Life of a mixed student: The Journey of a Chicana Student at UCLA

Welcome! My name is Sofia Villalpando and I am a Mexican-American (Chicana) student who attends UCLA. For more information about me, you can visit my About Me page or my LinkedIn profile! 

Background

I have chosen to represent my identity with the term "Chicana," meaning Mexican-American. I am half Mexican and half white and I am a United States born citizen. Growing up in Oceanside, California, I was around a predominantly hispanic population and many of my friends were kids of immigrants or from military families. Throughout my years of primary and secondary school, I never felt that my identity was something that mattered because I was mixed, had white skin, only knew one language (English), and I am white-passing. I was either too white to call myself Mexican or too Mexican to call myself white. I looked different than my peers and my privilege of socioeconomic status, race, and being a native-English speaker only made me adapt perceived fraudulence. In high school, I decided to learn Spanish on my own, earned the seal of bi-literacy, but I still felt out of place and that knowing Spanish was not enough. My peers would call me "gringa" not knowing how much my grandparents sacrificed for me to be here today. There were no resources for me at my hometown, and because I went to an underfunded, underrepresented school, my socioeconomic status made people assume I was a "rich white girl." My dad worked incredibly hard, fighting battles from unemployment and discrimination to give my family and I the life we have, but everyone just saw me as a privileged, spoiled "white girl." People often asked me what I was; I was even told that I looked "ethnic or indigenous" or just flat out white. Being called things like a "white-washed Mexican" made me feel like I could never really have an identity as strong as my peers, because on either side I was seen as something less than everyone else. After earning my seal of bi-literacy, I got a job where I could practice my Spanish and help customers from all different demographics. I wanted to make my family proud. After being accepted to UCLA, I made it a goal to discover my identity to help my peers respect me. 

My experience at UCLA as a Developing Hispanic Serving Institution

Once I was accepted to UCLA in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had new student orientation and a checklist to complete. I was placed into a group based on my major, and it was refreshing to see so many women in my group, but none of them were hispanic. After beginning my college experience in fall 2020, I noticed that Chicanx Studies was a minor that I was interested in immediately. I also discovered UCLA's Mixed Student Union and MECHA, which made me comfortable. I took Chicanx Studies 10A during my sophomore year, where we examined the history of Mexican Americans with an emphasis on culture and social change. I created projects where I expressed my identity, and had an incredible professor. Here are some of the projects I created:

Strong Chicana Women
Digital Family Representation
Mexican Revolution

Based on my career goals and four year plan, I decided to change minors to Digital Humanities to reinforce my statistical experience. There are a lot of resources on UCLA's diverse campus for mixed, Latinx, and Hispanic students, but something that has been challenging is the lack of representation in my major. The Statistics major is a large major at UCLA, but in the past two years I have only met one other Hispanic peer, and he is male. At times I feel extremely alone and afraid to ask for help not only because I am a woman, but because of how I identify. The lack of representation in the statistics major intimidates me and makes it difficult to relate to some of my peers and professors. I often feel like I belong in another major. 

However, UCLA has announced that they aim to become a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by 2025, which I think will help other Chicanx students like myself receive resources and representation tailored to our backgrounds. As new programs and resources become available, I am confident that my experience in my major will improve tremendously and I will feel more accepted at this amazing institution.