Hong welcomes Melissa Menendez to the show to discuss Raíces - the first-year experience and student empowerment program at SBCC that centers Latiné students by celebrating Cultura, Conocimiento y Comunidad. From there, the two discuss Melissa's path to SBCC (which winds through the first two Coachella festivals!) along with some of her favorite foods - Fideo soup, tamales - and pieces of culture (essential books by Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, and an extensive record collection!).
Mentioned in this episode:
SBCC Raíces - https://www.sbcc.edu/raices/
SBCC English - https://www.sbcc.edu/english/
SBCC Multi-literacy English Transfer - https://www.sbcc.edu/english/met.php
Puente Project - https://www.thepuenteproject.org/
SBCC Institutional Grants - https://www.sbcc.edu/institutionalresearch/institutionalgrants.php
IGETC - https://catalog.sbcc.edu/transfer-curricula/#igetctext
Melinda Palacio - https://www.sbac.ca.gov/poet-laureate
Lotería - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loter%C3%ADa
Aspiring Radical Leaders Institute - https://www.thecoalitioncc.org/radical-leaders
Fresno, CA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno,_California
Coachella - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coachella
Claremont Graduate University - https://www.cgu.edu/
Critical Race Theory - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
Marxism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
Capitalism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
La Malinche - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche
Cambodia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodia
Hmong - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hmong_people
Vietnam War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
Khmer Rouge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge
Kruder and Dorfmeister - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruder_%26_Dorfmeister
Underworld - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underworld_(band)
Groove Armada - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_Armada
Fatboy Slim - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatboy_Slim
Orbital - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(band)
St. Germain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Germain_(musician)
Sopa de Fideo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopa_de_fideo
Chili Verde - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smkq7SACBZw
Chile Relleno - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile_relleno
Tamales - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamale
La Mixteca Oxnard - https://mexicanrestaurantoxnard.com/
Oaxacan Tamales - https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/261685/tamales-oaxaquenos-oaxacan-style-tamales/
Pan Dulce Empanadas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdeQeSNufVU
Poke - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poke_(dish)
Sushi - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sushi
Bánh tét - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_t%C3%A9t
Vinyl Records - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record
Warbler Records and Goods - https://www.instagram.com/warblerrecordsandgoods/?hl=en
Disney Picture Discs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Records_discography
IKEA Kallax Shelf - https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/kallax-shelf-unit-white-80275887/
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color Edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga - https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/This-Bridge-Called-My-Back-Fortieth-Anniversary-Edition2
Living up the Street by Gary Soto - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Up_the_Street
House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_Mango_Street
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo
Mexican-American War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
Captions provided by Zoom
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Hong Lieu: Hello and welcome to another episode of SBCC Vaquero Voices - a podcast highlighting the unique voices that comprise our campus culture and how we're all working together to serve our students and the community at large. Today we are honored to welcome Melissa Menendez to the show. Welcome, Melissa.
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Melissa Menendez: Hi! Thank you for.
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Hong Lieu: So do I. Do. I call you Dr. Menendez. I I see in your bio. You have Melissa Menendez, Phd. But is that just a preferential thing? Or do you have to do something to earn the full, doctor, or is it just? I don't. I don't even know the
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Hong Lieu: the the regalness. You know the the order of operations there, but.
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Melissa Menendez: I guess it can be interchangeable. You can either say you're a full, you know, philosophy cause that's what it it stands for, Doctorate and then, or you can go by doctor. So I guess I use both interchangeably.
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Hong Lieu: I just do want to acknowledge, because I know I looked at your bio on on our aces faculty faculty page, and you do emphasize that. You. You know education was very important to you, and it's a it's, you know. You made a point to to go and get your doctors. I do want to acknowledge that you you handled that business. You got it done, and we'll we'll talk about that more in your what brought you? SBCC. But 1st
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Hong Lieu: I want to talk about your role here on campus. You are English faculty, but you're also helping to steward the races. You just finished your 1st full year. And can you tell us you know the audience a little bit more about Isis, and just the things in general that you got going on around you be, besides the the English faculty which we'll touch on as well, I'm sure. But.
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Melissa Menendez: Right. Well, I guess kind of where I want to start, too, is just sort of naming my identities right? I'm a cisgendered female, abled, previously divorced. But now I'm recently married to an amazing.
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Hong Lieu: Congratulations.
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Melissa Menendez: All human. Yes.
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Melissa Menendez: middle class. Now.
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Melissa Menendez: Latina Chicana, identifying I'm a Us. Citizen, but I do have undocumented ancestry. So you know I'm a wife.
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Melissa Menendez: I am the mother of an amazing 17 year old daughter.
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Melissa Menendez: I'm now a stepmom to 2 very kind and hilarious young men.
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Melissa Menendez: I'm a daughter of 2 very extremely supportive, hard working parents. I'm a sister, I'm a niece, I'm an aunt, I'm a cousin, I'm a friend. I'm an educator and I'm an advocate, and I guess I I want to start with that, because that really is what informs the work that I do on campus, but also
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Melissa Menendez: what I've wanted to do on campus. So that's why, in 2,006, when I accepted the tenure track position for English, you know. I was very excited to to be offered the position. So I've been a professor of English for 18 years, or starting my 18th year here
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Melissa Menendez: at SBCC.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, and over the course of the 18 years, you know, I did some leadership roles within my department. But then I was also
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Melissa Menendez: you know, the second English faculty who was emojified.
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Melissa Menendez: I was, I. The one reason why I was super excited to get the job here at SBCC was because the English Department has a program called Multi Literacy, English for transfer
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Melissa Menendez: and you know, having before coming to SBCC and having experience with Puente, I knew that was sort of in that same same general kind of concept or philosophy, so I was excited to join a department of folks who understood kind of the whiteness around our discipline, and then wanting to
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Melissa Menendez: create ways to rethink that to decolonize that to develop anti-racist practices.
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Melissa Menendez: So I was just really excited
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Melissa Menendez: to join the English department at Santa Barbara City College.
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Melissa Menendez: so I think that that's kind of where I where I started. So with raices. I think it's October of 2021 is when SBCC was awarded the title 5 Hsi rise, grant
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Melissa Menendez: and at that time the Administration put out a call to Faculty. Who of? Who wanted to be the project director for this project, and I put my name in the hat.
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Melissa Menendez: and there was a committee that made the decision to put me in that role. At the time I was actually English department chair. So I had to stop that. Yeah, I had to like, you know, in that, like a semester early but I I wanted to do that because I really wanted to do this project and so I kind of went on a listening tour, because
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Melissa Menendez: they we as an institution, had wrote the proposal for that grant prior to the onset of COVID-19.
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Melissa Menendez: And so the the project was, you know, kind of in that way of of how we do education. And now it was 2021, and we had seen drastic changes.
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Melissa Menendez: so that gave us a little bit more ability to rethink the project or the proposal a bit. You know. There was more leniency there.
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Melissa Menendez: So that's when I went on the listening tour, and I met with a lot of different departments folks who had participated in writing the original proposal, folks who didn't, but I thought.
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Melissa Menendez: should have because of their expertise and and their expertise with the student population that we were trying to serve in the project in in, you know, the targeted student population.
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Melissa Menendez: And so that's really where Raisis was born.
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Melissa Menendez: And you know it was 1st year. Experience was something people kept saying. Something more specific to Latini. That was what people were saying some folks were saying, we need something that's not just for 1st year, because so many of our students need support along the way. So that's I basically took all that feedback and had the the bones of what the program would be.
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Melissa Menendez: and and then, obviously my own, my own experiences through higher. Ed.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, being a chicana in a discipline that that you know. That is very
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Melissa Menendez: that didn't have a lot of folks who look like me. You know. I was often questioned, why are you doing English? Shouldn't you do ethnic studies? And so kind of having those experiences and and trying to navigate
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Melissa Menendez: college. On my own.
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Melissa Menendez: That you know that also kind of contributed to some of the ideas around what we're we're trying to accomplish in races.
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Melissa Menendez: And then, you know, it took a year for it took me a year to write up the job description for the program coordinator to get it. Board approved to get a hiring committee together, and then to actually hire Sedyo lagunas, who serves as the program coordinator. And so once he was hired. That's when, you know, we started to kind of more flesh out what this program
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Melissa Menendez: would would be and what it could could do for students. And at the same time lydia Geary was our counselor at the beginning, and so she, too, was one of our kind of main
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Melissa Menendez: folks in terms of that development piece before we launched, you know, last year last fall.
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Melissa Menendez: And then Rosie Videl Eris, another academic counselor who is still with us. She joined us in the summer, and also was kind of instrumental in sort of just the the development phases of of where we were going with the program.
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Melissa Menendez: So there's a lot of people who are involved.
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Melissa Menendez: So it's a it's. It's a project of facilitation, as I, as I see it.
