Lydia Vasquez-Trucios (she/her/ella) is a senior Comparative Literature major at UC Berkeley, and part of many communities on campus including EOP, DSP, the TransferCommunity, Stiles Hall, PATH to Care, and the Berkeley School of Education. She began her journey with NAVCAL in her first semester at Cal in the Fall of 2020 and has since become a femtor to many students, especially her fellow Latinas, and has been the Facilitator of NAVCAL for over two years. At Cal, she finds opportunities that allow her to follow her lifelong passion of teaching and empowering others. She is currently abroad studying at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, one of the best universities in Latin America, focusing on courses of pre-Hispanic literature that will help her write her honors these this coming year. Her work will focus on how the pre-Hispanic image of the woman changed through colonization, creating a narrative of submissiveness in the Latine culture, and how current Chicana authors are reclaiming that story in the US. When she returns, she will continue her roles as a Student Assistant at the Berkeley School of Education in the 21CSLA program helping coordinate professional development for K-12 educators in six Bay Area counties; being on the Student Advisory Board of the PATH to Care Center, helping victims and survivors of sexual violence on campus; and supporting NavCal through her important leadership role. She will also be applying to graduate school this year to get her Master’s in Education in Elementary Education along with her teaching credentials in Bilingual/Multilingual Education and will return to México to teach English for the foreseeable future.
Accolades:
- Recipient of The Achievement Award Program (TAAP) Scholarship by the Cal Alumni Association
- Recipient of the Leopold Schepp Foundation Scholarship
- Two-time recipient of the Hispanic Community Affairs Council (HCAC) Scholarship
- Two-time recipient of UC Berkeley Chicanx Latinx Alumni Association (CLAA) Scholarship
- Participant in the HOPE College Leadership Program, Cohort of 2020
- Recipient of the Chicana Latina Foundation (CLF) Scholarship
- Member of the Chicana Latina Foundation Alumnae Association (CLFAA) Core Council
- Former Equity intern at the City of Hayward City Clerk’s Office
- Member of the Student Advisory Board for PATH to Care
- NAVCAL Facilitator
- NAVCAL Femtor, with a specific focus on helping Latina identifying students
Pre-Hispanic literature, Chicana/Latina literature, Latina feminist theory, Latina femtorship, Latine communities and education, Latine community advocacy, Bilingual/Multilingual Education, and Elementary School education
