Melody is Zhou's first guest who uses a pseudonym, in order to protect their identity and safety. Melody is a Ph.D candidate, education researcher, and advocate for students from the immigrant community. In this episode, Melody talks about bringing more young immigrants into STEM, creating more access, using research to influence education policy, using privilege to open doors, the abundance mindset, and having the audacity to dream big!
We aren't providing links to Melody as we are trying to protect their identity and safety.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:17):
Hello everyone, welcome to The Intersection, a podcast program
about intersectionality, intersectional identities, and
intersectional journeys both professionally and personally.
And as we all know, all these journeys are very
interconnected. And today is very special
(00:39):
because it's the first time I'm interviewing someone who's not
using their real name. It's a way to protect someone's
safety. And I'm going to introduce my
guest, Melody here. Melody is from Mexico and she
(01:02):
moved to California, I believe the US back in mid 90s when she
was a baby and she grew up in California and have been in the
states for almost 30 years. And right now she is pursuing
her PhD in education policy in the DC area.
(01:24):
And Melody is a both a researcher in academic and an
active activist. And I'm very, very honored and
humbled to have her here today. I am very grateful for her trust
and I don't take it lightly. It is a risk.
(01:47):
And someone come here to share their story.
And so without further ado, welcome, Melody.
Thank you for being here. Hi.
Thank you for having me. I'm very, very excited to
finally have this conversation with you.
Thank you. So I shared, you know, your
(02:07):
general kind of background. Would you like to introduce
yourself and tell your own storyin your own way?
I. Would love to so hi everybody my
name is melody. I grew up in Mexico and very
early on in my life I immigratedto the United States.
I have been here, I'm 31, so I have been here for about 30
(02:31):
years, undocumented. I consider myself an
undocumented American because I grew up learning English here.
English is my first language. I learned Spanish here.
And I have that very stereotypical Dreamer narrative.
I'm good immigrant versus bad immigrant narrative, right?
(02:51):
And so early on in my career, inmy life, I knew I wasn't
documented. And so I ever since I was AI,
was in the activism world in California.
I learned how to organize at a grassroots level.
And I also quickly realized the power that the people in Pueblo
(03:12):
have right in demanding rights and a space and a voice in
California. And so now I'd like to tell my
students that now I use my superpowers for academic
purposes. And right now, I am pursuing my
PhD and education policy, tryingto understand the historic and
education experiences of marginalized students in
(03:34):
education and higher education in the United States.
What made you and thank you for sharing.
And what made you decide to go into education policy?
It's quite specific. Well, I never intended to be in
the education or in the policy world.
(03:56):
I kind of just found myself there.
So I always knew growing up thatI wanted to go to college.
I always dreamed of getting a PhD without really understanding
the pathway there. You know, I just knew that my
mom brought me to the United States to pursue a better life,
(04:16):
and that's what I was going to do.
And I was going to dream big because I knew that if I dreamed
big, I would land somewhere in the stars, as I like to say.
But I really just started in theactivism section, changing
policy in that sense, right? Which I didn't really realize
that's what I was really doing is affecting policy just from
(04:38):
the the outsider perspective or the activist and demanding
change in that way. And so without really, really
like realizing it, I was actually in policy my whole
life. And so I went to Community
College and then I transferred to UC Irvine.
Along that experience, I was very lucky to bump into mentors
(05:03):
that looked at me, saw somethingspecial, and they started to
give me an opportunity even though I didn't have
citizenship. And so quickly on I my first, my
second year actually in Community College, that's when I
started my first research project and trying to understand
why students were not going intoscience, right?
What about the sciences was preventing students of color
(05:28):
from majoring or pursuing a science career?
And that's when I fell in love with with research and the power
of research. Because to me, it was another
way of telling the story of, of telling the story of the
community of students who are often marginalized.
It was another way to to not just bring those stories to
(05:49):
life, but to have those stories touch the the years of very
powerful people. And, and, and that's when I
really fell in love with research and I saw how I could
also be an activist through scholarship.
Oh I see, that's really powerful.
(06:09):
What's your study or research has found out?
Like what's stopping people of acollege students from pursuing
science? ETC.
So that study, we learned that students of color who do not go
into sciences tend to have what we call negative, positive and
(06:30):
neutral stereotypes about the people that do science or
scientist. You know, we found out that a
lot of students who do not pursue science as a career often
do not really understand the jobs and the opportunities
available for them in the sciences and have a very
negative stereotypical view of what sciences are.
(06:52):
So we would talk to our students, you know, what do you
think a scientist does? What is science for you?
And they had this very idea of like a lonely guy and lonely old
white guy in a basement with chemicals and like no friends
and no, no life and just being super like antisocial in the
corner basement somewhere. And that's not what science can
(07:15):
be. Science can be science is
everywhere and it could be so beautiful and so cool.
And so that's when we realized that we probably need to start
there and start expanding the idea of what science can be.
And so we took a whole year in the class of biology to not just
learn about biology, but also learn about scientists that made
the curriculum possible. And by the end of the semester
(07:38):
and even six months after, we found that students were like,
well, when I bake a science, when I guarded a science, when I
play like pool, that's geometry,that's science.
And so they started to see science in their everyday life
and even seeing themselves as well.
I do science here and I do science there, which was really
beautiful to see. That is so cool and you are so
(08:04):
right. Science is everywhere.
I'm an amateur Baker as well andthe fact that sometimes a recipe
uses baking soda and sometimes it's baking powder always drips
me. And that's real science.
Yes. And you have to follow it to the
tier would completely change. And that's chemistry, right?
(08:24):
Yes, exactly. I mean, I'm not a science, so I
just, I just follow the recipe and so that you just don't so
that you won't mess up. But I so resonate.
With what you said, Melody, is that if we really kind of
broaden our perspective and we go through the stereotypes, you
can see so much beauty in the so-called kind of boring, sad,
(08:50):
mundane kind of science life. That sounds so fun.
So with that discovery, are you already putting your search
results or research results intoinfluencing education policy?
How does that work? That's a really, really great
question. And it doesn't always like your
(09:12):
research may not always resolve in influencing policy directly,
but it does always increase the conversation around that topic
and, and to always wanting to not just continue the
conversation, but shift it, evolve it, center it in
different communities. I think it's one of the
(09:33):
immediate impacts that you may have with your research.
And so for this research, it, this was early 10 years almost,
Oh my God, almost 15 years ago. So it's been a while since we
published, but that center has only grown.
And now instead of just focusingon stereotypical like sciences,
(09:54):
we're expanding the term of whata scientist is and also allowing
just anyone who's teaching science or any type of, of STEM
curriculum to go into the, to the website that we created.
And I'm very, very careful here for, for me not to kind of
reveal who I am, but there is this website where people can go
in and learn about, let's say that you're learning about the
(10:16):
DNA strand. You can learn about the women
and sciences like Franklin who who helped develop the DNA
strand that you probably wouldn't have known that a woman
discovered that or the fact thatit was a Mexican nurse who
actually invented the, the hand sanitizer, right?
Things like that. Non stereotypical scientists and
(10:39):
non stereotypical stories withinscience.
