I began this project with my IRB application already approved from the Fall semester, when I'd hoped to start this research. One big obstacle in the process was that I spent the Spring semester studying abroad in Havana, Cuba, where public internet access is costly and finnicky because it's only been around for 3 or 4 years. That meant I had to complete much of the application for the Summer Scholars program in the winter before leaving, and that I was not able to prepare much after returning from Cuba before officially starting my project. This being the case, part of my first weeks were trying to put together the syllabus by finding relevant readings, as well as creating recruitment material and connecting with Ithaca locals willing to help me. 

During this stage, I connected with Carolina Osorio Gil, a community leader with a strong presence in the Latin@ community in Ithaca. She advised me on readings, methods, and connected me with one of the moms I then went on to speak with. Dr. Nia also connected me with the other two moms I spoke with, and even though I sent out the flyer to many networks I never received inquiries back. Because it took so long to connect with moms, most of this project was reading. If I were to do it over again, I would've sought to connect with the moms first and then work on creating a syllabus simultaneously, since communication with busy people tends to move slowly. 

When I finally sat down to begin the interviews, my first mom was Ms. Ramos*. Although my initial goal had been to have her provide feedback on the questions rather than answering them (that part would come later), she dove right into answering them and I chose not to interrupt her. Her answers did end up providing feedback in there own way, including that I needed to have some kind of record of demographic info for each mother, something that my mom pointed out when I called her to talk about the project. She helped me formulate questions that didn't feel like an interrogation from a government agency and were open-ended so the moms could tell their stories the way they chose. My next meeting was with another mom who I unfortunately lost contact with, which was simply a "get to know you meeting". She welcomed me into her home where I met her kids, and we spent a few hours chatting. After that I had a hard time connecting back with her to do a demographic interview, but I hope to reconnect with her in the future. The last mom I met was Ms. Marambulo*, who completed the demographic questions interview in two meetings, about an hour and a half to two hours each. Following my second meeting with Ms. Marambulo, I was then able to meet with Ms. Ramos again to do the demographic questions. She had been in the stressful process of trying to find a place to live that was close to downtown with the limited budget of a Section 8 voucher. During this time I'd offered to help her however I could, which ended up being watching her kids for a few hours while she and a friend began to clear stuff out of the old apartment and move it into storage. That evening, we sat down for three or four hours to complete the demographic interview. 

Although I'd certainly hoped to accomplish more when starting this project, that goal didn't account for a number for realities. One, that communicating to coordinate a time can be difficult. And two, that other stressors in the mothers' lives (like trying to find housing) would inevitably be a priority. Being that I wanted to get rid of the top-down approach of traditional research, the lines of where I did entire were at times blurred--like in how I would be able to help S out of potentially being homeless, given that my project had the intention of helping mothers and was asking them to share a valuable resource (their time) with me. I was initially feeling that I really had not accomplished much, but after putting together all the materials on this E-Portfolio (the reading syllabus, both sets of guiding questions, personal reflections, interviews, etc.) I realize how much I have been able to accomplish in this short amount of time, partly thanks to the immersive nature of it.   

 *Name has been changed to preserve confidentiality

This experience was definitely different from doing a research project during the school year. While the school semester is longer so there's more time, I found that having the immersive capability of only being focused on this project was incredibly helpful. One big difference was that during the school year, I find myself needing to rush through readings because I don't have enough time, but this summer I was able to read materials closely and carefully in a way that allowed me to fully grasp the content of what the author was saying. 

Additionally, having this time allowed me to alter and edit my process as I saw fit, instead of strictly following a plan because of a time constraint. I had the built-in flexibilty to do things like change my questions, which ended up being very useful. As Ive mentioned earlier, I did miss having the classroom setting as a place to bounce ideas off of other students, but that is still something that I'll be able to do this upcoming semester using what I already have. 

Continually through my college experienced, these intense learning periods have taught me how much more there is to know. While it seems daunting at times, it has left me in a place of feeling energized and encouraged to pursue this as both a passion and a career. 

