Connie Mesquita Oral History, 2004

[00:00:00] Elizabeth Uhlig:
This is an oral history with Connie Mesquita. Today is December 8, 2004. I'm in Connie's office in the Multicultural Center at Lane Community College. This is Elizabeth Uhlig, and I'm the archivist.

To get started, Connie, could you tell me about your name? Have you always been called Connie?

[00:00:21] Connie Mesquita:
Actually, yes. My given name is actually Consepcion Marin Mesquita. But not even in my family do they call me Consepcion. When I went to kindergarten, it was the first time that I even heard my name Consepcion. And the kindergarten teacher was calling everybody out. And she called out Consepcion, and I didn't respond, and called it out again. I didn't respond. And then she finally sent my last name, and then I go, oh, here. And then she asked me how come I wasn't responding. I go, that's not my name. So from that point on, she actually called me Connie. At home, I was never called Connie either until after school. And I was called Oera. And Oera is just a nickname that means fair skin. In the Latino family, there's lots of nicknames that are sometimes given. And that was mine. And that's what they always call me.

[00:01:31] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Do they still call you that?

[00:01:32] Connie Mesquita:
Even to this day. That and Connie. That and Connie.

[00:01:36] Elizabeth Uhlig:
So where were you born? Can you tell me something about your family, your parents?

[00:01:42] Connie Mesquita:
Yes. I was born in Phoenix, Arizona. And we lived in what we call the Barrios, in low-income housing. And for the most part, that's mainly where I grew up. But in the earlier years, when I was an infant, we lived also with my father's mother, because I never knew my grandfather. He had passed away already by that time. And we lived with them in their small little house until we were able to get into the low-income housing. And we lived there until we all actually grew up there. And all four of my brothers married and left that project. We were living in a small area where there was a park close by, and we could always walk to it. And the neighborhood kids, it was a mixed project area. And so we were among a very diversified clientele there. And so I had friends that were African-American, Chinese, Japanese, other Mexican-Americans. And it was a very mixed group.

So the neighborhood school was low school. I just loved that low school. It was that two-story brick building. And so it's the same school that my parents also went to, the same school. And I was the last one that also had some of the same teachers that they had had when they were growing up. My parents never graduated from elementary school. My father went as far as third grade. My mother went as far as sixth grade. And one of the reasons my father never continued is because they were very poor. And so clothing, and it's from a large family because he comes from a family of 14. And so he would go to school without shoes because it was in his turn to get shoes. And so they didn't want him to come without shoes. So donations that are given to the schools like that, they gave him some shoes, but the shoes were way too big.

And the kids were making fun of him and like this. And so it was very embarrassing. So when he went home, he ran home, told his parents he was never going back to school again. And he never did. So that's why he only went as far as the third grade.

[00:04:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Is your family, what's your ethnic background? Are you from Mexico or your grandparents' parents?

[00:04:26] Connie Mesquita:
Actually, my two grandfathers are originally from Mexico, from the northern part of Mexico, from Sonora. One came from Madalena and the other one came from Hermosillo. My grandmothers lived on this side of the border in the United States and around Tucson. My mother's parents lived around Tucson. And my father's mother, close to Tucson, got in an area that's called the Picacho, a mountainous area, a desert area. And so anyway, my family had always lived there even before the borders had moved. So the family had been there for a long, long time. What's unique about my mother's side of the family, though, is that her grandfather, yeah, her grandfather is from Sisco Marine, and he had a relay station where the stagecoach would come by and they'd change courses or stay the night, and that's what he had.

And they owned that property there, which of course now we don't own it because the state bought it away many years ago and now it's a state park. And of course, they didn't get much for the property at the time. But it was interesting because he had that plus when he was much younger, he and his two twin brother and sister were taken by the Native Americans at that time. It was during the time, of course, during the times when they were rounding up all of the Native Americans to put them into reservations in there. And there were a lot of killings. Anyway, they took my great-grandfather and his siblings. They returned, or they found the two younger siblings, the twins, but he remained with the Native Americans. And about age 15 to 16, his Native American mother took him to a road and pointed in the direction she told him to go back to his people.

And he came back and he was taken in by a family and raised them. But he hardly ever talked about his experiences when he was living there for many years with a Native American, so we don't know that much about it.

[00:06:54] Elizabeth Uhlig:
That's interesting. I wonder why they would have, if he was not Native American himself, why they took him?

[00:07:03] Connie Mesquita:
Well, because at that time when they were interning all of the Native Americans in the reservations, they were killing a lot of the women and the children, so there weren't many children that time. So they started taking children also to raise a servant as well.

[00:07:23] Elizabeth Uhlig:
When you grew up, did you speak Spanish or English at home?

[00:07:28] Connie Mesquita:
Well, actually, I was bilingual, and Spanish is my first language, but I grew up speaking mostly English because by this time I'm the youngest of six, and by this time all of my family had already gone to school and like this, and so they were coming home speaking English, and so I picked up the English more so. And both my parents, even though they didn't go too far in their education, they both spoke English as well because they were working, you know, and my mother was working as a domestic worker, and all of her employers were English speakers, so she learned English very well, and so I was bilingual pretty much. In fact, they made fun of me because of my Spanish. They didn't think I had very good Spanish.

Living in that area, you said you lived in Navario, in your area there with people from African-American. Yeah, very diverse. Yeah, how did that, do you think that had an impact on your future career

[00:08:42] Elizabeth Uhlig:
and choices that you made coming?

[00:08:44] Connie Mesquita:
Well, I think somewhat, yeah. There were certain sections that eventually naturally were divided up. Even though my area, which was called Marcos Veniza, that was the project that we lived in, there were other projects that were not that far from where we lived and were predominantly African-American, and other areas that a few more Asians lived in. But in my area, it was pretty much mixed. And I think that I grew up with thinking this was the way it was, life was like this, and it was all this diversity around me. I didn't think anything of it. And I really didn't think anything of it until, let's see, I graduated in California. I went from kindergarten to eighth grade at Lowell School, and then went to Phoenix Union. And so I grew up with all of the students that I had met while I was in school. So we grew up together, went on to high school.

But my last year in high school, I went to San Jose, California, because my family had moved over there for new way of life. And so I ended up finishing graduating in San Jose. And then from there, I returned back to Arizona, because my parents had come back to Phoenix again, because one of my grandfathers had gotten very ill. My mother returned, and so the family returned, and I stayed with a cousin. When I returned, I was 17. When I graduated, I couldn't plan a job, kept looking. And while I had been in school, in high school, I had heard about the Job Corps. And so I decided that in one of the mornings that I was out looking for jobs, I went into the office of the Job Corps, and I talked to them to find out, you know, what was it. And they had talked about more schooling, and I really had wanted more schooling. And since I wasn't having much fun in a job,

I asked them to come to my house and talk with my parents about it so that I could go to this vocational school. And so they always said that they would always send you close by, not too far from your hometown. So I think it was three months later, and they had to do a lot of talking to my parents to convince them, and I kept bugging them. And they finally signed me up.

Then we received a letter that, three months later, that I was going to Tunpoint. They didn't say any more than that, that I was going to Tunpoint for vocational training, and at that time I was interested in medical technology.

