Abstract

A growing number of school district and community organizations are seeking to address a ‘crisis’ of Latino male education through the creation of Latino male mentorship programs. Indicative of neoliberal shifts in urban education, these programs often involve public-private partnerships and bring problem-solving, deficit-approaches to youth work. This article examines the construction of Latino male identity in one Latino male mentorship program. Drawing from two years of ethnographic research, I analyze the ways the perceived cultural deficits of Latino boys in the program are dictated by a neoliberal multicultural imaginary. This framing positioned the program as combating popular racial and heteropatriarchal deficits assigned to Latino boys. Furthermore, ethnographic data illustrate the ways the neoliberal values of meritocratic individualism, smart consumerism/market-orientation, and benevolent hetero-patriarchy were embodied and practiced. I close by highlighting moments of resistance and refusal enacted by one mentor to challenge deficit-framings of Latino male mentoring.

摘要

越来越多的学区和社区组织正在寻求通过创建拉丁裔男性辅导计划来解决拉丁裔男性教育的“危机”。作为城市教育新自由主义转变的标志，这些项目通常涉及公私合作伙伴关系，并为青年工作带来解决问题和赤字的方法。本文考察了一个拉丁裔男性导师计划中拉丁裔男性身份的构建。通过两年的民族志研究，我分析了项目中拉丁裔男孩感知到的文化缺陷是如何由新自由主义的多元文化想象决定的。这种框架将该计划定位为与分配给拉丁裔男孩的流行种族和异父权缺陷作斗争。此外，民族志数据说明了精英个人主义的新自由主义价值观的方式，明智的消费主义/市场导向和仁慈的异父权制得到体现和实践。最后，我强调了一位导师为挑战拉丁裔男性指导的赤字框架而做出的抵制和拒绝的时刻。