“Mamá en inglés se dice ‘pre-med’”: bilingual Mexican-origin first-generation college undergraduates aspiring for medical careers

ABSTRACT

Drawing on thirty pláticas with fifteen Mexican-origin premedical students enrolled at a large research university along the U.S./Mexico border region, we examine the strategies these young women use to persist in a heavily white and Asian dominant field where they are severely underrepresented. Our analysis underscores three main themes: 1) Language brokering; 2) Lack of Latina faculty representation limits social capital and; 3) Reliance on peers and Latinx centered organizations. We find that premedical Latinas, most of whom are of Mexican heritage in California, harness the bilingual language capital they accumulated in their childhoods as a valuable asset to gain access to opportunities in medicine, but have difficulty developing the necessary social capital networks in institutions of higher education with faculty. As a result, they turn to peer networks and Latinx ethnic organizations that serve as a bulwark from institutionalized discrimination and a means of developing the necessary social capital to persist.

KEYWORDS:

• Premedical latinas
• persistence
• pláticas methodology
• social capital
• bilingual

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We are attentive to the heterogeneity of the Latina experience and are aware that it subsumes diverse experiences under one panethnic label (see Zinn and Zambrana 2019). The majority of the respondents in our sample self-identified as of Mexican origin or Mexican/Central American. We do not equate Latina with Mexican (see Lugo-Lugo 2008), however, we use the term to encompass the experiences of one respondent that self-identified as both Mexican and Central American.

2. In 2019, the percentage of women pursuing medicine increased to 50.9%–edging slightly past men applicants who comprised 49% (Association of American Medical Colleges 2022).

3. The term Latinx is used to be inclusive of the various ethnic identities, Mexican, Mexican-American, South American, Central American, and Caribbean. Also, the term is used to counter the gender binary of Latino and Latina.

4. The institution and all research participants have been given pseudonyms to ensure confidentiality.

5. Postbaccalaureate programs are designed to support transition to graduate and medical school through academic enhancement after completion of an undergraduate degree.