[00:11:29] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Tenpoint, was that back to school?

[00:11:32] Connie Mesquita:
Tunpoint. So I said, well, since they said that it was always close by, I figured it was in Arizona. We didn't find any place named Tunpoint. And I said, well, maybe it sounds like Texas. So we looked for Texas, and there was nothing there. And where is this Tunpoint? So I finally called the office and asked them, where is this place, and what is it? And they said it was in Oregon, in Astoria, Oregon. I go, Oregon, where is that? Because I had never been anywhere other than just California. Back and forth, growing up we were migrant workers also. So every summer, basically, we went to California, to San Jose, followed all the fruits and the crops, and then before school started, my mother and the children, we all came back, and my uncles and my older brothers, they stayed and finished off. So anyway, I ended up in Astoria, Oregon,

when I looked in the map, and my mother got really frightened, said, are you sure you want to go look out where you're going? It was like the other side of the world. And I got excited, and I said, oh, yeah, yeah. So I ended up coming to Astoria Job Course Center, and so it's on the peninsula of Oregon on the Columbia River. It used to be an old naval base, and right up the tip is the Coast Guard. So that's where I ended up going, and I was there for about two and three months, I guess, two years and three months. While I was there, I studied vocational training. I did one year of mechanical drafting, and the following year, I did business and clerical and dental assistant. I was their guinea pig. They were just starting the dental assistant program, and I was their guinea pig for that, and so I was the first one that finished it. And I must admit, I did use all three when I finished.

I helped design their bowling alley before I left, and they picked my plans over two others, and so I was real proud of that, but that was the last time I ever used those skills. And I ended up coming to Eugene because by the time I had finished my two programs, well, three programs at Tongue Point, I still wasn't ready to go back home. I still wanted more schooling, and I knew that people were going to college, but I didn't know how they were going to college. I didn't know about scholarships. I didn't know about grants, but I went to go talk to one of my favorite counselors there. His name was Mr. McQueen Steve. Ah, yes, Steve McQueen, yes, that was his name. And I told him that I wanted to go to college. How do people go to college? And he had said, you know, I don't know how you missed it, but there was some recruiting done here just the other day from Upward Bound.

Upward Bound had come to recruit at the various job courts because it was the big to-do for disadvantaged programs, and that's what they were called at that time. And so he says, here's an application, fill it out, bring it to me tomorrow morning because tomorrow the committee is deciding on who's going to get to go. So the following day I came to check with him again after I had given him. He said, just come back in the afternoon. And I guess that I had been there for so long and people knew me, and I was so involved with so many things there in the job court. Everybody already knew me in the committee, and they said they just took a look at my application and they just looked at it and said, well, we'll have to discuss this one. This one's going. And they just put it aside, and that's how I got to go. There were 20 of us, 20 of us from Job Corps that came.

[00:15:43] Elizabeth Uhlig:
And then you came to the University of Oregon?

[00:15:46] Connie Mesquita:
The University of Oregon under Upward Bound, and it was in the summer. It was June of 69. And so a lot of the women that came with me during that time, a lot of us did finish, but there were a few, yes. There were like five or six that didn't finish. But for the most part, the majority of us actually finished undergraduate school. A number of us stayed, and we finished our masters as well.

[00:16:15] Elizabeth Uhlig:
What did you study? What were your majors in? Graduate and undergraduate?

[00:16:18] Connie Mesquita:
Well, my undergraduate was, not cooperative, community services and public affairs. That's what it was then. And then I received my masters at Western Oregon University, which was then Oregon College of Education.

[00:16:37] Elizabeth Uhlig:
In Monmouth? Uh-huh, in Monmouth.

[00:16:39] Connie Mesquita:
And I got my masters in counseling with the hearing impaired. How did you become interested in the deaf

[00:16:46] Elizabeth Uhlig:
for working with the hearing impaired?

[00:16:48] Connie Mesquita:
When I was at the University of Oregon, I changed my major at least five different times. But it all still came down to working with people in some shape or form. And I had been working with one of my roommates. She had started a program that was called Exceptional Friendship Program. It was like a big brother, big sister program for adolescents with disabilities. And so when she finished, she passed it over, and I then was hired to be the administrator for the program because I had been in it for so long, too. And when I was administering it, I had an assistant also, and she was in speech pathology. And so we used to do workshops for volunteers and match the students with the participants and also educate them in the disability. And mainly they did social kinds of things and went out into the community and did things with us. Well, this one year we received this one student

that I couldn't match up with anyone because that student happened to be hearing impaired and could only communicate in sign language. Well, neither one of us also had sign language, and none of the volunteers did. So instead of just telling them, I'm sorry, we can't accommodate you, we both decided to start taking sign language. And so we did. And it was the teacher. Her name was Shirley. I can't remember the last name now. She was really a lot of fun. And she taught us sign language. And it was in a huge class because it wasn't that popular at that time. Anyway, we became very good at it. And so we took turns being the mentor for this one student. And we had a great time. And I just loved it so much. I really loved it. I loved doing some of the teaching. I loved some of the counseling part of that. And I loved the sign language. And sign language teacher then told me

there was a program in Monmouth, a master program working with the hearing impaired. And there was also a teacher program as well. And so she said there is a summer program that you can begin. And there are scholarships. So I applied. And I got it. So I went to Monmouth. And that's where I started.

[00:19:19] Elizabeth Uhlig:
When did you come to Lane then?

[00:19:22] Connie Mesquita:
What happened then between when you graduated from Monmouth

[00:19:26] Elizabeth Uhlig:
and coming to Lane?

[00:19:28] Connie Mesquita:
I did my, let's see, I did my two years. And I did my internship in San Francisco. I asked them to, that wherever I did my internship, my practicum for my master's, I wanted to work with the Latino community if it was possible. Or if there were any such thing, because I really wasn't sure. Obviously here, I did work with maybe about four students in the school for the deaf that happened to be Latino. And I taught them about their own history, their heritage, because since they were separated from the family because it was a residential home, they didn't get that upbringing that normally we do in our normal environment, you know, and to be able to share and speak the language. So I taught them, in sign language, the Spanish words for certain things. And they then communicated some of that. It was great. I loved it. So that's why I requested that whoever I work with,

I wanted to work with a counselor who happened to be Hispanic. And they sent me to vocational rehabilitation. I was stationed in the Oakland area in California. And my head supervisor happened to be Hispanic. And so I worked with him. And I worked in the areas of Fremont, Oakland, Hayward, San Francisco. And I can't remember one other place. But during my time that I was there, I did work with a variety of hearing impaired, a few sprinkling Latino students. But one of my things was I was also assigned to Ohlonee College. It was a junior college in Fremont. And so I worked there again with another hearing impaired counselor. And that counselor was only sign language. And so I had to sign all the time to him. And one of the occasions, and I just remember as if it was yesterday, there was this Dominican student who came to Ohlonee College that wanted to take classes there.

But he grew up in the Dominican Republic, where he was hearing impaired. But he did the oral method, which meant he was reading lit. But in Spanish. And he didn't know any sign language and he didn't know English. That counselor, the school counselor who was hearing impaired was English only and only sign language, even though I did use my lips also as I was talking with him. So here I am. I was placed in a position. I didn't know I could do this. I was talking in Spanish to the young man, signing in English to the counselor, and vice versa when they were talking to one another. And at first I was scared that I couldn't do this, but I did. I was so proud of myself.

