University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Engineering my community cultural wealth: testimonios of male Latino community college engineering students

(USC Thesis Other)

Engineering my community cultural wealth: testimonios of male Latino community college engineering students

PDF

Download

Open document

Flip pages

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 1

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH:
TESTIMONIOS OF MALE LATINO COMMUNITY COLLEGE ENGINEERING STUDENTS
by

Daniel Galván

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2017

Copyright 2017 Daniel Galván
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 2
DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to all Students of Color whom have persisted in obtaining their
educational goals, even when teachers, counselors and professors from pre-kindergarten through
doctoral studies have told us that we were not capable of achieving our highest educational goals.

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
-Mexican Proverb

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am forever thankful to several people who have supported and shared this academic
journey with me. Through their familial, emotional, academic and professional support, I thrived
and worked on a dissertation topic that matters to me greatly.
I would not be here if it was not for the unconditional love and support from my family.
Gracias a mis padres, Jose Reyes Galván y Maria Soledad Galván, que han sacrificado sus vidas
para que mi hermano, hermana y la mía sean mejor. Gracias por siempre mostrarnos el valor del
trabajo duro y por siempre animarnos a persistir en obtener nuestros objetivos sin importar lo que
otros digan. Este tesis es para ustedes, es un pequeño agradecimiento por el inmenso sacrificio
que hicieron a una edad muy chica cuando decidieron dejar todo atrás en Jomulquillo, Jerez,
Zacatecas en la esperanza de un futuro mejor para ustedes y sus hijos. Gracias tambien a mis
abuelitos, Pedro y Mela Cardona y Juanita y Nano Galván, por sus oraciones diarias y apoyo en
mis actividades academicas. To my brother, Lups Galván, and sister, Esmeralda Carrera, thank
you for your continuous support through this very long educational process. Thank you for
blessing me with beautiful nieces and nephews that served as constant reminders to continue
working hard, even when times were tough. Shout out to all the tios, tias, primos and primas for
their constant support. Thank you to all my friends and mentors whom have supported me and
had my back every step of the way towards earning this doctorate degree. Thank you for being a
crutch when others tried to knock me down and derail me from obtaining my doctorate degree.
Thank you to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation- Gates Millennium Scholarship for
supporting me these last 10 years and allowing me to obtain my bachelors, masters and doctorate
degrees from three great universities. Thank you to Dr. Chris Bickel, for planting the seed in me
as a college freshmen that I would obtain my doctorate degree and for your commitment to
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 4
supporting me along the way. Thank you to Dr. Frances Stage, for your continuous academic
and professional support even after I graduated from New York University.
I would like to thank my dissertation committee for supporting my goal of finishing this
dissertation in a timely manner. To Dr. Briana Hinga and Dr. Alan Green, thank you both for
always keeping it real, and encouraging me to explicitly talk about and explore issues of race and
racism to challenge the dominant ideology. To Dr. Patricia Burch, thank you for helping me
explore multiple approaches for this study and for your guidance from this study’s infancy all the
way through completion. Thank you all for working with me at various stages of this study to
genuinely explore a topic that is close to my heart.
Finally, my great appreciation and gratitude to my participants. Their testimonios are
inspiring and helped me learn about a new layer and lens from which to view how to improve
male Latino community college engineering student success from the student’s voice; a voice
that is often silenced or ignored when institutional decisions regarding students are made.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 5
Table of Contents
Dedication 2
Acknowledgements 3
List of Tables 10
List of Figures 11
Abstract 12
Chapter One: Introduction 13
Statement of Problem 16
Purpose of the Study and Research Questions 17
Chapter Two: Literature Review 19
Latinas/os in the United States 19
Latinas/os in K-12 Education 20
Latinas/os in Higher Education 21
Latino Males in Higher Education 23
Latinas/os in STEM 25
Latinas/os in Engineering 27
Challenging Racism, Revealing Cultural Wealth 29
Critical Race Theory in Education 30
Latina/o Critical (LatCrit) Race Theory 31
Community Cultural Wealth 33
Conceptual Framework 37
Summary 41
Chapter Three: Methodology 42
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 6
Context 42
Positionality, Participants and Recruitment Strategy 43
Positionality 43
Participants and Recruitment Strategy 44
Data Collection Procedures 46
Interviews 46
Observations 48
Analytical Strategy 49
Limitations 51
Trustworthiness 51
Ethical Concerns 52
Chapter Four: Testimonios and Findings 54
Micho 56
Introduction 56
Individual 58
Family 61
Professional Organization 64
Institutional 65
Changes he would make at BCC 69
Undocumented Students Advocacy 70
Enrique 72
Introduction 72
Individual 74
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 7
Family 77
Professional Organization 81
Institutional 82
MESA Exposure 87
Phillip 89
Introduction 89
Individual 90
Family 91
Professional Organizations 93
Institutional 94
MESA as Support System 97
Steve 100
Introduction 100
Individual 100
Family 102
Professional Organization 105
Institutional 106
Daniel 114
Introduction 114
Individual 114
Family 117
Professional Organization 118
Institutional 120
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 8
Platica Con Estudiantes en Engenieria 126
Introductions 126
Student Demographics 130
Community Cultural Wealth Overview 132
Familial Capital 133
Aspirational Capital 135
Linguistic Capital 137
Navigational Capital 139
Resistant Capital 142
Social Capital 144
MESA Director Maria 145
Professor Sandra 148
Counselor Alex 149
Fabrication Lab (FabLab) 150
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers 150
Additional resources participants wish were available 151
Overall Findings 152
Chapter Five: Discussion, Implications, and Conclusion 156
Implications for Practice 157
Future Research 160
Conclusion 160
References 163
Appendices 172
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 9
Appendix A- Recruitment E-mail 172
Appendix B- Interview Protocol 173
Appendix C- Observation Protocol 176

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 10
List of Tables
Table 4.1: Select background characteristics of interview participants 127
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 11
List of Figures
Figure A: Atomic Structure Model 38
Figure B: Latino Student Atomic Structure 40
Figure C: Platica Seating 128

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 12
Abstract
Institutions of higher education and higher education practitioners may possibly be
serving Latino engineering students in ways that limit career trajectories. Using student
testimonios from Basin Community College (BCC), this study utilizes and expands on
community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005), to highlight the rich forms of cultural
wealth Latino male engineering students possess and utilize to negotiate their marginalized social
positions within educational institutions. The study seeks to answer the following question and
sub-questions: What are the testimonios of Latino male engineering community college students?
Sub-questions: How do students describe different forms of cultural wealth? How do institutions/
agents facilitate Latino engineering student success? This study used a testimonio approach.
Data was collected through interviews with 10 students, observations and a focus group.
Findings suggest that intentional integration into engineering pathways increases recruitment and
retention of Latino males in engineering, math can be the main hurdle in completing their
engineering studies and Latino community college engineering men identified the importance of
family and having a positive influence in their community.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 13
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In the 2013 Separate and Unequal report Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl expressed
the importance of increasing the pool of science, technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) talent in the United States to have a competitive global STEM workforce. Many of the
efforts addressing equity in STEM education today arose from the urgent need to address the
underrepresentation of women and racial and ethnic minorities. Latino students can meet this
national need, by enrolling, persisting and attaining STEM field degrees. National statistics
highlight not only the increase in Latino population over the next 40-50 years, but also the great
increase of the Latino population that will be college age and enrolling in college (Hispanic Pew
Research, 2013). Latinas and Latinos are part of a larger group of underrepresented racial and
ethnic minorities in engineering. They remain a missing engineering potential as they have high
aspirations to major in engineering (Gandara & Contreras, 2009). The fact that Latinos are
enrolling in engineering programs at an average rate of 15.7%, but attaining engineering
bachelor’s degrees only at a rate of 8.6% (NACME, 2014), suggest that further research is
needed to understand the low rates of engineering bachelor degree attainment from the student’s
perspective.
Throughout United States history, race and racism have shaped an epistemological
debate- regarding the study of sources of knowledge (Scheurich &Young, 1997; Lopez & Parker,
2003). Yosso (2005) states that it has been over a century since DuBois predicted in 1903 that
racism would continue to emerge as one of the United States’ key social problems. Aside from
the institutional efforts in place to ensure the success of Latinas/os in engineering (e.g. STEM
Resource Centers, STEM Tutoring, etc.), understanding the way that Latinos utilize their
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 14
community cultural wealth should give insight into the ways that these students persist in college
and the ways that institutions may be able to tap into the students’ cultural wealth to attract and
retain more Latinos in the field of engineering. Racism has overtly shaped U.S. social
institutions at the beginning of the twentieth century and continues, more subtly, to impact U.S.
institutions of socialization in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Practitioners,
researchers and students are still searching for the necessary tools to effectively analyze and
challenge the impact of race and racism in U.S. society (Yosso, 2005). In addressing the debate
over knowledge within the context of social inequality, Bourdieu & Passeron (1977) argued that
the knowledges of the upper and middle classes are considered capital valuable to hierarchical
society. If one is not born into a family whose knowledge is already deemed valuable, one could
access the knowledges of the middle and upper class and the potential for social mobility through
formal schooling.
To understand the ways students, utilize their community cultural wealth to navigate and
persist in institutions of higher education, previous researchers have focused on the Latino
student experience at the four-year traditional institutions of higher education; however, these
studies do not capture the Latino students’ experiences at the institutional level that fifty-six
percent of Latinos (College Board, Trends in Community Colleges, 2016) start off at: the
community college. To address this gap in the literature and the underrepresentation of Latino
students in engineering, I employ a qualitative approach to develop a culturally situated study of
the use of community cultural wealth based on the experiences of Latino community college
engineering students.
As early as the 1970’s efforts have been made to increase the number of underrepresented
minorities in STEM fields in the United States (Astin, Green, & Korn, 1987), but these efforts
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 15
historically have not included the voices of underrepresented students. In 1987, the UCLA
Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) published a report on American freshmen from
1966 to 1985, based on national survey data collected from freshmen at two- year and four-year
colleges and universities in the United States (Astin, Green, & Korn, 1987). This longitudinal
survey raised concerns about the decline in students’ interest in engineering, and specifically
raised concerns regarding the problem of underrepresentation of African Americans, Latinas/os,
and Native Americans in science and engineering. In 1986, The Neal Report was published by
the National Science Foundation (NSF) which highlighted the flaws in laboratory instruction,
curriculum, and teaching at the undergraduate levels in sciences (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997).
According to Seymour and Hewitt (1997) the HERI and NSF reports had three findings in
common:
1. Science and mathematics education was failing to foster science literacy among students
of color and women of all races and ethnicities;
2. Too few undergrads and graduates were recruited and retained to meet the nation’s future
needs;
3. The sciences recruited too exclusively among white males- depriving the nation of the
talents of women of all races and ethnicities, and men of color (p.1)
In this seminal study focusing on why students leave science, mathematics, and engineering
(SME majors), Seymour and Hewitt (1997) aimed at understanding the leaky pipeline issue- the
idea that there is net loss of SME majoring students even though some students switch into SME
majors and others switch out of SME majors. Analyzing and understanding student experiences
disaggregated by discipline, race, ethnicity, and gender highlighted the importance of individual
diversity, as Foor, Walden, & Trytten (2007) call it, “the breadth of experience within a single
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 16
individual” (p.103). Apart from understanding the student experience at the intersections of race
and ethnicity, gender, there are identities students identify with that classify them as
underrepresented such as being a low-income student, first-generation student, non-traditional
aged college student, or community college student. The grouping of underrepresented students
in STEM majors may lead to a loss of understanding the unique contribution Latino students can
contribute within the larger group of underrepresented minority students.
Statement of Problem
Community colleges, with a total national enrollment of more than 7 million students,
serve the most students in the higher education system and are an important point of access for
Latino students (NCES, 2016). Community colleges offer the affordability, access and flexibility
that are necessary to support low-income, working and part-time students, many of whom are
Latinas/os. Community colleges nationwide enroll more than half (56%) of all college students
whom identify as Hispanic or Latina/o (College Board, Trends in Community Colleges, 2016).
The forecasted growth of Latinos in the United States (Pew Hispanic Research, 2013), has
encouraged a range of higher education institutions to reassess how this population shift will
impact various programs of study, especially those in the science, technology, engineering and
mathematics (STEM) where Latinos are currently underrepresented. With the forecasted growth,
it is important to utilize the cultural capital that Latino students possess to ensure support their
educational attainment goals. In the United States, the percentage of Latina/o students enrolling
in engineering majors has increased since the 1990s and it is projected to continue to increase
(NACME, 2015).
There are efforts nationally to increase Latinas/os earning degrees in engineering and
these efforts include improving and creating pathways from community colleges to four-year
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 17
institutions. The purpose of this study was to utilize community cultural wealth framework
(Yosso, 2005) as a critical race theory (CRT) challenge to traditional interpretations of cultural
capital to understand the experiences of Latino engineering students at Basin Community
College (BCC), designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions, as it related to their transfer
aspirations to a four-year institution.
Purpose of the Study and Research Questions
Race and racism have influenced an epistemological debate regarding the study of
sources of knowledge (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Scheurich & Young, 1997; Lopez & Parker,
2003) and whose culture has capital (Yosso, 2005). Drawing on Yosso’s (2005) Community
Cultural Wealth (CCW) theoretical framework, which focuses on and learns from the various
cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that
often go unrecognized and unacknowledged, this study explored and learned from the
experiences of community college Latino students about how they have navigated problematic
structures and practices that have traditionally hindered Latino students from succeeding in
engineering majors. Higher education institutional practices often neglect to foster a sense of
cultural integrity and implicitly require students to disassociate from their cultures and
communities to succeed (Ladson-Billings, 1994). The Latino community is a source of cultural
wealth and capital that can facilitate Latino students’ persistence and completion of
postsecondary education. Furthermore, the literature on college access has not meaningfully
considered the wealth of students’ own communities in designing college environments and
cultures that promote college completion and transfer pathways. This study departs from current
research by relying on qualitative methods to allow community college students to provide
testimonios (testimonies) about their college experiences. This study explains how Latino males
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 18
majoring in engineering in community colleges possess, utilized, and nurtured various forms of
capitals reflected in Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth (CCW) framework to achieve
positive outcomes during college. In this study, the following research question and sub
questions are addressed:
What are the testimonios of Latino male engineering community college students?
a. How do students describe different forms of cultural wealth?
b. How do institutions and agents facilitate Latino engineering student
success?

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 19
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review shows the need for studies on the use of community cultural wealth
by Latino students. This literature review also provides an overview of the educational journeys
of male Latino students in the United States with a focus on engineering at the community
college level and is divided into three sections with subsections. The first section is about
Latinas/os in the United States with the following subsections: Latinas/os in K-12 education,
Latinas/os in higher education, Latino males in higher education, Latinas/os in STEM, Latinas/os
in Engineering. The second section of the literature review focuses on challenging racism and
revealing cultural wealth with the following subsections: critical race theory in education,
Latina/o (LatCrit) critical race theory and community cultural wealth. The final section is the
conceptual framework that guides this study.
Latinas/os in the United States
Latinos are the largest growing major racial or ethnic group in the United States.
Although the Latina/o population accounts for an estimated 17.6% of the overall national
population (U.S. Census, 2015), the percentage of Latina/o youth and children is much larger.
As of 2014, Latina/o children younger than eighteen years old in the United States represented
roughly 24% of all children between these ages (Pew Hispanic, 2014). That means that roughly
1 in 4 children under 18 years of age are Latina/o. Much of the Latino population increased is
explained by immigration, just like in the past, immigration has accounted for significant
population increases in the United States. Thus, the U.S. Census Bureau (2014) estimates that
Latinas/os will account for 28.6% of the U.S. population by 2060.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 20
The rapid increase in the Latino population in the United States, is important to account
for as many Latinas and Latinos in the U.S. live in low socioeconomic conditions, with limited
or no access to health care, and they attend underfunded and segregated schools (Kozol, 2005,
2012; Gandara and Contreras, 2009; Kirp, 2015). According to Pew Research Center, in 2010
the poverty rate among Latina/o children was three times that of White children. A child’s living
conditions play an important role in their educational development and trajectory. There
continues to be an achievement gap between Latinas/os and their White and Asian peers, even
before the children begin formal schooling (Gandara, 2006). Living in poverty and inadequate
access to educational resources reduces the college readiness of Latinas/os.
Latinas/os in K-12 Education
According to Nora and Crisp (2009), Latina/o students are less academically prepared
than their White peers for high school and college. Shedding light on the state of Latinas/os in
K-12 education is important not only because they represent one in four of the U.S. population
under eighteen years of age, but more specifically, because per the Pew Research Center, as of
2014 about one-third (17.9 million) of the nation’s Latino population was younger than 18. This
population of Latinos not only holds a large stake in the representation of all U.S. children, but
an even greater stake in the future of the Latino community. An example of educational equity
gaps that exists can be seen in the continuous underperformance of Latinas/os in elementary and
secondary math and science courses compared to their White and Asian peers. Gandara (2006)
argues that because of the very wide educational gaps that currently exists between Latinas/os
and their White and Asian peers in the United States, there is a need to spend 1.5 to 2 times as
much as is being spent now per pupil with early intervention programs.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 21
At the high school level over the past decade, the Latino dropout rate has decreased
dramatically. Per the Pew Research Center, the rate reached a new low in 2014, dropping from
32% high school dropout rate in 2000 to 12% in 2014. While this dramatic drop in Latino high
school dropout rate helped lower the national dropout rate from 12% to 7% over the same period,
Latino dropout rates remain higher than that of Blacks (7%), Whites (5%), and Asians (1%)
(Pew Research Center, 2014). Latinas/os are more likely to attend high schools with lower
quality teachers who have low expectations for their success when compared to their White and
Asian peers (Kozol, 2005, 2012; Gandara and Contreras, 2009). In a 2004 study, Solorzano and
Ornelas found that Latina/o students are disproportionately underrepresented in Advanced
Placement (AP) courses; schools that serve urban, low-income Latina/o and African American
communities have low student enrollment in AP courses; and even when Latina/o and African
American students attend high schools with high numbers of students enrolled in AP courses,
there are equity gaps in AP enrollment.
Latinas/os in Higher Education
Over the past decade, the Latino high school dropout rate has declined and college
enrollment has increased. In 2014, 35% of Latinos ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in a two- or four-
year college, up from 25% in 2004- a 10-percentage-point increase (NCES, 2016). Even though
more Latinos are getting a postsecondary education than ever before, Latinos still lag behind
other groups in obtaining a four-year degree (Pew Research Center, 2014). This bachelor’s
degree attainment gap is due in part to the fact that Latinos are less likely than some other groups
to enroll in a four-year college, attend an academically selective college and enroll full-time.
When “Latinas/os begin their postsecondary education at a 2-year community college, in
comparison to starting at a 4-year institution, they face a greater possibility of not completing a
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 22
bachelor’s degree” (Solórzano, Villalpando, & Oseguera, 2005, p. 282). The lack of a transfer
culture in two-year community colleges contributes to the low transfer rates for Latina/o college
students (Solórzano, Villalpando, & Oseguera, 2005). In 2014, 48% of all Latino college
students attended public two-year community colleges (NCES, 2016). By comparison amongst
their peers, of all White college students, 30% go to community college, 32% of Asians and 36%
of Blacks go to a community college.
Since many Latina/o students enroll in community colleges, it is not surprising that most
Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) are community colleges. As of 2017, only 14% of all
postsecondary institutions are HSIs, but 62% of all Latino college students are enrolled in these
institutions (Excelencia, 2017). According to the federal government’s definition under Title V
of the Higher Education Act, Hispanic Serving Institutions are those institutions at which Latino
students comprise 25% or more of the full-time equivalent enrollment. Per the U.S. Department
of Education’s website, Title V “provides grants to assist HSIs to expand educational
opportunities for and improve the attainment of, Hispanic students. The HSI program enables
HSIs to expand and enhance their academic offerings, program quality, and institution stability”
(U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Although these institutions have access to Title V
funding, some HSIs do not have equitable outcomes for all their students and often have lower
degree attainment outcomes for Latinas/os than their White counterparts (Contreras, Malcom, &
Bensimon, 2008). To this extent, Santiago, Andrade and Brown (2004) argue that HSIs should
make an intentional effort to serve their Latina/o student population in a more meaningful way,
rather than simply claiming to meet the 25% Latina/o student enrollment and claiming the Title
V funding to benefit all students.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 23
Of importance when studying Latinas/os, is that although this group is commonly studied
as an aggregate group, there are some important characteristics to consider when studying
Latinas/os. Some of these characteristics include geographic regions, race, ethnicity, nationality,
gender, generational status, native languages and immigration status. Perez (2009) cites that of
all undocumented students who graduate from high school, two-thirds are Latinas/os. Nora and
Crisp (2009) identified various factors that influence Latinas/os who persist and graduate with a
bachelor’s degree. Factors that influence the retention of Latinas/os include cultural,
institutional, environmental, and psychosocial aspects. For example, some cultural and
background factors can improve Latina/o student persistence, such as encouragement and
support from family, student self- aspirations and educational goals, leadership experiences
before college and quality of pre-college education (Nora & Crisp, 2009). At the institutional
level, there are factors that influence the way Latinas/os persist in college. Such institutional
factors include financial aid assistance, access to meaningful mentors, and opportunities to work
on campus.
Latino Males in Higher Education
Latino males are vanishing from higher education now, more than they have ever before
in the past. According to Rodriguez, Pritchett and Estrada (2012), many people are unaware of
the depth of the gender gap that exists between Latinas and Latinos in higher education, they call
this a “Silent Crisis”. With regards to college enrollment, Latina women represented 61% of the
total number of Latina/o students enrolled in higher education (Rodriguez et al., 2012). With
regards to degree attainment in 2009, Latino males represented only 37% of the 91,147
associate’s degrees awarded to Latina/o students. In the same year, Latino males represented
only 39% of the 120,722 bachelor’s degrees awarded to Latina/o students.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 24
In exploring what is happening to the vanishing Latino male in higher education, Saenz
and Ponjuan (2009) identify several factors that contribute to Latino male higher education
opportunities and experiences. Latino males along with Black males are disproportionately
labeled as “at risk” or having learning disabilities early in their educational trajectories. For
example, Parrish (2002) reports that Latino students are more likely to be overrepresented in
special education, and data suggests that they tend to be over identified during their high school
years (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2002). Another factor that Saenz and Ponjuan
identify that is at play in the schooling experiences of young men of color, especially within
urban settings, is the “notion that Black and Latino males somehow reject academic excellence
because they perceive it as ‘acting White’” (2009, p. 7). Fordham and Ogbu (1986), have argued
that norms of academic success among minority males are defined by perceived notions of White
pursuits and values of success. Males of color are often confronted with a wide range of
negative stereotypes related to their behavior, peer groups, or lack of academic competency
(Shaffer & Gordon, 2006).
One of the most important cultural values that Saenz and Ponjuan (2009) highlight
among Latinos in the United States is familismo. The value of familismo is embodied by strong
feelings of loyalty, responsibility, and solidarity within the Latino family unit (Suarez-Orozco &
Suarez-Orozco, 1995). Such loyalty is often accompanied by strong desires to provide financial
and emotional support for the family (Marin & Marin, 1991), influencing college aspirations and
attainment. Research indicates that the cumulative disadvantages Latino males experience in the
K-12 educational system leave many young men ill prepared to make the transition to college
(Saenz and Ponjuan, 2009; Planty et al., 2009; Clark, Ponjuan, Orrock, Wilson, & Flores, 2013).
As a result of poor preparation, Latino males are not expected to enroll at, excel in, or graduate
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 25
from highly selective colleges and universities. However, in a 2008 study Melguizo found that
Latinas/os students who attend selective colleges and universities as opposed to nonselective
institutions, are more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree.
Latinas/os in STEM
Latinas/os pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM), encounter unique problems. The educational quality of math and science during the
students’ K-12 years, greatly influences their success in STEM (National Science Foundation,
2009; NACME, 2015). Depending on the student’s academic preparation, it is possible that they
are college eligible, but that does not necessarily mean that they are college ready. In other
words, a Latino student may be accepted to study mechanical engineering in college, but if they
did not have a strong-precollege preparation in math and science, the student may encounter
barriers, such as having to take remedial courses, to move ahead with his major coursework.
Researchers (Dowd et al, 2009; 2010) report that Hispanic Serving Institutions are in a unique
position to help Latina/o students achieve success in the STEM fields.
It is not surprising that HSIs are positioned to provide important pathways to STEM
fields by the large number of Latinos they serve. In March 2009, U.S. Congress recognized the
crucial role HSIs play in increasing STEM achievement among Latinos, by passing the America
COMPETES Act, establishing programs expected to improve the quality of undergraduate
STEM programs at HSIs (Dowd et al., 2009). Dowd et al. recommended that HSIs respond to the
call for increased degree production in STEM fields, by collaborating to identify and investigate
the conditions under which effective practices are most likely to achieve the desired results.
Evidence is needed not only on best practices but also on how faculty members, counselors and
administrators must become best practitioners to bring about envisioned improvements (Dowd et
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 26
al., 2009). While there is push to gain evidence on best practices by faculty, counselors, and
administrators, there is lacking evidence from the students’ perspectives on best practices.
In a 2010 study Dowd, Malcom and Macias, compared the representation of transfer
students, as indicated by those who hold associate’s degrees, among Latinos awarded STEM
bachelor’s degrees at HSIs and non-HSIs. This study reveals that institutions should respond to
the need for increased participation by Latinas and Latinos in STEM fields by examining
institutional data disaggregated by race and ethnicity to identify curricular and structural
obstacles for transfer students’ bachelor’s degree completion in biological, agricultural,
environmental sciences and in engineering (Dowd et al. 2010). Dowd et al. (2009)
recommended that institutions should review data on student success in and progression through
key gateway and gatekeeper courses for Latino students in STEM fields (Dowd, et al., 2010).
Such a requirement would reveal points of intervention in the STEM curriculum at which student
success can be increased through changes in pedagogy, counseling, and administrative policies.
Cole et al. (2008) conducted a study with the purpose of examining factors that affect the
academic performance of Latino students in STEM majors. The main premise supporting their
study was prior research suggesting that Latino students will perform better academically when
they have cultural congruity with their chosen academic major (Gloria et al., 1996; Jones et al.,
2002; Pascarella et al., 2004). For Latino students, research suggests that once in college, factors
such as peer and faculty support, and cocurricular involvement play a role in their retention
(Gloria et al., 2005; Hernandez, 2000; Hernandez et al., 2004). Staff members and faculty serve
as role models and as examples of individuals who have successfully navigated the education
system (Cole et al., 2008). Students who foster relationships with faculty members outside of the
classroom are more likely to report greater satisfaction in their education, along with higher
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 27
levels of persistence to graduation compared to other students who do not foster relationships
with faculty outside of the classroom (Hernandez et al., 2004).
Through extracurricular involvement, Latino students find opportunities to make new
friends who are from similar socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds; it is through these peer
relationships that Latino students typically find a caring and supportive educational community
(Hernandez, 2000; Hernandez et al., 2004). Cole et al. (2008) find that of the limited research on
Latino students majoring in STEM, research has reported that supportive educational
environments were positive indicators of persistence (Grandy, 1998; Leslie, McClure, & Oaxaca,
1998). Specifically, for racial/ethnic minority (REM) students, such support includes minority or
female role models and advisors and advise from advanced students from the same ethnic group
(Grandy, 1998). Racial/ethnic minorities are better equipped to succeed in science, mathematics,
and engineering fields if they received mentoring during high school and while they were in
college (Bonous-Hammarth, 2000). Although there are a few studies that begin to address ways
of increasing STEM enrollment, persistence and graduation, there is a gap in the literature in
acknowledging the community cultural wealth that community college Latino students bring
with them to the academic setting, thus this study will contribute to the understanding about this
topic.
Latinas/os in Engineering
For Latinas/os interested in the STEM fields, engineering is the most popular major.
Gandara and Contreras (2009) report that Latinas/os have high aspirations for majoring in
engineering compared to other underrepresented groups. Since the early 2000s there has been an
upward trend in the enrollment of Latinas/os majoring in engineering. According to NSF (2013),
in the last 20 years, 10% of the students enrolled in engineering in the United States were
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 28
Latina/o. In 2011-2012 of all bachelor degrees confirmed to Latinas/os, 4.3% of them were
engineering degrees. On a national level, the National Action Council for Minorities in
Engineering (NACME) (2014) reported that while there is an exponential growth in the
population of Latinos that has led to a higher percentage of engineering degrees being earned by
Latinos, the growth for Latinos in the field of engineering is considerably slower than the overall
population trends.
In 2013, the National Science Foundation reported that approximately 37% of the
bachelor degrees in engineering that were awarded to Latinas/os came from high Latino
enrolling institutions. Camacho and Lord (2011) argue that Hispanic Serving Institutions have
the potential to serve as role model institutions for graduating Latinas/os in engineering. Some
of the factors in the literature that have been identified as contributing to the success of
Latinas/os in engineering that influence this study include Latina/o students’ self-efficacy
(Camacho & Lord, 2013), pre-college educational experience and preparation (Cole & Espinoza,
2008; Brown, 2002), family (Saenz & Ponjuan, 2009; Brown, 2002); a welcoming campus
culture (Hurtado, 1994; Hurtado et al., 1996), positive interactions with faculty including
mentoring relationships (Cole & Espinosa, 2008; Griffin, Perez, Holmes, & Mayo, 2010), and
involvement in summer programs (Brown, 2002; Saenz & Ponjuan, 2009). In addition to these
factors that contribute to Latina/o student success in engineering, May and Chubin (2003)
emphasize the importance of policies and institutional factors. They argue for the importance of
minority serving institutions, community colleges, affirmative action, and dual degree programs
in enrollment and retention of engineering students. May and Chubin (2003) credit engineering
programs such as Minority Engineering Programs (MEPs) for being instrumental in the success
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 29
and retention of underrepresented students in engineering. The success of MEPs, lies behind the
program’s use of collaborative learning to structure the MEP student experience.
Challenging Racism, Revealing Cultural Wealth
Rather than focusing on the deficits of Latino students and their lack of college
attainment, as a counternarrative to deficit positioning of Latino students, it is important to
challenge the racist educational structures and reveal the cultural wealth that Latino students
possess. Traditional research has relied on Bourdieu’s theoretical insight into how a hierarchical
society reproduces to explain why the academic and social outcomes of People of Color are
significantly lower than the outcomes of Whites. The assumption follows that People of Color
lack the social and cultural capital required for social mobility (Yosso, 2005). Thus, schools
most often work from this assumption in structuring ways to help ‘disadvantaged’ students
whose race and class background has left them lacking necessary knowledge, social skills,
abilities and cultural capital (Valenzuela, 1999). Critical race theory (CRT) follows DuBois’
racial insight and is a framework that can be used to theorize, examine and challenge the ways
race and racism implicitly and explicitly impact social structures, practices and discourses
(Yosso, 2005). CRT was first developed as a theoretical tool by critical legal scholars to
recognize the marginalized experiences of People of Color in the law (Delgado & Stefancic,
2001; Haney Lopez, 1996). For more than a decade, educational researchers have been utilizing
CRT as a theoretical framework to analyze the role of race, racism, and the intersections of
racism with other forms of oppression in the lives of People of Color.
As a result of critiquing the assumption that Students of Color enter the classroom with
cultural deficiencies, utilizing a CRT lens, Yosso (2005) challenges traditional interpretations of
Bourdieuean cultural capital theory (Bourdieu et al., 1977), and introduces an alternative concept
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 30
called community cultural wealth. Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth conceptual
framework was influence by Solórzano and Villalpando’s (1998) work, which used a critical race
theory (CRT) framework to focus the research lens on the forms of “resistant cultural capital”
utilized by Students of Color to succeed in higher education despite the many obstacles they
encounter. They later used CRT to develop the concept of “cultural wealth”, defined as the
unique forms of cultural capital, accumulated resources, and assets that Students of Color
develop and utilize in spaces of marginality within educational institutions (Villalpando &
Solórzano, 2005). Community cultural wealth includes at least six forms of capital that most
often go unacknowledged or unrecognized. These theories and literature work together to
reframe discourse regarding the experiences of Latino college students by drawing attention to
how Latino males nurture cultural wealth to achieve positive outcomes in their engineering
academic pursuits.
Critical Race Theory in Education
Critical race theory extends and draws from a broad literature base of critical theory in
law, sociology, ethnic studies, history and women’s studies. Kimberle Crenshaw (2002) shares
in a reflection that in the late 1980s, various legal scholars felt limited by work that separated
critical theory from conversations about race and racism. Crenshaw (2002) describes how
alongside other ‘outsider’ scholars, they were “looking for both a critical space in which race
was foregrounded and a race space where critical themes were central” (p. 19). CRT was born
from the criticisms of Critical Legal Studies (CLS). CLS scholars questioned the role of the
traditional legal system in legitimizing oppressive social structures (Crenshaw, 2002). Scholars
such as Derrick Bell and Alan Freeman claimed that one reason why the CLS’ critique of the law
could not offer approaches for social transformation was because it failed to incorporate race and
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 31
racism into the analysis (Ladson-Billings, 1998). Yosso (2005) notes that not listening to the
lived experiences and histories of those oppressed by institutionalized racism limited CLS
scholarship. Initially, CRT scholarship focused its critique on the slow pace and unrealized
promise of Civil Rights legislation. Many of the critiques launched were articulated in Black vs.
White terms. Thus, women and People of Color who felt their gendered, classed, sexual,
immigrant and language experiences and histories were being silenced, challenged the Black/
White binary tendency. By offering a two-dimensional discourse, “the Black/ White binary
limits the understandings of the multiple ways in which African Americans, Native Americans,
Asian/ Pacific Islander, Chicanas/os, and Latinas/os continue to experience, respond to, and
resist racism and other forms of oppression” (Yosso, 2005, p.17).
Latina/o Critical (LatCrit) Race Theory
Latina/o critical race (LatCrit) theory extends critical race discourse to address the layers
of racialized subordination that comprise Latina/o and Chicana/o experiences (Stefancic, 1998).
LatCrit scholars claim that racism, sexism and classism are experienced amidst other layers of
subordination based on immigration status, sexuality, culture, language, phenotype, accent, and
surname (Johnson, 1999). Valdes (1998) claims that the traditional paradigm for understanding
U.S. race relations is often a Black/ White binary, which limits discussions about race and racism
to terms of African American and White experiences. CRT scholarship has benefited from
scholarship addressing racism at its intersections with other forms of subordination (Crenshaw,
2002).
According to educational scholars Solórzano & Yosso (2001), a CRT framework in
education can be used in the following five ways:
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 32
1. The Intercentricity of Race and Racism- CRT starts from the premise that race and
racism are endemic and permanent in U.S. society.
2. The Challenge of Dominant Ideology- Critical race scholars argue that traditional claims
of race neutrality and objectivity act as a camouflage for the self-interest, power, and
privilege of dominant groups in U.S. society.
3. The Commitment to Social Justice- CRT is dedicated to advancing a social justice
agenda in schools and society.
4. The Centrality of Experiential Knowledge- CRT finds the experiential knowledge of
People of Color legitimate, appropriate, and critical to understanding, analyzing, and
teaching about racial subordination.
5. The Interdisciplinary Perspective- CRT analyzes racism, classism, sexism, and
homophobia from a historical and interdisciplinary perspective (pp.472-473).
Collectively, these strategies outlined by Solórzano & Yosso (2001), allow educational
researchers to center the experiences of People of Color and reveal the ways racism and other
forms of subordination mediate our education trajectories. LatCrit is guided by these five tenets
but also acknowledges issues of language, immigration status, ethnicity, and culture that might
be overlooked by the Black-White paradigms that often become the focus of race discourse
(Huber, 2009). LatCrit enables researchers to better articulate the specific experiences of
Latinas/os through a more focus examination of the unique forms of oppression this group
encounters (Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). In this study, LatCrit illuminates the
intersectionality of race and educational persistence culture that is at play in the dominant
framing of Latino engineering students.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 33
Yosso asserts that the CRT challenge to deficit thinking and understanding of the
empowering potential of the cultures of Communities of Color, led her to re-define cultural
wealth (2005). In education, Bourdieu’s work (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977) has often been used
to explain why Students of Color do not succeed at the same rates as White students. According
to Bourdieu (1977), cultural capital is defined as an accumulation of cultural knowledge, skills
and abilities possessed and inherited by privileged groups in society. The dominant groups
within society can maintain power because access is limited to acquiring learning strategies to
use these forms of capital for social mobility. While Bourdieu’s work sought to provide a
structural critique of social and cultural reproduction (Yosso, 2005), his theory of cultural capital
has been utilized to claim that some communities are culturally wealthy while other communities
are culturally poor.
Analyzing Bourdieu from this lens reveals that White, middle class is treated as the
standard, and therefore all other forms of culture are judged in comparison to this norm. Cultural
capital is not just inherited or possessed by individuals in the middle class, but rather it refers to
an accumulation of specific skills, knowledge and abilities that are valued by privileged groups
in society. Yosso challenges Bourdieu’s definition of cultural capital by questioning if there are
forms of cultural capital that marginalized groups bring to the table that traditional cultural
capital theory does not recognize or value? (Yosso, 2005)
Community Cultural Wealth
The cultural wealth forms of capital that racial and ethnic minorities possess and utilize to
negotiate their marginalized social positions within educational institutions have not been
adequately accounted for in the published researched on Latino college students. Critical race
theory shifts the center of focus from notions of White, middle class culture to the cultures of
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 34
Communities of Color. Yosso argues that by focusing the research lens on the experiences of
People of Color in critical historical context, reveals accumulated assets and resources in the
histories and lives of Communities of Color. Through a CRT lens, Yosso (2005) further
developed the concept of cultural wealth and named the concept “community cultural wealth”.
Community cultural wealth highlights that Communities of Color nurture cultural wealth through
at least six forms of capital such as (1) aspirational, (2) linguistic, (3) familial, (4) social, (5)
navigational and (6) resistant capital (Delgado Bernal, 1997, 2001; Auerbach, 2001; Stanton-
Salazar, 2001; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001; Faulstich Orellana, 2003, as cited by Yosso,
2005, p.77). These forms of capital are not necessarily independent of each other, but rather are
dynamic and processes that build on one another as part of community cultural wealth.
Aspirational capital refers to the ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future
despite real and perceived barriers. This resiliency can be found in individuals who allow
themselves and their children to dream of possibilities beyond their present circumstances, often
without the objective means to attain those goals. This form of capital draws on the educational
work of Patricia Gandara (1982, 1995) and other scholars who have shown that Chicanas/os
experience the lowest educational outcomes compared to every other group in the U.S., but
maintain consistently high aspirations for their children’s future. These stories foster a culture of
possibility as they represent “the creation of a history that would break the links between
parents’ current occupational status and their children’s future academic attainment” (Gandara,
1995, p. 55). Linguistic capital includes intellectual and social skills learned through
communication experiences in more than one language and/or style.
Linguistic capital reflects the idea that Students of Color arrive at school with multiple
language and communication skills. Also, these Students of Color have been engaged
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 35
participants in storytelling tradition, that may include listening to and recounting oral histories,
parables, stories (cuentos) and proverbs (dichos) (Yosso, 2005). These storytelling skills may
include memorization, attention to detail, dramatic pauses, comedic timing, facial affect, vocal
tone, volume, rhythm and rhyme. Marjorie Faulstich Orellana (2003) examined bilingual
children who are often called upon to translate for their parents or other adults and found that
these youths gain multiple social tools of “vocabulary, audience awareness, cross-cultural
awareness, ‘real-world literacy skills, math skills, metalinguistic awareness, teaching and
tutoring skills, civic and familial responsibility, and social maturity” (p.6).
Familial capital is adopted from Delgado Bernal (1998, 2002) and refers to those cultural
knowledges nurtured among familia (kin) that carry a sense of community history, memory and
cultural intuition. Recognizing the classed, racialized, and heterosexualized inferences that
comprise traditional understandings of ‘family’, Yosso defines familial capital as being nurtured
by ‘extended family’, which may include immediate family (living or long passed on) as well as
uncles, aunts, grandparents and friends who one might consider to be part of the familia (2005).
It is through these kinship ties that Students of Color learn the importance of maintaining a
healthy connection to their community and its resources. Delgado-Gaitan (2001) states that
isolation is minimized as families “become connected with others around common issues and
realize that they are not alone in dealing with their problems” (p.54). Yosso goes on to state that
this consciousness can be fostered within and between families, as well as through school, sports,
religious gatherings and other social community settings.
Social capital can be understood as networks of people and community resources.
According to Gilbert (1982) and Stanton-Salazar (2001), these peer and other social contacts can
provide both instrumental and emotional support to navigate through society’s institutions.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 36
Scholars note that historically People of Color have utilized their social capital to attain
education, legal justice, employment and health care. In return these Communities of Color gave
the information and resources they gained through these institutions back to their social
networks. In an ethnographic research with the Mexican immigrant community of Carpinteria,
California, Delgado-Gaitan (2001) further confirms “families transcend the adversity in their
daily lives by uniting with supportive social networks” (p.105).
Navigational capital refers to skills of maneuvering through social institutions (Yosso,
2005). From a historical context, this infers the ability to steer through institutions not created
with Communities of Color in mind. Per Stanton-Salazar & Spina (2000), “resilience has been
recognized as a set of inner resources, social competencies and cultural strategies that permit
individuals to not only survive, recover, or even thrive after stressful events, but also to draw
from the experience to enhance subsequent functioning” (p. 299). This form of capital
acknowledges individual agency within institutional constraints. Navigational capital also
connects to social networks that help facilitate community navigation through places and spaces
including but not limited to schools, the job market, health care and the judicial systems
(Williams, 1997).
Resistant capital refers to those knowledges and skills fostered through oppositional
behavior that challenges inequality. Resistance to subordination exhibited by Communities of
Color is at the forefront of this type of capital. Solórzano and Yosso (2002) assert that when
informed by a Freirean critical consciousness (1970), or recognizing the structural nature of
oppression and the motivation to work toward social and racial justice, resistance takes on a
transformative form. Thus, transformative resistant capital includes cultural knowledge of the
structures of racism and motivation to transform such oppressive structures (Pizarro, 1998;
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 37
Villenas & Deyhle, 1999, as cited by Yosso, 2005). Community cultural wealth not only
acknowledges strengths, but also can be used to reframe deficit perspectives of Communities of
Color in educational research.
Conceptual Framework
Recognizing that Latino college students are influenced by their environments, through
the use of Critical Race Theory tenets (Solórzano and Yosso, 2001) Community Cultural Wealth
(Yosso, 2005) framework and Bronfenbrenner (1994) Ecological Model of Human
Development, I am able to investigate the Latino engineering community college student
experiences by focusing not only on the knowledges that influence these students to major,
persist and succeed in engineering at the community college level but also on the knowledges
that Latino engineering students bring to their engineering programs and schools, rather than
focusing on their deficiencies. Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) model posits that two propositions
specify the defining properties of a general ecological model. First, “human development takes
place through processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interaction between an active,
evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects, and symbols in its
immediate environment. To be effective, the interaction must occur on a regular basis over
extended periods of time, referred to as proximal processes” (Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p.38).
Additionally, the second defining property that Bronfenbrenner identifies,
is that the form, power, content, and direction of the proximal processes effecting
development vary systematically as a joint function of the characteristics of the
developing person; of the environment- both immediate and more remote- in which the
processes are taking place; and the nature of the developmental outcomes under
consideration. (1994, p.38).
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 38
For the purposes of this study, I will take an atomic structure model approach (See Figure
A) as the conceptual framework. The nucleus (center) of the Latino Student Atomic Structure
(Figure B) includes the cultural wealth the individual student possesses and utilizes to negotiate
their marginalized social position within the educational institution. Like the nucleus of any
element’s atomic structure that consists of protons (positive charge) and neutrons (neutral
charge), all six distinct forms of capital reflected in the community cultural wealth framework
can be present in the individual’s engineering experience and be a positive addition. There can
also be the possibility that forms of the cultural wealth identified in the community cultural
wealth framework may not be utilized by the individual and remain neutral at the core of the
individual. Also, found within the nucleus of the Latino Student Atomic Structure are the layers
that influence the individual student’s ecology.
Figure A. Atomic Structure Model

