Chapter 9 From Doctoral Students to Faculty: Chicanas' Articulation with Trauma in Academe

This chapter contextualizes the experiences of Chicana academics of the affirmative-action generation within a framework of collective trauma. It draws from interviews of 17 Chicanas who attended UC Berkeley's doctoral programs between 1967 and 1979, an era characterized by strife and civil rights mobilizations in higher education. As members of a “political generation,” women who began their graduate schooling years during this period reported numerous conflicts negotiating the culture of their respective departments, working with faculty, and handling dynamics within their own Chicana/o support group. The chapter illustrates the ways in which Chicanas experienced and responded to cultural trauma induced by the challenge of entering the highly politicized environment of graduate school. For those women who entered the professoriate, their responses to cultural trauma are explored in the context of their roles as faculty and their significance as a “political generation.”