[00:22:34] Elizabeth Uhlig:
When you sign in English, is it different from signing in Spanish? Are the signs the same?

[00:22:40] Connie Mesquita:
No, the signs are not the same. And each country has their own sign language system. It's not universal like most people would think it is. It's not. They're trying to develop one, but it hasn't really happened yet.

[00:22:52] Elizabeth Uhlig:
So in that situation, you were like tri-lingual then?

[00:22:56] Connie Mesquita:
Yes, yes. So I'm using both sides of my brain, Sam.

But I was really interested. I was really into it at the time that I was very good at the time. Many times I was placed in the position where the counselor I was under, he had to speak on the telephone, and he didn't have a TTY on his phone at that time. So I answered the phone, I'm listening, and I'm signing to the person. And then I'm also talking on the phone when he's signing to me, and I'm talking and responding to the other person on the line. And so that's why I got to be real good at it.

[00:23:40] Elizabeth Uhlig:
What brought you back to Eugene?

[00:23:42] Connie Mesquita:
After I finished there, yes, they offered me a job to stay there in Oakland, but I wanted to come back to Eugene. Eugene was my home. So when I left, I was living in a house that I had lived in for a long time, and I had several roommates. And we had been roommates for a very long time, so I asked them to save my place while I was gone. So when I came back, I came back to that house. And I knew that LCCU was going to be having some openings coming up because I had visited LCC before. I'd never attended college here, but I had come and talked to the counseling department, and I started to get to know some of the people there. And so that's why I knew there were some openings coming up. When I came back, I worked at Harmony House. It was a CEDA appointed position.

[00:24:36] Elizabeth Uhlig:
You remember CEDA? C-E-T-A?

[00:24:39] Connie Mesquita:
Yeah, again, one of those programs. And so I was counselor for ex-hospital patients that were coming out of the mental hospital and were coming back into the community. So I was working with them, and more like leisure awareness also in integrating them back into the community, teaching them about leisure, how to keep themselves busy so they don't become sick again. And so I did that for about almost, what, a year and a half. And I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. I got to know quite a few of the people in the program. And then when that terminated, because you could only do it for two years, when that terminated, I worked at Valley River Inn as a hostess while I was waiting for an opening to happen here. And then finally did, I applied, and I applied at the counseling department. At that time, there were three positions, one for a regular counselor, one for the career employment,

and the other one was a new position that was going to start up, and it was for the disability services. It's when the new act came to be on disabilities.

Well, somebody was hired for the regular counseling job, somebody that had already been here before, and I accepted the career employment and counseling part of it because it had hard money. The other one was still on grants, and at the moment I couldn't think about grants in case I didn't have a job the following year. But my best friend was hired for that position, and so we've known each other. We were hired the same day. We've known each other since then, and she's already retired. She's been retired for quite some time, V. Jo Asheville.

[00:26:50] Elizabeth Uhlig:
What year was that?

[00:26:52] Connie Mesquita:
We started in 1979, January 2nd, 1979. So when you were working with a job, this job training, job... And the career employment.

[00:27:09] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Did you serve all students, or did you start focusing on Hispanic students?

[00:27:16] Connie Mesquita:
No, no, no, no. It already existed in the counseling department. They had the whole career center as they have it right now. But at that time, it was much smaller, and the counseling department was much larger. And at that time, we didn't have the career center. We just had a counter where we had jobs that would come in and they'd call in. Plus, I also started teaching job-getting skills classes. So I did that and talked with employers. And because I had my counseling degree as well, for some reason, counseling decided that I was going to be counseling all the students of color. For some reason, they didn't feel comfortable in counseling with them because they didn't think that they have the skills or the know-how. Didn't have enough cultural competency back then. And so I did quite a few of those. We did have an international counselor at that time,

but they still also referred quite a few of the international students also to me as well. Not as many as the other counselor was receiving, but I also did some of those, as well as the career information. Then later, I started developing the career center. We hired another person part-time, and she and I then started developing the career center also, in which it started blossoming. And then we needed more room. And so then we were in the center building at that time, and we were under the stairwell. That's where we were located. And on the other side of the stairwell was part of counseling, and counseling was in the both corridors at that time when it was the old floor plan. Eventually, they opened up the area where the tutoring center is currently. And it was that one huge corner. Then that became the career center and the employment area,

and counseling still remained in the two corridors. And then student activities went under the stairwell.

[00:29:40] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Okay, so I believe you were talking about the career center that you had developed?

[00:29:45] Connie Mesquita:
Yes, and it became so big that eventually, the person that we had hired part-time, we hired her full-time. And my job then was split then. We had her do the career center, and I was doing full-time part of the counseling, which was a small portion then, and the career center, no, the career employment office. Plus, I started a job skills laboratory, or lab, in which we did some job-getting skills. We did interviewing, resume writing. We practiced with videotapes, how to practice interviewing, and when I gave immediate feedback like that. And then I started teaching a class in those areas. And so it started growing and growing. And so eventually, there was a physical move again, and they made the career center bigger. They moved me out of the center building into the forum building in one corner, the east corner. Northeast corner was the job skills lab, and I was doing that full-time,

doing lots of workshops, teaching class, and still doing some of those kinds of things. They eventually took the employment section out of it and moved it over to, at that time, financial aid. So financial aid had that area for a while also, and I was doing job skills full-time over here. And I was also counseling, and then there was some programs that had been developed then. We brought in Spanish speakers from other countries. We had some that came from Costa Rica. They were the firefighters, Los Pomeros, that Dean Pierce, no, not Piercey. Pierce, I can't remember his first name. He was Dean, Associate Dean. And then he developed other outside programs also, and they brought some students from Mexico also, and they were here for a full year, in which they were learning agricultural mechanics, in which they were being taught how to fix the big caps

and the diesel engines and all those areas, plus learning English. So they hired some people that were bilingual to teach those courses. I was the counselor assigned to working with them, and so I taught my classes bilingual with them. So all of this was just kind of developing. In the meantime, I was still also working with my friend Bijo, who was developing then what is now disability services. And I was still sometimes being called in to talk with some of the hearing parents' students also. But eventually they forgot about me and my skills because then they started hiring the interpreters. And so then people just forgot that I had the sign language. So I'm very rusty now. But I keep it up by signing some songs so that I don't entirely forget it. From the job skills lab, when those programs finished, then the first budget cuts came. And I believe it was either 1980 or 81.

I think it was closer to 81. The first budget cuts came, and they felt that I wasn't developing enough FTE in the job skills lab because those classes were being offered free. Well, so they closed that program down, and I was eventually moved up to the Multicultural Center.

