The Department of Ethnic Studies UC Berkeley

Bio & Research Interests

Isabella Garcia (she/her) is a second year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley where she is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship and the Katherine Sweeney Fellowship.  Isabella received her B.A. in History and English & Creative Writing from Wellesley College in 2022, and was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow.

Isabella’s doctoral research aims to look at the roles Chicana activists have played in the broader Chicano Movement in the late twentieth century in the United States, and carefully consider why Chicanas’ marginalization in movement histories matters.  She argues that addressing their marginalization is important to understand the effects scholarly and cultural texts have on the production of young Chicanes’ identities.  She hopes her work will provide young Chicanes with key information regarding the relative obscurity Chicana activists maintain within Chicane histories, and will continue to supplement their identity formation as social beings and political subjects.

Isabella is a proud Chicana, third generation Mexican American, and first generation college student from Rancho Cucamonga, California.  She attributes her project inspirations to her family’s lived experiences and lively story-telling.

Conferences & Symposiums

Sankofa: The Legacy of Africana Studies from Charles Mills to the Class of 2022, Spring 2022, The Jordan Symposium, The Newhouse Center at Wellesley College

“Centering the Margins: History, Resistance, and Identity Formation,” Ruhlman Conference, Spring 2022, Wellesley College

“The Anti-Racist University,” Mellon Mays Northeast Regional Conference, Spring 2022, Dartmouth University

Latina Empowerment and Development Conference, Spring 2022, Harvard University

Yale Writing & Research Symposium, Spring 2021, Yale University

“Dolores Huerta: Overshadowed in Chicane Histories,” Ruhlman Conference, Spring 2021, Wellesley College

“Race, Academia and the Two Pandemics,” Mellon Mays Northeast Regional Conference, Spring 2021, Brown University

Latina Empowerment and Development Conference, Spring 2021, Harvard University

Latina Empowerment and Development Conference, Spring 2020, Harvard University