The Journey from Welcoming to Belonging: Stories of a New Principal in a Latino Community

Abstract

From Catholic education's inception in the United States, Catholic schools were established for the immigrant population and the leadership was successful at building enrollment with the high European immigrant populations. At this point in United States history, Catholic education is in need of innovative change, especially in regard to attracting the Latino community, the largest Catholic group, to Catholic schools. In this study, I detailed my own journey as a new, first time, first year, Catholic school principal in a 100% Latino environment, where I was welcomed by a Latino community, eventually leading me to a deep sense of belonging. This study emerges from my autoethnographic documentation of my experience, through the use of my blog and archival field notes, as well as three interviews with archdiocesan leaders. Each of these sources provided data that provided overarching thematic patterns that led to my conclusions of the study. Through the weaving of the past and present of my leadership journey, in combination with the cultural experience of the people that surrounded me during this study, culminated into a worthy story of the process of my emerging leadership in a Catholic school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]