But it wasn't as quickly as that. During the time while I was still there and part of counseling, and I'm going to go back a little bit in history. Around 1973 is when the Multicultural Center was developed. And there was another lady by the name of Pat Creel who worked in the counseling department, and she was classified, I believe. I'm not sure if her title was academic advisor then. I'm really not sure, but I know that she was a classified personnel. And in 1973, the students then were our students of color that were seeking a place to feel comfortable and meet and have student clubs and like this, but there was nothing on campus for them at that time. So it was a time of sit-ins and all of that, so they went to the administration and they asked for a space for themselves to be able to do some of these activities. And as a matter of fact, I do believe Frank Merrill was a student then,

and he could have been one of the students then doing sit-ins and whatnot. There were some other former counselors also who were students at that time that were involved with some of that. And they were eventually given in the center building on the fourth floor what then was the Biorhythms Lab. Yeah, so we had the Biorhythms Lab, and they were given that corner as their space to begin their meeting spaces. And it wasn't called the Multicultural Center then, but it was their area. And so the students clubs and took turns as to what times they were having that for their meetings and they were supposed to sign up on the door like this. And then as usual, things get a little messed up, and so they started squabbling about among themselves as to who was taking it more time than others. So counseling decided that they needed a staff person up there to help them

with the scheduling of the room and kind of guiding them. And that's when Pat Creel was chosen over the summer and was placed in there without the students' knowledge, and the students got very upset at first when they came back in the fall and there was a staff member up there now telling them how things were going to be run. But it was okay. Pat got their, you know, gained their trust, and she was able to work with all of the students. So there was the Latino students, and I think it was, yeah, Latino Student Union and then as well the Native American group and the African American group. And she worked with all of them. It was usually a very small group. There wasn't a budget for it. Everything they had was given to them, borrowed, or whatever in that area. So it was a mismatch of office, you know, furnishings and whatever they had.

They did a lot of bake sales in order to be able to do events. There was no money given to that. There was not a budget. But they managed to do a lot of things, and Pat did a great job with that. For ten years she did that. And then she was getting ill, and she finally retired medically after ten years. Then the Multicultural Center was closed for about a year, a whole year the whole center was closed.

And I remember also social science because that corner was their biorhythm lab. They kept fighting and wanting it back. And during that one year they really fought hard to get it back, but they were not given the social science, were not given that lab. And so Ken Gorham was another counseling personnel, and Ken was then working in careers and leadership and other things in the counseling department. He was placed up in the Multicultural Center the following year because the community, the community of color, was complaining that our students really needed that space. They needed a place to come together to have their student unions and events and whatever. So that put pressure on the administration to open it up again to them. So Ken Gorham was placed up there. And during that time it was an interim job. I was still in the job skills lab.

They were going to also redo the position when they were putting it up because it needed some change and it had been classified. Now they were looking at it as it needed to be a faculty position. And so they redid the whole classification for what was going to be happening in the Multicultural Center.

[00:39:00] Elizabeth Uhlig:
This was in the mid-80s?

[00:39:02] Connie Mesquita:
Yeah, this was in the early 80s. Because like I said, I think it was 80 or 81. I can't remember. I think it was more 81. And I was still in job skills. And then the cuts came and so they were eliminating programs and my job skills lab was being eliminated. And I had bumping rights as we go through RIF. And I bumped Kent from the Multicultural Center and he came back into the counseling department doing what he was doing, which he loved doing what he was doing. So for him and I, we were very different. So it was okay with each of us because we knew what we both liked to do. And that's how we ended up in the Multicultural Center. And I've been in the Multicultural Center since then. We've done all kinds of activities since we were up there. Now, while we were going through all of these transitions and Multicultural Center was under counseling,

when the transition was, before I transitioned into the Multicultural Center, there was a new department that was created that was called Specialized, let's see, Specialized Student Department. I have one of these old ones here, Specialized Student Services, when they reorganized some of the departments. And that department was created. And so they took the Multicultural Center out of the counseling department and placed it under Student Services, Specialized Student Services. And they did the same thing with the Disability Services also. They moved it into that area. By that time, it had grown real big also. Now, remember I told you there wasn't much of a budget before? Okay, well, when it came under this other department, we were under Sandy Ng.

[00:41:05] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Sandy Ng was? Or was?

[00:41:09] Connie Mesquita:
Well, Sandy Ng at that time. And so she requested from the department some budget money, because how could we run some programs that we didn't sell? We were given $1,000 to be divided up between the Multicultural Center and the Disability Services. That did not go very far. And before I could even touch it, it was gone because Disability Services required a lot of budget for hiring note takers, interpreters, and more. So we ended up with nothing again. So eventually, as the years went on, we got a couple more thousand. And then eventually, we were reorganized again in the whole school. And Specialized Services then was divided up again. And Disability Services went with Specialized Student Services, which was still under Sandy Ng. And the Multicultural Center went into the department, which was then Student Activities, which is now Student Life and Leadership Development.

So then we now are in this area. And that was the best thing that could have happened to the Multicultural Center, because by rights, that's really where we belong. We're part of student life. And Jay Jones was still with us at that time. And so he was with us for another two or three years before he finally retired and before Barbara Delanski came on. We managed to get again a few more thousands of dollars, which is great, because then we finally were able to do more programming. But all the programming that we did, even at that time, we did a lot, even though we didn't have a budget to work with. We did a lot of free things. We got things donated. I used a community of color a lot to bring them in. And I spread myself, not from that one little corner, but I spread myself out in the fourth floor and took over the lobby area, the studying area,

when we were doing events, or we were doing an open house. We did social hours, which we always had food that brought in a lot of people, always a lot of people, not only students, but also faculty came in. And we did a lot of presentations. We did storytelling. We did art shows. We invited storytellers from the community. It was a lot of fun, because I didn't have staff. It was just myself at that time. I didn't have anyone working with me with the Native Americans, with the African Americans, with the Latinos. And I wasn't working with any of the Asian students then, because we can never get them together. And I believe for a brief time, Willakalee Aloha had a group that he was advising. I think it was mostly the Pacific Islanders. But I couldn't do that one more step for them to bring him in.

[00:44:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Did you work with students or with foreign students?

[00:44:40] Connie Mesquita:
With all of them.

[00:44:41] Elizabeth Uhlig:
With faculty and staff also?

[00:44:43] Connie Mesquita:
Maybe with the students. And I collaborated with some of the faculty in the things that we were doing, the cultural events we were doing, so that it could coincide with some of the things that they were teaching at the time. Like, well, before Jane Benjamin, it was Joe Searle who was teaching geography. And he did a lot of geography with Mexico and like that. And then there was Steve Candy. He was part-time at the time. Some of the things that he was doing also. And in the English department also, some of their literature, what they had. We didn't have ethnic studies at that time, because when I came, it had just been cut. There was a department at one time, but it had already been dissolved by the time I came. The only one that was around then was Bill Powell. And he was now in the English department. So I did talk with him a lot also. And so whatever we did,

I always had the students helping me. I was the only person. I didn't have secretary. I had lots of student work studies. I had lots of work studies. And with the work study, with their help, because they were invested in what we were doing, we were able to do a great deal with their help. And since I didn't have a budget, I would always go to student government to request funds every year for doing the social hour. And for bringing in people, speakers or artists like that, I would always depend on student government. And they were always very generous with me in order for me to be able to do some of this. So that's why I have a lot of pictures that stems way back when. During that time also in the early, let's see, it would be 84. I have pictures of some of 84.

