Latina Girls Speak Out: Stereotypes, Gender and Relationship Dynamics

Abstract

This study explores how 19 “high-risk” Latina girls viewed themselves, as well as how “others” perceived them. The views of eight clinicians were also sought. The girls viewed themselves positively, but they believed “others” saw them as “lowlifes,” “cholas” and “always pregnant.” Clinicians framed Latinas’ “problematic” behaviors as products of the “Latino culture.” They neglected explanations involving histories of abuse, trauma, violence and poverty. The girls did speak about such matters, and these comments suggest that young Latinas have an impressive ability to resist the stereotypes while also challenging the simplistic dualisms that are often said to characterize Latino culture.

Full text

Original Article
Latina girls speak out: Stereotypes,
gender and relationship dynamics
Vera López
a
and Meda Chesney-Lind
b
a
Arizona State University, Tempe
b
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu
Abstract This study explores how 19 “high-risk”Latina girls viewed themselves, as
well as how “others”perceived them. The views of eightclinicianswerealsosought.
The girls viewed themselves positively, but they believed “others”saw them as “lowlifes,”
“cholas”and “always pregnant.”Clinicians framed Latinas’“problematic”behaviors as
products of the “Latino culture.”They neglected explanations involving histories of abuse,
trauma, violence and poverty. The girls did speak about such matters, and these comments
suggest that young Latinas have an impressive ability to resist the stereotypes while also
challenging the simplistic dualisms that are often said to characterize Latino culture.
Latino Studies (2014) 12, 527–549. doi:10.1057/lst.2014.54
Keywords: Latinas; stereotypes; critical race theory; gender scripts; teen pregnancy;
adolescent relationships
Latina Girls, Sexuality and Gendered Messages
Girls receive messages about what it meanstobeagirlfromavarietyofsources,
including families, peers, schools and the media (Orenstein, 1994; Brumberg, 1997;
Adler and Adler, 1998; Hesse-Biber, 2007). As they approach puberty, many girls
begin to develop an awareness of their ownsexuality(Pipher,1996;Lamb,2001).
Young women must often negotiate a complicated terrain replete with gendered
messages about how they should feel, think and act. These messagestypicallyfocus
on young women’ssexualitywithanemphasisonhowtheyshouldexpressthem-
selves and how they should act in relation toothers.Suchmessageshavehistorically
©2014MacmillanPublishersLtd.1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549
www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/

been consistent with traditional gender scripts, which dictate that women should
be sexually inexperienced, ignorant about their own bodies, heterosexual and
demurely attractive (Tolman, 2002). Although these gender scripts are changing in
the United States (Laumann and Gagnon, 1995), it is still the case that young women
who dare to challenge traditional gender scripts, by being explicitly sexual, run the
risk of being labeled as “bad”or worse, a “slut”(White, 2002).
Race, ethnicity, gender and class often inform the classification of girls as either
“good”or “bad.”While the good, innocent, virginal girl continues to be an
idealized image of womanhood associated with white females, it remains largely
unattainable for young women of color, who are often characterized as hypersex-
ual, manipulative, violent and sexually dangerous (Stephens and Phillips, 2003;
Garcia, 2009). The available gender scripts for girls of color, particularly Latinas
and African Americans, emphasize their innate “badness.”While girls who are
explicitly sexual are still demonized as “bad”girls and “sluts,”those who are in
monogamous relationships are also treated with suspicion (Stephens and Phillips,
2003). Such stereotypical images represent powerful forms of domination and
control because they shape how young women of color view themselves, how they
relate to others, and how others relate to them (Bettie, 2000; Chavez, 2004; Rolón-Dow,
2004; Garcia, 2009). They also serve to maintain a status quo of gendered rela-
tions that continues to marginalize and demonize young women of color.
The purpose of this study is to explore how one group of ethnic minority girls –
“high-risk”Latina girls –view themselves in relation to how they think others
perceive them. Although research suggests that Latino youth –irrespective of
gender and ethnicity –continue to experience discrimination, stereotyping
and stigmatization (Rios, 2011; National Council of La Raza, 2012), little work
has focused on Latina girls. Furthermore, almost no work has examined how
others view Latina girls. For that reason, this study also examined the ways in
which clinicians who work with “high-risk”Latina girls view them. High-risk for
this study was defined as having had vaginal intercourse in the past 6 months and
a history of self-reported drug use at least twice in the past 30 days –not including
alcohol or tobacco. We acknowledge that “high-risk”and “at-risk”are often
overused to refer to low-income children and/or children of color, and have been
criticized as classist and racist (see Swadener and Lubeck, 1995). While we do not
advocate the use of these terms, we use them in the current study because they are
regularly used within clinical and educational settings, including the one in which
these girls were placed.
Latina Stereotypes and Gender Roles
Prevailing beliefs about Latinos are grounded in the traditional gender scripts of
machismo and marianismo (Faulkner, 2003). Consistent with machismo, Latino
López and Chesney-Lind
528 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

men have historically been stereotyped as “hot blooded, passionate, and prone to
emotional outbursts”(Rivera, 1994, 240). These so-called “macho”men domi-
nate their wives, engage in extramarital sex and rule the household with an iron
fist. In contrast, “good”Latina women live their lives in accordance with
marianismo, which dictates that women should be virginal until marriage, engage
in sexual intercourse only for procreation, be subservient to their male partners
and highly value motherhood (Galanti, 2003). Latinas who fail to live up to this
“good girl”expectation are thought of as sexually promiscuous “whores”who
are often pregnant and unwed.
The gender role expectations of machismo and marianismo are problematic
social constructions, which result in the stereotyping of Latinos in the media, in
social science literature and in institutional settings. The danger is those working
with Latinos tend to treat them as if these notions are explanatory across all
groups, despite the fact that these gender role expectations are not unique to
Latinos. Moreover, they vary across ethnic groups, social classes, age cohorts,
time periods and acculturation levels (Rivera, 1994; Juarez and Kerl, 2003;
Fuller and Garcia Coll, 2010). For Latinos, the problem is compounded because
these representations are often presented in a negative light and used to explain
“social problems”such as teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections
and interpersonal violence from a cultural deficit perspective. Furthermore, when
the dominant group perceives that Latinos are unfairly accessing or competing
for limited resources, these stereotypes become even more negative (Berg, 2002).
