This document summarizes a study on the development of Latina immigrant mothers into social justice leaders through their involvement in a parent education program called Vamos al Kinder. The program used popular education strategies like role-playing skits and group discussions to build the mothers' leadership skills and confidence in advocating for their children in schools. Key aspects included creating a safe space for the mothers, validating their cultural knowledge, and helping them develop a critical understanding of deficit perspectives about Latino students in order to challenge stereotypes. The program emphasized discovering the power and knowledge the mothers already possessed rather than just empowering them.

1. NATIONAL FORUM OF APPLIED EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH JOURNAL
VOLUME 29, NUMBERS 1 & 2, 2016
21
Undocumented Educational Leadership: The
Development of Latina Mothers into Emergent
Social Justice Leaders
Katherine C. Rodela, PhD
Assistant Professor
Washington State University Vancouver
Abstract
This article aims to carve a space for parent leadership within the social justice educational
leadership literature, particularly the undocumented stories and experiences of Latina
immigrant mothers. Drawing from a 23-month ethnographic study, this article analyzes the
role of a grassroots community-based parent education program in promoting the leadership
of low-income Latina immigrant women in their communities and local schools. The
program provided a safe space for the mothers to learn about U.S. schools, validate their
cultural knowledge and values, and build their leadership skills. By analyzing the program
structure and participatory practices, this article describes key strategies used to strengthen
the mothers’ emergent leadership skills, and highlights the tenacity and complex intercultural
abilities Latina leaders must build to navigate U.S. schools.
Keywords: mother leadership, leadership development, popular education, Latino
parents, social justice leadership
Vamos al kinder1 (Let’s go to kindergarten) is a preschool and parent education
program for three to five-year-old Spanish-speaking children and their parents, living in the
mid-size city of Brampton, Oregon. While focused on school readiness and family literacy,
the program emphasized popular education and building parent leadership skills. Most parent
participants were low-income, Latina immigrants with varying formal school experiences.
Vamos al kinder sought to build their confidence in their multiple “funds of knowledge”
(González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) to advocate for their children. The program provided the
mothers a safe space to learn about U.S. schools and validate their cultural knowledge and
values. By analyzing the program structure and activities, this article describes three key
approaches used to develop the mothers’ emergent leadership skills: Freirian-inspired
popular education strategies, intentional building of confianza (trust), and cross-cultural
reflections and critique.
1 All names of persons, places, and the program have been changed to protect the identities of
research participants.

2. KATHERINE C. RODELA
22
Latina Mothers as Emergent Social Justice Leaders
This article shifts the paradigm on expected roles for parents in and around schools,
especially parents of color, from low-income backgrounds, or who speak a language other
than English. Most research critiquing traditional parent involvement models debunk deficit-
oriented views of Latino families as “disinterested” or “uninvolved,” and highlight how often
middle-class American cultural norms dictate what counts as “good” involvement in schools
(Auerbach, 2007a; Cruz, 2008; Delgado Gaitan, 1991; López, 2001; López & Stoelting,
2010; Olivos, 2006; Poza, Brooks, & Valdés, 2014; Valdés, 1996). A growing research
literature documents the community members’ and parents’ engagement in community
organizing for school reform (i.e. education organizing; Lopez, 2003), directly challenging
passive and traditional forms of parent involvement (Delgado Gaitan, 1992, 2012; Dyrness,
2011; Olivos, Ochoa, & Jiménez-Castellanos, 2011; Shirley, 1997, 2009, 2010; Warren,
2010).
In reviewing the extensive literature on education organizing and empowerment
parent engagement models, diverse parents’ leadership capabilities are clear. However,
except for a handful of research articles discussing how school-level administrators may
engage and empower parents and communities (Auerbach, 2007b, 2009; Ishimaru, 2013), the
voices of parent leaders as “educational leaders” in their own right remain outside the
discussion of social justice educational leadership. This raises several questions: Why can
parent leaders not be considered “educational leaders”? Whose voices matter in the pursuit
of equitable schools? If parents get a voice, how do they come to develop social justice
leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions?
Reading the social justice educational leadership literature through the lens of parent
leadership might provide insights into the nature of social justice leadership. In particular, the
theory of “applied critical leadership” (ACL) from Santamaría (2014) and colleagues
(Santamaría & Jean-Marie, 2014; Santamaría, L. J. & Santamaría, A. P., 2012) helps
illuminate the complex cultural interactions and leadership characteristics that Latina mother
leaders might require as they confront racism, sexism, and anti-immigrant sentiment. This
article represents a step towards documenting how authentic educational leadership can be
found among those who some might consider the least likely: low-income Latina immigrant
mothers (several who are undocumented). The development of emergent social justice
leadership among Latina mothers provides a fruitful analytical place to consider how and why
parents can be educational leaders. I define “emergent social justice educational leadership”
as a budding process towards transformational equity, where individuals grow in their critical
understanding of systemic inequalities present in and around schools towards action and
advocacy. The following sections describe the contexts of this emergence.
Methods
The Vamos al kinder Program
Vamos al kinder emerged through the joint efforts of two bilingual Anglo women2
2 One was a nurse at a local community health clinic and another an educator.