Julie Baker had gone to a leadership, women's and community college leadership development. She had a project to do, and she enjoyed working with international students. She brought the idea to Mason Davis about working with our international students and tying it in with the Multicultural Center. And we decided that, because I was seeing this in the Multicultural Center, that the students wanted to be so much a part of it. And all of them were working together, the international students and our students of color, they worked real well together, and each contributing their culture to it. And there was no animosity. And people kept telling me, it doesn't work, it'll never work, they're too different. Well, for some reason it was working. But we also saw that there was a need for some of the international students to be paired up with some of our American students

so that they could learn each other's culture better and learn the English. So Julie had this idea of doing a peer mentor, partnering an American student with an international student and doing social things together. So she and Mason got together, talked about it, and we developed the first peer mentoring program. And so it was Mason, myself, and Julie, and we did some retreats every year. We chose our mentors and some of the participants at international students. We did a retreat at the McKinsey River Lodge. It's out there on the McKinsey River.

[00:48:46] Elizabeth Uhlig:
What is it?

[00:48:48] Connie Mesquita:
It's the Catholic St. Benedict's Lodge. And so we spent a whole weekend over there. We did our own cooking together and cleaning up, and we did some leadership training and some bonding kinds of things. And this is some of the original ones that we had. And it was the first time that we also had picked

international students to coordinate the peer mentor program. This is from the torch. This is Hidehiko and Yoko. And they were our very first international student coordinators. This is Julie Baker here. I can't remember who this person is at the moment.

[00:49:39] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Hugh Henry?

[00:49:40] Connie Mesquita:
Hugh Henry, another student. And so with them, we started coordinating activities. This was the first group at the lodge. And so as you can see, it was a very diverse group. Very diverse. Here's my son. He was very little at the time. And so anyway, with that, we did a lot of social activities together. We went to the snow. We went to the coast. We spent weekends. We did activities here. And it was very successful. Then eventually, that program was getting bigger. We were getting more international students coming because of some of this. And so then Mason wrote up another grant, and we hired a part-time person to then do a program for the international students. And that was when Pat Williams was hired. And now it was me and Pat Williams, right? I'm trying to, yeah. Later, years later, Mason did another grant and hired Frank Merrill because we didn't have that many Native Americans.

We did have a few because I worked quite a few with some of the Warm Spring Native American students, and I have lots of pictures and stuff like that. And he was hired then at that time, and he started developing the Native American program. I was still working with all of them. And as years go by, many more years go by, and then eventually we hire Greg Evans, Special Projects, and he was hired with a small business department downtown and part-time with us in student activities, and eventually he came full-time with us. So as you can see, some were hired many years later, but I was working with all of them. And even though I'm here as coordinator at the Multicultural Center, I'm still trying, and am working with all of them. And even though I also am the advisor for the Latino Student Union, I was constantly the advisor for the Latino Student Union,

and through the years also I tried to give it to another Latino faculty member to do the student club because it's time-consuming, as well as doing all the other activities, the other responsibilities that I have. And so that's how we were developing and unfolding. Over the years, has the number of students of color increased,

[00:52:17] Elizabeth Uhlig:
or how has that changed over, since for the last 20, 25 years?

[00:52:23] Connie Mesquita:
I'd say that when I first started, we had very few African Americans at that time. By that time, we were losing a lot of them. There wasn't a place for them here in terms of support, role models. We didn't have enough role models for them. A lot of them began, but then they left. There wasn't enough support, like when we had the tutoring center, the study academic learning center. They needed some of that also, and some of the other students as well. So when those started slowly developing and once we hired also Greg and Mark Harris also, Mark was a regular with us as well. And then we started getting a few more coming in. The Latino group was always the larger one, but we lost quite a few of them until we had the support services that they needed. And the Native American group started growing as well, and eventually, as you know now, it's one of the biggest ones in the state.

So we have all of that. And as we hired more faculty of color, it really makes a big difference. So then we did grow a lot more actually, a lot more, and a lot more Native African American students. Whereas before we had, there were a lot. Before I came, then it dwindled down when the ethnic studies department folded. A lot of them left. There was nothing here. And it really wasn't a very welcoming environment for a lot of the students. We didn't have...

[00:54:08] Elizabeth Uhlig:
You want me to take this off of you?

[00:54:09] Connie Mesquita:
I know it's heavy. No, that's fine.

[00:54:11] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Okay.

[00:54:15] Connie Mesquita:
And so it went up and down, depending on the budget, who was being hired, who was not, who stayed, who left. But I knew that if I didn't stay in the Multicultural Center, opening doors and helping all the students as much as I could, that we would lose a lot more. And we needed to educate our students. Michael Salmonow, who's now the head of the ethnic studies department. When he was a student here, he told me that he owes a lot of his undergraduate success directly to you.

[00:54:53] Elizabeth Uhlig:
And so what does he mean?

[00:54:55] Connie Mesquita:
How did you help Michael in particular,

[00:54:57] Elizabeth Uhlig:
and how did you work with students?

[00:55:04] Connie Mesquita:
I tried to reach them at whatever level they were. Michael had just come out of the military. It hadn't been that long when he came here. He still had a lot of heart knocks that I remember. And he needed to learn a little bit more about his culture that he didn't have at the time. So I started involving him in a lot of our cultural events. And every time I did a cultural event, I made sure there was some historical information in there that the students could identify with, that they could have a hand in, actually. And so slowly, that's how I started pulling students in. I did something in terms of giving them something to identify with, their self-esteem grows. When they were having problems with classes, I made sure they had tutors. When we didn't have tutors, I would sit down with them and help them. When they were having problems at home

or when the instructor sat down and talked with them, as a counselor. And then sometimes I had to change my hat and I had to become a parent. And so I changed hats many times, depending on what the situation really called for.

And I'm glad to say that I reached quite a few students, because a lot of those students finished school, a lot of them went on to get their masters, and a lot of them are now my networking people out in the communities. So have you kept in contact with many of these students

[00:56:42] Elizabeth Uhlig:
and they've kept in contact with you over the years?

[00:56:45] Connie Mesquita:
Hidehiko, he's back in Japan twice when he's been here in the States, he comes to see me. And he was here just this fall. No, right before fall, and unfortunately I missed him because I was off during the summer.

Benavides, Marco Benavides, he works with the state. Something similar to what I was doing, but statewide. I have one of the students that was in the first program, she has her masters in social work. She's back in Hawaii. We're keeping in touch with one another all the time. She comes to visit me during the holidays. Some students went into child care, the master program. Early prevention, so some of them are working at relief. Nursery, we have people working at Centro Latino, we have teachers, they're all over. Is that one of the most gratifying,

[00:57:50] Elizabeth Uhlig:
when you look back on your career here?

