WILLIAM ALLAN KRITSONIS was recognized as the Central Washington University Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus for the College of Education and Professional Studies. He was honored by the Texas National Association for Multicultural Education as Professor, Scholar, and Pioneer Publisher for Distinguished Service to Multicultural Research Publishing. The ceremony was held at Texas A&M University-College Station. He was inducted into the prestigious William H. Parker Leadership Academy Hall of Honor. He was an Invited Visiting Lecturer at the Oxford Round Table at Oriel College in the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Dr. Kritsonis was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Teacher College in New York, and Visiting Scholar in the School of Education at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

1. NATIONAL FORUM OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION JOURNAL
VOLUME 33, NUMBERS 2 & 3, 2016
61
DICHOS AS CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON
ONE LATINA’S LEADERSHIP PRAXIS
Anna Pedroza
Adjunct Professor
Texas State University
Sylvia Mendez-Morse
Associate Professor
Texas Tech University
Abstract
This article presents aspects of two Latina educational leaders’ testimonios as they
explored and critically reflected on how leadership practice is enriched by cultural
background. Culture often includes aspects of a group’s common traditions, music,
food, as well as linguistic artifacts such as distinct vocabulary and sayings. Three
Latino dichos, or “sayings”, capture significant themes of school transformative
practices of a Latina principal that demonstrate a culturally responsive perspective to
leadership practice. When applied to the context of schools, these dichos built a
foundation for a culturally rich learning environment that allowed parents, teachers,
and students to thrive. The authors describe how these dichos exemplify various
leadership actions that contributed to the students’ academic success, and how they
relate to research on educational leadership and school transformation.
Keywords: Latina, culturally responsive, educational leadership,
testimonios, school improvement, school transformation
Very few studies on school leadership consider the influence of
a leaders’ racial or ethnic identity on/in their leadership practice
(Gonzalez, 1998; Reyes, Scribner, & Scribner, 1999). Perhaps
assigning minority leaders to minority majority campuses are based on
the assumption that minority students will benefit academically by

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having minority leaders. On an intuitive level, the assumption may be
considered valid because of the significant role that minority campus
leaders model for students and adults in the community. Should that be
the basis for this practice, then, why are there limited investigations
that examine how or if a campus leader’s racial or ethnic identity
contributes to or influences their leadership practice and student
academic performance? Educational leadership scholars often
overlook the cultural wealth that Latina educational leaders bring to
their day-to-day leadership roles.
This brief article focuses on how one Latina principal’s
practices were influenced by the cultural dichos she grew up with and
how this contributed to her ability to successfully improve students’
academic performance at her predominantly Latino school. What
began as exploratory conversations between two colegas y comadres –
the authors – evolved into testimonios about culturally responsive
leadership when we recognized the political context within which the
work occurred. Aspects of those testimonios to one another are
presented here.
A brief literature review begins this article followed by a
discussion about the methodology. After a brief description of the
campus, the three specific dichos [typical Latino sayings] are
introduced and their relationships to Dr. Pedroza’s leadership practices
are explained. Finally, the conclusion examines how these leadership
behaviors influence culturally responsive leadership and how they
relate to research on transformative leadership.
Brief Literature Review
Few educational leadership scholars of color have included in
their research studies the impact of minority leaders’ racial or ethnic
cultural background has on creating high performing schools. Reyes
et al. (1999) documented how the leadership practices of school
leaders, who served predominately minority students in impoverished
border campuses of South Texas communities, were influenced or
enriched by their personal Latino background. Gonzalez (1998) also

3. PEDROZA &MENDEZ-MORSE 63
demonstrated how minority school leaders used their bilingualism and
aspects of their personal cultural background to relate to students and
parents. Similarly, studies on African American school leaders have
reported the cultural connections that they experienced when working
with African American students (Alston, 2005; Gooden, 2005;
Tillman, 2004; Wilson, Douglas, & Nganga, 2014). These studies
indicate researchers should consider school leaders’ racial/ethnic
identities and cultural backgrounds when seeking to understand how to
create positive, culturally responsive school cultures that enable
linguistically diverse students from poverty to meet high academic
expectations and thrive in their schools.
Kea, Campbell-Whatley, and Richards (2006) have noted the
significant impact critically examining one’s own sociocultural
identity and the inequalities between schools and society can make on
institutionalized racism, which can manifest itself as toxic, low-
performing school environments. Using a testimonio research process,
we, the authors, reflected on the institutional impact of sociocultural
consciousness of a campus leader successfully transforming a campus
to one that meets Reeves (2004) definition of a 90-90-90 campus.
In all cultures, ‘sayings’ emerge that are used to describe
various situations. These sayings tend to provide guidance, or advice
on how to behave. The authors identified three dichos typically found
in Latino communities that captured significant themes that guided Dr.
Pedroza’s leadership practice. This former principal applied these
dichos to the context of schools, and they became a personal
foundation to create a culturally rich learning environment that
allowed parents, teachers, and students to thrive.
Methodology
The authors apply a version of testimonios as a research
method. Prieto and Villenas (2012) “call attention to the power of
testimonio as a method and political tool for naming and claiming
Chicana/Latina feminist pedagogies” (p. 412). Testimonios are
generally life stories of marginalized persons told to others who can

