Latina and Black Women Collegians’ Paternal Relationships: A Chicana and Black Feminist Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

In the current qualitative study, we explored father (and varying father figures’) ethnoracial and gendered socialization messages toward Latina and Black college women. We conducted six focus group interviews with Black (n = 3 groups) and Latina (n = 3 groups) college women. Guided by Chicana and Black feminist interpretive phenomenological analysis, we identified four clusters which detailed perceived paternal influences in the lives of these college women: (a) paternal caring, (b) gender socialization, (c) value of education, and (d) developing platonic and romantic relationships.

1. Introduction

In the interest of flow, we define vital terms in our study at the outset of our paper. At times, we use the descriptor ‘of Color’ to denote racial populations who are historically and presently marginalized. Further, we capitalize this identifier to decenter whiteness as norm. Other times, we utilize terms like Black, Latinx, and Latina/Chicana. Here, Black is inclusive of those who identify as Black, African American, or of African ancestry in the United States context. To encompass broad gender expression, we utilize the term “Latinx”, where the x refuses a rigid gender binary. In other instances where we refer solely to cis- and trans women, we utilize Latina, or Chicana when more narrowly referring to our “borderlands” feminist lens. Where other authors or our participants utilize different identifiers, we honor their preferences.

In higher education literature, traditional family involvement narratives have painted parents as a burdensome entity to be “managed” by college personnel. Parents are depicted as overbearing, too involved with academics, and overprotective of their children [1]. The conventional literature maintains that these parental characteristics are detrimental to students’ holistic identity development and overall college experience [2,3]. For Students of Color, however, scholars have long demonstrated that family engagement manifests in a multitude of beneficial ways [4]. Often, from the student’ perspectives, parental engagement is deeper than involving themselves in providing financial support or guiding the college choice process. Parents can serve as emotional supporters, socialization agents, and academic encouragers for their Children of Color traversing hegemonic postsecondary institutions [5,6].

Currently, family literature for Students of Color discusses parental influences impartially [7,8,9] or more narrowly centers on mothers’ involvement and support from students’ perspectives [10,11,12], especially for Black and Latinx populations.

In the literature that exists, when discussing paternal engagement (e.g., fathers, grandfathers, uncles) in the lives of Black and Latinx students, scholars often exclusively examine father-son relationships [13,14,15]. Occasionally, scholars have emphasized unique grandfather or uncle relationships as support for Black and Latinx students [16,17,18], though these are examined at more length for collegiate men [19,20]. In other instances, the paternal literature is positioned from a deficit-related stance, pointing out father distance or absence, though this absent, uninvolved narrative has been repeatedly refuted [21,22]. These conclusions seem at odds with the experiences of Latina and Black women collegians’ who, although adept at describing their maternal relationships, consistently allude to their fathers’ involvement [23,24].

For Latina and Black women collegians, whose paternal relationships are obscured in family engagement scholarship, deeper examinations are needed—especially since scholars have firmly maintained that paternal figures are directly implicated in feminist issues [25,26]. In the gender socialization literature especially, mothers and fathers often both contribute to Latina and Black women collegians’ burgeoning identities. Fathers may provide messages related to persistence or assume an “all-knowing protector” of their daughters’ romantic lives [24]. Mothers, on the other hand, may supply lessons or strategies to counter gendered racism [27]. Most of this scholarship suggests that parents, though perhaps different in their approach, instill messages related to being concurrently feminine [28], dutiful [29], and an academic or familial role model [18,30]. Though these expectations may be inspiring, particularly when they are communicated in the form of proverbs, dichos (sayings), and consejos (advice), they can simultaneously be a source of pressure [31]—especially for women obtaining a higher education. During their time in college especially, Latina and Black women students concurrently navigate various sources of socialization messages (e.g., school, family)—which may compound when making sense of their worldviews. Thus, through a Chicana and Black feminist-informed lens, we conducted an interpretive phenomenological analysis of Latina and Black women collegians’ paternal socialization. Chicana and Black feminists have written extensively on how oppressive gender ideals are translated and perpetuated within their communities. Family socialization research has the potential to offer descriptions of the day-to-day activities and messages that undergird these patterns in gender marginalization. The approaches that Chicana and Black feminist scholars have taken to articulate these broader social processes are reflected in the steps that researchers have taken to explore family socialization at the intersection of race and gender. With this backdrop, our study was guided by the following core research questions:

1.

How do Latina and Black women students describe the influence of paternal socialization messages before and during their college lives?

2.

What role do perceived paternal socialization messages play in the development of feminist knowledge/consciousness in Latina and Black college women?

2. Literature Review

To guide the current study, we first trace the socialization literature about the early lives of Latina and Black women to serve our research twofold; first, this body of scholarship denotes the deep-rooted parental messaging that accompanies Latina and Black young adults to college and second, this scholarship emphasizes the persisting effects of these socialization messages, particularly as it relates to the journey of feminist consciousness. Subsequently, we outline Latina and Black women’s collegiate sensemaking to draw similarities and nuances as it relates to our own later findings.

2.1. Early Parental Influence on Gender Socialization among Latina and Black Women

Studying the gender socialization of children in Black and Latinx families entails engaging with the interplay between ethnoracial experiences, gender attitudes, and cultural values. The interactions among these constructs reveal differences in how children are socialized based, in part, on their assigned gender categories, encouraging gender-specific life trajectories. Crenshaw [32], in the tradition of Black feminism, notably grapples with the multidimensionality of Black women’s lived experiences along the lines of structural, political, and representational intersectionality. Even earlier, King [33] discusses how Black women’s identity is constrained by conflicting social expectations and has been “socialized out of existence” through sexist, racist, and classist systems. Meanwhile, Bernal [34] discusses how a Chicana feminist epistemology, like intersectionality, rejects a single-axis approach to studying identities while paying special attention to cultural and political concerns proximal to Chicanas, such as bilingualism and migration. “The experiences of Chicana feminists, speaking and living in complex realities and crossing borders-physical and metaphorical—situate us as part of multiple constituencies” [35] (p. 2). This liminality is especially apparent when considering Latinx values like marianismo and familismo, which emphasize chastity and familial loyalty, respectively [36]. These specific orientations to gender equity and social justice are reflected in the direction of the gender socialization literature.

Researchers on Latinx families have also elucidated differences in parents’ gendered messages. Consistently, scholars find that Latinx mothers and fathers take on distinct roles that vary based on the gender of the child. For instance, Raffaelli and Ontai [37] interviewed 22 adult Latinas aged 20–45 (M_age = 31.2) who resided in the United States and were “highly acculturated on the basis of language and birthplace” (p. 289). Through these interviews, the researchers prompted Latina participants to recount gender socialization experiences from their childhood and adolescent years. Through their findings, Raffaelli and Ontai [37] shed light on messages from Latinx mothers and fathers and discuss how fathers are less likely than mothers to push traditional gender values. Also, fathers often did not participate in direct gender socialization of their daughters. Like mothers, fathers raised their daughters to believe that women should be afforded less social and economic freedom. Specifically, scholars have also found that Latina mothers emphasize these traditional values to their daughters [37,38,39,40].