Because my project was so close to my identity as the daughter of a single latina mom, critical reflection was a central part of it. Dr. Nia encouraged me to start a journal to write down whatever came up for me, and to make writing in it a habit. Given the lack of a classroom and larger conversational setting, this practice was very helpful in allowing me to work through ideas and synthesize what I'd learned. The major things that came up for me were identity, whether and how I was qualified to do this work, and what I would leave behind. Below I've written some excerpts from my journal.

Although it is not my goal to alter what I've heard from the mothers, personal reflection was so important partly because it allowed me to understand my positionality in conducting this project and thinking about the impacts accordingly. As evidenced in one excerpt below, "Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios" became central to my method. It encouraged in me a sense of accountability to not stray from the human, emotional and intuitive parts of my project and future work simply because they're not traditionally seen, heard or valued. I've come to believe that this is the part that will continue to give me momentum as my career has its challenges. 

5/30/17
Beginning this project I'm coming in with a lot of thoughts about my Latinidad. Being in Cuba I felt a lot more accepted in that indentity, partly because I looked like other Latinos and partly because the entire country was Latino so there were multiple ways to authentically (whatever that means) Cuban. Being white/light-skinned gave you an advantage, but it didn't mean you were any less Latino. Being back here I'm faced with the current "woke" trend of people calling out/attacking white/light Latinos. I understand where it comes from (sometimes people use that proximity to whiteness to deny Latinidad and step on Black people), but it still feels unproductive to me for a number of reasons. For one light/white Latinos are a minority of the Latinx populations. We also don't hold as much power as people seem to think we do--whatever power we hold is as "white" people and doesn't allow us to be fully/complexly Latino along the way...

6/6/17
I'm having a hard time getting started with this project. So far I've put together a list of sources I want to read and I'm actually excited to do that. I'm scared that I'll do this and have nothing of worth to produce or give out... Other questions that inevitably come up is who am I to do this project. Am I Latina enough? Do I have to be? What does Latina enough mean or look like?

6/12/17
After meeting with Carolina, I'm drawn back out to what I'd like my larger goal to be here--community empowerment. As I hope this project shows, I think partly that can be achieved when individuals find themselves to be more empowered. That word is still strange to me, and I'm hesitant to use it (as Carolina also is) but I think for the time being it captures what I'm trying to express; the ability to act with agency, self-assuredess, the right to one's own body and the right to bring others into a safe and healthy community. It's deceivingly simple, sitting with her I found myself drawn to the ideal end point, which I imagined being a community meeting space for Latinos that would specifically serve mothers, but also be a place to love, to grieve, to dance, to eat, to be human, where all the specificities (difficult, (in)convenient, fun or otherwise) can co-exist, be acknowledged and accepted. I wonder what a place like that would look like, and if its a project I see in my future. I certainly wish I had a place like this growing up, because it would've helped affirm my latina identity in such a predominantly white area, and also provided the support I believe my mom is still missing to this day--community. 

6/20/17
Today was the Summer Scholars Knowledge Nosh, where we were encouraged to think reflectively about the process of our projects. Being there I immediately noticed that I'm one of only two (visibly indentifiable) people of color in the program. I read somewhere that women procrastinate because of the fear of rejection or inadequacy, so I have that tied in with the pressure that I'm the only person of color doing a social justice project thats already non-normative by academic standards... To me that feels like there's a lot fo pressure to do well, because I might've displaced [another researcher of color] and my work will likely (intentionally or not) be used to judge future social justice projects by people of color. But how much could me doing well in this be shown by material outcomes?
Last night I began to look for Latina feminist books, and I was dismayed to not find [many] devoted to theory or thought. There's a plethora of Black Feminist Through that is easily found, so why doesn't the same exist for Latinas? Where's the critical framework for our stories? What I did find was "Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios", which [my mom] said was written by [her sister-friend] my aunt Cari. It made me think our pedagogy might not be just what  we tell, but how we tell (and teach) it. Testimonios offer the chance to hear stories in a way that are intuitive and therefore normally excluded from research or not valued as hard data. This is how and where I think I come in as a researcher: to engage my story with what I read and what I hear from other women. That's why it's so important; it located me in the research oth as a researcher and a subject. I have a tremendous resource in my mom, both as a single Latina mom and a Latin@ Studies feminist and academic. 