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 39
Utilizing Bronfenbrenner (1994) Ecological Model of Human Development, the Latino
engineering student possessing various forms of cultural wealth is position in the center;
followed by an outer layer of influence, which is the family; that is then followed by an outer
layer of professional network influence; and an outermost layer of the postsecondary institution
influence on the Latino male engineering in community college persistence and success. Lastly,
although CRT can be accounted for within the community cultural wealth framework (Yosso,
2005), like the electrons found in the electron cloud of the atomic structure, it is important to
understand how the five tenets of CRT outlined by Solórzano and Yosso (2001) influence the
Latino male engineering community college student experience. The tenets that can be found in
the atom of Latino male engineering community college student’s cloud include: 1) the
intercentricity of race and racism, 2) challenge of dominant ideology, 3) commitment to social
justice, 4) centrality of experiential knowledge, and 5) interdisciplinary perspective. Collectively
these tenets allow me to center the experience of Latino engineering students and reveal the ways
racism and other forms of subordination mediate their education trajectories.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 40
=
Latino Student Atomic Structure
Figure B. Latino Student Atomic Structure
Community Cultural Wealth
(Yosso, 2005)
Aspirational, Famial, Linguistic,
Navigational, Resistant, Social Capitals
Ecological Model of
Human Development
(Bronfenbrenner, 1994)
Individual, Family, Professional Networks,
Postsecondary Institution
Critical Race Theory
(Solorzano & Yosso, 2001)
Intercentricity of Race and Racism,
Challenge of Dominant Ideology,
Commitment to Social Justice, Centrality
of Experiential Knowledge,
Interdisciplinary Perspective
+
+

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 41
Summary
This study can aid in the understanding of how Latino male community college
engineering students utilize their cultural wealth to enroll, persist and ultimately transfer to a
four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Understanding what
resources Latino engineering students utilize can address retention concerns of Latino students
majoring in engineering at the community college level. The purpose of this study was to
investigate the ways that Latino engineering community college students identify and utilize
various types of cultural wealth identified under Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth
theoretical framework, to strengthen their engineering student development and persist towards
degree attainment and transfer.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 42
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
To study Latino students’ experiences in the field of engineering at Basin Community
College (BCC), as it relates to persistence in engineering and their transfer aspirations to a four-
year institution, I used testimonios as a methodology. Utilizing testimonio as a methodological
approach can provide the participants with a space to reveal and reflect on their educational
experiences as mediated by race, immigration status, class and gender (Perez Huber and Cueva,
2012). Perez Huber and Cueva (2012) highlight how testimonio methodological approach builds
from the work of academics- namely women of color scholars- in and outside of education who
utilize testimonio approach to document experiences of survival, struggle, and resistance within
the context of oppressive institutional structures and interpersonal events. In this study,
testimonios served as important counternarratives that challenge the deficit educational discourse
about Latino male community college engineering students. Furthermore, the use of testimonios
allowed me to theorize and document these students’ experiences from an explicitly LatCrit
perspective. Lastly, it is important to note that testimonios are “connected to conocimiento
(recognizing), as it allows one to enter the process of healing through reflecting, recounting, and
remembering the past” (Perez Huber and Cueva, 2012, p. 397).
Context
The setting for this study is Basin Community College (BCC), pseudonyms for one of the
113 community colleges in California, which is the largest system of higher education in the
world (California Community College Chancellor’s Office, 2016). Located just outside of
downtown Los Angeles, BCC enrolls students from the greater Los Angeles area. Enrolling over
30,000 students annually, BCC is one of the nation’s largest single-campus community college
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 43
district and is one of the top 25 community colleges in the country in Latino enrollment. At
BCC, Latino students account for 47% of the student population, followed by Asian students
who account for 24% of the population. BCC students are underprepared (70% overall, 87% of
Latino students); and low-income (80% qualify for the Board of Governors fee waiver.) Given
the population projections that Latinos will soon make up over half of students enrolled at BCC,
the educational equity gaps that exists must be closed.

Positionality, Participants and Recruitment Strategy
Positionality
For the remainder of this section, I will be describing my positionality in first person
using “I”. Recently during a different project that I am working on with a local community
college, I had a faculty member bluntly ask me “Daniel, did you go through the community
college system after you graduated high school?” As soon as this faculty member asked me this
question, I responded “No, I did not”, and even before he responded back, I began to realize that
upon entering a conversation about the community college context and particularly the student
experience I am first viewed as a foreigner who is simply entering a space to conduct research
and run away with data. The faculty member’s response to me was “You need to spend some
time out in our community colleges so you can see the intricacies of the community college
student experience”. To the point that was raised by this faculty member, being aware that I
cannot ever be a native community college student, I spent time in the community colleges
observing and learning what the student experience can be like.
Related to the topic about positionality, a concern that came up in other projects and in
pilot studies related to this research, was my position of power through not only multiple levels
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 44
of educational degrees, but also the prestige assigned and affiliated with each of the institutions
which I have attended and am currently attending. The Glesne (2011) discussion on embodiment,
positions and positionality reminded me that that although I cannot control positionality in that it
is determined in relations to others, I can enter research with a mindset of openness, curiosity,
and desire and willingness to interact in collaborative ways. I assured the participants that their
identities remained anonymous and that pseudonyms were used for their names and school in all
reports. While collecting data, I ensured that all participants were treated the same by reviewing
with each one of the participants the consent form, thus informing them that they could decide to
walk away from the data collection at any point.
Participants and Recruitment Strategy
For this study, I employed a network sampling method (Delgado Bernal, 1997; Gándara,
1995) to identify participants who at the time of the study (1) identified as Latino, (2) were male,
(3) were enrolled in a community college, (4) were majoring in any field of engineering and (5)
were seeking to transfer to a four-year university. Participants attending a community college
that is designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) were selected for several reasons. First,
this study focused on students who identify as Latino and are currently enrolled in community
college. Community colleges enroll almost half (46%) of all Hispanic college students (Pew
Research Center, 2013). Second, an all-male sample was selected to more closely examine the
vanishing trend faced by Latino males in higher education (Saenz & Ponjuan, 2009). Lastly,
Latino male students in community colleges majoring in any engineering field lag significantly
behind their male peers in overall educational attainment (Saenz & Ponjuan, 2011), and, thus,
these students utilize various forms of resources to survive and navigate their college
environment (Yosso, 2005).
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 45
The research participants were all members of the Basin Community College (BCC)
Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program and half of the men were
also members of the student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), a
national student professional engineering organization. Five out of the ten participant’s
testimonios are included, but all ten participants are included in the overall findings. The reason
that the testimonios of Micho, Enrique, Phillip, Steve and Daniel were selected to be included
here was because at the time of the study all five of these participants were members of the
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), involvement which played a significant role
in the student’s retention and persistence in obtaining their engineering degree. BCC, and
specifically members of the MESA program and SHPE Chapter were chosen for this study for
several reasons.
MESA is a program and a Center focused on providing educationally and economically
disadvantaged students with the skills and resources to be successful in school and careers in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. As a Center, MESA
provides STEM students not only resources, but also physical space on campus to utilize. A
requirement for MESA membership is to be a second-year student majoring in the STEM fields
and having completed at least one STEM course related to their major, aligning with the
participation criteria for this study. Engineering students who are members of MESA also often
join the SHPE club. SHPE members network with university SHPE chapters at out-of-state
conferences, organize a Science Career Day for local high schools, mentor and tutor young
students, and participate in leadership activities designed to facilitate their transfer to university
engineering programs. SHPE members interact with professional engineers and participate in
field trips to industry locations. Basin Community College was chosen because it’s SHPE
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 46
chapter activities contributes to the professional development that engineering students can be
exposed to and can influence their engineering educational experience. Even though there is not
a significant amount of literature on incentive amounts, Porter and Whitcomb (2004) find that
there is no difference in survey response if the amount of post-payment compensation is $20 or
$50. Students who participated in the interviews and focus group received a $20 gift card.
Data Collection Procedures
Once IRB approval was granted, data for this research was collected over eight weeks
during the Spring 2017 semester at Basin Community College. Originally my plan was to reach
out to participants through the list serve that the student chapter of the Society of Hispanic
Professional Engineers had, but upon meeting the BCC MESA Director, and sharing with her the
purpose of my study, she offered to help me out with the recruitment efforts. I sent her a
recruitment email (Appendix A) that she then emailed all MESA members that met the criteria
for the study. Within hours of the recruitment email being sent out by the MESA program
Director, I heard from eight students that were willing to participate in this study. By the end of
that following day, I had the ten volunteers that I was looking to recruit for this study.
Interviews
In the next stage of this study, I conducted one-on-one interviews with each of the
participants. Semi-structured, open-ended individual interviews were conducted using an
interview protocol (Appendix B) to gain the students’ testimonios (testimonies) by incorporating
findings from the observations data, which provided thick, rich data for the topic of this study.
The ten interviews were one-on-one in person interviews that lasted approximately 45-60
minutes. To get the interview started, I asked the participants demographical questions such as
“what is your major? Year in college? Have you previously attended other colleges, besides
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 47
BCC? In reference to attending college, do you identify as first-generation?” The next set of
interview questions focused on learning about the student’s journey to college and deciding to
study in engineering. Interview questions in this section included: Can you please share what
your journey to college was like? How did you choose engineering as a major? What role if any,
did parents, guardians, or other people play in this journey to college and majoring in
engineering? These interview questions touched various types of capitals including aspirational,
familial and social capitals. Interview questions in the next section focused on the students
support systems (navigational and social capitals): Can you please describe what your support
system(s) look like to someone that is not an engineering student at your school? Can you please
describe any interactions that you have had with your support group(s) that have helped you
persist in obtaining your engineering degree? What resources or individuals have been beneficial
to your success in your engineering studies?
With the permission of the interviewees I audio recorded all the interviews, transcribed
and coded them. After conducting each interview, I wrote myself a memo to remind myself of
thoughts and observations that I had while conducting the interview. I started the data analysis
process early in the study while data collection was still happening, thus allowing the
opportunity to generate new strategies for collecting, richer, more detailed data (Miles &
Huberman, 1994). While, my original plan was to interview the students once at the beginning
of the semester and then again half ways through the semester, because of time constraints I had
to modify my approach, and only interviewed them once. Following the completion of all ten
one-one interviews, I conducted a focus group interview with all the participants. The focus
group consisted of sharing demographical information in aggregate with the students and having
them reflect on what was being shared based off of the information they shared with me during
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 48
their one-on-one interviews. One of the demographical pieces that was shared with the
participants, was a map highlighting where BCC was located and where each of the 10
participants had identified as their “home”. During the focus group, I shared student interview
quotes for each of the six cultural capitals included in the community cultural wealth framework:
aspirational, navigational, social, linguistic, resistant, and familial capitals. For example, for
familial capital, the following quotes from their testimonios where shared with the participants:
• “Parent’s past or current jobs” (as a source of wanting to pursue engineering and do
better to help family)
• “Want to get myself and my family out of the neighborhood we live in”
• “Doing this degree for my mom and dad, so that dad can take it easy and have more days
at home. Parents have done all this for us. I’d be damn if I let all this go to waste. It
would be an insult to them”
With the permission of the participants in the focus group I audio recorded and prepared
notes for coding, for the purposes of seeing if student responses were validated by one another or
changed when being surrounded by their peers.

Observations
Observations of the BCC MESA Center were conducted three times a week for about 4-6
hours per day during the eight-week period of the study. Since the recruitment email went out
though the MESA program, I was aware that the respondents interested in participating in the
study, would most likely also utilize the MESA Center frequently as a study space, or simply to
take advantage of the resources the program provides. Observations were conducted during
events, meetings, trainings, and informal gatherings in the MESA Center. An observation
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 49
protocol (Appendix C) was used to capture as many details as possible while conducting the
observations at MESA related events and meetings.
Observations lasted the duration of the events. The observations focused on the
individuals that chose to volunteer to be interviewed, on their interactions with their peers, and
their interactions with professionals, faculty, and staff who were present at these MESA related
events. The observations focused on capturing participant interactions, such as who they studied
with while utilizing the MESA Center, who they ate lunch with, and their interactions with the
MESA director and other professional staff that was present in the MESA Center. Whenever
Counselor Alex would walk in to the MESA Center, over half of the students, predominantly
Latino students, would get up from their seats and walk over to Counselor Alex and greet him
with a handshake. This happened on multiple occasions and I later learned that, Counselor Alex
was also the advisor for the SHPE student chapter, thus many students naturally gravitated
towards him. The interactions the students had with Counselor Alex was in stark contrast to the
MESA Center resident counselors, whom the students saw twice a week on a regular basis, but
never established a connection like that relationship established with Counselor Alex.
Analytical Strategy
Data was analyzed sequentially throughout the study. I employed a three-phase data
analysis process: (1) preliminary analysis where initial themes were identified utilizing the
community cultural wealth framework; (2) collaborative analysis, in which the analysis was co-
constructed with the participants; and (3) the final data analysis, which synthesized the previous
analyses. In the first phase, I used the community cultural wealth framework for a deductive line-
by-line approach to identify thematic categories (Charmaz, 2006) of aspirational, linguistic,
familial, social, navigational and resistant capital (Yosso, 2005). The second phase, the co-
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 50
construction of data analysis, took place during a focus group session that occurred after all ten
men, had been interviewed one-on-one.
I utilized NVivo electronic software to assist me in coding, organizing, and sorting all
interview transcripts and observations for common themes. Analyzing the various forms of
qualitative data involved segmenting and taking apart the data as well as putting it back together
(Creswell, 2014). While analyzing the interview transcripts, I wrote analytic memos (Charmaz,
2014), to capture my thoughts on the emerging data. These memos became a part of the coding
process and allowed me to see the links in themes during final analysis. To ensure
trustworthiness and reliability of the qualitative data collected, with the permission of the
participants all interviews were recorded, transcribed and reviewed with participants for
accuracy.
Lastly, the focus group also served the purpose of triangulation. Focus group interviews
involved unstructured and generally open-ended questions that were low in number and intended
to elicit views and opinions from the participants (Creswell, 2014). Triangulation of interviews,
observations and focus group perspectives shed light on the students lived experiences as Latino
community college male engineering students and how they utilized various forms of cultural
wealth to ensure their engineering student success up until this point in their educational
trajectory. Since several themes were established based on the convergence of several sources of
data or perspectives from participants, then this process of triangulation can be claimed as adding
to the validity of the study (Creswell, 2014). Member checking was also conducted in this
research study to determine the accuracy of the findings through taking specific descriptions and
themes back to participants during the focus group discussion and determining whether the
participants felt that they were an accurate portrayal of what they expressed (Creswell, 2014).
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 51
The last step was to develop generalizations based on the data that was collected; asking “what
were the lessons learned?” captured the essence of this idea (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Thus,
providing a connection to how this study can influence the larger literature on understanding how
Latino male community college engineering students utilize the community wealth in various
environments to persist and influence their transfer aspirations.
Limitations
A limitation of this study was that the students may have been influenced to share more
about their experience from MESA and utilizing the MESA Center itself, because of the
recruitment occurring through a MESA list serve, along with the interviews themselves taking
place in the MESA Center or next door to the MESA Center. With regards to professional
organizations that may have an influence in Latino engineering student success was the BCC
SHPE chapter. A limitation may have been that the BCC SHPE chapter was only on its second
year and may not have had established foundation within the BCC institution itself, let alone
with industries in the area, to maximize the Latino engineering student experience.
Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is a term in qualitative literature that addresses validity. Validity is one
of the strengths of qualitative research and is based on determining whether the findings are
accurate from the standpoint of the researcher, the participant, or the readers of the account
(Creswell & Miller, 2000). Triangulation of different data sources of information were employed
by examining evidence from the sources and using it to build a coherent justification for themes.
If themes are established based on converging several sources of data or perspectives from
participants, then this process can be claimed as adding to the validity of the study. An
additional approach that was taken to ensure trustworthiness was member checking. Member
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 52
checking was used to ensure the accuracy of the qualitative findings by taking the descriptions or
themes or final report to the participants and determining whether these participants felt that they
were accurate (Creswell, 2014). After writing up the participants testimonios based on the
interviews, a copy of the testimonios was e-mailed to each of the participants to read through and
notify me within two weeks, if I had accurately written what they shared with me, as well as an
opportunity for them to notify me if they wanted me to make any edits such as changing
identifiers, or omitting certain parts of their testimonios all together. Three of the participants
notified me that they wanted minor edits on the testimonios I had written about them. The minor
edits focus on pseudonyms and location names that they felt would disclose their or someone
they were describing identity.
A threat that could have influenced my research was the bias that I as the researcher bring
to the study. I purposefully designed the study to reflect an approach that would ensure that I
collected data from multiple resources, minimizing the bias that I could incorporate as the
researcher. To check and determine if my qualitative researcher approaches were reliable, Yin
(2009) suggests that qualitative researchers document the procedures of their case studies and
document as many of the steps of the procedures as possible, which I captured by writing memos
throughout the entire study.
Ethical Concerns
An ethical concern that I worried about in conducting this study was the vulnerability of
the individuals that participated in this study. As a former engineering student myself and a
member of the professional engineering organization Society for Hispanic Professional
Engineers (SHPE), I was afraid that I would share too much personal information as it related to
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 53
the engineering student experience and disclose previous experience information to gain the
participants trust faster than if I had not shared with them any of my past experiences.
An area of ethical concern for me is in establishing and maintaining field relations. I was
not too concerned about the difficulty of establishing rapport with my participants, but rather was
concern with the student affairs identity within in me coming out and influencing not only the
establishment of the relations in the fields but also the type of data that was collected. During
my master’s education, which focused on higher education administration and student affairs, I
had the opportunity to advise student leaders in clubs and organizations at an institution where
80% of the students majored in engineering. While my approach to advising students during my
master’s program was an approach like that of counselors, where students can feel sufficiently
comfortable to disclose information; my intent was to attain ends shaped by the students’ needs.
The investment with the student interactions have often led to deeper relationships that turn into
friendships. As highlighted in Glesne (2011) chapter on field relations and reflexivity, I am
aware that there can be some dangers with these newly formed types of friendships being made
and trying to carry out research. This student affairs approach of interacting with students is one
that is instilled in me and was a topic of multiple memo entries during my research as I reflected
and checked myself throughout the multiple stages of this research project. In the following
chapters I discuss the findings, discussion, conclusions and implications of this study.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 54
CHAPTER FOUR
TESTIMONIOS AND FINDINGS
The purpose of this study was to explore and learn from the testimonios of Latino
community college engineering students about their college experiences, as well as learning what
cultural wealth Latino community college engineering male students possess and utilize to
enroll, persist, and graduate in engineering and subsequently transfer to a four-year university to
complete an engineering bachelor’s degree. The first three chapters of this dissertation offered
an introduction to the problem of low college persistence rates for Latinos males, a review of the
literature surrounding Latinos in higher education, and the methodological design that was
utilized for this study. This chapter will now present the findings that emerged from data
collected and analyzed using the Latino Student Atomic Structure conceptual framework that
was constructed for the purposes of this study.
In this chapter, pseudonyms for the college, participants, professors, and others
mentioned were created to ensure all participants’ identities were kept private. Telling the
testimonios of five out of the ten Latino male engineering students using the four different
ecological levels presented in the Latino Student Atomic Structure framework allowed me to
focus on the human development influence and interactions with the environment at the
individual, familial, professional organizations, and institutional levels. The approached of
organizing this section in this manner, helps to capture the ways in which these different levels
contribute to Latino male engineering student success. I then share the Platica (focus group)
findings using Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth framework. Using the framework to
organize this section helps to capture the ways students describe different forms of cultural
wealth. Lastly, Solórzano’s and Yosso (2001) Critical Race Theory Tenants are intertwined
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 55
throughout all the findings. Overall findings are presented at the end of the chapter answering
the research question for this study:
What are the testimonios of Latino male engineering community college students?
o How do students describe different forms of cultural wealth?
o How do institutions and agents facilitate Latino engineering student success?