And so right now there's thousands of students across the
nation learning about these non stereotypical scientists because
of this one research that I was part of, I definitely did not
leave that I was not the brains of that.
But this is 1 opportunity that Ihad early on in my career that
someone saw like the the hunger and the want in me, but not
(11:04):
necessarily like I don't have citizenship.
And so a lot of the times like just because of who I am and my
status, opportunities are closedoff to me.
And so this was really on in my career that somebody just
decided to give me a chance and I kind of ran with it.
That's so cool because not only because you went for it, but
(11:26):
also you don't. It is so important for us to get
to have a support system, especially when we are not these
kind of, to use the word stereotypical.
We're not stereotypical Americans, right?
Like we don't look like the typical Americans.
And I'm just very glad those people.
(11:49):
I don't wanna say they discovered you because I feel
like in order for someone to seeyou, you have to be visible,
right? Like they didn't dig you out
from the ground. Like I'm sure you were already
out and about and then your pathcrossed and then that happened.
So I think that's a really cool example of how sometimes in
(12:11):
order for something to happen, you just really need to make
that connection. So I want to kind of like get
into you just mentioned because of who you are, like you
mentioned an undocumented American, oftentimes or
sometimes, you know, doors will be closed off for you.
(12:34):
How has your undocumented American life been for you in
this country, and how has that impacted your activism over the
years? Before I was out as an
undocumented person, I did. I did hide that status a lot.
(12:59):
And so for the first couple of years of my life up until I was
18, I hid that I was very scaredof people knowing my status.
I lived in the shadows as a lot of our community members
describe that experience, not just for myself, but because I
was just scared of my family's safety as well.
(13:20):
Well, I always have to really think about, like, I really
always have to weigh my dreams to the safety of my family.
For example. I've been wanting to do this
podcast with you for a while andI still want to do that, but I
just have to do that in a way that keeps my family safe,
right? And so there's always that, like
(13:43):
I've always have to calculate mydreams versus my safety and, and
what makes sense not just for me, but for my family.
So that's one of the first things that I, I always have to
think about, regardless of what I'm doing.
As simple as I want to go on vacation, am I safe to drive
there? Am I safe to stay there?
(14:05):
So little, even little things like that, especially now, you
know, from this administration, things have gone really, I think
gotten really bizarre and I feellike I'm in the twilight zone
and I'm not the only one that feels that way.
I have a whole bunch of citizen friends that text me every day
just like, is this really happening?
(14:26):
Right. But I think in a more technical
terms, like for example, I wanted to go to college, I
couldn't apply for FAFSA. I can't apply for loans right
now as a PhD student. I have to work extra hours
because I don't get the financial aid packages that my
other friends get. And so my story and how I have
(14:48):
to get there, it it's not impossible.
It just looks a little bit different than what my citizens,
friends, their stories look like.
For example, in my college, I'm,I'm, I'm probably one of three
undocumented students there who are in the Graduate School.
And so there's not a lot of a lot of us.
(15:11):
And, and that means I often haveto be 1 of the first to have a
conversation with the leader or having to bring up things or
when there's a policy happening.For example, when the president
was elected recently, that same December, January, I started
talking to the Dean of like, what policy are you going to
(15:31):
have when the ICE agents start knocking out the door?
And at that time they were almost laughing at me, like not
they were totally professional, but I could just feel the energy
of like, she's super paranoid, she's super stressed.
This is never going to happen inour country.
And now there is a not just a policy in my college, but a
(15:52):
policy in the entire campus of what we will do when, not if,
when ice ages are on campus. And we've had them on campus
multiple Times Now. So a lot of the fears that I had
that I thought were crazy have been solidified.
And so I'm in this era, I'm, I'mstill learning what it means to
(16:13):
be undocumented in America. Yeah.
I mean, it keeps evolving, right?
It's yeah, I absolutely do not want to say I know how you feel
because I don't. But I can in some way empathize
on the level of the fear they are trying to generate inside,
(16:40):
say, on campus, right? It doesn't matter if you are
documented or not. It's like fear, and of course
the fear and uncertainty folks who are undocumented experience
are very different. Yes.
And, and so I'm going to the point where I'm not just a
(17:03):
student. I'm, I'm a graduate PhD student
in one of the top countries in the nation.
And luckily enough, I've been able to really work with my
leaders to, I guess even though I'm, I'm undocumented, I'm very
privileged, right? I'm in the privilege in the
sense that I'm a PhD student. I'm privileged in the sense that
(17:24):
I go to one of the top universities in the country.
So even though I have a lot of fear and I'm very surveilled and
I have a lot of all these anxieties, I also at the same
time hold a lot of privilege, which is one of the reasons I
really resonated with your podcast.
And that's something that it's really hard for people to
(17:45):
understand because the two worlds that I live in are
drastically different, right? My, the world I live with, with
my undocumented community looks completely different, almost
opposite to the world that I live with.
All these like top academics. It's, it's just completely so
(18:05):
different. So I always have to live those
worlds. I never get to kind of like
choose one or the other. Because in one day where I'm
meeting with the Dean of this and the president of that and
going to this AI conference and all these meeting like Google
people, all these fancy people. At the same time, I always have
that connection with my community.
And there's something that goes on every day, right?
(18:26):
Every day something new is happening, whether a PhD student
in Boston gets kidnapped in the middle of the street or three
young citizens when children getdeported by accident, quote UN
quote accident. And so it is a very, it is 2
completely different worlds thatare separated from each other
that I constantly have to navigate.
(18:48):
So I definitely feel like I'm always living in this
intersection with these two different worlds.
Yeah, 100%. And I do resonate with that
reflecting on my own kind of immigration journey, is that
people, when I felt the fear very acutely at times in my
(19:09):
life, I would get questions like, oh, you'll be fine.
You are, you are the good one. You're one of the good one.
And that always like it's, it's not working the way you thought
it was going to work. You know, it's like as
immigrants, when the fear is near, you can feel it, yes,
(19:32):
like, or the danger is near likeyou.
You can almost smell that in a way.
I mean, the intersection is very, it's very complex.
And I almost want to say unless you actually lived through it,
it would almost be impossible toto have that kind of like, I
(19:58):
know how you feel, that kind of sentiment.
Yeah. Because it's impossible.
It's absolutely impossible. And I feel so, again, humbled
when you mentioned even though you are undocumented American,
to borrow your words, you still feel privileged because you do
(20:21):
have access to resources, to leadership.
You're a PhD student. And earlier you mentioned, you
know, your research was about how people of color feel kind of
hesitant or reluctant getting into science and STEM.
(20:41):
And I find that very interestingbecause as an immigrant myself,
so I'm from China and a lot of Asian immigrants actually were
expected to get into STEM. So I find that very interesting.
You know, for some folks it's, it's, it's an attraction and for
(21:03):
others it's kind of like a put off.
And you are in much higher education than most of us
really. And in your work on campus or
outside in today's world, really, how are you utilizing
(21:24):
your resources and privilege to still feel like I want folks to
get into higher education to, toget that degree, to get that
knowledge? How?
How do you do that? That's a really great question
(21:44):
because it's something that I probably ask myself everyday,
like how can I continue to do this?
