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The Chicano/Latino Scholar in America Sierra Research and Technical Services March 1999 In this paper, I analyze the biases in academe concerning what is and is not "legitimate" and "rigorous" scholarship. I look at how these biases interact with decision-making power in such a way as to place relative newcomers to the scholarly scene and their research into a traditionally ascriptive secondary role. I analyze the social status of one of these newcomer groups to academe: the so-called "minority" scholar. More specifically, I look at the case of the Chicano/Latino scholar. I argue that the racial/ethnic factor seems to interact with another pervasive source of division among scholars. This is the tension in academe between "doing research" for research's sake and the more applied aspect of academics. This brings into play larger questions about political commitment, partisanship, and advocacy, as well as the tensions between objectivity and the presumed attendant "social detachment" and subjectivity and the equally presumed lack of this social distance. These interrelated issues are areas which not only merit study, but which have been grossly neglected; a fact not all that unrelated to the racism, biases, and distribution of power in academic decision-making in general, nor to the differential social ascriptions in academe based on these. Race and ethnicity operate as the basis for social placement in equal employment opportunity generally (Braddock and McPartland, 1986; Burstein, 1985; Alvarez et al., 1979), as well as in academe specifically, and as the criteria for placement in the lower segments or strata across and within academic departments (Rochín and de la Torre, 1986; Wingfield, 1982; Piliawsky, 1982; Myers, 1977; Rafky, 1972). Thus, racism often seems to raise the possibility of racial/ethnic minorities becoming suspect as scholars. Hardcopy Price: $0.00
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