[00:57:52] Connie Mesquita:
Yes, because some of them, I really had to work a lot with them. Really had to do a lot of talking. Some of them were always on the verge of dropping out. And for some reason I was able to talk them into staying. The very few that actually dropped out, after a few years, they ended up coming back. And I helped them back, just where they had left off practically. And a lot of them finished. The other thing I was going to say is that throughout my years here in the Multicultural Center also, I often had some students or international students, at least one living at my house, as my son was growing up, because he was very young then. And so I always had an international student. And in the first group that we had of the peer mentor program, I had my first student, which was Michiko, from Japan. And then a lot of her friends, excuse me, and the young men that she met here also,

as part of the program. So she was my daughter, she became my daughter. And when she finished LCC, she went back to Japan for a couple of years, then came back to finish her schooling. And she ended up going to Monmouth, the school that I had graduated from, and her boyfriend Joseph, or upon, he was from Indonesia, and he went to OSU. So they both finished. I saw them all the time, and in the holidays they would come to my house to stay at my house, and I had other students it came to. And they eventually, when they finished, they also went back to Japan, and they married. So they're now married. I keep in contact with some of them as well. And others also that are still in the state, I have kept in contact with them, always keeping them involved in the Multicultural Center. And from what I have noticed, that has been the key for a lot of students.

As long as they stayed connected with a Multicultural Center, whether it was in the club or just coming in volunteering or dropping in during some of our social times, they managed to stay in school and go on to the universities.

Could, in addition to the peer mentoring program, now we have the Rights of Passage program.

[01:00:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

[01:00:37] Connie Mesquita:
Yes.

[01:00:37] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Are you involved in that, obviously?

[01:00:40] Connie Mesquita:
Yes. But it was not a program that I started. When we were still in the center building, and when Greg was hired, he was doing a lot of community building and trying to develop programs for some of the various students of color. After he had been with us a few years, he started what was called the Rights of Passage, and he started with the African American group. And so it was a small group at that time, and it was successful, it was great. And then a few years, I could think it was a couple of years later, because it was mostly males. He decided to start experimenting and brought in a few women also into the program. And so it got a little bit better. And it wasn't just African American students also, because then you had the biracial students also coming in as part of it. And it changed the dynamics a little bit, because in changing the dynamics,

it depended on who did they identify with, which of the parents. And so there was a lot of changing going on, but it was still a successful program. And so it was still quite a few years before I joined. The Latino part of it, which we call Puertas Adiertas, joined only four years ago. Prior to that, the Asian American program, which is now the Asian, Pan-Asian, and Pan-Asian Pacific Islander program, they started a year before we did. And UNMISTA, which is the Native American program, started the same year that we did. We didn't want to jump into the program right away, because we saw it as everybody has their own unique kinds of needs and each of the student programs, because it's focused mostly in their culture, because what we're trying to do is a cultural enrichment program. And as they go through school, they don't get their history of their own culture.

And if it is, it's very sporadic, and it's always from one perspective, which is the white perspective, and not necessarily from the perspective of what happened in history at that time, from other points of view. And so we decided that we wanted to do it, but we wanted to do it as it fit and as it would work with our community. And so when we finally drew up a program that we thought that would be accepted by our community and that it would work, because we met with a lot of our community leaders, and we talked to them, and we came up with these ideas that we had. And so ours is a little bit different from the others in the Rights of Passage program, in that we begin our program. I recruit in the winter term for seniors in the high schools. And we recruit for the seniors first, because in the spring, we offer a one college credit class.

That tuition is wavered for them to begin college success. And that's where we cooked up with the counseling department. We would get a counselor that would work with us with our students, plus teach that one class. Then in the spring, I recruit again. And in the spring, I recruit for the summer program, which is a five-week program, plus we have another college credit class that continues from the spring. So I then start recruiting from eighth grade on up. Now, we begin eighth grade on up, because then we know they're going to become freshmen by the time fall comes around. And we feel they're at a level where they could benefit from the program that we offer in the summer. The other programs begin middle school also recruiting, but they begin at the sixth grade level. For us, we feel that at the level that we begin, we don't have as many behavioral problems, and they're ready to listen.

It's very different from what they have been having all up until this point. We did experiment in the second year. The third year, we experimented, and we took a few that were lower than eighth grade. And we found that we had to work a lot harder in keeping them interested and active in what we were doing. So we decided that, no, the cutoff for us is eighth grade, and it works a lot better for us. And everybody, the age group, you know, the gap is not so wide, and it works with our group. In our group also, we offer not only the summer college credit and the five weeks, which they go to school from nine until three. In that timeframe, they have cross-cultural classes also that they do together. A tai chi class is the very first for all of the groups, and they all come together to do the tai chi in the beginning. Then they have their history class or their literature class.

In ours, it would be the Latino history or Mexican. We try to touch on whatever makeup of students we have, whether they're from South America or the Caribbean because there is such a mixture in the Latino community also. The history that we will touch on will cover everybody. And then the literature and writing we combine together. And some of the other programs, I think that they separate it, but we combine them together. And we try to use as many of our faculty that we have working at LCC so that it doesn't get to be too expensive for us because it isn't a large budget for what we're doing. And he teaches literature, and he teaches also the grammar. And the children just love them. They just love that class.

[01:07:04] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Who teaches that?

[01:07:06] Connie Mesquita:
Jose Chavez. Jose Chavez teaches that. And the history, Jim Garcia generally teaches that. And then we have special projects. And in the special projects, it's usually what we use as our capstone for their graduation. So all the groups does a special project. It could be anywhere from dancing, rap, hip-hop music. We have done both the dancing and we have done murals since we started. And that's what we have up on our walls right now, some of our student work. And I have taken pictures of all of the events that we've been doing. Let's see, I'm trying to think if we've forgotten. Oh, there's an empowerment piece of all of the groups. And we all do it differently how we bring in people. We have brought in Latinos from all walks of life, whether they own their business or their professionals. They could be doctors, they could be professors in the university,

they could be nurses, they could be office workers, they could work here at LCC, whatever. And they come and tell the stories to the students. And the stories they tell the students is how did they come, first of all they tell them about their family, how did they come to the United States if they were transplanted, if they went to school, how did they go to school, what were the problems they had, what were the good things they had, what decisions did they have to make, what kinds of suggestions they give the students, and then we open it up for the students to ask them. And they do it bilingually also. So some will speak only in Spanish, or some will speak only in English, or both, depending on what it calls for.

[01:09:05] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Do you find the students understand? They're also bilingual?

[01:09:09] Connie Mesquita:
Most of them are bilingual, most of them are. And they get very engaged in it because they love hearing the history of how everybody came, the struggles they went through because they could all identify at some point with something that was being said, or the problems they had when they were going to school because English was their second language, and they didn't know any English when they first arrived, and now they may be professors. So it gives them hope, it really gives them hope that they can do it. What has resulted of all that, in our planning of doing all of this, is the seniors that we got coming to the college classes, we continued with them in the fall, and we followed them throughout the year, also keeping track of them and seeing how they're doing in school, and if they're not doing as well, pulling them in and seeing how we can help them with tutors or other things,

so that they can have success.