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document and disseminate the stories. Being professionally privileged
Latinas in a predominately white male discipline, the authors may be
not represent financially marginalized individuals, but as Elenes
(2011) asserts, “…group marginalization continues to exist in
academia even when we have attained a relatively privileged status”
(p. 111). The authors are two Latinas scholars, one practicing [retired
now] and one academic; two Latinas working in a white male
dominant profession; two Latinas who have done research together for
more than a decade; two Latinas who have examined their professional
lives from various perspectives including critical feminist,
transformative leadership, and Latina Critical feminist to name a few.
We contend that our testimonios research activities are political and
that this article is activist work: academic activist work. We claim a
Chicana feminist testimoniantes’ perspective that “bears witness to
each other… through our own voice and authoring” (Prieto &
Villenas, 2012, p. 415).
The authors have collaborated on various research projects
focusing on the experiences of Latina educational leaders. Recent
work explores the intersection of racial/ethnic identity and leadership
practice using a testimonios research approach involving various
Latinas who have worked as educational leaders and taught at
predominant white institutions. Although the authors are both
participants in this testimonio research study, the findings shared in
this article are on one—Dr. Pedroza— and her descriptions of how
dichos were cultural influences on her leadership practices at a
predominantly Latino elementary school.
Background and Campus Description
Ortega Elementary is located in an inner-urban neighborhood
of one of the fastest growing cities in Texas and serves a community
that has been home to primarily African American and Latinos for
over 90 years. Student enrollment is 97% low-income, 42% English
language learners, and 57% were identified as at-risk students (Texas
Education Agency, 2012). The campus transitioned to a predominantly
Latino enrollment with African-American students declining from

5. PEDROZA &MENDEZ-MORSE 65
25% to 10% in a six year period. Under Dr. Pedroza’s nine- year
tenure, the campus was recognized at the state level as a high-
performing school for six years, even as state standards increased
under its accountability system. The school was also recognized by
Austin Monthly magazine in 2009 as one of the best public schools in
the city. In 2010, Dr. Pedroza was honored as one of the top five
elementary school principals in Texas. What were the underlying
forces that shaped her leadership practices to be transformative in
nature?
Fullan (2001) asserts the moral imperative of schooling, and
for the authors, that moral imperative was shaped by a cultural
upbringing that instilled hope for a better future, the will to pursue it,
and the moral fiber to make a difference. Ganas (will), esperanza
(hope), y el ser buen educado (being socially caring and ethical)
formed the leadership foundation for Dr. Pedroza as a school principal.
These common Latino precepts guided and sustained her as she
persevered through the challenge of transforming her campus into a
recognized, high performing school.
Dichos as cultural influences on leadership practice:
Cuando hay ganas hay mañana. Edmonds (1979, p. 23) posited,
"We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all
children whose schooling is of interest to us.” The difference in results
is having the will to do so – in other words, ganas. This Mexican
dicho asserts, “When there is a will, there is a tomorrow;” often the
dicho is referred to with the single word ganas. The will to create a
transformative culture at the school was rooted in the fundamental
belief that it was possible for all students to learn. Growing up in a
home in an impoverished neighborhood with nine siblings and a
mother who dropped out of high school, the driving force for Dr.
Pedroza was ganas. Based on her own lived experience, her mother
was determined that all her children would become educated. Thus,
ganas or the deep-rooted belief that all students could learn and that it
was unacceptable to have children dropout or be pushed out became a
driving force for her transformational leadership.
Translating this belief into practice and creating a paradigm

