In this second episode, TOI host Tony Dunbar, visits with Co-producers Magali Campos and Brenda Lopez who are also RAC members along with being doctoral candidates completing the journey to PhD in 2024. The three of them are also joined by Dr Iris Lucero, who is currently the Assistant Director of UCLA’s McNair Research Scholars Program. Dr. Lucero has also contributed to the RAC legacy as one of a long line of members who have assisted Dr Solórzano in maintaining the community’s connectedness. This episode was recorded on June 7, three days before the RAC30 conference, in Danny’s office in Moore Hall on UCLA’s campus. Affectionately the esteemed professor’s office is now also know as “Solórzano Studios.”

Art Title: Pillars and Dreams of Our Generational Knowledge                                                                                   By: Luis-Genaro Garcia, PhD

Daniel Solórzano is a Professor in the University of California Los Angeles Department of Education as well as Chicana/o and Central American Studies. He is also the Director of the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education at UCLA.Danny is an interdisciplinary scholar with research and teaching interests in critical race theory, racial microaggressions and micro affirmations, and critical race spatial analysis. In 2017, Professor Solórzano was honored with the inaugrural Revolutionary Mentor Award by the Social Justice Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.

“I see my mentoring as an extension of my teaching. To that end, I have been blessed with extraordinary students throughout my entire career at UCLA. Our students are the ones who carry forward the work for social and racial justice.”

Omar Alvarado is a doctoral student specializing in Race, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies in Education. Broadly, he is interested in understanding student experiences in higher education and their trajectories to graduate programs. Specifically, he hopes to learn how exposure to Critical Race Theory impacts students’ journeys to post-secondary education. As a son of the Central American diaspora, he is learning to honor the stories and legacies of his colleagues who entrust them to him. His research pulls from Critical Race Theory, Critical Legal Studies, Education History, and Central American Studies. He earned his Master’s of Education in Student Affairs and his Bachelor’s in Chicana/o and Central American Studies with a minor in History, with an emphasis on Mesoamerica at the University of California, Los Angeles. His journey through higher education is a meaning-making project as much as an academic endeavor.

Michelle Velasco is a Ph.D. student in the Social Sciences and Comparative Education division at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. She is a proud Pilipina, descendant of immigrants, and a first-generation graduate student. Her research investigates the social, cultural, and historic institutions that influence how Pilipino students navigate higher education institutions. She is a 2024 CSU Chancellor Doctoral Incentive Program fellow.

Dr. Bryant Partida was born in East Los Angeles, raised in South Phoenix, and is currently rooted in Pacoima, California. He earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in Social Science and Comparative Education with an emphasis on Race and Ethnic Studies. Currently, he is serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Bryant’s research

agenda focuses on documenting the 20th-century educational histories of Mexican, Mexican American, and Chicana/o communities in Phoenix, Arizona, through a Critical Race Educational History and relational lens. He is currently expanding his work focusing on the 1970 Chicana/o boycott of Phoenix Union High School into diverse research strands that include a wider district relational analysis of race and racism in the Phoenix Union High School District between 1895 and 1982, further documenting the history of segregated Mexican schools in the Valley, and early 1900’s historical Mexican and Mexican American educational social movements in Phoenix and Arizona. Bryant has also translated his

interdisciplinary research skills and teaching experience to provide professional development-based history-based workshops for Ethnic Studies teachers as well as serving as a public history consultant and co-curator of Chicana/o/x educational and community history exhibits.

Magali Campos is a doctoral candidate in the Social Science and ComparativeEducation program with a Race and Ethnic Studies specialization in UCLA’sDepartment of Education. As assistant director of Center for Critical Race Studiesin Education at UCLA she provides administrative support, developsprogramming, and leads the center’s research brief series and research projects.Magali was also instrumental in developing and organizing the RAC30Conference. In this episode she shares about her experiences as a first-generation Latina graduate student, whose research centers around (andempowers) Women of Color in doctoral programs and explores the different formsof silence they encounter. She co-wrote a methodological peer-reviewed articleentitled Con Respeto y Confianza: a correspondence between sister-scholars thatbraids Chicana Latina Feminist methodologies in women of color research in theInternational Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education with Yadira Valencia                                                       

Brenda Lopez is the Media Coordinator for the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education at UCLA, and a PhD candidate in Social Sciences and Comparative Education at UCLA. Her research and scholarship focuses on Women of Color, film pedagogy, and film-based research methods using a critical race theory framework. Her work aims to explore and amplify the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, utilizing the power of film to challenge and deconstruct dominant narratives. Brenda’s path to UCLA and her doctoral studies serves as inspiration to the power of persistence and perseverance. She too has grown from the mentoring environment within Danny’s RAC.