I think it's a goal that will bereached within the process.
I don't think it's a goal that Ihave to like.
It's not an, there's not going to be like a complete a number
of students that go into collegeand I'm going to say my, my goal
(22:06):
is complete. I think my goal will be reach
through the process of me being a PhD student.
And by that, I mean, my first step in being able to leverage
this privilege was to realize I had it, was to acknowledge it.
And I think that because the life of the immigrant is a very
(22:30):
tough life. It's a very, very beautiful
life, but it's a very tough life.
It took me a while to realize that I was standing in privilege
because I was just so focused on.
What I didn't? Have what was going wrong?
The negative messaging in society about people like me.
(22:51):
And it wasn't until a couple years ago that I really realized
that I'm actually so much more powerful that I realized.
And I think part of the negativemessaging in the media against
(23:11):
people like me, I think part of the goal is to have them forget
how powerful the community can be and people power can be
right. This narrative that we're
hearing has not is not new for US immigrants.
This narrative has has always existed in the consciousness of
(23:36):
America. It is now just being pushed to
your like forward to the to the mainstream media.
But these comments of us stealing jobs and being
immigrant and being whatever, I've heard that ever since I was
a little kid, like I've always known that I was othered in my
own country because California has felt like it was, you know,
(24:00):
I, I was home, like California has always been in my home.
So I never felt like I wasn't inmy home.
But I really, I, I think, I think early on I realized that I
was in this dynamic, right? And by the time I got into my
PhD program. My privilege, that's.
When it started to be fully on in my face and I could no longer
(24:23):
ignore it because even though itwas undocumented, even though I
had all these, you know, oppressions against me through
my immigration status, through DACA, which is different actions
for childhood I drivers. My.
Undocumentedness looks completely different than
someone that doesn't have DACA. And so even though I was an
undocumented person, I still hadthat guy.
(24:45):
I still had so many resources, opportunities to not just get a
job, but to pursue a career. And so I found myself in these
seats in these rooms with very fancy important people, quote UN
quote and like nobody that looked like me, right?
Especially I'm going to school here in DCI did assume like
Latinos are everywhere. And then I realized, Oh my God,
(25:07):
the people that look like me that are from my neighborhoods,
my communities, they're not the ones sitting in, they're the
ones serving the people. They're the, the cleaning
people. They're the ones that are
serving the coffee, the serving.That's the only time I ever got
to see myself. And and I said.
What am I? Going to do right what am I
(25:29):
going to do with this power because I I just felt so much
privilege and so that's when I decided like I was really going
to hone in on my research reallyfocusing on the his not just the
current experiences, but the historical experience of
marginalized students and how wegot where we got from.
And so from here on out as I write my dissertation, my number
(25:53):
one goal is to not produce research on the community.
That is not my goal my research.My goal is to produce research
with the community. And so I don't want to come in
to these communities as this university person who thinks
they have the answers, who thinks they know what they're
doing. I want to go into these problems
(26:16):
and, and really anchoring what the community cares about and
what their lived experience saysthat we should do.
And even though that might seem like it's such a small thing to
do in research and academia, younever really see that happening.
That's something that is like now just starting, which is
participatory action research. And what is your research going
(26:39):
to do once, once you leave the community, right?
Is it only going to benefit you and your CV?
Are you only going to use the data to to publish and expand
your resume? Or is that, or is that data and
research that you're done going to come back and benefit the
community in one way or another?And I think that's my way of not
just. Centering the community.
(27:01):
'S voice, but also teaching themand, and having them
opportunities to be like, look, your voice and your intelligence
matters and you could really go wherever you you want to you
don't have to pursue a career that's just given to you, right?
You you can really take your your voice and your experience
(27:22):
and all these things that you know how to do and like where
you're going to be in society. And it's a small opportunity,
but like, I have seen students that go from like, F this, I'm
never going to, you know, be successful to like, I want my
own business or I want my own career or I want to get my own
PhD. And so like, that's my way of,
(27:45):
of, of like making sure that I'mnot closing the doors behind me,
that I'm, I'm not just, I'm likeknocking them down, like leave
them, them open and, and, and making it accessible.
That's really. Really illuminating because I
think you, what you just described, which I haven't come
(28:05):
across a lot, is that you are actively practicing the
abundance mindset in your own community.
You are opening doors. Like for me, I can resonate it
and I'm guilty of that too. When I was at grad school, I
also conducted some research, right?
Like largely on campus with students.
(28:27):
So but when I got my results, I just kind of like see you never.
Yeah, but that's that's that's the research world, right?
Like get going every data. Bye.
I'm going to do my publishing now and I'm going to get my
pants and I'm going to live my life and the people that gave
you the data or like, OK, I get.Yeah.
(28:48):
I I didn't give back. I just sort of like I'm done,
right? And we see that.
All the time in, in the recent academic world, right.
And what you're really doing is you're taking people's stories
and you're taking people and notyou.
But like, yeah, no, no, no, we go there I was experts and we
take their stories and we take their voices.
(29:13):
And we'd only just take it. We go and we analysis it based
on our lived experience, and then we tell the world this is
what we know about these people.They're not telling us.
We're telling the world what we think about this community.
We just did really right. We take away their voices.
(29:34):
So I think, you know, another point of like I, my appreciation
of your story here is the way you practice the abundance
mindset is 1 opening doors and two, to help people kind of
grow. The same kind of mindset is yes,
this is, this is the cards you are being dealt with, but
(29:58):
they're not the only cards you are being like, you can have
other cards too, right? Like you can be entrepreneurial,
you can be creative. You, if you want to, you can
literally draw a door on the wall and you push it open.
You know, like open. Right, we can.
Create our path, but just like, but not out of nowhere with kind
(30:23):
of study, with information, withdata, with resource and with the
network we may be able to build and with the help from
community, for example, you and folks alike, of course.
So that's why I feel like that'ssuch a very neat example of the
abundance mindset is you, you take something and then you give
(30:46):
it back, not. The same.
Thing, but it's a tool you are giving people 'cause you know,
like you said, a lot of folks from the Latino community,
right? Like they just repeat the past
what they. Are.
Family had done and because theywould say this is the only thing
(31:08):
I know how to do. But that may or may not be true
but we need to find out. We need to find out if that is
true. So I.
Do have a psychology degree and I think that's where a lot of.
For me, that's where. My understanding of humans come
from so I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and social
(31:31):
behavior from UC Irvine School of Ecology, and I think the tool
that I give people is the ability to think outside the
idea they created of themselves.Because that's.
What I had to do right, I grew up being told you're
undocumented, you're not going to get a job because you can't
(31:54):
work. You have to work under the
table. You can't get fast, but you
can't get financial aid. So you can't go to college.
People like you don't even go tocollege by the way, you're a
woman on top of that and you're Mexican.
So by like 18 you better start popping babies and get married.
So I was told what my script hadto be and and I could not get
(32:16):
out of it right. And it's not because people
don't appreciate me or don't love me.
It wasn't. It was not that When you're an
undocumented person, especially in a place like the US, you're
on survival mode 24/7. You don't know who's going to
sell you out. You don't know if you're going
to keep your job or your or youror boss is going to pay you.
