Inside doctoral education in America: Voices of Latinas/os in pursuit of the PhD

Journal of College Student Development, Jul/Aug 2002 by Gonzalez, Kenneth P, Marin, Patricia

Corina: Well, I think you named it right there. It's racism, period. That's huge. You can have someone who's grown up in Iowa do a study at Iowa college where they graduated. And that's their identity. That's what they know. That's their experience. And that's valid.

Luis: Completely valid.

Corina: That's cool. The Iowa experience. No questions asked. As soon as race enters as a factor, it becomes, you know, red lights. Hmm. "Is this important? Is this rigorous?"

As the conversation continued, it became evident that many of us were uncomfortable with the reality that some topics go un. challenged whereas others that focus on issues of race are scrutinized. Even when a topic involving race was successfully defended, many of us shared how our topics were routinely "tokenized" and deemed "marginally important." Considering racism as a means to explain such circumstances was not simply a hasty reaction. On the contrary, we initiated a critique of our own assessments of the situation. We considered the possibility of not articulating our positions effectively. We entertained the probability that methodological differences were at the root of such conflicts. In each instance, however, we cited examples of other students investigating phenomena unrelated to race with less effective arguments and methodologies distinct from the expertise of their advisors. We ended our lengthy debate with a consensus that no other interpretation possessed the explanatory power of racism.

Forces Perpetuating the Nature of the Academy

Further conversation shifted our focus from the conservative, restrictive, and racist nature of the academy to the forces perpetuating this troublesome nature. We uncovered three perpetuating forces as a result of our dialogue. We labeled these forces: (a) the market culture, (b) elitism, and (c) faculty rewards and the tenure system.

The market culture. About halfway into the conversation, we began to discuss the existence of a market culture in American research universities and its influence on doctoral education. One of the students shared the following experience:

Michael: That's like my advisor and I, when we get into it, which we've unfortunately been doing a lot lately. She says, "What are you doing with this Latino stuff?" And I say, "How can you ask me that? You do the same thing." And she says, "Well, I just don't think it's going to serve you in the ways that you want it to; in ways that you ought to be served." And I say, "Well, what's the whole point of this? Is this for me to go out and get a job, to make myself marketable? Or is this actually about becoming a scholar and being able to explore any idea?" You know, there's a notion that what you study has to have some overarching, huge marketable profit to it. And if it doesn't, then it's not good enough.

As Latinas/os, many of us wanted to explore topics that resonated with our ethnic identities. We sought research topics that had intrinsic value to us. Working in a market culture, however, we received uncompromising messages that our topics had to be chosen primarily on an extrinsic and material basis. In many instances, these messages were delivered by someone highly influential, such as a faculty advisor.