Collegiate Times

Higher education expanded my mind, and it also made me question a lot of things about history and the way history is told to us as a nation. And I met a lot of professors who really sort of took me under their wing and helped me along, in terms of challenging me to really think things through. And they were really in the department of ethnic studies and African American studies. And from there, they really planted the seed in my mind that I might want to be a professor. And that’s where it all evolved. It wasn’t, “what is your concept of diversity?” but it was talking about the different culture in a nation. So for me personally, the question, which is never fully answered and can’t be, is “what does it mean to be Latino?” So if I go back to that one question that sparked everything, it was about identity, and belonging, and home.

What does it mean for me, as a Latino, at the beginning of the 21st century, to live in the United States and to be a citizen and to serve the nation? And now that I’m a dad, it’s even more critical, because it’s not just about me, it’s about my daughter. What does it mean for her? What’s the world that she’s going to inhabit in 10 years when she becomes a college student, and how am I preparing the way for her?

So that was the impetus and that is the drive. It’s not a job. It’s something that I feel and it’s also something that I feel an obligation to those that helped me get to where I am. For all of us that, for women, for people of color, for all of us that are outside the mainstream, we all owe a debt to the civil rights generation, because they broke a lot of barriers. And a lot of people lost their lives, and a lot of people lost careers and sacrificed a lot, in order for me to be where I am right now.

And this is my way for paying back and also paying forward.

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A version of this article appeared in the Jun 10 issue of the Collegiate Times.