Ester Trujillo wants to bring out of the shadows a population she calls largely invisible: U.S. residents of Salvadoran descent. It saddens her to see this ethnic group portrayed as primarily impoverished, undocumented gang members. Ester wants to show “there is so much more to Salvadorans than that” through her Ph.D. research, but by her own excellent example, she is also demonstrating this.
Ester, a doctoral student in Chicana and Chicano Studies, earned her BA in Chicana and Chicano Studies, with a minor in Political Science, from UCLA in 2010; and her MA in Chicana and Chicano Studies from UCSB in 2012. She is currently the Funding Peer Advisor at the Graduate Student Resource Center and is serving her second term as Vice President of Communications and Records for the UCSB Graduate Students Association.
Ester Trujillo. Credit: Patricia MarroquinThis Mellon Fellow is the first in her family to go to college in the United States, and the first to go to graduate school. She grew up in East Los Angeles, and attended Woodrow Wilson High School, but she graduated in the Antelope Valley when her parents moved the family of five to the high desert. Often mistaken for Mexican American, Ester’s ethnicity blends two cultures: Her mother is from El Salvador, and her father is from Mexico.
Her parents never fail to remind Ester how privileged she is to live and thrive in the U.S. Her mother, who escaped the civil war that raged in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, told young Ester stories of walking to school past bullet-riddled buildings and streets strewn with the dead. And her father, who was educated in mechanical engineering in Mexico but unable to make a living at it there for economic reasons, sewed buttons on clothing to put food on the table for his family when they emigrated to the U.S.
Today, Ester’s parents, who are now U.S. citizens, own a produce wholesale warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, a business they have run for more than two decades. As a child, Ester put in many hours at the Trujillo Produce warehouse over school breaks hauling boxes and tending to customers. You might think strolling through a farmers market would be the last thing she’d want to do in her free time, but Ester tells us that buying her veggies at the Goleta Farmers Market on Sundays actually relaxes her.
In our Graduate Student in the Spotlight interview, this busy Ph.D. student shares what motivates her to study the impact immigrant histories have on second-generation Salvadoran-descent college youths; why she calls herself a “TV junkie”; how the brain activity while sleeping assists her in her research; what “ethnographic excursions” are and why she enjoys them so much; and more. Read on. …
Ester Trujillo attended a Mellon Mays graduate conference at Princeton University in 2011.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in East Los Angeles and attended Woodrow Wilson High School. After my parents moved us out to the high desert, I finished high school in the Antelope Valley at Quartz Hill High School. My mom is from San Salvador, El Salvador, and my dad is from Michoacan, Mexico. I am the oldest of three siblings. My brother, Rafael, recently graduated from UCLA with a B.S. in Astrophysics and my sister, Lily, is Student Body President at Wilson High.
Tell us a little about your research and how you came to choose the topic.
My research is about the impact immigrant histories have on second-generation Salvadoran-descent youth in college. Latinas/os in Southern California are homogenized under a pan-ethnic umbrella that obscures generation, immigrant cohort, country of origin, class, race, and language practices among different groups. My broader goal is to analyze the diasporic connections children of immigrants have to their parents’ homeland. I want to know how diasporic connections influence pan-ethnic constructions of ethno-racial identity.
The Salvadoran civil war raged from 1980 to 1992 and today the Salvadoran-descent population in the U.S. numbers close to 2 million. The Salvadoran population poses an interesting case of variegated migrant histories among U.S. Latinos because although they are racially similar in diversity and mestizaje to other Latinos, El Salvador’s history of constant U.S. imperial interventions has forcibly displaced millions through war, genocide, and poverty in modern times. Today, the Salvadoran population remains largely invisible, undocumented, and impoverished inside the U.S. I am constantly saddened by images of Salvadoran gang members on television and in print media, where the entire community is represented through those images. Although El Salvador’s transnational gang community is a reality, there is so much more to Salvadorans than that and I hope to show the diversity through my work.
What has been a source of motivation or drive for you in your graduate studies?
Ester Trujillo with her parents and siblings at Graduate Division Commencement in 2012, where she received her master's degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies.I draw motivation for my work from my parents and especially from my mom. She escaped during the civil war and her strength motivates me to capture some of the stories told by Central Americans. She draws on her experiences during the war often to remind me how privileged I am to live in the U.S. When I was younger I would complain about going to school once in a while and she would tell me stories about how she walked miles and miles to attend school each morning on streets piled with dead bodies and buildings replete with bullet holes.
My father grew up in a dusty rancho in Michoacan and although he studied mechanical engineering in college in Mexico, he was unable to finish due to costs and the failing Mexican economy. He did not see a future there and he cites high levels of corruption among engineering hiring practices as the reasoning for leaving behind his college education. He took a chance and immigrated to the U.S., where he worked in a textile factory and was paid by piece to sew buttons and cut fibers off of clothing.
Little Ester Trujillo, here with her father, developed an interest in music at an early age.My parents are now U.S. citizens who have owned a small produce wholesale warehouse in Los Angeles for over 23 years. They have worked 16-hour days, from 2 a.m. to 6 p.m. tirelessly to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. I spent my summer, winter, and spring breaks working in the warehouse with them as a kid, carrying boxes and tending to customers.