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Hong Lieu: And and it's and it's such a delicate process of facilitation, because, like you said, there are so many pieces, and you are coming from a place of love, and trying to bring in this this warmth and community and culture to something. So you you cannot lead. You know you have to lead with with like caring. And you have to bring the soft skills in because the the hard stuff is like, if you're you know, if you're like grinding for something or trying to. But you're not. There's not. The the objectives are less clear. So it's it's beautiful that. And it can just kind of worked out that you're probably
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Hong Lieu: like the ideal one of the ideal people on campus to kind of have this because you have the personal experience. And you also have this overarching vision of what you know, what you wanted the program to be, and ideas you had for the program that you could bounce off everyone in a in a kind of collaborative spirit. So it's it's just beautiful to hear that the genesis of it was so kind of
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Hong Lieu: peer to the vision, and, like, you know, stay true as much as you know you. You had a vision, and you and you took that the whole way. So it's it's just lovely to hear that process. I'm curious after this first.st Oh, go ahead.
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Melissa Menendez: Thank you for saying that. Really, thank you. That
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Melissa Menendez: that means a lot.
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Hong Lieu: And and cause you know, it's 1 of those things where
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Hong Lieu: it like real recognized real. You know, it's like, just like cliche. But like, if you've lived it, or if you've you've seen it, then you can recognize it in other people, you know, like you don't need to like. Be like, read an essay they wrote or or interview them for 45Â min. If you if you say hello to somebody, and they come back at you with some realness. Then you kind of you kind of know that that experience is there so like, and then that that builds trust, you know that inherent trust
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Hong Lieu: is what's important, that people understand that that you're you're you're down with the culture. It's not like something for yourself or for for even a set group of people. It's this idea, this this idea of culture, where some people just it just doesn't even register what that really is. But it is this like this amorphous spirit that just kind of overrides like goes beyond people. It lives in things it lives, you know, like. And you just feel that. And like, carry that through like it will guide you if you let it in enough to guide you like, if you care about it enough, and you you know you can like
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Hong Lieu: folks like that. You really it's worth. It's worth shouting out and embracing, you know, so
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Hong Lieu: absolutely. But I guess I'm curious. After your 1st year.
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Hong Lieu: I know, you know, reality and perception are 2 different things, but in terms of it's not to say that you're gonna like, overhaul everything. But in terms of
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Hong Lieu: going forward. I know you've of course you learned some things, but also there are probably many times where you were proven right. And you're like, you know. Oh, my God, yeah, we thank goodness that we thought about this. And we were, you know, careful and considerate about things. So after your 1st year. How are you feeling? You know, just over on just generally, I mean, probably feels pretty good overall, cause I, you know, look pretty good to me from the outside looking in. But you know I'm just kind of curious overall.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, I again, I think part of the success has been growing our team, you know. So we hired our student program Advisor Natalie quintero in the spring.
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Melissa Menendez: And so again she she's her contributions to the program. You know her experiences.
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Melissa Menendez: What she brings is also now adding another layer of
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Melissa Menendez: of knowledge, right and expertise and then we also finally was able to hire an hourly person to kind of help in terms of the day to day. You know productions of the ha of the office, you know, in in La placita. So that kind of alleviated some of those burdens, if you will, from Sergio and Natalie and even myself, where now there's somebody kind of filling that
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Melissa Menendez: roles. So we can spend more time thinking about the program and development. So that's a lot of what what we as a team do is, you know, we schedule our weekly meetings.
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Melissa Menendez: We have some that are just our update meetings. But we have some that are our program development meetings. So that you know, we as
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Melissa Menendez: the team can think through an idea or a concept that we have on our list of, you know projects that we want to develop for the program. So basically, we haven't done everything that we wanted. We wanted to do right because it is just a small team, and then it takes time to build it up.
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Melissa Menendez: But this year we're launching the Peer advocate part of the program.
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Melissa Menendez: We weren't able to do that last year again, because we could only do so much. But now it makes sense. Because we have, you know, the returning students, we have more incoming students. So there is the base for that kind of, you know, concept to develop and flourish. So that's something that we're trying new this year.
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Melissa Menendez: We also have a a couple of different series that we've been wanting to get off the ground, and and Sergio is is facilitating that
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Melissa Menendez: with the SBCC where we're again, we're collaborating with all of the different departments on campus. And then we're hosting workshops in La placita space for students to learn more about those other departments. And that's been something again. We wanted to do. But we just couldn't implement. Now we're implementing it this year.
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Melissa Menendez: And then the other is the Australia's, which is kind of again in collaboration with our career center. So that it's it's a place where we're going to have panels, and and there will be
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Melissa Menendez: you know, folks of the Latino community coming to talk about their careers how they got to what they're doing. And then there will be a workshop, you know, for students. So maybe resume building or preparing for an interview, or, you know, just kind of those things that
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Melissa Menendez: that students need some guidance around. And so we're that's another series that we're launching this year.
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Melissa Menendez: So again, it's in collaboration with all of those departments, but part of it is bringing them into
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Melissa Menendez: a space where the students feel that they belong, and that they feel welcome, so they're most likely to come and then really engage with what what's going on on our campus.
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Hong Lieu: And that's really should be, should be, should feel good to to know as well that you're not tearing down and completely overhauling anything. Everything is complementing. Everything is building additional collaboration with other community groups on campus. If something was truly truly not working, you'd be like you'd you'd tear it out and re over. But this is more just complementing and supporting the existing pipeline and existing workflow you've already established. So that's
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Hong Lieu: that should be in itself like a confirmation that what you're doing is working, and what you're doing is great. And the fact that other community community groups on campus if you approach them and say, Hey, can you work together? They're not saying, Wait, who are you? What are you doing? It's instead, it's let's do this. Let's go. Let's go get, you know. Let's let's make it happen. And they probably appreciate having that race is cosign as well. It's not like you're going out there saying, you know. Can we help, you know, like we we would love if the career center
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Hong Lieu: they probably want that racist stamp, because then students will know. Oh, this is, you know, this is for me. This is something that that is probably trying to speak
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Hong Lieu: directly to me, or or students in similar boats as me. So that's
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Hong Lieu: that's pretty awesome. It's very, very great to hear, and it's always good when you hear more about the the Cross Campus collaboration stuff.
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Hong Lieu: you know, because everyone talks about silos and that. But but it really doesn't. It undersells how much true collaboration and community spirit we are fostering on this campus. So it's it's great to highlight that. Thank you very much.
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Melissa Menendez: Exactly, I mean. And and you know, in some ways, because often folks want to try to compare this program to other programs that we've had in the past.
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Melissa Menendez: But I think what does really make this one unique is it is trying to merge our student affairs side with the academic affairs side, because we have
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Melissa Menendez: the whole faculty institute, and then the coursework that we're developing and trying, you know, to get our students enrolled in. And so it does. It is a true holistic experience, and it can be for a student, you know, currently, they could potentially take all you know, their Ge
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Melissa Menendez: courses or the the I get see courses. And they could take them all with Raice's faculty at the moment.
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Melissa Menendez: So we have all of the the areas covered with maybe at least one class, you know, for some areas we have options
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Melissa Menendez: so they could do that if if they wanted right, if the student chose it.
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Melissa Menendez: And so I think that's like a a big difference with some of the the other programs is really trying to
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Melissa Menendez: to have that that whole experience for the student.
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Melissa Menendez: But yes, you're right. I mean, that's why I said earlier. It's a it's a
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Melissa Menendez: it's a job of facilitation, because you know, that is sort of what I think through is okay.
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Melissa Menendez: what program is doing this? What program is doing that? How could we work together? So we're not both burning our resources.
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Melissa Menendez: But then, and we're helping the students in the end. Right? Because if if that's what real student centered work is is it's kind of
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Melissa Menendez: put bringing us in terms of, you know our departments together.
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Melissa Menendez: So that then we can both serve the student in in the ways that we can
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Melissa Menendez: because we both offer expertise right? And so it's kind of bringing that expertise in a unified way to the students.
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Melissa Menendez: So that's that's been kind of
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Melissa Menendez: the the vision of of everything here is to like you said, to break down the silos, because ultimately.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, to help the student requires that.
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Hong Lieu: And a great example of this cross collaboration and breaking down is is the Latina history month events that you all have coordinated, and you send out a calendar events, I'll get that linked in the show notes as well. But if you just want to really touch on some of the things you're doing, you know, for the the upcoming month through October, mid October. It runs
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Melissa Menendez: So, in fact, you know, today is September 16.th So yesterday began the
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Melissa Menendez: the month of celebration. And yeah, I mean, it didn't make sense for us as a program to be the only ones doing events. And so that's why we reached out to different. You know, people on campus who participated last year, you know, I know. Last year Christina kind of
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Melissa Menendez: I and I facilitated a group of student services folks, and and we last year created a calendar. But that wasn't happening this year, and you know we're all so busy. So no fault. But we wanted to make sure to do something. So that's what we spent our summer doing was figuring out events, and then just kind of going out. And you know, each of us kind of taking lead on a particular event.
