Alumni – NU Borders and Identities Collaborative

Angel Ayon

Angel Ayon (Proper Gender Pronouns: They/Them/Elle) was born and raised in Pacoima, California, and their family has roots in the San Fernando Valley since their arrival. They received their Bachelor’s of Arts in Gender and Sexuality Studies & Latina/o Studies from Northwestern University. Angel was involved with our first project working at a Chicago Westside high school where Angel first worked with young people who had been pushed out of traditional schooling.
Angel believes in restorative justice and healthy conflict mediation. They have a desire to uplift youth agency, achieve juvenile justice and live in a safe world for those on the margins. Angel currently works as a Community and Youth Organizer with Latino Equality Alliance in Boyle Heights, California. They are also involved with the Boyle Heights Building Healthy Communities collaborative by helping advocate for a healthy school climate and create LGBTQ+ inclusive spaces.

Jorge Buendia

My name is Jorge Buendia and I graduated from Northwestern in the Spring of 2017. I am currently working for Google in Chicago. I was looped into the work the NU Borders and Identities Collaborative was doing after taking a Decolonizing Education course with Professor Carrion in the fall of my Senior year. As a first-generation college student and son of immigrant parents, excelling in education to me was always seen as the ultimate priority and what in my eyes would make sure my parents struggle was not in vain. However, this course really helped me debunk all those deeply-ingrained ideologies/tropes of what success is for students of color like myself and pushed my critical thinking skills to extremes I had not envisioned. This all culminated in my involvement with the northshore high school students on the 2017 Latinx Summit held at their school. That entire experience of serving as support for the students as they developed their own projects from the ground up was truly impactful and helped me discover a passion I intend on pursuing in the future. My only regret is that I did not come across this Collective until my Senior year, right as it was establishing itself.

Katherine Castillo

I joined NU Borders & Identities during my sophomore year while taking Urban Education with Professor Carrion. I was drawn to NU Borders & Identities because my experiences in Chicago Public Schools informed me that the quality of education was connected with unequal power relations in the city. A high-quality education was not the norm for all students and seeing that impact those I love in the city made me want to join this program to share my knowledge. NU Borders & Identities gave me an opportunity to share my knowledge and utilize what I was learning in the classroom to the communities that I was surrounded by. NU Borders and Identities has helped me navigate my own life and inform the different ways that I can make an impact in my communities moving forward. After graduation, I worked for the Spark Program in Chicago where I earned about how non-profits play a role in Chicago Public Schools and how critical it is to listen to young people in order to shape the future of communities in Chicago.

Dani Guerrero

My name is Dani Guerrero and I’m an alumnus of NU. I graduated, somehow, with a degree in creative writing in 2017 and am currently working at a non-profit that provides resources, services, and bonding opportunities to children with incarcerated parents. I also still write (mostly for myself) short stories about growing up in Miami and Havana.

I joined Borders and Identities after taking a decolonizing education class with Alejandro my senior year. I liked that we got to work with communities instead of just creating research about them. I was also just really frustrated with academia my senior year, because I felt that it was so strictly policed within the university and inaccessible, even when it was supposed to be about/for communities of color. Working for a non-profit is frustrating most of the time. I want to stay true to the person I am: I want to remain accountable, to hold others accountable, to resist the respectability politics associated with non-profit work—and the gross neoliberal circle-jerk that is nonprofit networking—but that means I’m often at odds with the organization I work for. I am trying to strike a balance: I do not want to become complicit, but I also must consider my emotional well-being, as well as the impact of my words on my co-workers.

Lately, I have been thinking about what I responded to and what I needed most when I was just starting to think critically about systems of oppression. What I come back to is the gentleness and patience of those who guided me through new concepts. When I hear that incarceration is apolitical, that we do not need to think about race or gender constructs to work with the community we serve, that these families are incapable of understanding those concepts, that the prison system does not need to be challenged or changed, I really do want to set the office on fire. But then I remember I probably would have said that same BS in high school. I think about how Alejandro pushed back on me as a student, his patience and love

as a teacher, and it reminds me that I want to do the same for my community. I don’t know if I will be successful, but I want to try because I still believe that radical learning can take place outside the university system.

Arturo Muñoz

I’m Arturo A. Muñoz, a Learning Sciences PhD student in Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy. My participation in the Borders and Identities Collaborative began with the Summer 2018 Institute. I joined the project because of my principal interest in the design and documentation of political education programs, and particularly those that privilege young people’s ways of thinking and knowing. I am grateful to be able to witness and become a part of the Collaborative’s legacy, and look forward to being a part of the bright future that this Collaborative’s work strives to make possible.

Cinthya Rodriguez

NU Borders & Identities was created my final year at Northwestern, as a labor of love for our people by students at the University and Professor Carrion. I’m the product of 12+ years of Chicago Public Schools education, which ecompasses both my working class support for strong public education and the reality of white-washed learning. Holding these different power dynamics, Ethnic Studies in our Barrios made space to work with an amazing group of young Black and brown students in [a Chicago neighborhood] to ask questions and create research grounded in our lived experiences. This was our contribution to building a larger ethnic studies movement in Chicago. Currently, I’m applying what I learned through Ethnic Studies at NU to my role as the Lead Organizer at Centro de Trabajadores Unidos on the Southeast Side, at the other end of the lake. Working as an immigration and labor organizer, I continue the working of community and popular education.

Edgar Sanchez

I’m from Portland, Oregon and love to play Super Smash Brothers. My goals in life are to be a high school history teacher and a dad. I love being around youth and nothing beats working for their success. Working and learning alongside Professor Alejandro Carrión was one of the highlights of my Northwestern experience. I learned that the best learning is coupled with political action. With YPAR, my goal was to learn and engage with Latinx high school students and to serve the Latinx community with them. In the Fall of 2018, I spent time helping high school students begin their projects.

I’m a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago and grew up in Evanston. When I was a junior at a northshore high school, I worked on the Latinx Summit board as a facilitator. As a facilitator I created workshops and presentations with NU YPAR students. This carried into my senior year as well, it was a more than highlight of my high school career. While working with YPAR, I was able to discover new research techniques as well as strengthen my research skills. Working with YPAR allowed me to engage in dialogue with amazing people full of knowledge and wisdom. YPAR was a space were I was comfortable to speak my truth, as well as making meaningful relationships with my peers at YPAR. I hope to engage in YPAR during college and work with Chicago youth.

Jocelyn Segura

Litzy

My name is Litzy a junior at ETHS class of 2020. I worked on the ETHS Vision Statement. Borders means somewhere where one can pass through whether that’d be physically or mentally. Identity is what make a person who they are. I joined because i’m interested on learning and expanding my knowledge on borders and identities.