Research Interview

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
I can, you, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Let me uh there you go. Can II I think the screen is a little blurred. Is it in on your end? Uh Yeah. Uh I mean, uh I can see you very clearly. Can you go ahead? Yeah. Yeah, you, you come out real clear but I from this end it's blur but it doesn't really matter if you can see it and hear me. Yeah, I can see you and I can hear you and, and uh tell me if I have your permission to record the session for my uh notes. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Sara. Uh first and foremost, thank you uh for making time for this. You're welcome. I really appreciate your uh your volunteering. Well, I think your, your study is very important. Uh There's a lot to be done. And uh yeah, you, you're hitting something that I think is very important in terms of looking at process and education and health, everything. I mean, it's very important work out. And uh because of that, uh the way I found out about you was through the website of the Elite Scholar program at Santa Clara University. Uh from, from looking at your web page and, and the, and the, the linkedin. Um I see that you've been in education now for the past 30 years at Santa Clara. At Santa Clara alone. 30 years. Yeah. And years before that, um many years I had uh almost 20 years before I went to Santa Clara. So I've been an educator since I was in my twenties. Holy cow. Yeah, I get, I, I get the impression that, uh, you came out of the womb thinking you, you wanna be a teacher from the get go. Yes. Yes. I, I, that's all I aspired to be when I was in, um, an undergrad. And, uh, you know, I mean, that's, that was uh kind of uh a that was locked into my heart and my mind from the very beginning, um I served in various capacities before I went to Santa Clara with, with that in mind to tell me if there was somebody like that to be a teacher. Oh, yes. Yes. My father, my father was a teacher in Mexico. He was a, he was in the socialist movement in education. Um, and my, my parents were part of that generation of the socialist uh education movement in Mexico. And so my father, uh my father died when he was 37 here in the United States in California. But, uh, but he, he, he dedicated his life to socialist uh rural education uh correct me if I'm wrong because some, some people get the wrong impression that socialists are like communist. No, not in Mexico. I think uh socialism takes various forms in various countries. I know that's, that's a lesson that I learned myself because I didn't know what to make of it. Given that I was 12 when he died and I benefited from his guidance even before he died. And so um socialist um education in Mexico was a reform, an educational reform. And it may have been linked to uh some revolutionary practices and may have been linked to um uh government uh restrictions. But uh basically, it was a reform, a way to reform an education system. I don't know if it succeeded to, to a great extent. But I, I have interviewed and talked to people that were educated during that period and certainly my father was so, um no, it doesn't, it really doesn't have any um connection to the broader socialist movements that, you know, people interpreted as communist and it, it was not at all far from it. Yeah. Some, some people get it, you know. Yeah, they, yeah, because they're not, we are not well educated about the systems in, in Mexico and Latin America at all. And you would think that at the very least we would be very better informed and educated and uh about the systems that have existed in Mexico. But we don't even go there. I mean, we just kind of discount in general, we discount the idea that Mexico has good systems and which they do. Uh not for everyone. But, you know, uh we have people here have very little knowledge about what, what it is and what it constitutes and why people don't get a good education on what some, why some do and why some don't, you know, that kind of thing. Um You really have to have either been educated to a certain extent there or have studied it from the, you know, like, uh, scholarly perspective. Otherwise there's very little understanding of, of what have, what have influenced a lot of people to see the need for stay there and work their entire lives to, to make something, um, different, you know, with that in mind. Uh, would you say education was calling from because of how you were raised? Oh, yes, yes. Yes. Oh, and in fact, um, you know, because I, I was, um, raised in the United States since, since the fifties. Ok. I'm 74 years old and, um, before, uh, the way I was raised was, or it was already, I was already programmed, uh, to be an educator of anything that I, uh, worked towards was to be a teacher, period, you know. And, uh, that was my goal and I didn't know at various times if I would achieve it but I never, I never, um, deviated from that goal. I mean, I had other jobs and everything. But I never deviated from the fact that I could be a teacher but I could be an educator. Um, so, yeah, I mean, um, I, I majored in an area that I thought was something that I needed to enhance and that was Spanish literature because of course, I went through the whole gamut of maintaining bilingualism and knowing that it wasn't a popular, uh, trend, it still isn't. Um, Even when I was raised. Um And that very, very few people knew anything about it. And then going through the system that placed very little emphasis on the, the native language, which uh skills that one was raised with. And, you know, and so I went through all of those stages of, I don't ever, I didn't ever reject my language because of the home, the way that I was raised and the kinds of things that I lived before I went to college. So I was, I felt very fortunate later in my college career that I have that foundation because I found out later that many people from my generation didn't have a clue. E even now, you know, people that I, I'm in touch with that are teacher or my age don't have fluency and it's pretty frustrating. Uh I think at times when they recognized that they