Scholars have made considerable strides in understanding gendered racial socialization through their investigations of gendered differences in Black parent socialization messages, considering both the children’s and parents’ gender identities [41,42]. However, Scott and Varner [43] conducted a study with 565 Black parents (M_age = 44.7; 56% mothers, 44% fathers) and found that neither parent nor child’s gender played a moderating role when considering preparation for bias for their adolescent children. This conversation is further nuanced by findings that Black fathers’ socialization strategies are complex, layered, and gendered. A notable theme for fathers is the belief that there are unique challenges to raising daughters, which is reflected in their parenting priorities for their daughters compared to their sons [44].

Scholars have also pursued questions about variations in gender socialization across parenting contexts [45]. Hill [46] explored the significance of class to gendered racial socialization. In her study on gender equality and class in Black families, she found that the parents’ formal education determined, at least in part, whether they communicated gender equality to their children. In particular, mothers with less education often “combined teaching traditional gender roles in the home with an emphasis on strength, striving, and success in the public arena” (p. 303). Johnson [24] asserts that this type of messaging reflects the tropes to which society subjects Black women with regard to their respectability and strength, where “both discourses silence and devalue Black women’s gender-based experiences and maintain normative value systems that assess Black women against dominant femininity standards and intraracial expectations for femininity” (p. 891). These discourses are key themes throughout the gendered racial socialization literature and pose challenges to the healthy development of Black women and girls [24,27,47,48].

Scholars recognize the protective role of Black mothers in healthy identity development [27,41]. Therefore, it is not surprising that many researchers focus on mother-daughter relationships when explaining gender role socialization [27,48,49]. However, Cooper and her colleagues have made considerable contributions to Black father-daughter relationship research [44,50,51,52]. Their contributions have been uniquely significant to how we have come to understand father-daughter relationships in Black families. Specifically, they have produced research that evaluates the influence of engaged fathers and emphasizes their gender-specific protective intentions for their daughters [44]. Additionally, Cooper [51] suggests healthy father-daughter relationships contribute to positive self-esteem and stronger academic performance. In a large study of fathers (N = 166, M_age = 32.20, SD = 8.26), the researchers further elaborate on gender fathering practices by surfacing five unique parenting patterns: “(a) infrequent racial socializers, (b) negative racial socializers, (c) positive racial socializers, (d) low race salience socializers, and (e) race salience socializers” [52] (p. 7). Not only did the patterns vary by gender, but they also placed into question the field’s prior understanding of how these gendered differences manifest in parenting.

Researchers who evaluate Black father-daughter relationships have also discussed how the absence of fathers impacts how children settle into gender roles [53,54]. Johnson [24], however, presents a more critical look at fathers and their influence on their daughters’ gender identity formation. Johnson [24] investigated fathering experiences based on their physical presence in the home and engagement in child rearing, and how both these processes influence daughters’ sensemaking around specific gender socialization messages. By doing so, she provides a fuller picture of how fathers and fathering ideals impact Black girls’ sense of self and purpose. Johnson explains that fathers inform how Black women negotiate their participation in strength and respectability discourses regardless of how involved their fathers are in their upbringing. For Black women who view their fathers as supportive, fathers serve as strength coaches and respectability experts. Meanwhile, Black women who experience distant parenting from their fathers heavily pursue respectability and strength ideals—a negative response to their upbringing. Johnson [24] also noted that some of the women in the study rejected their father’s messages when their advice rested upon subordination via traditional feminine roles. Similarly, this current study considered Black and Latinx fathers’ “presence” even in their absence.

McAdoo and Younge [42] also speak to the challenges of researching complex social identities. Regarding gendered racial socialization within Black families, they write, “The disparate proportion of economic deprivation in the African American community, along with racism, has made it difficult and impractical for many African Americans to create sharply defined divisions between male and female gender roles” (p. 109). Consequently, the interplay between race and gender in shaping Chicana and Black girls’ identity is not fully explored. King [33] clarifies the intention behind multidimensional theories when she writes, “The modifier ‘multiple’ refers not only to several, simultaneous oppressions but to the multiplicative relationships among them as well” (p. 48). Researchers’ ability to design projects that actualize this vision for intersectional analysis is an ongoing methodological concern [32,33]. The consequences of these concerns are undoubtedly consistent throughout the literature on early Black and Latinx parental gender socialization; for this reason, we now explore the role of parental socialization for Black and Latina women collegians traversing young adulthood.

2.2. The Role of Parental Socialization in Latina and Black Collegians’ Identity Sensemaking

College actors and environments expose many students to new, more complex ways of thinking and being. Negotiating various kinds of responsibilities (e.g., academic, financial, familial), social norms and messages, and cocurricular opportunities may mean that students are pushed to (re)consider values, existing knowledge, and even themselves. For Students of Color, particularly women, gendered racial challenges arise atop “traditional” educational and developmental junctures [55]. Of the existing literature about Women of Color college students, issues of discrimination often accompany their experiences. For example, Jackson et al.’s piece [56] demonstrates the persisting gendered racism Latina and Black college women encounter, and how these issues are exacerbated by first-generation status. As several participants named, their class identity played an integral role in their decisions to attend college, being both an early source of motivation but also an extra stressor once on campus—especially when observing their “rich white” peers. As Johnson et al. [57] underscored, prevalent feelings of financial worry were intimately tied to Women of Color’s perceptions of their gender roles. For many of these collegians who desired or were expected to lessen the financial burden of their families, they experienced feelings of inadequacy and impostorism due to the pervasiveness of (gendered) classism on campus [57]. The tensions associated with these multilayered pressures were often minimized by faculty, staff, and other support professionals who were not Women of Color [56]. Indeed, participants normally only found identity affirmation with other first-generation Women of Color or other same-race support groups. Even in the event of attending a (predominantly white) women’s college, as was the case in Vaccaro’s [58] qualitative single case study, Latina and Black women still endure deficit-based stereotyping. Pointedly, though participants “[tried] to act like racism [wasn’t] there”, stereotypes and deficit ideologies were innately connected to their doubly marginalized identities. In the face of racist encounters, like enduring microaggressions about affirmative action, being labeled “welfare queens”, or speaking “backwards languages” like Spanish [58], family support systems were significant contributors to Latina and Black college women’s college adjustment and persistence [59].

Research has consistently demonstrated that populations like Latina and Black women reflect on past instances of gendered racial socialization by their families to entrench or reconcile aspects of their identities [45,60,61,62]. In fact, scholars have indicated parents, primarily mothers, as chief gendered racial socialization agents for Latina and Black college women given their multiple shared identities [28,63,64]. Within these relationship-specific examinations, however, the (dis)value of paternal influences is emphasized by Latina and Black women collegian participants (e.g., [23,24]).

