Immigration and Justice: Moving Towards Hope Series, 2014
The art photographed here was presented to LMU's College of Communication and Fine Arts as part of the ARTSmart Program and also displayed in the Thomas P. Kelly Student Art Gallery for the 2014 Arte...
View ArticleFlashlight
This poem illustrates the struggle of an undergraduate first-generation college student who knew little about the first-gen identity or the experiences she would encounter until she became a First To...
View ArticleThe Upside of a Bottle
Small town girl in the city: In this narrative, Mary Ludwig discusses growing up in rural northern California, her struggles with her mother's alcoholism, and her incredible success as a...
View ArticleIt's Not Just a Leave
In this piece, the author sets out to explore the first-generation college identity through a gothic lens. In the early stages of this project, Montalvo had considered doing research on narratives...
View ArticleApplications for Dummies
This poem discusses the overwhelming pressure that is put on students to justify their right to be admitted into universities or to receive scholarships based on their extracurricular activities. Many...
View ArticleA Tres Pasos de La Muerte
"A Tres Pasos de la Muerte" tells the story of a son of Mexican immigrants and his search for his roots. Here, Temblador attempts to communicate a bicultural experience through the frame of border...
View ArticleAn Education
The first-generation college experience is one that is often a subtle realization. This piece examines the influence of the author's grandmother on her path to college and her understanding of what it...
View ArticleMy Veil
Many first-generation students go into college hoping to make their parents proud. Throughout their years at the university, however, students often become more connected to their college environments...
View ArticleBailamos Juntos: Salsa en los E.E.U.U. y el Mundo
This composition traces the history of Cuban-American cultural identity formation through the lens of music and dance. As the author explains, Cuban immigrants cultivated a rich music and dance...
View ArticleOn the Wrong Side
This piece represents two different aspects of life--one that is more superficial and one that is much more meaningful. Though the author had these two associations in mind at the time of composition,...
View ArticleReconnecting with Nature
This set of poems addresses the first-gen author's view of modernization from the past to the present, focusing on the need for individuals to reconnect with Nature.
View ArticleA Gangster Love
This fictional piece portrays the life of gangsters and the girls who love them. The author represents the moral struggles of gang members when they have to choose between the streets or new gangster...
View ArticleEpiphanies
“When did you realize that you were a first-generation college student?” Through a collection of narratives in response to this question, Dr. Rease Miles shows how personal moments of first-gen...
View ArticleTenemos que trabajar, no hay otra
Growing up, Rene Silva spent most of his time after school with his father. Despite this early connection, however, today father and son share few words. In the following narrative, Rene Silva delves...
View ArticleTe Doy Gracias
Citlaly Orozco came into college as a quiet and shy person, obedient to all authority including her parents. This narrative reflects on the challenges, conflicts, and contradictions that Orozco has...
View ArticleToo Much of Everything and Not Enough
For author Guadalupe Mejia, the notion of identity as a multifaceted marker of one’s personhood created a sense of confusion and displacement within her. She struggled with a feeling of not belonging....
View ArticlePieces of Me
By describing the relationship with the most important people in her life, Cynthia Garcia connects the ways in which each individual has contributed to shaping her into the young woman she is today....
View ArticleLa gente no nace, se hace
In her narrative, author Angelica Diaz writes about her development as a daughter, sister, and aunt. Through the use of flashbacks to her childhood she relates the experiences that have brought her to...
View ArticleThe Guide to Leadership: How the System’s Daughter Learned Strength
Maya Combs has found herself both implicitly and explicitly governed by the rules, regulations and expectations of what it means to be successful as an African-American woman and scholar. She uses the...
View ArticleMust be an American Citizen
Living in a limbo state is something many individuals have experienced throughout America’s history, and it is something author Guadalupe Astorga has lived through firsthand. Though she has worked to...
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