Gilda L. Ochoa

Bio: Gilda L. Ochoa is an academic researcher from Pomona College. The author has contributed to research in topics: Ethnic group & Racism. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 24 publications receiving 341 citations.

Becoming Neighbors in a Mexican American Community: Power, Conflict, and Solidarity

Abstract: 1 Introducing Becoming Neighbors 2 Theorizing about Mexican American/-Mexican Immigrant Relations in "Occupied Mexico" 3 "Where the Past Meets the Future": Centering La Puente 4 "This Is Who I Am": Negotiating Racial/Ethnic Constructions 5 "Between a Rock and a Hard Place, with No Easy Answers": Structuring Conflict 6 "We Can't Forget Our Roots": Building Solidarity 7 Constructing Puentes: Mexican American and Mexican Immigrant Mobilization 8 Revisiting and Envisioning the Processes of Becoming NeighborsAppendix: The Politics of Research

Academic Profiling: Latinos, Asian Americans, and the Achievement Gap

Abstract: Contents AbbreviationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Academic Profiling at a Southern California High School Part I: Prevailing Ideologies and School Structures1. Framing the "Gap": Dominant Discourses of Achievement2. Welcome to High School: Tracking from Middle School to International Baccalaureate Programs Part II: School Practices and Family Resources3. "I'm Watching Your Group": Regulating Students Unequally4. "Parents Spend Half a Million on Tutoring": Standardized Tests and Tutoring Gaps Part III: Everyday Relationships and Forms of Resistance5. "They Just Judge Us by Our Cover": Students' Everyday Experiences with Race6. "Breaking the Mindset": Forms of Resistance and Change7. Processes of Change: Cycles of Reflection, Dialogue, and Implementation Conclusion: Possibilities and Pitfalls in Any School U.S.A. Appendix: Student Participants, Staffulty, and ParentsNotesBibliographyIndex

Mexican Americans' attitudes toward and interactions with Mexican immigrants : A qualitative analysis of conflict and cooperation

Abstract: Emphasizing the experiences of Mexican American women, this article identifies and analyzes Mexican Americans' attitudes toward and interactions with Mexican immigrants in a Los Angeles suburb, La Puente. In-depth, open-ended interviews with twenty-three Mexican Americans and participant observations in community sites are used to provide a detailed, context-specific analysis of the research topic. This article argues that in the context of prevailing ideologies and external factors, cultural variables such as language may result in both antagonism and a shared identity, while a similar racial background and class position may lead to intraethnic cooperation and mobilization. This article reveals how in particular circumstances, such as the school board's attempt to establish an English Only policy in schools, Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants, possessing a shared structural position in La Puente, have organized around the maintenance of bilingual education. As reproductive laborers and as school officials, Mexican American women may be in unique positions to make connections with immigrants that foster intraethnic solidarity. These findings illustrate the complex and multifaceted dimensions of Mexican American and Mexican-immigrant relations and shed light on the possibilities of intraethnic mobilization. This article also suggests the ways that gender is significant in the construction of race and ethnic relations

ASSESSING IMMIGRANT ASSIMILATION: New Empirical and Theoretical Challenges

Abstract: This review examines research on the assimilation of immigrant groups. We review research on four primary benchmarks of assimilation: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language assimilation, and intermarriage. The existing literature shows that today's immigrants are largely assimilating into American society along each of these dimensions. This review also considers directions for future research on the assimilation of immigrant groups in new southern and midwestern gateways and how sociologists measure immigrant assimilation. We document the changing geography of immigrant settlement and review the emerging body of research in this area. We argue that examining immigrant assimilation in these new immigrant gateways is crucial for the development of theories about immigrant assimilation. We also argue that we are likely to see a protracted period of immigrant replenishment that may change the nature of assimilation. Studying this change requires sociologists to use both birth cohort and genera...

Diversifying the Teaching Force: An Examination of Major Arguments

Abstract: Over the past two decades, the short supply of teachers of color in elementary and secondary public schools has drawn the attention of policymakers and educators alike. To address the widening cultural chasm between teachers and their students, a variety of initiatives that aim to recruit people of color into teaching have been launched. Little attention has been paid, however, to articulating a research-based rationale for increasing the diversity in the ranks of teachers. This gap in the professional literature renders ongoing teacher diversity efforts vulnerable given the emphasis placed these days on research-based evidence in making decisions regarding the proper use of limited public resources, including funding for education. The purpose of this article is to address the noted gap in the literature. From an extensive review of the literature, we identified three major arguments for diversifying the teaching force and assessed the extent to which they are validated by empirical research. The results are reported, and implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.

Learning and living pedagogies of the home: The mestiza consciousness of Chicana students

Abstract: This article focuses on how Chicana college students draw from what they learn in their homes and how living a mestiza consciousness may be one way by which they have navigated their way around educational obstacles and into college. More specifically, Delgado Bernal draws on the work of Anzaldua (1987) to define the concept of a mestiza consciousness as the way a student balances, negotiates, and draws from her biculturalism, bilingualism, commitment to communities, and spiritualities in relationship to her education. Using this concept, Delgado Bernal offer a unique way to understand and analyze Chicana's educational experiences. Her analysis of life history and focus-group interviews indicates that the communication, practices, and learning that occur in the home and community - pedagogies of the home - often serve as a cultural knowledge base that helps students survive and succeed within an educational system that often excludes and silences them.

Becoming an American Parent: Overcoming Challenges and Finding Strength in a New Immigrant Latino Community

Abstract: One in five children living in the United States is an immigrant or a child of an immigrant, and 62% of these children are Latino. Through qualitative methods, this study identifies ways that Latino immigrant parents with adolescent children cope with their new environment and how that environment shapes their parenting practices. Two primary themes emerge: overcoming new challenges and finding new strengths. Immigrant parents discuss the challenges of overcoming fears of the unknown; navigating unfamiliar work, school, and neighborhood environments; encountering and confronting racism; and losing family connections and other forms of social capital. In response to these challenges, immigrant parents discuss developing bicultural coping skills, increasing parent–child communication, empathizing with and respecting their adolescent children, and fostering social supports. The results fit well with a risk and protective factor framework and provide a basis for improving policies and programs to support effective parenting in Latino immigrant families.

Over the Ivy Walls: The Educational Mobility of Low-Income Chicanos.

Abstract: Over the Ivy Walls: The Educational Mobility of Low-Income Chicanos. Patricia Gandara. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. 151 pp.