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Melissa Menendez: So yeah, so I think the ones that I know
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Melissa Menendez: we're. You know, we're very excited about our our upcoming. That's happening on Wednesday with Melinda Palacio, because she is our Santa Barbara City Poet Laureate, and so she will be doing a reading and performance.
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Melissa Menendez: She plays the ukulele, so she'll be playing some music as well, and that's going to be in the Pauldin. Overlook
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Melissa Menendez: and that's an a part of another project. Because I
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Melissa Menendez: I joined forces with Selena Porter, or Portera, or one of our librarians.
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Melissa Menendez: and we we applied for a grant, and we got it
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Melissa Menendez: for the institution, and it's a Latino poetry project. And so this event for Melinda is kind of our launching of this annual project. So we're having month. We'll have monthly events. Celebrating Latino poetry.
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Melissa Menendez: And then another. The other events that we're really excited about is, you know, we collaborate with the dream center. So we're going to have a look.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, a lottery night. And so that'll be fun. We're also. And then Sethill and he did this last year, but he's coordinating with the athletics department, so we will have notche de football, and so we will both celebrate the women's team as well as the men's team.
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Melissa Menendez: And we'll have half time shows happening at each of those games.
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Melissa Menendez: And so it should be a lot of fun and bringing more of the community out hopefully.
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Hong Lieu: So yeah, you you talk about like facilitation. You know, this is not lower case f facilitation. This is like capital. F,
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Hong Lieu: you're you're on it. This is like in the eighties. You'd have a big old rolodex flipping through if you had, you know contacts, but
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Hong Lieu: so I guess the the I guess the next question for final question we move on is, where do you find the time? I mean, there's only 24Â h in a day. Your staff is small but mighty, I mean, how?
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Hong Lieu: How do you either balance it with what you in terms of like? How do you find some off time, or how do you just kind of cram so many things in your day without just running for the hills at the end of every day, just like, you know.
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Hong Lieu: staring blankly out of the ocean like.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, I guess
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Melissa Menendez: I would. My answer. My my real answer is, I'm you. I you know my parents. As I said earlier, they were very hard workers.
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Melissa Menendez: So I guess I work hard and play hard.
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Melissa Menendez: And that's just always how I've been.
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Melissa Menendez: So you know, I I'm okay with that. I'm okay with working hard. But also I do make sure that I don't work on the weekends
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Melissa Menendez: you know. And and I say that now, because when I was when I was more, a hundred percent in the classroom.
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Melissa Menendez: that is not possible, because, you know, we often have grading to do and obviously being English professor, it's reading the students work and providing them feedback.
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Melissa Menendez: which requires, you know, weekend hours. There's no way around that
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Melissa Menendez: but since I've kind of gotten into this role, and it's kind of now more of my full time gig, so to speak.
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Melissa Menendez: I make sure that I don't do work on the weekends, and and so I have my time, you know, for my family, you know, for myself.
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Melissa Menendez: You know, and that I can kind of take a break mentally, so that I can come back
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Melissa Menendez: and do kind of what I need to do.
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Melissa Menendez: So that's that's how I've
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Melissa Menendez: I've been managing it these last.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, couple of years. Now, being in this role because I'm also
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Melissa Menendez: the Co. The Co. Project director of the second title 5 Hsi. Grant we got in 2,022
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Melissa Menendez: and that just made sense, because for that particular grant.
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Melissa Menendez: you know Justina Bueller and myself, you know, Justina, you know, helped me to sort of develop
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Melissa Menendez: the Faculty Races Institute
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Melissa Menendez: and and so we developed that together. And when we were in the process of developing that that was when our institution was applying for another title, 5 Hsi. Grant.
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Melissa Menendez: So we were asked to participate in the development of that proposal. And so we really used a lot of the curriculum pedagogy pieces of the Institute to do that.
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Melissa Menendez: And then, luckily, our institution was awarded this grant.
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Melissa Menendez: And so it just made sense that we would sort of, you know, use funding and use the concepts that we said we would, you know, do under races.
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Melissa Menendez: And and again, that's kind of how. Now we've been funding the the Faculty Institute.
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Melissa Menendez: Because that's what we wrote in the Grant proposal is the kind of professional development
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Melissa Menendez: for faculty. In terms of their curriculum pedagogy to really think through how to teach to
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Melissa Menendez: 1st time college students.
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Melissa Menendez: And so
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Melissa Menendez: you know. So that's been another, you know. I guess you could say another hat that I've been wearing. Is facilitating that. But luckily, you know this time around.
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Melissa Menendez: we. We have 2 more facilitators. So Tino and Hector
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Melissa Menendez: are are joining us, and they're they.
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Melissa Menendez: They were a part of the the cluster hire that happened 2 years ago. So that was another thinking about the roles I've served. That was another role I served was I was a the ad hoc
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Melissa Menendez: committee chair
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Melissa Menendez: for an anti-racist faculty hiring practices.
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Melissa Menendez: Thomas, Dr. Thomas Carrasco, Craig, Cook, Andy Gill, and Sharon Solis joined me that. So we were a small but small but mighty group.
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Melissa Menendez: And Academic Senate charged this particular committee to do research on anti-racist faculty, hiring practices to diversify our faculty.
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Melissa Menendez: And so, out of the research, we did. One of the things we were discovering was cluster hiring
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Melissa Menendez: and so when the next hiring cycle came through. I reminded, you know, Dr. Murillo, she was still our interim at the time
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Melissa Menendez: that you know. This was the recommendation that the group had, and I sent her an example that Pierce College up in Washington. They had just completed a cluster hire for black and brown student excellence.
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Melissa Menendez: and so I had sent her that, and I said it would be fantastic if if Santa Barbara City College were to do this.
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Melissa Menendez: and she agreed. And so there was a meeting, and you know Demetrius Lewis was our Vp. Of human resources, and
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Melissa Menendez: Rayan had just stepped out of the Senate role. Melanie, at for Prosser just stepped in.
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Melissa Menendez: But basically everyone, you know supported the idea. So I was asked to join that steering committee, that kind of put together, the cluster hire package
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Melissa Menendez: and then we hired 17 amazing faculty from that process.
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Melissa Menendez: And, in fact, in
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Melissa Menendez: in April of this year.
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Melissa Menendez: Doctor Cynthia Livio, she is President at Fullerton College. She reached out to me and asked me to come give a talk at the aspiring Radical Leaders Institute
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Melissa Menendez: to talk about that process of the cluster hire
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Melissa Menendez: and sort of you know my role in in facilitating that.
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Melissa Menendez: because, as I learned when Lena, when I was there, when she introduced me.
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Melissa Menendez: SBCC was one of the 1st community colleges to do a cluster hire.
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Melissa Menendez: I did not realize that. I just was doing something that I thought was the good thing for our college, and I didn't realize that we were one of the first.st As a result.
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Melissa Menendez: and so that was kind of kind of cool to to be asked to kind of talk about that experience, and.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, share the pieces and how to kind of how to how to map that out. If people were were interested in in pursuing it at their at their institutions.
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Hong Lieu: No big deal, a couple of grants hiring committee trailblazer. I didn't even throw in the Hayward award for excellence. I just throw it on the pile, you know, like it's no big deal. It's all good, you know, but thank you so much for naming. Not only that you work hard, but playing hard because I feel like personally for me. That was a big struggle, because I we always I always wanted to be like good in my parents, eyes and parents appreciate hard work.
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Hong Lieu: They don't always appreciate hard play. So there's a lot of there's a lot of deception and hiding, and like, I'm going to tutor someone. But I'm over at this friend's house instead. There's a lot of like
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Hong Lieu: back back dealing like that. I feel like we're it's 2024. We can be honest about what it takes to build that level of work ethic without the ball, I mean, my mom now was standing. My mom could work, work and not play at all, although
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Hong Lieu: playing for her is a different definition, like watching her. Cantonese soap operas is playing hard, so like, you know, but but at the same time we need to be more honest. She she could probably be more honest as well in terms of naming how you build that work ethic cause. It's not just work, work, work, work, and the promise of better days is enough to carry through. You need that balance. You know that balance is key, or else you will
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Hong Lieu: hit some patches where the work work is not enough to carry you to the next day, so it's good to name those things. You can have fun. You can have hobbies that really are fulfilling as well and and just things that you like to do, even if it's, you know, sitting in front of like vegetation vegetating in front of the TV is not to be ashamed if it helps you get what you need to to be there the next day for people that need you, you know. So thank you for naming that as well.
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Melissa Menendez: But and I think also I mean yes, I I work hard. And and this this is all you know, constant kind of thinking things through and strategizing.
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Melissa Menendez: But I guess I going back to what we were saying earlier, it's it's what I want to do. So it it there is that point where it doesn't feel like work.