In Lewis Ellison et al.’s [65] intersectional analyses of Black father and daughter relationships in STEM, Black college women drew significant inspiration from their fathers. As the authors suggested, the Black father-daughter relationship is the least explored relationship in all parent-child research. Examining this relationship within STEM fields, where issues of sexism and racism are often heightened, provides insight into the unique perspective fathers may offer to their Black daughters as it pertains to identity development amid intersectional discrimination. Specifically, fathers promoted their daughters’ STEM identity explorations by being hands-on with educational opportunities, thinking and creating alongside their daughters, and encouraging them to pursue STEM fields. In other instances, paternal socialization often occurred indirectly. For example, as one participant recalled in Leath et al.’s [27] qualitative study, her parents, particularly her dad, would communicate messages of racial safety to her brothers. As she interpreted, her dad likely imparted these messages to her brothers more since they could be perceived as “dangerous” or as “bad guys” by the police. On the other hand, she elaborated “I just don’t think I scare people” (p. 203), noting the ways her parents instead emphasized her propriety in dressing and behaving. This finding closely mirrored that of Liang et al.’s [38] study where Latina college students felt (over)protected by their fathers, perhaps indicating the precedence fathers placed on their daughters’ “vulnerable” gender identity. Too often Latina participants would describe the parental imposition of marianismo. With this expectation, however, came less power, privilege, and freedom to express themselves—especially compared to their brothers. In the event that fathers were distant or had passed away, researchers suggested the (mal)adaptation of the mother-daughter relationship. Several participants in Leath et al.’s [28] study on Black mothers’ socialization of their daughters described the compensatory stances assumed by their mothers. A recurring theme named by participants was the strength their mothers would embody to bridge the obscured fatherly role. Subsequently, participants connected these messages to their own identities, interpreting strong will and emotional suppression to be key aspects of their Black womanhood—especially when navigating college stressors. Evidently, these messages of strength and respectability are oftentimes present from adolescence [24] and are only exacerbated upon embarking on college. Understanding these socialization processes through Chicana and Black feminist lenses could aid in endeavors to support and offload the myriad of everyday pressures Latina and Black women collegians face; thus, we now turn to our theoretical lenses.

2.3. Chicana and Black Feminisms: Conocimiento and Self-Definition

Stemming from third-wave feminism, both Chicana and Black feminism’s organizers endeavored to position gender as an inherently raced (and classed) identity. Fundamentally, these Women of Color feminists articulated a gender argument at odds with white ideals of femininity, male-dominated racial and civil rights discourse, and the diverging ends of both. For Women of Color, gender is not only inextricable from race but also bound to sexuality and class. Chicana and Black feminisms grapple with a “both-and” [66] or “mestiza (mixed)” [67] consciousness, respectively. Across these frameworks, researchers have underscored the pronounced influence of parental figures in scaffolding Latina and Black college women’s feminist consciousness [68,69]—though often confined to maternal perspectives. As other scholars argue in their works, fathering daughters is a feminist issue [25,26] and should be investigated given its inevitable influence on Latina and Black women. This straddling of worlds allows for a dialectical examination of gender and, as it relates to our study, the ability to consider paternal messages as a facet of Latina and Black women’s gendered identity development. Further, Chicana and Black feminisms trace developmental, but not linear, arcs in which women reconcile messages and experiences related to their racially gendered identities from internal and external sources like schools and families as well as transgenerational proverbs, dichos, and consejos.

Thus, we frame our study relying on the Chicana feminist path of conocimiento, as well as the journey of self-definition described in Black feminist writings. Queer Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa [67] offers seven stages of aligning with a Chicana feminist path of conocimiento, or knowledge/consciousness. For the purpose of this paper, we explicitly attend to the second, fifth, and last stages of conocimiento—which mirror the junctures described in Collins’ [66,70] journey of self-definition. These three stages span an encounter and confrontation of clashing worldviews (nepantla), efforts to consolidate these perspectives (the creation of hybrid narratives to manage choques, or cultural collisions), and adoptions of critical, emancipatory outlooks (spiritual activism). Between each of these stages exists the scaffolding engagement Latinas had with others as “the liberation of a person is tied to the liberation of others” [71] (p. 17). In other words, family, friends, and college often offer Latinas tools and perspectives necessary to move through the stages.

Similarly, Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins [66,70] emphasizes the journey of self-definition for Black women in which they have an awareness of controlling images, are empowered to reject stereotypes, view themselves as part of a larger collective and “come to voice” via self-valuation. These self-distinctions, Collins [66] noted, are particularly crucial in the face of dehumanizing, controlling social systems Black women face resulting in an “oppositional gaze” to refute deficit narratives [72]—benefiting our aims to investigate the significant influences of paternal ethnoracial and gender socialization on Latina and Black women’s collegiate journeys. Using the parallel stages described in these feminisms (i.e., an encounter of clashing worldviews and an awareness of controlling images, efforts to consolidate perspectives via hybrid narratives and empowerment to reject stereotypes, and adoptions of critical outlooks through spiritual activism & viewing themselves as part of collective and coming to voice) permit us to identify salient moments where Latina and Black collegians may have reconciled messages or espoused new viewpoints before and during college. To see a visual representation of the corresponding stages, see Figure 1. Structuring our analysis in this way also allows us to temporally map these developmental junctures and the import of paternal influence as it relates to Latina and Black college women’s gendered identity development over time.

3. Methodology and Methods

Data were collected from a broader phenomenological study that examined maternal ethnoracial and gender socialization messages toward Latina and Black college women. In this study, we examined paternal ethnoracial and gender socialization messages among Latina and Black college women, specifically, because of the observed prevalence of paternal messages that emerged in the broader study.

3.1. Setting and Sample

We used purposive sampling to recruit participants for the larger study after obtaining exempt status from Midwestern University’s institutional review board. We recruited self-identified Latina and Black undergraduate women from Midwestern University. Midwestern University is a large, historically White public research institution that serves over 45,000 domestic and international students. At the time of data collection, the university enrolled 15% undergraduate domestic Students of Color (6.4% Black and 3.7% Latinx) and 15.3% international students. We emailed recruitment flyers and notices to participants from the broader study who indicated an interest in participating in future research. We also recruited participants by sharing flyers with organizational contacts who forwarded them to eligible participants in their respective networks. We invited students to participate in a 60- to 90-min focus group interview about how maternal messages contributed to their understanding of womanhood and how it influences their collegiate success. Students who expressed interest were required to register by email and were sent the date, time, and location of the focus group interview.

We recruited 21 Latina and Black undergraduate students to participate in the broader investigation. The analytic sample for this study included 10 Latina and 7 Black undergraduate students between 18 and 23 years of age (M = 20.18). Four participants enrolled in their first year, one in the second year, four in the third year, six in the fourth year, one in the fifth year, and one was not reported. Thirteen participants were in-state students and four were out-of-state students. All participants were single, never married with no children; four participants were in a relationship. Five participants described the racial composition of their community between the ages 10–18 as predominantly Black or African American, four as multiracial, three as predominantly Latinx, two as predominantly Black and Latinx, one as predominantly White, one as other, and one participant did not report For a more complete profile of participants, see

Table 1. Self-Reported Demographics of Black and Latina Women Collegians in the Study.