(32:40):
There's a lot of things that you, you don't know if, if
you're going to step out of the door and someone's going to be
waiting for you outside. You don't know if someone is
going to March into your house at 3:00 in the morning and
kidnap you. So even though it's a beautiful
life, it's a life full of fear and surveillance.
And that's where that comes in the, the, the script, right
(33:01):
almost of this is who you are and this is what's going to
happen, both out of fear, but also a protection.
But I was the headache of my family.
I was always asking questions and always looking for
alternatives and always saying, well, how do you know that?
And if you did not give me the answer I wanted, I would go and
knock on the next door and the next door and the next door,
(33:22):
like you said. And there were times I had to
make my own doors and go throughthem.
I had to, I'm going to give me the space or open the door for
me. I had to barge in.
And there's multiple times I hadto do that.
And so I had to do that just to allow myself to dream outside of
the idea of what people thought of me.
I wanted to get my PhD ever since I was in fifth grade.
(33:45):
And I I remember teachers and counselors laughing at me
because they're saying an undocumented person will never
get a PHDIII grew up knowing that.
I grew up with being like the honor kid, the AP kid in high
school with colleges sending me letters.
We want you all to apply. I would take these letters to my
(34:08):
high school counselor. My high school counselor would
throw them away because an undocumented person doesn't go
to college. Those people need to be.
Fired if she was honey. Don't worry about it.
Well, that was the constant story that I had to grow up
with, right? You can't say you're
undocumented, you can't make yourself like known and you
(34:30):
can't drink too big. And so I said, no, that's not
like I really always felt like my ancestors were like always in
my head, like, keep going, keep going.
And so now I have what's called the audacity to dream.
I have the audacity, the audacity to not just dream, but
to be in these spaces with thesepeople who think they're so much
(34:54):
smarter and better than me and holding my own right?
And I have the audacity to want better to not settle, to want
happiness and freedom. I have the audacity to want
that. And so when I work with high
school students or, or middle school students or even college
students, I give them that audacity to dream, right?
(35:16):
I, I'm like, OK, well, yes, thisis this and this is your
situation, but let's move on from that.
And, and, and I think a lot of the times I've been able to
mentor students in different levels, I don't and I don't
charge for my mentorship. I always do this from the heart.
I have different people that I mentor and recently one got
(35:37):
accepted to a PhD program at. And when I first met her two
years ago, I will never like whois like I had to convince her
that what she was saying was so interesting and that she should
be at the table. And trust me, it was like almost
a year of us going back and forth and she's now in her first
(35:59):
year of a PhD program and she never saw herself there.
I feel, I feel like a proud mom and I told her like, I feel very
proud. You did all the work.
But she did give me the flowers and be like you planted the seed
3. Years ago and.
That's what I tend to do with all my kids.
I plant the seed and I don't rush.
And I also don't have a script for them.
(36:20):
I don't know if you're going to go to college or do.
I don't know. But I want you to do something
because you like, you're amazingand you deserve to do that, you
know? Yeah.
So. I think I give.
Them the audacity to dream. I love that I.
Think that's our tagline? Have the audacity to dream like
people take audacity as some kind of negative word.
(36:45):
No, I mean, why not, right? Right and.
Now I feel that way where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going
to finish my PhD, but I have this wild dream and I'm going to
do what I always know how to do,which is dream so big because
eventually I will land in the stars somewhere, but that's how
big I have to dream. Yes, well, drink.
(37:06):
Big and drink bigger and I I also want to say take your
flowers. Thank you.
Yes. I had to learn how to do that,
you know, and take your flowers.I know.
It's metaphorical, but these American holiday Mother's Day is
coming. Exactly.
(37:28):
Thank you so much. I think that's.
Probably 1. Of the conversations that I feel
like sorry, why? Why am I having this?
Amazing conversation, what did Ido?
So I. Want to?
Maybe wrap up? Our conversation with this
(37:49):
question, I know you're going tocontinue your activism, you're
going to continue your research,you're going to continue
mentoring young leaders. You're going to continue to open
doors for undocumented Americans.
I love that term. And at the same.
(38:09):
Time it is a. Not ideal.
Yes, we're in the twilight. Zone.
What brings you hope and what grounds you right now?
I think. There's a lot of things that
(38:31):
bring me joy. My cats are one of.
Them, my family, my research, mymy mentees, my mentors, a lot of
things give me joy and and hope.But I think that right now, like
you said, we're we're all going through it.
(38:54):
Whether you're undocumented or not, we're all going through it
is a very. Special time.
In history, this, this chapter of the history books will be
very interesting. Yeah.
But the things. That keep me, give me joy and
keep me going and and kind of keep my glass half full versus
(39:17):
half empty are the interactions that I do have with my mentees
and the youth. I'm very lucky that every week I
get to hang out with middle school and high school kids and
young college students. And I think that if you allow
(39:37):
social media and the media in general to dominate your
narrative and your view of the youth, I think it can be very
easy to not feel hope and not feel joy, right?
But I get to hang out with them every single day, every single
week. And now I'll be able to do that
more with my new job directly with youth in in housing
(40:00):
situations. But if you talk to them.
I think that that'd. Be like the easiest and most
direct way to touch hope and touch the future because one,
they are our future, right? The kids are our future, but the
kids, the youth. Now, in my opinion, and I know
I'm only 31, but there are so intelligent.
(40:23):
They are not. They're so emotionally
intelligent and they are, they have so much empathy for other
people that I do truly believe that they will take care of us
and they will help us improve our life.
I don't know how and I don't know when it will happen, but I
(40:43):
think in the United States, we kind of forget that there was a
baby boom a couple of decades ago, which has a lot of one
generation. And this generation of baby
boomers, it is who holds the power right now, right?
They're the ones who hold the houses, the businesses, the
money and the political power. All those.
(41:08):
Roles will have to be filled in one day, right?
And one thing that I'm doing is that I'm focusing on the youth,
helping them develop not and not, I don't have an agenda, but
I get my agenda is for them to just dream and be and be
unapologetically themselves. And so I think my.
(41:33):
What I'm trying to say in short words is that if you ever feel
like there's no hope for the future, that you really do have
to talk to the youth and the andthe children because they are
paying attention. And now more than ever, they
have the information of the world in their hands.
And I think we. Think that.
(41:53):
They might not really understandit and know what's going on, but
because they're so exposed rightnow to to, to what's going on in
the media, I think they use now more than ever before in history
are more up to date of what is happening and what's on the
line. And so to me, that's what gives
(42:13):
me hope. I love that I.
I totally agree. The hope is in the hands of the
next and the next generations and our job really is to be
there and guide them and help them and support them in any
ways we can. Thank you.
(42:37):
I think that is a good place forus to wrap up.
And I am, I cannot say thank youenough, Melody, for coming here
and sharing your story and your time and really your wisdom with
me and folks out there. So thank you so much.
(42:57):
Thank you. Thank you more than anything for
for giving me this opportunity and this space, but also by
providing a Safeway of me still being able to share my story.
