The Succeeders, Chapters 3 and 4 Discussion
1.How does the author define the term "moral minority" and how it is used by Succeeders as they strive to achieve the "American dream."
2.Discuss how the Succeeders attempt to show their parent's "moral value" through their own success.
3.How do students reclaim their parent's value through the sacrifices they make as immigrants in the United States.
You are required to citethe book "The Succeeders"using the MLA in-text citation style.
Part ii Learning to Belong 63 2 Mowing the Lawn and Getting Pregnant latinidad and eduCational exCePtionaliSm Reggaetón remixes blasted from the Zumba class next door. I was in the Succeeders office trying to finish up my interview with Sebastián. He leaned in closer to my recorder in a surprisingly fruitful attempt to maxi- mize his voice over the music. The blaring bass reverberated through the thin walls. Now practically shouting, I asked him to define what it means to be Latino and if he identified as such. At the end of the interview, as I clicked off the recorder, Sebastián told me that it was hard not to laugh as I asked these questions when what he called “beaner” music rang out from the room next door.1 On our way to the parking lot, we let out our concealed laughter over the incongruity of talking about the personal meanings of Latinidad—or Latino- ness—over a Latin pop soundtrack. In the interview, with a poker face that didn’t betray his stifled laughter, Sebastián had told me that he considered himself Latino: “I am, 100 per- cent. . . . At the end of the day, that’s what I am. At the end of the day, I’m proud of my heritage.” He contrasted his pride to the attitude of his cousin, Serena, who lived in a white- majority suburb and was “embarrassed” to be Latina. He attributed her embarrassment and his pride to their different schools and neighborhoods: 64 l e a r n i n g t o b e l o n g Maybe because she goes to Eastlake High, where it’s majority white, and maybe they make racist jokes. . . . She grew up in a more American Ameri- can, like Caucasian, area and I was born in a place where it’s a melting pot. Being Mexican is actually cool here [in his neighborhood] kind of thing, but at the same time, don’t be ashamed of who you are. In the contrast between himself and his cousin, Sebastián pointed to the importance of proximate influences (like neighborhoods and schools) and social interactions (like racist jokes) in shaping ethnic identity. While rec- ognizing the power of those influences, Sebastián held fast to the notion that Latinos, despite racism, should be proud and not “ashamed” of their heritage. He also demonstrated an understanding that being “American American” meant being white, suggesting that his Latinidad may mean only partial Americanness.2 In contrast to Sebastián’s assertion that he was “100 percent” Latino, what composes Latinidad is not “100 percent” given, even for Latinos.3 The panethnic label of Latino draws together a diverse array of national identities, racial groups, and Indigenous languages into one social cat- egory, resulting in both solidarity and subgroup tensions.4 The very terms Latino/a, Hispanic, Latin@, and most recently Latinx are themselves complicated signifiers imbued with shifting notions of inclusion and exclusion. Moreover, as this chapter shows, youth’s definitions of Latini- dad in reference to their own lives, educations, and families were varied, multidimensional, and even contradictory.5 Succeeders understood being Latino in interconnected terms: those of their families, as Sebastian did with Serena; pervasive anti- Latino stereotypes; and positive but clichéd notions of Latinidad, like the Zumba music that plays on the recording of Sebastián’s interview.6 Exploring youth’s conceptualizations of Latinidad seems far afield from US belonging and schooling. However, Succeeders lived under the weight of pan- Latino stereotypes. Their perceptions of Latinidad’s negative reception and experiences of Latino threat stereotyping by non- Latino others formed the basis of their striving. It also came to form the basis for their critique of the racial, moralized, and success- based terms of US membership. As they strove to distinguish themselves as proper Latinos, these efforts also illustrated how those most vulnerable to exclu- sion from belonging can enforce its limited terms. In sum, the Succeeders’ m o w i n g t h e l a w n a n d g e t t i n g p r e g n a n t 65 understanding of their Latinidad suggests the bleeding edge of our collec- tive notions of how membership is practiced, inherited, and linked to self. Emerging from the Succeeders’ notion of Latinidad is a Latino respect- ability politics where educational achievement is proof of the “good” Latino personhood needed to belong. As youth viewed themselves in terms of ethnoracial stereotypes, they began to see education as a circumvention of the racialized exclusion that makes only whites “American Americans.” Success became the way out of race and the way toward belonging. Suc- cess was also an individual way out, one that relied on marking yourself as distinctive from your community. This and the next chapter focus on how Succeeders reproduced exist- ing racial and moral terms of belonging through striving. In this chapter, I show how youth