My name is Cybil Yakira, and I am a Philadelphia Public School teacher and doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. I am writing with the hope that you will help to fund my arts-based dissertation research.

As a dual language kindergarten teacher who has worked in Philadelphia public schools for over a decade, I have dedicated my career to the Latine immigrant families of this city, including for my dissertation. This qualitative study is designed to leverage the profound relationships of trust I have cultivated with my students’ families over the course of my career by asking nine mothers, three from each school where I have worked, to invite me into their homes, and to allow me to observe them with their families, take pictures, and ask them deeply personal questions about their upbringing, motherhood, and experience building trust with their children’s teachers and schools.

My dissertation study leans into the personal nature of my relationships with these mothers, as I use the images we’ve taken and conversations we’ve had to create original artwork, collaging their words and images into something I call an “antroilustración,” an ethnographic artifact which both embodies and critiques the subjective and creative nature of qualitative research. It brings the mothers and their children all together in my own home, for a five-hour group session wherein the mothers participate in a descriptive review of the first antroilustración, share their stories about building trust with schools, draft a collective letter to the future educators of their children, and help to create a second antroilustración, by collaborating in the plan for its content and messaging.

This study is unique in its loving and care-based design, its arts-based methodology, and its focus: Latina immigrant mothers’ experiences of relational trust with their children’s schools. Guided by an assets-based approach and care-based research questions, this dissertation invites readers into the borderland spaces these mothers and their children inhabit, between languages, cultures, nations, and races. It positions the mothers’ testimonios as counter-narratives to the deficit perspectives of Latina immigrant mothers that are pervasive in the ideologies of US education.

The study is expensive, and as I am still working as a public school teacher and not a full-time graduate student, I am paying for the entire study out of pocket (in addition to the cost of my degree).

The project budget includes:

Qualitative data analysis software

Full verbatim transcription of 20+ hours of Spanish interviews

Transportation for myself and the families to and from interviews

Meals for the families during the interviews and group sessions

300+ printed photos for collaging

Large canvases, paints, and other art supplies

Small prints of artwork as gifts for participants and childcare volunteers

Goodies and activities for the kids

The total cost of the project is $5,000. As you can imagine, given my income and student loans, this is a significant cost, yet I am unwilling to compromise as these items are integral to the study design. The purpose of this research is to determine how schools can better earn the trust of Latina immigrant mothers as well as to honor these mothers by respecting their stories, wisdom, time, and trust. This study seeks to put them and their needs and interests first, and to reimagine education research to honor and celebrate historically marginalized people and cultures through storytelling, art, and community building.

If this resonates with you, please donate and share with people and organizations that can help. If you are interested in learning more about the study’s goals and design, feel free to reach out.

The study will be completed by June 2024 after which point donors of $100 or more will receive a hand-signed 8x8 canvas print of the one of the antroilustraciones. Any additional funding raised will be used for the creative distribution of the artwork and study findings across Philadelphia public schools and community centers serving Latine women and families.

Thank you so much for your consideration.