ABSTRACT
The students in this book suggest such an assumption only illustrates part of the dynamic of racial/ethnic identification and its implications in their schooling experience. Marginalized students, like these Mexican and Puerto Rican students, experience racialization in which others situate them based on their skin color. The impact of such racialization moderated their articulation of opportunity as being available to everyone, but also how they conceptualized the significance of race/ ethnicity and gender followed along skin color and gender. In turn, this differential co-narrative of race/ethnicity underscored how these students discussed their academic orientation (i.e., the value and importance of school and engagement in school). What is illustrated throughout this chapter are the differences in experiences and interpretations of racialization (or lack of), and its significance to how and why they engage (or not) in the schooling process. How their African American peers and teachers read these students has significant implications in their academic orientation.