I owe my career and my life to my parents’ courage to leave everything behind and to journey to the U.S. for better opportunities. I know that there are many others like my mother who did not have the opportunity to escape the Salvadoran civil war and others like my father who did not have the privilege to make it into the university system. I am motivated to carry forward their legacy and go as far in my education as I can to honor their sacrifices. I am in graduate school to represent for my communities, to mentor students who want mentorship, and to publish on my communities and their resilience.
What has graduate student life been like for you?
I am lucky to study in a unique interdisciplinary department that allows me to do the research I need to do. My first year in graduate school was extremely difficult. I was not used to reading so much or giving up so much sleep. I constantly missed my loved ones and had a lot of anxiety. Although I still read a lot and I still miss my loved ones, I have found ways to improve my reading skills and I have rarely compromised on sleep since I started my second year. I realized sleeping a full seven to eight hours makes me feel better, physically and emotionally. I figure that as I sleep, my brain is working to process the information of the day and it’s a necessary process for my research to improve.
I became involved with the UCSB Graduate Students Association (GSA) in 2012 and was elected VP of Communications and Records for a second term this spring. I enjoy keeping everyone up to date about everything related to graduate student life at UCSB. In this post, I am exposed to more information about campus life and life in the Santa Barbara area, so I enjoy being in this city more than when I initially arrived. Participating in GSA has also allowed me to meet graduate students from multiple disciplines and I get to have great conversations with people outside my research fields.
What do you wish you had known before you started grad school?
Ester Trujillo received her master's degree in Chicana/Chicano Studies from UCSB in 2012.I wish I had used my seminar papers more productively. Some people use seminar papers to start brainstorming ideas related to their research. I was not able to successfully broker my seminar papers with professors in the courses I took until my third year and I wish I had done it sooner.
I also wish I had known that intellectual life can be quite solitary at times. I am a social person and the research and writing process can be lonely. Luckily, I have found that UCSB undergraduates are very open to discussing their ideas with me and I have felt lucky to teach in Chicana/o Studies, where I interact with undergraduates and discuss ideas with them almost daily. This is important for me because they are my population of interest and it’s important to me that I stay in touch with the group I attempt to represent in my research.
I wish I had known to apply for funding all the time. One does not simply wake up one day and write a winning funding application; it takes practice and persistence. Write a drafty-draft, revise, and submit it. What if your application is rejected? Ask for feedback and do it again. Your applications will improve each time and you will become a stronger candidate. I wish I had started applying for funding consistently even before my first year. I would have a full year of additional experience and potential funding!
Name an accomplishment you are most proud of and why.
I am very proud to be the youngest person to ever teach as an Instructor of Record in my department. At the age of 24, I was appointed to teach Transnational Chicana/o Studies and I learned so much about myself. I learned to push my workload capacity to the limits and juggled administrative and pedagogical responsibilities for the class with taking a full courseload of my own. I was also under individual writing and research deadlines, as well as fulfilling my duties for GSA all at once, but I made it through and accomplished all my goals.
What do you do to relax? Any hobbies, favorite places to go or favorite things to do?
Ester Trujillo and her partner enjoy a whale-watching excursion.I love going to the Goleta Farmers Market on Sundays. I go get my veggies for the week. I stop and listen to the musicians who congregate outside of Starbucks. I also enjoy people-watching amidst the thousands of tourists that flood into Santa Barbara in the summer, especially around the first weekend in August when the Old Spanish Days Fiestas take place. I think of it as an ethnographic excursion where I get to peer into the Spanish fantasy past construct.
I am a TV junkie and I watch it all: sci-fi, drama, comedy, reality, Spanish language, etc. I obsessively watch entire show series on Netflix and I wind down at the end of a long day by watching a comedy show.
I enjoy living four blocks from the beach and I go there often to take a walk on the sand. I also take whale-watching excursions often and have become familiar with the whale migration calendar for the channel. The ridge between the central coast and the Channel Islands is incredibly filled with wildlife and I feel lucky to live in a place people visit for vacations from around the world.
What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
I’m a pretty good singer but most people do not know. I grew up singing in church choirs and one of my dreams is to record an album some day.
What do you hope to be doing five or 10 years out of graduate school?
Ester Trujillo leads a May Day march in Los Angeles in 2009.I would love to teach, research, and write within an R-1 institution. One of the immediate draws of graduate school has been its service as a steppingstone to the professoriate. As a Mellon Fellow, I am in good company and heftily supported in networks and in funds to follow in this trajectory. These resources are indispensable to me and I look forward to paying them forward as a scholar-activist who teaches critical thinking with purpose.
I hope to inspire my students. I hope that they will inspire others and that they will edify their communities and their families. I hope my students will erect, govern, and feed cities and nations. I hope I can help my students understand and defend human rights in any way they can.
Do you have any advice for current grad students?
Do not give up on your dreams and engage in research that matters deeply to you. Do not let the competitiveness of the academy steer you in directions that compromise your integrity or your values. Find happiness in whatever way you can and do good work. Be persistent and apply to funding often.
What is your role as Funding Peer Advisor?
My role is to help graduate students understand the basics of graduate funding and to help them find the opportunities that best suit them. I am of the belief that containing opportunities – especially funding opportunities – from others is not the sign of a brilliant mind. I believe the academy is better when we work together to build information and knowledge within and across disciplines. I am happy to help graduate students from all disciplines find funding and I await appointments and visits. [Note: Address any funding inquiries to Ester via email at fundingpeer@graddiv.ucsb.edu.]