Meet our
"Faces of HSS"
The students of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences represent close to 8000 different lives, each one with a unique story about the journey that lead them to Cal State Fullerton and to their academic major our College. To celebrate the diverse stories that our students bring with them and the collection of stories that create the identity of Humanities and Social Science, we will introduce additional “Faces of HSS” throughout the year.
Monique Garcia
History and Chicana/o Studies
Senior
Monique Garcia, MMUF Scholar and History and Chicana/o Studies major, interned this last summer at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center. Her research explores the marginalization of minorities and their fight for civil rights. She focuses on a Pro-Chicano youth activist organization, the Brown Berets, whose efforts and campaigns took place in the context of the Chicano Movement. Specifically, she examines the roles that young Chicanas had within the movement and how they navigated the patriarchy within the Brown Berets organization. Through this internship, Garcia had the opportunity to learn about digital archives, preservation, data entry, and “a sense of the work that goes into making archives fully accessible to the public,”
Garcia created her digital exhibit,“¡El Grito Para La Igualdad!/The Cry for Equality!” for the UCLA, Chicano Moratorium 50th Anniversary, based entirely off of her MMUF research at CSUF.
¡El Grito Para La Igualdad!/The Cry for Equality!
“Being accepted into the second cohort of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) has been my most impactful undergraduate experience,” states Garcia. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship pushes to diversify the faculty at Universities by assisting minority students with the desire and dream of becoming a professor. “I feel that this fellowship is vital, especially with today’s social and political climate. After years of institutional racism within the United States, academia has suffered from its effects.” According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 41% of full-time professors are white males, 35% are white females, 6% are Asian males, 5% are Asian Females, and 3% are Black males, Black Females, Hispanic Males, and Hispanic Females. Garcia remarks, “Being a Hispanic female, this is disheartening; however, with programs like MMUF, this gap will hopefully be lessened in the future.”
Garcia says, “Throughout my early educational career, I was taught a white, nationalistic, and biased view of history. Not until attending CSUF did I become aware of this.” In her research of the Brown Berets organization, she found a representation of strength, unity, and pride for the Chicano culture. Many Brown Berets were her age. “I wanted to know what inspired them to take part?” she adds.
This past summer Garcia also interned at CSUF’s Chicano Research Center, where she transcribed three Oral Histories on David Sanchez (the founder of the Brown Berets). Garcia’s current research studies how the “church” assisted the Brown Berets organization in the fight to end injustice. She plans to pursue a Master’s degree and then a Doctorate with the hopes of becoming a history professor.
“I hope to be able to integrate the knowledge that I have gained in the study of the history of minority groups in order to influence current discrimination and prejudice. I can help society grow by educating future historians. Although it may be dark and morbid, sometimes, learning the history of humanity gives me hope that the human race will continue to grow. We can prevent mistakes that happened in the past from happening again.”
