DREAMers woke: Mexican deaf women navigating college and living as undocumented

Mexican Deaf women who live as undocumented in the United States experience intersecting oppressions that deny them equity as students in postsecondary education. These oppressions are illuminated in their educational experiences as reproductions of unequal relations of power that exist favoring spoken languages over signed languages, hearing cultures over Deaf cultures, U.S. citizenship over undocumented status, white and male supremacy over racial and gender equality, and the upper economic class over the lower and working class. Latinx Deaf students are the largest growing Deaf student population in Kindergarten -12th grade in the U.S., yet are vastly underrepresented in college attendance and degree attainment. This qualitative study used narrative inquiry to explore how four Mexican Deaf women navigate postsecondary education in California while living as undocumented students, and their visions for a more just educational experience. Their perspectives provide urgency during a time when policies like California Assembly Bill 540 of 2001 and the California DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act of 2011 are aimed at enabling their financial access to postsecondary education, amid a growing racist nativist and anti-immigrant political climate in the U.S. and globally. This study critically responds to the void in educational research that considers the intersecting oppressions derived from class, gender, immigration status, language, race, and sexual orientation experienced by Latina Deaf postsecondary students who were born in México and are living as undocumented in the U.S. It is producing new knowledge in the field of education that is critical to generate pedagogy and policy change.