6/29/17
[On reading "Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios"] I see myself in these narratives in ways I didn't think existed. I see affirmation and a nook to ground myself in. This is why telling your own truths is so important, without having another person's voice mediate or edit it. 

7/20/17
Although I know it's an old trope and problematic to get sucked into an admiration of poverty and lack of resources, it amazes me how in touch with humanity the women I've talked to are. There is a far stronger sense of resilience and community wellbeing amount them and their networks than with anybody I know with more money, white, black or otherwise (latinos I don't know because I actually can't think of any well off latinos off the top of my head). The word generosity doesn't even seem to do that justice because it's so deeply known that this is the norm rather than an extra. Maybe this is how women in these positions survive. They resist not for the image of it but out of necessity and in ways that meet their needs. I wonder if they're conscious of how revolutionary it is to form communities that inves in eachother's wellbeing--it goes counter to everything capitalist, elitist, exclusive and frankly white that we've been taught.  

Dr. Nia was a hugely influential and irreplacable part of this work. Her energy and vibrancy allowed me to push through the difficult parts and kept creativity moving through out the project, including designing questions and thinking about the legacy of this project. My relationship with Dr. Nia was unique in that I felt I was always able to share my personal life with her, and connect both of our personal experiences with the project, rather than trying to situate the project in a vaccuum free from our personal influences. For the parts that Dr. Nia could not speak on, like Latinidad, I recruited other informal mentors, including my mother, Ginetta Candelario and community leader, Carolina Osorio Gil, who were both essential parts of this project. 

For future scholars engaged in social jusice projects I will note that your fellow scholars who are not doing social justice projects will be a good resource for making the project more accessible and understandable to people of multiple knowledge levels, but at times I found myself feeling out of the loop because I had to look to other resources for advance critique. While this can be more challenging, it is also a good exercise in finding multiple reliable resources to provide input, something that I've now come to see as crucial to research. Additionally, I found it helpful to have an outline of the project and potential partners/resources before even beginning. My IRB proposal had been approved in the Fall, making the project that much easier to pursue since IRBs tend to take a long time. Lastly, I was very glad that Dr. Nia and I were on the same page about being able to pursue this project in an intuitive way: when something sparked my interest or came up unexpectedly, I had the flexibility to pursue it rather than ignore it because of a rigid plan. This allowed me to pursue the research based off of what I heard from the mothers rather than what I deemed important or had presumptions about. In all, this is a passion project--so make sure you can pursue it as such. 

The Summer Scholars program and the support that came with it served as an excellent catalyst to a project I will undoubtedly continue in the future. As someone who seeks to work with children and families, specifically those in the Latin@ community, this project confirmed my passion and also indicated to me what's missing; what resources I wished I'd had and what I need to learn more about.

To begin with, I was frustrated by the lack of curriculum around parenting, specifically mothering mostly alone, in a way that humanized mothers and provided a structural analysis that accounted for politics, policies and their impact on identities. Secondly, I initially struggled with finding a feminist framework that came specifically from Caribbean latinas rather than just Black women or Chicanas, who have already produced incredible and influential works, but that may not encompass the specifities of the communities I was looking for. This reinforced my initial understandings that Latinas, specifically mothers parenting alone, are largely excluded from academic thought and writings, especially in ways that do not view them from top-down approaches that often pathologize their situations or behaviors. 

This being the case, and in accordance with my original goal, there are two things that I hope to grow as I continue my work with this project. One, I hope to leave a course of study for students that fills in the academic gaps I experienced: where were Latinas in academia? Where was our feminist theorizing? What did motherhood look like in combination with feminist theorizing and a general social justice framework? While the syllabus I designed for myself certainly helped to answer these questions, I yearned for the classroom setting where I could work through my questions with other students and have the professional knowledge of a professor. 

Second, I hope to leave a social support system for the mothers who participated (and eventually other single Latina mothers) so as to give them a lasting benefit that goes beyond a monetary gift. In keeping with the resource I have as a college student, I imagine this might be a kind of network that also connects the mothers and their kids with other Latin@s on Ithaca campus, perhaps in a mentoring setting, a childcare setting, or just for fun.