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s i x LESSONS FROM ACOMA STUDENTS FOR SCHOOL SUCCESS The previous two chapters provided an in-depth understanding of the lives, identities, and school experiences of Chicana/o students in Acoma. That detailed analysis is of particular importance because no one has researched the experiences of this population, and very little research has been done with rural Chicanas/os in general. This chapter looks closely at a few individual students to help frame the overall findings of Chapters 4 and 5. Their experiences reflect what is now happening in rural areas across the country with emerging Mexican communities. As the information from student interviews demonstrated, the racial power structure in Acoma controlled the understanding and discussion of race in the community and left little room for resistance. The lives of Chicana/o students were explained for them, without their input, and with the confidence that their input was not needed. This chapter focuses on a few case studies to reveal how students in this environment were able to survive. Specifically, I chose to look at students whose experiences reflected those of the majority of participants in the project. In addition, I looked for students who had developed survival strategies that might be applicable to all of the participants in this project and to students in Acoma in general. Three women at the community college told quite similar and compelling stories of their struggles over the course of their schooling. Together they have provided some critical insights into surviving these travails, and their stories are the heart of this chapter. I also have included the perspectives of two males whose stories addressed different issues and can help us understand survival strategies more completely. 201 06a-T3261 3/22/05 1:22 PM Page 201 i n s i g h t s f r o m a c o m a c h i c a n a /o y o u t h The objective of this chapter is not to provide a detailed analysis of each person and her or his life, but rather to understand the students’ struggles and how they overcame them. In the end, the goal is to prescribe means for addressing Chicana/o students’ needs, based on that understanding of the students’ experiences. Each of the students told a different story in a different way, addressing unique aspects of life in Acoma and the racial power structure. When their stories are taken together , the combined story and message are powerful. Readers are encouraged to carefully read “Time-out,” at the end of this chapter, for an understanding of many of these issues through a first-person, in-depth look at one student’s life. R A M O N A At the time of our interview, Ramona was finishing her first year at the community college and had about a 3.6 GPA in her first two quarters. Born in Mexico, she had migrated to the United States with her family at about the age of three. Her parents had little education and worked as laborers in the agricultural industry. Although Ramona was doing well in college, she reported that her school performance had fluctuated a great deal over the years. Early in the interview, she talked about teachers and their role in her schooling (in an excerpt partially included in Chapter 5): I haven’t really had, like, close relationship with any teachers. . . . I know at some stages in my life it was because of myself, and at other stages it was because [of] other people. . . . I think it was because I wasn’t too involved in school. If I would’ve been, like, more involved or if I would’ve been more like a good student, then maybe I woulda had, like, a teacher that woulda pushed me more or something. But I don’t think they put too much attention to those who don’t care much about school. Ramona struggled a little to describe her relationship with teachers. She knew that it was not strong, and she also knew that she simply had not cared much about school at different times. Although she briefly mentioned that these aspects of her schooling were not all her doing, in the end she attributed her lack of connection with teachers at that stage in her life to her own lack of effort. In many ways, her initial response reflected the way students are taught to understand why...

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