linked academic achievement to belonging. As they made this linkage, they asserted that Latino academic achievers were “good” Latinos worthy of inclusion, whereas nonachievers, as “bad” Lati- nos, were not. In this way, education is a sensible route for escaping racial and moral stigma. This chapter provides a general outline of how stu- dents linked educational exceptionalism with belonging and thus how striving can promote the existing terms of belonging. In the next chap- ter, I detail how this reproduction of exclusionary terms of membership happened specifically in the medium of students’ speech in club meet- ings and their college essays. Both chapters show how abstract aspiration leads to real exclusion. I also hint in this chapter at how Succeeders unraveled limited racial- ized and moralized terms through family ties, a theme taken up in part III of this book. In emphasizing their families, Succeeders showed that Lati- nidad can also be about connections across nations and familial genera- tions. This is not to say that these familial understandings of Latinidad are not also limited, particularly around the contradictions of proving one’s worth by potentially degrading that of other family members. In tracking Latinidad’s meaning to youth, it is possible to see how the scope of belong- ing is both tightened along the lines of success and race and expanded through our connections to others. This tension between the castigated, the celebratory, and the consanguineous narrows the scope of Latinidad for youth and forces the distinctly Latino respectability politics present in exclusionary educational striving. 66 l e a r n i n g t o b e l o n g SPiCy and SPiritual: latinidad and PoSitive StereotyPeS Pedro told me that I should check out the Egypt booth since they “always have a good vibe,” visit the El Salvador booth for the pupusas, and stick around for his breakdancing. The soccer- playing senior was currently rep- resenting Spain at Jackson Hills High’s International Day. A fundraiser for the school, the event was a community highlight. Students created booths in the gym complete with informative posters, household objects offered as artifacts, and, to my delight, snacks. It was a micro- version of events like Celebrate Nashville or the InterNASHional Food Crawl that I high- light in chapter 1. Most students were representing their or their family’s nation of origin. I was initially surprised to see Mexican- born Pedro at the Spain booth. Pedro told me that Mexico already had “a ton of people” and that the event planners needed someone for Spain. They speak Spanish in Spain—close enough—he figured. Alejandro, one of the student planners of International Day and a dedicated Succeeder, had previously told me that the music, clothes, and dances on display all had to be approved as appropriate by the event’s teacher sponsor. The food did not. As students danced to a mix of regional music and hip- hop, they performed what it was to be a teacher- approved Mexican, Honduran, or person from various other nations of origin. I con- sumed it all with both my eyes and stomach. Jackson Hills High’s International Day is emblematic of easy, or pas- sive, multiculturalism—the kind that was also highlighted by city boosters as a lure for urban sophisticates to Nashville. This mode of multicultural- ism works to highlight what Shalini Shankar calls “culture with a capi- tal C . . . food, clothing, music, and dance” rather than to develop youth’s understanding of “the power relations that contribute to [the] inequal- ity” that necessitates International Days in the first place.7 The event is also emblematic of something else: how youth define their ethnic identi- ties, and their panethnic one, in celebratory but stereotypical terms.8 In school, work, and their broader lives, the Succeeders learned what limited parts of Latinidad would be approved of socially and institutionally. Although a limited means of assessing youth’s conceptualizations of Latinidad, my interview questions on it provide a useful map of how m o w i n g t h e l a w n a n d g e t t i n g p r e g n a n t 67 youth think about these questions when asked to consider them. Many students cited practices like the foodways, folklore, clothes, dance, and Spanish- language skills on display at International Day.9 Javier, a junior student who loved Japanese anime, shared a typical response: “The cul- ture that you’re exposed to makes you Latino . . . the food, the language, the holidays, all that.” Beyond language and cultural traditions, there was also evidence of a heavy reliance on positive stereotyped traits in defining Latinidad.10 As Lupita stated, being Latino means “being family- oriented, having some sort of strong religion affiliation, being very driven and determined.” Such responses emphasized the tropes of familism, religios- ity, and “sweat equity” that circulate among the media, social scientists, and others when it comes to defining Latino populations.11 There was one more stereo type added onto this pile: being passionate, “spicy,” or having “flavor,” or an attitude or style that is attractive. For example, class cutup Courtney replied that “being Latina is just—I just have flavor in my blood, Figure 2. Succeeders’ piñatas, made during a field trip. Photo by