“A Personal Touch of Advocacy to My Profession”: Counter-Narratives of Immigrant Latina Teachers in English as a Second Language Education

Abstract

Guided by Critical Raced-Gendered epistemologies and methodologies, this study investigated life experiences of six Latina teachers who were former English Language Learners (ELL) and are currently becoming English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in an urban community. Multiple data sources such as interviews, open-ended autobiographical surveys, anecdotal notes, reflection journals, online discussions, and field observation notes were collected over two years and analyzed through inductive analysis in conjunction with Grounded theory. The findings present counter-narratives to dominant yet deficit narratives of minority teacher education. Salient themes included teachers9 support versus institutional racism; strength of motherhood and female family support versus traditional gender roles; agency and advocacy versus marginalized socio-cultural environments. In their journeys from ELLs to ESL teachers, constant negotiation between the conflicting life experiences and critical self-positioning turned out to be crucial.