3. KATHERINE C. RODELA
23
who witnessed many Latino families being ignored and underserved by Brampton’s public
schools in the late 1990s. Spurred by this basic injustice, they worked with several Latina
mothers to start the program in 1999-2000. From its inception, strong Latina mother
leadership has led the program through an intentional recruitment of former participants to
staff positions. Often mothers began as volunteers, worked as assistant preschool teachers or
parent facilitators, and finally some became lead teachers or facilitators. Another avenue for
leadership was in the preschool and parent curriculum development. Parent facilitators spent
extensive time asking for ideas on sessions and examining parent interest. This sense of
community, shared input, and leadership opportunities was evident in both observations and
interviews with staff about program history.
Mothers and parent educators. The mother participants were Mexican and
Guatemalan women who migrated to the U.S. in the last 5-20 years. They represented a range
of formal schooling experiences from 4th grade to U.S. community college. All participants
were Spanish speakers; several spoke Mayan as their first language. Many parents arrived to
the U.S. sin papeles (without papers). I estimated around half of the participants had children
already in public schools. All Vamos al kinder staff were women. Except for the two co-
founders and one preschool assistant, all were former program participants. Most came from
rural towns in Mexico.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data were collected over two program years from 2011-2013 using ethnographic
research methods including in-depth semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and
participant observation in program workshops, meetings, and community events. My
ethnographic approach draws from the tradition of “critical ethnography” with Latino
families, which breaks “with the conventional scientific ethnographic practice of being a
detached, neutral observer” (Villenas & Foley, 2010, p. 226) by developing deep trusting
relationships with informants. A key component of my research methodology was my
presentation of self and participation in parent workshops with my own young son3. Similar
to Baca Zinn’s (2001) work with Chicano families, I was “an insider in ethnic identity” but
“not an insider in the organization or in the community” (Baca Zinn, 2001, p. 62). I was
given access to their lives no doubt in part because I too am a mother to a young child; I also
had to be reflexive of my social, economic, and cultural location during research.
Table 1 details my research and analysis methods. In total, I participated in four
parent groups with around 130 families in Year 1. In Year 2, I focused research on one group
of 15-16 families. This group included 5 focal mothers and one parent educator with whom I
conducted in-depth interviews and home visits. All research was conducted in Spanish,
except for two interviews with the program founders. This article primarily analyzes data
from interviews and observational field notes at the focal group site. I examined the overall
Vamos al kinder program structure, and for this article closely analyzed four workshops to
understand how the parent educators created safe space for the mothers, and the leadership
development strategies used to build the mothers’ advocacy skills.
3 My son was 11 months when I began my fieldwork and just shy of his 3rd birthday when we
finished.

4. KATHERINE C. RODELA
24
Table 1
Research Methods, Forms of Data, Data Analysis Method
Data Collection Methods Forms of Data Analysis Method
Participant observation of
workshops
Field notes Open & focused coding
Research memos
Ritual analysis tables
Participant observation of
community events and home
visits
Field notes Open & focused coding
Research memos
Audio-recording of in-depth
interviews (1.5-2 hours each)
Transcriptions (Spanish &
English)
Open & focused coding
Research memos
Document collection (reports,
program flyers and worksheets)
Written artifacts Open & focused coding
Research memos
Findings and Discussion
Vamos al kinder was an example of parent leaders working tirelessly so that other
immigrant parents were able to navigate the transition to U.S. schools. While intended as a
preschool family literacy program, Vamos al kinder created a safe space for its participants to
affirm their knowledge, examine cultural differences, and build confidence in each other and
themselves. In the following sections, I examine the program’s three principal approaches to
leadership development: Freirian-inspired popular education strategies, intentional building
of confianza (trust), and cross-cultural reflections and critique.
Freirian-Inspired Popular Education Strategies
The program structured workshops through a Freirian-inspired (1970) popular
education model. Parent facilitators were trained in a local promotora (community health
worker) preparation program, which built on principles from popular education and
community-based participatory research (Wallerstein & Duran, 2003). According to Wiggins
et al. (2009), “popular” here “means ‘of the people’ and ‘people’ refers to the global majority
who are poor, working class, peasants, and/or unemployed” (p. 12). Popular education
pushes for social justice by creating “settings in which people identify common problems,
reflect on causes, and together seek solutions” (p. 12). This can be seen in action through
Vamos al kinder’s activities like sociodramas and dinámicas, which are activities that have
been studied in Beckett, Glass, and Moreno’s (2012) analysis of two parent leadership
programs in California.
Vamos al kinder’s workshop structure. Families attended two-hour sessions once a
week for 30 weeks during the academic year. While the children attended preschool, parents
(mostly mothers) attended workshops focused on: early literacy, child development, culture,
and parent school engagement. Table 2 outlines the parent workshop’s general order.

