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Abstract BackgroundLatinos/as/xs continue to face many barriers as they pursue engineering degrees, including remedial placement, lack of access to well‐funded schools, and high poverty rates. We use the concept ofarrebatosto describe the internal reckoning that Latino/a/x engineering students experience through their journeys, particularly focusing on the impact of socioeconomic inequalities. PurposeTo bring counternarratives in engineering education research focusing on the experiences and lived realities of low‐income Latino/a/x engineering students. These counternarratives are an important step in interrogating systemic biases and exclusionary cultures, practices, and policies at HSIs and emerging HSIs and within engineering programs. MethodsPláticaswere conducted with 22 Latino/a/x engineering undergraduates from four different universities in the US Southwest. Thesepláticaswere coded and analyzed drawing from Anzaldúa's theoretical concept ofel arrebato. Special attention was given to participants'arrebatostriggered by their college experiences as low‐income individuals. ResultsAnalysis indicates that Latino/a/x engineering students' arrebatosarise from events that shake up the foundation of their own identity, including an institutional lack of sociopolitical consciousness. This lack of consciousness becomes evident not only in individuals' attitudes toward these students but also in institutional policies that put them at a further disadvantage. ConclusionsFindings have implications for engineering programs, particularly at HSIs and emerging HSIs regarding the creation of policies and practices that aim to secure the retention of low‐income Latino/a/x engineering students and alleviate the systemic barrier they face by affirming the practice of servingness. 

Historically, research in engineering education has taken a deficit-oriented perspective by focusing on the dearth of People of Color (POC) in engineering as a supply issue while ignoring the false narratives and discourses that dominate engineering education and research which exclude POC from the start. Recently, asset-based approaches have gained more traction in the field but too often miss a critical consideration: the hegemony of Whiteness in engineering. This theoretical paper is a deeper exploration of two crucial concepts that underpin the hegemonic discourse of Whiteness: meritocracy and colorblindness. We begin with a brief review of Whiteness studies which views Whiteness as the symbolic and structural white dominance and perceived superiority that marginalizes and oppresses POC and elevates white people to the top of the racial hierarchy (Matias & Newlove, 2017; McIntyre, 2002); a false ideal, guided by a historical mechanism of power, and the product of privileged social positions that benefits white people (DuBois, 1999). The purpose of this paper provides a critical perspective on how Whiteness tends to be at the foundations of these problematic narratives and discourses. The concept of meritocracy asserts that individuals are rewarded based solely on their individual effort, implying that people attain what they deserve in life through their hard work and determination. Conversely, those that are not successful are responsible for their lot in life. However, this belief in meritocracy overlooks the complex web of institutional and systemic variables that play a pivotal role in shaping life outcomes. A colorblind ideology fortifies the myth of meritocracy because it shifts the focus away from understanding how institutions perpetuate the normalized standard of white supremacy and racism, and instead places the responsibility for combating racism and white supremacy on individuals. This perspective bestows privileges upon white individuals as acts of merit if these privileges were earned solely through merit, rather than acknowledging that they are a product of a system that perpetuates advantages like a well-oiled assembly line. Meritocracy and colorblindness form a self-reinforcing cycle—a colorblind discourse in engineering education dominated by Whiteness willfully ignores the hierarchical positioning of racialized groups, fostering the misguided belief that success is determined by inherent merits. In reality, these merits are not objective or universal, but rather intangible attributes granted primarily to those who occupy the upper rungs of the hierarchical ladder within a colorblind society dominated by Whiteness and those who align with such an ideology. This theoretical paper begins to question the ways pedagogy and research are conducted in engineering education that traditionally exclude POC identities under the veil of equality, not equity. This ontological and epistemological shift is possible by questioning the very foundation that colorblindness and merit are built upon. The foundation of this work stems from an NSF grant to uncover the scripts of Whiteness in engineering education while devising a structured environment to help build individual and institutional racial literacy.