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Melissa Menendez: It's you know, it's it's fun
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Melissa Menendez: and and and I haven't gotten to that point yet where it feels
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Melissa Menendez: burdensome. And oh, I had to go to work, you know. In fact, today I woke up a little bit sick, and I, because I was going to go to campus today, but I decided not to, because
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Melissa Menendez: I don't want to spread my germs in case I'm contagious.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah, and but it's not. You know. I like to be on campus. I like the energy of seeing the students and and seeing my colleagues in person, and all of that. So yeah.
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Hong Lieu: Yes, we are grateful. I mean, we want you to get better. Of course we are always grateful for your presence on campus and in in our campus community and cultures. Thank you very much for all that
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Hong Lieu: segue into our next segment. What brought you to SBCC? So, Melissa, your path
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Hong Lieu: to SBCC. How? As far as far as back as you want to start, and wherever you, wherever you want to take us to, you, go ahead.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, let's see, I grew up in Fresno. So I'm Central Valley Girl.
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Melissa Menendez: and so that's where I went to college. And I went to college there
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Melissa Menendez: again, you know. 1st in my family to complete a higher education degree.
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Melissa Menendez: And and then I I met my 1st husband when I was a student there, and he had aspirations of being a film director.
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Melissa Menendez: so that then brought both of us to Hollywood.
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Melissa Menendez: He. He was originally from Iceland. So so he was.
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Melissa Menendez: So I I lived there for a little bit in between.
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Melissa Menendez: You know, finishing up my BA degree
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Melissa Menendez: and then we moved down to Hollywood and
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Melissa Menendez: and then I started working in the film business a little bit. I finished my BA. Decided to take a year off.
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Melissa Menendez: wanted to play before I went into grad school, and so I worked at a production company called Satellite Films. It was a sister company of propaganda films. I don't think either of them. They don't. They don't exist anymore. But they had their heyday in the nineties, and and early 2,000.
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Melissa Menendez: And in fact, it's it's funny when I when I hear the stuff about Coachella, because I was at the 1st 2, Coachella's because the the production company that we, you know, we produce music videos.
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Melissa Menendez: So we got tickets. So I remember going to that 1st Coachella 99, and then the second one in 2,001 because I at that point I got, you know, in 2,001 I was back in. I was in school, but you know, all the all my friends were in the production
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Melissa Menendez: in the production industry. So
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Melissa Menendez: yeah, so I kind of straddled. You know, I've always straddled multiple identities. But yeah, I was
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Melissa Menendez: full on going to school and having fun and the industry parties throughout grad school.
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Melissa Menendez: And then I went to Claremont graduate university. So and I, I've met several other graduates who are my colleagues here. And I chose that program because one of my mentors from my BA. You know, years. He had suggested it.
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Melissa Menendez: but he had suggested it to me because he was well aware that their program was they. They used what they call a transdisciplinary approach.
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Melissa Menendez: And you know, from my work he knew that that was kind of how I read where I was very much steeped in critical race theory, Marxism.
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Melissa Menendez: and kind of capitalist, you know, rhetoric and sort of looking at how the Us. Was producing literature, and how you know how they were representing groups. So he just thought it would be a good fit for me.
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Melissa Menendez: And then I liked the program because they are one of the few that allows you to get
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Melissa Menendez: to earn a Master's degree and continue for the Ph. D.
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Melissa Menendez: So a lot of programs don't allow that you, if once you earn your master's, you have to leave to go somewhere else for your Phd.
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Melissa Menendez: So that's where. Why I ended up there.
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Melissa Menendez: And then I finished. In fall of 22,006.
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Melissa Menendez: I went on the job market
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Melissa Menendez: and I got an interview at Santa Barbara City College, and I didn't know much about Santa Barbara. I think I'd been in Santa Barbara once or twice, you know, like Random road trip, you know, downtown State Street. That sort of thing.
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Melissa Menendez: So I didn't really know much about it. But I thought, Okay, you know, it's community college. That was what I was excited about. And then, of course, when I started
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Melissa Menendez: poking into the programs, and I like, I said earlier, the met program, I really got excited about this possibility of of this place working out. So
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Melissa Menendez: when I went on campus and for my 1st interview and I saw the campus, I was like, Wow.
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Melissa Menendez: I want this job.
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Melissa Menendez: I I think we all have that feeling.
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Melissa Menendez: And so yeah, and I was fortunate enough to to get put into the final group and
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Melissa Menendez: and I'll I'll never forget my final interview. Because John Romo was the President at the time. It was just before he had retired.
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Melissa Menendez: And
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Melissa Menendez: He started to ask me about La Malinche, because, you know, on my Cv. I put that I had done some work with La Malinche and did some presentations around her.
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Melissa Menendez: and he so he started to ask me about that, and no one else in the room knew what he was talking about, knew what I was talking about, but we just had this really lovely conversation. And and he I remember he made a comment, that it's it's refreshing that there's an English professor that knows who La Malinche is.
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Melissa Menendez: and you know. And so that's that was just nice again. Nice to hear the validation, the cultural validation right? And but also that he saw that as a bonus, like a good thing.
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Melissa Menendez: and so I was offered the position. I actually. Meanwhile, I had interviewed somewhere else I had interviewed in Minnesota.
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Melissa Menendez: and it was a State University.
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Melissa Menendez: and so I had gone there for the interview as well. So I was kind of waiting to see. Okay, am I going to get either of these?
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Melissa Menendez: And I was excited about that place, not because of the weather, because I was realizing Minnesota. It was going to be very, very cold in the winter.
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Melissa Menendez: But.
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Hong Lieu: Campus. The campus probably didn't pop like SBCC did, either.
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Melissa Menendez: And, in fact, but how I learned about the weather was because the when the the one of the potential colleagues was giving me the tour. I was noticing that we weren't going outside, that we were
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Melissa Menendez: in buildings, and I asked about it. And he was like, Oh, yeah. Well, when it's 5 below. You don't really want to go outside.
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Melissa Menendez: And I was like, I didn't, even because, you know, it was like beautiful like, I don't know April or something when I was there interviewing. So it wasn't went dead of winter. And then I think I had asked what people did for fun, and that's when the answer of Oh, you know, ice fishing. And I thought, Okay, yeah, this might not be the place for me.
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Melissa Menendez: You know I was. I was interested, because there, you know, in this particular area there's a very large
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Melissa Menendez: I think it was the second largest Cambodian Hmong refugee population, and having grown up in Fresno. I think we were kind of the competitors in terms of that. So there was that cultural familiarity for me that you know that I I liked
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Melissa Menendez: and I'd also been. I had done some work, you know, looking at, you know, the Vietnam war, but also the Khmer Rouge, and and I was teaching a lot of literature around that.
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Melissa Menendez: So I was kind of excited about that possibility of being in a in a place that you know we're serviced was serving student population.
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Melissa Menendez: That this would resonate with their own kind of family history and and reasons why they were there now in the Us.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah, when I got the job offer at Santa Barbara and I got the job offer there. I took Santa Barbara. So that's how I ended up and so moved from Hollywood, moved up up to Santa Barbara. And.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, been here like I said, I'm starting my 18th year.
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Hong Lieu: Congratulations that my 1st Coachella was 2,004. So you got me beat by quite a few years, but that's that's that's pretty awesome, went to the 1st 2 Coachella's. That's that's that's pretty.
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah. And they are fantastic. I mean, yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: they were.
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Hong Lieu: One. I think there was still one day at the time right, and then.
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Melissa Menendez: No, they were, it was there were 2. That's right.
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Hong Lieu: They didn't add the 3rd day until you know.
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Melissa Menendez: To buy another ticket, though it was like a ticket covered
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Melissa Menendez: both days.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: And it was not nearly how much it is now.
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Melissa Menendez: But then I we didn't have to buy them, because, like I said, we got them for free, just because we were, you know, in that space and making some of those videos. And
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Melissa Menendez: yeah, I just remember, you know, Cruder and dwarfmeister, you know. Underworld grubar, movie.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: Fat boy, Slim, you know.
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Hong Lieu: Slim chemical brothers, underworld, orbital, all those old when when Drummond, when Drum and Bass was and electronics, music was just kind of yeah. It was still jungle music and all that. Yeah, tribal and all. Yeah, yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: It was. It was great fun. And St. Germain, they were one of the headliners.
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah, no, it was. It was blast.
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Hong Lieu: Very nice, quick question for you, real quick in terms of
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Hong Lieu: Did you always know you wanted to go beyond the bachelors to the Masters and Phd. Because I know, for some folks who were the 1st 1st ones to college, or who are just navigating that college experience uneasy about it, like for me personally, I always thought, oh, bachelors, you know, that's as long as I get that I'm happy. But was there like, what was that process like for you as an as a student coming up in terms of what? How did you think that out? And what what was that process like.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yes. Okay.
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Melissa Menendez: Go into teaching. And then, right right before I decided to take that year, gap
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Melissa Menendez: I was gonna do substitute teaching right in high school and give that a try and see. Oh, maybe I'll just do that.