5. KATHERINE C. RODELA
25
Table 2
Typical Vamos al Kinder Workshop Order
Bienvenida y repaso de la agenda (Welcome and review of agenda)
Dinámica (Ice-breaker)
Sociodrama (Skit)
Cuchicheo (Conversation with 2-3 parents; think-pair-share)
Reflexión (Large group discussion)
Trabajo de arte (Individual art project to create at-home educational tool)
Evaluación (Parent evaluation of the workshop)
Four common popular education techniques employed were la dinámica, el
sociodrama, el cuchicheo, and large group reflection (Wiggins, 2011).The dinámica
functioned in the group as a warm-up exercise (e.g. rhyming name game) and helped build
group cohesion. Sociodrama were skits often led by facilitators to present an issue for
participants to analyze. As the year went on, mothers were given opportunities to plan and
present their own sociodramas, typically about educational activities to engage their children.
In cuchicheos, facilitators asked reflective questions, participants discussed in groups of two
or three, then shared with the larger group. While each person spoke, a facilitator wrote their
comments on a large sheet of paper for all to see. For staff members, the process of public
note taking was a way to honor each person’s contribution. Josefina, the lead parent
facilitator explained: “Each person has a contribution to make. Each person’s words have
value.”
More than personal empowerment. This participatory model promoted the
mothers’ stories and experiences, and aimed for them to actualize their leadership abilities
building on the vast knowledge they had. Josefina described how she understood popular
education’s role in the program:
...It applies in valuing what the people already know, it applies in, that the opinions of
everyone count, that there are no wrong answers. What is a little different is
empowerment, because popular education and other [ideologies] purport to give
power to a person. What we do different in a certain way is not to give power,
instead to help them discover their own power (Interview with Josefina translated
from Spanish, 4/10/2013).
Josefina critiqued the notion of “empowering others” and believed her work was part of the
mothers’ process of unearthing power they already had in them. This differs from Freire’s
(1970) views of critical consciousness as critical awareness of systemic socioeconomic and
political injustices. Through an emphasis on education, the mother participants’ became
active and engaged parent advocates and budding leaders.
Cross-Cultural Reflections and Critique
Applied critical leaders “ tend to work from within dominant or mainstream

6. KATHERINE C. RODELA
26
paradigms to exercise ‘effective oppositional power, to resist courageously, and to be
activists and voices for change and transformation’” (Santamaría, 2014, p. 356). Similarly,
Latina immigrant mothers must navigate dominant, middle-class cultural paradigms about
“good” parent involvement in schools. To become social justice educational leaders, they
must engage in cross-cultural reflections and critique of deficit perspectives of themselves
and their children. The women in my study had to confront institutional spaces within U.S.
schools that often discounted their knowledge and active participation in their children’s
education because of their social class, race, language, and lack of formal school experiences.
Deconstructing and challenging the deficit perspective of Latino children. Clear
examples of the mothers’ cross-cultural reflections were the workshops where parents
engaged analyzed the notion of culture. In Weeks 14 and 15, the mothers discussed negative
stereotypes of Latino children (particularly boys) and how to combat these through
strengthening of child cultural identity. For purposes of this article, only the analysis table for
Week 14 is provided in Table 3, though both weeks are discussed together because they
functioned as a “part 1” and “part 2.”

