Gloria Miranda: Educator Helps Students Make History of Their Own

When Gloria Miranda (Class of ’72, B.A., history/Chicano studies) was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly 20 years ago, she took it upon herself to change what could have been the course of her life and by opting for a radical mastectomy. Except for a reoccurrence five years ago when a new tumor was eliminated with radiation treatments, Miranda’s cancer has been in remission.

While living as a cancer survivor, Miranda nonetheless pursued her career (earning her doctorate in history at the University of Southern California) as a professor of history, researcher, writer and community college administrator after earning her doctorate in history from the University of Southern California. A scholar of early California, the Southwest and the Mexican American experience, the South Los Angeles native has had numerous writings published in scholarly journals and books, including the 2006 anthology, City of Promise: Race and Historical Change in Los Angeles.

Dateline had the opportunity to meet Miranda in the middle of Latino Heritage Month and the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The dean of behavioral and social sciences at El Camino College in Torrance, Calif., talked about the importance of being the first in one’s family to go to college, bilingual learning and making history come alive for students of color through lessons that show how people like themselves were active participants in the building of a nation.

Dateline: What do you think of the way you were taught history and how did that inspire you to become an educator yourself?

Gloria Miranda: It was, as I recall from my middle school years, a lot of memorization of facts. But as I progressed into college level work, particularly when I was at Dominguez Hills, I was forced to think about history and why events took place – that really altered my view of the importance of history in our lives.

Dateline: How did you strive to change the teaching of history for your students?

GM: Because of my interest in Chicano history, I think it is important to present to students a more inclusive narrative on how their particular community had contributed to the development of the United States. It was important to me to provide students who came from a tradition where they were seen [in history] as non-participants, an opportunity to learn how significant that contribution has been, particularly in the American Southwest.

After many years removed from full-time teaching, I still receive emails from former students who say, ‘You know what? Your history class really turned me around. I want to become a teacher. I want to become a historian.’

Dateline: What is the importance of making history resonate for students of color?

GM: Mainstream history has traditionally been seen almost exclusively as a history of white men as great personalities and dominant figures. True, George Washington was the first president of the United States and ranked as one of the great leaders of this country, but the more inclusive story of the nation’s beginnings is one that addresses the diverse participants in the social setting of that time and what their impact was on the U.S.A.

It is important for students to know that there was a is a broader multicultural American story. Historians of minority history must remember to avoid though the pitfalls of treating people of color in the manner fashionable 30 years ago which presented people of color and women as mere victims. It isn’t just the conditions of bondage, slavery or peonage that shaped these multicultural histories of this country, but the participation of African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans and women that helped to shape our political and social fabric as a nation.

When I would assign visits to local historical sites in my Chicano history classes, my students would take their families with them. In most cases, these site visits to cultural locations in southern California frequently would lead to interaction between grandparents, parents and the student about their own family past and the memory of what it was like when [members of the older generations] grew up. That personalized the students’ own history and made the classroom experience much more relevant to them.

Dateline: What is the significance of the Los Angeles’ Latino roots in the struggle for bilingual education?

GM: When California became a part of the United States in 1850, there was official acknowledgement of the cultural legacy of the Mexican past. In the Southern California area in particular the predominant Spanish-speaking population of Mexican descent and remained so until the coming of the railroads in the 1870s and 1880s. Consequently the State Constitution included a clause on bilingualism. However, within six years however, a drive to eliminate the equality of Spanish and English resulted in English- only instruction movement in the state.

By the close of the nineteenth century, the English-only movement while directed mainly at the Chinese, also impacted immigrants from Mexico. The region which had remained culturally Mexican for several decades began to experience a dramatic shift in demographics with the influx of people from other parts of the country and the demographics quickly were reversed. You begin to see the loss of power by the upper class native Californians who joined the rest of the region’s Mexican population as outsiders without voices in this society. Into the first half of the twentieth century, with the influx of immigrants from Mexico, California public schools enforced English only instruction and refused to consider utilizing bicultural educational strategies.

The rise of the Chicano civil rights movement in the 1960s had as one of its major objectives the achievement of a relevant education of all Chicanos. Bilingual and bicultural education was the demand and resulted in a more relevant curriculum in some school districts. But, this educational thrust was to be only part of a larger civil rights program that has borne fruit especially in the political arena here in southern California.