Pseudonyms	Age	Racial-Ethnic Identity	Year in College	Father’s Racial-Ethnic Identity	Father’s Occupation
Layla	18	Black	1st year	Black	Laborer
Jasmin	18	Black	1st year	Black	Laborer
Jordan	21	Black	4th year	Black	Sales
Jewel	22	Black	4th year	Black	--
Alexia	20	Black	4th year	Black	Engine repairer
Jenny	23	Black	5th year	Black	Service industry worker
Julianne	20	Black	3rd year	Black	Laborer
Lacey	18	Black	1st year	Black	Sales
Chloe	18	Black	1st year	Black	Engine repairer
Kassandra	21	Latina	4th year	Latino	Laborer
Rosa	19	Latina	1st year	Latino	Service worker
Jessica	21	Latina	3rd year	Latino	--
Karina	20	Latina	--	Latino	Farming/forestry/fishing
Hayley	18	Latina	2nd year	Latino	Service worker
Ariana	20	Latina	3rd year	Latino	Proprietor
Kaylee	21	Latina	4th year	Latino	--
Jayla	20	Latina	3rd year	Latino	Laborer
Camila	22	Latina	--	Black	--
Anabel	21	Latina	4th year	Latino	Technical worker
Paloma	20	Latina	3rd year	Latino	--

.

3.2. Data Collection

We conducted six semi-structured focus group interviews [24] during the broader study. Three focus groups included Black women and three focus groups included Latina women; each focus group included three to four participants. Graduate research assistants who identified as Women of Color facilitated the focus group interviews. The focus group interview protocol was designed to elicit descriptions of participants’ experiences with ethnoracial socialization including how maternal messages contributed to their understanding of womanhood and coping as women. Example focus group interview questions were: What kinds of life messages from your mothers or other mothers (e.g., aunts, grandmothers, godmothers) come to mind most immediately? What messages from your mothers would you consider as being about race? Are there messages that you remember from your mother or other mothers that you question or feel you must actively push against? The semi-structured interview protocol allowed us to probe when participants mentioned paternal socialization messages in response to interview questions that centered on maternal socialization. Focus group interviews lasted approximately 90 min and were audio recorded and transcribed. We assigned pseudonyms for all names. We gave participants a $10 gift card incentive as an expression of gratitude for their participation. Before discussing data analysis, we first find it beneficial to offer our positionalities and how these influenced how we approached this study.

3.3. Reflexivity

The first author is a cisgender Latina woman and only daughter who grew up with four brothers and two father figures who informed her notions of woman identity. To her, Latina woman identity often meant a rough and toughness to “keep up” with the men—where discussions of beauty, femininity, or relationships were not often privileged but strength and respectability were. Racially explicit messages were minimal in comparison. The second author identifies as a Black cisgender woman who garnered lessons on femininity and beauty, safety, gender roles, relationships, sexuality, and independence from her father, brothers, and other paternal figures (e.g., stepfather and cousins). Similar to the first author’s experience, while their messages were often gendered, their messages were less frequently racialized prior to college; perhaps because she was raised in a predominantly Black city where racialized messages were plentiful. The third author identifies as a Black cisgender woman and a child of two working-class, undocumented Caribbean parents. Throughout her upbringing, her parents were rarely physically present, and thus, there were few opportunities to engage in racialized or gendered discussions. Socialization was implicit in the decisions she observed her parents made regarding fulfilling their responsibilities as caretakers, such as employment and shifting roles in the household. More frequently, her parents conveyed messages of ethnoracial pride through meals without connecting it to the expectations they held of her. Many of her direct racial and gender socialization messages from which she originally drew and continues to draw derived from media representations and external adult influences in her life, such as educators and mentors. The fourth author is a Black woman advanced in her career. She grew up in a family where her father was prominent and present. Family politics were centered in both the Black Power movement, the Civil Rights Era, and community liberation. Her father was a central and favored influence throughout her childhood and adulthood. Her parents both obtained MA degrees and were laser-focused on her college attendance. In their socialization practices they advanced both traditional and quite liberal attitudes toward gender roles and were strong racial identity proponents.

Because of our identities and experiences with paternal ethnoracial and gender socialization, we anticipated some similarities between our own and participants’ experiences. We viewed our shared positionalities as an asset that supported our analyses of the data. As none of us identify as Afro-Latina (i.e., both Latina and Black), we relied on the existing literature, each other, and the totality of participant narratives to examine, interrogate, and capture the nuance of participant experiences.

3.4. Data Analysis

We used interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) [73] to analyze focus group interview data. IPA was appropriate for this study because it is used to uncover how participants make meaning of their lived experiences [73]. IPA is an inductive, iterative approach that involves (a) familiarizing oneself with data through repeated readings of interview transcripts and writing commentary on initial insights; (b) converting initial commentary into distinct, concise phrases or codes and identifying emerging themes that connect to both participant responses and theoretical or conceptual frameworks; (c) clustering themes by reviewing the relationships and cohesion among themes; (d) reviewing clusters to ensure they accurately represent participant responses and identifying participant quotes for each theme; (e) naming each cluster, producing a table of themes organized by cluster and refining themes as needed; and (f) developing an analytic narrative. The first and second authors carried out data analyses. First, we reviewed each interview transcript to familiarize ourselves with the data. We generated initial insights by identifying words, phrases, or excerpts that captured participants’ descriptions of paternal socialization messages. Next, we converted the initial commentary into distinct, concise phrases for each interview transcript (e.g., gender roles and sexuality). We identified 12 emerging themes across the full data set that connected to both participant responses and our theoretical frameworks. Examples of emerging themes included gender socialization and relationship expectations and boundaries. Then, we organized themes into clusters by reviewing the relationships and cohesion among themes. Examples of clusters included gender socialization and the value of education. While clustering themes, we ensured that each theme represented participant experiences by extracting participant quotes from the focus group interview transcripts. We named each cluster and developed a table of themes.

4. Findings

Latina and Black college women described a range of perceived messages from their fathers and paternal figures (i.e., influential parental or non-parental male figures in participants’ lives outside of their biological fathers such as grandfathers, uncles, padrinos, and brothers). Four major clusters emerged that captured their perceptions of their father’s and paternal figures’ socialization messages: (a) paternal caring, (b) gender socialization, (c) value of education, and (d) developing platonic and romantic relationships.

Table 2. Cluster descriptions, related themes, and example quotes.