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shift were key to Dr. Pedroza transforming the school. The first step
involved inspiring teachers by igniting their own personal ganas to
engage in transformative teaching. Many teachers enter the profession
with the desire to make a difference, and inspiring staff to embrace
being part of a larger undertaking became a vehicle for change. She
stated, “Si yo no tengo ganas, how I’m going expect the teachers to
have ganas?” Thus for her, being able to not only demonstrate her
ganas, willingness to connect with the teachers’ ganas to meet the
needs of the students was an initial step in developing a common
campus-wide will to act on their belief that all children could learn.
Another step was to actively recruit and hire teachers who
were also driven with las ganas to engage in culturally responsive
teaching and transformative leadership to successfully teach all
children. Dr. Pedroza added that, “not all teachers had ganas, at least
not for our students here. So I had to go find them.”
Mientras hay vida, hay esperanza. This dicho stresses that as
long as there is life, there is hope. Esperanza translates into ‘hope’
and ‘aspirations.’ Hope is often overlooked as a factor to create and
sustain a successful learning environment. School administrators in
their quest for “good scores” can often disregard aspirations for a
better future for children. However, hope is essential not only for
students and their families living in poverty, but for the teachers
dedicated to teaching them (Kuykendall, 1996). Dr. Pedroza shared,
as long as we can provide our students with hope, we can
sustain their belief in a tomorrow. I believe that we need to
extend that ray of hope to the families and communities that
our schools serve. We have to show them that we, all of us,
have esperanzas para sus hijos!
How did this Latina leader accomplish this? The students
served by the campus lived in an inner-urban neighborhood whose
daily context included everything poverty embodies. Most of the
children lived in single-parent households where family members
typically had less than a high school education. The mobility rate

7. PEDROZA &MENDEZ-MORSE 67
hovered at 25%, and the color of your shirt indicated more than a
fashion preference. Hope for future endeavors required building a
different, common vision for everyone in the community. The school
needed to be transformed into one where the neighborhood believed
they played a role in their children’s schooling and connected school
to a better future for its children.
Hope, esperanza, was translated into actionable steps. The first
step was to create opportunities to develop trusting relationships that
focused on students’ welfare. These opportunities included outreach
efforts to families and to community organizations. Campus
beautification projects that resulted in school administrators working
alongside grandmothers and students included digging garden plots
alongside teachers, Saturday or evening family field trips with
teachers, and home visits to share each other’s progress became a
norm. Platicas or “on-going conversations” in English and Spanish
were effective feedback loops and provided avenues for parents’
voices to be heard. Establishing our common focus on nuestros hijos
(our children), working together to improve the school, and having
communication mechanisms for the conversations facilitated building
collaborative, trusting relationships.
Transforming negative self-images was another way to nurture
hope - esperanzas. After listening to negative dominant cultural social
messaging, students and their families often lose sight of their
strengths. School practices were implemented to focus on leadership
development for students, parents, and teachers. A strength-based
affirming framework was adopted, as well as a comprehensive
professional development plan that included book studies on teacher
and student leadership. “When teachers exhibit an affirming attitude
toward students with diverse backgrounds, they greatly affect their
learning, belief in self, and overall academic achievement,” writes
Ballenger and Ninnes (2013, p. 2). School became the safe, nurturing
place where students listened to guest speakers who offered counter-
narratives and inspired them to think of future possibilities.
Additionally, there were opportunities to participate in activities such
as robotics and the arts. Overtime, as students’ academic success
increased and eventually included outperforming more affluent

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schools, Ortega Elementary School began receiving accolades.
Similarly hope and pride could be found in the students’ own personal
narratives as well as in their parents’ engagement with the school.
Administrators and teachers began to actively recruited parents
to participate in leadership positions. School administrators, the
counselor, and parent support specialist explicitly supported parents as
they navigated new roles they had not been previously encouraged to
assume. Mentoring parent leadership was considered and valued as a
social justice mission and obligation. Understanding that school
administration team members do change, Dr. Pedroza believed that the
school belonged to the community and that part of her social justice
work was to build parents’ leadership skills so parents would continue
being advocates long after a change in administrators.
Parents were transformed to see themselves as leaders not only
in the school, but also in the district, as they took their seats on district
committees, including textbook adoption and school boundary
changes. As they became more empowered, esperanzas – aspirations
for a better future – were fueled by becoming role models for their
children. High expectations for their children’s teachers, for elected
school board members, and for their children fueled their sense of self-
efficacy. They voiced their expectations for better after-school
programs and linguistic supports such as dual language programs and
bilingual reading specialists.
The dichos, mientras hay mañana, hay esperanza,
communicated a commitment to improve their children’s future
pathways. Culture and language were seen as strengths, and parents
and students recognized that they possessed the leadership skills they
needed to continue advocating for that future. In short, their
empowerment shifted their paradigm about their future and increased
self-efficacy skills.
Una cosa es instrucción y otra es la educación. Latinos
distinguish between having an education and being “well educated.”
Instrucción translates to having an education, or formal instruction.
Ser buen educado means that a person has good moral character,
personal manners, or social skills. Academic success is not the sole