The tendency to stereotype Latinas is prevalent in the media. When Latinas
are in movies, on the news or in music videos, they are usually presented as
either hypersexualized “hoochie mamas,”exotic bombshells, gang members,
domestic workers or teen mothers (Barrera, 2002; Beltran, 2002; Guzmán
and Valdivia, 2004; Medible, 2007; Hernández, 2009; Vargas, 2010).
Although we have seen more positive representations of Latinas in recent
years, most representations continue to categorize Latina women as the
“Other”by relegating them to flat, stereotypical images that emphasize
sameness and minimize agency and variety (Berg, 2002). These images can
take on an even more sinister tone when the dominant group perceives the
“Other”as a threat. For example, motherhood is usually thought of as a virtue
in mainstream US culture; however, this sentiment is not always extended to
many adult Latinas who are often accused of wanting children primarily to
obtain coveted goods such as access to social services, welfare and US citizen-
ship (Chavez, 2004). News stories about immigrant women and “anchor
babies”serve to further marginalize Latina women by presenting them as
conniving criminals who use trickery to obtain citizenship for their babies as
opposed to people who have migrated to the United States for a “complex set of
historical, political, and economic reasons, some of which involved US business
interests”(Berg, 2002, 22).
Latina stereotypes, gender, relationship dynamics
529©2014MacmillanPublishersLtd.1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

Stereotypes have real-world implications for Latinas because assumptions
about cultural/racial groups often serve as the linchpin for institutional racism.
This is especially true in youth settings such as schools and juvenile correctional
facilities when people who work with Latinas over rely on stereotypes to inform
their practice (Bettie, 2000; Bond-Maupin et al, 2002; Gaarder et al, 2004;
Rolón-Dow, 2004; Schaffner, 2008). The inherent problem in institutional
racism is that it can be largely invisible to youth workers (for example, clinical
staff, juvenile probation officers) who are often not fully aware of how certain
institutional practices unfairly impact racial and ethnic minorities. These same
people, despite their well-intentioned efforts, may also be guilty of unintentionally
discriminating against young people of color when they over rely on racial
and gender stereotypes to inform their decisions and practice (see Sue et al,
2007).
Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the Importance of Giving Voice
to Latinas
Unlike other studies that give voice only to youth workers who work with system-
involved Latinas (Bond-Maupin et al, 2002; Gaarder et al, 2004), our study
seeks to highlight the voices of the girls themselves in relation to those who
work with them. We use CRT as a framework. CRT takes into account racial
and ethnic minorities’multiple identities while addressing intersections between
classism, racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. A major premise of this
framework is that it acknowledges and validates the important role of people’s
shared experiences –as filtered through classism, racism and sexism –in
influencing how they view the world as well as how they see themselves in
relation to others around them (Bernal, 2002). Furthermore, CRT recognizes that
racial and ethnic minorities often experience subtle forms of racism or micro-
aggressions
1
in everyday life that frequently go unnoticed by others (Delgado
and Stefancic, 2012). In this article, we pay special attention to how Latina girls
interpreted messages from others as well as how cultural stereotypes and
assumptions about “Latino culture”influenced clinicians’perceptions of the
Latina girls in their care.
Although our intent is to give voice to an often voiceless, marginalized
group of young women, we go one step further by also including clinicians’
voices. In doing so, we are able to address a major critique of CRT, which
posits that the narratives often presented in CRT analyses are not “true,”
“objective,”“typical”or “accurate,”but rather motivated by an underlying
political agenda (Fernández, 2002). As we demonstrate in our analyses, the
clinicians’voices largely confirmed Latina girls’perceptions that others negatively
stereotype them.
1 Microagressions,
as defined by
Delgado and
Stefancic (2012,
167), are
“stunning little
encounters with
racism, usually
unnoticed by
members of the
majority race.”
Examples include:
When a member
of a minority
group is asked:
López and Chesney-Lind
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Finally, it should be emphasized that very little work exists on so-called
“high-risk”Latina girls. Thus, our study’sfindings should appeal to researchers
whose interests lie within the intersection of ethnic and gender studies. Further,
our study fills a void within the emerging field of girls’studies, which to
date, has been primarily concerned with the experiences of white, Western,
middle-class girls (Kearney, 2009). We hope that our study helps pave the way for
the development of a Latina girlhood studies subspecialty.
Conducting Research with “High-risk”Latinas and the
Clinicians Who Work with Them
We drew our sample from a charter school
2
for “high-risk”youth that was
located on the campus of a large, nonprofit mental health agency located in
a large urban area in the southwestern United States. We worked closely with the
school social worker to schedule a meeting with all Latina teens during school
hours. During this meeting, we explained that we wanted to get information
that could then be used to develop prevention programs for Latina girls. We
introduced the study inclusion criteria, which included being Latina, currently
sexually active, and having a history of drug use. Girls who met the criteria
and expressed interest were encouraged to turn in a teen assent form and take
a parental consent form (offered in both Spanish and English) for their parents’
review. Twenty-four of 31 girls handed in assent forms and asked for informed
consent forms. Nineteen ended up participating in the study. These girls ranged in
age from 14 to 18, and met the study inclusion criteria. Three were pregnant or
parenting.
Clinician recruitment involved working with the clinical supervisor at the
mental health agency who distributed recruitment flyers to the clinical staff.
One school social worker, three intake staff, and four licensed, masters-level
therapists participated in the study. All had worked at the agency for at least
6 months. Six were white, two Latina (Claudia –Puerto Rican; Eva –Mexican
American); all places and individual names used in this article are pseudonyms.
Focus groups were held on-site. The lead author (a Mexican American woman)
and two graduate students (one Belizean woman, one white woman) co-facilitated
each focus group. To accommodate the teens, we held the focus groups imme-
diately after school and provided snacks. For the staff, we held the focus group at
5:30 p.m. and served dinner. Participants received a $25 Target gift card as
compensation for participation. Each focus group lasted one and one half hours.
