Chapter 36: Se H Ace El Camino Al Andari We Make The Road By Walking: Ruminations on Work, Love, and Struggle in a Latino Academic Household

When I (Gerardo) was initially asked to contribute a chapter to this edited book, I immediately thought that it would be a great idea to coauthor the chapter with my two children, particularly given the theme of the book. I pitched the concept to Kathleen Brown, and she immediately embraced it. When the school year was over, my girls and I embarked on a monthlong journey that included numerous informal discussions, a few group interviews, and countless dinner table discussions of possible ways to approach our chapter.

By inviting my children into this process, I not only gave them a brief glimpse into my academic world of research and writing, but I was also treated to a rare glimpse of their world and got a chance to talk to my children in ways that provided new understandings and insights about how they viewed their world as children in an academic household. It was a fascinating and eye-opening experience, to say the least. My girls had dozens of questions about what I did during a typical day, how I spent my time, and why I went to so many meetings. Implicitly, they knew mom and dad were always busy, but they had very little knowledge of how we actually spent our time. In the same vein, I was treated to a fascinating perspective of our family from our children’s point of view and what life was like for them growing up in a dual academic household where both parents were on the tenure track, and how family life is for them now that my wife and I have received tenure.