7. KATHERINE C. RODELA
27
Table 3
Week 14 Parent Workshop, “Culture- Part 1” (1/24/2012)
Activity Function Description
Welcome &
Agenda
Call to order Review of agenda and group welcome. The theme for
the day was La cultura (Culture).
Dinámica Group building
and
introduction to
theme
The dinámica for today was to answer the question
"¿Por qué vino usted a los EEUU?" (Why did you come
to the U.S.?)
Lluvia de ideas
(Brainstorming
session)
Large group
sharing
Mothers answered question: ¿Qué significa cultura para
usted? (What does culture mean to you?). As different
mothers gave answers, Josefina wrote down the words
they were saying around the word "cultura" drawn in a
bubble.
Cuchicheo
(reflection in
pairs) on image
1
Reaction and
sharing
Josefina presented the group with one image: el cholo
(the gangbanger). She asked them to write the words
they thought about when they saw the image, then
Josefina collected, read, and posted the notes on the
image.
Cuchicheo
(reflection in
pairs) on image
2
Reaction and
sharing
Josefina showed another image of a boy: mi hijo (my
son). Then she asked the mothers to write on a note
about what they hoped for their children. Josefina read
and posted the notes.
Sociodrama
(skit)
Moralizing skit Two scenes. Scene 1: Father sat on a chair reclined
watching T.V. while the mother was in the kitchen. The
young boy asked to play with them; both parents were
too busy. Scene 2: The mother and father were worried
about their then defiant teenage son. The son walked in
on his cell phone, smoking a cigarette, and speaking
English to his parents. The parents blamed each other
and were upset.
Reflection on
sociodrama
Discussion and
warning
Discussion focused on the parents not taking
responsibility and needing to spend more time with
their child. Josefina wrapped up by talking about the
second generation and cultural identity. Martha shared
an example of her son playing basketball.
Art project Creation of
at-home
educational
tool
"Soy Latino" art project to show what they were proud
of from their culture.

8. KATHERINE C. RODELA
28
A key moment during Week 14 occurred when the facilitators presented the mothers
with two images entitled: “un cholo” (a gangbanger) and “mi hijo” (my son). In response to
the cholo image, the mothers wrote words that came to mind. In response to mi hijo, they
wrote their aspirations for their children. As one might expect, there were stark differences.
Examples of comments about el cholo included: “drogadicto,” “pandillero,” “niño sin amor”
(drug addict, gang member, child without love). When reflecting on these words, the mothers
discussed how the boy did not have enough love or attention in his life. Josefina brought up
the notion of “stereotype” and how schools might view their children like that. Several
mothers were shocked that teachers might view their children as cholos. One mother shared,
“pero es la verdad, lo he visto cómo ven a mi hijo de trece años” (but it is the truth, I have
seen it in how they see my thirteen-year-old son)” (Field notes, 1/24/2012).Their negative
comments about el cholo contrasted greatly with the hope and love they described for their
children’s futures. Table 4 contains a sample of written responses written by the mothers on
sticky notes (I kept their original spelling in Spanish).
Table 4
Sample of Mothers’ Responses to Mi Hijo (My Son/Child)
Comment Translation
Educado (lo mejor para su vidad)
(amable). No importa lo que studíe solo
i cuando a ella le guste. que tenga
educasion
Educated (the best for her life) (kind). It
does not matter what she only studies
and when she wants, she has an
education.
Mi hijo, quiero un doctor, un futuro
mejor
My son, I want a doctor, a better future
Buen educados con una profesion.
Buenos hijos. Responsables.
Well educated with a profession. Good
children. Responsible.
Que tenga educacion, Tradicion Moral,
Que sea sociable-y que tenga amor a lo
q' hace y amor a sus padre
That she has an education. Moral
Tradition—that she is sociable and
loves what she does and love for her
parents
Profesional, Educado, Una buena
persona, Alguién con un mejor futuro.
Professional, Educated, A good person,
Someone with a better future
Para mi, que soy mamá de [unclear],
mi deseo es que sean mejore que
nosotros los padres y seguen acer
profesonales y bueno ijos
For me, I want to be [unclear], my wish
is for them to be better than us parents
and that they arrive at being
professionals and good children
una vida mejor, que estudien A better life, that they study
Qué sea amable, estudiosa,
responzable, luchadora, triumfadora
profesional y personal, Una licenciada
That they are kind, studious,
responsible, fighters, professional and
personal winners, a college graduate
The group dialogued about the power they had as parents to combat deficit views of their
children. The facing of deficit stereotypes within a safe space among other Latina immigrants
allowed the mothers to discuss the difficult journey of parenting children who might not