And so yeah, I just want to thank you for for making this
all possible. So thank you, of course, thank
(43:18):
you for. Giving me the opportunity.
I'm very privileged, you know, so and I hope and I know we will
see each other. Oh, 100%.
Hello everyone, welcome to The Intersection, a podcast program
about intersectionality, intersectional identities, and
intersectional journeys both professionally and personally.
And as we all know, all these journeys are very
interconnected. And today is very special
(00:39):
because it's the first time I'm interviewing someone who's not
using their real name. It's a way to protect someone's
safety. And I'm going to introduce my
guest, Melody here. Melody is from Mexico and she
(01:02):
moved to California, I believe the US back in mid 90s when she
was a baby and she grew up in California and have been in the
states for almost 30 years. And right now she is pursuing
her PhD in education policy in the DC area.
(01:24):
And Melody is a both a researcher in academic and an
active activist. And I'm very, very honored and
humbled to have her here today. I am very grateful for her trust
and I don't take it lightly. It is a risk.
(01:47):
And someone come here to share their story.
And so without further ado, welcome, Melody.
Thank you for being here. Hi.
Thank you for having me. I'm very, very excited to
finally have this conversation with you.
Thank you. So I shared, you know, your
(02:07):
general kind of background. Would you like to introduce
yourself and tell your own storyin your own way?
I. Would love to so hi everybody my
name is melody. I grew up in Mexico and very
early on in my life I immigratedto the United States.
I have been here, I'm 31, so I have been here for about 30
(02:31):
years, undocumented. I consider myself an
undocumented American because I grew up learning English here.
English is my first language. I learned Spanish here.
And I have that very stereotypical Dreamer narrative.
I'm good immigrant versus bad immigrant narrative, right?
(02:51):
And so early on in my career, inmy life, I knew I wasn't
documented. And so I ever since I was AI,
was in the activism world in California.
I learned how to organize at a grassroots level.
And I also quickly realized the power that the people in Pueblo
(03:12):
have right in demanding rights and a space and a voice in
California. And so now I'd like to tell my
students that now I use my superpowers for academic
purposes. And right now, I am pursuing my
PhD and education policy, tryingto understand the historic and
education experiences of marginalized students in
(03:34):
education and higher education in the United States.
What made you and thank you for sharing.
And what made you decide to go into education policy?
It's quite specific. Well, I never intended to be in
the education or in the policy world.
(03:56):
I kind of just found myself there.
So I always knew growing up thatI wanted to go to college.
I always dreamed of getting a PhD without really understanding
the pathway there. You know, I just knew that my
mom brought me to the United States to pursue a better life,
(04:16):
and that's what I was going to do.
And I was going to dream big because I knew that if I dreamed
big, I would land somewhere in the stars, as I like to say.
But I really just started in theactivism section, changing
policy in that sense, right? Which I didn't really realize
that's what I was really doing is affecting policy just from
(04:38):
the the outsider perspective or the activist and demanding
change in that way. And so without really, really
like realizing it, I was actually in policy my whole
life. And so I went to Community
College and then I transferred to UC Irvine.
Along that experience, I was very lucky to bump into mentors
(05:03):
that looked at me, saw somethingspecial, and they started to
give me an opportunity even though I didn't have
citizenship. And so quickly on I my first, my
second year actually in Community College, that's when I
started my first research project and trying to understand
why students were not going intoscience, right?
What about the sciences was preventing students of color
(05:28):
from majoring or pursuing a science career?
And that's when I fell in love with with research and the power
of research. Because to me, it was another
way of telling the story of, of telling the story of the
community of students who are often marginalized.
It was another way to to not just bring those stories to
(05:49):
life, but to have those stories touch the the years of very
powerful people. And, and, and that's when I
really fell in love with research and I saw how I could
also be an activist through scholarship.
Oh I see, that's really powerful.
(06:09):
What's your study or research has found out?
Like what's stopping people of acollege students from pursuing
science? ETC.
So that study, we learned that students of color who do not go
into sciences tend to have what we call negative, positive and
(06:30):
neutral stereotypes about the people that do science or
scientist. You know, we found out that a
lot of students who do not pursue science as a career often
do not really understand the jobs and the opportunities
available for them in the sciences and have a very
negative stereotypical view of what sciences are.
(06:52):
So we would talk to our students, you know, what do you
think a scientist does? What is science for you?
And they had this very idea of like a lonely guy and lonely old
white guy in a basement with chemicals and like no friends
and no, no life and just being super like antisocial in the
corner basement somewhere. And that's not what science can
(07:15):
be. Science can be science is
everywhere and it could be so beautiful and so cool.
And so that's when we realized that we probably need to start
there and start expanding the idea of what science can be.
And so we took a whole year in the class of biology to not just
learn about biology, but also learn about scientists that made
the curriculum possible. And by the end of the semester
(07:38):
and even six months after, we found that students were like,
well, when I bake a science, when I guarded a science, when I
play like pool, that's geometry,that's science.
And so they started to see science in their everyday life
and even seeing themselves as well.
I do science here and I do science there, which was really
beautiful to see. That is so cool and you are so
(08:04):
right. Science is everywhere.
I'm an amateur Baker as well andthe fact that sometimes a recipe
uses baking soda and sometimes it's baking powder always drips
me. And that's real science.
Yes. And you have to follow it to the
tier would completely change. And that's chemistry, right?
(08:24):
Yes, exactly. I mean, I'm not a science, so I
just, I just follow the recipe and so that you just don't so
that you won't mess up. But I so resonate.
With what you said, Melody, is that if we really kind of
broaden our perspective and we go through the stereotypes, you
can see so much beauty in the so-called kind of boring, sad,
(08:50):
mundane kind of science life. That sounds so fun.
So with that discovery, are you already putting your search
results or research results intoinfluencing education policy?
How does that work? That's a really, really great
question. And it doesn't always like your
(09:12):
research may not always resolve in influencing policy directly,
but it does always increase the conversation around that topic
and, and to always wanting to not just continue the
conversation, but shift it, evolve it, center it in
different communities. I think it's one of the
(09:33):
immediate impacts that you may have with your research.
And so for this research, it, this was early 10 years almost,
Oh my God, almost 15 years ago. So it's been a while since we
published, but that center has only grown.
And now instead of just focusingon stereotypical like sciences,
(09:54):
we're expanding the term of whata scientist is and also allowing
just anyone who's teaching science or any type of, of STEM
curriculum to go into the, to the website that we created.
And I'm very, very careful here for, for me not to kind of
reveal who I am, but there is this website where people can go
in and learn about, let's say that you're learning about the
(10:16):
DNA strand. You can learn about the women
and sciences like Franklin who who helped develop the DNA
strand that you probably wouldn't have known that a woman
discovered that or the fact thatit was a Mexican nurse who
actually invented the, the hand sanitizer, right?
Things like that. Non stereotypical scientists and
(10:39):
non stereotypical stories withinscience.
And so right now there's thousands of students across the
nation learning about these non stereotypical scientists because
of this one research that I was part of, I definitely did not
leave that I was not the brains of that.