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 56
Micho
I grew up in South Central Los Angeles. I’m 28 years old and started attending
BCC in the Spring of 2012. At the young age of 17, my father passed away and
that was the same time that I dropped out of high school. Being the youngest son
I had to take over the different companies and properties my father owned. I did
not know how to manage all of this. I ended up losing some and kept others, but
this was something I did not want to do the rest of my life. I don’t like property
management. I don’t like real estate at all, so I came back to school to get my
GED. Never studied for it, I just went and took it. That next day I told myself
‘let’s not lose momentum. Let’s go start at a college’. I live in Los Angeles and
had different colleges around me to choose from. But I chose BCC.

Introduction

Micho and I connected back in March of 2016 through one of our mutual friend’s Pablo.
At the time, Pablo was serving as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineer (SHPE) chapter
president for his institution which is a feeder school for Basin Community College (BCC), the
institution Micho currently attends. I met with Micho and got to know him in March of 2016.
We re-connected again in Spring 2017, when he responded that he would volunteer to be a
participant in this study.
In the days leading up to the interview with Micho, I noticed during my time in the
Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) Center that Micho was a very
social person. Upon entering the double glass doors into the MESA Center and after signing in
on the check-in computer, located immediately to the right of the entrance, Micho started his
greeting spree. He would start by greeting the student staff, working behind the front counter,
followed by anyone that may be in the kitchen area. At this point, he would peek his head into
the MESA Director’s office to see if she was in, to say “hi”. After finishing his “hellos” in the
front part of the MESA Center, he continued making his rounds to the various tables and
greeting everyone he knew and even those whom he did not know. After about 10-15 minutes of
saying hello to everyone, he would finally sit down and pull out his laptop to start working on
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 57
homework. This 10-15 minute greeting spree was not a once in a blue moon spree, this was a
daily experience. I noticed that all his peers respected him and went to him for advice and
guidance whenever they needed any type of help. One of these peers whom I noticed was and
always is close to him, was Juanes, whom was also a participant of this study. Early in my
observations in the MESA Center, one day after finishing his lunch, I observed and overheard
Micho sharing with one of his colleagues, “half of the week, Juanes brings lunch for both of us,
and I bring lunch for both of us the other half of the week. We like to share our food.” I
witnessed this exchange and sharing of lunch between Micho and Juanes on multiple days.
Given that Micho and I had met each other a year ago and began establishing a
relationship then, Micho offered to be interviewed as soon as possible after he signed up to be a
participant. Micho and I scheduled to have the interview on a weekday afternoon once he was
done with classes for the day. Being somewhat new to the MESA Center and the BCC campus, I
was not sure where the best place to conduct the interview would be, but luckily the MESA
Director offered her office for us to use for the interview, while she was away at a meeting.
Inside the MESA Director’s office, which is a part of the MESA Center, as soon as you
walk in there are two orange chairs with black armrests along the wall, followed by an eight-
foot-tall bookshelf that stores binders full of old grants, and other related resources for the
MESA Center, along with a framed image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Against the wall
opposite from the chairs and bookshelf was the Director’s desk along with overheard storage
compartments. The wall directly behind where the Director sits has a cork board that is filled
with family pictures, awards, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) drawings, and a sticker in the
middle of the entire board that states “#FreePalestine”. Micho and I walked in to the MESA
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 58
Director’s office, I sat in the Director’s maroon office chair, and Micho sat in one of the orange
chairs. The distance between Micho and I was about four feet.
Individual
Micho’s journey to college was “interesting” as is noted in the introduction to his
testimonio. Micho found himself having to drop out of High School his senior year in 2007
because of his father passing away even though he had a full ride scholarship available to attend
UC Berkley. He shared that while he knew he had several options on which community college
to attend there was only one that was right for him. He paused, looked down at the ground and
then looks back at me, making eye contact and with a smirk on his face that turns into a smile he
continues and says,
But I remember driving the 110 Freeway and I love the view. For me it's about the
view. And so, I said, "You know what? I'm going to go apply to Basin
Community College" and that's how I landed here in BCC.

Micho’s determination on obtaining his higher education can be demonstrated by his decision to
quickly act towards enrolling in college.
And so, that was right around finals during that time. Say for instance, I got the
results of my GED on Thursday, and on Friday I was here on campus looking to
what I had to do to enroll on campus.

When I asked Micho what he saw himself doing career wise down the line, one would expect a
student majoring in engineering to respond along the lines of “working for Space X, Tesla,
Boeing, or some other big company”. But that was not the case for Micho. Rather he iterated the
importance of remembering his roots.
I cannot neglect where I come from. I come from South LA. And being a high
school dropout, regardless of what promising role I had at that time, I'll always be
seen as a high school dropout. My brother is a high school dropout. And so,
seeing what my brother goes through, my brother, you could say he's smart with
his hands. And so, he was left behind because our educational system failed him.
Not because he failed. And so, I face those same obstacles as well and knowing
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 59
my experience, seeing my brother's experience, there is no point of creating initial
income for myself when I know that the community that I come from, they're not
going to benefit from it. And so, that's my motivation. So, people like my brother,
people like myself, don't get left behind by our educational system. But instead
are supported and pushed to succeed regardless of their limitations. The
limitation for some, may be that they are not good with books, but this shouldn’t
stop them from reaching their full potential. Another reason for my drive is that I
grew up in a household with my father, where if you were walking down the
street without a shirt and you told him, "You have a nice shirt," he'll take it off
and give it to you. If he saw some old people that didn't have food or that they
couldn't walk anymore, he'll go buy food, drop it off at their doorstep. The words
that he despised were "thank you". He didn't want to hear it. He saw it as a duty
that he had for his brother and sister. And so, growing up in that household, it
changed my mentality. Where he was a successful businessman but his priority
was how can I ensure that the person next to me succeeds with me, not how I push
them down.

Influenced by his father’s values, Micho recognized the importance of advocacy and his
commitment to social justice by working to advance the well-being not only of himself, but also
of those around him, just as his father had set the example in his household. Micho takes this
drive of not settling for the status quo in recognizing the inequities that exist in educational
system of where he grew up. Reflecting and realizing the barriers that he and his peers have had
to overcome in South Central Los Angeles, he is determined to provide opportunities to his
community that he was not afforded. Micho highlights his wokeness in acknowledging and
calling out the intercentricity of race and racism that exists in society,
One of the biggest problems here in America right now- if you look at the Anglo
community, you see that once they feel threatened, they, instead of saying, "Let
me compete with you," they'll say, "You know what, you have to stay down. You
don't belong in this arena. You're not in my level.” And so, that's why you see a
lot of people that are unemployed because they felt that they were entitled to
something and they don't pursue a degree. But now they're seeing this rush of
different ethnic backgrounds going into STEM, going into these different fields
and having a job and they feel threatened. But instead of addressing it and saying,
"We need an education," they're saying, "You're the problem. You need to get out
of here." And so, my goal is to not only educate my community but educate the
other communities that see us as threats. We're not here as a threat but we're here
to create a better environment for the whole nation, not just for ourselves.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 60
Keeping in mind that Micho is committed to creating a better environment for the whole nation
by promoting STEM education, in trying to gage where Micho sees himself as an engineer, I ask
him if identifies himself as an engineer or an aspiring engineer.
I would say both. I would consider myself an engineer, because engineering is a
process, engineering is a process of designing, of prototyping and building. And
so, while I'm not engineering products, I am engineering pathways not only for
myself, but for other students. I'm developing resources for students. I'm
developing ways of fixing problems, not only social problems, but in my case,
economic problems that we face as a family myself. And so, your thought process
changes once you've taken engineering course. So, I would say I'm an engineer
when it comes to that aspect, but I'm an aspiring engineer when it comes to
developing products, developing a revolutionary idea.

Micho described mathematics being the biggest hurdle for him and his peers and moving forward
with their engineering studies. Despite that obstacle, Micho said that he would persist with his
engineering studies.
I started at the lowest math and so it took me a while to learn it. And the thing is
with me, I've actually never passed the math in my first attempt. I've always
redone math and so when they look at my transcript and they see, "Some maths,
you've done 'em twice, you've done three times. Well why don't you just choose
another major? Seems that you're struggling." And for me is, I got to get through
it, I got that taste, the one that I told you that, I got that taste of engineering and I
don't want math to prevent me from obtaining it and that's why I keep pushing
forward. And so math has always been an obstacle, calculus is not an easy course
and so it's definitely one of the courses that derails people from going forward
with engineering.

A lot of Micho’s friends switched majors early in their college careers due to having difficulties
in math. He shared that a lot of his friends switched from being STEM majors to business,
because of the easier math requirements. One of the main barriers that Micho identified as
slowing his progress towards degree is having to retake all the math courses he has ever taken.
Related to the topic of math, Micho opened up about discovering that he has a learning disability
that may contribution to his learning abilities.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 61
It wasn't until Alex (Counselor) spoke to me and said, "Have you ever considered
checking yourself for a learning disability?" And it never crossed my mind.
When someone in our heritage or background/ ethnicity, suggests that there's
something wrong mentally, some people take it as an insult. For me, I was like,
"You have a valid point. I guess, I could consider it." And so, I emailed the DSPS
person here and it took about a year and so there in that year, I repeated courses
and then they finally told me, "Hey, the test is available." 'Because the test is
$1,700, so I wasn't going to pay that out of pocket and so they're like, "The test is
available, it will be two days, about four hours each day." So, I went and probably
a few months ago I got my results and turns out, I had a learning disability. And
so, essentially I said, "Okay, maybe with these opportunities that I now have,
identifying what's the problem, addressing it maybe I could perform a little
better."

Although the discovery of Micho’s learning disability was recent, he was already hopeful
for the possibilities of performing better, given the extra resources he would be able to utilize to
assist him in his learning. Another barrier that Micho has experienced in obtaining his
engineering degree had been having to run the family businesses. He shared that because the
family has properties spread out in the Southwest of the United States, there were times when
managing all the properties was difficult.
Family
Micho highlighted the lack of STEM education exposure in his community by identifying
that South Los Angeles did not invest in educational resources to promote STEM education. He
also noted that it was by accident that he came across and received exposure to engineering.
Aware that he was having a hard time enrolling in English and Math courses, Micho jumped on
the opportunity of having guaranteed registration for those courses despite having to take an
engineering design course. Micho shared that his awareness and interest in engineering were
questioned, but he did not let high school counselors stop him from continuing with his
education towards earning an engineering degree.
Seeing how freely he (father) moved that there was no restrictions on him in
saying, "I do not know how to do this, I won't go into those waters." For me
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 62
coming from South Central [Los Angeles] and not knowing what engineering
was, a lot of people said, "You don't have the academic background to support
you in going into engineering." And so, for me it was uncharted waters and I
remembered my dad's philosophy and I said, "You know what? Those are the
waters that I need to go into. There's nothing holding me back." While I still
continued to manage the family properties, my family saw that I was unhappy and
they have supported me all the time, and they said, "Study whatever you want.
You've earned it, you've worked this hard on something that you're not passionate
about. Follow what you want." And so, that's the role that my family has played,
they've been very supportive.

Counter to the support that his family expressed, Micho vividly remembered being told by his
High School counselor, “Be realistic. You're coming from South LA, you dropped out of high
school, you'll probably start at the lowest math." Although there was some truth in what the
counselor shared with Micho- he did start in the lowest math at BCC- Micho was determined to
earn his engineering degree. Along the way through his academic and social experiences he has
shifted his focus on why he is pursuing an engineering degree.
Now looking back, my mentality is, I want to become an engineer so I can start a
non-profit to help kids that are under-represented in communities and need that
support not only financially, but that motivation that sometimes other people do
not support them with. And so, it has changed my mentality and that has played a
major role.

Unlike some of his student peers whose parents are constantly asking ‘when are you
graduating?’ and ‘when are you transferring?’, Micho shared that his family was simply
supportive of all efforts he made towards his education.
From my family, they give me the freedom of doing whatever I want when it
comes to education. They don't say, "You're going the wrong way," or if they're
going the right way. They're allowing me to discover myself, and see what I'm
capable of doing.

Micho pointed out that this drive towards hard work is something that exists within the Latino
culture, and there is nothing else that can explain this phenomenon.
If I had to put a label on that, I don't know. I just feel that it's not pushing down
any other ethnic group but a lot of the Central, South America, just the Hispanic
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 63
community comes with a mentality that hard work beats smart any day of the
week. If you work hard regardless, you'll get where you want to get and so I feel
that that's something that our parents have bestowed on us, and that's our drive
that continues pushing that. It's not something that is in our genes or anything like
that. It's just that the mentality, if you look at people that came from those
countries, they come with that entrepreneurship mentality. "How can I establish
my business?" And if you look at the demographic, immigrants create more
businesses than Americans here in this country because this is just something that
we were raised with.

This hard work mentality is also shared among those Micho considers his support group. Micho
describes having many systems of support groups, and taps into the various groups depending on
what type of help he might need. Micho describes his closest group of friends as consisting of
Juanes whom is a Mechanical Engineer; Nando is a Computer Science major;
Miguel is a Health Administrator major; Joe is a Sociology major; Lupe is into
Insurance or something like that. David is into Astronomy, I believe. Derref, I
think maybe Arts. I will just give you the title of our chats, called "Savages". So,
you already know how we treat each other and so we probably get together every
weekend. We chat with each other every single day. Like we have a chat on our
cell phone. We even have a chat on Snapchat. And we have a chat on Xbox. So,
there's a form of communication with each other, one way or another on the daily
basis. Juanes, well I have classes every day with him. But other than that, there's
always communication with them. It's gone as far as we have an annual Christmas
dinner. We also have an annual Thanksgiving dinner. We spend the day with our
family, the next day we go and gather ourselves and we do a potluck. And we eat
with each other and so, it's a family environment. But to say that the support that I
get probably is from 50 plus people that they play in a major way of one way or
another supporting me in different aspects in life.

It is apparent by the excitement in Micho’s voice that he greatly valued the company of his close
group of friends. With regards to balancing school, family and work, Micho shared that he did
not get to spend too much time with his family.
I essentially get up, come to school at 8:45 AM and I leave at 10:00 PM. I'm here
most of the day. If I'm lucky, I get to see my family and say at least goodnight.
But on the weekends, that's when I spend time with them. I can't get done
anything at home, because if I'm at home, I have to do the books, see how all the
properties are going, anything that we spent, keep accountability.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 64
Micho shared that because of the responsibility of taking over the family business, he associated
being at home with work, and being at school, with school. He realized the importance of
separating the two, and made it a point to stay on campus at BCC as long as he could.
Professional Organization
With the inception of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), Micho
described that he founded the club and the merger with Engineering Club as a support system for
students from students. The SHPE/Engineering Club meetings serve as a space for students to
ask for help if they are having any difficulties with their academic courses or anything
engineering related. These meeting times were also set up to provide club members with
exposure to various types of engineering by getting hands on experience.
These are seminars of them getting their hands involved like prototyping, or just
assembling a robot just so they could say, "I completed this." The SHPE side is
preparing them leadership-wise, and networking-wise and so while it's not a direct
connection from the faculty, with the support that Maria has provided that club, it
has become a big support system for other students.

Micho shared that because of the nature of who he is, he just did not have one group of peer
support, but rather several different groups of support.
I have a group of close friends and from that group only one other is an engineer.
And the rest are different disciplines but it's a close support group that I have. But
it's not the only support group that I have. I'm very close to them. But if we walk
on campus, it will probably take me 30 minutes to walk across because I have to
stop and say hi to different people. To say that they're my only support system
would be incorrect. And so, I have that group that supports me. But I also have...
We created this SHPE familia. People that are part of SHPE, that are part of the
board, they have become close and so when we volunteer, we volunteer outside of
school. And we go and participate in these activities as a group.
Some people might have skills that I don't have because I'm far from getting the
skills that others have. I might have... I might be able to express myself. I might
be able to give a speech in front of a large crowd. But when it comes to technical
skills, I have some but I'm limited. And there're some other students here that
have great technical skills but they don't have that voice. They don't have that.
And so, one of the things that my father always told me was, "Surround yourself
with the people that know what you don't. And don't surround yourself with
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 65
people that just agree with you." So, when I formed this group, I kind of grabbed
a piece of each. So, we could kind of show ourselves our weaknesses, and kind of
address them as a group. So definitely, the people in Engineering Club, SHPE, I
would say that's a support system that I have here as peers.

The commitment to SHPE and Engineering Club have extended to opportunities beyond
the BCC campus. Among the many ways that Micho remained active in SHPE not only at BCC
but also in his community was by participating in an outreach program call Great Minds of
STEM. Recognizing from his K-12 educational experience that he did not have exposure to the
STEM fields, he is committed to providing STEM exposure to young students as early as
possible.
We participate in what's called Viva Technology. We go to middle schools and
teach kids about different projects and so getting to interact with these students at
an early stage and kind of see them if they're interested in engineering is very
important. For us it's important to try to volunteer as many times as possible
because it'll influence students to pursue engineering. I feel that engineering is a
degree that you could go into any field with it, except doctor of course, but I feel
if you hold an engineering degree, the way your thought process becomes, you
could become a teacher, you could become a business administrator, a counsellor,
whatever you want to be. There's no closed doors because it's teaching you to
problem solve and innovate.

This is a volunteer opportunity that several of the participants in the study shared as being a way
for them not only to give back to the community, but also plant the STEM seed in young kids
whom may not receive this type of exposure back in their own schools.
Institutional
Micho shared that although he has cousins that are engineers in Guatemala and London,
he did not recall ever having conversations regarding their career choices.
We communicate with each other all the time but they never came out like, "What
did you study?" or anything. And so, coming from a background where we lived
in South LA, and a lot of the schools around did not invest a lot in STEM, I didn't
care much about it. And so, it wasn't until I came to BCC that I heard about it. I
actually was coming here as a political science major. I love politics but I couldn't
get any classes here. And that's when I was introduced to the program called
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 66
Design Tech. And I was forced to take an engineering design course to get my
English and Math guaranteed. And so, that's where I started hearing about it and
since that day I never looked back, I just went with engineering.

The Design Tech pathway was important in providing engineering exposure to Micho and he
was thankful for having that resource available when he started his engineering journey. By
joining the Design Tech Pathway, students in the program were guaranteed their Math and
English courses. Since this was a pathway, it was set up so that students as a cohort would take
their design technology (engineering) courses together. Since the pathway was centered around
Design Technology courses, students in the pathway got experience of designing and
prototyping, which sparked interest in them aspiring to become engineers. The introduction
course to the Design Technology pathway was a way for students to get introduced to the
engineering related resources that are available to students. While recognizing the current 2017
political climate in society, Micho shared that the racism was not as overt at BCC as it was
elsewhere.
Of course, there's some ethnicities that are dominant here. You could see our
Asian community is one of the biggest ones but it's not the same. I wouldn't put it
that there's a division between the Anglos and Hispanics or a division between
Anglos and Pacific Islanders here on this campus. If you do see that, it'll probably
be one incident that was a one-person opinion. But they won't... You don't see it
as a mass effect in one class. A lot of the Engineering classes are heavy on
Pacific Islanders. You see that you're under-represented there. You could meet
one or two persons in that class and you could feel threatened. But that's the
difference between our culture and the other cultures where we continue moving
forward. We don't say, "I don't see my people there. Let me back out." We
continue pursuing the dream.

As I was reading the question regarding the racial/ethnic composition of engineering
professors at BCC to Micho, Micho chuckled and smiled as I finish reading the question. His
simple response was, “no there are not any professors who look like me, or can relate to me.”
However, one could be Pacific Islander background, the other one could be
maybe Middle Eastern background but the thing about them is that they're
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 67
women. So, for me, that's actually a plus. I could see that it'll be hard-pressed to
ignore the fact that women do not have the same opportunities as men here. So,
when I see a woman in charge of a classroom, for me, that's already a victory
even if they're not my ethnicity because they're in a position where they could
influence the next generation. And the next generation will see that women are
equal or in some sense even greater than men when it comes to thought process or
engaging people. And so, while I cannot identify with their ethnic background, I
could identify with the hard work they've had to complete in order to get to that
position that they are. And so, for me, I respect that more than someone that I
know that would probably just gotten the job because they needed to be filled.

Micho appreciated the fact that he has women as professors for his engineering courses, because
not only does it provide a challenge to dominant ideology of not only what an engineer looks
like, but also who the engineering professors are that are preparing the next generation of
engineers. Less than 10% of his engineering courses were made up of women majoring in
engineering. In computer science, the demographics were changing and there was a more visible
presence of women in that field.
Micho acknowledged that he would not have made it this far in his college career, had it
not been for the resources at BCC that he had tapped into. The first institutional resource that he
identified was the MESA program and the MESA Director herself, Maria. Given that we
conducted the interview in Maria’s office, as soon as Micho stated that MESA and Maria had
been one of the greatest resources that he has taken advantages of, he said it with an undertone of
“no duh”. Micho described Maria’s personality as one of being like a “mother figure” to all the
MESA students.
She might not like it, but a lot of us in this group feel that we can go to her if we
need something. She's there to listen to us and even if we make a mistake and God
knows I've made so many mistakes and she gets mad at me, but she's still there for
me. It doesn't prevent her from saying, "I'm not going to help the student, I gave
up on the student." And so, when she hears that a student is being attacked by
someone else, maybe a colleague of hers or something, she gets into this mother
bear mode, where she gets protective and she's like, "Who did this? Give me
details. What happened?" And she'll get to the bottom of it and help as much as
she can.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 68

Micho knows that he can count on Maria to be there for him whenever he may run into any
issues and may need help.
And so, this program (MESA) has helped me a lot and it's not only for my
academics, but also when it comes to the clubs, I've been president for
undocumented students here on campus, I've been president for transfer students,
I've been president for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and that
one actually started because I came to Maria and visit her and they were having a
club meeting for all the club representatives and I just wanted to say hi to Maria
and she wraps her hand around me and she says, "You know what, we need a
SHPE chapter here." And I'm like, "Oh, that's cool," and she's like, "Yeah, you're
going to start it," and so, "Congratulations president, take a seat." And so, it's hard
to say no to Maria because you have all the support. And so, that has a ripple
effect because of establishing SHPE, we were able to go to a conference.

In addition to having the support from Maria, Micho shared the importance of having advisors
whom were committed to STEM education. “It is important and key that we now have an
advisor for SHPE that has experience in working with STEM students.” Micho described feeling
privileged of having Counselor Alex be the Co-Advisor to SHPE, so that he and other students
can have direct access to an advisor and not just any advisor, but one that knows about the
STEM curriculum and is always looking out for STEM students.
And so, he's more well prepared to answer your questions when it comes to
STEM majors, he is aware of the changes that other schools are making, so he'll
be like, "Hey, you remember your education plan? This is another class that you
might have to update if you want to get into the school." Instead of going to a
counsellor that might be like, "I don't know. Check their website”.

Having direct access to a counselor and one that is passionate about helping STEM students
confirms that there is the constant support to ensure STEM students are persisting and working
towards degree completion and transferring to a four-year institution.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 69
Changes he would make at BCC
Another space that Micho mentioned as a place to hang out in was the Fabrication Lab
(FabLab). Micho described the FabLab as a place and resource that allowed students to bring
their ideas into reality.
I would say the Fab Lab, I would consider it a support, that Fabrication lab,
because it enables you to innovate. It helps you bring your ideas to life and so,
they give you the opportunity to use the laser cutter, the 3D printer. And so,
you're bringing your ideas, ideas that someone might've told you, "They're dumb,"
but at least you could say, "Hey, I have a physical object! I made this! It's my
design!" Regardless of how crappy it is, you get that stepping stone. You're like,
"Okay, how can I improve it? Let me move forward." And so, it's a building
block. It gives you that motivation, it gives you that satisfaction of accomplishing
something.

While acknowledging that BCC offered hands on opportunities to its students, Micho
would like to see a change towards offering more opportunities for students to engage in hands
on type of learning. He shared that it was frustrating to assume that everyone could learn straight
by just reading from the course textbook. He highlighted that in a field like engineering it was
important to gain hands on experience. Community College are in a position of offering these
hands-on experiences to its students on a more personal level, than when students transfer and
attend big institutions in which they become 1 of 200 plus students. Versus at BCC the classes
are around 30 students. Micho on his own, theorized the reason why there are not more students
pursuing engineering and the STEM fields,
I feel at a community college, it should be more practical, more engaging for
students because they'll create that passion. When they're faced with going
through books, going through any other class, they'll be like, "It's worth it."
Because one of the biggest things that prevent students from continuing, is math.
But the thing is that the students that give up when they feel math is difficult, is
because they haven't gotten a taste of what engineering is all about, that passion
hasn't fully flourished. So, if you'll allow them to have that practicality and allow
them to build something, their passion will grow, or they might just say, "No,
engineering is not for me." But at least you give them a chance to say, "Math is
hard, but all I have to do is complete these math courses and I could just focus on
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 70
this." And I feel that that's one of the things that I would like to change at a
community college. Creating that more practical. Allowing students to get a taste
of what engineering is all about, so when times get tough, they can remember that
and continue forward.

Undocumented Students Advocacy
When I met Micho in Spring 2016, one the things he shared with me then, was his
passion for advocating for undocumented students. He shared with me about an experience a
close friend of his had with a counselor in which made his friend feel like she did not belong at
BCC. Micho, being the advocate that he is, not only started the Undocumented Students Club,
but he also made it a point to reach out to administrators at BCC to let them know that
undocumented students needed their support. Before we ended our formal interview, I asked
Micho about undocumented students at BCC. This conversation that we had was only a couple
weeks after the inauguration of the 45
th
President of the United States, whom had incited a lot of
fear in immigrants and undocumented individuals throughout the United States.
Well, the community, there's no doubt that they live in fear and a lot of students
face the fact... The fear that their DACA might not be renewable, that the program
could be cut at any moment and with the current status in Arizona where a DACA
recipient was arrested and then facing deportation, it gives them the sense that
they're no longer protected, even though that one of the promises of DACA was
protection from deportation, that was the main focus of it.
The political climate right now, it's very damaging for students. For me it's sad
because if an undocumented student is already going into say engineering, now
they have that extra load of fearing that they might be picked up at any moment
and taken away because we can't neglect the fact that the government has their
addresses, they had to know where they're at and so there's no way that they could
be like go home and hide from them, it's not... They're not living in the shadows
anymore, they're out and about and that's a fear that they have to live with and it's
hard for them to say, "I'm focused in engineering." And a lot of them have to have
a job because they're low income families. So, it's not like saying, "Oh, my dad is
paying for... " Saying that I could go to school and not worry about anything.
They have that old job, they have that school, and now this extra load of the
political climate around, so it's a difficult time for them and so... For me it's just
finding ways of trying to assist them.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 71
As was evident throughout Micho’s testimonios, he is passionate about being an advocate for
marginalized groups, and specially if that meant challenging the dominant ideology and working
towards a more just education and society. Micho recognized the complexities that exist and the
need to highlight the intersectionality that exists for Latino students whom choose to major in
engineering and must also have the daily burden of fearing deportation, because of the 45
th

President’s administrations’ policies.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 72
Enrique
My name is Enrique, and I am 23 years old. I live in the East Los Angeles/ Boyle
Heights area and currently attend Basin Community College (BCC). I first
enrolled at BCC in 2011, so I am now in my fifth year as a student here. I am
majoring in mechanical engineering, but originally wanted to major in
architecture. My dad only went up to 2
nd
grade in school and my mom was only
able to go up to 6
th
grade in México. When my mom was pregnant with me, she
went to Nursing School, but did not finish. I see how hard my mom works in
cleaning retail stores, and I don’t want her to have to be doing that the rest of her
life. I am studying mechanical engineering not only for myself, but also to help
out my parents.

Introduction
The interview with Enrique played out to be different from the rest of the interviews
right from the beginning. Similar to the engineering students participating in this study, Enrique
was a member of BCC’s MESA program and regularly studied in the MESA Center. After
trying multiple attempts to schedule an interview time with him, we could not find a meeting
time that worked with both of our schedules due to school and job scheduling conflicts. One
day, while in the MESA Center, he approached me and shared that he wanted to participate in
the study, but the times I was available did not work for him. The Friday of that week was a
holiday and the school was going to be closed in observance of that holiday, so I offered to meet
Enrique at a Starbucks near his home. Enrique quickly responded “Yeah, that works. See you
Friday.” Later that day, I received a text message asking if 10a.m. would work for me, along
with letting me know that he lives in Boyle Heights and there was a café named La Monarca
Bakery near his home, and was wondering if we could meet there. I confirmed that meeting at
La Monarca Bakery worked for me and that I would meet him there on Friday at 10a.m. Having
him suggest La Monarca Bakery brought a smile to my face because I was familiar with that café
as I had studied there before during my doctoral classes, and the location also reminded me of
my Mexican culture.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 73
Friday came and I found myself arriving at the Mariachi Plaza train station in Boyle
Heights, CA (right next to East Los Angeles) at 9:50 a.m. for our 10 a.m. meeting across the
street from Mariachi Plaza. As the name of the Plaza may signal, it was no surprise to find
Mariachi men hanging out in the Plaza, some just hanging out playing checkers with old bottle
caps, some playing chess and some suited up in their Mariachi outfits ready to be hired for their
services. I crossed the street and entered La Monarca Bakery to be greeted by the smell of
freshly baked conchas (conch shaped sweet Mexican bread). The smell of fresh Mexican bread
was again another indication that this conversation with Enrique was going to be different from
the rest because of the setting where we were meeting. I set my back pack down and starting
preparing for the interview at a high-top table near the entrance of the door. But once Enrique
arrive we both realized that because we were close to the entrance and near a huge window we
would quickly get hot, so we moved to an open table that could sit two people towards the back
of the cafe near the restrooms. It was during that time that I offered to buy Enrique a drink and/or
pan dulce, but Enrique shared that he had just had breakfast and was not hungry. While waiting
to receive my drink, I quickly realized that conducting an interview near the restroom of the café
was not going to be a good idea. We moved one last time to a table for four people that was
closer to the front of the cafe and would be a better location for us to conduct the interview.
Enrique is a Latino student who has been at Basin Community College since Fall 2011,
which is when he recalls taking his first English class. Since then, he had also attended another
community college nearby to re-take Calculus I. Enrique shared that when he entered college he
did not know what he wanted to study, so he was undeclared for his first semester of college. He
quickly added, but then I found this Design Tech Pathway program.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 74
Basically, the only reason I joined was (because) they gave me priority
registration for Math and English. And I was like ‘ok, I need English and Math,
so I have to join.’ So, that’s the only reason I joined. As a result of joining this
program, they made me take Design Tech classes, where they teach you
SolidWorks, prototyping and other engineering stuff. At that time, I had decided
to major in Architecture. After a second semester of being in that program, I
ended up dropping the program and not doing any engineering related courses
because I was discouraged by the instructors. One instructor specifically. He
approached the things and the students with a mentality of ‘you either know it or
you are not going to know it’ and that just was not a place I wanted to be in. So, I
just focused on my general education courses.
Enrique shared that after his first year- once he dropped the Design Tech Pathway program- until
his fourth year of being at BCC he did not know what he was going to do about his major. He
found himself just taking random classes just to take classes, so that he could receive money
through financial aid, since that was his only source of income. He described financial aid as
“spoiling students, because if you are undecided and you like just getting money, it doesn’t really
force you to discover what you want to do.” He shared that he decided to major in engineering
when he stopped receiving financial aid, because he had maximized his financial awards.
Individual
When asked how he identifies racially/ ethnically, Enrique states that he is Mexican-
American. I noticed hesitation in his voice when he identifies Mexican-American, he added:
I wasn’t born in Mexico, but from what I remember we used to go back and forth
from the U.S. to Mexico a lot, but that was before 9/11. I did Pre-Kinder through
2
nd
grade, over there in Michoacán, México. I was born here, but after I started
Pre-Kinder we just stayed over there for about five years. When we came back
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 75
over here (United States), I was in ESL, until about 6
th
grade. That’s when I got
bumped into regular English.