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Melissa Menendez: I did one or 2 days, and I was like, Yeah, no, that's not. That's not for me.
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Melissa Menendez: So it was really just that, knowing that I wanted to teach, knowing I wanted to be more at the University college level and you know, for me, I guess you could say it was more of to complete it. Right? I mean
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Melissa Menendez: one of the last statistics I looked at is, it's under 1% of Latinas who have who hold Phd. Degree in our country in the Us.
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Melissa Menendez: So I'm a part of that.
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Melissa Menendez: you know less than 1%.
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Melissa Menendez: And so that's the last statistic I've seen on it.
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Melissa Menendez: So that was more of a goal, you know, you know, for a larger political move, so to speak.
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Melissa Menendez: But you know it just I I always enjoyed school, I mean, I was
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Melissa Menendez: you know.
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Melissa Menendez: when I I think? Maybe about 5 or 6 years ago I participated in this
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Melissa Menendez: doctoral study. And it was, you know, the
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Melissa Menendez: the question was around that, like Latinas who do like finish higher, Ed, and get earn Phds and
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Melissa Menendez: and kind of what happens in their story, like what happens in the journey.
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Melissa Menendez: And this woman who was writing the dissertation was basically kind of always hearing a similar narrative of
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Melissa Menendez: one per one teacher at some point in K through 12,
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Melissa Menendez: or maybe early on in their college career.
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Melissa Menendez: like, took them under their wing, mentored and basically gave them that push of you can do this.
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Melissa Menendez: And I was. I was that.
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Melissa Menendez: you know that was my story.
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Melissa Menendez: You know, and I was in 4th grade when that happened to me.
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Melissa Menendez: I was always
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Melissa Menendez: being
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Melissa Menendez: taken to the higher. I think when I was 1st grade
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Melissa Menendez: I would start going to the higher, like the next grade up for math class.
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Melissa Menendez: So I, because I the the math that my peers was doing it was I was. It was too simple, I guess I don't know. And so they were sending me to the grade above.
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Melissa Menendez: And so when I was in 4th grade, and I was being sent, or actually excuse me when I was in 3rd grade, and I was being sent to the 4th grade class.
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Melissa Menendez: That elementary school teacher was like, why is nobody testing this child for gait?
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Melissa Menendez: And everybody was like, oh, I don't know. And and I mean, of course, in my grown up brain I have all the reasons why they weren't doing it but and so I passed that exam, and at the time Fresno
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Melissa Menendez: had, like a full Get gate school that was just dedicated to gate education.
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Melissa Menendez: So I ended up transferring there for 4th through 6th grade and going into this gay program. So I think those are my early experiences of getting validation in school. But
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Melissa Menendez: even though I was getting that validation.
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Melissa Menendez: I was also being kind of labeled one of the good ones, right? So there was always this kind of underbelly of racism around that
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Melissa Menendez: where it wasn't. I was seen as a good student and that model student.
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Melissa Menendez: But then that didn't really open up, you know, avenues for other Latino students. Right? It was because I could assimilate and kind of do what was expected. That was why I was getting the accolades
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Melissa Menendez: again. My adult self saw that right? I didn't know that was what was going on in during
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Melissa Menendez: but yeah, I mean, you know, it's
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Melissa Menendez: and that's that's partly again. What? What influences the work that I'm doing? Because I think that all of us are the good ones.
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Melissa Menendez: and you know there shouldn't have to be these hoops and things that
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Melissa Menendez: that one has to be able to jump through in order to
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Melissa Menendez: to be validated on this campus.
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Melissa Menendez: or on any college campus, or in any educational space.
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Melissa Menendez: So you know. So that's kind of where my own experience
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Melissa Menendez: of in a way having that privilege and being treated with privilege. That I recognize that. And and I'm trying to think, okay, how can we not do that
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Melissa Menendez: as an institution and make it more equity based.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, I know personally growing up in the Asian community that I grew up in in La. You're either quote unquote one of the good ones, or you were like a gangster, you know, like a like a gangbanger, like whatever. And and then, luckily, it was the nineties at the time. So Gen. X. Showed up, and you could also be. I found that 3rd pipeline of kind of a slacker lazy, but before that it was that clear dichotomy. And and now, with the benefit of hindsight
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Hong Lieu: and time, you can analyze it more thoroughly and see it for what it is. It's just an attempt to simplify the conversation. Individuals are so nuanced, there's so many things going on with every single person, but nobody has the time. We can say it. We don't have the time. But but is that the correct answer to just have these quick? One sentence, 5. Word blurbs about people.
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Hong Lieu: Absolutely not. So there's there's an in between. I don't have the time to really analyze every single person that I'm dealing with, and
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Hong Lieu: you're just doing them a disservice. There's more, and there's more nuance in the middle there, and it's good that you're, you know. Thank you for exploring that and highlighting that, and also highlighting the importance of that human touch we talked about earlier, where you know, real recognized, real, that human connection when you, when someone that you trust that you have, you know, have have dealt with, and that you have trusted to guide you
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Hong Lieu: to send you, and and it gives you good advice. It's just so affirming, and it creates these communal bonds and just allows you to be more trusting of other people, because there are many instances in our lives I'm sure, that go the opposite way, where someone gives you advice, you trust them, and and they're totally off, or you know they're they didn't have the true, your truest interest at heart. So when you get those real aff affirmative voices that are really coming from a good place.
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Hong Lieu: and it leads you to good places that really just compels you to to want to probably want to pay it forward. And, you know, just create that. Continue that lineage of just
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Hong Lieu: goodness that exists does exist in this world that we you know, that we we should really take the time to highlight and shout out so.
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Hong Lieu: Yes, thank you. Thank you for thank you for that, and thank you for your your your your question. I mean your how you got to. Sbc, we're gonna segue onto our next section good eating our food section. So
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Hong Lieu: whether it's a you know, a dish you make or enjoyed eating a restaurant. You love anything you want to shout out as relates to food.
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Hong Lieu: Go ahead and kick us off.
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Melissa Menendez: Wow! That's like such a broad topic.
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Hong Lieu: Yes, and we may intentionally so, because we really want you to to be able to approach this from any angle you want.
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Melissa Menendez: Because I think of like if I start thinking about like my childhood, I remember my Nana would make
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Melissa Menendez: today all and.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: Was.
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Hong Lieu: Oh!
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Melissa Menendez: That was like bowl after bowl after bowl, and at some point.
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Hong Lieu: You want to talk about comfort, food, and when it's coming, when it's coming from one of the elders in your house. Yeah, that's that's like nothing beats that.
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Hong Lieu: you know. Nothing beats that.
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Melissa Menendez: So, you know, and I always remember her saying at some point, You're gonna get sick, cause I just eat, eat.
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Hong Lieu: Well, that's that's keeping you from getting sick. Also. I mean, you know that broth that hearty, you know, like that the hearty goodness! But it's mostly liquid. So it's pretty much like the best things that a human needs not get sick. So.
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Melissa Menendez: But I mean I I my partner and I. We like to cook. You know. I often cook at home, and you know, Lot, you know. Just lots of lots of stuff, you know, like lots of dishes.
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Melissa Menendez: You know. Obviously Mexican food and most of the
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Melissa Menendez: Mexican dishes I cook. I learned from my Nana
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Melissa Menendez: and so you know, chile, very there.
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Melissa Menendez: hey? You know I haven't made chili organos in a while, because that takes a lot of time. But they are so yummy when they're freshly made.
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Melissa Menendez: I do tamales, so I always have my annual tamale making party
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Melissa Menendez: so I get some folks together and to help, because, you know again, it's it's a labor labor, intensive dish. But that's the fun of it, right.
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Hong Lieu: You don't have to name your Masa plug if you don't want to. But if you want to shout out where you get your Masa from you're you're welcome to do that as well.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, so I live in Oxnard.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah, so.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, I get it. I get it from the bakery down the street. They sell it and it's very good.
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Melissa Menendez: And then, of course you have to still doctor it right. You still got to add your own chile in there, and your own broth, and and to get the extra flavor. So it goes with your filling.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah, so I've I've been buying it here. I found a place that I that I like before that it was a because I would make them in Fresno with my Nano. We I would go there, you know, early December, so we could make them
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Melissa Menendez: and have them ready before Christmas. And yeah, it was. She would buy it.
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Melissa Menendez: But I really love the. There's a Oaxacan restaurant in downtown Oxnard, La Masteca.
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Melissa Menendez: and their tamales are delicious, and of course the banana leaves, and actually, about 2 years ago, I started to make my tamales with banana leaves. So I have. I do some. I do like maybe 3 dozen or so with the banana leaves, and then
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Melissa Menendez: the rest are, you know, the corn, the corn leaves, because that's that was the tradition that my family that the region my family was from. So that's what we used.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah. And then there's a a really good bakery just again half a block from from my house that has the delicious fun to say.
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Melissa Menendez: and I that's another childhood memory. I remember that was always the big deal of going to the bakery and getting to choose.