went through, you know, a mainstream process that never allow them the possibility of developing fluency in their native language. I, I know your dad is a teacher and correct me if I'm wrong. Was he teaching, like, at a college level or, um, high school, middle school, elementary or all of it? Oh, yeah. But, ok. Ok. Yes. Yeah. I, ok. Right there you, there you are, we were cut off. I'm sorry. That's ok. Uh, you, you were saying, uh, I know your dad is a teacher. Was he teaching at a college level? Uh, elementary, high school, middle school. No, he was, he was elementary and he was uh you know, from the very basic, he went to the first uh education system in the in northern Chihuahua. He went to um uh he went to a school um um uh an agricultural school in northern Chihuahua, which was the first one in the state ever in the state in the country. But in northern Mexico was first, the first one built in the state of Chihuahua, which was close to where he was born and raised. So it was an agricultural school. Uh but he came out of the agricultural school uh traveling and going to different places to learn about social education because he was born in the, he was born in the twenties and by the time he went to school in his late thirties, early forties and the whole reform movement and were taking place. So, no, he was committed to community and of course, in the rural schools in Mexico at that time in the forties and early fifties, the ages of the pupils were very broad, you know, they were adults that were illiterate and he was teaching adults that were illiterate too. You know, I mean, that it wasn't just for Children. It was for the whole gamut of, of, in, in Mexico, in Mexico is the education system. Do you know if they have, like a doctorate level? Oh, yes. Yes, absolutely. I, um, I did a website in Mexico in Chihuahua in uh 2020 01. I did, I was a Fulbright, I was awarded a Fulbright to go teach in Chihuahua to develop a program in, uh in Chihuahua uh on uh environmental education. And I lived there a year and all of the people that I worked with were Mexicana researchers with phd S and, yeah, all the universities have phd S. Yeah. Is that what your dad did? He got his phd? Oh, no, no. My dad did elementary and he did, he was, you know, the education system in Chihuahua in, in Mexico, in general. Uh They don't consider teaching and teaching credential as an advanced degree or anything of that nature. They consider it more like a B A or professional degree. And so not even ba, I don't think, I think it was just a commitment of people that got educations just to teach. And so there's a whole professional there. The echelon of teaching in Mexico is still very much the same they, they have what they call, um, uh, no, which go from, uh, going from high school to an, and that's where you train to be a teacher and they don't have it. It's more like, um, like a ab a MA program and are charged with preparing teachers. And a lot of the people that teach in are uh ma people and a level people. And it's just a completely different, um, preparation, professional preparation program is what we have here. It's not even related. But in any case, I went there as a Fulbright and work with people that had, uh, that were in part of, um, the federal system of education that had P DS in science, uh, hydrologist, hydrologist, uh, uh, biologists and people like that that did environmental education. But they also, half of them had gone to other countries to finish the phd s hard core there. But, but the federal government had funded those phd s even, uh, outside the country. The only commitment was if they left the country, even though the federal government funded them, they had to come back to Mexico to teach. So most of the people that I worked with during my Fulbright year, all of them were phd S and two thirds of them had done degrees elsewhere. France, Australia, the United States. They, they went back to work in Mexico. Oh, my goodness. You've been around some pretty bright people there. Oh, incredibly bright. I mean, incredibly bright people. And I had a Fulbright in Mexico, a traditional Fulbright. And then I had 22 Fulbright in Colombia. And from that point on, you know, to kind of disseminate and um connect the networks and such. Oh, yeah, really bright people. We, we've talked about your dad, about your mom. Tell me about your mom. My mom was stay home, my mom was stay home. My mom went through all of the women in my family, which is uh unusual for, for Mexican women of the period, all of the women in my immediate family were literate. OK. What that meant is that before the forties, women were not literate, you know, they couldn't read and write even today, even today, which is amazing. Um We have people coming over and staying here, they're not literate, you know, I mean, we have a woman that works with us that's been with us for 25 years and she's still not literate, literate, basic literacy. If you took a lot of the working class Mexicanos that come here, they, they're not literate. And so in Mexico, all of the women in my and both of my families, my mothers and my fathers benefited from the socialist education movement in that they, all of them, even my aunt who uh that I worked with uh 15, 20 years ago on passing down a narrative for, for a publication that I that I did was literate. I mean, she was when she gave me all the notes and when she gave me a corrido that had been written about the work my father did, she wrote it out a memory, you know, and she was 70 at that time. Yeah. So it's a, it's a special kind of study. It's a special kind of, um, you know, historical, uh, um, area that I think really needs to be researched and built, you know, the collaborations, the quality of education, the motivation for young women to continue and all that, to be literate. Yeah, that's uh that's an amazing thing. But it's still, we're getting really young people in their twenties and thirties that are illiterate here. I'm not surprised though, because not. Right. Right. Uh Tara. Tara, tell me if by the time you started your undergraduate studies, did you feel like uh you were