I asked Enrique to think as far back as he could remember about his K-12 education, and share
what he remembers most.
When I came here, I was in 3
rd
grade, but was taking 1
st
grade classes. And then,
when I was in 4
th
grade, I was taking 2
nd
grade classes, and 5
th
grade, I was taking
3
rd
grade classes so I could get better with my English. Then in sixth grade was
when they (teachers) decided to put me in regular English classes (instead of
ESL). During 6
th
grade was when I was doing my best, because I had been placed
in regular English and was competing in math competitions, and was even being
recognized with little awards for the work I was doing. I think that is the reason
why I like to write in Spanish. But then, looking back on these last few years, I
feel like I wasted my time taking Spanish classes in Community College. I took
everything. I am about three classes away from getting an Associate’s (degree) in
Spanish. I only took them because I wanted to be proficient in Spanish.

Enrique shared that growing up, since he was in México, Spanish was the only language that was
spoken both at school and at home. Despite only knowing Spanish prior to coming back to the
United States, he did not recall having any difficulties learning English, “it’s weird. I just
remember knowing it, because I would watch TV and knew what they were saying. It just came
natural. But yeah, in the States it was English at school and only Spanish at home.” Being
bilingual was mostly an advantage for Enrique, but he shared that there are times when he found
himself trying to say a word in English, but was pronouncing it in Spanish. I followed up, by
asking if he could describe to me the way that being bilingual has influenced his educational
experience. After looking into the distance of the bakery we were in, he paused for a about ten
seconds and then said “you know what, I honestly haven’t ever reflected on how knowing
Spanish has influenced my education.” I proceed to share with Enrique that he should feel free
to answer the rest of my interview questions in either Spanish or English, as I am bilingual, and I
also wanted to acknowledge what he had just finished sharing about sometimes not being about
to pronounce the English words correctly or finding the right English words to express himself.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 76
I made the conscious decision to start the interview focusing on Enrique’s educational
past and linguistic acquisition, because it provided a way to then share with Enrique the six-
various type of capitals within the Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) framework that I
was interested in learning more about in the context of his experiences as a Latino community
college engineering student. I began by sharing with him the definition of linguistic capital, and
used examples that he had shared with me about his experience of learning social skills through
both Spanish and English. I then shared the definitions of aspirational, familial, social,
navigational, and resistant capitals.
In discussing aspirational capital, if he would consider himself an engineering or aspiring
engineer, without hesitation, Enrique quickly responds “Aspiring Engineer”.
This is because I do not know much of the technical aspects. For example, I don’t
know all of the components that go into making an engine run. I know some
aspects of an engine, but not all. But, I do want to know basic concepts of
engineering, so that I can look anything, visually take it apart and put it back
together without having any problems. Until I can get to the point where I can
take an item apart and put together completely and know everything of how it
works, I will continue to be an aspiring engineer. This is why I always identify
myself as ‘I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering’.
I have a lot of problems with Math. I know I get the subject. Sometimes I
know I just need to go to someone to teach me the material differently. I know I
get it. Like in class, it all makes sense when the professors explain it. But maybe
there is something I don't get. I'm not sure what is stopping me from asking for
help. During class is the only time I ever ask for help. Outside of class, I think I
could just find the answer online or something.

When asked if he thinks he is the only one in this situation of "not getting math" he shared,
actually, my perspective changed this semester. That's because last semester there
was this student who was in my same Calculus I class, he sat in the other side of
the classroom, and he would answer all these questions the professor would ask in
class so I thought he got it...but now he is in the same class with me this semester
retaking Calculus I. This really opened my eyes, because I was able to see that I
am not the only one struggling with math, and that there are others who are
retaking the course with me. I don’t know why, but I get embarrassed to ask for
help. Calculus is the only class that is setting me back. I must pass calculus in
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 77
order to move forward with my engineering classes and transfer out to a four-year
institution.

After Enrique shared this, I asked Enrique a question about how many units he had completed so
far, but before I could finish the question, he cut me off and said,
It’s not like I don’t enjoy it! I do enjoy it. I like doing math, I enjoy it and feel
great when I work and get the right answer. I want to make sure that I understand
the material and know how they derived what they got. This places a burden on
me because I want to make sure I understand it. So, I am not sure if this is what
really stops me from moving forward, or what it is.

As of Spring 2017, Enrique had completed 130 units of which about 70 are transferrable units
and was attending a second community college, because he had taken Calculus I three times at
BCC and was not able to pass the course there, so his only option after repeating a class three
times, was to attend a different community college to retake the Calculus I course. At the time of
the interview he was enrolled in the Calculus I course for the sixth time and was hoping to pass
that semester.
Family
Enrique described that he aspires to be an engineer because every day during the night, he
drops off his mom at Whole Foods and Best Buy stores where she cleans the stores. Enrique
shared that in the past he too has worked as a cleaner, and recalled the times he had to clean dirty
restrooms, “it just breaks my heart to know that she still has to do that, and has been doing that
for more than 25 years. It just sucks. The same thing with my dad.” He described seeing his
parents work hard as “changing my perspective, and taking school more seriously.” Enrique
acknowledged that he maintains his hopes of earning a mechanical engineering degree to have a
better future not only for himself, but for his parents as well.
With regards to formal education, Enrique shared that neither of his parents went to
college. His mom was only able to achieve a 6
th
grade education, and his father only went up to
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 78
2
nd
grade. Enrique highlighted that despite the lack of his father’s formal education, his father
liked to read and be informed. Every day his father would read the printed version of La
Opinion (Spanish newspaper). But now that they do not print that newspaper anymore, Enrique
was trying to teach his father how to adapt to technology so that he could continue reading La
Opinion on his new iPhone.
While Enrique shared that in the academic setting he would not ask for help, I noticed he
was fidgeting in his chair and was hesitant with his response. This led me to inquire about the
hesitation in his previous response.
I think it’s because growing up, I really did not need help. Especially, because of
my dad and the way he is, we adapted to his style. If he needed help, he wouldn’t
ask for help himself, he would send my mom to go ask for help. So, I think that’s
how I ended up being. But, I think it’s probably that I do not want to feel dumb.

Enrique continued to share that he felt this pressure from his family to be the smart one and to be
able to figure things out with very little guidance.
When it came to explaining what it was that Enrique was studying and doing as a
mechanical engineer, he shared that his parents did not understand. He expressed that the
meaning is often lost in translation,
When I first said it to my family, my dad thinks it’s like to be an auto mechanic.
So, he was all for it, he wanted me to pick up the trade and get to work as soon as
possible, which is basically his mindset. If it was up to my dad, he would want
me to get a trade degree, start working and start making money as soon as
possible. He actually wanted one of us (his kids) to go into the military. That is
because my dad said that if he was younger, and had a second chance he would go
into the military. So, that’s why he wishes that one of us would have gone that
route. I think this was a hope of his, because he was never good in school, and
something that he wanted to do because he is into action, and that kind of stuff.

Enrique described his household and dad’s role as one of living in a patriarchy where
mom does mom things and dad does dad things. He shared that during his K-12 educational
experience his father would not show up to the parent/teacher conferences. It was always his
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 79
mother, who would show up to those meetings for all the kids. “My dad, never really had
interest for how we were doing in school.” Now that Enrique was in college, his father has told
him that he does not have to work, and instead should focus on his studies. Enrique believed that
the only reason that his father told him this, was because his mother must have told the dad to
support Enrique at least in this way. Enrique acknowledged that not working is not an option for
him,
I am always reminded of my mom’s hard work, and that’s why I know that I have
to work hard, as well. My dad and I are not really that close, it terms of me telling
him what my plans are or things like that. I’m closer to my mom. I think it’s
him. He really does not understand the long run of my studies. This might be
because he didn’t have a formal education himself. He just does not understand
the long run and what this is going to do in the future. He would prefer that I start
making money right and fast. I think this is a cultural thing, in that my dad wants
to see instant results: ‘work, make money; work, make money’.

Enrique attributed his father’s approach to the way he was raised, in that neither of Enrique’s
grandparents had a formal education, so they never pushed Enrique’s father to pursue formal
education and do well academically. Enrique concluded that this must be the primary reason
why his father did not push school as much as he could.
Enrique expressed frustration in that his parents did not understand what it was that he
was studying, but he said that, that does not discourage him from continuing to pursue his studies
and find alternative ways to help his parents understand what it is that he is studying. For
example, he shared that the way his mom understands what engineers do,
… is through watching Telenovelas (Spanish Soap Operas). They call people
engenieros. But in the novelas they use this title for architects, which is not the
same. It did not help that for a while I was studying architecture and I told her I
was doing architecture. So, when I switched majors, she still thought I was doing
architecture. They really don’t understand the basic concepts of what engineering
does. My sister too. She doesn’t understand. My entire family are just like ‘do it,
but just finish’.

Enrique described his mother’s upbringings as being better than his fathers,
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 80
My mom was blessed as a child. She was able to get education up to 6th grade
because my grandfather had a window installation company and it allowed him to
pay for my mother’s schooling. But she got married like in 7th grade! She was
pretty young. My grandfather told her that if she got married, he wouldn't
continue paying for her school. My mom ended up getting married to my dad, so
she did not continue school.

Enrique recognized the challenges and different lifestyle that he was being raised in
compared to that of his father’s and mother’s experiences. Enrique had a tone of disappointment
in his voice as he shared that his mother, could have continued her formal education, but she
made “the dumb mistake” of marrying his father. Despite the experience of is mother marrying
young, "she is always telling me soy muy estudioso (I am very studious) because when she was
in nursing school here in the States, she was pregnant with me." Enrique’s mom was pursuing a
nursing degree while also working at a convalescent home. He shared that his mom was doing
well in the program, but “unfortunately because we were going back and forth to México so
often, she ended up dropping out the program and did not finish.” Along with sharing how
supportive his mother has been, I asked Enrique if there are any other people or groups that he
would consider his support group. Before I could finish asking the question about describing his
support system, he said
honestly man, it's hard to say. It's probably my mom. She is the one that I go to
the most and talk with the most. I think it’s my dad, the reason that I am more
closed and reserved. It's because I don't have that relationship with my dad. I
don't like to open up. I have close personal friends, we hang out but I don't share
with them any of my problems. My mom is the only one that knows my problems.
And that's only because she is the only one that makes me talk. She just insists
that I open up. I don't know if it's a pride thing, or a state of mind. But I really
don't talk to anyone about my problems. I feel like these problems are problems
that are not fixable, or find myself overthinking things. I feel pressured to finish
school, I’m afraid of that and I also have to work.

With regards to friends as support on campus, Enrique described how it was very helpful during
Fall 2016 semester when him, Micho, and Juanes all took a class together.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 81
What I learned from them, is that they don’t leave until they finish their work. I
think they are more disciplined than me, which is a good thing. Before meeting
them, I use to never stay after class. I would just go to class and leave. I think I
have told them before, it’s because of them, that I stay after class and do my
homework. I think that surrounding yourself with people that have the same
interest as you is a great thing. I found this out by joining MESA, SHPE/
Engineering Club, where people are studying the same thing and have the same
problems as you.

Professional Organization
After focusing on his general education, Enrique recalled that he only returned to the idea
of majoring in mechanical engineering because one of his friends, Micho (also a participant in
this study), was the President of BCC’s student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers (SHPE) during Spring 2016. Enrique decided to join the SHPE Club and take
advantage of the resources that SHPE had to offer. One of the benefits of joining SHPE, was
attending the SHPE National Conference.
Attending the SHPE Conference opened my eyes to engineering. I enjoyed the
whole atmosphere and all the energy from everyone that was there. There were
workshops and all sorts of engineering competitions. Attending this conference
and being a part of SHPE is what got me back to engineering.

With regards to his pursuit for a degree in the engineering field, he attributed his love and
passion for engineering to joining the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Club at BCC.
Enrique described the benefits of being a part of this professional organization.
The atmosphere and the people in SHPE/ Engineering Club motivated me to want
to continuing pursuing engineering. In Engineering Club, I learned the technical
aspects outside of the classroom about what you need to know as an engineer, and
in SHPE I learned about the professional aspects of being an engineer.
Specifically, SHPE, allowed me to grow and learn professional aspects about
being an engineer through the National Conference. This was done through
networking, and attending various workshops that were offered during the
conference. Attending these various workshops and at the National Conference,
cemented the idea, that I do want to pursue Mechanical Engineering as a career.
Although going to the SHPE Conference re-enforced my passion for engineering,
I remember when I was little I would look into spaceships and see what NASA
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 82
was doing. I was always wondering what was going on with that kind of stuff and
what new products were coming out.

Enrique described being in spaces like SHPE and MESA being comforting in that he
found and can see people who were taking similar courses as him and could relate to the work
that he was having to go through. He shared that recently there was a student who joined the
Engineering club, and the new student expressed that he was having difficulties with calculus,
specifically with limit proofs. Hearing another student share that he was having difficulties with
calculus, reassured Enrique that he was not alone in his battle with understanding Calculus.
HENAAC/ SHPE National Conferences
Attending large national conference like the Hispanic Engineering National Achievement
Awards Conference (HENAAC) and SHPE Conference was “both inspiring, and at the same
time intimidating.” He described being overwhelmed with everything that was going on at the
conference, but appreciated the exposure.
Seeing all the big companies and wanting to work for them motivates me to work
harder. But at the same time, you see these students from four-year institutions
like UCLA, and they have resumes filled with experience, internships, and high
GPAs. That’s what is intimidating too. They say that having a high GPA is
what’s going to get you in through the door, but if you don’t even have that, how
are you even going to get in? I feel like my resume is not well polished like
theirs, so I don’t even have a shot at competing with them.

In trying to deconstruct the experiences from the National Conferences, Enrique shared that his
GPA is a 2.8, and that he was aware that he needed more major related work experience before
landing an internship or job with a big corporation.
Institutional
At multiple points throughout our conversation, Enrique stopped, and remembered how
different aspects of his High School experience, had influenced his educational trajectory. “I
remember during freshmen year in my English class, we had a teacher, but she quit early in the
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 83
year, so for the rest of the year we just had substitute, after substitute, after substitute.” Enrique
sat in silence for about 30 seconds and then came back in to the conversation saying:
All my English teachers were bad now that I think about it! It’s not they didn’t
know their stuff. Rather it was that the teachers were super nice and all the
students just took advantage of them. Specifically, there was one teacher during
sophomore year, where students would walk in late, and she wouldn’t do anything
about it, so kids kept doing it. With class and homework assignments, she would
allow us to turn them in late and was very easy.

Enrique recalled how his 11
th
and 12
th
grade English teachers were the best teachers, because
they challenged him. He specifically recalled one class in 12
th
grade which for one of the
assignments he had the opportunity to interview his mother and learn about her story of
immigrating to the United States, including what she had to go through and what she gave up to
come to the United States.
When asked to describe his journey to college, Enrique shared,
I seriously did not consider college until the last semester of High School. This is
because I think my High School did a poor job of buckling down and preparing us
for college. My grades were not the best, but they also were not that bad either. I
feel like if I had the proper guidance I could have made it to a four-year college
right after high school. Roosevelt High School does not do a good job of
promoting college. Like, they don’t promote deadlines to apply or anything like
that. I literally registered for the SAT exam a week before I took it. The only
reason I knew about it was because my friend was taking it. I ended up doing bad
on that test, so I decided to not even apply to the four-year schools. Looking back
though, and the thing that is funny, is that my high school did make it a point to
heavily advertise two-year community colleges.

Roosevelt High School promoted two-year community colleges by inviting former students who
attended community colleges and transferred out to a four-year university. Enrique described
that the main selling points, were that it was possible to attend a community college and transfer
out in two-years, along with saving money.
But, during those presentations, they really didn’t talk about what really goes
down when you actually attend a community college. In terms of, if you score
low on your assessment tests, you are basically f***ed, because you are going to
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 84
be there a long time. I say this from experience. When I first took the test, I
scored super low. I questioned myself when I got the results, ‘how did I even
graduate high school, if I am being placed in this low of a math level?’ In High
School, I took up to Algebra 2, but the placement exam placed me in like,
Elementary Algebra. I was placed in Math 402 and English 100. I was really
bummed, and kept questioning how was it possible for me to graduate High
School if I was now being placed in this low math classes. It was really
embarrassing, to be honest.

While he shared the experience of scoring low on his assessment exams, Enrique’s facial
expression was that of great disappointment. The more he shared his discouragement in scoring
low and realized that his High School did not prepare him well for college, the more I noticed it
in his body language as he slouched and caved in towards the table that was between us. Coming
out of a high school that did not prepare Enrique for college was a disappointment, but that was
only worsen when a similar experience happened to Enrique while meeting with a BCC
counselor.
I remember when I went to a counselor, not when I first got to BCC, but after a
couple of years of here and I told them I wanted to do Mechanical Engineering,
they looked at my grades and were like ‘really, is that what you really want to
major in?’ They just proceeded to give me my classes and we did not discuss my
major any more. This experience made me feel disappointed because, I knew I
was in a lower level math, but if he is telling me that I don’t belong in engineering
then I don’t know. This led to a couple of years of me not wanting to do
engineering and rather pursue a degree in art, since I am a decent artist. But then,
I was reminded again that I wanted to help my mom and my self, so I knew
engineering would allow me to do that.

Enrique’s first exposure to engineering was through BCC’s Design Tech Pathway. What
intrigued him to pursue an education in engineering was the way that engineers are expected to
make special note of little details.
For example, as an engineer you must think about all the parts involved in the
process. Like whenever I am out with my girlfriend, I am the one that has to plan
out all of the details for the trip that we are about to go on. Everything from
calculating how long the trip will take, to gas that will be used, and everything
else that we have to take into account. As an engineer, you have to think about
every single part, what each components purpose is, every single detail.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 85
Enrique was 20 when he first learned about engineering. Upon asking him to recall when he first
learned about engineering, he said,
You know what I just started thinking about as you asked me that question, was
how my senior year they split up my high school into seven little schools, and
they started tracking us students. These schools were divided into different
professions. Engineering was not an option, so I didn’t have any exposure before
starting college.

He looked out into the distance again in the bakery as he was talking about his High School, and
paused for a second to reflect and then shared that he knew students were being tracked into
tracks A, B and C before the school decided to split into mini schools. Again, he stopped and sat
there for a second thinking and starring off in the distance, and then said, “wait, now that I think
about it, there was a school focused on engineering and technology connected to my High
School, but it was not an option for us.”
Enrique described the process of transferring as a burden, in that it has been hard for him
to finish his education at BCC and transfer to a four-year institution. He shared that if he could
go back to his high school and a be a guest speaker he would encourage students to apply to
four-year institutions. That way those students can start taking classes right away and not have
to worry about the transfer process like community college students do.
Transferring is a burden, because I mean I’ve seen education be a burden for
others aside from me. For example, my older sister, she did well academically in
high school and got accepted to Cal States (California State Universities), but
because she was born in México she thought she couldn’t pay for college, so she
didn’t apply to scholarships. She ended up not going to college. My next older
sister, barely even finished high school. She left the house when she was 17, so
she did not continue her education. Then there is my older brother, who is the
middle one, he is like special. If he is to go back to school he will be placed in
special education. He is older than me, but if you were to meet us together, you
would think that I am the older one, because it takes him a while to understand
things. He has a kid-like mind. So none of them went to college. My Mom
always talks about, how she wants somebody to finish school and be successful.
Have that college degree and not live like them, living paycheck to paycheck.
Although my oldest sister did go back to college, I am the furthest along to
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 86
complete a degree. I personally feel like if I don’t complete my degree I am
going to be a failure. And that is what keeps me going, I don’t want to be another
failure. That’s my biggest fear, that I can’t transfer out.

Again, Enrique slouched in disappointment at the possibility of not being able to transfer out of
the community college system. He added that at the time of the interview he was attending a
second community college to complete a Calculus I course that he is taking for the sixth time-
I think it’s a state of mind. I do mind asking for help. I do not want to feel stupid,
so I don’t ask for help. I am trying my hardest to seek out help in math this
semester. It’s pathetic that I have already taken this course five times and cannot
pass it.

With regards to balancing, family, school and work, Enrique described not being home, and
rather only going home to sleep,
I usually at school from 8:45 in the morning to 12:00 noon, and then after class, I
stay at BCC until 5:00pm to do school work. On most days, I usually work at
Marshall’s from 6:00 to 10:30pm. By that time, I just get home after work, do
homework and fall asleep. I also recently picked up another job, Postmates. It’s
like Uber, but for food deliveries. Between Marshalls and Postmates I work on
average 25 hours per week.

Changes that he would make in his experience of being an engineering student at BCC:
Enrique described the difficulties of navigating college and the resources that the college
has to offer, if you do not have someone to guide you in taking advantage of the resources
available. He recommended that Counseling 12 course, be a requirement for all entering
students to take, as the instructor provides support and guidance in exploring the various
resources the institution offers. During “this Counseling 12 course, the instructor also had us
journal, which was helpful, because it allowed us time and space to really reflect on what we
were doing.” The only reason Enrique stated that he enrolled in this course was because it was a
requirement for his engineering courses, otherwise he would have not known about this course or
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 87
a lot of the resources BCC has to offer. “Counseling 12, should be a requirement your first
semester as a student, so that you know how to navigate this campus.”
MESA Exposure
The only reason Enrique joined the MESA program was because he was invited by his
friends. Although he enrolled last year into the MESA program, he rarely utilized the MESA
program last year, and only started hanging out and utilizing the MESA Center more often
during the Spring 2017 semester. He wished that he would have been exposed to MESA, early
on in his educational experience at BCC, so that he would have had that engineering support
community right from the beginning, especially during the multiple times he had wanted to give
up on majoring in engineering.
Enrique shared that it is a combination of multiple stressors that contribute to him wanting to
almost give up on school.
People talk about money, or not being able to go to school…and all that stuff. For
me, those barriers exist as well, but I fell that for me it was always been my
approach to it that has been different. This is because financial aid covers my
classes and then some money left over for personal expenses. I’ve been able to
take all the classes I have ever wanted. It’s just me, I just need to do the stuff and
pass my classes to move forward. I’ve let other stressors, weigh me done, and
there have been many times when I just want to give up, but I know I need to
change the way I approach stuff.

Enrique acknowledged that he has a lot of resources to help him succeed, and that he can count
on his parent’s support to help him if he ever needs help buying a book or other academic related
expenses.
The thought of not doing something, is what keeps me going. I just want to live
in a better situation, than the one we are living in right now. Like I don’t want to
live paycheck to paycheck. What keeps me going is the thought of my mom,
working late at night cleaning restrooms. Lastly, what keeps me going is the fear
of failure. I don’t want to fail.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 88
Enrique’s final thought was wishing he would have known earlier in his education about
succeeding from failing. He wished that there could have been some type of system or program
where it was taught that you are going to fail, but that it is okay, and that you will learn from
your mistakes. Enrique feels that even after all these years of college he still has not been able to
grasp this concept of failure. He says, “especially coming from the Latino community, we are
told from an early age, ‘if you are not right the first time, you are dumb’, so this makes it hard to
accept failure and learn from it.”

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 89
Phillip
My name is Phillip and I am 22 years old. I first enrolled at Basin Community
College, in the Fall of 2012, and am now completing my 9
th
semester here. I am
currently majoring in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in aerospace
engineering. I consider myself a first-generation college going student here in the
United States. I say that because like my mom went to college in México and my
dad didn’t really go to high school. So, I like to identify myself as a first-
generation here culturally and college-wise. Both of my parents were born in
México, but I was born here, so I identify as Mexican- American.

Introduction
Phillip is a regular in the MESA Center, so over the course of the time I had spent in the
Center conducting observations, I noticed him and he also recognized me, because I would sit at
the same table for several hours on most days during the week. On the day we were scheduled to
have the interview, I walked in to the MESA Center about 5 minutes before the scheduled time
and noticed that Phillip was sitting across the MESA Center working on his laptop. Once he saw
me walk in, he looked up, made eye contact and said “I’m ready”. I asked him to give me a
second to get settled.
After gathering all my materials, Phillip and I walked over to a room right next door to
the MESA Center. The room was not being used during the time of the interview. Since that
space sometimes is used as a classroom, it was set up with tables as desks that could easily be
moved for collaboration purposes. Orange chairs accompanied the trapezoid shaped tables.
Along the back wall there were twelve black computers installed, that looked almost brand new.
Phillip and I took two of the orange chairs and one of the tables, and pulled them to the side of
the room for us to use for our interview. We sat on opposite sides of the table. I set up the
recording device on the table between the two of us and began the interview.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 90
Individual
For Philip, growing up, in his house the only language that was spoken was Spanish, while the
only language he spoke at school was English.
Sometimes it was just like a little confusing just trying to speak in Spanish at
school or trying to speak English at home, because at first I was really wired to
only do one thing at a certain place but... At first it was difficult, but like now I
can make the transition really easily and if anything, I'm amazingly grateful for
my parents teaching me Spanish. Because I feel like it's going to open so many
doors and I'm able to connect with so many more people because I can speak
Spanish fluently.

Acknowledging the benefits of linguistic capital, Phillip shared that being bilingual,
first and foremost career-wise, companies are always looking for people that can
speak English and Spanish. Personal relationship-wise, I'm able to speak to
international students from Spanish-speaking countries and form friendships that I
probably wouldn't be able to if I could only speak English.

After Phillip shared with me how being bilingual has helped him in his education, I shared with
him the definition of linguistic capital using what he had just shared with me as an example. I
proceeded to share with him the other five capitals in the community cultural wealth framework
that I was interested in learning more about.
In discussing aspirational capital, Phillip identified himself as an aspiring engineer
because he can only call himself an engineer once he has the degree and has starts working. He
went on to share “I've done internships; I've worked on projects but I feel like I need that
completion sense” to consider himself an engineer. Phillip shared that one of the internships he
had was with Acrobatic Industries.
It provided educational learning kits with robotics. Because I didn't have the
technical skills yet to directly apply them, I did more of the marketing and social
media side while helping a little with the electronics, programming and designing
of the kits.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 91
Phillip shared that academically, he had a bad Fall 2016 semester which caused his GPA to drop
significantly. During Fall 2016 he applied for transfer to several University of California (UC’s)
and California State Universities (Cal States), but because he did not have a good Fall semester
academically, he chose not to send his transcripts reflecting his Fall 2016 grades. He was afraid
that the universities would reject him because of his lower GPA.
I could still transfer out to Cal State LA after this year but I'm not sure. I'm
planning to stay another year to try and raise my GPA, finish up my math and
physics, but I don't know, I could just transfer out too and just get my degree done
and start working on what I want to do.

Phillip shared that he is not concerned with the prestige of the school he transfers to, as much as
he is concerned about the strong intellectual preparation that the institution he chooses to attend
can provide him with. Phillip wants to be intellectually prepared to compete against others who
may be from name brand institutions. He was aware that different institutions have different
curriculums with some having more rigorous curriculums than other institutions.
And a lot of these colleges, they're not just name brand, they've also had a
curriculum that's been worked on year after year to try and make students, enrich
them intellectually as much as they can.

Phillip shared that this reasoning was centered on his past experiences in dealing with the
curriculum at BCC. He shared that harder professors prepared him well. He would prefer that
over an easy professor and end up not learning anything.
Family
After being in a period of time with very little motivation for academics, Phillip shared that he
regain motivation to focus on his studies after a trip to México. After completing high school,
Phillip and his mom went to México and seeing cousins going off to college was motivating:
My cousins were all around my age and they were all about to start college too
and they all had their careers like doctors, lawyers and they were extremely
happy. They were going out. That not only inspired me, it also opened me up
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 92
mentally, being open to try and do really well. And that influenced my freshmen
year a lot which I think I did really well, like academically and then even with
extra-curricular.

After thinking and reflecting for a couple of seconds, Phillip shared that the seed to study
engineering was probably planted by his mom, because she studied agricultural engineering in
México. Despite his mother’s knowledge of Agricultural Engineering, Phillip shared how his
educational aspiration to study mechanical engineering is lost in translation when he shares with
his parents what he wants to study.
My mom was really happy but was a little confused when I said mechanical
engineering, because she was like, "You want to work on cars? You want to be a
mechanic?" I'm like, "No, not really." I was like, just designing mechanical parts,
which at the time, I had no idea where I wanted to go with that. But I was like,
"It's a little more than that. I want to be designing mechanical parts for robots, or
sure, maybe at some point, cars, but not really a mechanic." They warmed up to
the idea, because they thought I just wanted to be a mechanic.

Similar conversations occurred between Phillip and his grandparents. Again, the study of
mechanical engineering was lost in translation.
My grandparents, they were like... “vas a ir a la universidad para estudiar y ser
mecanico? No hay otra opciones? (you are going to go to the university to study
and become a mechanic? Aren’t there other options?) It was just more of that,
like, "Oh, so you're just going to be a mechanic, really?" I was okay, with them
saying, "Oh, you want to be a mechanic?" It didn't bother me because I knew I
wasn't going to do that and once I got my degree and started working, they were
really going to see that I'm not just a mechanic. It was fun, if anything.

Phillip acknowledged and appreciated the fact that his parents did not want him to go through the
things they had to go through. He shared that was the main reason why they had worked so hard
and been supportive. No matter the pitfalls, doing bad in class, or being at a community college,
his parents had been supportive. They told him, “no matter what happens, just keep going and
get the college degree.” Upon entering BCC, Phillip did not know what his career path would
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 93
be. Transitioning from high school to community college, Phillip was considering becoming a
lawyer or a doctor.
My parents really didn't lay out a master plan. That is because with my mom, her
mother wanted her to be a teacher, but she's a little stubborn. And she's like, "No.
I'm going to do agricultural engineering." And at the time, it was rough because,
now, it's still women aren't seen as much in engineering. But back in her time in
Mexico, it was like, two in the whole generation of her class. There was four or
five, but it came down to two or three. And then her family would judge her like,
"Oh, you're doing a male's job," and stuff like that. That probably wasn't going to
ever apply to me, but she didn't want them dictating what I wanted to do. She
wanted me to just pursue whatever I wanted to do and work to the fullest.

Phillip described going through a tough period during Spring 2016 semester when he had
difficulties focusing on his academics because “he was not fully there”. That semester he only
enrolled in one class, Calculus I, and ended up failing the course. Acknowledging that he had to
do something about these experiences he was having, he shared,
I went to my parents, because I can talk to them about almost anything, and I just
I talked to them about it. It was a lot of just like soul searching that I did on my
own like...because I'd gotten out of personal relationship in that same semester, so
I kind of hit like a rock bottom, so it was kind of one of those moments where I
thought about what was important to me in life and what I wanted to do with my
life.