But this is 1 opportunity that Ihad early on in my career that
someone saw like the the hunger and the want in me, but not
(11:04):
necessarily like I don't have citizenship.
And so a lot of the times like just because of who I am and my
status, opportunities are closedoff to me.
And so this was really on in my career that somebody just
decided to give me a chance and I kind of ran with it.
That's so cool because not only because you went for it, but
(11:26):
also you don't. It is so important for us to get
to have a support system, especially when we are not these
kind of, to use the word stereotypical.
We're not stereotypical Americans, right?
Like we don't look like the typical Americans.
And I'm just very glad those people.
(11:49):
I don't wanna say they discovered you because I feel
like in order for someone to seeyou, you have to be visible,
right? Like they didn't dig you out
from the ground. Like I'm sure you were already
out and about and then your pathcrossed and then that happened.
So I think that's a really cool example of how sometimes in
(12:11):
order for something to happen, you just really need to make
that connection. So I want to kind of like get
into you just mentioned because of who you are, like you
mentioned an undocumented American, oftentimes or
sometimes, you know, doors will be closed off for you.
(12:34):
How has your undocumented American life been for you in
this country, and how has that impacted your activism over the
years? Before I was out as an
undocumented person, I did. I did hide that status a lot.
(12:59):
And so for the first couple of years of my life up until I was
18, I hid that I was very scaredof people knowing my status.
I lived in the shadows as a lot of our community members
describe that experience, not just for myself, but because I
was just scared of my family's safety as well.
(13:20):
Well, I always have to really think about, like, I really
always have to weigh my dreams to the safety of my family.
For example. I've been wanting to do this
podcast with you for a while andI still want to do that, but I
just have to do that in a way that keeps my family safe,
right? And so there's always that, like
(13:43):
I've always have to calculate mydreams versus my safety and, and
what makes sense not just for me, but for my family.
So that's one of the first things that I, I always have to
think about, regardless of what I'm doing.
As simple as I want to go on vacation, am I safe to drive
there? Am I safe to stay there?
(14:05):
So little, even little things like that, especially now, you
know, from this administration, things have gone really, I think
gotten really bizarre and I feellike I'm in the twilight zone
and I'm not the only one that feels that way.
I have a whole bunch of citizen friends that text me every day
just like, is this really happening?
(14:26):
Right. But I think in a more technical
terms, like for example, I wanted to go to college, I
couldn't apply for FAFSA. I can't apply for loans right
now as a PhD student. I have to work extra hours
because I don't get the financial aid packages that my
other friends get. And so my story and how I have
(14:48):
to get there, it it's not impossible.
It just looks a little bit different than what my citizens,
friends, their stories look like.
For example, in my college, I'm,I'm, I'm probably one of three
undocumented students there who are in the Graduate School.
And so there's not a lot of a lot of us.
(15:11):
And, and that means I often haveto be 1 of the first to have a
conversation with the leader or having to bring up things or
when there's a policy happening.For example, when the president
was elected recently, that same December, January, I started
talking to the Dean of like, what policy are you going to
(15:31):
have when the ICE agents start knocking out the door?
And at that time they were almost laughing at me, like not
they were totally professional, but I could just feel the energy
of like, she's super paranoid, she's super stressed.
This is never going to happen inour country.
And now there is a not just a policy in my college, but a
(15:52):
policy in the entire campus of what we will do when, not if,
when ice ages are on campus. And we've had them on campus
multiple Times Now. So a lot of the fears that I had
that I thought were crazy have been solidified.
And so I'm in this era, I'm, I'mstill learning what it means to
(16:13):
be undocumented in America. Yeah.
I mean, it keeps evolving, right?
It's yeah, I absolutely do not want to say I know how you feel
because I don't. But I can in some way empathize
on the level of the fear they are trying to generate inside,
(16:40):
say, on campus, right? It doesn't matter if you are
documented or not. It's like fear, and of course
the fear and uncertainty folks who are undocumented experience
are very different. Yes.
And, and so I'm going to the point where I'm not just a
(17:03):
student. I'm, I'm a graduate PhD student
in one of the top countries in the nation.
And luckily enough, I've been able to really work with my
leaders to, I guess even though I'm, I'm undocumented, I'm very
privileged, right? I'm in the privilege in the
sense that I'm a PhD student. I'm privileged in the sense that
(17:24):
I go to one of the top universities in the country.
So even though I have a lot of fear and I'm very surveilled and
I have a lot of all these anxieties, I also at the same
time hold a lot of privilege, which is one of the reasons I
really resonated with your podcast.
And that's something that it's really hard for people to
(17:45):
understand because the two worlds that I live in are
drastically different, right? My, the world I live with, with
my undocumented community looks completely different, almost
opposite to the world that I live with.
All these like top academics. It's, it's just completely so
(18:05):
different. So I always have to live those
worlds. I never get to kind of like
choose one or the other. Because in one day where I'm
meeting with the Dean of this and the president of that and
going to this AI conference and all these meeting like Google
people, all these fancy people. At the same time, I always have
that connection with my community.
And there's something that goes on every day, right?
(18:26):
Every day something new is happening, whether a PhD student
in Boston gets kidnapped in the middle of the street or three
young citizens when children getdeported by accident, quote UN
quote accident. And so it is a very, it is 2
completely different worlds thatare separated from each other
that I constantly have to navigate.
(18:48):
So I definitely feel like I'm always living in this
intersection with these two different worlds.
Yeah, 100%. And I do resonate with that
reflecting on my own kind of immigration journey, is that
people, when I felt the fear very acutely at times in my
(19:09):
life, I would get questions like, oh, you'll be fine.
You are, you are the good one. You're one of the good one.
And that always like it's, it's not working the way you thought
it was going to work. You know, it's like as
immigrants, when the fear is near, you can feel it, yes,
(19:32):
like, or the danger is near likeyou.
You can almost smell that in a way.
I mean, the intersection is very, it's very complex.
And I almost want to say unless you actually lived through it,
it would almost be impossible toto have that kind of like, I
(19:58):
know how you feel, that kind of sentiment.
Yeah. Because it's impossible.
It's absolutely impossible. And I feel so, again, humbled
when you mentioned even though you are undocumented American,
to borrow your words, you still feel privileged because you do
(20:21):
have access to resources, to leadership.
You're a PhD student. And earlier you mentioned, you
know, your research was about how people of color feel kind of
hesitant or reluctant getting into science and STEM.
(20:41):
And I find that very interestingbecause as an immigrant myself,
so I'm from China and a lot of Asian immigrants actually were
expected to get into STEM. So I find that very interesting.
You know, for some folks it's, it's, it's an attraction and for
(21:03):
others it's kind of like a put off.
And you are in much higher education than most of us
really. And in your work on campus or
outside in today's world, really, how are you utilizing
(21:24):
your resources and privilege to still feel like I want folks to
get into higher education to, toget that degree, to get that
knowledge? How?
How do you do that? That's a really great question
(21:44):
because it's something that I probably ask myself everyday,
like how can I continue to do this?
I think it's a goal that will bereached within the process.
I don't think it's a goal that Ihave to like.