ready for school, undergraduate? Absolutely. However, you know, I lived at home for the, after I graduated from high school, I lived at home for two years before I transferred to a four year college. I lived at home and worked two jobs. And because my mother was widowed at the age of 37 and she raised us after my father died and I was first born. So I lived at home and didn't leave home until I was about 20 then went away to school. However, um uh I never, it's, I never wavered, I never questioned. I always just knew I had to go forward and um I didn't start out thinking that I was gonna do a phd but I was kind of mentored into it at every single level. And then when I got to the actual phd level, uh halfway through the process, I, I almost gave up because it was so hard in terms of my personal life and my personal choices and questioning whether I was doing the right thing and question cause I taught, I taught high school. Then I worked with teachers for a long, long time and then I uh I did other things, consulting. I did um uh I was in committees for the State Department for bilingual programs. I did uh testing, I did liter, I did all kinds of. So I went to UCL A and I had some professional uh positions that developed, you know, that looked at literacy. So I left the classroom right away only because there was such a need to do other things, you know. And during that time, so by the time I got halfway through my phd, I was in my thirties and I was pretty freaked out. I had gone through a divorce and I, you know, financially it was really, really hard. So, um so I went to counseling. I, I didn't take a year off. I, I cut down on the, on the work, uh on the uh you know, full time and then I went to counseling and I came out of it. Stronger thinking. I got to push, you know, I'm, I'm a BD and I, I can't give it up. Choices are get a job, make money, get married again, whatever and more finish up. And I, I just couldn't leave it. I had to go forward in spite of politics and everything else. Having very little community uh support. I had very little support, but I did have good mentors. So tell me about the undergraduate. I'm gonna circle back a little bit because uh I don't know where you went for your undergraduate studies. I went to San Jose State. Ah, is there reason is there reason you take the? Yes, I applied to uh San Diego. Uh UCLAI, I applied to San Diego. Um uh San Jose State. I think UCL A too. I applied to UCL A San Diego and San Jose and it was 1969 you know, 1968 the whole world was going berserk. I didn't want to go to Berkeley because it was scary. And, and so I went up to San Jose State. Um I have to admit that it was partly the party scene and the other part of it was that, you know, the Mexican American um graduate uh program was the first in the state. And so I wanted to be close to Chicanos. I wanted to be part of the movement. I didn't quite get involved in it completely, but I went to San Jose State because it was a community space college, you know, university at the time. And, uh, I, I had a hard time because I didn't know anybody. Uh, I didn't have family. I didn't have, I didn't know any, anybody. I went up there and I didn't know a soul. I made some friends and it was hard to be away from home, but I also needed to be away from home. I needed to detach, I needed to detach from my hometown. I needed to detach from, uh, uh, living at home with my mom and, and just continually two jobs since I could even work, you know, since I always work, I didn't have a whole lot of financial support. Uh, my sisters were going forward and getting eop and I, I was a little older and I, I didn't qualify for a lot of the upward bound and those programs. It was, they were after me, you know, I graduated from high school in 1967 and they were barely getting going with eop and things of that nature. So I worked, I work, I work two jobs and I went to college so I have a junior college degree. I finished my, a, a only because in my mind if I didn't finish anything else, it was gonna be an, a, a, you know, so I had an, a, a, um, and I, I really, even to, to, to this day appreciate the, a, a because it was really different. I had to take music. I had to take other things that a, a programs don't even offer or require for an, a, a back then. Uh, is it, uh, is that where you were Santa Paula, specifically Santa Paula? Santa Paula, California? Where is that? It's in Ventura, it's in Ventura County. It's, uh, it's 14 miles east of Ventura of the ocean of the, the beach into a canyon. And you go towards uh San Fernando Valley in the back. You know, it's uh it's like an hour and a half away from L A and it's in a little canyon. It's a small town of 17,000 people when I lived there. Now, it's huge and there were very few Mexicanos because my parents moved there in uh in the fifties, you know, and that was uh not the height of the Bracero program or anything like that. My, my dad had family connections and was supported in other ways. We were, we, it uh we immigrated legally, we went to Las Cruces, New Mexico first. And, and Las Cruces is where I first got my American education that I had gone to progressive social schools in Mexico before I went to uh school in got you. And then after you finished down the state, you went to UCLA, I see for your much later II, I got my um at San Jose State, I got married and had a child then we moved back to Ventura and I started teaching uh with a um uh preliminary credential. I was a, a teacher assistant, but I finished my credential at Cal Lutheran Lutheran is in 1000 Oaks. And I think I was the very first Latina at that campus. It was real small and I borrowed money from the bank to pay back and I got the credential and I started teaching in Ox, I started teaching at a school called uh Channel Islands High School, which was a brand new high school in Oxnard, California. Was that before you went to UCL A? Yes, it was before. At that point, I started uh commuting to UCL A to take dance lessons because I wanted to teach for and I had a sister who was part of the, the UCL A for. And so I went back to school. Uh I got a divorce but before