9. PEDROZA &MENDEZ-MORSE 69
focus of schooling; social emotional learning is also important (Hilton,
2014). The value of a robust and positive school culture cannot be
overlooked as critical factors that promote students’ self-efficacy and
leadership skills. In other words, focus on educating the whole child is
a strong cultural value.
Dr. Pedroza was the first in her family to attend college, and
the intrinsic message shared by her family was of being of service to
others. Her familial role models did not have a high school education,
but they clearly modeled and held the expectation that regardless of
formal education level, people were to conduct themselves in an
ethical manner and be of service to others. She shared that, “it did not
matter how rich you were, how many awards you had, or where you
lived. I had to act como una niña bien educada wherever I went.” El
bien comportamiento, [conducting yourself well] and thus
demonstrating being well educated [bien educado], was a cultural
expectation that strongly influenced her expectations for
leadership and the sense of community she helped foster.
Establishing an environment where students respected each
other and creating a culture of collective care and integrity required
professional development for teachers. For two years, the campus
professional development program focused on creating collaborative
teacher teams. In tandem, a school-wide positive behavior support
(PBIS) initiative provided the basis “of the work.” As a component of
the PBIS initiative, nine character principles were selected
collaboratively by teachers and parents, and communicated in English
and Spanish to the school community. Teachers and administrators
examined their own perceptions and clarified what behaviors they
wanted adults and students to exemplify. The overall goal was to
foster a school culture that recognized and nurtured the whole child- el
buen educado.
Students’ leadership development and service learning became
avenues to cultivate students’ broader community perspectives. The
counselor trained students to be peer-mediators in the school. Another
group of student leaders led school-wide service project activities such
as reading to students and leading morning assemblies. Service
learning projects led by students became annual events where they

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applied leadership skills and learned that they DO make a difference.
Discussion
Research has examined the impact of culturally responsive
pedagogy on students’ academic success (Hollins & Oliver, 1999;
Nieto, 1999; Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 2005;
Hollie, 2012). Scholarly work can be found on multicultural education
(Sleeter, 1992; Banks, 1996), developing educators’ cultural
competence (Balcazar, Suarez-Balcazar, & Taylor-Ritzler, 2009), and
culturally responsive instruction (Gay, 2000; Howard, 2006).
However, this testimonio examined the lived leadership practices that
resulted in institutionalizing a high-performance culture in a minority-
majority campus.
Three themes emerged that could be captured in three Latino
dichos [sayings] after using the qualitative research tool of testimonios
and analyzing the emerging narrative through questioning and
dialogue. We discovered the prevalent cultural influences underlying
the leadership practices. Merchant and Willis (2012) recognized the
contributions our ways of knowing make to understanding how we can
transform our schools. Their work acknowledged the role of self-
reflection of our lived experiences as central to the narrative. They
maintain, “that it is imperative that we remain grounded in in our own
cultural and gendered ways of knowing” (p. xiv). Like Merchant and
Willis, we were not constrained by these ways of knowing; rather,
believe that these dichos provide a cultural lens that informed how
Latino leadership practices can be transformative. Our work also
identifies the urgent need to bridge the space between other successful
Latino educational leaders’ lived testimonios and current literature to
build a more dynamic culturally responsive leadership framework.
Until that time, we will continue to collectively navigate nepantla or
“the place where transformation is possible,” (Cortez, 2001, p. 367) to
ensure that Latino students can thrive under the culturally responsive
leadership of school administrators who possess ganas, aspire to
nurture esperanza, and value el buen educado.

11. PEDROZA &MENDEZ-MORSE 71
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Authors
Anna Pedroza, PhD has 37 years of leadership roles at the state,
district, and campus levels. She currently is an adjunct professor at
Texas State University, an educational consultant, and is coaching
novice principals.
Sylvia Mendez-Morse, PhD has 39 years of experience as an educator
and/or leader at campus, district, and higher education levels. She is an
associate professor at Texas Tech University.