Neoliberal influence on Latino male identity: power and resistance in a school-based mentorship program for Latino boys

Abstract

A growing number of school district and community organizations are seeking to address a ‘crisis’ of Latino male education through the creation of Latino male mentorship programs. Indicative of neoliberal shifts in urban education, these programs often involve public-private partnerships and bring problem-solving, deficit-approaches to youth work. This article examines the construction of Latino male identity in one Latino male mentorship program. Drawing from two years of ethnographic research, I analyze the ways the perceived cultural deficits of Latino boys in the program are dictated by a neoliberal multicultural imaginary. This framing positioned the program as combating popular racial and heteropatriarchal deficits assigned to Latino boys. Furthermore, ethnographic data illustrate the ways the neoliberal values of meritocratic individualism, smart consumerism/market-orientation, and benevolent hetero-patriarchy were embodied and practiced. I close by highlighting moments of resistance and refusal enacted by one mentor to challenge deficit-framings of Latino male mentoring.