that I got a um I got a job at State Fortune when I finished, when I started teaching and I started teacher education training teachers at the, at the, at the uh at the district level, I met some people that I took, I took a class during the summer in Mexico in Michoacan. And I met some people that were doing a program taking teachers down there to, to teach them skills and become better bilingual teachers. I met them and they offered me a job at Cal State Fullerton So I left the classroom 10 and I taught at Cal State Fullerton in the uh it was a special title seven program for training teachers. And I was out in the field a lot. At that time, I started my studies at UCL A. And then at the time in 1976 I started working in the language dominant survey that is still used today. I served on committees and I was still very young. But of course, I didn't, I didn't feel young. I felt really old and experienced. So by that time, um uh I, I needed to go back to school. I went to UCLA. I did a as a cosm teaching English second language and I did D MA at, at the school of education. And by that time I had so much professional experience that I was given the position of director of the teacher education cohort, the teacher, bilingual teacher cohort, which was 36 a working in teacher credentials in the school of education. I also work in the um center for um center for Evaluation Research and I um pilot tested and developed. Uh so which is a program for teaching uh Spanish to elementary schools and I uh elementary school teachers. Um So I did that with that. Yeah. OK. No, so, yeah, I'm sorry, we keep getting frozen. So um let's see. Where was I? So uh at UCLA, I finished uh when I passed my comp exams. I got accepted into the phd program. Uh but I was a single parent and was working two jobs and making very little money. It was a very expensive place to live. So I met the Dean of the School of Education at UC Santa Barbara that offered me for the first time ever, ever offered me a really good fellowship uh three years uh to do a phd. And so I transferred to U CS B. I lost a year of course work. But I, I it was a completely different focus because it was in cognitive psychology. And I did the, I finished the phd at U CS B. Um but it's the first time I had ever been awarded uh money that I didn't have to pay back. So I was there for three years. I, I did that for three years. And after that I had to work, I taught at city college, I supervised teachers and I decided to finish up. And then when I finished up, I got a lecturer position uh kind of study. OK. Now, just, just to uh clarify, uh the reason you went to UCL A was because you already had connections there and uh you wanted to stay local. Well, I was already living in L A. Uh I was in uh Fullerton. Um and uh I wanted, I always wanted to go to UCL A because uh when I was younger, that was my, my best option. Uh to say, stay close to home, to be close to, you know, my mom. Um, but then I got this thing about being far away. So I went to San Jose that I never left the idea of getting and play. Um, so, um I don't know what, what it would have, what my life would have been like, had I gone straight to UCL A instead of going north, but I don't discount the importance of being home and going away. I, I think that is a value um difficult, very, a very valuable experience. Um My, I had a sister who went to UCL A so I don't know, it just seemed to be the place to, to go, you know, at that time. Yeah. And then you mentioned Santa Barbara, I was that the only school that you applied to? Yeah. And I did try, I was recruited to Santa Barba. I never had any intention of going to uh U CS B for the phd program. I had two sisters that went there for undergrad degrees and it was almost like too close to home, you know, I, I wanted to be away from family just to be my own person. Um And so U CS B wasn't even kind of in the uh in my schema for things until the dean uh recruited me and offered me money. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think you ever had that impostor syndrome thing you were going home from the, the impostor syndrome. I don't think you ever had it. No, no, no, no. Or what does that constitute? What is that, like, the impostor, the impostor syndrome that entails like you don't belong there? Uh, you don't feel like, uh, yeah, you're, you're, you're up to par or you're able to, like, compete, you know, with others that are, you know, more privileged, um, in, in, in education. Right. I can feel out of place because you minority. No, because, you know, it was very early on and nobody even expected me to go to college when I grew up. You know, it was something that was in my family. It was something that I was propelled to do and it was something that I kind of, I, uh in fact, I, I think I'm the only Latina with PP from my graduating class. I graduated in 1960 67. And people that I grew up with are, oh my God, you, you, you know, you, you know, that kind of thing. I never, I never even thought I had a 2nd, 2nd thoughts about it. You know, I just kind of, I continued and I felt, even in high school, I felt very capable and even though the counselors didn't see me as a person that was college bound because during that time Latinas simply didn't go to college. You know, they didn't go to school and they would not uh very few people especially at, uh from my generation, uh were counseled and advised college prep. I just kind of went along with, they wanted me to be a bookkeeper, you know, so they, they put me in chocolate or classes, which I did not like. And then when I went to Ventura College, I majored in Spanish and loved it. And, you know, I had a wonderful teacher at college and I got my first, I got a book store scholarship because like I said, I was working and what that meant is that I got, I got to buy books to a bookstore that were like 100 and $50 where, you know, I still have the first dictionary that I bought with that scholarship. And so, you know, it was kind of local, it was kind of, I was uh kind of propelled to go forward. And my, my, uh my mom was, you know, that I set out to be a teacher