Sociology and SCU Community Honor Professor Alma M. García’s Lifetime Achievement
Professor Emeritus Francisco Jiménez was invited to write this tribute to Professor García commemorating her lifetime of service to our community on the occasion of her retirement.
Dr. Alma M. García was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, to a Mexican immigrant father (Amado García Rodarte) and a second-generation mother (Alma Araiza García). Her maternal great-grandparents lived in Chihuahua Mexico and fled the Mexican Revolution of 1910, eventually settling in El Paso. Her father was born and raised in Durango, Mexico. Professor García attended St. Patrick's grade school in El Paso and graduated from El Paso's Loretto Academy in 1970. She received her B.A. in sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1974. She graduated with highest honors and was one of the Top Ten Seniors. She received her Ph.D. in sociology, with an emphasis in Latin American economic development, from Harvard University in 1982.
Dr. García joined the department of sociology at SCU in 1982 and was the first Latina to be hired in that department. When she joined the SCU faculty, she was one of four Latino faculty at the university. In 1999, Professor García became the first Latina to achieve the rank of full professor. She created the first courses on women of color in the Women Studies Program and pioneered the development of a Women's Studies minor. With other faculty, she also created the Latin American Studies program.
She has mentored dozens of students, particularly Latina/o students, often first-generation college students, throughout her forty-one years as a faculty member at SCU. Drawing on her own experiences as a second-generation Latina, Professor García has shared her struggles and triumphs in a concerted effort to nurture students of color, helping them during their critical years at SCU. Even during intense periods of student activism, she never wavered in her support of student and faculty activism to make SCU a better place for all students, especially students of color.
Alumni of many backgrounds cite her influence as they go on to complete PhDs and enter the professoriate. Her former students keep in touch with her for professional mentorship and guidance. Many of her students --university professors and administrators, doctors, lawyers, community advocates, founders of non-profit organizations, and many other professions-- have gone on to serve their local communities as well as our society at large.
She also has been a strong mentor to faculty of color. She co-founded SCU's Latino/a Faculty group, which has provided support for new faculty and faculty working towards their tenure. Her efforts have led to an improved university climate for faculty of color.
She is a nationally recognized speaker on curricular reform in Sociology, Women's and Gender Studies, and Ethnic Studies. She has presented her research at universities throughout the United States, Poland, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Israel.
Most recently, Dr. García has become a creative nonfiction writer. Her memoir, Club Oasis: Childhood Memories, received the first-place award for the Best Young adult Nonfiction category for 2021 from the international Latino book Award organization. Her memoir also received the 2023 Latino Books Into Movies Award in the category of Cartoon/Animated Series. It will now be circulated among producers for possible adaptation. She was selected from a national and international pool of master writers to attend the prestigious Macondo Writers Workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros, the author of House on Mango Street. (Cisneros named the workshop after the imaginary village in Gabriel Marquez's novel, A Hundred Years of Solitude.) Dr. García's story “Desert Women” and an accompanying original watercolor, will be published in the forthcoming anthology, Somos Tejanas, edited by Norma Cantu, an award-winning author.
Other publications of Dr. García include: Narratives of Mexican American Women: Emergent Identities Among the Second Generation; The Mexican Americans; Race and Ethnicity (ed.) and Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. Her journal article, "The Development of Chicana Feminist Discourse, 1970-1980", which originally appeared in Gender & Society in 1989, has been reprinted in 18 anthologies and textbooks. In 1997, The University of Memphis Center for Research on Women, selected this article as one of the fifty "Classic Articles on Race and Gender" of the last decade. It is the first scholarly article on the development of the Chicana feminism during the 1960s and 1970s. It has been used in sociology, ethnic studies, women's studies and history courses throughout the United States. In addition, she and Dr. Francisco Jiménez, SCU professor emeritus of modern languages, published an edited collection of oral histories of civil rights activists in San Jose, CA: Ethnic Community Builders: Mexican Americans in Search of Justice and Power, The Struggle for Citizenship Rights in San Jose, California. This book received the 2008 Elizabeth B. Manson Small Project National Award from the Oral History Association. Furthermore, Dr. García's anthology, Contested Images: Women of Color & Popular Culture received the Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Anthology in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture by the National Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association. She also updated the classic book, North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking Peoples of the Southwest by Carey McWilliams. (last updated in 1988 by the late Matt S. Meier, Professor of History, Santa Clara University).
As a nationally recognized scholar, Dr. García received appointments to serve on the editorial board and manuscript reviewer committee for two scholarly journals, Gender & Society, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society and the Journal of Popular Culture. She has been a keynote speaker at Yale, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Loyola Marymount, and the University of Texas at El Paso. Professor García has served as national officer in several professional organizations, including treasurer, secretary, and president of the National Association for Chicana/o Studies (NACS) and president of Women and Social Change in Arts & Sciences (MALCS).
Dr. Garcia has received many SCU awards: Santa Clara University Provost's Inclusive Excellence Award, The Cedric Busette Memorial Award, the Sisterhood is Powerful Award, the Escuela Tlatelolco Centro de Estudios Crusaders for Justice Award, an annual national award given to an educator whose scholarship and community service has made a significant contribution to the improvement of Latino and Latina students at a national level. Her research interests include Mexican American communities, immigration & second-generation populations, the political economy of Latin American development, race, class & gender and oral history. Dr. García has several research studies in progress: 1) an oral history of Latina Day Laborers in San Jose, CA.." and 2) an oral history of Latino Business Owners in High Tech Industries: Silicon Valley." Dr. García taught the following courses: Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender in the United States, Immigrant Communities, Ethnic Businesses, Qualitative Methods and Sports and Society.
Her research interests include Mexican American communities, immigration & second-generation populations, the political economy of Latin American development, race, class & gender and oral history. Dr. García has several research studies in progress: 1) an oral history of Latina Day Laborers in San Jose, CA.." and 2) an oral history of Latino Business Owners in High Tech Industries: Silicon Valley." Dr. García taught the following courses: Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender in the United States, Immigrant Communities, Ethnic Businesses, Qualitative Methods and Sports and Society.
Dr. García's future plans include finishing her second memoir, A Latina's Journey: Reflections on Self, Culture and Society, playing the piano and painting.
Professor García will assume her new role as Professor Emeritus this fall in which she will remain an inspiration to future students, colleagues, and community members.