He Says, She Says: Students Represent McNair Program at International Conference in Spain

When Itzel Olivares and Juan Orellana reminisce about their trip to Spain for an international conference this summer, they first compare notes on food.

“It [had] a big impact on me to not have chili in my life for two weeks because as a Mexican, I’m used to it,” laughs Olivares. “Spanish food doesn’t [seem to] include any spices at all. I thought it would be perfect if I had my bottle of Tapatio with me.”

On the other hand, Orellana found that the relative plainness of Spanish cuisine was more in line with his upbringing in Ecuador.

“Actually, what she said about the food – I love it because in Ecuador, we don’t eat spices [either],” he says. “When I [got to the United States], at the beginning I would have to make sure that they didn’t put spices or chili on my food.”

Olivares, who graduated this spring with her bachelor of arts degree in Spanish literature, and Orellana, a senior in the same program, represented the California State University, Dominguez Hills McNair Scholars Program at the 5th International Congress of the Hispanic Humanities Society which took place in June in Seville. Despite their differing palates, Olivares and Orellana agree that the conference’s theme, “Spanish: Integrator of Cultures” (“El Español: Integrador de Culturas”) held a great deal of resonance for them.

“[Speaking] Spanish doesn’t mean we all have the same ideas because we’re all from different regions with different influences,” Olivares notes. “Spanish is spoken in a lot of different places in the world. I found there are different cultures with the same language, but different dialects [and] different ideas.”

Orellana enjoyed the opportunity to present and hear scholarly research in dialects that resemble his native tongue.

“It was more comfortable for me because my first language is Spanish,” he says. “What I liked most is... how you can communicate your research or your ideas in a way that everybody understands and still [use] academic language.”

Olivares presented her perspective on a novel by Puerto Rican author Ana Lydia Vega. In her work titled, "La relacion entre Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico representada en ‘Ajustes, S.A." (The Relationship Between the United States and Puerto Rico Represented in ‘Ajustes, S.A.’), Olivares used the marriage between the book’s protagonists as a metaphor for Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States and its 200-year-old movement to gain independence. Orellana examined the Spanish Inquisition through the lens of Miguel Cervantes’ “La Fuerza de la Sangre,” (The Power of Blood) illustrating the author’s symbols of repression and the effects of the Inquisition on Spaniards of Jewish or Muslim descent.

Orellana says that the same conflicts – between families, races, religions, and even genders – continue to appear with every generation. In his summer research project at UCLA, he is finding that the role of women in contemporary Spanish society has not changed much over the centuries.

“I see the roles of the woman are [regarded as] the same after thousands of years,” he says. “The politics in Latin America promote women as a force in labor. It’s more pressure on the woman. They want the woman to work, but they also want the woman to be a mother.”

While Olivares would agree that women in Hispanic cultures are expected to fulfill both the demands of the workforce and the home, she commends the Spanish culture for its aggressive stance on domestic violence. She says that ad campaigns reveal the common and often unknown occurrence of abuse by focusing on a culture of machismo that condones the violence.

“We can talk about equality and all that, but to start off, we need to talk about not abusing these women physically,” says Olivares. “They had a lot of posters that said, ‘If you hit a woman, you’re not a real man,’ attacking their masculinity if they physically abuse a woman.”

Still, Olivares thinks that sexism still exists, even in the academic arena. She looks forward to beginning her doctorate work at the University of California, Irvine, on Latin American contemporary and feminist literature with an emphasis on women’s studies.

“I would like to conduct research on smaller communities with [a populace of] people who are not necessarily educated,” she says. “I think [sexism is] gradually changing. But where it’s not changing is in those small communities.”

When asked if she thinks that academia has changed its attitudes toward gender, Olivares says that it has not changed much.

“Even educated women still have to follow, but they feel more at ease not going along with patriarchal rule,” she says. “Even in academics, I feel a certain type of discrimination being a woman. Or, I always have to be aware of my female condition. Men don’t see the difference, they don’t think being a woman impacts us. They say, ‘It’s other factors that led to that discrimination, not your being a female.’”

“I don’t think it has changed,” she laughs. “I was trying to be politically correct.”

Both Olivares and Orellana say that they owe their experiences in Spain – and their path to advanced studies – to their faculty mentor, Benito Gomez, associate professor of foreign languages and to the McNair Scholars program.

“The McNair program and Dr. Gomez are the reasons we were over there,” says Olivares. “It was a really good experience. Not only did we get to visit another country, but we get to listen to other research projects by people from all over the world.”

Orellana says that the cohort provides important information on the opportunities available to students at CSU Dominguez Hills, including participation in world class research as an undergraduate and the chance to meet and network with scholars and faculty who can help with a smooth transition to graduate school.

“Ignorance is what deprives you of opportunities,” he says. “[The McNair program] helps you, letting you know about... options outside.”

Olivares echoes his sentiments, saying that cohorts like the McNair Scholars provide the support that is needed by first-generation college students who may not have parents who can help them navigate the system of higher education.

“There are a lot of capable students out there, but they don’t always know the resources available,” she says. “[McNair] provided the funding, but before that, they did the preparing: how to do a research project, how to go about doing it, and giving us that confidence level to be able to do it.”

- Joanie Harmon