ABSTRACT
This chapter narrates stories of two Latina bilingual women, Erika and Raquel, who are Americans of Mexican descent. Despite the favorable factors that attract Latinas/os into the teaching profession, Erika and Raquel's odysseys to becoming and being teachers have been full of obstacles. It suggests that they have needed to pay a price in their attempts to penetrate a traditionally white female, white-collar occupation. The chapter summarizes the penalties Erika and Raquel paid from critical lenses. From the perspective of the dominant group who did not possess much knowledge about the cultures of the students they taught and lacked Spanish language skills, Erika and Raquel were perceived as a threat to the system that had been traditionally occupied by monolingual white women. Erika and Raquel's stories revealed that the mere presence of teachers of color does not necessarily guarantee their engagement in the professional communities of their schools.