and I like teaching high school because I could teach language to teach Spanish. And I ended up at, at a new high school and teaching college, prep Spanish, a bunch of anglo kids, you know, and kids that got the thing and I kind of kept them going against that. I got the first one of the first, um uh it was, uh, I think it was SB 74 was the state department where they funded bilingual programs. So at the high school, I got I generated and the first Spanish for native speakers course that they ever had. And that was a completely different for me because I was able to teach those kids to love their own language and to perform in their own language. A lot of things that I couldn't do college prep Spanish classes. And that kind of turned my head around a little bit and I started working with uh teachers in middle school and elementary school teachers to help them organize their programs because by that time was coming through with a lot of federal money for bilingual programs. So it was the, that didn't last very long, but it was a state program. Um So I think that had a lot to do with my attitude and my confidence and all that. But it was the language, it was the focus on learning, you know, teaching Spanish. So that basically kind of propelled me to, no, I don't think that I felt I didn't, I didn't even pay attention to the marginalization that did occur. It was there, you know, but I didn't pay attention to it. I felt a lot of people that I was raised with never, never had a clue, you know, I mean, we were mainstreamed all the way through. Yeah, I can't hear you. Did you is you, can you hear me? Can you hear? Can you hear me now? Yeah. At Santa Barbara uh where you got recruited for the phd. Did you go in with a dissertation in mind? Did you know what you wanted to do? I wanted to do something in literacy and I had, I was assigned to a, um to a, a faculty member uh to be my advisor, but it didn't work out because she was, uh it didn't work out for several reasons. So then I went through a uh not really knowing what I wanted to do and the program was changing and then I came across some real negative uh uh dynamics within the school of education with a person by the name of who was really famous person and who was advocating to Latinos. But he was in my view, he was real sexist and I didn't want to go there. I was still pretty young. Um So I was kind of marginalized and I was given an ultimatum, you need to work with this person or you work with that person. I ended up with a really, really uh difficult person who eventually developed uh respect for me. Uh Jim block. He was um an expert and a disciple of Benjamin. And uh he was uh he ended up every time because of my tenacity. I was, oh no, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna do this. I'm here. I've invested this amount of time. So I ended up with Jim Black who used to in front of me would take people and put them in the trash can and I was, and this was before, this is the hardest part was that he, and all the, um, it was during the time before the laptop computer it was like, uh, the, the computer, the computer was, um, you know, the big ones, the big computers, we didn't have P CS we didn't have on the map or anything like that. We had to, we had to pass statistics, which was three. And I had already started that at UCLA, I started crunching numbers and doing the big mainframe computers at UCL A. And then by the time I transferred to UCC, it was already to do at least in past three courses and stats that was like the, you know, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Well, I made it, I made it and I learned how to do stuff and I learned how to crunch numbers and I mentioned the computer, but I have to tell you that my hard nosed advisor facilitated it for me because when I started crunching numbers, he put me in touch with the person at the university uh evaluation system work with me. And that person was really, really good about teaching me how to write the numbers. So I did a psychometric dissertation and, you know, I, I, at the time I was just exploring but I, um I, you know, people, I, I did a um a mastery learning uh number of psychometric dissertation and it took me years probably longer than with people, but it was very valuable, very valuable. And so um let's see, what was the question? Um I had already invested a lot. I'm sorry, were you a full time phd student or you were working full time? I was working part time, two jobs I taught at City College, Santa Barbara City College and then I supervised student teachers. So by the time my, the fa the money ran out, I was living on two jobs and living in family housing. Um But, you know, I used to teach the courses at City College and nobody wanted to at eight o'clock in the morning. And I was there, I taught uh writing, writing English, writing to uh students that really needed me writing skills. You know, I had a lot of uh it was during the boat people, you know, when all the Vietnamese people came, I had half of the class was Vietnamese students at eight in the morning. Nobody wanted, I, I had no problems getting going. Yeah, it's a little bit amazing. But I, I don't, you know, I get exhausted just even thinking about it. I had a lot of energy in this case. I see. Uh how long did it take? It took me about a, a full time uh to finish up. Uh A PD program was about seven years. Then I stayed there three more years because I got the lecture position in Chicano studies. So I didn't file right away because I didn't file right away because I didn't want to be paying back any loans because I had to borrow money too, you know. So, um, so I, uh, I started applying for track position at U CS B was really, really super political and I could have, if I wanted to, I would have stayed there. But for other, for several reasons I decided not to stay there and go for, uh a job in education, you know, tenure track in education. OK. We got disconnected again. Can you hear me? I can hear you, I can hear you. Can you hear me? OK. Yeah, I can hear you now. So um if you could do it all over again, uh The phd, would you do anything different at