Cluster	Cluster Description	Theme	Quote
Paternal Caring	The aegis paternal figures offered daughters as they navigated social institutions	Parental Relationships	“And I learned from my dad, he does all the wrong stuff, at same time he taught me right stuff.”
		Consejos, Dichos (Advice, Sayings) & Proverbs	“My dad used to say it all the time, “dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres [Tell me who you are hanging out with, and I’ll tell you who you are.]”
		Safety	“My dad, when I was like five, taught me how to change a tire when I was five. I still remember. He kind of taught me all the safety things about a car. I know what the battery is, I know how to change oil. I know how to put fluid in. I know how to use jumper cables. If anything happens I need to know what to do. If I’m by myself I know what to do.”
Gender Socialization	Explicit and implicit messages communicated in relation to women’s gender identity or expression	Gender Socialization	“Like my mom, and my aunts, and not really my grandmother, but everybody more serves their husband, like um, it was just opposite as being dominant. You kind of go off of him. Like you, not answer to him, like that, but you just like you serve like your husband. Kind of like they learned that in the bible so they like serve their husbands and things like that.”
		(Contradictory) Gender Roles	“Well I think for us like my dad was more sexist ‘cause like he always wanted the girls to clean and cook and just my brother and dad would cut the grass and I know that’s not fair, like I never liked washing dishes, I’m like I would just go outside and cut the grass but they never said oh you have to get married.”
		Gender Socialization: Beauty & Femininity	“I don’t usually wear that much [makeup] ever though. Unless I’m like gonna go out and I have to like be all dolled up or something. But at my house too my mom and dad would always be like, you look like prettier natural. Like don’t wear a lot of makeup.”
		Racial Socialization	“I don’t really have anything…my mother is just like…nothing is really like racial with her. It just is what it is or it’s just life. My dad kind of is the one that is like your Black and you have to do his. My mom just be like it is what it is.”
Value of Education	Fathers’ appraisal of the aspirations and actions daughters applied to academic settings	Value of Education	“So when it comes to like the whole money situation. Since my mom and dad have always let me know, like you know, we are, they think of me as an investment. Like I’m still the child but they see me as a worthwhile investment so… anything to help me get through school whether it’s if I need some money for grocery, or I need money for gas, or I need money for rent or utilities, or whatever, they’re willing to give me that.”
		Familial Duties	“I remember sitting down with my padrino when I was a senior in high school. And I was like, yeah, like I’m going to college. Like and I was 18. And he was like, why are you leaving your family? Like why don’t you just stay here? Like community college like my twin brother did. And I was like, because. I was like, that’s not what I want to do and like it’s not as good as leaving. To them they just saw it as like we abandoned them…”
Developing romantic and platonic relationships	The negotiation of capacities, boundaries, and the self when engaging with others	Relationships: Expectations & Boundaries	“I just know that towards a relationship I would never want to be in an abusive relationship ever, and I realize looking at my dad, you know how they say you want a dude that acts like your dad? I don’t want one. My dad talks to much and lectures me. I do not want to date any dude like my dad. I guess that’s the only thing I took from them.”
		Relationships: Sexuality	“I’m like, “No, I have friends of that and I support it because I’m open-minded. I don’t judge people like you do. That’s another thing I don’t like about my parents being close-minded. My dad does the same thing, he doesn’t like it. Every time I go to her house, he thinks I’m doing bad stuff like sex and kissing her. I’m like, “I don’t get where you guys get all this messages from your head but no. We’re just talking like normal people… She’s a girl and I’m a girl but it doesn’t mean you guys, knowing she’s a lesbian like girls, she’s not going to get my hand and kiss me right then and there.”
		Relationships: Interracial Dating	“I don’t know how my, like my dad just didn’t like my sister dating someone out of our culture. Like it wasn’t just, it wasn’t right… and he will always say that. He will always tell my sister like you’re not gonna find an African-American that’s gonna treat you right. You’re not, you’re not gonna find someone else, like and it was just like he just wanted her to find someone in our culture.”

details cluster descriptions, related themes, and example quotes.

4.1. Paternal Caring—“He Taught Me the Right Stuff”

We defined our first cluster paternal caring as the aegis paternal figures offered daughters as they navigated social institutions. Within this cluster we identified themes of parental relationships, consejos, dichos, proverbs, and safety. These themes characterized perceptions of father’s and paternal figures’ relationships with Latina and Black women collegians, advice on building character, and lessons on self-protection and physical safety. Each theme most often reflected support and scaffolding as described in Black/Chicana feminisms and provided a broader context for understanding Latina and Black collegians’ perceived influence of paternal socialization messages before and during their college lives. To start, Latina and Black collegians had varying relationships with their fathers and paternal figures. Latina collegians more explicitly characterized their relationships with their fathers. For example, Jessica, a third-year Latina student, described her dad as a ‘great guy’ who consistently provided positive encouragement. Further, her uncles also practiced jovial, open communication, particularly around dating. Jessica recounted how open communication is a norm in her family: “I’ve been growing up to be very open minded about things, I’ve never been like shut down as to like ‘we don’t want you to learn about this’”. In contrast, Kassandra, a fourth-year Latina student, shared that her father was largely absent and was once physically and verbally abusive. Still, her father’s pride in her academic journey, despite his initial displeasure, stood out to her as a strong message:

He said something to me, “Mi hija, estoy orgullosa de ti [My daughter, I’m happy for you] … He didn’t want me to go to school, he wanted me to work… I’m the first one out of the three to move out of Texas from this little, small valley and I came up here and my dad told me when I was coming “Estoy orgullosa de ti [I’m proud of you] cause I had the guts that nobody had”. And I’m the one who has a learning disability. I’m the one who learned slower than my sisters. I’m the one who did all the wrong then the right… a strong message that I got from my dad was “I’m proud of you”. I’m proud of him telling me that ‘cause all this time I felt worthless and until that time I believed I really was.

Here, Kassandra’s encountered nepantla, or a clashing worldview, where her father’s pride in her academic journey clashed with her self-worth. In this instance, Kassandra was challenged to consider, and perhaps internalize, pride in her abilities and academic journey in consideration of (rather than in spite of) her learning disability. While her father was largely absent, his message of pride was deeply impactful.

Latina and Black collegians also garnered lessons from fathers and paternal figures through consejos, dichos, and transgenerational proverbs which focused on building character. For example, Kaylee and Jayla, two Latina sisters in their fourth and third year, respectively, described how their father imparted lessons on hard work by encouraging them to try their best in any circumstance:

No matter if we don’t like the job or we don’t like something, like we have to be—we try our best and be the hardest worker…He’s like, he didn’t like working in the field but he was always on time so he’s like “even if it’s what, whatever kind of job, you show up on time and like let them know that you’re ready to work”.

While Kaylee and Jayla’s perceived paternal messages reflected support and scaffolding about their own work ethic and persistence, Jewel, a fourth-year Black woman student, recalled paternal messages that called on her to view herself as part of a large collective. Jewel described her uncle’s lesson on demonstrating kindness and uplifting others by advising her to “stay positive and check yourself. These words stuck with Jewel, who understood the agency she had to uplift others:

You never know who you’re talking to and it may be a day where you feel rotten but you stay positive when you talkin’ to somebody else and you might be givin’ that person encouragement or that person might be like, ‘okay, that person is strugglin’ and I’m strugglin’ too and [if] they makin’ it then I can make it too”.

By both uplifting and drawing inspiration from others, Jewel centered her communal collective in her endeavors.

Latina and Black collegians recounted paternal messages on self-protection and physical safety. Participants like Layla, Jasmin, and Jessica perceived messages around safety related to romantic and platonic relationships where fathers and paternal figures were invested in who their daughters spent time with. Layla, a first-year Black woman student, shared how her past boyfriends were required to meet multiple relatives before she could go out with them:

All of my boyfriends have been questioned by my parents, uncles, my grandfather. I think that it’s always a big thing. Like the whole family thing. Before I go out with someone, they’ve gotta kind of meet all of my family. Even including, like, the beginnings of my extended family with my uncles and things like that.

