Hispanic Scholarship Fund App

1. Hispanic Heritage:
Imagine a very white-haired, eighty-one year old Cuban abuelita holding a cup of coffee in one hand and using her other hand to point her crooked, wrinkly fingers accusingly at her granddaughter. The abuelita states curtly to the granddaughter, “Wai dew gyou speeck Spaneesh con un acento Mexicano? Dyu know gyou are Quban, no?” I am the granddaughter in this anecdote and my answer to my grandmother is always “Yes, of course!” However, secretly I always amend that statement in my head, embracing the fact that I am a product of my environment and my environment is a mixture of three cultures.
I have always struggled with questions concerning my own national and ethnic identity. Growing up on the beaches and in the countryside between San Diego and Baja California, Mexico, I was able to merge these different identities into one identity. In my home I was Cuban, in the neighborhood I was a Latina with a Mexican accent, and at school I was the “white” girl who had a Spanish-sounding name. Leaving my home and transnational life in San Diego, I moved to the very segregated atmosphere of Chicago.
My experience at the University of Chicago was not only an academic experience, but also an exercise in living as a “Latin American” in an “all-American” city. Before living in Chicago, I never encountered racial segregation; I had never felt threatened because of the way I appeared, and I realized for the first time that my life in San Diego was very sheltered because of the “transnationality” of this border city. In San Diego, I had grown accustomed to juggling accents and cultures to match the environments that surrounded me. In Chicago this juggling act did not work, and I was no longer able to be a mixture of cultures and identities.
This necessity to identify myself within the color-coded world of Chicago forced me to think about the different cultures that influenced me on a daily basis. After realizing I did not know the history of Caribbean or Mexico, I began to take classes in Latin American history and in Spanish Language and Literature. The focus of Latin American history at the University of Chicago was placed on political uprisings and social upheavals within Latin America. I wrote my bachelor's thesis (BA) on Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban, which dealt with family members in both Cuba and the United States after the revolution. I analyzed the depiction of the immigrant's experience in the United States from both a historical and literary perspective.
In June 2004, I moved to Miami to learn about and live in the “diaspora” culture of my parents. My master’s thesis was entitled “An Analysis of US Print Media’s Coverage of the Cuban Transition since the Clinton Administration”. I evaluated how the “Cuban Transition” was covered by the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, New York Times and the Washington Post. I never planned on working towards a doctorate degree but while pursuing my master’s I found that I excelled in academia and enjoyed studying Latin America and Cuba. Through working with HSF at the University of Miami I found that I enjoyed mentoring younger students to accomplish their academic goals. At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, I am working to become a historian of Latin America who specializes in Cuba and Mexico. My personal and educational paths have finally crossed allowing me to work as leader in the Latino community and contribute to academic understandings of Latin America. I intend to dedicate my professional life to supporting the inclusion of minorities in academia.



