“Your Family is Always With You”: Perceptions of Parental Relationships Among Hispanic/Latinx Young Adults Pursuing STEM Careers

Hispanic/Latinx young adults remain significantly underrepresented in science, technol-ogy, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, yet the role families play in these young adults’ trajectories in STEM is still underexamined. The purpose of this study was to exam-ine the relational supports and constraints that Hispanic/Latinx college students in STEM majors experienced with their parents as they moved through college and transitioned into their first year of graduate school or full-time employment. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with 18 Hispanic/Latinx young adults who were part of an undergraduate STEM program at a Hispanic-majority university. Most of the study participants reported benefit-ing from immense emotional support from their parents; however, this emotional support was often simultaneously coupled with home–school value conflicts and a dynamic we call “conversational constraints.” Results from this study point to important interventions involving family that might improve the rates of participation of Hispanic/Latinx students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds in STEM fields.