Professional Organizations
He shared that being involved in SHPE, Engineering Club, Student Government and being a
Teaching Assistant had contributed positively to his academics and was doing better as the
classes became more challenging.
Now I'm taking Calculus II and just physics, I wanted to focus on those two. And
I think since then, my study habits have vastly improved as opposed to when I just
started and then I've matured a lot more. And now I know exactly what area I
want to go to and that's also been led by a few internships here and there.

Phillip highlighted that having a peer support group was helpful towards ensuring their success
in engineering.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 94
I think the peers’ aspect is really helpful because you have friends that are
pursuing similar aspirations and you kind of help motivate each other through the
journey that is STEM. And I do have a close group of friends. Like this weekend
we studied Saturday and Sunday and I think Friday for a bit, but I think that's
been helpful.

Doing work at home is nice for Phillip, but described how at times it could get frustrating.
Although he lives close to the BCC campus there were times he chose to stay on campus late to
study for his classes, and did not get back home until late at night.
And a lot of the times my parents are like, they don’t believe that I am studying
that much for classes. For me, I have to spend extra time with math and physics,
because I never took physics in high school and I never really focused on math so
it's been a lot of catching up to do. Parents don't really believe that when I get
home late it's because I'm studying. It doesn't help that I'm an only child so it's
like the spotlight is only on me. They're like, "Were you really studying? How do
we know you didn't just go out?" and a lot of the times they're like, "All right,
well, we want to see your grades then to see if it's true." Sometimes it really
comes down to that. They don't believe me until I show them my grades.

This frustration and experience of having parents who did not understand the magnitude and
necessity to put in long hours of studying for college courses, and even more so with engineering
related courses, is an occurrence experienced by many first-generation college students. I shared
with Phillip, that being a first-generation college student myself and having experienced similar
frustration with my parents in the past, I have learned to be patient. In being patient, I find the
words to share with them what I am studying and why it may require that I invest long hours to
complete projects. These conversations have resulted in less frustrating encounters with regards
to the topic of being away because of needing to study.
Institutional
Phillip shared that he did not start thinking about college until his last year of high school.
According to Phillip, most students who want to pursue a college education go into high school
starting to think of where they would like to apply and attend college.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 95
It wasn't until junior and senior year, that I was like, "Oh, right. I still have to go
to college." But for me it was, like I personally, I wasn't feeling well enough to
study academically and just do well in school. Being completely honest, I was a
little depressed. I didn't really know why. It was to the point where, like my
addiction was gaming throughout high school which isn't the most harmful but it
was something that I just... I don't know, I was just depressed.

He acknowledged that there most likely were several opportunities for him to seek and receive
help for this addiction and depression that he was going through.
I could've probably like been honest with a counselor or even one of the
professors... I could have probably opened up to them and they would have been a
great resource, but I didn't.

In describing his journey to college, Phillip shared that he started Basin Community College
(BCC) with a common misconception.
I came from a private high school and the expectations were that I would go
straight to a four year, but I didn't do well academically, and so I ended up
coming here. And at first, I didn't feel it was the best thing for me because there is
just like a misconception that community college is, I guess for students who
underperform, but since the start, it's been the complete opposite. When I started
here, I started... I accidentally got into a design technology program and I think
that was one of the best accidents that could've happened, because I ended
meeting one of my longtime friends, who was TA-ing the class, and that class got
me interested in engineering. That was, I guess like the little spark.

Phillip went on to describe that being placed in Math 402 set him back in his engineering studies.
It goes like basic math 405, which is like multiplication, addition, subtraction and
then it's like 402 which is I think a little bit of algebra. And then from there, I
think it's 125 which is more algebra, 131 more algebra and then it's 7A which is
college algebra.

Phillip shared that it was only by accident that he got into the Design Technology Pathway
program. This accidental encounter into the Design Technology pathway aligns with other
participants whom have shared that they too accidentally ran into this pathway and that sparked
their interest in pursue a career in engineering.
And then from there, I've just been trying to be a college student exploring, what I
like, and what I want to do with my life. It's taken me a while, because I started at
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 96
Math 402, and then there also have been a few road bumps. But, I've done things
like school government here on campus, I ended up being a TA for a class.

Like the experiences of other participants in this study, Phillip identified the challenge in being
ill prepared for mathematics and the value of mathematics in his engineering education.
Everyone that was a part of the Design Tech Pathway Cohort of 30 students were going through
the program together, but that did not necessarily mean that they were all majoring in
engineering. The Teaching Assistant (TA) that Phillip had in his introduction course to Design
Tech had also started his engineering education by placing in Math 402, so Phillip shared that it
was motivating to see someone who had placed at the same level as him, make it this far in his
mechanical engineering studies.
I didn’t decide to pursue engineering until I was about 18 or 19. With regards to
exposure, I think I did have a little bit of computer science but I had no idea what
I wanted to do in high school. And apparently there's a robotics team in my high
school which I wasn't aware of. So, I guess briefly but before that I had no idea.
Most of the exposure did not happen until I was here at BCC.

The Design Tech Pathway program was a great support system, but Phillip identified that only
lasted for a year. Professors and counselors in the Design Tech Pathway tried to reach out to
students, but their outreach efforts did not work after the first year.
When you're in the program, they have specific counsellors and you see teachers
every day, they talk to you and help you academically and maybe like if you need
to talk to them about something. But after a year, I don't know if it was because of
the program or what it was, but often times, I felt like I was on my own for a lot
of time. I knew MESA was always here but I never really involved myself much
until this year.

He was involved in other parts of campus. He was involved in student government as
Vice-President of Internal Affairs and described being involved and having ‘that support system’
in place while he was a member of student government. Thus, the delay in him getting involved
with the MESA program.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 97
Philip described feeling lost and alone when it came time for him to work on his
education plan (EdPlan). “There were counselors that I spoke to but I thought it was really
superficial and it was just like, it's hard to describe it. It’s like a DMV (Department of Motor and
Vehicles).” Giggling he described that Counseling Center DMV like experience as “you go in
there really quickly. There's like big lines. You go in there and then it's really fast, ‘all right
next’”. As Phillip described his Counseling Center experience feeling like he was at the DMV, I
could not help but simply smile. The reason I smiled was because this was not the first time I
had heard a student describe a community college counseling center as feeling like a DMV.
MESA as Support System:
Phillip was glad that he decided to get involve with the MESA program because of the support
and community that was built within the MESA Center.
For me I think that's the most important part of it, like it creates an environment
that does everything it can to make sure students in STEM pursue what they want
to do and encourages. Like Maria, she's great. The other day I wasn't sure if I
should take the three, like math, physics, and chemistry or just two classes. And I
spoke to her about it and then, she's really easy to talk to about a lot of things. So,
I spoke to her and then she directed me to a counsellor and got that situated within
like a day. The community and the atmosphere it provides, like it's so supportive
and then your peers are supportive too.

Another engineering related experience that Phillip shared about was a fellowship, that at the
time of the interview he was currently involved with. The fellowship was at California Institute
of Technology (CalTech) working with graduate students in the department of Aerospace
Engineering.
Their main objective is kind of just exposing the students to graduate studies, but
also kind of teaching them how to learn more efficiently. And just, how to learn...
because throughout many courses in engineering and even after, I think one of the
most important skills is just being able to pick things up in a timely manner and
just learn them well. I'm there the first Monday of every month, from 9 AM to
4:30, and we go through a series of challenge problems and then we have
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 98
graduate students present to us their research as well as lab tours. And then right
now, we're going to work on a project.

Phillip learned about this fellowship opportunity because researchers from Cal Tech had
approached the SHPE Club Advisor and asked him to pass the information on to the members of
the student organization. At that time, Phillip was on the executive board of the SHPE chapter at
BCC and oversaw sending out the mass communication to all members. When Philip went to
send the email out with the fellowship details, he realized that it was something he qualified for
and wanted to apply to because it was at CalTech and because it had a focus on aerospace
engineering. He described the application process as being lengthy and within a time crunch,
As for the application, it was two weeks. You needed a 300-word personal
statement, a reference, and there was so many other things like a passport ID
picture and GPA. It was a little rigorous, but I think it's worth it.

The experience at the fellowship allowed him to see that not only geniuses go to Cal Tech.
think there was a very big misconception that only geniuses got into CalTech, but
a lot of the time they are really hardworking and really smart.

Phillip wished that he could have had an older college mentor to guide him through his transition
from high school to college. Having someone whom already had gone through those
experiences could have been reassuring to Phillip that he was not alone in having the experiences
that were road bumps in the road for him.
It would have accelerated my academic and personal maturity definitely. Seeing a
person and talking to a person that was, that may have already gone through these
things and just helping me go through them in a more efficient way. Maybe like
after the fact that I knew I wanted to do engineering, I didn't really think of all the
rigorous course work that I was going to through and all the challenges. Maybe
after the fact that I decided I wanted to do engineering, so like my second year
here, it would have been nice to have just like a peer mentor. Maybe signing up
through, a program like MESA where it's all about STEM, I think that would have
been ideal.

Professional Mentors:

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 99
There's two that come straight to mind. One, the person I worked for at the startup
company. I think he was international student or born here. I can't remember. He's
Venezuelan and he studied electrical engineering at Cal State L.A. and then was a
grad student at CalTech. But he's enriched me a lot through having intellectual
conversations and then career guidance, and then also giving me letters of
recommendations for different programs.

To conclude, Phillip shared that the biggest barrier he had to overcome academically had been
starting in a low math course at BCC. He said that going from a low math course to a higher
level, requires more work on his end. He acknowledged that he needed to re-focus on my
academics again.
If I could just sum it up, it's been through a bunch of road bumps. But I feel way
more prepared and mature as a person now. Things from speaking in public and
interpersonal communication have been things that I'm not bad at now to focusing
and enjoying all my academic studies. I don't know, I think it's just been a crazy
four, five years maturity wise.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 100
Steve
My name is Steve and I am 19 years old. I graduated High School in
Spring 2015 and enrolled at Basin Community College (BCC) in Fall of 2015. I
am currently completing my fourth semester here and am majoring in mechanical
engineering. I identify as Hispanic or Latino because I am half Mexican and half
Guatemalan. I grew up in Hollywood. When I say Hollywood, I don't mean the
nice side, I mean the rough side of Hollywood. I liked it there because the
environment was like, yeah it's not safe, but the environment was nice, the people
were nice and everything. But then we moved to Huntington Park. I figured out I
wanted to get out of Huntington Park, on the first day I moved there! Huntington
Park is next to Vernon, which is an all industry area. You can just tell the
difference in air. If I go to the Valley and then back to Huntington Park, your
lungs just feel it since there’s like so much pollution there. And it's also not a very
safe area.

Introduction
The morning of the interview, Steve and I had been texting back and forth. My morning
train commute to BCC that day took two hours, on what is usually a one hour train ride, so I had
notified him that I was running a little late. As soon as I walked into the MESA Center, Steve
was already there waiting for me. Having only formally only met once before, I could not
remember what he looked like, but knew it was him because he made direct eye contact with me
and smiled, before I asked “Steve?...” and he said “yeah”. I asked him if I could have a minute
to set up for the interview.
Steve and I walked over to a room right next door to the MESA Center. Steve and I took
two of the orange chairs and one of the tables, and pulled them to the side of the room for us to
use for our interview. We sat on opposite sides of the table. I set up the recording device on the
table between the two of us and began the interview.
Individual
Steve shared that growing up the only languages spoken was Spanish at home and only
English at school. He went on to share that growing up, “I kind of practiced a little of both, in
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 101
the mornings English at school, and then at home and the nights, all Spanish.” Steve commented
that while growing up everyone would tell him that being bilingual would be an advantage and
that he would make more money. But he shared that has not been the case for him. He has held
many part time jobs positions, and has yet to be rewarded for being bilingual in Spanish and
English. Steve shared that for him,
Spanish and English are two very different languages, because you got accents in
Spanish and then not in English. Spanish is pretty straightforward, while in
English it's like you have these commas, you have to use this, you have these that.
And then when I would write in Spanish, it was straightforward, it's just write,
write, write. In English, I would kind of carry the same mindset and just write,
write, write, and then I ended up figuring out like, "Oh no, I'm not supposed to do
this." And that's the only thing I see in the education, but I have learned to
separate the two.

After I asked him to share about his experiences with being bilingual in education, I shared with
him the definition of linguistic capital and how this is a resource that he may have tapped into
throughout his education knowing two languages. As is noted in his response, he has not seen
the immediate pay-off from being bilingual. I then shared the definitions to the rest of the
capitals in the community cultural wealth framework with him.
Coming out of high school, Steve shared that he was deciding between majoring in
accounting and mechanical engineering because of the guidance he received from his high
school math teacher and one of his uncles who majored in engineering and is now working at
California State University Northridge (CSUN).
In high school, I had my math teacher, Mr. Rodriguez. I had him for all four years
of high school. I call him the Jaime Escalante of Huntington Park, because this
guy was such a good teacher. He's the reason why math right now is so easy, it is
because he gave you that solid base where you can build from there and
everything's easy. He had a friend who works for something in Cudahy for
accounting. He put me in contact with his friend and I was able to asking him
questions like, "Oh, hey, what school did you go to? What was your GPA? Did
you have any experience coming out of college?" I was leaning in towards
majoring in accounting because math was the only thing I knew, so I kind of
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 102
wanted to stick with math. But at the same time, my uncle, who I interned with
also tried to influence my choice of major.

Steve’s uncle who works at CSUN allowed him the opportunity to get exposure to engineering,
thus influencing Steve’s decision to major in mechanical engineering. He described interning
with his uncle in the machine shop,
I interned with him at his machine shop, where he was just teaching me all of this
stuff, like you can do this with this, you can do that with that, and he was showing
me how this program can create this object. So, I was like, "Whoa, that's
awesome." And that's when I kind of started growing my love for engineering at
the age of 17. During this same time, I was also hanging out with one of my
cousins who goes to CSUN and is part of the Car Club there. So, during that time
I was learning all this stuff, so I was like I think engineering's the way to go.

Steve was very thankful for having the guidance from both his high school mathematics teacher
and his uncle, in helping him decide his major.
Family
My mom's a single mom, and she really doesn't know anything because she didn't
grow up here, she grew up in Guatemala. Growing up, I really didn't know... I was
just doing Math, English, I was just doing my work. Once I got older and older,
once I started coming into my end of high school year, is when I started, "Okay,
what do I want to do?" All of my friends were like, "We don't know either man.
Once I get to college, I'll figure it out." All of my cousins, they have their own
routes. My cousin is doing acting, my other cousin is doing business management,
and another cousin of mine wants to be a nurse. I was not interested in any of that.
I found my way with engineering on my own, and then my uncle and my cousin
solidified that's what I want to do. I really didn't have any influence on
engineering because in my high school, there was nothing. My initial thought
when I heard engineering was "money." That was the mindset, I'm going to be an
engineer to make money, but once I started talking to my uncle and my cousin,
they showed me what engineering really is, and that's where I was like, "Alright, I
really want to do engineering now." A reason why I am majoring in engineering is
to get my family out of Huntington Park.

Steve elaborated on why he had made it his goal of moving out of Huntington Park a priority and
his belief that through pursuing a mechanical engineering degree he will obtain this goal.
Huntington Park is next to Vernon, which is an all industry area. You can just tell
the difference in air. If I go to the Valley and then back to Huntington Park, your
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 103
lungs just feel it. (Nodding his head side to side) since there’s like so much
pollution there. And it's also not a very safe area. Like I said, when I got my first
car, literally every week it got broken into. Every week. It got to the point where I
left literally nothing in my car. Every morning I would come and be like, "What a
surprise! It's open!"

Steve shared the anecdote of continuously having found his car broken into with great
disappoint, and shrugs his shoulders, indicating that there is not much he can do about the
situation.
The only reason why we live there is because my mom works in Vernon. I
understand from her perspective why we live there is because she doesn't drive.
She can easily walk 15 to 20 minutes to go to work. But what she fails to realize
is that yeah, it's closer to her job but look at us. Luckily, I was the one that didn't
fall into the drugs, the gangs and all, in the area. I made it out so I'm over here
doing my stuff and I usually stay here (at BCC) all day. Compared to my 15-year-
old brother, where he fell into that. We've been talking about getting out just
because of him, because of what he's going through.

While recognizing the importance of his academic and technical preparation towards becoming a
mechanical engineer, Steve recalled and shared the main reason why he is pursuing a college
degree.
In a sense, I'm kind of happy that I'm here at BCC, but at the same time I still
want to get out because where I come from, it's Huntington Park, it's a very low
income community. It's not a great area to live in, so my goal has been, "Get out
of there. Doesn't matter where you go, get out of there." Because wherever you
go, it doesn't matter if I go to Cal State LA or Berkeley, it's the people who I
know that matters. I can attend Cal State LA, but I can be there knowing people
from JPL who have internships opportunities for me instead of going to Berkeley
and I know nothing to prepare for internships.

He made the comparison and explains how institutions like the California State Universities (Cal
States), make more of an effort to prepare its students for the workforce by providing hands on
experience, while at the UC’s, because they are research institutions, focus more on research and
less on applicability.
It's better for us to get out of there because it's just not a safe place in general.
Why would you want to live there where... Even now that I have a newer car... I
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 104
sold my old one... I still have that fear, is it going to be there the next day? So, it's
been the goal to get out of there because it sucks to live there. It really does. The
income around there is low. The environment, the air and everything...
HORRIBLE! And then the house we live in is a single, tiny! So, since the first
day I moved there, I wanted to get out. I kind of made it my goal to get out. When
people ask me, "What's your dream home?" I live in apartments. Literally, all I
say is, "A home with a driveway." Because I spend literally, almost every night,
up to 30 minutes trying to look for parking. I really don't ask for much. I just want
a driveway where I can come home, park my car, and go to sleep because it's
rough. It's really rough out there. So, going to get out.

Upon enrolling at BCC, Steve described having a mindset of being aware that he needed to know
people and needed to talk to people to help him along his college journey so that he could
transfer out of BCC as soon as possible and in the most efficient manner possible.
My mindset was: don't just be that kid who just wants to transfer out and just does
his classes, goes home, homework, and that's it. No, you have to do your classes,
talk to people, connect with others, so they can help you in the future because if
you don't have connections in college, once you graduate, what do you have? You
just have your degree and that's it. But if by setting my connections now, once I
graduate I can go talk to them like “Hey, can you mentor me. Tell me what other
opportunities are out there," or "Do you have any opportunities for me?"

Steve shared that as he was preparing to go off to college, his uncles warned him that he was
going to be a loner if he did not get involved in clubs and activities on campus. Steve attributed
this advice as helping him transition from high school to college and having a great first
semester.
I took my uncles’ advice like, "Alright, I'm going to get involved. I'm going to
join this club, this club, this club." And then I kind of found a home in a club
called TROPA, which is The United Organization of Filipino Americans. I joined
that club because a friend of mine here at MESA, Trent, was a former member.

Although Steve does not identify as Filipino, he was attracted to the club because his friend
Trent shared that the club members had a lot of fun and ate food together all the time. Steve
shared that his involvement in extra-curricular activities were mostly positive experiences, but
there were some setbacks.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 105
I ended up joining the club and I had so much fun. But it kind of set me back in
my academics. I was having a little too much fun. I ended up dropping my
calculus class and in the end, I was like, "Alright, I am going to gather myself."
So, I gathered myself, and I ended up pulling up a 3.7 GPA for that semester but
they (club involvement) kind of pushed me back. And that was my first semester.

Professional Organization
Steve continued sharing his love for his college experience and academic preparation at BCC by
sharing an experience that occurred while attending the SHPE National Conference.
When I went to the SHPE conference, a lot of the people at Raytheon, Space-X,
Ford, they all kind of looked down upon me because "Oh, he's community
college, what does he know?" But when I talked to people there, like the students,
I knew a lot more than they did and they went to big known schools... I was
talking to one guy from UNLV and he was telling me "Oh yeah, I really don't
know much software. I don't know many things." And he ended up getting an
internship at Northrop Grumman? He got an internship there and I had much
more experience than he did, but he got in because he's from UNLV and then he
also had a really high GPA.

Steve recognized the inequalities that exist within the corporate engineering hiring practices. In
having the opportunity to attend the SHPE National Conference, he was able to learn what
engineering companies value and look for in their candidates. Despite initial negative
experiences with recruiters at the conference, Steve shared that he took advantage of the
opportunity of being in the same space as other engineers and recruiters to expand his social
capital.
It's kind of like you're at a disadvantage you can say, going to community college.
My friends tell me "Dude, make connections, talk to people." Yeah, your GPAs
important, but if you talk to people, they will overlook that because a GPA just
establishes your discipline, but not what you know. Yeah still have that discipline,
but talk to people and know a lot of things.

Steve concluded that he had been making the most of his engineering experience and would
continue to do so until he obtained his engineering degree. Going into the SHPE national
conference, Steve was aware that companies were going to look down upon him. Keeping this in
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 106
mind, he made it his goal to make connection and get to know people. Going into the conference
Steve thought he had an idea of what to expect, but was hit with reality when he approached the
recruiters from Boeing,
I kind of knew what to expect but when Boeing told me "Oh, get out", I realized I
wasn’t ready. Boeing was looking for junior students in four years and then I told
them my situation. He's like, "Oh, what school do you go to?" And I said, "I go to
Basin Community College," and he kind of gave me a face like, "Okay, are you a
junior or senior?" I was like, "No, I'm a sophomore." He's like, "Alright, what you
want to do is wait a year and then come back." And I was like, "Wow, really?
Like can't you kind of like tell me like 'oh, during this time do this, this and this so
you can be a better candidate for us.'" I went to a bunch of them. I got a couple of
times where they were like, "Get out the line, we're not looking for you."
To me it was like a slap in the face, like you're not good enough. Get out. When I
was there, I would literally go back to my room and just sit there and think "do I
really want to pursue engineering still?"

The negative experiences with the company recruiters made Steve reflect on his education and
education trajectory. He could have easily told himself to just give up on engineering all
together, but instead he found the drive deep within him and told himself,
I know they don’t want me now, so next time I come back, they're going to be
begging for me. So, that's kind of like the mindset I've grown into. Yeah, you
tossed me then, but now you want me. That SHPE Conference was a slap of
reality of how people look at you depending on where you come from.
In sharing the last part, Steve had an undertone in his voice of being determined to fight and go
against the judgement of not being treating equally as students from four year institutions, simply
because of being a community college student.

Institutional
Steve described his journey to college by saying that going into high school, he really did
not know too much about college. All he knew was that he was going to college, because that is
what everyone around him said he would do. Steve was not aware of what the college going
process entailed until he was in 12
th
grade.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 107
At the time, I considered myself a pretty solid candidate to get into college. I had
a 3.2 GPA. I had taken AP courses. I applied to 11 schools: Four Cal-states, four
UCs, and three privates. But it took the wrong turn and I ended up getting denied
by all my colleges.

Steve relived his disappointment in getting rejected from all eleven schools that he applied to,
and seeing other peers, whom he stated that he knew for a fact that he was better qualified than
them, getting accepted to the exact universities that had rejected him.
The college rejections really brought me down a lot because everyone in my
family, like my cousin graduated from USC, my other cousin graduated from UC
Irvine, another cousin is now attending CSUN. I look up to my family because
they've done so much, so I kind of felt like the failure of the family.

As Steve mentioned earlier, he attended high school in Huntington Park, which is in a low-
income community, and he identified that his high school had very limited resources. Out of all
the possible academic subjects taught in high school, Steve shared that the only one he had a
solid preparation in was mathematics. He feels that he was well prepared with regards to math,
but not in other subjects.
In high school, I had a pretty solid base in Mathematics, so Mathematics hasn't
really been an issue in pursuing my engineering degree. My high school, was
fairly new, so I really didn't have any resources. In high school, Math was the
only thing I had. So, for example Chemistry, my Chemistry teacher got fired. I
have no knowledge in Chemistry. Physics wasn't offered at my school. Computer,
technology, software or anything along those lines were not offered at my school.
Coming in to BCC, I only had Math on my side. So far Math has been the one I
really don't worry about because I know what to do. But when it came to taking
Sandra’s Design Tech class, I was really, really struggling in that class because I
had no experience, but I was able to manage by talking to her. She helped me out.
What worries me a lot, is Chemistry. I hear a lot of bad stories here passing about
Chemistry. Everyone is like, "Chemistry is hard. It's going to take up your time."
And then I have other friends saying like, "oh, Chemistry is nothing. Don't even
worry about it." I kind of get scared because I have no background in Chemistry. I
know absolutely nothing. Chemistry is going to be tough.

Steve highlighted the fact that this had a real fear within him regarding his academic readiness
because he was aware that he did not have a well-funded and resourced secondary education.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 108
Steve allowed himself a couple of months after graduating high school to mourn the college
rejections, and then decided to enroll in Basin Community College (BCC). A friend of his had
been talking about enrolling at BCC, so Steve told himself, "alright, I'm going to go there, do my
stuff, and get out." Waiting for me to finish writing a quick note, he made eye contact with me
and with a big smile said,
My first semester at PCC, it was like... It was really... It was not expected for me
because I had so much fun. Coming into PCC, community colleges seem like a
13th grade. It's high school all over again. But that wasn't the case here at PCC. I
felt like I was at a college, but I just happened to be commuting.

Although Steve described his first semester experience at BCC as a setback, he took a moment in
silence to think about his college journey, and then again just like before, he made eye contact
with me with a big smile and said,
I'm kind of glad that all the 11 schools rejected me because here at PCC... This is
my second year. I've learned so much that I'm sure I would have not known at a
four year because here I learned a lot more of my resources. For example, what
can I use, who can I go talk to for this or who can I get help from? And then I
learned so much from professors here.
Steve validated having a great experience academically by describing that the professors are of
great caliber, unlike the common misconception that community college professors may not be
great professors.
People think "Oh, they're not good at all because they're a community college, so
it's easy", but they all come from four years. They have their masters. They have
their PhDs. A lot of the professors really inspired me to learn more. When I talk to
my friends now, knowledge-wise I am far more ahead of them. And they're all at
Berkeley, Irvine, and UCLA, and they're also studying engineering. Yeah, it bums
me out because it's in the back of my mind- it's in my history, I got rejected by 11
colleges. But at the same time, I'm happy because once I transfer out, I know I am
going to be ahead of most people because of what I learned here at BCC. BCC
has so many resources that you just don't even know about.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 109
Steve continued to validate his acceptance and happiness of being rejected by all 11 universities
he applied to during senior year by sharing experiences he has had so far at BCC that he
probably otherwise would not have experienced.
Compared to a four-year where it's a class of 200 people, and here BCC which is
like 30 people, I really like that because I'm able to connect with my professors
and connect with all the people in my class. So, if I don't go to a class one day I
can just ask one of my classmates, "Hey, what did I miss?"

Steve described an educational environment at BCC in which students are willing to help each
other out, whenever possible. This comment is said having the University of California (UC’s)
in the backdrop as being very competitive environments and one in which collaboration does not
occur. He went on to share how grateful he is of the academic and technical preparation that he
has been afforded by attending BCC.
During my two years here (at BCC) I have learned software programs like
AutoCAD, SolidWorks, C++, and Arduino. I find it amazing how I've gotten this
far in such a short time. I surprise myself sometimes because I still have
connections with my friends from high school, and when I talk to them, they have
no idea how to use these engineering software programs.

Steve described the easy access he had to professors at BCC whom were willing to be supportive
in any way possible.
For example, Professor Sandra who was my design tech professor. She's a great
person. She's one of those professors who care for you like, "Oh, if you're
struggling, come see me and I will help you”. She'll figure something out with
you." Or if you want to find internship opportunities, she'll help you out, she'll
even write you a letter of recommendation. I don’t think this would happen at a
large institution, where you are just a number in the class.

For Steve, support is "where you can go to and get help without being judge". He shared
that BCC has a lot of resources to offer. If there is a student who is majoring in the STEM fields,
he strongly recommends that they join MESA. If a student finds themselves struggling with
chemistry, they can find help in the Science Village, specifically in eSTEM, which focuses on
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 110
providing tutoring in the sciences. Lastly, if a student is having difficulties with mathematics,
there is a Mathematics Resource Center that can be utilized for support.
The only reason why I know about all this support is because of MESA, talking to
the staff, talking to Maria, the MESA Director. I found out about MESA during a
club week event. Then from MESA, I branched out everywhere. So, for me,
MESA is where it all started. Then from there, it's just me being a curious little
kid. I'm like, "Oh I need help with this, where can I go?" They'll be like, "Go
there, or you go here."

Steve shared that as he learned about the various resources available, he invited a lot of people to
take advantage and utilize the resources they may need.
In my math classes like, "Oh, you're engineering? Are you in MESA? No?
Alright, let's go. I'll take you to MESA." So, I try to bring a lot of people into
MESA that are STEM majors because here at BCC, if you're STEM, MESA is
your home. It's your sacred ground because if you need help, they got you, they'll
help you out. One thing I did learn from the SHPE conference is spread the
wealth. Don't be selfish. I attended a seminar they had there from NASA. One of
the guys that works at NASA said, "Once you applied to NASA, don't be selfish
about it. That just looks bad on you. Spread it out. Tell other people." And if you
tell the people and they start bringing up your name, it looks good on you because
you're also trying to bring other people with you and trying to make us look good
and then that's what I try to do is yeah like I know all this knowledge, but I want
to spread it out because I know there's other people like me who are struggling
trying to look for help, so I kind of want to just spread out the knowledge and
everything.
As Steve shared the importance of spreading the wealth of knowledge he became very animated
with his hands and raised his voice in excitement at the fact that he knows he was doing
something right in spreading the knowledge of various resources he and his peers can utilize as
they navigate their college education.
The Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) is another institutional resource that Steve
recommends current and prospective college students utilize. He was aware that the EOP
program is not for everyone, but noted that if a student did meet the requirements they should
take full advantage of the program. The program provides counselors that are available and
willing to help students with their transfer process, along with other academic support. Another
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 111
institutional support program that Steve talked about was the Design Tech Pathway.
Specifically, he described his interactions with a counselor named Mr. Wilson, and the guidance
he received from him.
Mr. Wilson is the whole reason why I know so much about this system,
community college system and how to get out of here and how to transfer, how to
look good when transferring. It’s funny how I met him. I met him during
orientation week. He came up to me and said "Hey, I know you. We've seen each
other before, let's talk." I was like, "Okay, cool." Later when he asked me to
remind him of where we had met, I told him that this was the first time I had ever
seen him in my life. From that moment on he kind of took me under his wing. I
don't know if I heard it right but I think he has a background in engineering so
that's why he knows so much. Coming into BCC, I was set on transferring to
CSUN because of the Car Club and having my uncle work there, but Mr. Wilson
told me, you know what, there are other options out there for you to consider such
as University of Southern California (USC) engineering. He changed my
perspective and as a result I am now considering USC as well.

Related to his academic guidance and experience in college, Steve describes his engineering
courses being racially/ ethnically diverse. He shared that there were “Asian, white, Hispanic
students”.
I know I wasn't the only Hispanic there. Looking back, yeah, we were the smaller
group. But it's nice to see like, you're not the only one there. It was predominantly
Asian and white, but it was pretty cool because they didn't care if we were
Hispanic. We're all here trying to succeed. And then coming to where I live, it's
100% Hispanics, so I really don't care what ethnicity you are. If you're a cool
person, I like you. If you're not, don't talk to me.

