Mario Gonzalez

¡si Se Puede! First-generation, Latino Immigrant Mario Gonzalez

Latino students face many challenges on higher education campuses. These challenges require faculty and staff to respond in direct and meaningful ways. Often families have different backgrounds, backgrounds that warrant serious research. Understanding the student as a whole person means understating their families and where they came from. Sometimes this means looking for and listening to their voice. College administrators need to understand the motivational components of incoming Latino students to serve them well. In this transformative autoethonographic study, I focused on understanding stories told by one first-generation, immigrant Latino family?s journey through higher education, and their challenges and successes attaining a degree in predominantly White institutions. I interviewed my parents, three sisters, and five brothers; I collected a plethora of data to co-construct meaning of my family experiences. I discovered five salient themes through analysis of the data: resilience, transformative learning, role models, no parent support, and acculturation. Implications for practice in the area of first generation, immigrants, Latino students, and gender inequality were discuss