Chicana/Latina Undergraduates as Atrevesadas y Testimoniadoras in the Transition to College

Through testimonio methodology (Pérez Huber, 2009) rooted in Chicana feminist epistemologies and situated within Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit) (Delgado Bernal, Pérez Huber, Malagón, 2019) this three-article dissertation reframes the college transition experiences of Chicana/Latina undergraduates at a Research 1 (R1) public university by taking a race, gender, class, immigration, and intersectional centered understanding of the Chicana/Latina college transition. 15 second-year Chicana/Latina undergraduate testimonios at this Emerging Hispanic Serving Institution (eHSI) were explored through Chicana/Latina /o critical race theory (LatCrit) and Chicana feminist methodologies and frameworks. This dissertation centers the Chicana/Latina undergraduate transition testimonios to uncover the systems and structures of marginality Chicana/Latina undergraduates navigate as they experience the transition to college through their embodied identities. The central data collection method in this dissertation are pláticas, a Chicana feminist method that is rooted in Chicana/Latina ways of knowing and everyday talk within Latinx communities (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016). Testimonios are crafted in this dissertation through the braiding of a series of individual pláticas, a set of group pláticas, journaling, and visual representations of the transition. The testimonios will contribute to capturing the complexity and intricacies in the Chicana/Latina transition experience, through a race and gender centered exploration of the Chicana/Latina R1 college transition situated within the systems of marginality that underlie the lives of Chicanas/Latinas in the United States. Therefore, this dissertation contributes to one of the first explorations of a mujer centered theorization of the transition to college that draws from the braiding of LatCrit and Chicana feminist epistemologies and frameworks to theorize about college processes