It's not an, there's not going to be like a complete a number
of students that go into collegeand I'm going to say my, my goal
(22:06):
is complete. I think my goal will be reach
through the process of me being a PhD student.
And by that, I mean, my first step in being able to leverage
this privilege was to realize I had it, was to acknowledge it.
And I think that because the life of the immigrant is a very
(22:30):
tough life. It's a very, very beautiful
life, but it's a very tough life.
It took me a while to realize that I was standing in privilege
because I was just so focused on.
What I didn't? Have what was going wrong?
The negative messaging in society about people like me.
(22:51):
And it wasn't until a couple years ago that I really realized
that I'm actually so much more powerful that I realized.
And I think part of the negativemessaging in the media against
(23:11):
people like me, I think part of the goal is to have them forget
how powerful the community can be and people power can be
right. This narrative that we're
hearing has not is not new for US immigrants.
This narrative has has always existed in the consciousness of
(23:36):
America. It is now just being pushed to
your like forward to the to the mainstream media.
But these comments of us stealing jobs and being
immigrant and being whatever, I've heard that ever since I was
a little kid, like I've always known that I was othered in my
own country because California has felt like it was, you know,
(24:00):
I, I was home, like California has always been in my home.
So I never felt like I wasn't inmy home.
But I really, I, I think, I think early on I realized that I
was in this dynamic, right? And by the time I got into my
PhD program. My privilege, that's.
When it started to be fully on in my face and I could no longer
(24:23):
ignore it because even though itwas undocumented, even though I
had all these, you know, oppressions against me through
my immigration status, through DACA, which is different actions
for childhood I drivers. My.
Undocumentedness looks completely different than
someone that doesn't have DACA. And so even though I was an
undocumented person, I still hadthat guy.
(24:45):
I still had so many resources, opportunities to not just get a
job, but to pursue a career. And so I found myself in these
seats in these rooms with very fancy important people, quote UN
quote and like nobody that looked like me, right?
Especially I'm going to school here in DCI did assume like
Latinos are everywhere. And then I realized, Oh my God,
(25:07):
the people that look like me that are from my neighborhoods,
my communities, they're not the ones sitting in, they're the
ones serving the people. They're the, the cleaning
people. They're the ones that are
serving the coffee, the serving.That's the only time I ever got
to see myself. And and I said.
What am I? Going to do right what am I
(25:29):
going to do with this power because I I just felt so much
privilege and so that's when I decided like I was really going
to hone in on my research reallyfocusing on the his not just the
current experiences, but the historical experience of
marginalized students and how wegot where we got from.
And so from here on out as I write my dissertation, my number
(25:53):
one goal is to not produce research on the community.
That is not my goal my research.My goal is to produce research
with the community. And so I don't want to come in
to these communities as this university person who thinks
they have the answers, who thinks they know what they're
doing. I want to go into these problems
(26:16):
and, and really anchoring what the community cares about and
what their lived experience saysthat we should do.
And even though that might seem like it's such a small thing to
do in research and academia, younever really see that happening.
That's something that is like now just starting, which is
participatory action research. And what is your research going
(26:39):
to do once, once you leave the community, right?
Is it only going to benefit you and your CV?
Are you only going to use the data to to publish and expand
your resume? Or is that, or is that data and
research that you're done going to come back and benefit the
community in one way or another?And I think that's my way of not
just. Centering the community.
(27:01):
'S voice, but also teaching themand, and having them
opportunities to be like, look, your voice and your intelligence
matters and you could really go wherever you you want to you
don't have to pursue a career that's just given to you, right?
You you can really take your your voice and your experience
(27:22):
and all these things that you know how to do and like where
you're going to be in society. And it's a small opportunity,
but like, I have seen students that go from like, F this, I'm
never going to, you know, be successful to like, I want my
own business or I want my own career or I want to get my own
PhD. And so like, that's my way of,
(27:45):
of, of like making sure that I'mnot closing the doors behind me,
that I'm, I'm not just, I'm likeknocking them down, like leave
them, them open and, and, and making it accessible.
That's really. Really illuminating because I
think you, what you just described, which I haven't come
(28:05):
across a lot, is that you are actively practicing the
abundance mindset in your own community.
You are opening doors. Like for me, I can resonate it
and I'm guilty of that too. When I was at grad school, I
also conducted some research, right?
Like largely on campus with students.
(28:27):
So but when I got my results, I just kind of like see you never.
Yeah, but that's that's that's the research world, right?
Like get going every data. Bye.
I'm going to do my publishing now and I'm going to get my
pants and I'm going to live my life and the people that gave
you the data or like, OK, I get.Yeah.
(28:48):
I I didn't give back. I just sort of like I'm done,
right? And we see that.
All the time in, in the recent academic world, right.
And what you're really doing is you're taking people's stories
and you're taking people and notyou.
But like, yeah, no, no, no, we go there I was experts and we
take their stories and we take their voices.
(29:13):
And we'd only just take it. We go and we analysis it based
on our lived experience, and then we tell the world this is
what we know about these people.They're not telling us.
We're telling the world what we think about this community.
We just did really right. We take away their voices.
(29:34):
So I think, you know, another point of like I, my appreciation
of your story here is the way you practice the abundance
mindset is 1 opening doors and two, to help people kind of
grow. The same kind of mindset is yes,
this is, this is the cards you are being dealt with, but
(29:58):
they're not the only cards you are being like, you can have
other cards too, right? Like you can be entrepreneurial,
you can be creative. You, if you want to, you can
literally draw a door on the wall and you push it open.
You know, like open. Right, we can.
Create our path, but just like, but not out of nowhere with kind
(30:23):
of study, with information, withdata, with resource and with the
network we may be able to build and with the help from
community, for example, you and folks alike, of course.
So that's why I feel like that'ssuch a very neat example of the
abundance mindset is you, you take something and then you give
(30:46):
it back, not. The same.
Thing, but it's a tool you are giving people 'cause you know,
like you said, a lot of folks from the Latino community,
right? Like they just repeat the past
what they. Are.
Family had done and because theywould say this is the only thing
(31:08):
I know how to do. But that may or may not be true
but we need to find out. We need to find out if that is
true. So I.
Do have a psychology degree and I think that's where a lot of.
For me, that's where. My understanding of humans come
from so I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and social
(31:31):
behavior from UC Irvine School of Ecology, and I think the tool
that I give people is the ability to think outside the
idea they created of themselves.Because that's.
What I had to do right, I grew up being told you're
undocumented, you're not going to get a job because you can't
(31:54):
work. You have to work under the
table. You can't get fast, but you
can't get financial aid. So you can't go to college.
People like you don't even go tocollege by the way, you're a
woman on top of that and you're Mexican.
So by like 18 you better start popping babies and get married.
So I was told what my script hadto be and and I could not get
(32:16):
out of it right. And it's not because people
don't appreciate me or don't love me.
It wasn't. It was not that When you're an
undocumented person, especially in a place like the US, you're
on survival mode 24/7. You don't know who's going to
sell you out. You don't know if you're going
to keep your job or your or youror boss is going to pay you.
