First-Gen Faculty: Catherine “Cat” Ramírez (Associate Professor, Latin American & Latino Studies, and Director, Chicano Latino Research Center)

Catherine "Cat" Ramírez’s father graduated from high school in East Los Angeles and, after serving in the U.S. military during World War II, got a job working for Caltrans. Her mother, an immigrant from Mexico, was a homemaker who had to leave school as a girl to support her siblings after their mother died. When Cat was a teenager, her mother went back to school. Ultimately, she passed the General Educational Development (GED) test and graduated from high school the same year as Cat. Cat admired her mother’s resilience and dedication and saw how important education was to her.  

The Catholic schools in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley that Cat attended were mostly working-class and Hispanic. Many of her classmates did not attend university. However, her older sister, Nancy, transferred from community college to the University of California at Berkeley while Cat was still in high school.  Since Cat’s high school had relatively few resources for preparing students for college, Nancy became her younger sister’s unofficial academic advisor and told her what classes she needed to take to qualify for admission to the University of California. After visiting Nancy in Berkeley, Cat resolved to follow in her older sister’s footsteps and to attend Cal, too. She was especially impressed by the campus’ vibrancy and the diversity of its student body, and the high expectations the students had of themselves and each other.      

Cat enrolled at Berkeley as a freshman. However, the quality of education she had received in high school meant she had a steep learning curve. “I needed to learn how to identify and gather evidence, craft a thesis, and defend my claim,” she said. “I hadn’t learned how to argue or to think critically in high school.”

She struggled in her first writing class, English 1A, until her instructor directed her to a tutoring center, where a fellow student worked with her on improving her writing. Eventually, Cat majored in English and was hired as a writing tutor at the same center. Her job allowed her to continue to hone her writing and communication skills and introduced her to the rewards of teaching.

Cat realized as an undergraduate that she wanted to continue to work in a university setting as a professor. She reached out to her faculty, often simply by attending their office hours, and asked them what she needed to do to become a professor, too. In addition to giving her basic advice--for example, stressing the importance of maintaining high grades and collecting strong letters of recommendation--they encouraged her to study languages. So she studied Spanish, French, and, for a short time, Japanese. Their guidance encouraged her to be open to new ideas and approaches. It also prompted her to see that college is not a terminus, but one step in the long journey of living and learning.       

After graduating from Berkeley with a Bachelor’s degree in English, and then going back for her Ph.D. in ethnic studies, Cat joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2002.  In addition to teaching classes on migration, citizenship, Latinx literature, and cultural studies, she directs UC Santa Cruz’s Chicano Latino Research Center.

Further, Cat stresses, students should place value on moving outside of their comfort zone. "I fear that too many students are being done and are doing themselves a disservice by trying to avoid studying or discussing unpleasant subjects, like genocide and misogyny. We must learn about the violence and injustices of the past and present in order to stop and prevent violence and injustices in the present and future," she suggests.

"Let's keep talking about this and supporting each other," suggests Ramírez.