And our first year, we did extremely well. We did something, the average of the five students that came to LCC, and then one of them ended up at the University of Oregon. So it's been very successful, the way we've done it. Then the other part of doing it this way is that we were hoping also that some of the students that come through the Puerto Sabertas and attended LCC would eventually be the students I hired to work with me during the summer to work with the students. And so last year, we had at least three Puerto Sabertas graduates that were at LCC that were my workers, and it's a success story for the other students in there. Yeah, and they love it. So that's how Puerto Sabertas has developed. I use, oh, oh, I did forget, I use also Jose Alonso, Jose Luis Alonso, Carmen Urbina, from Centro Latino Americano. They come in and do a piece on drugs and alcohol

and sexual education and gender issues. They come in and we do a workshop two days, two full days. So they come in at different times because it's not a regular one like the others are every day for the five days. We make sure that one day is reserved for two whole days for them to come in and do those workshops on those issues. And it's issues that we separate the girls and the guys so they can be very open and talk about everything and ask questions as they need to ask questions. And I have to stay out of it.

I think Michael Samano's father, Luis, has also been involved with the program. We hired Luis, I think he's been with us two years now.

[01:12:16] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Two years?

[01:12:18] Connie Mesquita:
Yes, he has been two years. The first time we hired him, we hired him as our bus driver because for the whole programs. And he would drive, if we had any trips outside of LCC, he would be the driver. And then the following year, and then I started using him a little bit more in some of our program areas. And so now he was hired as not only bus driver, but also he worked as an aide in some of the classes that we have because I always assign a student that I have hired to work with a particular teacher in the classroom. And that way they become a little bit closer. Luis has become really important with the group because for a lot of the students, they don't have such a close relationship or able to talk with some of their parents. And Luis managed to be able to get some of their confidence. That's well, when they're out during lunchtime or they play and he kind of comes in with them

and they start talking. And so they really like Luis. Even though he's an authoritative figure, they feel comfortable with him. So it has worked very well. I want to switch a little bit.

[01:13:35] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Talk about your involvement in the community.

[01:13:38] Connie Mesquita:
When you came, Michael Samanoa said that when his father came, there were many Hispanic people here in the Eugene-Springfield area. And I wonder if you could, did you find that

[01:13:51] Elizabeth Uhlig:
and did you connect with other Latino women? Okay. His father Luis, he was here before I was.

[01:14:02] Connie Mesquita:
I think he came in 1965, somewhere in there. And I came in 1969. And the only Latinos I knew were those that I came with from the Job Corps and then from the high schools that were recruited for the Upwork Bound, the summer program. Again, another program of enrichment for those that were high-risk students and those of us that were going to maybe continue on with the university. And so those were the ones that I associated with because it didn't appear like out in the community there were a lot of Latinos. We were it from our viewpoint. The community was very white, wherever we went. It was a totally different kind of environment for me, coming from Arizona being around a very diverse population in my upbringing and then coming over here and it's very white. Astoria, my God. Scandinavian, you know, a lot more so. And I didn't know what discrimination really was until I came to Oregon,

to tell you the truth. I mean, I come from Arizona, which really doesn't have a great reputation in terms of measures that are passed and very conservative and all of that. But here is where I really felt it. And I think it's mostly because it's predominantly white. And at that time, you know, things were just starting.

[01:15:39] Elizabeth Uhlig:
And this is now already what?

[01:15:41] Connie Mesquita:
It's the early 70s and we're having Vietnam War happening already and the uprising and like that. And I got to admit I was part of that. I was out there. And so for me, it was the college life and things that was happening within. Not so much out because there really weren't that many out there. Not until we started remaining, some dropped out and remained in the area or we continued with school and then started developing our families in the community. And that's why so many of us know each other is because we started way back when. And then slowly, the community started growing. And so we got to know the community and we helped out. It's always the same group of people. The Lupequins and Selma and Rosemary Villanuevas, the Samanos, the Cifuentes, myself, just so many. And we all just kind of stayed together. And every time something popped up, we were the same ones.

I'll be starting the Spanish Mass, the Fiesta Latina, the Vellante Si, just so many. And then slowly we start branching out and then more community coming in and we're getting to know the community. There's social services and all different things. And we're on boards for some of these and we just kind of keep trading off. And that's how it's been. And now we're what we call the elders of our community. And we stopped thinking, when did that happen, you know?

In one of the Lupequins, I heard you were involved with the Catholic Church, St. Mary's. Yes. And with the Mission San Pablo. Yes, Mission San Pablo. One of the things that we did, that we started a long time ago, almost 30 years ago, is the Spanish Mass. And then in 1986, when the immigration opened up where people were then going to be given MSD and they were going to be given permanent residency for those that were here prior to 1972, then the immigration came together with some of the Missionas in the Catholic Church to be the designated sites to help people get their documentation together to apply to become permanent residents or if they had MSD, you know. And so Mission San Pablo, I was very involved with that. And that's St. Paul's. It's where we started some of our Spanish Masses that we had once a month at that time.

Then since I was working here and I was working in the Multicultural Center, I asked the administration if we could become a designated site and partner up with Mission San Pablo, that all we would need that the administration had is we needed the location, we needed a telephone, we needed some hours. That we could do this. So they agreed that we could pair up with Mission San Pablo and we would do this in the evening. So I would do my work regularly during the day and then in the evening from five until nine, then we became the designated site for this particular area in Eugene. And those of us that we're working with, with San Pablo, started doing, we did the training with the state to become immigration processing people. And so that's what we did. So we did translations of particular documentations and we went to the meetings and we did a lot of the processing.

A lot of people could not have gotten their paperwork together if we hadn't been there to assist. And so that was something else we did. I don't think I gave you the archives for that. I think I still have those. And you did all this time when you were raising your son. You had your own family. And he was involved in everything. Wherever I went and meetings, he went along. And even though sometimes he was in another room while we were meeting, I know his little ears were open because now he's 22. And he says, no, I learned a lot while I was growing up. He says, you didn't think I was hearing, but I did hear. And so he's able to talk to people and give information because of what he has learned.

What do you think currently are the biggest challenges

[01:20:40] Elizabeth Uhlig:
for the Hispanic community in Eugene now? Now?

[01:20:45] Connie Mesquita:
I know some people think there are no problems. Oh, there is. There always is. Part of it still is the both Springfield and Eugene, the profiling that goes on with our communities. And just not the Latino, but also the African-American. The profiling that happens. Even some of our students at Lane, you know, they get stopped because they happen to be driving late at night. And they happen to be African-American or they happen to be Latino. Or if there's three of them together downtown and then they look a little suspicious to the police and they may stop them and start questioning them. That's a large part. Community services, social services mainly. For a lot of our population, you know, it's not there. Some that are eligible. I'm not talking about those that are not eligible. And they need translators, interpreters, interpreters more than anything to be given the information

that they're eligible for, some certain services. There isn't enough people hired in the various social agencies that they are responsible for hiring to serve the communities. That's one. Translations, because interpreting and translations are two different things. They're written in the, you know, conversation of the world. And we need some translators, qualified translators, qualified interpreters, a big need in the medical fields, in all areas of the medical fields. In education, from kindergarten all the way up to the college level because that's why we have our ESLs. Because of that immigration law when we first started, I started telling our administration for some time, we need to get prepared. These people are getting their documentations ready now. They're going to become permanent residents when they become permanent residents.