The election of Antonio Villaraigosa represents the momentum that has been gained within the Chicano and Latino communities in asserting a political power shift that has not existed in over 100 years, at least at the city level, with a mayor of Mexican background.

Dateline: What do you think the ideal balance of power is? Can history and politics ever be colorblind?

I don’t think there is a clean and simple answer. This upcoming election is an indicator of the potential of having a woman or an African American in a position to assume the leadership of this country. Politics does have a subtle undertone, and in some cases, a more blatant one, that is color-based.

We need the best qualified candidate. We would hope that the public would vote for that individual on that basis alone, regardless of whether that person happens to be African American or a woman. It is my hope that one day Americans will no longer judge someone because of their race or ethnicity and avoid labeling a minority should they become our nation’s president as the African American president or the Mexican American president. I would also hope that someday our educational system will achieve the goal of preparing future voters to think beyond color.

We seem to always be cognizant of the ethnic factor in the Chicano community. In our desire to vote in a candidate of our own background who can potentially become a role model and a hero, the community has sometimes discovered that our political choices are not always are best representatives. In other words, just because they have the Spanish surname and the ethnic and racial connection, they may not be connected to their community at all; has no sensitivity or interest in assuming a leadership role in implementing change. The Chicano community used to call these types of politicians vendidos, in the 1970s. These were individuals who gained political positions by virtue of their Spanish surnames but never served their constitutents.

Dateline: Were you the first in your family to graduate from college?

GM: My father was an immigrant who had a limited education. He came to the U.S. as part of the World War II bracero program (the U.S. government gave permits for Mexican field workers to assume jobs, mainly in agriculture, that were left vacant by the departure of soldiers who went overseas to fight in the war). My dad was a mature adult when he came to this country, so his Mexican identity was already pretty well formed. My mother was first-generation, born in the U.S. with her parents having migrated from Mexico at the turn of the twentieth century. She was bilingual and raised in a bicultural environment. More significantly, she was the first in her family to graduate from high school, the only one actually.

I was the first to go to college in the family and to go as far as I did. The influence of a Chicano/a who breaks through this educational barrier is very significant. Whether they realize it or not, they become a model for others among family and friends. I have had siblings and extended family who have pursued their higher education because of my own achievement. College then becomes attainable, not far-reaching but a goal they can accomplish. It makes a big difference for future generations in countless Chicano and Latino families.

Dateline: How has being a cancer patient and a survivor influenced your commitment to your work and your students?

GM: I realized how precious one's life is. As an educator, I have been driven to provide my faculty and students with the support necessary to help them succeed in their chosen endeavors. Over the years, my activities have expanded beyond my original educational goals and have involved me in national and international educational issues. It would have been simple to take life easy after my initial bout with cancer, but I chose to pursue service to my profession and to student betterment instead.

Dateline: How did your education at Dominguez Hills prepare you to educate students, particularly students of color and prepare them for success?

GM: I think both my interest in history and Chicano Studies were well-served at Dominguez Hills. My own cultural upbringing in South Los Angeles gave me a perspective that I thought was very beneficial in approaching teaching students of color and students in general, with a sensitivity to students of all backgrounds that I feel is essential in the classroom. You have to respect students’ opinions of different backgrounds. We try to integrate all those opinions into an informed understanding of the past and where our society is today. This is one of the major lessons I learned from some of my faculty members at CSU Dominguez Hills.

And I appreciate the faculty that I’ve worked under and became mentors for me, and who have become lifelong colleagues in that respect over the years. They still shape many of the things that I do to this day, including Dr. Enrique Orozco, who is now at Pasadena City College and Dr. Don Hata (emeritus professor of history) and his wife, Dr. Nadine Hata. They drew me into becoming involved at the professional organization level, something I hadn’t thought of when I first started teaching.

I know this is Latino Heritage Month. But I attribute my success to people of all backgrounds who have shaped my career and my life and values. It came from strong women in my family to people like Dr. Hata, who is of Japanese American background to elementary teachers who were of Jewish as well as Mexican descent. I’ve been influenced by people of all backgrounds. I think that shaped a view that is much more global today than when I started out in my education. It’s given me a hope for a better world of understanding. As Latinos in this society and as a Chicana specifically, I feel that students have these opportunities as well and I would tell them to be open to role models and shapers of their futures, whoever they might be.

- Reported by Joanie Harmon