He shared that a big factor in his engagement in engineering courses can be credited to Professor
Sandra, who is Asian. He described her as a second mom, “she loves everyone!”. Steve shared
that so far in engineering, what he had seen was that no matter what color you are, it did not
matter, everyone was in it together.
To conclude, I asked Steve how he managed to balance, family, friends, school and work
all while majoring in mechanical engineering. Steve lives at home, and shared that he had given
up on the family time. That is because he had to balance school and work. Monday through
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 112
Fridays he was on campus at BCC from 7:00am to about 9:00pm. On weekends, he usually
worked eight hours each day at an Asian restaurant, and after work on the weekends, he usually
would find a Starbucks Café to study at for the rest of the day.
I really don't see my family, but they kind of understand me. “Like yeah, he's
going to school and he's also working. It makes sense why he doesn't see us.” But
I kind of manage to balance it out. But I kind of like gave up my social life,
because it's like, a guy can have fun here and there, but I want to have fun in the
future when I have money.

Steve shared that he understands the importance of delayed gratification. Throughout our
conversation he is reminded of his goal to get him and his family out of Huntington Park. If that
means giving up his social life, Steve is willing to do it. He finds strength in fully committing to
his studies now, knowing that the payoff will come later.
I asked Steve to share if there is anything he would change about his college experience so far.
That's tough because so far I don't regret anything... The only regret I can say, is
not talking more. because growing up I did have social issues. I grew up in
Huntington Park, all Hispanic, all dark skinned people, I'm white skinned. That
kind of put me down so I've always had that issue with trying to talk. But coming
into college, I kind of broke out of that shell, because... I kind of have that
dominant personality, but I usually keep it back, because of what I've gone
through. That would be my only regret, is just talking more.

Steve concluded by sharing that the only other aspect of his education that he wished could have
been better, would be having prior exposure to STEM education during his secondary education
and other opportunities, especially for students like himself who come from low-income
backgrounds.
All I heard from my teacher was... "Cal, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, CalTech." I
didn't know what the hell that was. And then also having opportunities of like, at
least having workshops like "Oh, you want to study engineering? Go to this
workshop, maybe see if it’s of interest. Having little things like that, I guess,
would have really helped me a lot in life. And then just coming from, I guess, a
poor family, it sucks.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 113
Steve is committed to providing opportunities of STEM exposure and support not only to his
current colleagues but also to future generations because of his experiential knowledge.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 114
Daniel
My name is Daniel, 20 years old, and my hometown is Downey. I first enrolled at
BCC in the Fall of 2014 and am majoring in mechanical engineering with an
emphasis in propulsion. I am considering adding automotive and aerospace
engineering as minors. My family's been in California and New Mexico for a
really long time. My mother’s side is from Mexico. She was born in the US but
her family is from Mexico City. My father's family has been living in the US
since before the US has owned it, primarily New Mexico. So, I have a little bit of
Hopi Indian in me, but mostly Latino. Both of my parents went to community
college, but neither of them finished.

Introduction
Daniel and I met in the BCC MESA Center at the scheduled time and walked over to a
room right next door to the MESA Center. Since that space sometimes is used as a classroom, it
was set up with tables as desks that could easily be moved for collaboration purposes. Orange
chairs accompanied the trapezoid shaped tables. Along the back wall there twelve black
computers installed. Daniel and I took two of the orange chairs and one of the tables, and pulled
them to the side of the room for us to use for our interview. We sat on opposite sides of the
table. I set up the recording device on the table between the two of us and began the interview.
Individual
Daniel grew up in his grandmother’s house and because of that the first language he
learned was Spanish. Although Spanish was his first language, he stated that since moving out
of his grandmother’s house, he had forgotten all his Spanish and mostly only speaks English.
He understands a little Spanish, but speaks even less Spanish. I asked Daniel if he knew any
other languages as a transition into sharing with him the community cultural wealth framework.
I defined linguistic capital using the example that he shared of being able to understand Spanish.
I then defined social, familial, aspirational, navigational and resistant capitals and continue with
the interview.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 115
He shared that he first learned about engineering in high school. He knew the term
engineering, but did not know all the details that made-up engineering.
My high school professor helped me out a lot, just knowing about it and I fell in
love with it there. And as time went on, I started finding out about all the different
fields and how it branches out so much, and how you can go super precise for
what you want to do, or it could be very broad. So, I learned about engineering in
high school, and I came here and then I learned about all the different fields. I
love doing it.

Daniel had an end goal of working at an automotive company as an engineer. Keeping this end
goal in mind, he shared that he is working backwards, from there to the present to ensure that he
obtained that goal. He emphasized that going to college was important in obtaining that end goal.
Well, since my dad's a mechanic, I love cars, and I know a lot about them and I
want to work for an automotive company as an engineer. So, I started there and I
backtracked my way back into what's the route I need to get there. My dad's a big
influence saying that I need to go to college, it's very important now.

When I asked Daniel if he would consider himself an engineer or an aspiring engineer, before I
could finish reading the question, he said “Aspiring engineer! That is because I don't have the
degree. Even when you graduate you are not an engineer until you take the test. I am currently a
maker.”
My father always told me not to say I'm an engineer because I'm not. I'm still in
school. I'm an aspiring engineer. I say engineering student.

Daniel described having the practical experience and exposure but learning more in the
classroom and competing and winning in international competitions,
When I came here, I already knew of one program, I knew about one class, and
the class was called DT8C. It's a class where you build a scaled RC car, that's
propelled off a rubber band, and since I'm an automotive, I love automotive
engineering, I was like, "Okay, I got to do that." And when I came here, I started
learning about the other skills. I already knew some computer aided design
(CAD) because I learned CAD and got certified in high school. But coming here,
that's where I put my skills to the test and I succeeded. I'm the first BCC student
to win at the competition. Our competitors are grad students from Art Center,
majoring in transportation design and students from China.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 116

These hands-on experiences are what kept him motivated and contributed towards his aspiration
of becoming a mechanical engineer one day.
And it's where I learned about networking, because I was pursued by Disney
R&D. I didn't get to participate too much because it conflicted with my schooling.
But that's where I actually felt like an aspiring engineer because I built something
from scratch. I've done stuff where I've worked on cars, and yeah, I bolted on
some stuff and that's as far as I ever went. But here, this is where I had a blank
canvas. I've also done other competitions but this was the first one I did
everything by myself. The drawings on the paper to the CAD, to the prototyping,
the testing, and the final product that actually won.

While pursuing his engineering studies and participating in engineering related competitions,
Daniel shared that he cannot ignore the fact that he was different from most of his peers. One of
Daniel’s most salient identity was being a Resource Specialist Program (RSP) student- but not
many people knew about it. Daniel shared that he had to work harder than his peers in classes.
I have to put in a lot... even when people put lots of effort in but, I have to put a
lot a lot of effort in just to try to be at the same level they are. Most of it has just
been a really hard struggle that's for sure. It means I'm different, so it's good. I've
been told sometimes people do look for people who are a little dyslexic or they
have some type of small limitation but, it actually helps them though. It makes
them think outside the box. Everybody's different but a lot of people pursue
something, they're taught to pursue something in a certain way. I have to pursue it
a totally different way in order for me to understand it and sometimes it's good
and sometimes it's bad. So, it's a mixture of everything. Yeah. A lot of it is kind of
hard. I still power through it.

Daniel motivated himself by reminding himself that others may be at this level of education and
he had been in special education his whole life and yet he is at the same level as them....(similar
thought as Enrique-another participant- about validating their smartness)
From a young age, my dad always told me don't use it as a crutch, use it as
something to help you. So, that's how I think of it. So, I'm proud of myself,
sometimes people say hurtful things and they don't know about it. I'm like well it
actually is a problem for me but I power through it. And, since I do power through
it I feel more gratifying. I'm achieving these great things and I have these
limitations. So, I feel like when I do get something done I feel very happy about
it.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 117

Daniel’s approach towards responding to his learning style is a challenge to dominant ideology.
At the intersection of Daniel’s race and learning abilities lies the importance of the
interdisciplinary perspective in the critical race theory framework. This interdisciplinary
perspective analyzes the intersecting identities from a historical and interdisciplinary perspective.
I was very stubborn when I came here. I didn't want no one to know so I felt like
it would label me right away and people wouldn't take me seriously so I refused to
do any of it which bit me in the butt the last year. So, now I'm enrolled in it so, I'll
be utilizing it this semester and probably next semester.

Daniel came back to the topic of labeling himself as an aspiring engineer rather than an engineer.
Once I get good at math, then I would say I am a lot closer. I'm close, I'm really,
really close, but I love what I'm doing and I'm good at it. The other day, I was
talking to the guy I met from Lockheed, he's like, "Wow, I already graduated and
you've done more things than I have ever done." He's like, "Yeah, that's pretty
impressive." And I've always talked to these professionals and they're... I never
saw as impressive in myself, but they've always seemed to be impressed by me,
about the amount of work and amount of experience I've done.

Family
Both of Daniel’s parents had been very encouraging of him pursuing college. They did
not care what he majored in, as long as he was pursuing a college education. Both of his parents
were excited that he had chosen to study engineering. Given the nature of his father’s job,
Daniel credited his father as playing an influential role in deciding to study engineering.
Other than that, my Grandpa is always excited to hear me talk about engineering
to him. Every time I see him he's like okay, what's new, what have you been
doing new and what's new in the field of engineering? My great grandfather was
in the Navy in World War II so that's influential to me because I would not mind
going into defense, military defense too for engineering, so that's another
influence there.

He also credited a close group of friends whom are like family to him, for his motivation
to persist in engineering. Daniel had a very close group of friends that he considered his support
group. This friend group included friends whom are majoring in mechanical engineering,
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 118
electrical engineering, computer science, industrial engineering, and one friend who is
undecided. Daniel was surprised by how close they have all become, even though they only met
a year ago.
We all have the same mentality, the same thought process, same end goals. Even
though with different majors, we all clicked. We have a very tight bond amongst
each other. We all really became close to each other like we all had a lot of things
in common. Those guys are like my true close family. Like one of my friends, we
take like at least one class together every semester, we always have one class even
if we didn't plan for it or we did plan for it, it always happened. Then I have a
couple other friends who I met first semester that we're close, they're a separate
group. I guess I bounce around to different groups. She's a mechanical, another
person she's electrical. I have another, I think three of them are electrical and two
of them are mechanical. I bounce around with different groups. Most of friends
are part of MESA.

Daniel shared that his co-president and part of his close friend group, Luigi, was like a brother
for him. He helped him out with family troubles or with anything else he may have had problems
with. Daniel had known Luigi for about a year and they had become close.
My co-president he's my best friend. He's the one from my first group of friends I
described, the Electrical Engineer. His name is Luigi, that guy is like a brother to
me, I trust him really well, I get along with him, he's the one I have at least one
class with every semester. But yeah, he's like a brother, he helps me out through a
lot of things, I go through troubles at home or with people, he's always there for
me, and I'm always there for him. I lean on him a lot. I haven't known him for that
long, but I felt like I've known him forever.

Daniel credited his immediate family and close group of friends for not only influencing him to
pursue a degree in engineering, but also to being able to persist in this field.
Professional Organization

Daniel was the co-president of the BCC chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers (SHPE). At BCC, the SHPE Club and Engineering Club are two clubs that merged
two years ago after recognizing that the two organizations had very similar objectives for its
members. As described by another SHPE member, SHPE provides the professional aspects of
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 119
being an engineer, while Engineering Club provides the technical aspects of being an engineer
and provides its members with hands on experiences. The Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers is a national organization that hosts an annual conference for all its members to attend.
In 2016, the SHPE National Conference was held in Seattle, Washington.
Daniel shared that while attending the SHPE Conference this past year he was recruited
by Boeing for their “Extreme Engineering Team”.
I just met all those wonderful people that are really awesome, and they're like
family. I got hooked. I've always loved planes, because aviation's awesome. But
recently, I've been falling more in love with it, and working with them, and the
way they treated us, was such a great experience, I like aerospace) now a lot.

The experience of interacting with engineers from Boeing solidified his passion for pursuing a
degree in mechanical engineering.
When describing the support system that Daniel utilized as a student at BCC, Daniel
immediately shares that SHPE and Engineering Club are at the top of the list. When I ask Daniel
to describe SHPE and Engineering Club, he shared,
It's a family. That's the best definition. I'm a very shy person and when I came
here (to BCC) I met a couple of people who were lead roles in engineering club.
In high school, I did sports and I had those group of friends, but I never had
someone who I could talk to on this kind of level like engineering. Even though I
know a lot more than I knew back then, but I never had someone I had so much in
common with. Coming to these areas here MESA, and the fabrication lab and
engineering club, I found a large group of people who had a lot of things in
common with me and had a greater knowledge of me and that I could share off of
and people who knew things I knew and we wanted to exchange knowledge. It
was the first time where I was able to talk to someone and have a really good in-
depth conversation about something I actually love. It's a family, especially with
the clubs. Professors are also great support.

Through his involvement in SHPE and a program called Great Minds of STEM, Daniel
has had the opportunity to promote STEM education to Middle and High School Students who
may not have STEM exposure at their schools. Daniel volunteered as a college captain for this
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 120
program and has been working with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to plant the
STEM seed in young students. He shared that on a recent tour he went on with Lockheed Martin
he was able to re-spark that liking for aerospace engineering.
I just visited Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, I met someone who works there. He
took us to this airfield that had SR71's and like that even influenced me more
about pursuing aerospace engineering. I'm pretty influenced by my family too. I
have an uncle who's really into aviation so I've known about planes for a long
time too but now I like it more, almost as much as cars. Cars I deal with on a daily
basis with my dad and I've always loved cars since I was little but I love planes
too, they're right up there.

On a professional level, Daniel appreciated having the SHPE organization to continue his
development as an engineer.
Institutional
When Daniel was in high school, he wanted to pursue a college education in architecture.
He attributed his early fascination to architecture to having a passion for drawing along with
having an uncle who is an architect. While still in high school, he had a teacher, whom was also
a part time professor at BCC that encouraged Daniel to consider majoring in engineering. Daniel
shared that this teacher saw a different set of skills in him that would help him succeed in
engineering. Although Daniel had other community colleges closer to home, he attributed his
enrollment at BCC to this high school teacher.
Daniel recalled that there were two teachers in his high school that believed in him and
encouraged him to continue pursuing his goals, even when people tell him that he should not or
could not attain those goals.
My Spanish teacher was influential for me in the high school; I wasn't the best
student. And the school I went to is very competitive academically so I always
felt discluded around other students and I wasn't allowed to join other clubs, but
she always told me... Her and my engineering professor always told me to keep
pushing no matter, when other people tell me not to... Even though they say I
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 121
shouldn't pursue engineering, they've always encouraged me to pursue
engineering.

This advice was received by Daniel in a very competitive high school located in Temple City,
CA, with a very large Asian-American and Pacific Islander population and where Latinos make
up less than 20% of the total student population. Daniel shared that “being a Latino there, I often
felt discluded”. He remembered talking to a high school counselor once and sharing that he
wanted to pursue an engineering career. The counselor suggested that “I shouldn't do it at all
because I was struggling in school".
Daniel recalled having another bad high school experience with an art teacher. This art
teacher ruined art for him, and was discriminating towards Daniel as there were only three
Latinos in the class.
Yeah, she accused me for stealing stuff and I've never stolen stuff. The school put
me in a program for troubled youth who were in gangs. I've never been in a gang.
I was okay doing it, because at that time, yeah sure I get to skip class, that's cool.

In sharing that the school had enrolled him in a program for troubled youth who were in gangs,
Daniel expressed his frustration in the way the educational system was treating him. He believed
that this treatment was due in part to him being a Latino. Not only did Daniel feel discriminated
for being a Latino, but throughout his K-12 education he also felt discriminated when it came to
getting involved with extra-curricular activities.
With regards to joining the school clubs, they wouldn't let me. I always wanted to
do band, but they wouldn't let me do band because they said it was too much for
me to handle.

He remembered the school district telling him “No, you can’t do band because you are in a
resource specialist program (RSP)”
I was in RSP. And I was in Special ED, when I was younger. I was in Special Ed
probably grades one through three, then RSP fourth through tenth grades. With
regards to extracurricular activities they always said, I shouldn't do them because
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 122
it was just too much time and I wouldn't succeed at them. It wasn't very
motivating STEM- wise. I could recognize and see the teachers were motivating
a lot of other students to pursue STEM.

Despite those high school experiences, he shared that at BCC everyone is encouraging.
It's the exact opposite here. Here, everybody's like, "Yeah, you can do it." All the
professors here are extremely motivating. The Counselors are extremely
motivating, everybody. There's not a single person who will tell you not to do
something. They always believe that you can do it. That's why I love BCC so
much.

One of the reasons Daniel credited his enjoyment for being at BCC, was because he was able to
join the Design Technology Pathway. Daniel described getting into the Design Technology
Pathway by accident. He recalled meeting Betty, the Design Tech Pathway coordinator, during
orientation.
I met her at Orientation. She had a robot walking around and it broke, and I was
able to fix it for her. And then she asked me if I was in a program. I said no. She
took me upstairs over here to one of the career counselors, and enrolled me in all
her Design Tech Pathway program courses. And that's how I got here for the
Pathways. That's pretty much where my engineering education started here at
BCC.

Daniel shared that when he first enrolled at BCC, he had just signed up for random classes, but
having this incident of running into the Design Tech Pathway coordinator, allowed him to go
down the engineering path and guided him to take engineering related coursework. In this
engineering pathway, Daniel shared that there are not any professors who look like him. They
may have the same mentality. But they did not identify like him.
I've met professionals who have a lot in common. But, here as professors yeah we
share the same major and I'm really close with them. And the biggest thing for
me is that being in RSP and special ED I still have not met someone like that yet.
Or openly. I don't come out openly too much about it, only a few of my friends
know about it. Being an RSP student is one of the biggest parts of my identity.

Now that Daniel had reached out to Disabled Student Programs and Services (DSPS), he would
be granted extra time on his exams. He shared that his biggest challenge is in math. “Being a
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 123
little dyslexic I mix up my numbers. I have to read through my math to make sure I did it right
multiple times.” In ensuring that he did not accidentally mix numbers up, Daniel ended up
running out of time on his exams. So, allowing him to have an extension on his exams times
could be helpful. Failing his math class three times in a row, was the tipping point for Daniel in
seeking out help from DSPS. It was at that point that he realized he needed the help.
At that point I realized I can't do this no more, I need help, I just have to suck up
my pride and just ask someone for help. That was the tipping point, I probably
should have done it a lot earlier. It's really depressing having the people who you
start with, now two math levels above me, and it was like I'm hurting myself more
and I can't allow this anymore, I'm jeopardizing myself. Another thing is
chemistry was so bad, it wasn't the professors fault. It was a good way of teaching
and some students, he helped them out a lot but, for me it was very badly... It was
taking notes and answering questions on the iPad at the exact same time and it
was graded on the iPad so a lot of time it takes me a while to read it through and
make sure I understand it because I need to get a good grade on this. But, since
I'm doing that I'm not taking notes and it was really bad. I was able to power
through it, I passed the chemistry course.

Because of sharing this experience with DSPS, DSPS allows Daniel to take a camera to his
classes and video record the lectures.
Reading doesn't help me remember it kind of just goes in and out. But I have a
really good memory of a video. Some reason why I can remember movies and
videos. Almost to the point... Sentence by sentence. Especially if I watch it over
and over again. I'm really good with videos, so they said I could start doing that
so that's very good. Because, some teachers they don't like that but, now I have a
letter from DSPS that they have to let me. Then I was like, I felt so relieved,
finally I'm going to get over my biggest problem.

To conclude, I asked Daniel how he managed to balance family, friends, school and work
while majoring in mechanical engineering. Daniel shared that he lived with both of his parents
and a younger sister. He works on campus and has a very understanding boss who works around
his student schedule. On average Daniel worked 15-20 hours per week. Daniel, like the
sentiment shared by Phillip, shared that his parents did not understand how much he needed to
study, so he chose to stay on campus at BCC as long as possible, “usually I kind of stay at school
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 124
and do my studying here and then I go home”. He shared that a couple of semesters ago it was
especially hard for him and his family. His sister, whom is a cancer survivor, was not doing
well.
I had to take on a little bit more work because my dad had to be with my mother
and my sister at the hospital. It was stressful. I'd say that's the biggest thing if
maybe my sister wasn't sick it would be a different story. I feel like this is the
biggest contributor to all the stress I get occasionally.

He shared the reality of what a typical day a couple of semesters ago looked like, and involved
little to no sleep.
It's hard because I take my dad to work in the morning at 5:00 AM to Ontario
airport, I come back. A couple of semesters ago it was terrible, wake up at 5:00,
have class at 7:00, I wouldn’t go to bed until 2:00am. So, I was getting between
two to three hours of sleep every day. Or sometimes going multiple days without
sleeping it was to the point where I was falling asleep while driving, falling asleep
in the car, falling asleep in class, sleep insomnia. But I was just so sleep deprived
that my body would shut off but my brain will still be running. And I physically
couldn't move and it was super scary first feeling that, so I get stressed out a lot, I
lose a patch of hair back here when I get stressed out. But it grows back and turns
white and then turns black again, but very, very stressful.

I followed up by asking Daniel if looking back at his college career so far there were any
changes he would make to his experience. Daniel was beginning to understand the magnitude
and worth of his work experience. This was reinforced by the comments he receives from
recruiters and other engineers that he interacted with. Daniel shared that the one aspect of his
education he would change if he could start over is his math course and also not having reached
out to DSPS earlier in his college career.
So, if anything, I really wish I changed my thought process of math the first time I
took that math, it's Math 7B. And it's the math... It bites me in the butt so much,
because I need to be in Calculus... once I do Calculus, it opens up a lot of other
doors I need to do. Yeah, I'm good at fabrication, I'm good at all these other
things, the very basic engineering of the basic classes of engineering, but I want to
do the physics. I want to do physics so bad. I just really want to take the class, but
I can't take it because I'm not in Calculus. At conferences they say "you have so
much experience, but your GPA is low and you are still at a community college"
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 125

Daniel had completed 66 units. Being a little hesitant, he shared that his GPA is 2.45.
Yeah, it's really, really bad and yeah it affects me scholarship-wise like I can't get
scholarships because of my GPA, I can't apply to intern. It's a good thing I
messed up right now, if you mess up in Calculus it's really bad because when you
transfer they look at your core classes, your core GPA. Which is Calculus one,
two, three, physics one two three, and English 1C.

Daniel shared that he was not too excited about going to a community college, but it's been an
awesome experience for him. He shared that the people are very helpful. Especially everyone in
the Engineering Building.
I don't regret too many things. The main thing is just my math. Yeah, it's been a
struggle. I just had a lot of things fighting against me but I'm still powering
through it. I don't know. A lot of it comes from just my sister being sick but still, I
just power through, as much as I can. Yeah. The RSP is the biggest thing for me.
A lot of people don't understand how much that affects me.

Daniel went back to his High School and Great Minds of STEM to promote STEM education.
When he went back to his high school, not only does he advocate for Latinos to study STEM
fields, but he especially advocates for students with special needs. I encourage students to not let
others limit them.
I'll help you and I want you to know that. Don't give people a reason
to say you shouldn't do stuff because of just that one limitation.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 126
Platica Con Estudiantes en Engenieria
(Discussion with Engineering Students)
The collaborative data analysis phase took place in a Platica (focus group) environment.
There was one Platica that included all ten men that participated in the one-on-one interviews.
The Platica was held in the room next door to the MESA center where some of the interviews
had previously been conducted. The students and I arranged five tables into a boardroom like
table, so that we could all sit together and have our Platica. Figure 4.1 shows where everyone
was sitting around the table.
To get us started, I prepared an overview slide, sharing that we would go over
introductions, demographic information about them, the Community Cultural Wealth Framework
definitions and findings using direct quotes they shared for each of the various capitals in the
framework. For the introductions, each participant was asked to share their major, how many
semesters they had completed at BCC and explain why they chose to bring the artifact/object that
they brought as a representation of engineering. Each participant was asked prior to the
scheduled Platica to bring with them and object/artifact that represents engineering for them.
Introductions
Juanes was the first person to introduce himself to the group and then continued by going
around the table clockwise. Juanes shared that he was majoring in mechanical engineering and
then paused and asked himself out loud “how many semesters have I been at BCC?” Several of
his peers around the table chuckled and Juanes continued by sharing, “I’ve here for ten full
semesters, or five years”. The engineering object that Juanes chose to share with the group, was
a notebook. He shared that recently a lot of his class project ideas had started as sketches in his
notebook. This notebook represented engineering to him the best, because that is where all his
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 127
ideas were placed. That notebook was the start of all his engineering projects, and that was what
made it important for Juanes.
Enrique shared that he too was majoring in mechanical engineering and had also attended
ten full semesters at BCC, not counting summer semesters. Enrique shared a calculus book with
the group as his object that represents engineering for him. Holding his calculus book up for the
group to see, Enrique shared that “math is a key skill in engineering and I want to really learn it,
not just pass the classes”. Micho was majoring in mechanical engineering and had been at BCC
for seven semesters. The object Micho chose to share with the group was a coin as his artifact.
He shared that the coin represented his whole life, especially engineering. He shared with the
group that there was a point where he was deciding between pursuing a career in political science
or mechanical engineering, at that moment he took out this coin, flipped it and decided to pursue
a career in mechanical engineering. Micho added that the coin also represented the risks and
failures that he has had in life, and related it to engineering in remembering the importance of
overcoming failures and continuing to develop new ideas and models to evolve whatever already
exists.
Continuing the trend, Phillip introduced himself as also majoring in mechanical
engineering and had been at BCC for 10 semesters. Phillip’s artifact was a metal plate with the
letters “FONZ” on it. He considered it his engineering object, “because it’s a representation of
going from an idea, to something tangible.” Phillip added that it was synonymous to the gist of
engineering: coming up with ideas to problems and coming up with tangible solutions. Joseph
introduced himself as an aerospace engineering student and was currently in his fifth semester at
BCC. Joseph shared with the group a handmade pen that his brother made for him with the
promise that they both would pursuit a better higher education.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 128
Daniel was a mechanical engineering student emphasizing in propulsion student and had
been at BCC for five semesters. Daniel decided to share a piston with the group as his symbol of
engineering. His dad worked on tearing cars apart, so being surrounded by cars and car parts is
what inspired him to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. Jose introduced himself as
majoring in computer engineering and having attended BCC for six semesters. Jose shared a
calculator, as his engineering object with the group and added that a calculator was used a lot in
math and physics so the calculator was important in engineering.
Zachariah was majoring in mechanical engineering and was in his fourth semester at
BCC. Zachariah shared a model car that represents the various aspects of engineering that he
had been able to learn about since starting his engineering career at BCC in the Design
Technology Pathway. Kody was majoring in computer science and had been at BCC for two
semesters, but prior to enrolling at BCC, he had attended other community colleges and had
completed 20 semesters. Kody shared his phone as his engineering artifact and the reason why he
liked it as a representation of engineering was because of the software that makes the phone
work. Lastly, Steve shared that he was majoring in mechanical engineering and was in his fourth
semester at BCC. Steve also shared his cell phone as his engineering artifact and shared that
“engineering makes everything simple, but yet to make the object it is complex."
Figure C. Platica Seating

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 129

Juanes’ Journal

Enrique’s Calculus Book

Mitcho’s Dollar Coin

Phillip’s Metal Plate

Joseph’s Handmade Pen

Daniel’s Piston

José’s Calculator

Zachariah’s Model Car

Kody’s Cell Phone

Steve’s Cell Phone
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 130
Student Demographics
At the completion of the one-on one interviews, I e-mailed all the participants a follow
up survey to gather demographical information about them. After the introductions during the
Platica, I shared select background characteristics of interview participants (Table 4.1) in
aggregate. For example, the ages of the participants varied from as young as 19 years old to 31
years old. They first enrolled in BCC sometime between 2011 and 2015, and had completed
anywhere between 40 to over 100 units. In the survey, I asked them to identify their hometowns,
which allowed me to roughly map out where each of the participants lived in respect to BCC.
BCC was noted on the map as a blue dot and each of the students was noted by a red dot. For
anonymity reasons the pictures of the maps are not included here. Upon sharing the maps during
the Platica, after a couple of seconds, Juanes spoke out and observed that “the people who live
the farthest, the fact that they go here (to BCC) shows that they are dedicated. They could have
gone to other colleges closer to where they live.” Steve observed that there were a lot of red dots
from the South Los Angeles area compared to any other surrounding areas. In relationship to the
spread of where all the participants live, Zachariah points out that he is surprised to see that out
of all the ten participants, there is only one of them that lives in the same city in which BCC is
located in.
I prepared a second map to overlap on top of the first one, which allowed the participants
to see the addition of five other community colleges that are located close to where they live.
Juanes, again was the first to share his observations of what was being depicted by the layered
images. Disclosing that he is one of the individuals whom had a community college that was
closer to his home, Juanes shared why he intentionally chose to attend BCC. Juanes shared that
he chose to attend BCC instead of his local community college, because he heard that BCC was a
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 131

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 132
better college than the local college. He also admitted that a year before he enrolled at BCC, he
had an older brother whom had attended BCC and participated in the Puente Program. The
Puente Program provided academic support, priority registration and takes students on field trips
to visit universities they can transfer to. Juanes attributed his BCC navigational success to having
his older brother lead the way for him. Micho commented, that there were also students whom
may feel like staying at the local community college would only be a continuation of high
school, in seeing the same people whom may not be the best influence, so that is why they may
attend a community college elsewhere. Zachariah shares that Micho “hit the nail in the head.
That was my exact experience. Going to a private Catholic school, there were going to be a lot
of people from my high school going to the local community college, so that’s why I decided to
go farther away to BCC.” Kody added that the difference between BCC and some of their local
community colleges is that BCC offered a lot more sections of the courses the students may
need.
Community Cultural Wealth Overview
Prior to the Platica I e-mailed all of the participants a copy of Yosso’s 2005 article
“Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth”
accompanied with a one-page summary of the article to provide a more in depth refresher on the
various types of capitals that are included in the community cultural wealth framework. I
decided to share the details of the framework because I was interested in how students describe
different forms of cultural wealth. Before I went over the six types of capitals defined within the
community cultural wealth framework I asked the group to shout out any of the capitals they
could remember from either their reading of the article or from when I briefly shared with them
the definitions during the one-on-one interviews. All of the students just looked at each other
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 133
smiled and giggled as they gave each other the look of “did you read the article??? Because I did
not”. Out of the 10 men, José was the only one that spoke up and said “I think there is a family
one, and there is also a friends’ capital” He was referring to familial and social capitals. The rest
of the group attempted to guess the names for the other four types of capitals, but was not able to
do so successfully.
I shared with the group the following capital definitions for Yosso’s (2005) Community
Cultural Wealth framework:
• Aspirational Capital: ability to maintain hopes and dreams for the future despite real and
perceived barriers
• Linguistic Capital: includes intellectual and social skills learned through communication
experience in more than one language and/ or style
• Familial Capital: cultural knowledge’s nurtured among familias that carry a sense of
community history, memory, and cultural intuition
• Social Capital: can be understood as networks of people and community resources
• Navigational Capital: refers to skills of maneuvering through social institutions
• Resistant Capital: knowledges and skills fostered through oppositional behavior that
challenges inequality
In the next part of the Platica, I pulled quotes from the students’ interview transcripts that were
examples of how they described different forms of cultural wealth. I asked the men to go around
the table and each read a quote that appeared on the slides being projected on the screen.
Familial Capital

"Want to get myself and family out of the neighborhood where we live"
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 134

"Family doesn't pressure me. They don't ask when are you graduating? My family gives
me the freedom to do whatever I want with my education. They allow me to discover
myself through this education"

"College is about finding yourself and preparing for the future"

"Family told me to study something I like, rather than something that would quickly get
me a degree.”