(32:40):
There's a lot of things that you, you don't know if, if
you're going to step out of the door and someone's going to be
waiting for you outside. You don't know if someone is
going to March into your house at 3:00 in the morning and
kidnap you. So even though it's a beautiful
life, it's a life full of fear and surveillance.
And that's where that comes in the, the, the script, right
(33:01):
almost of this is who you are and this is what's going to
happen, both out of fear, but also a protection.
But I was the headache of my family.
I was always asking questions and always looking for
alternatives and always saying, well, how do you know that?
And if you did not give me the answer I wanted, I would go and
knock on the next door and the next door and the next door,
(33:22):
like you said. And there were times I had to
make my own doors and go throughthem.
I had to, I'm going to give me the space or open the door for
me. I had to barge in.
And there's multiple times I hadto do that.
And so I had to do that just to allow myself to dream outside of
the idea of what people thought of me.
I wanted to get my PhD ever since I was in fifth grade.
(33:45):
And I I remember teachers and counselors laughing at me
because they're saying an undocumented person will never
get a PHDIII grew up knowing that.
I grew up with being like the honor kid, the AP kid in high
school with colleges sending me letters.
We want you all to apply. I would take these letters to my
(34:08):
high school counselor. My high school counselor would
throw them away because an undocumented person doesn't go
to college. Those people need to be.
Fired if she was honey. Don't worry about it.
Well, that was the constant story that I had to grow up
with, right? You can't say you're
undocumented, you can't make yourself like known and you
(34:30):
can't drink too big. And so I said, no, that's not
like I really always felt like my ancestors were like always in
my head, like, keep going, keep going.
And so now I have what's called the audacity to dream.
I have the audacity, the audacity to not just dream, but
to be in these spaces with thesepeople who think they're so much
(34:54):
smarter and better than me and holding my own right?
And I have the audacity to want better to not settle, to want
happiness and freedom. I have the audacity to want
that. And so when I work with high
school students or, or middle school students or even college
students, I give them that audacity to dream, right?
(35:16):
I, I'm like, OK, well, yes, thisis this and this is your
situation, but let's move on from that.
And, and, and I think a lot of the times I've been able to
mentor students in different levels, I don't and I don't
charge for my mentorship. I always do this from the heart.
I have different people that I mentor and recently one got
(35:37):
accepted to a PhD program at. And when I first met her two
years ago, I will never like whois like I had to convince her
that what she was saying was so interesting and that she should
be at the table. And trust me, it was like almost
a year of us going back and forth and she's now in her first
(35:59):
year of a PhD program and she never saw herself there.
I feel, I feel like a proud mom and I told her like, I feel very
proud. You did all the work.
But she did give me the flowers and be like you planted the seed
3. Years ago and.
That's what I tend to do with all my kids.
I plant the seed and I don't rush.
And I also don't have a script for them.
(36:20):
I don't know if you're going to go to college or do.
I don't know. But I want you to do something
because you like, you're amazingand you deserve to do that, you
know? Yeah.
So. I think I give.
Them the audacity to dream. I love that I.
Think that's our tagline? Have the audacity to dream like
people take audacity as some kind of negative word.
(36:45):
No, I mean, why not, right? Right and.
Now I feel that way where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going
to finish my PhD, but I have this wild dream and I'm going to
do what I always know how to do,which is dream so big because
eventually I will land in the stars somewhere, but that's how
big I have to dream. Yes, well, drink.
(37:06):
Big and drink bigger and I I also want to say take your
flowers. Thank you.
Yes. I had to learn how to do that,
you know, and take your flowers.I know.
It's metaphorical, but these American holiday Mother's Day is
coming. Exactly.
(37:28):
Thank you so much. I think that's.
Probably 1. Of the conversations that I feel
like sorry, why? Why am I having this?
Amazing conversation, what did Ido?
So I. Want to?
Maybe wrap up? Our conversation with this
(37:49):
question, I know you're going tocontinue your activism, you're
going to continue your research,you're going to continue
mentoring young leaders. You're going to continue to open
doors for undocumented Americans.
I love that term. And at the same.
(38:09):
Time it is a. Not ideal.
Yes, we're in the twilight. Zone.
What brings you hope and what grounds you right now?
I think. There's a lot of things that
(38:31):
bring me joy. My cats are one of.
Them, my family, my research, mymy mentees, my mentors, a lot of
things give me joy and and hope.But I think that right now, like
you said, we're we're all going through it.
(38:54):
Whether you're undocumented or not, we're all going through it
is a very. Special time.
In history, this, this chapter of the history books will be
very interesting. Yeah.
But the things. That keep me, give me joy and
keep me going and and kind of keep my glass half full versus
(39:17):
half empty are the interactions that I do have with my mentees
and the youth. I'm very lucky that every week I
get to hang out with middle school and high school kids and
young college students. And I think that if you allow
(39:37):
social media and the media in general to dominate your
narrative and your view of the youth, I think it can be very
easy to not feel hope and not feel joy, right?
But I get to hang out with them every single day, every single
week. And now I'll be able to do that
more with my new job directly with youth in in housing
(40:00):
situations. But if you talk to them.
I think that that'd. Be like the easiest and most
direct way to touch hope and touch the future because one,
they are our future, right? The kids are our future, but the
kids, the youth. Now, in my opinion, and I know
I'm only 31, but there are so intelligent.
(40:23):
They are not. They're so emotionally
intelligent and they are, they have so much empathy for other
people that I do truly believe that they will take care of us
and they will help us improve our life.
I don't know how and I don't know when it will happen, but I
(40:43):
think in the United States, we kind of forget that there was a
baby boom a couple of decades ago, which has a lot of one
generation. And this generation of baby
boomers, it is who holds the power right now, right?
They're the ones who hold the houses, the businesses, the
money and the political power. All those.
(41:08):
Roles will have to be filled in one day, right?
And one thing that I'm doing is that I'm focusing on the youth,
helping them develop not and not, I don't have an agenda, but
I get my agenda is for them to just dream and be and be
unapologetically themselves. And so I think my.
(41:33):
What I'm trying to say in short words is that if you ever feel
like there's no hope for the future, that you really do have
to talk to the youth and the andthe children because they are
paying attention. And now more than ever, they
have the information of the world in their hands.
And I think we. Think that.
(41:53):
They might not really understandit and know what's going on, but
because they're so exposed rightnow to to, to what's going on in
the media, I think they use now more than ever before in history
are more up to date of what is happening and what's on the
line. And so to me, that's what gives
(42:13):
me hope. I love that I.
I totally agree. The hope is in the hands of the
next and the next generations and our job really is to be
there and guide them and help them and support them in any
ways we can. Thank you.
(42:37):
I think that is a good place forus to wrap up.
And I am, I cannot say thank youenough, Melody, for coming here
and sharing your story and your time and really your wisdom with
me and folks out there. So thank you so much.
(42:57):
Thank you. Thank you more than anything for
for giving me this opportunity and this space, but also by
providing a Safeway of me still being able to share my story.
And so yeah, I just want to thank you for for making this
all possible. So thank you, of course, thank
(43:18):
you for. Giving me the opportunity.
I'm very privileged, you know, so and I hope and I know we will
see each other. Oh, 100%.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.