For other participants like Camila and Paloma, both Latina students, their fathers and brothers emphasized self-protection and encouraged them to carry weapons like pocketknives and pepper spray. Paloma specifically recalled her father and brothers’ concern about sexual violence on college campuses when insisting that she carry weapons. Latina and Black collegians perceived paternal caring through encouraging, accepting relationships with their father’s and paternal figures’, and shared lessons on building character, such as practicing hard work and kindness, as well as lessons on being steadfast to protect oneself. Perceived paternal caring broadly reflected support and scaffolding. The emphasis on self-protection and physical safety was specifically, related to the participants’ gender identity and socialization. Appropriately, this is described next.

4.2. Gender Socialization—“Just the Opposite of Being Dominant”

For our second cluster, we defined gender socialization as the explicit and implicit messages communicated in relation to women’s gender identity or expression. Within this cluster, we identified themes related to (contradictory) gender roles, beauty and femininity, as well as racialized gender socialization. Most anecdotes in this cluster resembled clashing worldviews or an awareness of controlling images—two of the earlier stages described in Black/Chicana feminisms.

Largely, Latina and Black participants experienced incongruent messages related to their (racialized) gender identity, which emphasized passivity. Put another way; these college women were encouraged to be “just the opposite of dominant.” These messages of compliance were perhaps most apparent when their brothers’ privileges, and fathers’ inequitable treatment between siblings were observed. Paloma, for example, had a twin brother who “would always be able to do more than me”. She entered a state of nepantla recognizing that her brother was the same age, and effectively the same person aside from gender, who was still treated better by her father while she was “kind of like in the middle”. As Paloma noted, it was not until later on that, due to the scaffolding encouragement of her mother and sisters, she was able to adopt a more critical outlook of being “equal just as anybody else”. These egalitarian sentiments were similarly shared by other participants like Camila, Kaylee, Layla, and Jasmin.

Beyond unequal gender privileges, Latina participants like Paloma, Kaylee, and Jessica faced limiting notions of beauty and femininity related to their gender identity expression. For instance, the first two Latina participants both recalled their fathers validating a natural look where they wore no makeup. In Kaylee’s case, this advice went directly against that of her mother, who would chastise her for wearing pajamas, suggesting Kaylee looked “ugly” without makeup or “proper” clothes, thereby introducing Kaylee to clashing worldviews. In the same sentiment, Kaylee insisted her mother was not sexist, at least compared to her father, because of how household chores were indiscriminately assigned if her “dad wasn’t home”. Likewise, Kaylee’s sister, Jayla endured these inequities, yet, once on her own in college, she “slacked off a little more” though acknowledging the logic behind their parents’ messages. Though perhaps not explicitly stated by the sisters, these messages pertaining to beauty and femininity seemed to be shaped by her father, whether he was the one conveying the message or not.

For Jordan and Jasmin, race served as a common ground for them and their paternal figures. This shared identity, however, meant paternal figures felt compelled to rigidly “define” their daughters’ Blackness. Put another way by Jasmin, a first-year Black woman student, the gist of the message was, “You’re Black, and you have to do this.” For Jasmin’s father, sharing this sentiment might have been a strategy to encourage her to view herself as part of a larger collective. Related to messages like these, paternal figures in Jordan’s life seemed to complicate aspects of Blackness, including phenotype. Jordan, a fourth-year Black woman student, described how, since most of her family on her mom’s side was dark-skinned, she was often referred to as “the White sheep of the family” by her uncle. Because race was not a “big part” of her life growing up, Jordan did not question her uncle’s sentiments, or the broader stereotypes of skin color and Black identity, until much later. Importantly, these gender socialization messages occurred earlier on in many Latina and Black women’s lives. They experienced paternal figures directly shaping their gender expression through the assignment of roles or privileges, or indirectly by emphasizing race instead of gender. Once they were in more diverse educational settings, however, Latina and Black women were able to reconcile or push back on these paternal gender socialization messages. Precisely, Jordan maintained that “I realized once I got to college that was all I knew was a proud Black woman”, conveying the broad lessons of education and pride her family members, like her mother, imparted to her—leading us to our third finding.

4.3. Value of Education—“Education Is (Not) Just about the Money”

For our third cluster, we defined the value of education as fathers’ appraisal of the aspirations and actions daughters applied to academic settings. Within this cluster, we identified themes related to general messages towards the (dis)value of education and the concurrent familial duties Latina and Black women often had. Most anecdotes in this cluster resembled women perceiving themselves as part of the collective, adopting critical outlooks, and coming to voice—later stages in Black/Chicana feminisms.

Generally, across Latina and Black focus groups, participants named the resources or advice paternal figures would offer to encourage them to get an education. Alexia, a fourth-year Black woman student, for instance, described how education was larger than herself. Instead, Alexia was a “worthwhile investment” in which her mom and dad would provide “anything to help… [like] some money for groceries… gas, or… money for rent or utilities”. Though grateful for the support, Alexia also felt the desire to support herself since this reliance on her parents “made me more dependent”. In this moment, Alexia was able to recognize the collectivism her parents embodied to get her through college as their “#1 priority”, but also that she was also capable of doing “her own thing”—effectively helping her scaffold her identity as a Black woman collegian. This sentiment was also shared by Jessica, who negotiated what was important to her during college. Jessica would often playfully “scare” her parents with hypotheticals about quitting college. Since both her parents were “positive” and supportive of Jessica, they would play along with her imagination of “[touring] the world and [forgetting] school”. While her mother was more “serious” about the potential consequences of doing so, her father would say, “oh well you know that’s cool. I’ll give you some money. You go do that”. At first, Jessica’s father’s response may seem passive or flippant, but to Jessica this message was a necessary balance to her mother’s sentiments. Moreover, Jessica elaborated that her father’s message would be followed by a caveat saying, “Once that money is gone, it’s gone, and you have to do what you got to do to get yourself back together if that’s what you want to do”. Aligned with Chicana feminism, the messages Jessica’s father conveyed allude to a critical outlook Jessica could assume by considering a broader form of education, educacion, which could take place inside or outside of educational institutions.

To many participants, though their families might “feel like education was just about the money”, as Ariana, a third-year Latina student, found, their parents, aunts, and uncles “don’t really know what education means”. Upon attending college, participants like Ariana noted how education has changed everything about her saying, “It’s a different perspective I think that is a big factor in, in my situation, in me, how I see education before and until I get to college and how I see education now that I’m in college”. The presence of familial duties often clashed with these evolving perspectives, as was the case for Ariana, Paloma, Kassandra, and Camila. This crossroad was a tension remembered vividly by Paloma in which she was “sat down by her padrino (godfather)” after telling him she was going to college:

And he was like, why are you leaving your family? Like why don’t you just stay here? Like community college like my twin brother did. And I was like, because. I was like, that’s not what I want to do and like it’s not as good as leaving. To them they just saw it as like we abandoned them…”

At that moment, Paloma recognized the differing perspective her padrino had and understood the emphasis on family he underscored. Because her parents “weren’t even mad that we left. Like they wanted us to [leave for college]”, Paloma was able to consolidate these perspectives in a way that concurrently considered her family and her future while validating the advantages of getting an education/educacion for herself.

