
Gender, Family Dynamics, and the Pathways to Higher Education
Latina teachers use their own experiences with gendered expectations to challenge those norms and to encourage girls to pursue higher education and nontraditional careers.
They describe how Latino girls often face expectations to marry and start families early, and they model alternative life trajectories (e.g., careers in medicine, law, teaching).
Guardians address gendered dynamics within families by discussing responsibilities, autonomy, and educational aspirations with both girls and their parents.
The concept of regional patriarchies is introduced to explain variation in parental concerns about daughters’ futures and autonomy, noting differences across urban vs. rural origins and immigration contexts.
Guardians emphasize egalitarian relationships and encourage Latina girls to see education as a path to independence and broader opportunities.
Examples from Mrs. Díaz, Mrs. Romero, Mrs. Arenas, and others illustrate how teachers negotiate gendered expectations in conferences with parents and in daily classroom interactions.
Guardians also exhibit gendered negotiation in the classroom—working to rupture limiting gendered practices observed in families and schools, while balancing cultural expectations.
Economic and Social Support: Beyond the Classroom
Guardians provide financial and logistical support to families in need:
Paying for meals and field trips to ensure equal access to educational experiences.
Organizing fundraising drives to cover costs for field trips and activities.
Offering informal financial help to families facing hardship (e.g., helping with transportation, paying for trips, or covering costs that schools could otherwise provide).
Examples include:
Mrs. Cadena paying for meals and inviting families to eat together to reduce barriers.
Mrs. Madrigal paying students to help with classroom tasks and driving them home when guardians cannot.
Collecting funds for field trips and sometimes personally financing trips for all fourth-graders.
Taking students to private homes or other venues for extended experiences (e.g., a pool visit) to broaden their horizons.
These acts reflect a broader ethic described as the “moral underground” where middle-class professionals balance competing obligations to support vulnerable clients (Dodson).
Institutional Context: Policies, Tensions, and Language Politics
Language policy and educational policy shape guardians’ practices:
Some teachers report coercive pressures against bilingual education or against using students’ home languages in school contexts.
Guardians navigate tensions between policy demands (English-only instruction) and the perceived benefits of bilingual, culturally relevant education.
In Rosemead and Goodwill, schools largely support multilingual environments, but there are differences across districts (e.g., Compton’s more restrictive stance on language use).
Guardians sometimes operate in spaces where policies conflict with their aims, leading to rule-bending or informal strategies to support students (e.g., off-campus activities, informal translation, or informal family outreach).
External structures (district policies, state mandates) can both empower and constrain guardian work; guardians learn to negotiate these structures while staying faithful to their mission.
Comparisons and Connections to Foundational Work
Du Bois (1903) on the Talented Tenth as leaders of cultural uplift parallels how Latina educators position themselves to lead and uplift their communities through education.
Ochoa (2007) documents Latino teachers’ challenging schooling experiences and how these shape their motivations to help new generations.
López (2002); López & Fry (2013); Hakuta (1993) offer broader sociolinguistic insights informing attitudes toward bilingualism and language maintenance.
Vallejo & Lee (2009) discuss how professional Latinas/os from working-class backgrounds “give back” to their communities and families, which is echoed in guardians’ non-formal acts of support.
Dodson (2009) and Marrow (2011) provide frameworks for understanding street-level discretion, ethical tensions, and community-facing interventions within bureaucratic settings.
These connections highlight how the Latina guardianship phenomenon sits at the intersection of race, class, gender, immigration, education policy, and social mobility.
The Culture of Guardianship Across Contexts
Guardianship manifests differently depending on school context, generational status, and meritocratic beliefs about mobility.
Some teachers in multiethnic settings become guardians of co-ethnic students, while others encounter broader demands to address non-Latino students’ needs with limited resources.
Not all Latina teachers embrace guardianship; some resist or critique the role. However, the majority described here see themselves as culturally positioned to fill gaps created by structural inequalities.
The text notes that the minority sharing a similar background (Latina/o) helps them connect with families and understand their experiences, but resilience and commitment are not limited to any single generation or background.
Language as Asset and Policy Tensions: A Nuanced View
Unlike some studies that admonish Latinos for speaking Spanish in school, these Latina teachers actively encourage maintaining home languages while guiding students toward English proficiency.
They argue that bilingualism supports cognitive development, literacy, and cultural identity, provided there is support at home and school.
There are tensions around language in schools: some teachers acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining multiple languages in English-dominant systems, while others actively promote bilingual practices and family engagement through language.
Gendered Pathways and Student-Gendered Transitions
Latina teachers model and promote gender equity, showing girls that higher education and nontraditional careers are attainable.
They challenge traditional gender roles seen in families and communities, using their own experiences to explain alternatives to marriage and early parenting.
They address discrepancies in gender expectations, navigate parental concerns, and translate these gendered dynamics into classroom and school governance strategies.
Implications for Practice, Policy, and Future Research
The guardianship model suggests a need for policy recognition of street-level work and guardianship as legitimate, supportive roles within schools.
Policies could formalize some guardian practices (e.g., bilingual support, family engagement, resource provisioning) to reduce reliance on ad hoc, individually funded efforts.
Further research could quantify the impact of guardian practices on student outcomes and examine variations across school contexts, generations, and immigrant groups.
Conclusions: The Guardians’ Dual Role and the Path Forward
Latina teachers guard students’ cultural roots and identities while navigating institutional regulations.
They provide more-than-routine services, leveraging cultural capital, language, and social networks to help Latino students navigate and succeed within the education system.
They face tensions between policy and practice, often bending rules to support vulnerable students, which highlights the need for supportive institutional structures that recognize and sustain their work.
The chapter ends by signaling that subsequent sections will illustrate these processes in each school setting, detailing how cultural guardianship operates in practice and its implications for students’ futures.
Reflection Notes
Going into education, she did feel a sense of responsibility to uplift her Latinx students.
The further she got into her career and entered different academic spaces, the responsibility increased.
ways she has encouraged her co-ethnic students is to be more curious about their academic interests and has guided them in providing a structure to explore their cultural identities, helping them connect their heritage with their educational pursuits.
She has learned that it is important to be mindful about how to encourage her students based on what they deem success to look like, because it does not look the same for all co-ethnic students.
Acknowledging building around their own identities.
Although her position as a graduate student teacher restricts many of the ways she could be of service to her students, she has made the effort to engage with them at social events, such as graduation.
If the parents are comfortable, she tries to create relationships with the parents as they discuss student needs that would better drive them to success by altering and adapting to certain pedagogies.
In one instance, one of her students’ grandfathers had passed away, and the funeral services were being held an hour away. As a result, the student was unable to attend class that day, prompting her to offer additional support and flexibility with assignments to accommodate the student's grief and family obligations.
Fortunately enough, the schools my aunt has worked with have been open and honest about their support in multilingual and cultural education.
This has allowed her to foster an environment where students can still connect with their culture despite being in an English-taught class.
For example, she has spoken phrases in Spanish and French as they relate to the class.
Advocating for more diverse programs and cultural diversity has always been one of my aunt’s goals as not only an educator, but a contributing member of society.