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Melissa Menendez: you know, a couple of pieces to eat and.
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Hong Lieu: What's what's your number? One piece? What's the piece? If you only get if you only get one, if they say, only pick one.
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Melissa Menendez: I like the empanadas. I like the pina empanadas.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: That's what I like. Yeah,
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah, I mean, I
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Melissa Menendez: Besides that, I mean when I cook food, if it's not Mexican, I mean, I cook a lot of fish really love fish, you know, makes make on sushi
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Melissa Menendez: pokey bowls.
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Melissa Menendez: You know. Kind of venture out in that way.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: I I don't have more of an answer.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, my God! What do you mean? You've given me the giving me so so much, so much goodness, I mean potato soup tamales. I mean, Masa, that aspect of where you get it from, and also how you doctor it up little trade secrets that you know. Like you.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah. So there's plenty to work with. And again, because how food is the fuel? It's not just fuel, but it's also it's part of that culture that we talked about that amorphous culture of of everything goes into it in terms of
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Hong Lieu: yes, breaking bread with people eating, you know, have sharing meals with folks like that's some of sometimes the best meetings, you know, in terms of meeting of the minds, and where you share information and bounce ideas back, I mean making tamales with with family and friends. That is such a deep, rooted community cultural practice. And you know, even even in my family we have something called Bante, which is a steamed kind of
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Hong Lieu: we call. I always call it Chinese tamales. Easy way to explain it to people. It's like sticky rice with a piece of meat in the middle, and you wrap it in banana leaves
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Hong Lieu: and you steam it so I've seen, you know, when you steam with banana leaves versus the corn husks, you get the different, the different kind of textural change.
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Melissa Menendez: Dad.
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Hong Lieu: It. It gets more almost like it's stickier in the banana leaf. And it, yeah, so yeah, much softer like it. So in terms of how you're structuring your bite. You're like you're you're planning, which by what kind of a bite you'd like your flavors? Your, I mean there's I mean, that's all that really. You could do it with any single dish that you named. But you you threw so many in there. I mean, it's just like that holistic picture is is is what we're looking for. And that was, yeah.
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Hong Lieu: beautiful, beautiful stuff I'll try to. I mean, the thing is, I try to put stuff. I put stuff in the show notes and try to break things down like, here's fideil soup. Here's this and that. But really, the way you structured it. And the way you kind of put it all together, it's
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Hong Lieu: you know, that was, it's like a it's like a banquet, you know, like a 10 core like you. Really, you break it down, you know, like going to get Pandoo say, going to get Swan. And that's and that's why it's that's why it's good eating. So yeah, yeah. And and I love the the ones that are that come from that that family, that family history as well, because it does in terms of peeking in and and seeing that the true true, the true person is like, yes, like that kind of thing. So so
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Hong Lieu: thank you very much for that.
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Hong Lieu: And segueing right along, we're gonna get out into higher learning. This is your specialty, right? So.
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Melissa Menendez: I'll see.
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Hong Lieu: Pieces, pieces of culture. And anything, book, music, movie, TV video games, we and we don't limit it. Whatever you wanna whatever you want to call culture. I know that you're a true ambassador connoisseur, so whatever you, whatever you will let it fly so.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, I was. Gonna say, you've seen my!
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Melissa Menendez: You seem like a snippet of my vinyl flesh.
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Hong Lieu: And this is what I was hoping that you would want to bring up. Because I do, wanna we I do wanna take a deep dive into especially I know we've had conversations before, I mean, the listeners might not know. But we've had some, you know, anecdotal conversations about Vinyl, and I know you specifically mentioned freestyle music, freestyle dance music because you talked about Coachella and and talking about, you know, those early techno electronic dance acts. But but people a lot of people don't know is that techno electronic dance music was kind of sprouted or like a fork
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Hong Lieu: of a dance music form, which is, you know, start got it started in New York, but really took at a really strong foothold in the you know, the the La. The Latina community is really who made freestyle what it is. And I I came into it later on in like that early nineties. But I mean, yeah, whatever you wanna, I mean, if that's where you're going, I'm not sure. But if you just want to talk Vinyl in general, I'm I'm here for it. But yeah, so.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, yeah, I mean just my my part, my my husband. He he was a Dj. In the nineties. And so
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Melissa Menendez: it's you know, he's the one that has the massive record collection final collection
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Melissa Menendez: and and his last final along the way.
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Hong Lieu: Yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: I can only imagine what it would be if he has had. You know he had everything that he'd ever own.
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Melissa Menendez: But you know we have. We have these cubbies for, and I think probably a cubby might hold about 100 records.
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Melissa Menendez: And there's a lot of cubbies. So when I say, we've got over 2,000. I'm not exaggerating
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Melissa Menendez: that we have. Well, over thousands of of vinyl records.
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Melissa Menendez: But yeah, there's just everything in there. There's funk. There's freestyle. There's a lot of the 12 inch singles.
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Melissa Menendez: You know there is some drum and bass. There's some electronica
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Melissa Menendez: you know. There's all the seventies, pop. There's, you know, all the classic rock stuff, sixties, even some fifties, you know, stuff crooners like a lot of forties, a lot of jazz.
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Melissa Menendez: So it's a very, very eclectic
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Melissa Menendez: a collection
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Melissa Menendez: and in fact, the when when I was living in the this apartment before coming into the house.
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Melissa Menendez: There was this guy who used to hang out in a garage in the back part of of where this apartment was.
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Melissa Menendez: and he was always tinkering with the car.
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Melissa Menendez: and
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Melissa Menendez: and my husband, you know, was, would you know, talk to him, chat with them? And one time when he was in there. He saw like this crate this fairly large 2 crates of records, and you know he always has the eye for him.
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Melissa Menendez: And so we kind of asked about it was like, Oh, do you play them? The guy's like? No, you know I don't.
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Melissa Menendez: And then he's like, Oh, well, you know, I'll I'll buy them. And then the guy's like, Okay, and he's like, Well, what do you think is a fair price? And
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Melissa Menendez: my hair my husband's like, how about 200 bucks. And the guy's like, Oh, yeah, that's that's great.
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Melissa Menendez: So he gives him 200 bucks, brings one crate up. And I see this crate I'm like, Oh, my God! You know
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Melissa Menendez: he brings up the second crate, and when he's bringing up the second crate I start thumbing right. I start.
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Melissa Menendez: Great dig in to see. Okay, what's in here?
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Melissa Menendez: And it was all 80 s. Music.
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Melissa Menendez: It had the full collection of ramones.
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Hong Lieu: Wow!
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Melissa Menendez: I know the full collection of talking heads. I mean this.
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Hong Lieu: Wow!
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Melissa Menendez: Great stuff.
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00:56:56.160 --> 00:57:02.030
Melissa Menendez: And we were like, Okay, I think the $200 like right there looks like
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00:57:02.470 --> 00:57:07.940
Melissa Menendez: there was other. There was some other good finds in there, too. But yeah, so it's just pretty cool, like.
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00:57:08.550 --> 00:57:38.160
Hong Lieu: Those are the best. Those are the best finds those are the best record finds is because the records that are were well taken care of well maintained in it, but they're in a garage somewhere, not being used because records were made to be played. So you gave them. You gave them a home you gave, you know, like so, and you and you put them with other records. It's kind of like you have like fish you want like more than just one goldfish you want, like 3 or 4, so they could swim together. Your records should be their records should be together. So you you did. You did a service. I I those were the ones that I was always
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Hong Lieu: like, you know, when when you're doing someone a favor, because, like sometimes I would go like for estate sales and stuff.
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00:57:42.890 --> 00:57:52.849
Hong Lieu: or folks are just trying to clear space, but they have this stuff like, I don't really have time to look through it, so go ahead and take it. I'll give it to you for a decent price, and then you start thumbing through and just boom, boom!
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah, you find a few. And you're just like, okay, that's.
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Hong Lieu: And you.
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Melissa Menendez: Awesome.
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Hong Lieu: And you mentioned punk specifically, because the the punk records are the ones where at the time they were out and you were playing them. You just beat them up like you weren't thinking about this long term collectability, where you would play the same track over and over till you wore the groove out, and it's skip and everything.
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Hong Lieu: But now you go to all the record stores and it you really see the reasoning, the flip side of it, because all the punk records all the punk. 45 s. Every. All that stuff is the stuff that is the most expensive, the most collectable, like people like people in the Uk. They collect, they collect like Northern soul, and all that. All the old soul records and stuff that people are just wearing out here, you know, and so it just
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00:58:30.910 --> 00:58:41.680
Hong Lieu: it just made me think like man. I was beating up some records that end up being like really, really valuable. But you know, but they were valuable to me. I got my value out of them, but I wish I would have taken care. Better care of them, I guess is is the is what I'm saying.
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Melissa Menendez: Well, you didn't know you were gonna want to collect it right.
