“Are You Gonna Take My Job Away?”: Latina Bilingual Education Teachers’ Relationships With White Colleagues in a White Racial Frame

Abstract

Using a White racial frame as a theoretical framework, this study investigated the relationship between two Latina bilingual education teachers and their White colleagues. A qualitative analysis reveals that the participants demonstrated effective teaching skills using their cultural attributes. However, the participants’ competence stirred jealousy and fear among the colleagues who displayed emotionally driven responses, such as microaggressions, and they were positioned as competitors rather than collaborators. The participants were willing to establish positive relations with their colleagues, but it seems that the unexamined and omnipresent White racial frame throughout their schools systematically alienated them.