“None of us get through this alone”: The authors of The Latinx Guide to Graduate School on community and academia
Summary by Meredith Hutcheson
Photos by Ruby Wallau for Northeastern University
A new book by professors from San José State University and the University of San Francisco helps illuminate the way into and through academia for people who have historically been shut out. This April, the authors came to Northeastern University in Silicon Valley to discuss The Latinx Guide to Graduate School and share insights from their experiences. Joining them onstage were students Cecilia Lopez and Zadie Moon, both master’s candidates in Computer Science at Northeastern.
Authors Magdalena L. Barrera and Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales signing copies of their book
The event, which was open to both students and the public, drew a crowd of people from across the Bay Area. The panel was moderated by Dr. Dawn Girardelli, Interim Dean and Regional CEO, and Dr. Alvaro Monge, Assistant Dean and Director of Computing Programs — California, both of Northeastern University San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
“We always have to be looking ahead and looking behind,” Dr. Genevieve Negrón-Gonzalez told the audience. “And go get out and find a mentor. Really find ways to connect with folks who are two steps ahead of you and the folks that are two steps behind you. It’s particularly true for folks of color. We’re all better for that point of connection.”
“Also remember that the people who are ‘behind you’ are also folks who have things to teach you,” her co-author Dr. Magdalena L. Barrera added. “There are things you can learn from them, ways that they inspire you. That’s what sustains us through multiple stages of this journey.”
Putting a hand down the ladder behind them
This ethos of support is part of why, to the people in their network, Dr. Negrón-Gonzales and Dr. Barrera were authorities on how to succeed in academia well before they decided to collaborate on their book. When a mutual friend was looking for a resource for a first generation Latinx student who had just been accepted into graduate school, she knew who to ask. “She told each of us, ‘I knew that if such a guide existed, you two would know about it. And since it doesn’t, you should write it,’” Barrera said.
“When you’re in graduate school, you’re not there to learn things you already know. There’s a reason why this is new, and this is hard. Let yourself off the hook. You’re here for a reason: to learn.”
Magdalena L. Barrera
Each graduated from programs at the country’s top schools and have built thriving interdisciplinary careers in competitive segments of academia.
Dr. Negrón-Gonzalez received her master’s and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Social and Cultural Studies in Education. Her work focuses on education, immigration, and social movements with applications in academia, activism, and community. She is an Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of San Francisco in the School of Education.
Dr. Barrera earned her bachelor’s from the University of Chicago followed by her Ph.D. from Stanford in Modern Thought and Literature. In her role as Vice Provost for Faculty Success at San José State University, she shapes the academic environment through her work on the hiring, training, promotion, and professional development of faculty members across the university. She was previously the department chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
Attendees received a copy of the book
From the early days of their friendship, they’ve bonded over their commitment to helping others find their own paths to success. “We met and began to develop a personal and professional relationship that in many ways centered around how to support our students, many of whom are Latinx, and many of whom are the first in their friend group and families to make this happen. How do we ensure that they not only get to graduation day, but that they develop themselves as scholars and have faith in the kind of contributions they want to make in the world?” said Negrón-Gonzales.
A relational, community-driven approach to graduate school
“Graduate school doesn’t have to be a lonely game. There are ways in which structurally it’s set up that way. But our people are relational people. Just because there is a competitive culture doesn’t mean that we can’t find another way.”
Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales
Part of that is taking the stature they’ve earned and using it to challenge the status quo. Barrera said that in the early part of her career, she was teaching with the same heavy work loads and underlying sink or swim mentality that she had experienced. But she began to realize it was within her power to change that.
“I saw students really struggling to keep up with the pace, but in conversation with Genevieve I started to think, ‘Why am I replicating this?’” she said. “Now that we have the opportunity to lead classrooms and build spaces for our students, what does that look like? How can we flex our values in the things that we want to carry forward for the next generation of scholars?”
