Date of Award
Fall 9-5-2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Katherine Cho
Abstract
The longing for home is a feeling that is intrinsically at the heart of the human experience. Unfortunately, structures of power and domination play a key role in the way different populations are able to engage with different environments as locations of comfort, where a sense of belonging might fruitfully develop. To that end, this study analyzes current educational and research practices that have failed to account for the experience of Latinx Non-Citizen Permanent Resident (LNCPR) students in the United States—through a decolonization lens—since their existence and experience is often dismissed by an academia that assumes that they are merely in-transit within the binary of citizen and non-citizen status. On the whole, this study answers the following research question: How do LNCPR students conceptualize sense of belonging and support, according to their own experience and narratives? By affirming and centering the concerns, barriers, and specific problems experienced and reported by this oftentimes invisible population, this study sheds light into the way LNCPR status demarcates a new borderlands at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, legal, and acceptability statuses that impact sense of belonging conceptualizations for these students. The application of a qualitative Existential Phenomenological (EP) study of 13 LNCPR participants through their testimonios and pláticas is used to honor and highlight the experiences of these students as expressed by them in their own words. Analyzed through a decolonization framework, results from this study provide critical considerations to develop a new model for student-support practices needed to foster a more inclusive, decolonial, and authentic sense of belonging, needed to improve outcome metrics for LNCPR students in college campuses throughout the U.S.
Recommended Citation
Matamoros Viquez, Daniel Francisco, "Tu Casa No es Mi Casa: Decolonizing Educational Practices by Accounting for the Experience of Latinx Non-Citizen Permanent Resident College Students" (2025). Dissertations. 4245.
https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/4245