"Parents didn't lay out a master plan. My parents wanted me to pursue something I
wanted to do"

"Parents don't believe me that I really do spend a lot of time studying and doing
homework. It's frustrating”

“Doing this degree for my mom and my dad. So, that dad can take it easy and have more
days at home. Parents have done all this for us. I'd be damn if I let all this go to waste. It
would be an insult to them.”

Overall during the one-on-one interviews the men shared in one way or another, that their
parent’s reasons for immigrating to the United States and past or current jobs were the source of
wanting to pursue engineering and do better financially to help the family. After given the group
a minute to think about the quotes that were just read out loud, I ask them to please share their
thoughts. Kody began by sharing that these quotes reveal “a lot of determination that this group
has,” especially that last quote. Micho acknowledged that “for a lot of us, our families came from
different countries here (United States) illegally for us to have a better future here”. Despite the
risks that family members had made in leaving their home countries,
these examples show that our families do not put pressure on the students. It is the
students who put that pressure on themselves to succeed and make that happen
because they know what the price was for their parents to get here, and in return
the price for us to have this education.

A common thread throughout the interviews was the way students utilized the awareness of
knowing the sacrifices their parents had and continued to make so that the family could have a
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 135
better future, as fuel to continue burning the fire within them that allowed them the determination
to persist in their engineering studies.
Aspirational Capital

“Having the friends support group allowed me to realize that whenever I wanted to give
up, not to give up”

"Hispanic community comes with the mentality that hard work beats out smart
work. This is something that our parents have taught us”

“Success is not living where I live now. I see my parents struggle to pay rent. I don't want
that for myself. So, I work hard”

Micho started the discussion on aspirational capital by sharing the feeling that “everything is
being powered by struggle”. This struggle that Micho describes, is a struggle that “people use to
feed off of, to propel themselves to pursue this higher education.” He referred to the first quote
and shared “it is not only that we continue to be motivated because we have the same friends, but
rather it is because we have the same background. The same culture. Our parents could have
given up at any moment and said ‘screw that, I am not going through that desert, especially not
having water”. Micho validated this contribution by sharing that his mother was no athlete or
anything, but she crossed the desert carrying his then four-year old sister. Having very little
water to get them through the desert, his mother gave it to her daughter to have. His mother
could have stopped and turned around at any moment, but instead she continued to persist.
That hard work, determination, that fire is something that our culture has within it
and is deep and rooted in us. So, when we have friends who come from the same
culture, it’s not only them telling you not to give up, it’s those roots that come
from our culture that are speaking and saying ‘don’t give up. We were born to do
this’.

Kody brought up the topic that in the Latino culture, we often value working a low paying job
and making money right away, rather than going to college and being educated. This led the
group to have a discussion in how that belief may be true amongst our familias because that may
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 136
had been the way our parents were raised. Despite this upbringing our parents may have had,
they demonstrated aspiration in acknowledging that education can lead to positive changes in
life.
Micho added to Kody’s point about the value placed in seeing immediate results by
sharing that, the reality is, that it might be a necessity for some families, and that is why there is
a need for the students to work and contribute to the family while pursuing college, versus
pursuing an education and then seeing the results later. Micho shared the importance of Rocky
Balboa’s quote, “It doesn’t matter how many times you get hit. What matters is how many times
you get up”, as it related to our parents being beat down in life and despite that continuously
working hard.
They worked the fields when they were five or six years old, and for them maybe
because of that all they know is hard work. Some parents may share that they
know working now works because they have made it this far, and have a roof over
their head and have food to eat. At least you not eating just a tortilla with salt.
You have decent food.

Aspiration capital came in various sizes and experiences. One student shared that he
would wake up at 4:00 a.m. to catch a train early enough to make it on time to BCC for a 7:00
a.m. Calculus class. He shared that despite the sacrifices of having to start the day so early to
make it to campus on time he continues to aspire to earn that engineering degree. Several
students shared that they would stay as late as 10:00 p.m. on campus to study and complete their
schoolwork. The men also shared that their K-12 education did not prepare them as adequately
as it could have for college. Despite the real barrier of coming from an underprepared
educational background, these men continued to maintain their hopes and dreams for their future
as engineers. Related to this topic, the men shared and reflected that because of their experiences
of not having been exposed to STEM during their K-12 education, this motivated them to take it
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 137
into their hands and provide that exposure to STEM fields by being involved with organizations
such as Great Minds of STEM. This allows them the opportunity to volunteer and work with
middle and high school students to learn more about the STEM fields.
In line with the discussion about the inequality that exists in the K-12 educational system,
Micho shared that the current political climate (the year is 2017) cannot be ignored. He shared
how “the recently appointed U.S. Secretary of Education has an agenda of providing stipends to
families to allow them to choose what school’s their children attend, is something that has
existed in the past, but has not received as much as attention as the issue is currently receiving”.
He went on to share that the big brand name private schools can maintain this elite status,
because they attract the wealthy students who can afford to pay extra and thus provide early
exposure such as those focused in STEM. Micho concludes that the current education
secretary’s proposal will only widen the gap between the poor under-resourced schools and the
more affluent well-resourced schools, “our political system is set up to suppress even more, the
lower income communities and enrich the higher income communities.”
Linguistic Capital

“Spanish language is part of your personality. So, when someone doesn't allow you to
speak in your language, you are not being yourself completely”

“I find myself having to explain to my parents and abuelos (grandparents), that I am
studying mechanical engineering, to do engineering, not be a mecanico (mechanic)”

“Able to relate strangers if we find ourselves speaking in English and then transition to
Spanish.”

José shares that a couple of weeks ago he was getting off the train station near BCC and an
older woman in Spanish asked him “Esta es la parada de la estaccion Union?” (Is this the stop for
Union Station?) José said that he was thankful for knowing Spanish from a young age, which
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 138
allowed him in this situation to let the old woman know, whom only spoke Spanish, that she was
going the wrong way and had to go back if she was trying to get to Union Station. While having
this discussion about being bilingual in Spanish and English, as I looked around the table I am
reminded that not all the participants are bilingual. I shared with the group that although we may
all have skin tones that are a variation of brown, that does not necessarily mean that we are
bilingual in Spanish and English. Similarly, if someone who identifies as Latina/o and may be
super light skinned, do not assume that they do not know Spanish. In their interviews, the men
shared various reasons as to why they are not bilingual, whether that be that be they are a second
or third generation U.S. born or their parents simply chose not to teach them the Spanish
language.
At least two of the participants also shared in their interviews that at home, speaking to their
parents in Spanish is a way to connect on a deeper level. This allowed them to check in by
simply asking “Como esta, mijo?” (How are you doing, son?). This simple check in, even if it
may be late at night at 10:00 p.m. when they get home from a long day at BCC, goes a long way
in letting the parents know that they are doing well. Juanes shared that although his parents both
speak Spanish and English, it does not matter what time he walks into the house, “10pm, 11pm,
or midnight they ask me how I am doing in Spanish, so I respond to them back in Spanish.”
Juanes adds that if he is ever in a conversation with another friend, counselor, or professor in
English and then the conversation transitions into Spanish or Spanglish (combination of Spanish
and English) “the conversation feels more personal. For that moment, they are not a friend, they
are more like familia”. The relationship between Juanes and that individual instantly grows
deeper because Juanes feels like he is speaking to a family member.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 139
Micho used his linguistic capital of knowing Spanish as a form of resistance and defense
mechanism. He shared the classroom scenario that is common for them all, where they might be
in their upper division mathematics or engineering courses and they find themselves being one of
the few brown people in that classroom. Sometime being the only one or if lucky, having
someone else. In most of these classes Asian students make up more than half of the student
population. After being in these types of classrooms, “it does not take long for one to hear them
talk in their language. They laugh. And you do not know what they are saying.” Micho
continued and encouraged the others around the table that when they find themselves in these
types of scenarios and there is another Spanish speaking person in their class, to go ahead and
speak Spanish with each other, use it to their advantage, as it creates a comfort zone. Reflecting
on the three capitals that had been covered so far: familial, aspirational, and linguistic capital, the
following quote by one of the men tied these three capitals all together:
I bring left over food from home to remind me of my familia and home. As soon
as I heat it up, it is a constant reminder of why I am here and still working hard.

Navigational Capital

K-12 Educational Experiences
“the need for consistency”
“need for more AP courses”
“lack of higher education opportunities (only promoting community colleges)”

"Go to counseling and it feels like a DMV. You wait in long lines and have a limited
time"

"Need for mentorship from older students whom have already gone through the process
and can be of better guidance when choosing classes and knowing what I was getting
myself into. It would have been nice to have a peer mentor"

Juanes recognized the advantage he had in having an older brother who attended BCC a year
ahead of him and could guide him through his transition into college. He agreed with the third
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 140
quote and said that “having an engineering role model early on, would have made a huge
difference”. Steve added to Juanes comments in wishing that he had earlier exposure to
engineering workshops so that way he could have been better guided in his engineering pursuits.
Steve shared that he did not know what engineering was until he got to BCC. The engineering
career exploration type of workshops would have been great to have in high school. He added
that there should also be college workshops, to help people understand the various types of
colleges and the different components that encompass going to college. This had motivated
Steve to volunteer and hold workshops on STEM education back in his hometown area of
Huntington Park.
Enrique spoke up and shared that he had a similar sentiment to the one that Steve
expressed,
For me growing up, I didn’t have that mentorship at home. Neither of my parents
went to college, so I didn’t have the guidance to go to college, and I also wasn’t
exposed to engineering because of that. As a kid, some people are told about
college because their parents or people around them went to college, so they
already know the process. But I did not have that. I also feel like high schools
and some colleges do not realize that a lot of us come from communities where
we don’t have that (exposure to college and engineering).

Juanes acknowledged what his peers had shared but adds that they are all now able to resist these
educational inequalities that they have experienced so far. Juanes told the group, that given the
bad experiences they may have had in their preparation for college, they (the men in the room)
can make a difference in the lives of their younger siblings, cousins or even just the kids back
home in their communities so that they are better prepared for college and have better
experiences than the ones they had. Juanes shares that his approach with his cousins and nieces
and nephews is one of being proactive.
I didn’t have that mentor or peer mentor in terms of engineering. While I do have
two older brothers who went to college, neither of them majored in engineering,
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 141
so they were not able to help me out when it came to anything engineering or
STEM based. So now I am trying to be that role model for cousins and nephews
to expose them to STEM. Same goes with sharing information about college.
Even though they (cousins and nephews) may not be asking for help, I am going
to share college information with them, so that when it comes time for them to
seek college they can be reminded of the information.

Daniel agreed with Juanes regarding the need to mentor younger family members. As the oldest
from his generation, Daniel stated that he did not have anyone to help him navigate college in his
immediate family. Although his parents did attend some college, they were not pursuing
engineering degrees, so it had been a different experience for him. He added that in high school,
his counselors and teachers
didn’t know how to talk to me. They knew how to talk to the kids going straight
to Berkeley, Stanford and USC. Given them advice on how to navigate those
universities. I was recommended to not even take the SAT and to just go straight
to a community college. ‘Go to BCC’ is all they would tell me.

Recognizing that he was not prepared to navigate BCC and the college process in general, Daniel
shared with the group, that with a younger cousin of his, he makes it a point to constantly be
sharing college related information with them. Daniel says “I didn’t have all the navigational
skills when I came in, but now that I have been here I have the skills, and am making sure to help
others”.
Like what Juanes and Daniel shared, Joseph added that coming out of high school, he did
not know what classes to take or how to seek out help. Now that Joseph had spent three
semesters at BCC, he made it a point to guide all his cousins who choose to enroll at BCC.
As soon as they start, I tell them, ‘sign up for these programs, see these people,
get involved with these organizations, and these are the best places to study’. As
bad as it might have been for me to go through everything in trying to navigate
BCC on my own, I can provide them the resources to be successful and get out of
here as soon as possible. My torture, will be their success through college.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 142
Most of the men, nodded their heads in agreement at some point when Juanes, Daniel and Joseph
shared the importance of taking it upon themselves to mentor and be navigation agents to those
that come after them.
I asked the group if we could revisit the quote regarding counseling feeling like the
DMV. As I was mentioning this, all the men giggled and nodded their head in disbelief that the
counseling center is the way it is. Before I could finish asking the men to please share their
counseling experiences with the group, I noticed Juanes try to jump in a couple of times by
leaning forward and wanting to share his counseling experiences.
In terms of counseling, if you want to see a counselor that day, I actually have to
show up right when they open. I think that’s around 7:00 a.m., 7:30 a.m. or 8:00
a.m. Because if you don’t show up as soon as they open, and show up an hour
later, there is definitely going to be a long line just to see a counselor. That is
why being knowledgeable of certain programs really helps. For example, if you
are a part of MESA, there is always a counselor sitting there waiting to help you.
During my first year, I was a part of Puente, and they had a specific counselor that
we could go to. So, I didn’t have to wait in line or wake up early. I could just
knock on the Puente Counselor’s door and they would help me. It’s a shame that
there are a lot of students who are not aware of these types of programs that they
can use.

Phillip concluded the discussion on navigational capital by stating, “regardless of the student’s
educational background and preparation, they should have access to a quality counselor. It’s all
about accessibility”.
Resistant Capital

“Wanting to give back to the community and motivate future generation”

“Not letting coaches or other people decide my career/educational trajectory”

"You probably have a lower GPA, and just got in because you are Hispanic’. Let your
actions show, rather than just talking smack”

“Starting at the lowest math level…not being able to pass math on the first try”

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 143

“Students sometimes give up their aspiration being in lowest math without even being
expose to engineering course- giving them a taste of what engineering is about”

“Learning disabilities”

"’Your Hispanic, you look like you don't belong here’. People can be racist towards
people that are not White/Asian, specifically in the STEM fields”

I reminded the group that the definition of resistant capital was knowledges and skills
fostered through oppositional behavior that challenged inequality. The majority of the group at
one point or another during their one-on-one interviews mentioned the subject of math being a
barrier, but choosing to resist and persist towards earning their engineering degrees. Kody started
the conversation about resistant capital by discussing the topic of learning disabilities, “a lot of
time when you have a learning disability you have to hold your pride back, and acknowledge that
you might have a disability and may need to seek help.” After about thirty seconds of silence,
Micho spoke up and shared,
I agree with Kody. It was not until just last year, that I decided to finally go take
the (disabilities assessment) test. And it was then that I learned that I had a
learning disability. This learning disability affected my math. I have never passed
math on my first try. And I started in Math 402 (the lowest level). Counselors
told me if I was sure that I wanted to pursue engineering, since I was at the lowest
math and I was older. It is something that I have always resisted. I am a man of
vision. When a person gets a taste of that vision, it’s hard for them to let go of it.

Micho believed that it is crucial that students get exposed to engineering sooner rather than later.
He shared that it was important to provide this exposure before math presents itself as a barrier,
because no matter how hard math may be, the student will realize that they like what is at the end
and what they are working toward, “I’m going to persevere through this math courses because I
like what is at the end”. Micho continued by stressing the importance of providing the
engineering exposure to students even when they are at a low-level math, so that they can get a
taste for what engineering entailed.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 144
While playing with his piston that he had in front of him, Daniel shared that he can relate
to what Kody and Micho shared in that just this past semester he decided to reach out to Disabled
Students Programs & Services (DSP&S).
It wasn’t too hard for me to prove that I had a learning disability. I didn’t have to
take the test or anything. I just had to go back to my high school and get a
transcript. It was on there, since I was in RSP (resource specialist program) since
1
st
grade. When I came to college, I said ‘I am done with that. I don’t want
people to know that I was a part of that’. I felt and knew from my educational
experience, that once people heard you were in RSP, they judged you right there
and then and didn’t believe you could do anything. They put you at a lower
standard, and they baby you. I will admit in some areas I need more guidance,
someone to walk me through the process.

Daniel continued and shared that there were certain areas in which he could advance on his own,
and even surpass his peers. Upon choosing to enroll at BCC, he did not want anyone else to
know this about him, because he is very prideful. He realized though, that by not seeking out
help he “shot himself in the foot”. Daniel failed his math class three times but persisted by
utilizing resources available on campus and letting his aspiration of becoming an engineer guide
his work,
And I know found myself on this boat where I was stranded. People were passing
up, and I was falling behind. Now that I have reached out to DSP&S, I am trying
to convince the school to see if I can take it a fourth time. The resilience
sometimes is good and sometimes it is bad. Sometimes you just have to learn to
swallow your pride. It will help you out in the long run.

Social Capital
Maria
Sandra
Alex
Fabrication Lab
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) & Engineering Club
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 145
With regards to social capital, Zachariah shared that one of his close friends, has had
everything handed to him. His friend has not had to work hard because both of his parents are
engineers at Edison. Zachariah shared that he had to work super hard for an internship
opportunity that both him and Phillip got, but as soon as he went to share the great news with this
friend, his friend shared that he had an interview to intern at Edison, simply because his parents
worked there.
For me, I am glad I had this route (attending community college), because I feel
like with struggle brings character. And for me as I shoot for the stars, I am going
to keep going farther and farther. I am going to continue to have this drive until I
achieve my engineering degree.

MESA Director Maria
I shared with the group that I will go down the list of names and simply have them
discuss how each of these individuals and organizations facilitate Latino engineering student
success. When I mention the name Maria, the following was said out loud, all at once: “She’s a
homie… She’s awesome… She’s like a mother on campus…She takes care of you…She feeds
you…She gets mad at you”. The general sentiment is that Maria is very caring and critical in
ensuring Latino engineering student success.
Zachariah shared a learning experience he had with her regarding transgender population.
Zachariah admitted that he did not know anything about transgenders population, so this led to a
conversation in which Maria educated Zachariah about the transgender population. Zachariah
shared,
In my family, we are totally Catholic. If you are gay….um it’s not okay. I
remember going to Catholic school, and they were like ‘oh yeah, if you are gay,
you go to hell’. So, that is all I knew. Coming in here (MESA Center) you
realized how brainwashed you have been, especially once you talk to Maria.
She’s up on your face and calls you out. I respect that.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 146
Zachariah added, that if it was not for Maria educating him on what internships were, he most
likely would still not know what they are and how to apply to them. Maria is very encouraging
and always promoting opportunities that contributes to Latino engineering student success.
Juanes chimed in and shared that what he appreciated about Maria was that she liked to provide
help, even without asking for it (everyone around the tables nods their heads and says “yeah”, in
agreement to Juanes’ statement).
Like you go to the MESA board and there are all of these internship opportunities
and events going on that relate to transfer institutions or engineering related, and
sometimes even food is available. I try to implement what she is doing with my
cousins and others…they are not asking for help, but I make sure to provide as
many resources as possible.

Micho shared that, she also demonstrated her commitment to helping students when it came time
to letters of recommendation. He compared her letter of recommendation to that of other
professors or professionals who would most likely just write I generic letter of recommendation.
Maria writes letters of recommendation that describe who the student is. Micho credited Maria’s
letters of recommendation for helping him receive about 80% of the scholarships that he has
received, despite his GPA not being competitive. Micho attributes the personified letters of
recommendation by Maria to the fact that she has a more caring and intimate approached
towards getting to know about the students that use MESA, resulting in a welcoming
environment for all students. Being the student advocate that Micho was, he often found himself
raising havoc throughout campus, resulting in meeting with the college president and other
campus administrators. Micho shared that no matter how severe the situation he found himself
in with other college administrators, Maria was always there to defend him.
Similar to Zachariah’s experience with Maria, I too got educated about the LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) community my Maria. I come from a
Christian family and was set in my ways. Maria has even been able to educate me
and make me realize the need to accepting of people from all walks of life. My
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 147
views have changed, and I am more accepting of the LGBT community. Maria is
one of the best resources here at BCC, and probably the only reason why I
continue coming to school- because of the resources she provides.

Kody adds that Maria was helpful and persistent. He shared of a time when he
approached her and inquired about making an appointment with Counselor Alex to change his
Educational Plan. Every day after Kody made that inquiry and Maria would run into Kody, she
asked “Kody, have you made the appointment yet? Have you emailed him?”. Juanes added to
Kody’s comments sharing “that’s what I love about her. She wants you to succeed, so she is
persistent”. Kody added to the discussion, that having previously attended five other community
colleges, he had never come across anyone as supportive as her and the MESA program. Micho
added that he was thankful for Maria, because if it was not for her support, it was possible that
SHPE and Engineering Club would not exist. Micho went to the extent to share with the group,
that he is reconsidering his career path, because he would like to one day become a Director of
MESA like Maria. This is because he has witnessed and experienced first-hand the support that
she has provided and witnessed how viable it is for student success, and he wants to close those
achievement gaps at campuses that need the help. Phillip shares that Maria is also there for them
when they just need someone to talk to, “since she has like an open-door policy, she just invites
you in. and it is very helpful”. Juanes described how last year while at a scholarship event,
when he went up to receive his scholarship award, he saw his mom standing up to take a picture,
And then I just look a couple degrees to the right, and standing there I also see
Maria, trying to get a picture of me as well. She is super proud of all her students
that succeed and accomplish whether it is a scholarship, test, internship or
anything. Similarly, to how we discussed earlier about how we do not want to let
our parents down, after all they have gone through, same thing goes for Maria.
She has done a lot of things for us, so we don’t want to let her down. You want to
succeed for yourself, but you also want to succeed for her, and for the program
that she is providing for all the other students.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 148
During this conversation, the men joked around and said “maybe we can engineer a cloning
machine and clone Maria!”.
Professor Sandra
Sandra is one of the main engineering professors that mechanical engineering students
take a course with at one point or another. When I mention the name Sandra, the men all at once
respond saying, “She’s great!...She’s awesome…She pushes you…She knows her stuff”. They
describe their experience in her classroom as a rigorous experience where Sandra pushed them to
hone in on the material and produce the best quality work possible. All of the men majoring in
mechanical engineering, bonded over a comment that is made regarding Sandra’s teaching
approach: “just when you think your project is perfect, she tells you to try harder and make it
better. She will push you to the brake, and will push you some more.” The men shared that
although she is a petite sweet little woman, she will find a way to be a tough person and call
them out on mistakes in front of the whole class. Zachariah recalled once asking her how he
could get a perfect score on his assignments, and her response was something along the lines of
“you first have to be a perfect person, to get a perfect score”. Despite her tough attitude, she is
passionate about what she teaches and motivates students to continue to excel in their studies and
was willing to do anything and everything to ensure that more students succeed. Juanes added
that
even after you are done taking her class, the quality of work you did in her class
continues on to the next classes. In the classes that followed, Sandra wasn’t my
professor but I still hear her in the back of mind, reminding me to make my
project better.

Enrique described Sandra as being understanding despite her tough attitude. Enrique was going
through some rough times in his personal life last semester, so after sharing with Sandra what he
was going through, she allowed him to turn in his assignments late. She was one of those
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 149
professors that cared more about the students learning the concept and being able to apply them,
rather than the grades that were given.
Counselor Alex
Micho described reaching out to Counselor Alex when the BCC SHPE Chapter first
started two years ago. Even though Maria would serve as advisor to the SHPE chapter, Micho
wanted to find someone that would be willing to take the SHPE Chapter outside of PCC and
provide various networking opportunities. Alex had a background of working with STEM
students not only at BCC, but also at another college. He had been wanting to start a SHPE
chapter at BCC long before Micho got involved, but there simply was not the interest and human
power to get the club off the ground and running. Prior to formally meeting Micho, Alex had
already heard about the advocacy and sometimes pushy work Micho had been involved with in
the past. Since Micho was assigned to serve as the President for the SHPE club, Alex connected
him with other SHPE chapters in the local area and allowed him to network with various
chapters. Micho credited Alex for being super supportive and thanks him for the encouragement
to take the learning disabilities test. Alex has also helped many of the men that were sitting
around the table and were involved in the SHPE club. In trying to start the SHPE chapter, Alex
was seen and respected “as that older brother, who wants you to excel and do well”. Alex was
always there to guide the students towards their career goals, but also there to catch them if they
start diverting from the road.
Kody shared a time when he had a meeting with Alex to discuss his educational plan, but
before discussing Kody’s educational plan, Alex noticed that something was going on with
Kody, based on his facial expressions. Kody shared that he was going through some personal
hard times. Instead of just dismissing it, Alex talked over the issues that Kody was experiencing
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 150
and asked if he could be of any help. After talking for about an hour and a half, Alex personally
walked Kody to the office he needed to go and take care of whatever he was trying to take care
of. Daniel described Alex as being that older brother that does everything he can to ensure the
student’s success. Daniel shared a similar story to Kody’s, of meeting with Alex and then being
accompanied by him to fill out paperwork that he needed for a class. Daniel recalls Alex saying,
“I’m going to walk you down there, show you who to talk to and do everything I can to make
sure you succeed”. Daniel concludes that he is an awesome person and “is that older brother that
makes sure you do not go astray.”
Fabrication Lab (FabLab)
Daniel was the first to comment on the support and resource that the FabLab had been for
him, by stating, “I live there”. The FabLab is a place where like-minded people gather together
and work on projects. According to Daniel the FabLab is one of a kind and is equipped with
machinery that a typical college student may not have access to at other neighboring colleges and
universities. Every time Juanes went into the FabLab he described the experience as getting a
taste for what being an engineer was like, “the FabLab is the only place where I can bring my
sketches and ideas and see them come to life. The FabLab allows me to express my creativity”.
The FabLab was described as a stepping stone for the students, in that it was re-assuring that they
are in the right major.
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
Daniel began the conversation about the great resource the SHPE club has been for
everyone by thanking Micho, for taking the initial leadership in getting the club up and running
from nothing into something. Daniel continued by sharing how the merger of SHPE and
Engineering Club occurred while Micho was President of SHPE last year. Micho and the
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 151
Engineering Club President realized that they were similar clubs, but could complement each
other well. SHPE, being the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, could focus more on
providing the professional aspects of engineering for all members, including resume building,
networking tips, getting business cards, food etiquette, and other professional development
related topics. The Engineering Club half of the equation, allowed members to get exposure to
various types of projects and machinery that they can use in the FabLab, thus providing the
technical, hands on side of being an engineer.
One of the benefits of having SHPE/Engineering Club was the welcoming environment
of like-minded people. Engaging in small projects has allowed the participants to work with
each other, support each other in their goals of achieving and engineering degree, no matter the
different barriers or obstacles they may overcome. As members of SHPE, the men share that
they had been able to network with other SHPE members from across the United States, who
were older, and may had gone through the current process that BCC SHPE students were going
through as they strived to transfer to a four-year institution. Enrique described how running into
Micho last year, and being encouraged to join SHPE and Engineering Club, changed his
academic trajectory. Although Enrique and Micho had both enrolled in the Design Tech
Pathway when they both first enrolled at BCC, Enrique had deviated from Engineering. Enrique
shares that getting involved in clubs like SHPE, is what he was missing from his college
experience, and needed that experience to light the fire within him to continue pursuing
engineering. Several of the men shared that SHPE was a familia away from home.
Additional resources participants wish were available
Overall the students shared that MESA Center needs to expand in physical space.
Acknowledging that this is not easy thing to do, the students were okay with having the center
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 152
open late during midterms and finals so students do not have to end up at a Denny’s doing
homework and working on projects. The students also requested if they could have the
following engineering software programs installed in the MESA computers: SolidWorks,
Matlab, Qt Creater (free software) or at least computer labs with all the necessary loaded
software. The students would also like to have more guest speakers whom are in their fields and
if possible younger, as they are more likely to be able to relate to the current experiences that
students may be going through.
Overall Findings
The findings below include findings from both the one-on-one interviews and the focus
group. The overall research question that was answered in both parts of this study was: What are
the testimonios of Latino male engineering community college students? Accompanied by the
following sub-questions: How do students describe different forms of cultural wealth? And how
do institutions and agents facilitate Latino engineering student success?
1. Design Tech Pathway as introduction to Engineering- Students cited the Design Tech
Pathway at BCC as their first exposure to engineering.
2. Family matters: Students described the multiple ways that their family influence their
enrollment, persistence and aspiration in engineering.
3. Math as a hurdle: Students describe the challenge of persisting and completing their
engineering degree because of starting in remedial math.
4. SHPE/ MESA Familia: Importance of building a community of support
5. Having an impact in the community: Promoting STEM education to K-12 students
Finding 1: Over half of the men (6 out of 10) credit BCC’s institutional Design Technology
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 153
(Design Tech) Pathway as being their initial exposure to engineering, and the reason for
choosing to major in engineering. Most the students did not have engineering exposure at home
since their parents or family members were not engineers nor familiar with the engineer field.
Only one student had a mother who was an agriculture engineer. All the students enrolled in the
Design Tech Pathway cited being enticed by the fact that they received priority registration for
both their math and English courses. While this finding revealed that the Design Tech Pathway
was the initial introduction to engineering for the Latino men, the men shared that a shortfall of
this pathway, was a lot of effort and energy put into recruitment and the first year to try and get
as many students into the pathway, but there was not the adequate support and resources after the
first year.
Finding 2: The Latino community college men in this study shared how at the core of
what they carry with them everyday in their engineering pursuits, is their familial capital.
Findings in this study are similar to the value of familismo that Saenz and Ponjuan (2009)
identify. One of the most important cultural values that Saenz and Ponjuan (2009) highlight
among Latinos in the United States is familismo. The value of familismo is embodied by strong
feelings of loyalty, responsibility, and solidarity within the Latino family unit (Suarez-Orozco &
Suarez-Orozco, 1995). Such loyalty is often accompanied by strong desires to provide financial
and emotional support for the family, influencing college aspirations and attainment. The men in
this study identified how their family, especially parents encouraged them to pursuit whatever
they wanted to study. The Latino men identified majoring in engineering to get the family
financially out of their current living conditions and attributed their hard work to learning and
seeing their parents past and current back breaking jobs.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 154
Finding 3: Nine out of the ten students identified how starting in remedial math at one,
two or three levels below college level mathematics had been a major hurdle for them in moving
forward with their engineering careers and transferring to a four-year institution. Collectively
the men identified the intercentricity of race and racism in sharing that they are aware that their
K-12 educational system did not prepare them adequately for college level coursework. The
educational quality of math and science during the student’s K-12 years, greatly influences their
success in STEM (National Science Foundation, 2009; NACME, 2015). Five of the men in one
way or another expressed how several of their peers gave up on their aspiration to become
engineers, due to being placed in the lowest math level. The decision to major in a different field
from the one that the student enters BCC wanting to major in, was happening without the student
being exposed to an engineer course, that they initially thought they may be interested in. In
discussing how mathematics has been a hurdle for them to persist and continue in their
engineering studies, three men identified having learning disabilities. All three of these men
advocated for the importance of seeking out help from disability resources if they may be
needed, and not let the stigma associated with individuals with learning disabilities influence
them from not seeking help.
Finding 4: The students identified that two of the main reasons they continue to persist in
their engineering studies, despite real and perceived barriers were due to their involvement in
both the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and Mathematics, Engineering and
Science Achievement (MESA) program. All the men where members of MESA, and six of the
ten men, where members of SHPE. Through extracurricular involvement, Latino students found
opportunities to make new friends who are from similar socioeconomic and cultural
backgrounds; it is through these peer relationships that Latino students typically find a caring and
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 155
supportive educational community (Hernandez, 2000; Hernandez et al., 2004). This support
community created with others whom look like them and can relate to their experiences
contributed to their persistence in engineering. The men involved in SHPE also attribute their
continued aspirations to become engineers to having attended the SHPE National Conference
and being exposed to the possibilities that exist for engineers; everything from robotic
competitions to internships with companies like Space X or even full time employment
opportunities with companies like Boeing. The Latino engineering student success was also
attributed to having a Latino SHPE advisor and a Latina MESA Director whom the students can
relate to on a deeper cultural level.
Finding 5: Having an impact in the community played an important role in the students’
engineering pursuits. Research indicates that the cumulative disadvantages Latinos experience in
the K-12 educational system leave many young men ill prepared to make the transition to college
(Saenz and Ponjuan, 2009; Planty et al., 2009; Clark, Ponjuan, Orrock, Wilson & Flores, 2013).
Due to poor preparation, Latino males are not expected to enroll at, excel in, or graduate from
highly selective colleges and universities. Specifically, in the CRT framework in education, in
the commitment to social justice, CRT is dedicated to advancing a social justice agenda in
schools and society, acknowledging that their urban K-12 education failed to prepare them for
college, the men shared that they were committed to providing STEM exposure to younger kids
through STEM programs such as Great Minds of STEM organized through SHPE, to those who
do not receive that exposure in their current schools. This finding was congruent with previous
findings citing that Latina/o in higher education place an importance on being committed to the
community (Pérez, 2009; Pérez, 2012; Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001; Yosso, Smith, Ceja
& Solorzano, 2009).
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 156
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
Through interviews, observations and a focus group I described the knowledges and
cultural wealth students utilized to ensure their student success in engineering at the community
college level. Although Latino students are increasingly choosing to enroll in engineering
majors, Latino students experience lower rates of persistence and lower GPAs compared to other
racial/ethnic peers majoring in engineering. This is problematic because Latinos represent an
underutilized resource to the engineering community. Community Colleges nationwide enroll
more than half (56%) of all college students whom identify as Hispanic or Latina/o (College
Board Trends in Community Colleges, 2016), and have the potential to increase the numbers of
Latinos/as pursuing engineering degrees. Some of the factors in the literature that have been
identified as contributing to the success of Latinas/os in engineering that influenced this study
include Latina/o students’ self-efficacy (Camacho & Lord, 2013), pre-college educational
experience and preparation (Cole & Espinoza, 2008; Brown, 2002), family (Saenz & Ponjuan,
2009; Brown, 2002); a welcoming campus culture (Hurtado, 1994; Hurtado et al., 1996), positive
interactions with faculty including mentoring relationships (Cole & Espinosa, 2008; Griffin,
Perez, Holmes, & Mayo, 2010), and involvement in summer programs (Brown, 2002; Saenz &
Ponjuan, 2009). The purpose of this study was to explore and learn from the testimonios of
Latino male community college engineering students about the cultural wealth they possess and
utilize to enroll, persist, and graduate with an engineering degree to then transfer to a four-year
university to complete an engineering bachelor’s degree.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 157
Implications for Practice
This study of male Latino community college engineering students at a California
community college designated as a Hispanic Serving-Institution highlighted the testimonios of
Latino males majoring in engineering, along with the various ways students described their
cultural wealth and the ways in which institutions and agents facilitated Latino engineering
student success. The students’ testimonios illuminated how community colleges can provide
engineering exposure to Latino male community college students through programs such as
Design Technology Pathway, but must do so in an intentional and supportive way. The seven
Latino men that participated in this study and were enrolled in the Design Technology Pathway
all shared their story of how they “stumbled upon”, or “literally ran in to the Design Tech
Pathway”. The men also shared the need for continuous support in helping students advance in
their math courses beyond the first year and towards completion of the Calculus courses when
enrolled in the Design Tech Pathway. There is a need for practitioners to also evaluate all
courses that are part of the specific engineering pathway and provide adequate support and
resources to ensure Latino engineering student success.
While community colleges historically and even today continue to focus their efforts on
serving the community college’s service area, it is more important now more than ever before for
community college practitioners to realize that for various reasons community college students
are choosing to attend community college that are outside of their service area. In their
testimonios two of the men shared that they later learned that Design Technology Pathways
worked with local school districts in the service area to recruit students to enroll in the Design
Tech Pathway as they were registering to become students at BCC. These same students shared
that while recruitment efforts for these types of programs might be aimed at the local service area
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 158
students, the reality is that students attending community colleges are coming from outside the
service area. Nine out of the ten men that participated in this study lived outside of BCC’s
service area. This implication is important and timely as BCC is participating in the nationwide
of College Promise Campaign to bring the promise of affordable college to its community
through “The BCC Promise”. This implication for practice is also timely as BCC recently
receive a multi-million Title V HSI-STEM grant focused on increasing the participation of
Latinos/as in STEM programs.
The topic of mentorship was also identified in the Latino engineering students
testimonios as a way to navigate and advance their engineering careers, however the same
students described the many challenges they have encountered in gaining access to mentors, and
especially mentors in the engineering field. Through the Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers the students at BCC whom are members of the BCC SHPE chapter have had exposure
to professionals in the engineering industry through the various conferences that they had
attended. In approaching professional engineers for internships or mentoring inquiries, these
Latino community college engineering men described feeling like they were brushed away right
away, because they are community college engineering students and do not attend traditional
four-year institutions. One of the students shared that “this is the first strike in trying to advance
in my engineering career”.
SHPE Club advisors, and other related engineering club advisors and support staff have
the capacity to be change agents in bringing the gap between the professional engineers and the
students whom are seeking their mentorship. These change agents can help the professional
engineers understand what the curriculum and exposure to engineering may be at the community
college level for these Latino engineer men, demystifying any misconceptions the professional
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 159
engineers may have of the community college engineering students. The reality is that more
often than not; community college students have received more hands-on exposure to
engineering machinery and concepts than their peers whom may attend four-year research
institutions. Related to this implication, is the need for institutions to provide additional funding
for students to attend professional engineering conferences such as the SHPE or SACNAS
National conferences. These professional conferences provide engineering students with
exposure to various aspects of being an engineer at all career levels from just starting their
engineering studies in college to being a CEO of an engineering company.
Lack of understanding on the parents and family members’ end on what the Latino men
were studying was mentioned by over half of the participants. The men shared the frustration
experienced in trying to explain to their parents and family members what it was that they were
studying. Phillip, for example, shared this explanation which is often lost in translation.
My grandparents, they were like... “vas a ir a la universidad para estudiar y ser
mecanico? No hay otra opciones? (you are going to go to the university to study
and become a mechanic? Aren’t there other options?) It was just more of that,
like, "Oh, so you're just going to be a mechanic, really?" I was okay, with them
saying, "Oh, you want to be a mechanic?" It didn't bother me because I knew I
wasn't going to do that and once I got my degree and started working, they were
really going to see that I'm not just a mechanic.