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00:58:44.430 --> 00:59:02.590
Hong Lieu: I mean, and I still would never want to sell it, even if I had it. So it's not. It's kind of a mood point, but I still do walk into like I'll go to Warbler records in town and look at what's on their expensive row, and I'd be like, oh, man. I remember my buddy used to have that, and we broke it in half after something or other. And you know that kind of thing where it's like you. Just yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah, I mean, I well, cause when I yeah, I mean, I I kind of inherited like a small record collection from my uncle.
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00:59:10.700 --> 00:59:24.309
Melissa Menendez: my one of my my uncles. You know he had left all of his records at my at my Nana's house, and so this was like, you know I was just entering junior high, and it was like all the Zeppelin records.
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Hong Lieu: Oh!
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00:59:25.210 --> 00:59:26.989
Melissa Menendez: All of that stuff. And
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Melissa Menendez: and I was listening to this going. This music is great, you know, and this this was right before the classic raw channel was gonna become a thing, right? So my peers were not really listening to it. But I just thought it was so cool. So that was kind of the start of. I guess you could say my like for Vinyl. And then.
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00:59:47.590 --> 01:00:04.669
Melissa Menendez: you know, as I got into high school a girlfriend of mine turned me on to thrift store shopping. So whenever we'd go thrift store shopping well, you always look at the books and the records, and so that was kind of where I would again. That's how my record collection kind of grew.
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Melissa Menendez: And then, when I had my daughter.
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01:00:08.090 --> 01:00:14.079
Melissa Menendez: that's when I started collecting, because I remembered from my youth having all of those Disney
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01:00:14.120 --> 01:00:16.739
Melissa Menendez: Long playing storybook records.
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Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah, those had the most beautiful vinyl, the picture discs. That's where people would collect them, because the songs are great. They're timeless. But the Vinyl is so beautiful they have carrot characters on all around the circle.
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Hong Lieu: and the booklets were just.
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah.
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01:00:31.700 --> 01:00:33.450
Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah. Oh.
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01:00:33.450 --> 01:00:43.689
Melissa Menendez: Yeah. And so, and I, unfortunately, I didn't have the ones that I had growing up. I think at some point we had gotten rid of them, you know we'd give gave them to another child or something.
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Melissa Menendez: But I started that collection, so she and I still have it, too, where? So we have a lot of those long playing, you know, child, child, book records. And then
435
01:00:54.410 --> 01:01:01.240
Melissa Menendez: also she you know all the children's music. So like Rafi, like all the Rafi records and things like that. So.
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01:01:01.310 --> 01:01:11.740
Melissa Menendez: you know, when she was a kid, she had this like area of the house. That was kind of her playroom, and I had a whole record set up in there for her, like record players set up.
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Melissa Menendez: and so I would she would be in there playing, and I'd go in, put on a record, and then, after a little bit, she'd be like it's ready to flip, so I'd go back, flip it for her. So she grew up listening to the Vinyl as well.
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Hong Lieu: Responsible because I tried to get my son to play records when he was young, and he wouldn't have called me to flip him. He tried to flip himself, and just be tearing that thing up. I'm like, train, wreck, train, wreck! Get off of that thing, you know. But no.
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Melissa Menendez: Yeah, I would try to avoid that by just calling me. But of course you know, and I'm like going over there sometimes, like cause you know, I'm like in the middle of something.
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Hong Lieu: You know you only get 2022Â min, 22Â min aside roughly. So you have to time an hour. If you're watching dishes or something you gotta be like, I don't want to be there with soapy hands trying to flip a record. You got to time it out right? Yeah.
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Melissa Menendez: Exactly, exactly.
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Hong Lieu: And shout out to you and your husband for being a a record, loving family cause. I have a lot of records in my house. It's definitely a little more one sided in terms of how much space they take up in terms of who, how accepting my wife is of all the stuff. So it it takes a commitment you have to be committed.
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Hong Lieu: I mean, I mean, the arguments are there, the the warmer sound, just the physical, of taking a record, admiring it, putting it on playing it. But yeah, they take up a lot of space, so shout out to you and your husband for being understanding and cognizant. I mean, I know you had that thought of. Oh, my goodness! Where are we gonna put these records when more come in? But once you start, but you're able to respect the dig once you're in there, and when you pull out a gym, it's like, Oh, okay, there we go.
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Melissa Menendez: Exactly if you put it on and you're listening to it. You're like, yeah, but that's why I have them.
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Hong Lieu: Very nice, and then I guess my my other follow up question would be in terms of how you sort. Are you doing alphabetical by artist. Do you have genre files? Or, okay.
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Melissa Menendez: We've been doing. Yeah, we do genre that, in fact, that that was a conversation. I think I want to say about
447
01:03:10.720 --> 01:03:17.249
Melissa Menendez: 2 years ago, cause that's roughly, when we moved into the house in our house in Oxnard
448
01:03:17.270 --> 01:03:21.780
Melissa Menendez: and that was a conversation, because we had them all in boxes.
449
01:03:21.910 --> 01:03:29.699
Melissa Menendez: And it was okay. We got to catalog these, and we still have some in crates, and we still have some in boxes that we have not cataloged.
450
01:03:29.870 --> 01:03:37.380
Melissa Menendez: So that is another project. And so we would sit in the garage, because that's where we have
451
01:03:37.630 --> 01:03:45.449
Melissa Menendez: more of the records stored just like in a in a Ikea shelf in in there, like one of those huge ones.
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01:03:45.450 --> 01:03:46.370
Hong Lieu: Oh, yeah.
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01:03:46.370 --> 01:03:50.999
Melissa Menendez: Yeah, cause they fit perfectly right. And the collapse shelf.
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01:03:51.150 --> 01:03:56.009
Melissa Menendez: And so we would just sit there like on a Sunday. And and
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01:03:56.050 --> 01:04:01.629
Melissa Menendez: you know, I was on the computer typing, and he would tell me, Okay, here's the artist, and it's this genre.
456
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Melissa Menendez: So I type it. And then you do the next one. It's super like team effort, but.
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Hong Lieu: And as a even partners in cataloging. Oh, my goodness that I mean talk about soulmates! If you can catalog records together where, after 5Â min. Someone's just like I'm gonna get some knee. You keep doing this yourself. This is your mess, I mean, that's that's mad props right there.
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01:04:23.644 --> 01:04:27.770
Melissa Menendez: Well, I guess it's the cap accord in me of like, you know, wanting.
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01:04:29.150 --> 01:04:30.530
Hong Lieu: Yes.
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01:04:30.530 --> 01:04:33.120
Melissa Menendez: Like, yes, let's catalog.
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01:04:33.440 --> 01:04:36.670
Hong Lieu: Down. That's awesome. That's so cool. Yes.
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01:04:37.750 --> 01:04:43.139
Melissa Menendez: Yeah, but we we do need to get back into it. Cause like I said, there's still some that are not catalog.
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01:04:43.140 --> 01:04:52.529
Hong Lieu: However far you, however far you get, you've already gotten farther than anything happening in my house. So just remember to remember to celebrate those victories. Pat yourself on the back, absolutely.
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01:04:53.650 --> 01:04:54.500
Melissa Menendez: Yeah.
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Hong Lieu: And and I could see I used to have like like party setups, like I'd have, cause, you know, when you're when you're lugging records to a party. You can't bring your whole collection. You gotta have, like one or 2 really strong crates. So that's where I would categorize where I have like a hip hop, crate.
466
01:05:08.690 --> 01:05:22.720
Hong Lieu: my like soul, crate just breaks. If it was a lot of break that, like B boys showing up, you have a breaks crate, you know, like stuff like that. But I but in terms of the the genre categorization, I feel like that really does make a lot of sense. But but now we're in such a post genre world
467
01:05:22.720 --> 01:05:47.590
Hong Lieu: that everything is so kind of in between as well. So that's why some folks go with the artistry. But I do always like asking how people sort their things like that, because when you have that many pieces you do still want to try to find what you're looking for. But sometimes the journeys part is the reward to like just thumbing through and digging is I I wish I still had the time. I don't. I don't know how you make the time to dig on top of all the other things you do, but I I'm glad that you. I'm glad you take that time. Still.
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01:05:47.590 --> 01:05:51.389
Melissa Menendez: Like you said like I said earlier. You work hard, you play hard.
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01:05:51.390 --> 01:05:55.340
Hong Lieu: Yes, as long as you create those, create those blocks where you can make it happen absolutely.
470
01:05:55.520 --> 01:06:06.119
Melissa Menendez: I remember we went to because one of the areas that he djed in was Portland, and so we went to Portland, and he took.
471
01:06:07.069 --> 01:06:10.509
Melissa Menendez: Like one of those travel bags for Vinyl.
472
01:06:10.540 --> 01:06:18.659
Melissa Menendez: He took that on the plane because one of his buddies does this still does like a show like a like an Internet show.