Barbara? Uh That's hard to say because of the times, you know, I mean, first off, um I, I didn't even, I didn't, I wrote my dissertation on a first Mac computer, you know, didn't have internal memory and that was hard to do a dissertation uh on a typewriter, you know, I, I don't, I, I, it's hard for me to say if you do it over again because it's almost like it's a phenomenon that was part of my life where things were changing, kind of revolutionizing to what we are today, you know, in terms of technology, in terms of the, of, of doing things uh choices, you know, choices. Um I have some of the people that went through and, you know, maybe 10, 12 people that went through the funded program of education there, we're all in our seventies, you know, and they have, I mean, I think I went to, there were a stadium and there were, you know, within those systems but I, I don't know, what was it that allow me to continue? I continue and I think part of it being alone and being a single parent, I started, I didn't wanna anything. I think some of those phases gave me strength. I, it's hard to, it's hard to, I don't think that, um, if I were ever to do it in a completely different way, what I wanted to do it was applied linguistics. Uh, and I didn't, I didn't qualify or get into the program. So I ended up in testing English is a second language and education. Um, but I always my love for Spanish. Spanish literature and Spanish linguistics was always there. I just, I didn't, I did or I need to do that kind of work, you know, it was more for people from other backgrounds and things of that nature. I don't think that I ever, I don't think I applied stuff and language. And then I ended up, uh, when I went to Santa Clara, I ended up marrying, uh, my husband and he was, uh, at the time and I marry him until after I left and he has enhanced my life for the last 30 years in ways that I could never even imagine in, in the area that I love literature, literacy and, and everything like that because of the circles that I've come in contact with and his life and his writing. If I heard you correctly. Uh What brought you to Santa Clara? Um Was your, your uh your husband? Uh No, no, no, no, no. My husband stayed at U CS B. We weren't, we didn't get married until after I left to go to Santa Clara. So I applied for five positions for Santa Clara. I applied for 55 jobs that can you track positions. Um And in California and actually I only three interviews about the three jobs. One of them, I'm sorry at Stanford, um looking at as of writing and this is what I have done before. They, they wanted to uh see if I could work in, you know, research program and I always really pushed for that. But then I'm glad I didn't because I wanted to teach. And so um Santa Clara opened up by and there was another pilot. Um I am even blocking the name uh in, in uh that was a private school that kept pursuing me to apply and pursuing me, you know, but during the time that I was looking for jobs, there was a lot of action for the wrong reason and I was back in the negative, especially at this college accidental. It was accidental. So I wanted to go to a smaller school. I didn't wanna go to a big school when I went to. It was really, really awful. One of the most traumatizing experiences I've ever been to, you know, um, you, you were affirmative action, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Santa Clara was a little different because I was mentored by Joyce African American women were going places, you know, and Santa Clara, I went for the interview and they were not a, a program under the uh and uh Gloria and Joy uh were both from Sanford and they liked me and wanted me to go there because my commitment. But when Gloria left, I took and left, he left to go to Wisconsin and I worked with Joyce for three years and that made my, that made my world uh and change uh uh kind of doable or acceptable because she entered me. She's a great person in Georgia. But um they left, they left me holding the bag and I would tell them, hey, why didn't you guys tell me about it? Anyway, bottom line is that is and building a department because we were not a department. Once I got incredible support from the Jesuits and the Jesuit community, like I couldn't even begin to tell you the things that I learned and the kind of things that they supported me to do at the time. Um What I did learn was to build a program. And with all the other experiences that I had had with the State Department, I wrote the proposal that I wrote first and then, um and then, and then got the Fulbright and after that all **** because the school of education was not a school of education. And the people on my tenure committee were Jerry Shapiro and a and another, another prop that were part of counseling, psychology, not education. I was the only faculty in education besides the special ed person, Ruth Cook, who wanted to take the politics were horrendous. So, uh because of the support I got because of the who was uh you know, they 100% and I got, I did nothing. I love the work and it took 15 years later, 15 years. Um I had my own path and they supported my path. They supported my eccentricity sort of thing. I was eccentric about doing um education because I saw language and literacy as part of environmental. You know, I saw it was connected to organically and a lot of stuff I got involved with action research. I got involved with, I got involved at the personal level. I'll tell you this would really, really help me with an organization called Ballot Commission. It's a, an international organization that I'm still a part of. And the first, the first uh my first publication of Santa Clara that was a peer review journal was the journal of research and it was on my, my life and my, my journey and my father as an immigrant to California and the, the whole literacy questions that you were asking me earlier is written up in an academic journal. Why didn't you stay at Santa Clara? Uh Well, um I had built it. Well, I wa I, you know, I got as of 2001, I got the and I stayed 30 years and that was a long time. But I think the last 10 years under a lot of duress