4.4. Developing Romantic and Platonic Relationships—“What’s the Big Deal?”

Finally, we defined developing romantic and platonic relationships as the negotiation of capacities, boundaries, and the self when engaging with others. In this cluster, we identified three major themes: expectations and boundaries, sexuality, and interracial dating. Anecdotes in this cluster were complex and reflected broader support and scaffolding as well as nepantla or encountering clashing worldviews which co-occurred with adoptions of critical, emancipatory outlooks.

Firstly, perceived messages around setting expectations and identifying boundaries applied to both platonic and romantic relationships. For instance, Jewel detailed her uncle’s support and scaffolding concerning navigating money within friendships, both as a loaner and a borrower of funds:

Okay so, my uncle, I talked to him about, I had a situation that dealt with money with a good friend of mine… he’s… like “you will know when people are good with the money if you can loan them some money and you don’t say anything about getting it back and they give it back”…he’s always telling me, “you don’t wanna be the person who say, oh can you loan me $5 and the person [is] like 5 weeks later, dang don’t you owe me $5? It should be when you get that $5 in your hand you need to be giving that [back], you never wanna have a debt on you”.

Her uncle’s lesson connected to messages about building character which were central to consejos, dichos, and transgenerational proverbs described earlier. While the expectations Jewel learned focused on platonic relationships, Kaylee, Jayla, and Jasmin recalled perceived messages about boundaries in romantic relationships. Kaylee and Jayla perceived explicit messages about not allowing their romantic partners to disrespect them. Jasmin, however, garnered messages about respect from her father’s abusive behavior toward her mother:

“I think we were in the house one day, which I guess is how my sister found out when she was little, my dad pushed my mom… My momma never talked about that, but I didn’t wanna ask because it just seemed awkward… I would never want to be in an abusive relationship ever, and I realize looking at my dad… you know how they say you want a dude that acts like your dad? I don’t want one.

Jasmin’s anecdote reflects coming to voice. Though she did not discuss navigating abuse in romantic relationships with her parents, she deduced that enduring abuse would be a firm boundary in her future relationships.

When reflecting on relationships and sexuality, Kassandra recounted how her views on sexual orientation, specifically being gay, conflicted with her father’s views. She viewed herself as open-minded and her father as closed-minded and judgmental, sharing “‘No, I have friends of that [gay; lesbian], and I support it because I’m open-minded. I don’t judge people like you do.’… My dad does the same thing, he doesn’t like it. Every time I go to her house, he thinks I’m doing bad stuff like sex and kissing her. I’m like, ‘I don’t get where you guys get all these messages from your head but no. We’re just talking like normal people’”. Kassandra’s worldview collided with her parents’ worldviews on sexual orientation. After efforts to consolidate these perspectives and reject stereotypes around sexual orientation, she purposefully adopted an opposing, more inclusive outlook. Jessica extended Kassandra’s discussion on messages around sexual orientation and shared how her father responded to learning that her friend, Michael, was gay:

We had lunch and he met one of my friends, Michael, and I was like “Oh dad, this is Michael”. He met him and whatever and he was going to take me to my nana’s apartment because that day he was off work, and it was just a coincidence. And I was like, “Yea Dad, he’s Michael and he’s gay”. My dad was like, “So what? What’s the big deal? I mean it, does it matter?” I was like “Okay dad, I was just saying”. He’s like “I’m just saying there’s no problem with that”… I don’t know what I was expecting my parents to say but I was really glad with their response so.”

Jessica was surprised at her father’s response which reinforced her belief that “it shouldn’t really matter”.

Latina and Black collegians also perceived intergenerational messages about interracial dating. Jordan learned from her mother that her grandpa advised her to never marry a White man. Hayley, a second-year Latina student, however, perceived explicit messages toward her sister about dating outside of Latinx communities. Both her father and mother disapproved of her sister dating someone who was not Latino:

My sister would be dating a Black guy…and my dad didn’t accept it… my dad and my mom wanted us to date someone… from our own because I guess they know how we are, like, how… I guess they think that all Latinos are the same… my dad just didn’t like my sister dating someone out of our culture. Like it wasn’t just, it wasn’t right… and he will always say that.

Jordan and Hayley did not indicate whether their fathers’ perspectives matched their own, however, it is apparent that Hayley’s sister’s decision to date a Black man clashed with their father’s view that interracial or interethnic dating “is not right”. Perceived paternal messages concerning developing romantic and platonic relationships largely centered on setting and upholding expectations (e.g., respect and managing money) and boundaries (e.g., abuse). However, participants also garnered paternal messages about sexuality and interracial or interethnic dating. Expressly, Latina women recounted messages both challenging and accepting lesbian and gay sexual identities. It is important to note, though, that perceived paternal messages about lesbian and gay sexual identities were about participants’ friends and not participants themselves. Lastly, paternal messages about interracial or interethnic dating differed such that Latina women recalled being told not to date Black men and to date Latino men, whereas Black women were told not to date White men. Overall, perceived lessons about developing relationships led Latina and Black collegians through multiple stages of conocimiento and self-definition.

5. Discussion

In this study, we used Chicana and Black feminisms to explore the perceived influence of paternal socialization messages among Latina and Black collegians. College women in the study were explicitly asked about their mothers’ socialization messages. Nevertheless, a clear focus on their fathers and other paternal figures’ socialization messages emerged in the data warranting deeper analysis. Even in young adulthood, fathers’ messages were powerful supports and guidance in shaping Latina and Black collegians’ identity and responsibilities, and these influences remained strong even as collegians were erecting sensemaking and resistance strategies. In this paper, we emphasize the lifelong socialization many paternal figures endeavor to contribute to Women of Color’s educational and social lives, from adolescence [44,51] and, as we underscored here, throughout college. We identified four major clusters with subthemes: (a) paternal caring, (b) gender socialization, (c) value of education, and (d) developing platonic and romantic relationships. Our findings signaled strong ties to and significance of fathers, demonstrated early on through paternal caring, sometimes irrespective of fathers’ presence or distance in their daughter’s lives. We learned that father figure representations were embodied across a range of male relatives and chosen families, not only biological fathers or stepfathers, but also brothers, uncles, grandfathers, and padrinos.

Contrary to Raffaelli and Ontai’s [37] findings, our findings suggest that fathers do, at times, engage in direct gender socialization of their daughters. Fathers and other paternal figures can be, and often are, a facilitative part of conocimiento and self-definition. Fathers in our study shaped their daughters’ understandings of gender roles, beauty and femininity, and the (in)significance of race in their womanhood, sometimes encouraging participants to “push against” observed models or embrace the advice provided. Johnson [24] writes, “The messages daughters receive from all types of fathers reinforce racialized and traditional gender roles that leave contradictory demands intact to be both strong and respectable” (p. 908). Her findings are a reminder of the pervasiveness of gender messages across contexts and through non-familial actors.