2. Community Service / Volunteer Work:
After graduating from the University of Chicago in June 2004, I worked with the Mexican Consulate in Chicago and I experienced public policy-making for Latin American immigrants firsthand. I became a Volunteer Chair for La Semana Binacional de Salud, which provided free medical services to all Latinos, with or without legal status. The health week, initially sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley, has grown to be sponsored in many different states. I was part of Illinois' inaugural year. In Guanajuato, Mexico, I went to a conference where both American and Mexican officials spoke about the possibility of creating a bi-national health plan so that Mexicans can be covered on both sides of the border. I found the whole event inspirational and motivating --two countries working to try and benefit the immigrants that affect both their nations. Through this work, I realized that I would like to further my education in Latin American Studies in an effort to promote political cooperation between Latinos in the US and abroad.
While writing my master’s thesis at the University of Miami, I became involved with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. Through this organization, I worked with students at the Hialeah Campus of Miami-Dade Community College. My role was to work with Spanish-speaking students advising them on how to stay in college, while also helping them to understand the rules and requirements of transferring from a two-year college to a four-year institution. The students I counseled were very driven, but often times did not have the language ability necessary to navigate in a mainly English-driven institution. Guiding students as to where to take ESL classes, helping them to find funding for those classes and lastly, helping them to enroll in those classes, was a large part of my job. I learned through this experience that while many students are driven, they lack resources either due to their background or financial circumstances.
At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, I have been an active participant in academic programs dealing with Latin American and Caribbean studies, including participating in conferences (The Consortium of Duke/UNC Studies of Latin America Conference and working groups, the Latin American Studies Association conference in Rio de Janeiro, 2009), teaching classes about Latin America (as a teacher’s assistant to professors Kathryn Burns and John Chasteen) and volunteering my time in community-based organizations such as CHICLE in Carrboro, NC and UNC’s Institute for the Study of the Americas. At CHICLE, I tutor immigrants from Central America and Mexico in English. At the Institute for the Study of the Americas, I volunteer for a project which is collecting and cataloguing movies that document the immigrant experience of Latinos in the United States. This film project aims to increase the public’s awareness of the problems that immigrants face immediately after leaving their homelands. In North Carolina my work with Latin American communities has focused on educating and correcting misconceptions about the Latino community as held by students and members of the public. My work addresses topics of prejudice held by the public of North Carolina in an effort to promote and sustain local opportunities for Latinos to prosper and succeed in the community and in academia.
Since graduating from the University of Chicago in 2004, I have been deeply committed to working with Hispanic communities throughout the US. My ultimate goal is to become a historian, a teacher and role-model for the Hispanic community. I intend to continue my commitment towards promoting the success of Latinos in education and academia throughout my career and hope your foundation will sponsor my efforts.

3. Overcoming an Academic Challenge:
While studying for my undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago, I realized I wanted to become an “expert” on Cuba. I spoke with many professors in the college and they warned that as an expert on Cuba, I would need to visit the island. While the appeal of visiting the “forbidden” island may seem exciting for most young students, I was terrified. Both my father and mother’s families are Cuban-American; I grew up hearing horrible stories about the island and learned from a very young age, the island was untouchable—at least until Fidel Castro and his brother left.
My reasons for wanting to study Cuba were simple: I wanted to support and promote change on the island and I realized that I must study the island inside and out. While strongly anti-Castrista, my family was never anti-Cuba. They were very active in the Miami-Cuban political environment. I grew up attending rallies for Elián González, saving cans and selling tickets to dances that would benefit Hurricane Andrew victims in the Cuban community, participating in CANF-sponsored social clubs and listening daily to my adult relatives debate the effects of the revolution on Cuban society.
When I moved to Miami to pursue my master’s degree, I began to investigate the various Cuban organizations in the city. I wanted to immerse myself in the political culture of Cuban-Americans in Miami. Finally, I was an adult and I could speak during meetings, argue with other members of these groups and participate in a manner which I thought would actually benefit the Cuban community. Once I entered these meetings I found that while the groups were indeed charitable and beneficial to the Miami-community they were not interested in helping Cuba or Cubans on the island.
My political interest in Cuba is two-fold: I want to document, educate and support Cubans and Cuban-American communities in the United States. I also want to improve the conditions of individuals living on the island and become part of a community that aims to foster an improved relationship between Cuba and the United States. I moved to North Carolina in attempt to learn and begin to teach, in a more tolerant environment, about the island.
The first time I went to Cuba I was not able to tell my mother or my family about the trip. While in Havana, I felt guilty about walking through the streets that my family had fled fifty years earlier and decided to call my mother. When mami answered she asked, “Where are you? The line is very strange…” I answered, “I am in Havana…. Cuba.” Mami hung up. Twenty-minutes later I called and my mother answered, “I am angry, but how is it?” Since that trip, two years have passed and my mother is still the only person in my family to know. She has asked me not to tell my abuelita or any other members in the family to not upset them.
I have faced problems regarding racism, language barriers and insufficient resources due to lack of money and my parent’s refugee/immigrant statuses. However, the largest hurdle I have faced as a Latino scholar is balancing my academic life with my personal and political home life. Academics are often fervent supporters of the revolution and while I believe that some benefits did result from the revolution, I am less enthusiastic about this period in Cuba’s past given what it signifies to my family. As a historian, my main intent is to understand Cuba’s past and work towards promoting more normalized relations between US citizens, Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and Cuba with the United States.