Focus groups represent a useful method for obtaining exploratory, interpre-
tative data about how members of a group make meaning of their experiences
(Wilkinson, 1999). Focus groups that capitalize on pre-existing groups are ideal
because they can tap into group members’already established relationships,
Where are you
from? Or when a
storeowner
follows a
customer of color
around a store.
2 Charter schools
are schools that
receive public
funding, but are
not subject to
some of the rules
and regulations
that apply to other
public schools.
About 40–45
percent of the 150
youth attending
the school were
Latino/a. The staff
was all female,
mostly white
(9 out of 12), and
worked both in
the school and
residential
treatment center
on campus.
Latina stereotypes, gender, relationship dynamics
531©2014MacmillanPublishersLtd.1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

which can increase their comfort levels and willingness to share in a research
setting (Kitzinger, 1994). They can also “shift the balance of power”from the
researcher to the participants, which makes it an ideal research strategy for
working with underrepresented and/or less empowered social groups (Wilkinson,
1999). We capitalized on these benefits by working with an already established
group of girls who appeared to be very comfortable sharing their experiences in
a group setting as evidenced by the degree to which they bantered, joked, chal-
lenged and validated one another’s experience. Nevertheless, we acknowledge
that some of the girls might have been hesitant to counter the dominant narrative
within the group.
As with all qualitative research, our identities, experiences and biases shaped
how we approached study participants and subject matter. Like many of the
young women in the study, Vera, the first author, grew up in a single-mother
household in a lower-income, working class urban area. Her mother –like the
mothers of many of the young women in this study –was a “teen mom”who did
not complete high school. She believes that her shared background and experi-
ences helped her build rapport with the girls. As an educated Latina psychologist
with clinical experience, she was familiar and empathetic with the clinicians’
professional concerns as well.
Meda grew up in a middle-class family, but it was one haunted by violence –
hence, her long-standing interest in girls who run away from home. She also
believes in conducting research with girls of color, and seeing girl studies
consciously expand to include the voices of girls of color who are labeled “at
risk”or “delinquent.”
Our original intent was to obtain data that would inform the development of a
culturally tailored and gender-specific HIV prevention program for drug-involved
Mexican-origin girls. Thus, we asked a number of questions related to participa-
tion and implementation barriers, acceptability, adaptability, and cultural/gender
values and processes. This article focuses primarily on those responses from the
subset of questions related to gender and ethnicity. For the teen girls, questions
included: How do you view yourself as Mexican or Mexican American
3
young
women? How do you think other people view Mexican-origin girls? How do you
think adults (for example, counselors) who work with Mexican-origin girls
view them? We followed up with other questions, such as “How does this make
you feel? Or what do you think about that?”We asked clinicians to discuss how
they perceived Mexican-origin girls they work with on a day-to-day basis, and
to specify if and how gender and ethnicity influence girls’sexual risk taking or
drug use.
The focus group discussions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim.
We used inductive and deductive techniques to perform a content analysis of the
transcripts (Bernard, 2000). We read through the transcripts, developed a list of
codes (for example, stereotypes) and sub-codes (for example, stereotypes-gender
roles) around certain themes (for example, sexuality, femininities, alternative
3 The original
intent of this study
was to focus on
Mexican-origin
girls. Despite
explaining to the
participants that
the study was on
Mexican-origin
youth,
participants
frequently used
the following
words “Mexican,
Mexican
López and Chesney-Lind
532 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

representations). Then we created an operational definition for each code.
We gave this list of codes, sub-codes and operational definitions to two graduate
student coders and asked them to independently code the transcripts. The
research team then met to discuss the coding results and to resolve coding
conflicts by majority vote.
We also drew upon a feminist narrative analytic approach. Consistent with this
approach, we reflected more systematically on the effect of the focus group
situation on the participants’constructions of themselves and their relations to
others. We questioned how issues of power asymmetries, context and local
meanings influenced both our findings and the researcher–participant relation-
ship (Fine and Gordon, 1991). We recognized, for example, that we were collec-
ting data at a particularly charged time in the city’s history. Coverage of SB 1070
protests, Mexican drug cartels and local immigration sweeps dominated the
nightly news. Thus, we are careful to acknowledge that this overall anti-
immigrant (and by extension, anti-Latino) sentiment might have influenced girls’
perceptions of how white people viewed them as well as clinicians’perceptions of
the young women in their care.
In the findings presented below, we refer to the focus groups with the girl
participants as focus groups 1 and 2. The focus group with the clinicians is
referred to as focus group 3.
Latina Girls and the Clinicians Who Work with Them: A
Juxtaposition of Voices
We asked girls to describe how they viewed themselves in terms of gender and
ethnicity. Thirteen described Latinas as “curvy,”“sexy,”and “brown and
beautiful.”Although these girls emphasized the sexual nature of their bodies, they
did not describe themselves in terms of sexual availability or passivity. Instead, they
focused on Latinas’fortitude, confidence and ethnic pride despite the negative
stereotypes of which they were all too aware. Fourteen (74 percent) girls empha-
sized that they were “strong, independent, and confident.”One girl eloquently
summed up this sentiment: “We’re strong. Latina women just don’t give up when
something is going wrong. We fight for what we want”(Martha, focus group 1
conducted by López, 2010). Similarly, others were adamant that Latinas “don’t
take shit from no one,”(Tonia, focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010) or as one
young woman put it: “If we don’t like something that somebody says, or we
disagree, we say something about it”(Sarah, focus group 1 conducted by López,
2010). These self-representations are in stark contrast to the ever-present image of
the passive, submissive Latina who cares more for others than her own self
(Galanti, 2003) and underscore the fact that not all Latinas conform or even value
the traditional gender script of marianismo. By presenting themselves with agency,
American,
Hispanic, and
Latino”
interchangeably.
Nevertheless, we
believe that they
were mostly
referring to
Mexican-origin
girls as Mexican-
origin people
make up the vast
majority of
Latinos in the
study location.
Still, we cannot be
certain. Thus,
when discussing
our findings, we
refer to Latinas as
opposed to
Mexican-origin
girls because the
participants most
often used this
term.
Latina stereotypes, gender, relationship dynamics
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these young women are resisting and subverting dominant representations of them
as passive, submissive Latinas. They are also taking pride in their bodies by using
terms such as “curvy”and “brown and beautiful”–descriptions that run counter
to the dominant thin, blonde and blue-eyed beauty ideal that continues to remain
prominent in US media (De Casanova, 2004). This sort of positive assessment of
their own bodies, so unlike the white anxiety about weight, is impressive. There is,
though, a bit of an edge here, as they are painfully aware that others stereotype
their group negatively –something they must be prepared to resist at virtually any
time.
Teen Motherhood: They See Us as the Worst of Everything,
Always Pregnant
Girls’views
Despite the bravado expressed above and consistent with the notion that the girls
are often on the receiving end of negative perceptions of their group, the
participants talked a lot about Latinas and teen pregnancy. They said that people
always think Latina teens either are or want to be teen mothers: “They see us as
the worst of everything …always pregnant”(Diane, focus group 2 conducted
by López, 2010). Fourteen (74 percent) girls were angry at being mislabeled as
teen mothers. Their narratives made it clear that the “others”were white people,
as evidenced by the following quote:
Yeah, like my mom had my baby sister, and I was holding her, and this
white lady is all like, “Oh, your kid is so cute,”and I’m like, “That’s my
sister!”And then it happened again …My tía (aunt) has some twins, and
Iwascarryingthem,andthiswhiteladycomesuptome,andshe’slike,“Oh,
how old are they? They are so cute. They look just like you.”And I’m like,
“They’re not even mine!”(Lydia, focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010)
These examples suggest that some girls interpreted such encounters as subtle
forms of racism rooted in stereotypical assumptions about Latina gender scripts
and sexuality. They deeply resented being mistaken as teen mothers and rejected
this gender script for themselves.
Despite the anger on the part of some girls at being labeled high-risk for teen
pregnancy, most acknowledged that many Latina girls do get pregnant as
teenagers. In a roundabout way, they attributed teen pregnancy among Latina
girls to an emphasis on motherhood in Latino families, particularly the nor-
malization of early motherhood. When asked how many of their mothers
had been “teen moms,”16 of the 19 (84 percent) girls raised their hands.
Several said teen motherhood was common intheirfamilies.Theystressedthat
López and Chesney-Lind
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“being a mom”was just something that comes “naturally”to Latinas, as
indicated by the following quote:
A lot of Latinas are well-rounded people with children, so when they have
a kid, it just comes naturally to them. They know what they’re gonna do
and everything. They’re not gonna feed a baby some alcohol or something.
They’re gonna know what to do, it just comes naturally.
(Sarah, focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010)
Although the girls acknowledged that many Latinas are naturally good
mothers, they adamantly denied wanting to be teen mothers. Notably, even the
pregnant and parenting girls also expressed regret about getting pregnant as
teens: “It sucks (being pregnant) because my whole life, I was always saying that
I was not gonna end up like that (pregnant as a teen), and I did”(Sandra, focus
group 2 conducted by López, 2010). Another young woman, who was already
a mother, noted: “I didn’t want to end up like them (mother and sisters) because
I saw how much they struggled, and I wanted my life to be different”(Olivia,
focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010).
As the above quotes illustrate, young women were conflicted when it came to
talking about teen motherhood among Latinas. While they vehemently denied
wanting to be teen mothers, they spoke of their mothers and sisters as being
“natural”mothers. In this way, they lent credence to the idea that Latinas place
a high value on motherhood, but acknowledged that being a teen mother was also
coupled with economic strife and struggles. On the other hand, the girls in the
study were less charitable when talking about other Latina women who have
multiple children. They viewed these women as “others”who have children pri-
marily to take advantage of government resources and benefits. Eight (42 percent)
girls were critical of older Latina women who had multiple children, as they felt
that supported what they clearly saw as a negative perception of their group.
They believed these women contributed to the “all Latinas want to get pregnant”
stereotype.
4
Soledad (focus group 2 conducted by López, 2010) summed up this
position well: “There’s even some (Latinas) that just reproduce and reproduce
that way they can get money by the government, which makes us all look bad.”
These attitudes toward “other”Latina mothers suggest that not only were the
girls conscious of gender scripts, they were also quite cognizant of how these scripts
were racialized to denigrate poor Latina women. However, while they attempted to
subvert and resist negative stereotypes at a personal level, they lambasted these
“other”women who they believed subscribed to these racialized, gendered scripts.
In doing so, they failed to question the validity of these stereotypes or see more
complex reasons for such behavior, like affordable access to medical care,
particularly contraceptive services. Thus, it appears that at least on some level, they
had internalized racialized and gendered depictions of Latinas, and accepted –at
least in part –some of the stereotypes of Latinas created by an oppressive majority
society (see Padilla, 2001 for more on internalized racism among Latinos).
4 Although beyond
the scope of this
article, research
exists that
challenges the
myth that women
of color get
pregnant
primarily to
accrue
government
benefits. For an
insightful piece
about this issue,
please see Sparks
(2003).
Latina stereotypes, gender, relationship dynamics
535©2014MacmillanPublishersLtd.1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

Clinician views
Clinicians’responses largely confirmed girls’suspicions about how others
perceive Latina teens: six largely attributed teen pregnancy to a “Latino culture”
that emphasizes the importance of motherhood. They also embraced the limited
dualisms of “good”/“bad”Latina girlhood. As one clinician noted: “You know,
pregnancies, they (Latinos) don’t see anything wrong with teen pregnancies. They
value it”(Claudia,
5
focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010). Jamie (focus group
3 conducted by López, 2010) continued with this line of reasoning:
One thing that I noticed with several of the teen moms that I worked
with, who were Hispanic, was that, some of the sexual risk taking behaviors
was almost like setting forth an identity when they did become pregnant
because motherhood is so embraced within the Hispanic community.
So, they actually became a very valuable member of the family as a mother,
I think.
Another clinician distinguished between teen mothers from immigrant
families versus those who were more “Americanized,”as indicated by the quote
below:
When I was working with Happy Families, I saw two categories of girls
that came my way. One category was the very good girls. Most of them
had illegal immigrant boyfriends. They got pregnant; they stay to be the
mother; and they do a great job at it …and usually the fathers have
to go back (to Mexico) or they were here (US) but struggling to find
work. And then there were the other girls …my other girls were more
Americanized …they would always have methamphetamine and substance
abuse problems, and most of them came from homes where it was being
used. So, I don’t think I ever had one that didn’t have family usage. So, it
was always one or the other.
(Ophelia, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
As these quotes illustrate, clinicians relied on information about girls’nation-
ality, ethnicity and gender to make conclusions about why Latina girls become
teen mothers. Girls from immigrant families were cast as relatively “good girls”
who became pregnant because teen motherhood is culturally accepted among
their more traditional families. Although the clinicians did not directly say it, their
responses seemed to reflect an underlying belief that immigrant girls were more
likely to be monogamous and want to get married and raise families.
In contrast, clinicians typically viewed more “Americanized”Latinas as “bad”
girls who came from “chaotic families”that contributed to what they clearly
saw as “irresponsible”sexual behaviors that resulted in teen pregnancy. While
they acknowledged the importance of family (familism) for Latinos in general,
they managed to use that construct in a way that used girls’attachment to chaotic
5 While Eva was
less talkative,
Claudia was
outspoken and
expressed a lot of
views consistent
with marianismo.
She seemed to
adopt an air of “I
can say this
because I’ma
Latina.”Our
sense is that her
willingness to
share these views
might have
encouraged the
other non-Latina
focus group
members to feel
safe enough to
express similar
views. It is
important to
emphasize that
Latinas by virtue
of their ethnicity
are not immune
when it comes to
buying into
stereotypes about
other Latinas.
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536 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

and dysfunctional families as the explanation for their “bad”behaviors. Not
surprisingly, mothers were primarily implicated in these narratives:
Ifind that a lot of the (girls’) moms are single themselves. They had many
boyfriends, and they’re looking for a man to take care of them. They have
their 13-, 12-year old daughter dating a 20-something year old man and
they’re fine with that. Those are the moms that I usually meet when I go to
court. (Claudia, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
We found that clinicians blamed the mothers of the more “Americanized”girls
for being “single”and attributed their desire to have boyfriends as a need for
a“man to take care of them.”In this sense, mothers like daughters are reduced
to promiscuous women who skip from boyfriend to boyfriend in search of
someone to financially support them. Perhaps without consciously realizing it,
these clinicians recycled the marianismo gender script even when talking about
the more “Americanized”Latina girls and their mothers. Instead of being cast
as sexually liberated women (a positive attribute from an American perspective),
they viewed both mothers’and daughters’relationships with multiple partners
as a ploy to garner financial support and care from male partners. Such a limited
perspective fails to take into account larger sociocultural factors and structural
determinants that often place already marginalized women at increased risk for
unexpected pregnancy while blaming both mothers and daughters for child-
bearing decisions (Afable-Munsuz and Brindis, 2006).
Traditional Gender Expectations and Relationships with
Boys/Men
Girls’views
Although the girls did not view themselves as subservient, they acknowledged
that some Latinas are submissive to their boyfriends. They were quick to point
out that they would just “move on”if they didn’t like the way they were being
treated by a boy, or as one girl noted, “If a boy blows me off, I’ll be like, okay, he
ain’t worth my time. Move on”(Lydia, focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010).
Other girls similarly said they would just: “Leave,”(Alexis, focus group 1 con-
ducted by López, 2010) “Bounce,”(Desiree, focus group 1 conducted by López,
2010) and “Drop them to the curb”(Simone, focus group 2 conducted by López,
2010).
When we asked girls about what they would do if they found out their
boyfriends were cheating, they all said they would leave their partners. There
was a strong sense of bravado as girls repeatedly stated they wouldn’t“care if
their boyfriends left.”Simone (focus group 2 conducted by López, 2010)
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noted: “Some people are afraid to be alone, but I’m not afraid to be alone.
In fact, I’d rather be alone than have someone cheat on me.”
When asked who they thought had more power in their relationships,
13 (68 percent) girls said they had more “power.”When asked to expand,
though, these girls tended to focus on sexuality: “I think in relationships it’s the
girl because if the guy is gonna want sex they’re gonna do whatever the girl tells
them to do so they can get what they want.”(Patricia, focus group 2 conducted
by López, 2010). Other girls emphasized the importance of making the guy think
he’s in control. Olivia (focus group 1 conducted by López, 2010) said “If you say,
‘shut up, no, you’re not getting any’then yeah, they’re gonna leave, but if you
lead them on …” Although at first glance, these responses appear to be consistent
with agency, a deeper interpretation suggests that these young women are aware
of their somewhat constrained situations. That is, despite the bravado, they know
that they are still operating within a larger patriarchal system that reduces their
value primarily to heterosexual availability within the confines of a monogamous
relationship (see also Asencio, 1999).
Consistent with dominance of good/bad femininity, the girls were also con-
cerned with being labeled a “slut”if their boyfriends learned about their previous
sexual relationships. This became clear when we asked how they felt about
including boyfriends in HIV prevention programs for girls. In general, they
thought this was a bad idea. Despite their earlier assertions that they had the
power in their relationships, they were quite concerned that boyfriends might
view them as “sluts”if they learned about their previous sexual behavior. Yet,
three girls acknowledged the importance of having boyfriends attend at least a
few program sessions. Nevertheless, even these girls emphasized that boyfriends
should attend sessions about “safe sex”techniques as opposed to sessions that
involve talking about past sexual relationships.
Clinician views
While the girls saw themselves as powerful in their relationships with boys,
the clinicians didn’t see it that way. Virtually all (7 or 88 percent) described the
Latina girls in their care as “passive,”“docile”and “subservient,”and once again
attributed these characteristics to the “Latino culture.”These conceptions of
Latinas were consistent with traditional gender expectations for Latina women
that stress submissiveness to male partners, as indicated by the following quote:
“Well, in relationship to them being Hispanic? I think Hispanic girls are sort of
raised around a mentality that they are to be followers, and to be docile, and
subservient, and literally just give in …go along with things.”(Claudia, focus
group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
The clinicians also believed that Latina girls tend to “accept”cheating
boyfriends, as indicated by one participant, who said: “My experience with a lot
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of the Hispanic girls I worked with is interesting because they’re more accepting
when their boyfriends have other girlfriends or wives. It’s not uncommon, it’s like
‘Oh, it’s okay if he has her; he always comes back to me; I’m the mother of his
children.’” (Alyssa, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010). Danielle (focus
group 3 conducted by López, 2010) expanded upon the idea that Latinas accept
cheating: “It’s very much accepted for your husband to cheat on you. It is very
much accepted for him to hit you. As long as he still provides you with a home
and whatever, you got nothing to complain about. It’s still accepted to this day.”
Although six (75 percent) clinicians agreed with this sentiment, Eva (focus group
3 conducted by López, 2010) was the only one who wanted to elaborate on the
meaning and complexity of the word “accept”:“I’m saying that they accept it
because they stay with the men, but they’re not okay with it. They’re hurt and
resentful underneath, but they’re accepting it because they’re still there.”
Clinicians once again made distinctions between girls from immigrant families
and more “Americanized”girls. By and large, they believed the former were more
“docile”and “submissive”as indicated by the following quote:
So, we’re pretty much a border town, you have these families that come over
here to give their kids a better education, but they still come with the same
mentality of finding a man to take care of you, but they don’t really push the
education, they don’t really push the independence because their culture is
“stick with us.”They don’t push the independence because that means you
leave us behind. (Jamie, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
Jamie’s observations underscore the tension that some Latino migrant parents
face. While they migrate to the United States for increased educational oppor-
tunities for their children, they also fear being unable to protect their children –
especially their daughters –from the dangers associated with American culture
and society (González-López, 2004). This does not necessarily mean, however,
that they do not value independence and education. As González-López (2003,
2004) found, both Mexican mothers and fathers are very invested in their
daughters’educational achievement and economic independence.
Clinicians also made direct comparisons between Latina girls and members
of other racial/ethnic groups. They believed that Latina girls, in general, were
more dependent on boys/men than most African American girls and some white
girls:
Well, the difference (is) that African American girls learn to manipulate to
get what they want …. And not just African American girls, but some white
girls do that, too, but the Hispanic girls, they hope they’re gonna meet a
guy, and they hope he’s going to give them what they want. “Well, maybe if
I’m good and I do what he says, he’s gonna provide for me, give me this,
that, or whatever.”African American girls and some white girls …they’ll
manipulate to get things that they want, but I don’tfind that as much with
the Hispanic girls. (Claudia, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
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Clinicians believed Latina girls are more passive and subservient than either
white or African American girls, and embraced stereotypical cultural expla-
nations for this belief. Some believed Latina girls from immigrant families are
even more likely to endorse traditional conceptions of femininities, a notion that
is consistent with emerging research on Latina teens and traditional values
(Raffaelli and Ontai, 2001; Deardorff et al, 2008). Although they presented all
Latina girls as passive and subservient, they stressed that this was truer of
“traditional”immigrant girls and women. Juarez and Kerl (2003) argue that this
tendency to blame traditional “Latino culture”for women’s sexual oppression is
rooted in an ethnocentric belief that Latina sexuality is somehow different than
white American women’s sexuality. By viewing Latino culture as being respon-
sible for Latinas being sexually repressed and oppressed (opinions the girls clearly
did not share), the clinicians once again, failed to note the significance of larger
sociocultural issues (for example, language barriers, limited economic opportu-
nities) that also play a large role in Latinas’“decisions”to stay with cheating or
even violent men (Rivera, 1994). Furthermore, their perceptions of the young
women in their care contrasted greatly with how girls viewed themselves in
relation to boys/men.
Alternative views: Thieves, lowlifes and cholas
6
Girls’views
7
Mass media images of Latinas are replete with negative stereotypes of the group,
and girls keenly understood this construction. Although the majority of teen and
clinician responses focused on teen pregnancy, traditional values and relation-
ships, both groups also presented alternative descriptions of Latinas, most of
which centered on criminality. Thirteen or 68 percent of girls said, for example,
that “other people”view them as “thieves, cholas, and lowlifes.”One girl said:
“They always look at us as if we’re all gangbangers, criminals, cholas. When we
go into stores, they keep an eye on us more”(Diane, focus group 2 conducted by
López, 2010). Patricia (focus group 2 conducted by López, 2010) agreed with
Diane: “Yeah, they think we’re a bad influence …like we’re going to rob them or
something.”
When interpreting girls’responses, it is important to emphasize that they
were in an alternative school setting and had histories of drug use. It is quite
possible that their experiences shaped their perceptions and interactions with
others. Although research on Latina teens in school settings has not focused
on criminality, several ethnographic studies of Latino teens suggest that they
often feel stigmatized and criminalized in school irrespective of their actual
level of criminal involvement (Rios, 2011). Our findings are a bit different in
that the girls did have histories of drug use and were in an alternative school
setting.
6 Chola is a term
that refers to a
low-income
Mexican
American girl
living in the
southwestern
United States who
is affiliated with a
youth gang.
7 Girls also shared
responses that
centered on class
(for example,
poor, dirty,
uncivilized),
language (for
example, cannot
speak English)
and immigration
status (for
example, all from
Mexico). We did
not share these
responses in the
main text because
we wanted to
focus only on
gendered
representations.
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Clinician views
While the girls could see the cost of these negative stereotypes, the clinicians
embraced them and saw the girls as “high-risk”and “susceptible to gang involve-
ment.”They attributed girls’risk status to “criminal families,”as illustrated
by the following quote: “A lot of the gang involvement, they don’t see it as
negative, it’s just the way the family operates, and it’s just the way they’re use to,
so they just go along with it”(Danielle, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010).
Although the clinicians did not explicitly mention the Latino value of familism,
they did emphasize the importance of families for young Latina girls; how-
ever, they implied this allegiance to families worked as a risk factor for girls
from families characterized by gang involvement, drug use and other criminal
behavior.
I know some of the girls who always tell me that they aren’t in a gang,
but they hang out with boys who are in a gang. They are really
loyal to these boys …and that goes back to what we hear about Latinos
and family relationships and values of relationships, collectivism …
Girls can transpose that onto this gang, or negative peer group …espe-
cially when a lot of the people in the gang are family members …
brothers, cousins, uncles …
(Ophelia, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
Several clinicians expanded upon the idea that girls’families support delin-
quent behaviors among Latina girls as indicated by the following quote:
Yes. One of the girls who was going home a few months ago, she goes,
“(Jamie) you don’t understand,”she goes, “it is so hard,”she goes, “I do
good here (residential treatment facility),”she goes, “but my whole family
uses drugs,”she goes, “and I’m suppose to go home and sit there and watch
my whole family do it and not do it as well?”
(Jamie, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
Two clinicians viewed Latina girls as falling victim to “homies and other family
members”who turned them on to prostitution. Again, Latina girls were
constructed as having been tricked or forced into sex work by nefarious family
members and friends.
The Latina girls say they’re not buying drugs with it (money they make
from sex work), but that they’re gonna give it back to their family. But, the
drugs end up coming into the picture because eventually you need some-
thing to make you feel okay just doing that. But it’s definitely more
organized. Like the young lady I had before, she didn’t consider it
prostituting. She was working at a brothel, and her mom and her boyfriend
owned it, and she was there.
(Ophelia, focus group 3 conducted by López, 2010)
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As these narratives demonstrate, clinicians viewed the Latinas in their care as
being high-risk for drug use, gang involvement and prostitution. Latino culture
often rose to the surface as a primary explanation for these problems. Essentially,
Latino families were blamed for causing girls’problems and even Latino
familism, which is generally seen as positive, was described as corrosive for girls
who grow up in troubled families. Such criminalized stereotypes on the part of the
clinicians is clearly understandable as images of Latinas as gang members, often
peering menacingly over the barrel of a gun, continue to be a staple of the media
coverage of the gang problem (Chesney-Lind and Jones, 2010). That said, such
stereotypical assumptions about their charges on the part of the clinicians runs
the very real risk of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy as they would certainly lead
to lowered expectations for the girls in their care (Kelly, 1993; Schaffner, 2008).
Relating Our Findings to the Study of Latina Stereotypes,
Gender and Relationship Dynamics
The current study examines how “high-risk”Latinas viewed themselves in rela-
tion to how “others”perceive them. We also wanted to determine how clinicians,
who work with Latina girls, viewed them. Using CRT as a framework to interpret
our findings, we found that girls frequently, but not always, resisted stereotypes
of traditional Latina gender scripts and sexuality when it came to talking about
themselves and their family members. However, they were less likely to question
the validity of these stereotypes for other Latina women. The clinicians, on the
other hand, generally relied on narrowly defined stereotypes about Latinas and
Latino culture to explain girls’problems. By giving voice to both Latina girls and
the clinicians who work with them, we were able to juxtapose their views. Our
use of CRT –with its emphasis on giving voice to marginalized people of color –
gave the girls in our study the opportunity to subvert “the dominant story or
reality that is socially constructed by whites”by presenting their own experiences,
perspectives and realities (Fernández, 2002, 48). We explore some of the tensions
between girls’and clinicians’views below.
Critiquing Dominant Notions of Latina Gender Scripts and
Sexuality
Recently, researchers have attempted to move beyond presenting all Latinos as a
monolithic group. One outcome of this movement has been the tendency to
categorize Latinos on the basis of acculturation, which is often associated with
generation status. A major problem with this practice is that “more acculturated”
has often been assumed to mean “better”with the basic premise being that
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Latinos who subscribe to white US mainstream values are somehow superior to
their more traditional counterparts.
8
With the exception of some scholarship on Latina sexuality (see Garcia and
Torres, 2009), evidence of such ethnocentric thinking continues to be prevalent
in the Latina sexuality literature. Juarez and Kerl (2003) found that Latina
sexuality is often dichotomized into two broad categories on the basis of
acculturation. They concluded that Latina women are usually represented as
either being sexually liberated, a trait that is highly valued among white American
women, or as sexually repressed and traditional. The clinicians in our study also
dichotomized Latina sexuality into two broad categories based on whether girls
were perceived as being more traditional or “Americanized.”However, they did
not view the more “Americanized”girls as comfortable with their own sexuality,
but instead viewed them as irresponsible and sexually promiscuous. Notions
of both ethnicity and age no doubt complicated clinicians’views. Having sex with
multiple partners is much less acceptable for younger women than older women
because adolescent sexuality –especially for girls of color –is often associated
with a moral panic around disease and teenage pregnancy (Cherrington and
Breheny, 2005; Garcia, 2009).
Although the clinicians’depictions of traditional Latina girls were more aligned
with the traditional Latina sexuality outlined by Juarez and Kerl, they did not
view this representation as “bad”or negative. Instead, they viewed the more
traditional girls as “good girls”who valued motherhood and monogamy. They
tended to view girls as victims of boys’advances and bound to a Latino culture
that values women’s passivity, sexual naïveté and subservience. Thus, these girls’
behaviors were constructed as outside of their control, which accorded them
some degree of sympathy.
The major problem with dominant representations of Latinas is that they
often rely on a simplistic notion of culture based primarily on a set of culturally
defined traits and values. Such conceptions fail to account for the rich diversity of
Latinas’lived experiences. Fortunately, more recent research takes such experi-
ences into account (see Garcia and Torres, 2009). This work emphasizes the
importance of using an intersectional lens when studying Latinas’lives. Doing so
forces us to adopt a more dynamic fluid view of culture that moves beyond
stereotypes based on an overly deterministic view of cultural values, attitudes and
beliefs, and instead focuses on how race, class, gender and sexuality intersect to
shape Latinas’identities and behaviors.
Youth Settings and Representations of Latinas
It is possible that the youth setting –a charter school for high-risk youth –
fostered a culture that structured how clinicians interacted with the young women
8 Early
acculturation and
assimilation
models were linear
and assumed that
change occurred
in only one
direction, toward
the dominant
culture. Newer
models account
for multi-
directional change
and the possibility
of people being
multicultural and
multilingual. See
López-Class et al
(2011) for a
review and
critique of
acculturation
models.
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in their care. Unfortunately, we did not employ observational methods nor did
we ask girls to provide specific examples of their on-campus interactions with
clinicians. Other studies of Latinas in youth settings indicate that staff members
often rely on stereotypes to inform their interactions, particularly regarding
sexualities. Gaarder et al (2004), for example, found that juvenile probation
officers often rely on a stereotypical “one-size-fits-all”representation of Latinas
that regards them as hypersexual girls whose primary ambition in life is to get
pregnant and stay home. School-based studies also suggest that Latinas are often
cast in the role of the hypersexual, “boy-crazy”girl who frequently ends up being
an unwed teen mother (Kelly, 1993; Garcia, 2009). These studies further reveal
that some teachers actually believe that the Latino culture encourages young
women to dress in overtly feminine and sexualized ways, which results in young
Latinas spending too much time on make-up, hair and appearance in an attempt
to attract boys (Bettie, 2000; Rolón-Dow, 2004). Taken together, these studies
suggest that certain views of Latinas, particularly those centered on their
sexuality, are prevalent across different types of youth settings.
Alternative views of Latinas as lowlifes, cholas and gangbangers, however,
may be setting-specific. The girls in our study were labeled as “high-risk”by the
very fact that they were in an alternative school setting. This no doubt influ-
enced how the girls thought others viewed them as well as how the clinicians in
that particular setting viewed them. Indeed, our results are consistent with our
previous work within the juvenile justice arena, which suggests that juvenile
justice staff not only view Latinas as hypersexual “hoochie mamas,”but also as
hardened, streetwise girls who are often involved in gangs, silently defiant, and
resistant to authority and treatment (Pasko and López, forthcoming).
Implications for Clinical Practice
Clinicians tended to rely on a number of gendered and racialized stereotypes to
explain why young Latina women used drugs and were in need of services.
Notably absent from their descriptions were explanations rooted in girls’histories
of trauma, victimization and abuse –all of which have been found to be strongly
associated with girls’drug use, delinquency and sexual risk taking (Chesney-Lind
and Shelden, 2004). Instead, they pathologized the “Latino culture”and said
things like “Hispanic girls are sort of raised around a mentality that they are to be
followers, and to be docile, and subservient, and literally just give in …go along
with things,”“they’re more accepting when their boyfriends have other girl-
friends or wives,”and “some of the sexual risk taking behaviors was almost like
setting forth an identity when they did become pregnant because motherhood is
so embraced within the Hispanic community.”Sue et al (2007) refer to this
tendency to pathologize cultural values as racial microaggressions, arguing that
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reliance on racialized stereotypes can inadvertently compromise the quality of the
client–therapist relationship and contribute to clients of color discontinuing
therapy (Sue et al, 1991). Even more disturbing, a series of studies indicate that
“microaggressions are detrimental to persons of color impairing performance in
a multitude of settings”(see Sue et al, 2007, 273, for review). White clinicians
typically receive little training to address race beyond a superficial understanding
of “cultural values”(Knox et al, 2003). Regrettably, such training should also be
extended to therapists of color. The use of CRT-informed pedagogical techniques
that challenge clinicians to critically reflect upon their own assumptions about
race is needed. An anticipated outcome of such training would be that clinicians
working directly with troubled Latina girls would stop relying on cultural deficit
explanations for clients’problems in favor of a more empathetic and critical
approach to care (González and Ayala-Alcantar, 2008). Girls of color who use
drugs and become system-involved often experience the same types of problems
(for example, abuse, victimization, trauma) as other girls, and their experiences
should not be invalidated or reduced to simplistic cultural deficit explanations
rooted in outdated and overly deterministic views of culture.
Clinicians’perceptions of both the “Americanized”and “traditional”Latinas
were largely based on stereotypical representations that couched girls’sexuality
as a product of the larger “Latino culture”without considering other individual,
family and structural factors that shape all girls’–not just Latinas’–sexualities
(Juarez and Kerl, 2003). CRT is a vital tool to challenge ethnocentric thinking,
which “assumes that cultural traits are inherent to members of a particular group,
instead of envisioning culture as a system that is socially constructed”(Viruell-
Fuentes, 2007, 1525). Such thinking often reduces Latinos to stereotypical
caricatures, which can impede service delivery. We advocate for a more fluid,
dynamic view of culture that takes into account the complexities of peoples’lived
experiences and shared histories (Hernández and Anzaldúa, 1995). A system of
care based on CRT principles and a dynamic view of culture can be transforma-
tive and empowering not only for Latina teens, but also for the well-intentioned
adults who work with them.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the following students for their assistance: Mayra Diaz,
Aubrey Smith and Tiffany Williams. We also wholeheartedly thank the
young women and clinicians who participated in the study. Finally, we thank
H.L.T. Quan, members of the Roundtable on Latina Feminism, Lourdes Torres
and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts. This
research was supported by an ASU Subcontract from Columbia University,
National Institute of Mental Health, R25 MH080665.
Latina stereotypes, gender, relationship dynamics
545©2014MacmillanPublishersLtd.1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 12, 4, 527–549

About the Authors
Vera López is Associate Professor in Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State
University. Her recent research focuses on system-involved girls’relationships
with romantic/sexual partners and parents. Her work has been featured in a
number of well-regarded journals including the Journal of Family Issues, Journal
of Adolescence, Violence against Women, Journal of Youth and Adolescence,
Feminist Criminology, Family Relations, Journal of Drug Issues, and Criminal
Justice & Behavior. She also recently completed an edited volume called Girls’
Sexualities and the Media (2013) published by the Peter Lang Youth Mediated
Series.
Meda Chesney-Lind, is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of
Hawai’i at Mānoa. Nationally recognized for her work on women and crime,
her books include Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice (Wadsworth, 1992),
The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime (Sage, 1997), Female Gangs in
America (Lakeview Press, 1999), Invisible Punishment (New Press, 2002), Girls,
Women and Crime (Sage, 2004), and Beyond Bad Girls: Gender Violence
and Hype (Routledge, 2008). She has two edited collections; one on trends in
girls’violence, entitled Fighting for Girls: Critical Perspectives on Gender and
Violence (2010) that was published by SUNY Press and the other a collection of
international essays entitled Feminist Theories of Crime (2011) published by
Ashgate.
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