In the new space of striving for new self-definitions and modes of living, Latina and Black women in the current study had to struggle against cultural imperatives in family, community, education, as well as educational and relational meaning. Lessons that Latina and Black collegians shared regarding the value of education sometimes pushed against their fathers’ more traditional views. Fathers provided messages that sometimes valued their daughters staying close to or in the home to support their family. However, the students broke away from these narrowly defined, gendered imperatives and found ways to maintain ties and closeness while maturing in feminism and adopting broader views of educacion. This finding corroborates the existing literature where researchers have underscored the tension between the imperatives of familismo and academic success especially for Latina college women [74,75].

It is important to note that fathers sometimes expressed views that were less restrictive than mothers and allowed for support and better expression of their daughter’s broadening experiences of college and the world, as was the case for Kaylee, Jayla, and Jessica. Though there was some evidence that conflicting messages between values of family and education may create stress, this could be a crossroads in mature development among Women of Color. Mature development in this context may mean that Women of Color, while not having to choose between family and education [76], must learn to balance the values that education promotes. Namely, these values can align with personal success and growth, yet still demonstrate their value of family and identity origins. This crisis point may be more common for those like first generation immigrant women college students [77,78] who are often positioned as keepers of culture. The “crossroads” is the challenge of holding both values simultaneously.

This perspective and the findings exemplify the earlier stages of conocimiento and self-definition and highlight participants’ ability to hold opposing experiences as they are simultaneously processed and enhanced, becoming a part of their identity schemas.

Once more, in our final cluster developing platonic and romantic relationships, conflicts arose when established beliefs clashed with contemporary ideas, like interracial dating. These ideas led to a process of challenging traditional perspectives and introducing more congruent concepts. In this dynamic journey, Latina and Black women collegians found themselves reevaluating their beliefs, occasionally involving their families as they navigated their developing feminist consciousness. Some feminist views are observed through maternal enactment independence of thought, as well as learned perspectives from exposures in the educational context. Growth in the feminist consciousness and repeated exposure to discrimination in college, requires resistance. More narrowly, this resistance to educational stereotypes (e.g., stereotypes about affirmative action, financial aid, or multilingualism; [59]) is about rejection while continuing to move forward and achieve. Remaining tied to family and community during these exposures is often vital to cultivating resistance and transformative feminist consciousness.

5.1. Limitations

The central limitation of the paper is that, in the original study, our focus group interview questions did not center on paternal socialization. The focus of the current study evolved as participants often referenced fathers’ messages. This is both a strength and a limitation of the work presented. More nuanced findings may have emerged if we asked Latina and Black college women explicitly about their fathers’ messages and influences. Yet it is also a valid analysis to explore paternal socialization messages as they were so prominent among Black and Latina college women in this study. A related limitation of this study is that we did not collect extensive demographic information on fathers, and collected no demographic information on paternal figures. Though we present findings on Latina and Black college women’s perceptions of paternal socialization messages, father and father figures’ social identities may influence the messages they communicate to their daughters. We conducted six focus group interviews, and the analytic sample for this study included 10 Latina and 7 Black college women. The character of each focus group did vary, such that we found unique themes in some groups (e.g., gender socialization on beauty and femininity among Latina women only) and reached saturation for other themes in the focus groups (e.g., value of education). A larger number of focus group interviews may have addressed the issue of partial saturation of themes within the data.

5.2. Implications for Research and Practice

This paper necessarily complements the higher education literature underscoring the complexity of paternal figures while offering several avenues to deepen understanding of why these influences matter. Perhaps the most compelling implication is the need to accommodate broad conceptualizations of what family might mean to each student [4]. In our larger study, though initially investigating maternal influences, students often viewed these members in relation to others besides themselves (e.g., a father’s spouse, a grandmother’s daughter). In other words, these interactions, and in turn influences, did not occur in a vacuum and should be approached as such in future research studies. For example, when conducting a study examining Latina fathers and daughters’ relationships in education, useful guiding questions of “How might this student’s father’s influence be different or similar when compared to other family members?” and “How does this influence uniquely support this student, perhaps given other identities they hold?” could lead to powerful insights that privilege Women of Color’s collectivism.

Next, related to participant or family member identities, our Chicana and Black feminism-guided study delineated several domains of influence paternal figures seemed to have in Latina and Black women collegians’ lives like their gender, student, and sexual identity development. Aligned with our lenses, these identities are certainly entwined. In future research inquiries, however, different frameworks may make other identities, like racial identity, more salient than it was in our study. This charge may be especially important given that race implicitly influenced our own findings, such as in the case of Jordan being the “White sheep in the family” as named by her uncle or Hayley’s conceptualizations of interracial dating given her father’s disapproval. This prevalent influence may be due, at least in part, to the shared racial identity between father and daughter, but it requires deeper analyses.

In practice, supportive systems should be (re)introduced for Latina and Black women collegians, as well as their families, on college campuses. For instance, the focus group methodology adopted in our own study allowed participants to listen, engage, and often empathize with others about school, family, and relationships. Practitioners should identify opportunities for these Women of Color to regularly debrief and find support, perhaps in the form of affinity groups or programmatic events that privilege Chicana and Black feminisms (see [28,79] for examples). Since college served as a pivotal juncture in several Latina and Black women’s feminist consciousness, reflective prompts like “How have your views on [familial duties/education/relationships] changed since coming to college?” or “What advice would you give to your younger self about [familial duties/education/relationships]?” could further nurture these evolving perspectives.

Relatedly, initiatives like family weekends, preview days, themed workshops (e.g., how to engage/talk to students about their personal and professional learning in college), local send-off and welcome events, and other social programs could help students and their families better understand the intricacies of college. These events would be particularly helpful for those who might be first-generation or for participants like Ariana, who experienced a tougher time attending college because her family just “don’t really know what an education means”. To be sure, these events should span beyond orientations—a charge well-aligned with Kiyama et al.’s [1] higher education report. Unique initiatives like “parent and family associations, which include various positions and committees such as fundraising, parent assistance in recruiting new students, special event planning, state legislative advocacy, and regional event hosting” (p. 56) could also be performed in collaboration with parent and family service centers. Further, opportunities to leverage the educacion students bring to college are paramount in these events and throughout their college journeys.

6. Conclusions

Through Chicana and Black feminist inquiry, we underscore the imperative for researchers, practitioners, and administrators to better understand and support the influential, often paradoxical paternal relationships for Latina and Black women collegians. Fathers and other paternal figures remain key influencers in students’ lives, even into their young adulthood. Their words and perspectives echo the values, cultural expression, and resilience their daughters espouse. However, daughters also enact resistance to temper any guidance that deters them from education and fruitful outcomes. Although obligation, cultural imperatives, and familismo remain prominent guideposts in Latina and Black women’s lives, they continuously seek to redefine, innovate, and make new meaning for themselves.