As of fall 2016, the National Center for Education Statistics estimates that Latina faculty represent 2% of all full-time faculty at degree-granting postsecondary institutions. Given this lack of representation, navigating academia as a Latina professor is not an easy feat. Yet the ability to survive, persist and thrive can be facilitated through building community, drawing on strong support systems and recognizing the power of resilience. In my experience, being part of the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) has been instrumental in my career, beginning in graduate school and more recently as a faculty fellow.

My commitment to help change the social conditions of marginalized communities stems from my own experience growing up in predominantly working-class, Latino immigrant neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles, California. Raised by Guatemalan immigrant parents, I witnessed how immigration, family, labor, education and other social structures impacted our daily life experiences and limited future prospects. Despite having experienced these inequities, I embarked on my higher education journey as a first-generation student at UCLA. Given that I was often one of the few Latinas in my classes, I knew that it was important to further my education. Hence, I pursued my Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Though confronted with isolation and discrimination, I was afforded opportunities to obtain the strategies and community networks necessary to keep pressing forward, including being part of the AAHHE Graduate Students Fellows program.

During the fall of 2016, I was hired as an assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, a minority- and Hispanic-Serving Institution. In spite of having the unique opportunity and privilege to be surrounded by predominantly first-generation, working-class students of color, it is difficult to be one of the few Latina professors on campus. Nevertheless, it is within this space that I seek to turn my passion for social justice into action through teaching, research and service. This includes facilitating transformational learning environments, producing critical scholarship and engaging in service that addresses the needs of underrepresented students. To be sure, many of the tools that I employ now as a faculty member I was able to acquire as an AAHHE faculty fellow.

Through platicas, presentations and informal conversations among AAHHE faculty fellows, I realized that I share common experiences with other Latino faculty across the nation. In spite of having to overcome a variety of challenges throughout our academic careers, we recognized that together, we have the potential to promote social change within and outside of the academy. This was largely due to having the time and safe space to reflect, validate and make sense of our experiences. Today, we continue to represent a community that upholds, promotes and encourages each other, not only in our lives as educator-scholar-activists but also as Latinos surviving in the current political climate. Already we have celebrated our publications, engaged in public intellectual work, been awarded prestigious awards and grants, and some have also earned tenure (#AuspiciousFellows). Indeed, we are succeeding because AAHHE has provided us with the opportunity to develop these meaningful relationships.  •