9. KATHERINE C. RODELA
29
understand their heritage or history, because they would be racialized as “Latinos” growing
up in a predominantly White area. These conversations formed the beginning of broader
critical understandings of the racial politics in schools.
Intentional Building of Confianza
Vamos al kinder created an environment of confianza (trust) among the participants
and staff, as well as confianza en uno mismo (confidence/trust in one’s self). In their study of
Latino parent advocacy groups, Jasis & Ordoñez-Jasis (2012) described how participants
“saw their education program as a unique, safe place for camaraderie and support, an
environment where the participants could speak freely, in confianza (trust/comfort) and
where to reconvene” (p. 79). Confianza loosely translates to “trust” in English, but reflects
deeper relationships of support. The building of confianza required time and sustained group
participation.
Sharing of nuestras historias (our stories). The clearest example of Vamos al
kinder’s trusting environment was the sharing that occurred in Weeks 28 and 29. In program
year 1, Josefina requested I facilitate a group. Near the end of the year, I agreed to develop a
session with her focused on life stories. We chose an art project with an image of a tree,
which would represent their growth. By Year 2, the parent team incorporated these
workshops into the official Vamos al kinder parent curriculum. Josefina and her staff
believed the mothers’ trees could be educational for their children and strengthen the
mothers’ self-esteem. Figure 1 shows Josefina’s tree from Year 1, with the roots reflecting
her past (her pueblo and family), the trunk showing values of justice, family, equality,
struggle, and respect, and the branches holding her goals.
Figure 1. Josefina’s tree (5/1/2012).

10. KATHERINE C. RODELA
30
She added arrows and shields to illustrate how she built up personal shields to protect her
beliefs against negativity. When Josefina shared her story, several women cried as she
recounted her immigration journey and the loss of her first husband. In Week 29, the mothers
completed their trees and a few shared. Many recounted in later interviews how moved they
were to hear individuals share their stories.
The intentional building of confianza required opportunities to engage in shared
experiences: funny dinámicas, literacy trainings, and skits about defiant teenagers among
others. It also necessitated mothers’ willingness to open their lives to each other (e.g. asking
for advice on discipline). By Weeks 28 and 29, when the mothers were given the opportunity
to provide their own testimonios (testimonials) about their lives and struggles, trust had been
built among them. The building of confianza among the group was tied to the building of
confianza en si mismo (confidence in oneself).
Creating of confidence and trust in oneself and one’s abilities was a critical step in
preparing the mothers to encounter U.S. schools as advocates for their children. The principal
strategy for helping the parents build their confidence in themselves remained the continued
message from popular education: the knowledge and experiences of all matter. Perhaps this
statement appears obvious to the reader: believing in oneself is a basic step in leadership
development. This message must be understood within the larger treatment of Latino
immigrant parents and other parents of color or from low-income backgrounds. Often
culturally and linguistically diverse families are “seen from the deficit perspective by
schools” and viewed “as unable or unwilling to support their children in school” because
“their home environments lack the needed educational and linguistic resources to ensure their
children’s success in U.S. schools” (Rodela, 2015, p. 91). By continually emphasizing the
strengths they had, workshop spaces provided a safe place for participant to strengthen their
voices. For Josefina and the parent team, the deepening of mothers’ confidence in their own
knowledge and power was political in and of itself.
Conclusion
Vamos al kinder represented a space of inquiry, discussion, and experimentation
where Latina immigrant mothers shared their stories and struggles, supporting each other’s
learning and advocacy. At the heart of their experiences were aspirations for a better future
for their children and equity for all Latino children. Through Freirian-inspired popular
education strategies, intentional building of confianza, and cross-cultural reflections and
critique, Vamos al kinder’s staff and participants demonstrate the potential role of
community-based parent education and leadership programs in promoting emergent social
justice leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions for diverse parents and communities.
Study Limitations and Implications
The study had several limitations, primarily due to the relatively small sample of
focal mothers (a total of 6 including one parent educator). Although over 100 mothers were
observed during the parent workshops, more mothers could have been interviewed in order to
find patterns in experiences across multiple workshop sites. Also, as mentioned in the

11. KATHERINE C. RODELA
31
discussion of research methods, my relationships to the research participants form both a
strength and limitation to the study: as a Latina myself, I interpret their lives through my own
sociocultural lens and critical perspective. At the same time, I was able to gain access to their
lives and learn from them as both a mother and researcher, deepening my analysis.
This article has implications for theory about and practice with Latina mothers and
families. This study contributes to how scholars, particularly those interested in family-
school partnerships, come to understand Latino families and the complex ways they negotiate
U.S. cultural spaces. From a practical perspective, this study sheds light on how community-
based parent education program can provide alternative, strengths-based spaces to bridge
cultural divides between family and schools.
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Author
Katherine C. Rodela, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Education Leadership at Washington
State University Vancouver. Her work examines culture, leadership, and equity in U.S.
schools, particularly focused on Latino communities and families.