and under a lot of internal politics and uh not being taken into consideration, like I had been before a lot of new blood coming in. That's all. Um I persevered as long as I could to basically help. I basically, I lived apart from my husband for the whole entire time. He never lived in Barbara. And so I put in the 30 years only because that was the standard, you know, and I needed to uh take care of my health. I'm a diabetic. Um, you know, take better care of my health and build a marriage with my husband who's been listening for 40 years. We've been officially married for 30 I needed to come back and be with him because he's 89 you know, he's older. Um, and Santa Clara actually, uh some of the most recent politics that occur during the last uh maybe 20 years have been uh my plan, I was always, I always felt and I recruited one person and I fought affirmative action for the one person that I think he's a different, you know, I, I pushed for him in ways that he taught part time. And then he, when he left and did his thing and wanted to come back to Santa Clara. I, I had support from the department and it was a very trying process just to say there were other uh other experiences that came out of that that were very undermining and very difficult to deal with. Uh And I knew it was time, I knew it was time people coming in with different values and pushing to do their thing. And I think it's fine. You know, I think there comes a time where people have to say, OK, I gotta go my own way because um it wasn't competive for my growth anymore. It wasn't conclusive for getting the kind of respect that I thought that I deserved. Um So, you know, I mean, we all have to acknowledge that it's kind of different ways of changing times and I reached a point where I could hardly wait to, to leave uh uh for the last 10 years. It has not gone my way and it had not uh really enhanced me and the kind of person and the kind of kind of what do you do now, Sara, I'm at home. Um I'm, I'm writing, I I published my last uh article in January and it was a study that I did at Santa Clara during my last few years, I still have data from that and I, I'm still thinking of uh rewriting another to submit that. But basically, I'm uh doing reviews and maintaining um a low profile but um connecting with people that acknowledge my contributions and stay in touch. You know, basically I'm here working with my husband and uh dealing with the, the situation, you know, the, the uh the COVID and everything like that and, and, and uh just working with him in terms of looking at solidifying my, my life, you know, I'm 74 my insurance and properties and things of that nature. Are you still local here in the Bay area? No, no, I had to sell my house because the house that I had in San Jose was a shared uh house. It was a duplex that I bought with my sister and a married couple that needed for me to sell three years ago. They, they pushed for me to sell. Had they not pushed for me to sell? I would have uh I probably would have kept it, but it was a really tough time to leave from the perspective of economics and selling property. But they wanted, they pushed to, to sell and we did uh a great chaotic mess for me, for my health and such. But uh no, I sold and and uh I had the money invested in some, in a, in a condo here, uh separate from my husband. But, you know, that's, um, I don't think I could have stayed. I didn't have the energy or the money to stay. Things were changing quite rapidly. It's been a joy to listen to your story, your life story. It should be a movie. No, II, I hope II, I promote the idea like Francisco Jimenez has done a movie. Have you heard of that? You know him? Who he is? Which one? Francisco Jimenez in the Spanish department? He wrote uh those, those little books for, for teachers to use on his life as a migrant child. Do you know him? It rings a bell. Yeah. Well, they've just made a movie on his life, you know, which is really interesting. They're gonna, he's originally from Santa Maria, but he was a, he was a pro at Santa Clara and in the school, he was in the Spanish department, but he's continuing. He's gonna gonna uh screen the movie sometime this week here in Santa Maria and in solving in these areas here in, in northern county. So is it, is it on Netflix? Uh not yet, but the movie is being premiered. Um It's gonna be premiering at the end of this month, October. But you know, if you look up Francisco Jimenez, he, he's a pretty, pretty well known person there at Santa Clara, you know, so he was a migrant child. He might be somebody that you want to interview. I don't know if uh what your study is uh focused on or what, you know, how you're gonna be using this material. What's uh, what's your intended objective? Oh, for sure. Right now, my second year student at the University of San Diego. Uh and uh I'm part of the School of Education Leadership program. Uh-huh. Uh So far, uh my studies have focused on first generation uh students, students in graduate school going back to a PD. And for the most part, I'm looking at supports and barriers for students, for students at that level. So part of my research involves looking at stories like yours to see and identify the different types of barriers and supports um generation to generation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because it all, it all varies a lot. Yeah, it varies a lot. I don't wanna take any more of your time. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Can you hear me? We got the I know. Oh, yeah. You right. Hello? Yeah, I, that, oh, shut up. Can you hear me? We cut, we will cut again. Um Sorry, I would, I would recommend a couple of things to, to read. The last one that the last uh article that I published uh is uh Nova Nova Publications. It's based on data from the students of Santa Clara and it's about language and transitions and how they feel about which language uh, that came out in January of this year, uh, 25. And, uh, was my first publication in Santa that was published in, um, uh, so I can send you that one. I can help you. Absolutely. One other thing, uh, conferences. I do want to present my research. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I support, yeah, I really think it's important, Richard. Absolutely. I would support you and review you and be on your committee, whatever you want. Uh, what, what's a good place to go present? Um, if I do a conference, if I go to a conference to present research. Um, well, um, if you present uh, research on, uh, on, on immigration, there's a lot of different organizations that are uh focusing, you know, there, there's a knock from the National Association of Chicano Studies. He still has an annual conference, but there are also education conferences that I, uh, I would, I would call your kind of study an action research conference. I, I would, I, I think it's action, right? I mean, I perceive it and there's, um, there is, what's the name of the organization, action research, uh group that does conferences in different countries and here in the United States as well. Uh They show that participatory action research. Can you send me the email? I sure can, I will send you that and, and several others that I come across where, I mean, I get them all the time, I'm just not attending a lot of conferences anymore. Uh, because of my age and my health, I, I don't, you know, I, I, but I'm, I'm in contact with a lot of people. Um, I will send you this article, the 92 article uh about some of the things that I, that I talked about. And, uh, and I will send you a copy of the research that, uh I published in Nova in January. However, that's a very expensive, the book itself cost $250. They would only, even the authors, even the authors only got like 20% off. Like I had to buy my own book or my own article. It's on different uh countries. The essay that I wrote was put in a category of different countries in education and with different things. So, but I will send you a link and I'll send you. It's also on uh do you do um academics academia dot edu? Uh Yeah. Academic dot edu. If you plug in my name, you'll see all my publications and reviews and people that read them. Um I've done uh a lot of work in, in culture, you know, culture and language. So uh a lot of my publications have to do with culture and transition um language. Yeah, that's not my alley. One last thing Sarah. Uh I want, I want you bilingual. Yeah. Where are you Spanish and English? Oh, wow. Like OK. Uh do you want a piece of that? Yeah, Richard. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. So, uh, you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I can hear you. So, what is your area of expertise is in health services or what, what are you gonna focus on? What's your focus? Ok. What's up, what's up for me? What's your focus? Uh, my focus is leadership, uh veterans, uh disability, first generation, first generation college students. And also because I'm bilingual uh Mexican American Spanish and English. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, that's, well, you're looking at an area that I think is very important to document. And uh I would, I would say that the testimony area of, you know, testimonial to, to document test harmonies and kind of because it's so varied, you know, from my generation to your generation, there's just a wide variety of experiences. I think that's why the uh the article that I published in is looking specifically at uh language and how the perception of language itself, you know, like uh what I felt. So it's got, it's got a way of looking at, I'm not into the one to put a, put a, no, it, you can't measure something from a scale. So it's gotta be narrative and I think it's gotta be testimony and you, you're person with the type of person with your background and your experience to uh to, to document those and, and categorize them, look at them like a, in a completely kind of ethic approach to it, you know, really important. That's it. That's what I'm trying to do. I think I'm a storyteller. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of organizations that are, there's a woman at San Jose State by the name of Julia Curry. She's a sociologist. She also does, uh, kind of testimonials, you know, he knows a lot. If you ever have a chance to meet, meet up with her. Uh, yeah, Julia Curry Curry. She's local. She's from, she went to UC and she Berkeley and ended up getting a tenure track position at San Jose State. But she's good people and she knows a lot. So, if you have any questions and such, look her up, you know, you can know her for sure. You know that. Yeah, one last thing I wanna send you a gift card. Do you drink coffee? Oh, yeah. But you don't have to, you don't have to. It. It's a courtesy, uh, you, uh, Starbucks. Is that ok? Yeah. Yeah, I do, I do Starbucks. You don't have to, I'd love to sit, sit and have a cup of coffee with you sometime somewhere. You know, if you're ever, uh, go through here, you give me a call and we can get together. Oh, you got that right. Yeah, I don't think it's the last time you hear from me. Oh, wonderful. That's wonderful. That's really good because I'm here to support you and your research. And I think it's very, very important. I, I'm gonna send you those two, those two articles of the link to the journal of folk research and the other one as well to see what you think. So, help me, I appreciate that. Uh Thank you for your time and, uh, I'll send you, I'll send you, um, ok. OK. Thank you, Richard and good luck to you. Please don't just continue, go forward, you know, go forward. Don't let anybody get in the way and don't let anybody give you any negative interpretations that you can't reinterpret and put in your own. Those of us that come from the other side of the world uh have to build us for more inclusion, you know, and uh and, and break through the barriers of having, believe me, I have stories to tell in that sense, but I don't ever regret ever forging my own path. So keep it up and believe in what you do and believe in the importance of doing that kind of work. It's important, you inspire me. So I wanna be like you when I grow up. That's great. That's great, Richard. So we'll, we'll stay in touch. OK, please. Yes. All right. Thank you. Bye bye bye.