Growing up Latina in the U.S. Controlling images, stereotypes, and resistance

This paper draws on a controlling images framework and focus group data from seventy-eight Latina teen girls to address two research questions: (1) What do Latina girls like about being Latina? and (2) How do they think others view Latinas? Data were collected in Phoenix, Arizona during the Trump administration. Despite growing up in a highly politicized anti-immigrant (and by extension anti-Latina/o climate), girls viewed themselves as being part of a larger family and community with shared cultural heritage and traditions and were proud of their ethnic heritage. In contrast, they believed that others (read white people) view Latinas/os as lazy, criminals, outsiders, and unable to make it in society. They noted that Latinas continue to be stereotyped as either traditional good girls or loud, angry, hypersexual bad girls. Girls resisted these depictions. Implications for how to combat controlling images and stereotypes focused at Latinas are discussed.