Liliana Montalvo, a graduated senior at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), has been selected for a 2012-13 U.S. Student Fulbright award, which will fund a year of research in Mexico City where she will study never-before-seen documents relating to the 1940s-1960s Bracero Project.<\/p>\n
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was really excited to receive the Fulbright award,\u201d said Montalvo, who received her bachelor\u2019s degree in history from CSULB on Thursday. \u201cI feel humbled by such an award. I know this is a prestigious prize. I feel happy, proud and even ecstatic. It is a great opportunity I never thought I\u2019d have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montalvo leaves for her Fulbright experience in Mexico City in August and is slated to return in spring 2013. While there, she will receive access to Mexican government documents about the bracero program that recently have been digitized and made available to scholars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are documents pertaining to the 1940s through the 1960s,\u201d Montalvo explained. \u201cThese records trace more than 500,000 Mexican citizens who left their country. This access enables me to write a history of the bracero program with documents never used before.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, Montalvo had not heard about the bracero program (named for the Spanish term bracero or \u201cstrong-arm\u201d), which was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements initiated by a 1942 exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico for the importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico to the United States.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until she watched a documentary titled \u201cHarvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program\u201d that she became aware of the program\u2019s notorious abuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked by what I saw,\u201d Montalvo recalled. \u201cAlong with classmate Aniela Lopez and the History Student Association, we began a \u2018penny drive\u2019 among the other students to raise awareness of the bracero program. Then we began to interact with the bracero program participants and hearing their stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until I began to research the bracero program that I discovered by talking to my mother that my grandfather was a bracero working in Riverside,\u201d she added. \u201cIt really created a personal connection to the project. Even though my grandfather passed away when I was a child, I felt like I learn a piece of his story whenever I interview another bracero.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montalvo admits she never expected to be chosen for a Fulbright award when she first enrolled at CSULB. \u201cYet it would not have happened if I had not enrolled here,\u201d Montalvo noted. \u201cI\u2019m glad I came here for the support I have received. The department has backed every research idea I have had for the last four years, and that support has been invaluable. I really feel that I owe much of whatever success I achieve through this Fulbright to the support I received from the History Department at Cal State Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her history professors believe she is truly deserving of the Fulbright. \u201cIn winning this award, Liliana has demonstrated the skills that she has learned as a history major,\u201d said Jane Dabel, associate professor of history. \u201cIn particular, this award illustrates her strong research capabilities and her extensive experience in conducting oral history interviews. Liliana is fluent in Spanish and already has first-hand knowledge of Mexican culture and history as demonstrated by her McNair Scholar research project as well as her work on the Bracero Oral History project,\u201d Dabel continued. \u201cHer volunteer work with former braceros provides evidence of her outgoing nature and her curiosity about other cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n
One highlight of Montalvo\u2019s CSULB career was her organization with fellow student Aniela Lopez of 15 history students to initiate the Braceros Oral History Project, which was designed to interview surviving braceros and their family members in California and Mexico. Igmen helped the project earn IRA (instructional research activities) funding.<\/p>\n
Montalvo has learned that recording oral histories is much different than reading documents. \u201cThis program has allowed me to inquire into the lives of the braceros in a way that documents won\u2019t let you,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople let me into their lives. I was a total stranger yet they let me in to ask personal, intimate questions. To be able to do that and have them reciprocate is an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dabel believes in Montalvo\u2019s Fulbright success. \u201cI am quite proud to have Lili represent us as a \u2018citizen ambassador\u2019 to the citizens of Mexico,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel confident that she will engage in meaningful ways with the community where she is working. We plan to keep in touch with Liliana through Facebook posts while she is Mexico. She will do weekly updates to keep us posted on her adventures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program was created to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and countries participating in the program through educational and cultural exchanges. The U.S. Student Fulbright Program currently awards approximately 1,800 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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