College students have a long history of engaging in activism. For Mexican American students in particular, activism has focused on increasing access and fighting discrimination in higher education. The question about the developmental impact of this activity has been left unanswered. No studies in higher education have specifically focused on how activism—such as participating in rallies, membership in politically active organization, and attending/organizing cultural awareness events—may influence the developmental process for Latino students.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how being an activist influenced the lives of Mexican American women who attended Indiana University during the 1990s. This study examined how they made meaning of their activism and whether self-authorship theory could be used to inform how they made meaning of these experiences.

The interviews of seven women resulted in their reflections on how their experiences affected who they have become and how they made meaning of their activism as undergraduates. Their narratives describe how they became part of the Latino community at IU, the student organizations they belonged to, their activities, and both the positive and negative consequences for their engagement.

Applying self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 2001)—a student development theory that illustrates the development from being externally defined to living one's life based on enacting one's own internal values across three dimensions of development—to these findings provided a framework to understand how the women made meaning of their activism and the developmental consequences from these actions. The Developing Political Consciousness model emerged to demonstrate the process of developing an increasingly complex understanding of Latino politics, racism, oppression, and privilege (cognitive dimension), an internalized life calling to advocate for Latinos (intrapersonal dimension), and an increasingly complex understanding of political tactics and ability to collaborate with members and other organizations for the goal of achieving political change (interpersonal dimension). This model demonstrates how engaging in activism transforms from an external expectation from peers to participate in activism to an internalized choice of advocacy for Latinos based on a deep understanding of the Latino condition in the United States and movement towards self-authorship.