473
01:06:18.820 --> 01:06:25.140
Melissa Menendez: and when he found out he was coming up he wanted him to guest Dj, so of course he couldn't show up with no records.
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01:06:25.710 --> 01:06:44.509
Hong Lieu: Had to have some of some of his a plus picks when you, when you curate, when you, especially when they put on, puts a pressure on you like that when you know you have to come with some curation because you could always, you know you. All your stuff is good. You could throw whatever in a bag and play it. But if someone's like, Oh, a guest! Dj, you better come correct like, Oh, yeah, you're picking the good. You're picking the good good right there. So.
475
01:06:45.140 --> 01:06:45.880
Melissa Menendez: Yeah.
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01:06:46.580 --> 01:06:46.950
Hong Lieu: Good.
477
01:06:46.950 --> 01:07:00.140
Melissa Menendez: I mean in terms of other culture and media. Obviously as English professor. You know, there are some gems of books that are, you know the books for me in terms of
478
01:07:00.300 --> 01:07:03.860
Melissa Menendez: that just really opened my eyes to
479
01:07:04.477 --> 01:07:12.360
Melissa Menendez: my experience, I mean, I I remember when I took in my BA. Education. When I took a
480
01:07:13.200 --> 01:07:17.020
Melissa Menendez: literary theory course like, it's a required class that you take.
481
01:07:17.030 --> 01:07:25.729
Melissa Menendez: you know, usually junior senior year and you learn about literary theories and how to apply theory to to literature.
482
01:07:26.140 --> 01:07:30.830
Melissa Menendez: And that was when I 1st learned critical race theory or learned what that was.
483
01:07:31.170 --> 01:07:32.889
Melissa Menendez: And it just like
484
01:07:33.170 --> 01:07:38.399
Melissa Menendez: everything, made sense like it. It was that sort of Aha! Moment of
485
01:07:38.900 --> 01:07:57.989
Melissa Menendez: having the language to really articulate what my experience had been. You know why, things, you know needed to change. You know what social justice is. You know all of these things. And I remember that being 19 and just my mind being blown
486
01:07:58.802 --> 01:08:08.339
Melissa Menendez: and so obviously, you know, Gloria Anzadua was one of those voices. That just was opening my mind.
487
01:08:09.550 --> 01:08:21.299
Melissa Menendez: You know this bridge called my back writings by radical women of color. Share, which is Sherry Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua like that. When I read that it was just
488
01:08:21.510 --> 01:08:25.050
Melissa Menendez: it just opened up everything for me as a scholar.
489
01:08:25.674 --> 01:08:32.490
Melissa Menendez: And I also remember reading. So cause I'm from Fresno. So Gary Soto
490
01:08:32.520 --> 01:08:43.639
Melissa Menendez: is a local Fresno writer and I remember reading one of his novels pretty early on that, and house on Mango Street.
491
01:08:43.859 --> 01:08:47.679
Melissa Menendez: by Sandra Cisneros, and both of those
492
01:08:47.779 --> 01:08:52.390
Melissa Menendez: were books. His was called Living, living up the street.
493
01:08:53.319 --> 01:09:00.049
Melissa Menendez: And it was kind of a similar genre of like small or short vignettes like Sandra Ciseneros writes
494
01:09:00.119 --> 01:09:03.679
Melissa Menendez: us on Mango Street, and reading those, and
495
01:09:03.699 --> 01:09:05.939
Melissa Menendez: especially because Gary's
496
01:09:05.949 --> 01:09:13.609
Melissa Menendez: book was was taking place, or those stories were taking place in Fresno. So some of the referencing some of the locations like I knew
497
01:09:13.639 --> 01:09:18.619
Melissa Menendez: I knew that part of the town I like. This was like part of my home, too.
498
01:09:19.390 --> 01:09:26.539
Melissa Menendez: And just having that ex reading about Mexican American experience and working class, and
499
01:09:26.629 --> 01:09:29.707
Melissa Menendez: and then reading Sandra Cicinero's book.
500
01:09:30.299 --> 01:09:49.249
Melissa Menendez: those 2, I think, were the pivotal for me to to recognize, you know that I did belong in that discipline. But it it wasn't, you know it. I didn't necessarily have to go to ethnic studies that I could do what I want to do in this discipline, and I could change it.
501
01:09:49.389 --> 01:09:57.869
Melissa Menendez: And so I think that was my my moment in terms of scholarship and in terms of my cultural production in that way.
502
01:09:58.414 --> 01:10:01.459
Melissa Menendez: And in fact, the you know the
503
01:10:01.769 --> 01:10:08.059
Melissa Menendez: the dissertation I ended up, you know, writing when I was doing my, my Phd.
504
01:10:08.129 --> 01:10:10.059
Melissa Menendez: Is. I basically looked at.
505
01:10:10.857 --> 01:10:18.099
Melissa Menendez: Us. Authors who were placing their stories or novels in Mexico, and then had
506
01:10:18.339 --> 01:10:20.169
Melissa Menendez: Mexican characters
507
01:10:20.521 --> 01:10:30.089
Melissa Menendez: and just kind of talking about the type of othering that those writers were doing, and often because this was early 20th century literature. I was looking at
508
01:10:30.219 --> 01:10:33.619
Melissa Menendez: really kind of contextualizing it in terms of
509
01:10:34.300 --> 01:10:42.499
Melissa Menendez: you know what had happened in terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe and and that Mexican American war. But then, also
510
01:10:43.005 --> 01:10:54.879
Melissa Menendez: what had what was going on in the Mexican revolution, and again, sort of the Us. Interests in Mexico, and sort of how that was playing out in these representations.
511
01:10:55.619 --> 01:10:56.959
Melissa Menendez: In literature.
512
01:10:57.299 --> 01:11:00.399
Melissa Menendez: And so it for me. It was like that full circle of
513
01:11:00.439 --> 01:11:04.309
Melissa Menendez: the Aha moment when I was 19, and then
514
01:11:04.319 --> 01:11:10.959
Melissa Menendez: kind of having that lead my my work in terms of scholarship when I
515
01:11:11.139 --> 01:11:13.929
Melissa Menendez: when I finished my my Phd.
516
01:11:13.959 --> 01:11:32.929
Melissa Menendez: But you know I never really pursued writing or publishing, because, you know. I I came to Santa Barbara City College. You know it isn't necessarily a requirement for faculty at a community college. It is more so in in universities to publish and do these things in order to get tenure.
517
01:11:33.119 --> 01:11:36.059
Melissa Menendez: And then also, you know, I had my daughter.
518
01:11:36.519 --> 01:11:44.320
Melissa Menendez: I think within the few months I was 1st hired. I found out I was pregnant, and so I was a mom, and
519
01:11:44.829 --> 01:11:47.939
Melissa Menendez: and you know, starting my career. So I
520
01:11:48.059 --> 01:11:55.059
Melissa Menendez: I never really pursued that. And so I guess in a way, you know, going back to it, I use. This is sort of that
521
01:11:55.309 --> 01:11:57.929
Melissa Menendez: creation, if you will. You know
522
01:11:58.039 --> 01:12:00.279
Melissa Menendez: it's it's the publication.
523
01:12:00.850 --> 01:12:14.570
Hong Lieu: I think you had your priorities in order. You had daughter and digging in the crates, so I think your priorities were definitely in order. I think you did alright cause that's the thing of you know it. Time is time is a a set amount of time in every day.
524
01:12:14.620 --> 01:12:20.140
Hong Lieu: and you prioritize what you're going to prioritize, and family should always be near the top.
525
01:12:20.190 --> 01:12:39.129
Hong Lieu: not to say it always takes is above digging in the crates, but still, it's listening. But so yes, yeah, I think I think you you were. You're always honest and true to yourself and you there's there's no nothing wrong with that. So you did. You did it right, and and races is going to be your your true public worth, and so be it as well, so very, very awesome.
526
01:12:39.460 --> 01:12:40.130
Melissa Menendez: Yeah.
527
01:12:40.720 --> 01:12:56.359
Hong Lieu: Yeah, so thank you, Melissa. You ran the gala with me. I've appreciated greatly. Thank you very much. It was an honor to have you. I I mean, it's been great getting to know you, and just like and just working with you as sporadically throughout throughout the years as I have. But just getting to know you today. And just just thank you so much for being
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01:12:56.460 --> 01:13:13.529
Hong Lieu: at SBCC. A great presence on our campus. Thank you for all you've done for Isis, and thank you and your team as well. Sergio, Natalie. Rose Rosemary, all everyone, Rosie, everyone out there and any final shout outs you. Wanna you wanna mention before we we say goodbye or anything, anything you want to just call out.
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01:13:13.870 --> 01:13:17.900
Melissa Menendez: No, just thank thank you. Thank you for for having me.
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01:13:18.360 --> 01:13:25.709
Hong Lieu: Thank you so much again. Thank you all for listening. Until next time. Y'all take care. This was Vaquero Voices. Have a good evening. Y'all take care.