Mothers United An Immigrant Struggle For Socially Just Education Analysis

Mothers United: An Immigrant Struggle for Socially Just Education by Andrea Dyrness is an ethnography that follows five immigrant women from Latin America and their fight for equal opportunities for the children in their community. In this ethnography Dyrness captures the complex, and often frustrating, nature of bringing small schools to Oakland, California. All the while navigating the complicated political nature of the school system and the often times tense relationship between parents and teachers/administration. Although large schools have been the set standard, five Latina mothers fought to implement small schools within their community through activism, research, and collective experience; all while facing microaggressions, being de-legitimized …show more content…
The principal, Marie, was chosen by the parents and the design team because she was a teacher at Whitman and she was a Spanish-speaking Mexican-American. In theory she was the ideal principal since she was both a teacher and a member of the Spanish-speaking community. She appealed to both parents and teachers since she had a foot in each community. However, by the time the United Community School opened its doors Marie already had several conflicts with the parents. Early in the school year Ofelia and Baudelia interviewed Marie about her position on topics pertaining to her relationship to the school and the relationship between the school and community. When responding to these questions she told the Madres that she became interested in small schools based off of theory and academic research rather than the community being an integral aspect to the success of the school. When asked about the community’s relationship to the school, she responded, “we haven’t had a lot of interaction” (Dyrness 2001, p. 36). She completely disregarded the role that the community had on creating the school. These microaggressions continued on and got more blatant as the school year …show more content…
Without the indignation and anger of the parents the reform wouldn’t have left the idea stage. As someone who went to a small school in Portland with a majority of Latino/a students and parents I saw how this system can work. But, the difference was that my school valued parent’s and my principal gave his personal number out to every student and parent; we could call him at any time of day with any kind of request. He would do his absolute best to help where he could. When principal’s and schools actually work with the community it creates an incredible learning