Student panelists Zadie Moon and Cecilia Lopez
The student panelists had also found value in challenging the idea that graduate school needs to be competitive and isolating.
“I had to get over that pride and the attitude of, ‘I can do it by myself.’ I come from a very Mexican family where we believe in just doing the hard work and getting through it,” said Lopez, who is transitioning from a career in web content management to computer science through the Align program. “It’s really intimidating when everyone around you is not showing that they’re struggling. But when you make those close connections and are a little vulnerable, you realize, ‘OK, they’re just as lost as I am.’ It makes you see that you’re not alone, and that together we can pool our collective knowledge and do it together.”
“Other people ask for help, that propels them forward but we don’t see that,” said Moon, who is also in the Align program after earning her bachelor’s in Public Health and Health Equity. “From the surface level we just see them doing well. But when you’re in grad school it’s a collective experience. We all made that decision that we want to take a step forward.”
Creating institutional change
The panelists also identified the ways that academia as an institution needs to change to make space for the scholarly community to be a better representation of society.
“My mom is amazing and she is a first generation graduate student. She got her master’s in her forties. She paved the way for me. It was never really a question of if I can do this. What inspires me to be the first person in a space where I don’t see others like me is to be that person—the way that my mom was for me.”
Cecilia Lopez
“There are structural reasons why particularly first generation, BIPOC students are not going to graduate school,” said Negrón-Gonzlez. “The institution is not set up to invite in folks who don’t have histories of either familial wealth or familial know-how. Taking out more loans, going deeper into debt when there are people waiting on you to be able to actually start bringing home a paycheck—it’s the pragmatics that trip us up. There are ways in which our institutions need to be more responsive in creating scholarship funds, in creating pathways for students and helping first-gen, Latinx, BIPOC students be able to access those pathways.”
Moderators Alvaro Monge and Dawn Girardelli with the panel
“That was a huge deterrent,” agreed Moon. “There’s funds available, different support systems, fellowships, internships, all these exist, but we just don’t know how to get to them. The barrier exists between us being able to verbalize what we want and what our goals are.”
Barrera pointed out the many moving pieces that need to be considered when accommodating students who aren’t dropping out of the workforce to attend school. “We have a master’s in Chicana Studies that has classes offered in the evenings and on every other Saturday, because a lot of the students who are interested work full-time. The program can make structural changes like that. But at the same time, the financial aid office is open nine to five. Or the library might close at a certain time, when that might be some folks’ only time to study.”
“When you’re looking at graduate schools, it’s not enough to look at the website, to talk to the faculty members, to go to the info session. You want to talk to a current student who is there, preferably a student of color, preferably a student who is fill-in-the-blank: is queer, is working full-time, etc. Whatever else you have going on, you want to talk to a student who is living that experience.”
Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales
The authors encouraged the audience to consider that by joining these spaces, they can help affect those system-level changes. It can seem daunting, but they believe in the power of academic spaces as places where change can foment.
An audience member during the Q&A
“Our work is needed now more than ever,” said Barrera. “Lots of times, coming from communities of color, we rightly work from a mode of resistance. There are a lot of things that we’re trying to redress, push back against, correct. Histories of misinformation about our communities, who we are, and what we have to offer the world. That work is important but it’s also exhausting. My colleague Jonathan Gomez has a phrase: ‘How do we not only be oppositional, but also propositional?’”
“We’re going to grad school, we’re getting degrees so that we can create really new, amazing, transformational things for our community: transformational knowledge, new tools, new ways of being. So claim the university for yourself and figure out: ‘What can I uniquely create and contribute that reflects my passion, my values, my community, and my view of meaningful work? Who can walk with me on that path?’”
“This is the way that we’re remaking university,” said Negrón-Gonzalez. “By more folks getting in and getting through, by us supporting each other, but us building a different kind of culture around what it means to pursue graduate education. To me, it’s about us, but it’s also about the generations that come behind us. This is how we make a different kind of institution.”
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