A recommendation for institutional action is to intentionally create opportunities for parents to
be involved in learning about what their sons are studying. Programs like SHPE and MESA
have the capacity to educate the parents of its members on what it is that students are studying by
majoring in engineering. These efforts can also serve as family empowerment efforts by
exposing parents and family members to the field of engineering.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 160
Future Research
There are at least three ways in which future research on Latino community college
engineering males can enrich this study and its implications. First, the sample used for this study
were all students whom had identified that they were seeking to transfer to a four-year
university; a future sample could also include students whom are not thinking about transferring
to a four-year institution, and learning about how they utilize their cultural wealth to persist in
their engineering studies. This would target students pursuing trade and technical engineering
degrees. Second, although this study looked at MESA engineering students whom identified as
Latino and aspiring to transfer to four-year institutions, future research can expand on these
findings by including students whom are not members of MESA and do not receive the support
and guidance towards transfer in the STEM fields that the MESA program is committed to doing
for underrepresented and low-income students. Including non-MESA Latino students can
address research questions that compare the impact of the MESA program on Latino students
with the impact on non-MESA Latino students. Third, this study shows that most of the men
credited their accidental enrollment in the Design Tech Pathway as their initial exposure to
engineering. Future studies could investigate the existence of other opportunities to provide
engineering exposure to more Latinos early in their college careers.
Conclusion
This study aimed to explore and learn from the testimonios of Latino community college
engineering male students about their college experience at a designated Hispanic Serving-
Institution, with the goal of exploring the community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) possessed
and utilized by Latino male community college engineering students to enroll, persist, graduate
and transfer to a four-year university to complete an engineering bachelor’s degree. Using data
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 161
collected from 10 in depth interviews, observations, and a focus group with Latino males
majoring in engineering at Basin Community College, the findings presented in Chapter 4
demonstrate the various ways that these engineering students possess and utilized various forms
of community cultural wealth in choosing to enroll, persist and complete an education in the field
of engineering. The use of community cultural wealth by these Latino engineering men range
from using linguistic capital as a form of resistance in the classroom- by speaking in Spanish
with a classmate whom also speaks Spanish, to the intersection of familial, aspirational, and
linguistic capitals- “I bring left over food from home to remind me of my familia and home. As
soon as I heat it up, it is a constant reminder of why I am here and still working hard.”
Findings from this study about male Latino community college engineering students’
college experiences confirm several previous findings (Saenz & Ponjuan, 2009;2012; Suarez-
Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1995; National Science Foundation, 2009; NACME, 2015;
Hernandez, 2000; Hernandez et al., 2004; Planty et al., 2009; Clark, Ponjuan, Orrock, Wilson &
Flores, 2013; Pérez, 2009; Pérez, 2012; Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001; Yosso, Smith, Ceja
& Solorzano, 2009). Despite the many confirmations to previous literature on male Latinos in
community college engineering, there were some notable differences. First, students credit their
first exposure to the field of engineering to an educational pathway offered by Basin Community
College. Second, students were determined to persist in their engineering studies despite being
placed in two, three, or four levels below college level math. This counters the belief that
students choose early in their college careers to not pursue engineering degrees as result of
initially placing in a low math course.
For over 10 years there has been a push to gain evidence on best practices by faculty,
counselors and administrators on increases Latino engineering student success, but there lacks
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 162
evidence from the students’ perspectives on best practices. This study contributes to the
literature on Latinos in engineering and the best practices of facilitating Latino engineering
student success from the students’ perspective. Learning from the students’ testimonios in this
study about their community college experience and what has contributed to their Latino student
engineering success offers insights to practitioners on how they might be able to support
engineering student persistence by capitalizing on the community cultural wealth possessed and
utilized by Latino engineering students’.
Given the racial and ethnic demographic changes that are happening in the United States,
it is critical for researchers and practitioners to continue finding and implementing practices that
are culturally sensitive and relevant for the Latino population. Of significance and the focus of
this study, is the call for Community Colleges to foster male Latino community college
engineering student success by utilizing cultural wealth that Latino students possess to help them
enroll, persist and graduate with an engineering degree. Community colleges, and especially
those in California, can increase engineering education, and engineering degrees awarded to
Latino males. As researchers and practitioners, there is a need to continue studying asset based
and Latino cultural relevant construct models that can be applied to various levels of the male
Latino’s educational pipeline, thus fixing the leaky pipeline and the vanishing Latino males
trend.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 163
References
Anfara, V. A., Brown, K. M., & Mangione, T. L. (2002). Qualitative analysis on stage: Making
the research process more public. Educational researcher,31(7), 28-38.
Antonio, A. L. (2001). Diversity and the influence of friendship groups in college. The Review of
Higher Education, 25(1), 63-89.
Artiles, A. J., Rueda, R., Salazar, J. J., & Higareda, I. (2002). English-language learner
representation in special education in California urban school districts. Racial inequity in
special education, 117-136.
Astin, A. W. (2012). Assessment for excellence: The philosophy and practice of assessment and
evaluation in higher education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Astin, A. W., Green, K. G., & Korn, W. S. (1987). The American freshman: Twenty year trends
1966-1985. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles. Higher Education
Research Program.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1986.
Bensimon, E. M., & Dowd, A. (2009). Dimensions of the transfer choice gap: Experiences of
Latina and Latino students who navigated transfer pathways. Harvard Educational
Review, 79(4), 632-659.
Bensimon, E. M. (2007). The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the
scholarship on student success. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 441-469.
Bernal, D. D. (1997). Chicana school resistance and grassroots leadership: Providing an
alternative history of the 1968 East Los Angeles blowouts. University of California, Los
Angeles.
Bonous-Hammarth, M. (2000). Pathways to success: Affirming opportunities for science,
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 164
mathematics, and engineering majors. Journal of Negro Education, 92-111.
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London,
Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. Readings on the
development of children, 2, 37-43.
California Community College Chancellor’s Office (2016). About California community
colleges. Retrieved from http://www.cccco.edu/Home.aspx
Camacho, M. M., & Lord, S. M. (2011). Quebrando fronteras: Trends among Latino and Latina
undergraduate engineers. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 10(2), 134-146.
Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory. Sage.
Colbeck, C. L., Cabrera, A. F., & Terenzini, P. T. (2001). Learning professional confidence:
Linking teaching practices, students' self-perceptions, and gender. The Review of Higher
Education, 24(2), 173-191.
Cole, D., & Espinoza, A. (2008). Examining the academic success of Latino students in science
technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. Journal of College Student
Development, 49(4), 285-300.
Contreras, F. E., Malcom, L. E., & Bensimon, E. M. (2008). Hispanic-serving
institutions. Understanding minority serving institutions, 71-90.
Crawford, S.D., Couper, M.P., and Lamias, M.J. (2001) “Web surveys: Perceptions of burden.”
Social Science Computer Review, 19 (2), 146-162.
Crenshaw, K. (2002). The first decade: Critical reflections, or ‘a foot in the closing door’, in: F.
Valdes, J. McCristal Culp & A. Harris (Eds) Crossroads, directions and a new critical
race theory. Philadelphia, PA. Temple University Press. pp.9-31.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 165
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches. Sage publications.
Creswell, J. W., & Miller, D. L. (2000). Determining validity in qualitative inquiry. Theory into
practice, 39(3), 124-130.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York:
New York University Press.
Delgado Bernal, D. (1998). Using a Chicana feminist epistemology in educational research.
Harvard Educational Review, 68(4), 555-582.
Delgado Bernal, D. (2002). Critical race theory, LatCrit theory and critical raced-gendered
epistemologies: Recognizing Students of Color as holders and creators of knowledge,
Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 105-126.
Delgado-Gaitan, C. (2001). The power of community: mobilizing for family and schooling.
Boulder, CO, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Dowd, A.C., Malcom, L.E., & Bensimon, E.M. (2009). Benchmarking the success of Latina and
Latino students in STEM to achieve national graduation goals. Los Angeles: USC
Rossier School of Education.
Dowd, A.C., Malcom, L.E., & Macias, E.E. (2010). Improving transfer access to STEM
bachelor’s degrees at Hispanic- serving institutions through the America COMPETES
Act. Los Angeles: USC Rossier School of Education.
Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., Guido, F. M., Patton, L. D., & Renn, K. A. (2009). Student
development in college: Theory, research, and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Excelencia in Education. (2016). Hispanic-Serving Institutions, 2014-15.
Washington, DC: Excelencia in Education.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 166
Excelencia in Education. (2015). Finding Your Workforce: Latinos in Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Math (STEM). Washington, D.C.: Excelencia in Education.
Excelencia in Education. (2015). Hispanic-Serving Institutions, 2013-14. Washington, DC:
Excelencia in Education.
Fordham, S., & Ogbu, J. U. (1986). Black students' school success: Coping with the “burden of
‘acting white’”. The urban review, 18(3), 176-206.
Gandara, P. (1982). Passing through the eye of the needle: High achieving Chicanas, Hispanic
Journal of Behavioral Science, 4, 167-179.
Gandara, P. (1995). Over the ivy walls: The educational mobility of low income Chicanos.
Albany, State university of New York Press.
Gandara, P. C., & Contreras, F. (2009). The Latino education crisis: The consequences of failed
social policies. Harvard University Press.
Glesne, C. (2011). Becoming qualitative researchers (4
th
ed.) Boston: Pearson. [Chapter 5,
Personal dimensions: Field relations and reflexivity, pp. 139-161]
Gloria, A. M., Castellanos, J., Lopez, A. G., & Rosales, R. (2005). An examination of academic
non-persistence decisions of Latino undergraduates. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral
Sciences, 27(2), 202-223.
Gloria, A. M., & Kurpius, S. E. R. (1996). The validation of the cultural congruity scale and the
university environment scale with Chicano/a students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral
Sciences, 18(4), 533-549.
Grandy, J. (1998). Persistence in science of high-ability minority students: Results of a
longitudinal study. Journal of Higher Education, 589-620.
Griffin, K. A., Pérez, D., Holmes, A. P., & Mayo, C. E. (2010). Investing in the future: The
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 167
importance of faculty mentoring in the development of students of color in STEM. New
Directions for institutional research, 2010(148), 95-103.
Haney Lopez, I. (1996). White by law. Critical race theory: The cutting edge, 542-50.
Hagedorn, L. S., & Cepeda, R. (2004). Serving Los Angeles: Urban community colleges and
educational success among Latino students. Community College Journal of Research and
Practice, 28(3).
Hernandez, J. C. (2000). Understanding the retention of Latino college students. Journal of
College Student Development.
Hernandez, J. C., & Lopez, M. A. (2004). Leaking pipeline: Issues impacting Latino/a college
student retention. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and
Practice, 6(1), 37-60.
Huber, L. P., & Cueva, B. M. (2012). Chicana/Latina testimonios on effects and responses to
microaggressions. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(3), 392-410.
Huber, L. P. (2009). Challenging racist nativist framing: Acknowledging the community
cultural wealth of undocumented Chicana college students to reframe the immigration
debate. Harvard Educational Review, 79(4), 704-730.
Hurtado, S., Carter, D. F., & Spuler, A. (1996). Latino student transition to college: Assessing
difficulties and factors in successful college adjustment. Research in higher
education, 37(2), 135-157.
Hurtado, S. (1994). The institutional climate for talented Latino students. Research in Higher
Education, 35(1), 21-41.
Jones, L., Castellanos, J., & Cole, D. (2002). Examining the ethnic minority student experience
at predominantly White institutions: A case study. Journal of Hispanic Higher
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 168
Education, 1(1), 19-39.
King, P. M., & Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2005). A developmental model of intercultural
maturity. Journal of college student development, 46(6), 571-592.
Kirp, D. L. (2015). Improbable scholars: The rebirth of a great American school system and a
strategy for America's schools. Oxford University Press.
Kozol, J. (2005). The shame of the nation: The restoration of apartheid schooling in America.
Broadway Books.
Kozol, J. (2012). Savage inequalities: Children in America's schools. Broadway Books.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1998). Preparing teachers for diverse student populations: A critical race
theory perspective, Review of Research in Education, 24, 211-247.
Laden, B. V. (2001). Hispanic-serving institutions: Myths and realities. Peabody Journal of
Education, 76(1), 73-92.
Leslie, L. L., McClure, G. T., & Oaxaca, R. L. (1998). Women and minorities in science and
engineering: A life sequence analysis. Journal of Higher Education, 239-276.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry (Vol. 75). Sage.
Lopez, G. & Parke, L. (Eds) (2003). Interrogating racism in qualitative research methodology.
New York, Peter Lang Publishing.
Marin, G., & Marin, B. V. (1991). Research with Hispanic populations. Sage Publications, Inc.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook.
Sage.
NACME (2015). Latinos in Engineering. Retrieved on April 2, 2015 from
http://www.nacme.org/publications/research_briefs/2014_Latinos_in_Engineering.pdf
Parrish, T. (2002). Racial disparities in the identification, funding, and provision of special
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 169
education. Racial inequity in special education, 15-37.
Pew Research, Hispanic Trends Project (2013). Hispanic population trends. A statistical portrait
of US Hispanics. Washington, DC. Retrieved from
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/02/15/hispanic-population-trends/
Pascarella, E. T. (2006). How college affects students: Ten directions for future research. Journal
of College Student Development, 47(5), 508-520.
Pascarella, E. T., Pierson, C. T., Wolniak, G. C., & Terenzini, P. T. (2004). First-generation
college students: Additional evidence on college experiences and outcomes. Journal of
Higher Education, 249-284.
Reyes, M. E. (2011). Unique challenges for women of color in STEM transferring from
community colleges to universities. Harvard Educational Review, 81(2), 241-263.
Sáenz, V. B., Ponjuán, L., Figueroa, J. L., Serrata, W., & Hurtado, A. (2016). Ensuring the
Success of Latino Males in Higher Education: A National Imperative. Stylus Publishing.
Sáenz, V. B., & Ponjuán, L. (2009). The vanishing Latino male in higher education. Journal of
Hispanic Higher Education, 8(1), 5489.
Sáenz, V. B., & Ponjuan, L. (2011). Men of Color: Ensuring the Academic Success of Latino
Males in Higher Education. Institute for Higher Education Policy.
Santiago, D.A. (2006). Inventing Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs): The basics.
Retrieved February 20, 2015 from http://www.edexcelencia.org/hsi-
cp2/research/inventing-hispanic-serving-institutions-basics
Scheurich, J. &Young, M. (1997). Coloring epistemologies: Are our research epistemologies
racially biased? Educational Researcher, 26, 4-16.
Seymour, E., & Hewitt, N. M. (1997). Talking about leaving. Westview Press.
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 170
Shaffer, S., & Gordon, L. (2006). What is the impact of “boys will be boys”. In Presentation at
the 2006 annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Equity Center.
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Sage.
Stake, R. E. (2013). Multiple case study analysis. Guilford Press.
Stanton-Salazar, R. D. (2001). Manufacturing hope and despair: The school and kin support
networks of US-Mexican youth. Teachers College Press.
Stefancic, J. (1998). Latino and Latina critical theory: An annotated bibliography. La Raza Law
Journal, 10, 423-498.
Solórzano, D. G., & Villalpando, O. (1998). Critical race theory, marginality, and the
experience of students of color in higher education. Sociology of education: Emerging
perspectives, 211-224.
Solórzano, D., & Delgado Bernal, D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance
through a critical race and LatCrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano
students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36(3), 308–342.
Solórzano, D., & Yosso, T. J. (2001). Maintaining social justice hopes within academic
realities: A Freirean approach to critical race/LatCrit pedagogy. Denver
University Law Review, 78(4), 595−621.
Solorzano, D. G., & Ornelas, A. (2004). A critical race analysis of Latina/o and African
American advanced placement enrollment in public high schools. The High School
Journal, 87(3), 15-26.
Suarez-Orozco, C., & Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (1995). Transformations: Immigration, family life,
and achievement motivation among Latino adolescents. Stanford University Press.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Current Population Survey (CPS), October,
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 171
1970 through 2014.
Valdes, F. (1998). LatCrit: Latinas/os and the law, La Raza Law Journal, 10, 1-600.
Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring.
New York, SUNY Press.
Villalpando, O., & Solórzano, D. G. (2005). The role of culture in college preparation
programs: A review of the research literature. Preparing for college: Nine
elements of effective outreach, 13-28.
Yin, R. (2009). How to do better case studies. The SAGE handbook of applied social research
methods, 2, 254-282.
Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods. Sage publications.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of
community cultural wealth. Race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69-91.
Williams, R. (1997). Vampires anonymous and critical race practice. Michigan Law Review, 95,
741-765.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 172
Appendix A

Recruitment E-mail

Dear MESA Members,

As you may be well aware, the United States is in need of more people majoring in the STEM
fields to remain competitive in the global market. Given the racial/ethnic demographic shifts,
with Latinos becoming the majority racial group very soon, now more than ever there is a need
to educate more Latinos in the STEM fields. Are you a male Latino student majoring in
engineering at Basin Community College and willing to share what your college experience has
been like of being a community college student majoring in engineering? If you have completed
at least one semester of engineering classes at BCC you qualify to participate in this study. You
will be compensated a $10 gift card for participating in a 45-60 minutes interview and another
$10 gift card for participating in a small group discussion with other students discussing your
college experiences.

If you are interested in participating in this study, please contact Daniel Galvan at
galvand@usc.edu

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

Thank you in advance for your time,

Daniel Galvan

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 173
Appendix B

Interview Protocol

This guide serves as a structure for interviews with community college engineering students.
The interviews are designed to gather data concerning Latino engineering student experiences in
higher education. This interview is intended to take roughly one hour and will be digitally
recorded for transcription. Respondents will be provided with a summary of their feedback as a
member check.

Introduction

Thank you for taking time out of your day to meet with me. The purpose of this interview is to
learn about your experience as a Latino engineering student in higher education, including on
and off campus experiences.

During this interview, I will mostly be asking you to provide me with specific information about
being a Latino engineering student at this college. But at some point, I believe it would be
valuable to hear your own personal perceptions and opinions about your goals and results of
completing an engineering degree here and transferring to a four-year institution. I want to
emphasize that your participation in this research is completely voluntary, there are no right or
wrong answers, and that all your responses to these questions will be completely confidential. At
any point, you are welcome to say that you’d prefer not to answer any of my questions or that
you wish to stop the interview altogether.

With your permission, I will be digitally recording this interview so that I can accurately
transcribe it later. Also, as I prepare my write-up of findings from the interviews, I will provide
you with a summary so that you can check to make sure I’ve captured your responses accurately.

Do you have any questions before we begin?

1. To get us started, would you please tell me a little bit about yourself?
2. What community college(s) do you currently attend?
Probes:
a. Major
b. Year in school
c. Any other previous majors
d. Any other previous community colleges
3. With regards to attending college, are you the first in your family to go to college? Or did
your parents or grandparents attend college?
4. How do you identify racially/ ethnically?
5. What language(s) did you learn/speak growing up?
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 174
6. What role, if any, does this language have in your journey to college for you?
Share the Yosso’s (2006) community cultural wealth six capitals with participants here. Use
their answer to the previous question as an example of Linguistic Capital, to share how the
other types of capital are defined in the framework.

Journey to College and Deciding to Study Engineering
7. Can you please share what your journey to college was like? High school preparation,
etc.

Follow up questions:
How did you choose to major in engineering?

Probing questions:
What role did your parents, guardians, or other people play in this
journey to college and majoring in engineering?
Before you entered college, did you know any engineers? Were your
parents engineers?

8. Would you consider yourself an engineer or aspiring engineer?
Can you please share with me what it means for you to be or aspire to be an
engineer?

9. How would you describe your journey as an engineer or aspiring engineer?

10. What does your support system(s) look like to someone who is not an engineering
student at your school and not involved in the MESA program?
Is your familia part of this support system? If so, how would you
describe your familia? Any siblings? Younger, older?

11. Can you please provide examples of interactions that you have had with your support
group(s) that have helped you continue studying in the field of engineering?

12. Do you live at home or away from home, while you pursue this engineering
degree? What has that experience been like for you?

13. If you could change anything about your experience as an engineering student in
the college, what would it be? How and why would you change it?
Is this a change you would make about your specific engineering experience, or
change about your overall college experience?

14. What resources (MESA Center, tutoring, etc) or individuals have been beneficial
to your success in engineering?

Is there any additional information that you would like to share with me, that you think would
help me better understand your experiences as an engineering student at this college?
ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 175
[Take a pause if needed]

That wraps up my questions. Thank you again for your time and participation in this research.
Again, I will be providing you with a summary of my write-up from this interview to ensure that
we have fairly and accurately captured your responses. Please do not hesitate to let me know if
you have any questions or concerns or other input you’d like to provide.

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 176
Appendix C

Observation Protocol

Observations will not be videotaped or audio-recorded. This protocol is adapted from Nicolini
(2009) and from an observation protocol developed by Dr. Dowd for EDUC 725 at the Rossier
School of Education at USC and used by the Center for Urban Education.

1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

RESEARCHER’S NAME
TIME PERIOD/TASK
Date:
Time:
Event/Activity:

PARTICIPANTS
• Note the number of individuals present.
• Note titles and any special roles, e.g.
committee chair/co-chair.
• Note hierarchies of who reports to whom
if evident from titles or modes of
interaction among the participants.

SETTING LAYOUT
• Draw a sketch of the physical layout of
the room, noting the placement of
furniture and other objects and the
placement of individuals.
• Use arrow diagrams to note any patterns
of movement in the room and describe
those movements in the notes below.

OBJECTIVES/TASKS/INFORMATION
• Note any stated objectives or goals
• Note particular issues or focus mentioned

ENGINEERING MY COMMUNITY CULTURAL WEALTH 177
by any participants
• Note any organized activities
• Note any information being used or
presented and any artifacts being used or
distributed by individuals or the group as
a whole (e.g., documents)

*Collect a copy of any documents
distributed during this event. Attach a copy
at the end of this document

MOOD/ATMOSPHERE
• Note any initial or periodic observations
about the mood in the room; physically
conveyed or verbally articulated attitudes
towards participation in the setting
• Expressions of beliefs about the issues or
topics being discussed or of the meeting
itself.
• Note modes of interaction and
communication styles: are there formal
rules of order, a clear tacit knowledge
about process and form, who talks, when
and how they gain control of the
conversation. What communicative
tactics are displayed?
• PROVIDE EVIDENCE to substantiate
observations

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Institutions of higher education and higher education practitioners may possibly be serving Latino engineering students in ways that limit career trajectories. Using student testimonios from Basin Community College (BCC), this study utilizes and expands on community cultural wealth framework (Yosso, 2005), to highlight the rich forms of cultural wealth Latino male engineering students possess and utilize to negotiate their marginalized social positions within educational institutions. The study seeks to answer the following question and sub-questions: What are the testimonios of Latino male engineering community college students? Sub-questions: How do students describe different forms of cultural wealth? How do institutions/ agents facilitate Latino engineering student success? This study used a testimonio approach. Data was collected through interviews with 10 students, observations and a focus group. Findings suggest that intentional integration into engineering pathways increases recruitment and retention of Latino males in engineering, math can be the main hurdle in completing their engineering studies and Latino community college engineering men identified the importance of family and having a positive influence in their community.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Latino male community college students' persistence to transfer

PDF

Assessing the impact of the Puente Project on Latino males in California community colleges

PDF

And still we rise: examining the strengths of first-generation college students

PDF

Struggles to paths of success: voices of 10 first-generation Latino male students

PDF

Federal loan borrowing in community colleges: examining the decision making processes of non‐traditional community college students

PDF

Struggles build character: the impact of developmental math and the psychological, social and cultural factors that influence Latino males' persistence in STEM

PDF

Exploring the academic success of black male former student-athletes and their experiences with academic support upon re-entry to college

PDF

Familial and cultural variables as predictors of retention of Latino engineering students

PDF

""Having the right info"": College readiness as college knowledge among minoritized students in an urban education setting

PDF

Addressing financial barriers to college completion through community cultural wealth

PDF

Experiences of Latina student-mothers in community college: a study based in community cultural wealth

PDF

Pa’delante, la lucha continúa: resiliency among Latinx college students with past experiences of bullying

PDF

The impact of remedial mathematics on the success of African American and Latino male community college students

PDF

A critical worldview: understanding identity and sense of belonging of underrepresented students' participation in study abroad

PDF

The barriers and facilitators of academic success for Black male students at a community college: a gap analysis

PDF

Concurrent enrollment in English support classes for community college students

PDF

Student engagement experiences of African American males at a California community college

PDF

Latino/a college student-athletes: Influences on recruitment, enrollment and degree completion

PDF

His story: African-American male college students’ journey to success

PDF

AB 540 community college students in Southern California: making connections and realizing dreams

Asset Metadata

Creator Galván, Daniel (author)

Core Title Engineering my community cultural wealth: testimonios of male Latino community college engineering students

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 10/19/2017

Defense Date 05/10/2017

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag community cultural wealth,Latino community college testimonios,Latino engineering students,male Latino engineering persistence in community college,navigating college,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Green, Alan (committee chair), Hinga, Briana (committee chair), Burch, Patricia (committee member)

Creator Email daniel.dg.galvan@gmail.com,galvand@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-446946

Unique identifier UC11264136

Identifier etd-GalvanDani-5842.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-446946 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-GalvanDani-5842.pdf

Dmrecord 446946

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Galván, Daniel

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA