Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo, a distinguished alumna of the University of South Florida (USF) and a former graduate teaching and research assistant, made the return to her academic roots to launch her latest literary work.
Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo, PhD. (Photo courtesy of Shawn Kornegay)
The College of Arts and Sciences Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean (ISLAC), the College of Education’s Diversity Committee, the Department of Anthropology, and the Applied Anthropology Graduate Student Association hosted the book launch discussion.
“The Latinization of Indigenous Students: Erasing Identity and Restricting Opportunity at School,” delves into the practices of how schools in Central Florida process demographic information of Indigenous students, often leading to the erasure of their Indigenous identity.
Campbell-Montalvo is a trained cultural anthropologist and currently works at the University of Connecticut as a visiting assistant research professor.
She spent her youth growing up in Brooksville, Fla. One year following her high school graduation, during which she completed her first year of undergraduate studies as a dual-enrollment student, she obtained an associate of arts degree from Pasco-Hernando State College. She then became a USF Bull, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and PhD in applied anthropology.
Institutionalized system practices impacting Indigenous recognition
In her book, “The Latinization of Indigenous Students: Erasing Identity and Restricting Opportunity at School”, Campbell-Montalvo shares how institutionalized systems, such as public-school systems, often inaccurately report the demographic data of Indigenous students. As a result of this inaccuracy, many Indigenous students and families in the United States are not appropriately recognized by schools which can put their access to school resources at risk.
“The overall argument of the book focuses on schools, who represent not only the state but the whole country. Schools are what sociologists and anthropologists call socializing agents. Most commonly, people go through the public-school system. It's where a lot of our cultural values as a nation are passed down through formal education. It's also one of the first main structures of our society with which people interact,” Campbell-Montalvo explained. “The book emphasizes that it's very important how schools understand the students they serve, because it impacts how they serve them. It highlights the misrepresentation of students with Indigenous backgrounds, by emphasizing Latinization—wherein people’s Indigenous identities are erased to put forth a solely Latino - and/or Spanish-speaking identity.”
“Due to political interests of Spain during colonization, Indigenous identities were erased to maintain power. While Indigenous students identify themselves as such, school policies on language and ethnicity reporting result in widespread erasure, with a staggering undercount of Indigenous students and their parent's Indigenous languages,” Campbell-Montalvo said.
Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo speaks to the crowd of attendees at USF book event. (Photo courtesy of Oxana Sidorova)
To address this intricate subject, Campbell-Montalvo used a variety of different research methods. She was able to visit the archives at the University of Florida, where she crafted a multi-view historiography, which presents a clearer picture of how different groups were represented over history. In addition to her archival work, she conducted multiple surveys, interviews, observations, and focus groups.
By conducting this thorough research and fieldwork, Campbell-Montalvo was able to create a comprehensive portrayal of how historical erasure of Indigeneity was represented in the past, how the effects are still seen today, and offer suggestions about what we can do to improve this in the future.
“The ultimate goal was trying to figure out in what ways schools are an extension of the state, and therefore the nation, and how social inequality is reproduced. There's this idea, on one hand, that we're in a post-racial society—that past inequality doesn’t really matter in the present day. Of course, anthropologists, historians, and many others conduct research which brings forward how historical inequality is passed down. I was initially looking into this topic because I was interested knowing about how the nation-state reproduces inequality, and maybe that could inform on how the state can support equality. This bigger question appeared as I sought to identify the state/nation and other parties’ roles: How is it that we're all engaging and/or contributing to a system wherein inequality is reproduced?” Campbell-Montalvo shared.
When asked about why these findings of Latinization might be the case for student demographic reporting, Campbell-Montalvo explained that this is a multi-layered issue.
According to Campbell-Montalvo, our perceptions about identification are shaped by a variety of factors such as society, culture, and institutions. For example, the United States census tries to record the identity of individuals in a way that is countable. With divisions between heritage and identity being so complex, there are too many variations that cannot be easily quantified. For this reason, many formal questionnaires such as the census have narrowed down the list of races and ethnicities to something that is recordable. This type of documentation often forces people of particular backgrounds, in this case Indigenous backgrounds, to choose an answer that doesn’t wholly reflect who they are, erasing their identity during this record creation process.
With the release of her book, Campbell-Montalvo aims to make a meaningful contribution not only to her field but to the Indigenous community.
“I think we need to pay attention to the role of others in shaping the possibilities for how one is understood and might be able to express themselves. In doing so, my contribution is advancing theory through what I call Identity Re-formation. A key example from my data was when parents went to school and were registering their child, by law that school has to ask what language they speak. They claimed an Indigenous language, and the school registered them under the Spanish language. In that way, we saw that these people's languages were re-formed, changed, or erased into something that fit the frameworks with which the registrar was operating. Other data showed that additional influences on how the school reported, were based on what the school thinks this information will be used for or what they think the state might want to know. So, we have this Linguistic Re-formation and then we have Racial Re-formation. That is the Identity Re-formation process, and it's codified into our laws, how we run society, and how we understand people,” Campbell-Montalvo explained.
Coming full circle where it all began
Campbell-Montalvo recalls her undergraduate years at USF, frequently exploring topics between psychology and sociology, feeling thrilled to learn about the world through different perspectives. Her passion for education was rewarded, as she was recognized as the youngest individual in her graduating class at just 20 years old.
Rebecca Campbell-Montalvo reads an excerpt of her book to event attendees. (Photo courtesy of Oxana Sidorova)
Upon earning her bachelor’s degree, Campbell-Montalvo pursued her master’s degree in junior college teaching at USF through the College of Education with a concentration in sociology. Unfortunately, this degree program is no longer offered by the college. Subsequently, she began teaching at various institutions before pursuing her PhD in applied anthropology in 2010.
Before gaining admission to the PhD program, Campbell-Montalvo took pre-requisite courses in anthropology to gain familiarity with the subject. A graduate director offered some words of advice: connect with faculty and see who would want to be her major professor.
“I had reached out to Dr. Antoinette Jackson, who is a professor and now chair of the Department of Anthropology. She was an assistant professor at the time and immediately she said, ‘Yes, come by my office.’ I brought my resume and we talked, she gave me advice and allowed me to take some directed study coursework with her. She became my major professor, and I was her first PhD student to graduate. The book I released really wouldn't exist without her because the training I received was very rigorous, and doctoral students require a high level of feedback where you’re asked how you will approach social issues in the real world,” Campbell-Montalvo said.
With a deep-rooted history at USF, Campbell-Montalvo shares a cherished memory from her time at the university. In retrospect, this event has become a prelude to the launch of her own book and career milestone.
“When I was in graduate school for my masters, I had taken this class in sociology with Dr. Sara Green. She actually came to the book event we just had at USF, and I had the chance to speak with her. I will never forget this article she wrote called ‘Mothering Amanda’ and how it changed the way I viewed some aspects of the social world. My mom was also at the book event, and she remembered me talking about the impact Dr. Green’s article had almost 20 years prior,” Campbell-Montalvo said.
Hope for the future
By bringing attention to the Latinization of Indigenous students, Campbell-Montalvo said she hopes to contribute to a larger change in how we document people’s identities and how we can improve our systems for the better.
“We debate whether measuring identity, or trying to measure identity, will help eliminate power structures of inequality, but I really don't think it’s that simple. I don't think inequality will go away simply through better measures, but I do think that it's not totally detrimental or useless to use better identity measures,” she said. “Some social scientists would disagree with me and would argue that this measurement is part of the problem. I hope that the book, while it does identify some things that maybe we want to revise and do better, is an enjoyable and informative read. I also hope it highlights the strength of teachers and other programs that advocate for Indigenous students.”
You can find “The Latinization of Indigenous Students: Erasing Identity and Restricting Opportunity at School” on Amazon or through the publisher, Lexington Books. To get 30 percent off the publisher’s website, use the discount code: LXFANDF30.
An e-book version of the book is also available for free to the USF community through the USF Library’s website.