They're going to be able to apply for financial aid to come to LCC and they want to come to college. They want an education. We need to get ready. Well, we didn't do that as quickly as I had hoped. And so now the crunch is on and we're doing it, you know. We're doing it slowly. Sometimes we're being pushed up against a wall. But, you know, it's happening. Even the community volunteer clinics also, the medical clinics, there's one in Eugene that's a volunteer medical clinic. There's a new one that opened up in Springfield just recently also. And most of the people that have been hired there are bilingual, which is great because you need them at all levels. What I would like to see LCC do, and I've been saying this for some time, is I would like for them to start a certification program for interpreters and translators, and if not a certification one, a two-year program.

It's needed in the state. There's a few minor programs that are happening in Portland and they're mostly certification, but they're not recognized as something, you know, that disqualifies you. Well, you almost answered what one of my next questions is. In the next 10 years, or the next 15 years, what changes would you like to see happen here at Lane,

[01:24:20] Elizabeth Uhlig:
at the Multicultural Center or programs?

[01:24:23] Connie Mesquita:
The Multicultural Center, I would like for us to hire an academic advisor specifically to each of the ethnic groups, and especially the Asian Americans. I think that they have been pushed to the side because we see them as the model minority group, but actually it's not necessarily so for everybody, and they have their needs just as much, but I would like to see for every group. And also for our gay, lesbian, and transgender population that we have also, we need some academic advisor that takes care of some of their needs as well. And some of these need to be full-time. They can't be just part-time. There's so much involved with that. I would like to see the Multicultural Center a little bit bigger because there is a need for a little bit bigger, so much more that we can have. I would like, I'm still praying and dreaming of a bigger budget to be able to do as much as we would like to do.

All of the coordinators in the programs that are here, we have maintained contact with our communities, and I would like to see more of that happening. Like I used to do way back in the beginning when I involved them from the grassroots. It was so great because there was so much invested and everybody did it because they wanted to do it. And well, to bring in quality people in as speakers, we need some monies also to be able to bring them in. The other part that I would like to see, because there's such a need in the medical fields and in the legal area also, is I would like to see classes offered bilingually or in Spanish because we have a lot of people that come here from other countries that are professional people. They may have their degrees. They may be doctors. They may be lawyers, biologists, or lawyers, or some of them, but they can't practice their field here.

And in order to do that, they have to start all over again. They would have to do their program from scratch again. And some of them don't have the time, certainly do not have the money to begin here. Some of them are sweeping floors when they were doctors.

I've been trying for several years to try to get the medical terminology offered bilingually. I haven't had much success yet. I think we're getting closer, but that by itself would help for people who are working in the offices, who are medical assistants, those that work in the clinics, you know, just some of the basic to be able to talk to some of the people that come in. It's slowly happening, but again, we need that certification, and we need it offered. Those in the English programs want it as well so that they can have the medical terminology in Spanish so they can also have that skill, you know. So it works both ways.

When you look back over,

[01:27:43] Elizabeth Uhlig:
are you getting ready to retire? Will you retire soon?

[01:27:46] Connie Mesquita:
I'm hoping to retire sometime within the five years.

[01:27:50] Elizabeth Uhlig:
Okay.

[01:27:50] Connie Mesquita:
Yeah, within. Yes. Well, I... Maybe I'm going to stepping over, but when you look back on your career here at Lane,

[01:28:01] Elizabeth Uhlig:
what do you think are your biggest contributions?

[01:28:03] Connie Mesquita:
How would you like to...

[01:28:05] Elizabeth Uhlig:
What's your legacy?

[01:28:07] Connie Mesquita:
That's my legacy. You know, that was the hardest one for me to answer. I think my legacy basically are the students that actually finished here and went on and went on to become professionals, and they're now our network out there. I think, for me, that's... Yeah. That's the legacy.

That we are now in a new building, that we're now all of the multicultural umbrella are all in the same floor, in the same room. That also, I think, is really important, because it's before we were like little satellites working independently of one another, when we were all finally here, and now we're finally closer together and we're trying to work closer so that our students are working with one another and closer also with student government. And I think that's a big plus also.

I've enjoyed my career here. I've not enjoyed the politics, but I've enjoyed working with the students. That has been my joy, is working with the students. I have looked at progressing, let's say, upward mobility like this, but then when I realized that it's more paperwork as opposed to working with the students directly, I can't give up the working directly with the students. That, for me, is more fulfilling.

Are there other things you'd like to talk about

[01:29:58] Elizabeth Uhlig:
that I haven't asked or areas that we haven't covered?

[01:30:04] Connie Mesquita:
There's been so much through all these years. We did Fiesta Latina. When we started Fiesta Latina under the bridge, when it first started, actually, it wasn't under the bridge. The same group of people that I've been talking about, we came together and decided that we needed to do something for our community, and we needed our Fiesta, like the Cinco de Mayo, only this wasn't just focusing on Cinco de Mayo because we were so diverse within our community that it had to be a little bit bigger than that. So that's why we called it Fiesta Latina. We started at, there was an area outside of Central Latino Americano where it's located. Now it's on 5th and it's between Blair and Monroe. And there was a big area in front of Centro. And so our very first year, we closed off 5th Street and we got permission to do that. And we had our first Fiesta Latina.

LCC was involved in it in that I was in the planning and we were the ones that started the children's section of it. So we were in charge of all the games and the prizes and like that, and we did that for several years. And until we finally were doing too much, so I finally had to back out of that and turn it over to another community member to do the children's thing. I think that was one of our biggest accomplishments also because it still exists, it's still happening. After we did it for a few years there in that area, we went under the bridge of Washington Jefferson and we did it for a long time down below there. But it was also very cold down there and breezy. And so last year was the first year that they decided that they weren't going to do it anymore in May because everybody kept mistaking it as Independence Day for Mexico, which it's not. All it was was a small battle in Puebla

in which the indigenous fought off the French and beat them with pretty much like sticks and stones and like that and beat them. Not to say that the French didn't conquer them anyway, three days later they beat them and they rule for a number of years. But Independence Day actually is in September, September 15th, so it's 15th and 16th is when it's celebrated. So the decision was made to move it over to Springfield and do it at Island Park and do it closer to the 15th, which is actually the Independence Day. And last year was the first time and that's why it's moved over there. So Fiesta Latina, the times that I've worked close to with my students and they've awarded me some awards. One year I worked a great deal with Native Americans and they recognized me and my Latino students also and they recognized me. I have awards up and packed away.

Gosh, there's been so much. Our big Fiesta that we did, I think it was the first year that President Mascos came. His first year we did our biggest Latino celebration here at LCC in which we collaborated with U of O and we actually brought some mariachis here on campus. We had the mariachis for about three hours. They had it for one hour. They were a little upset about that. But anyway, it was a big celebration and I have those pictures here that eventually you will receive. And Mascos saying hello to everybody and a lot of the community came. We did it at Bristol Square right underneath the cafeteria. Eaves, everybody sat and the lawn, you know, coming and it was very hot that day. It got up to 80 degrees. And it was all day and people, when they left, they were happy but they were very sunburnt. It was a great day. And since then we've been doing Latino celebration here at LCC

at different times. Never as huge as we did it that year. It depended on the students how much work they would like to put into it. And that year they all wanted to do the best that they could and show everybody their culture. And that's why I have a lot of that one. We continue with that tradition. And now the Latino Student Union has started another tradition. Instead of doing this big Latino celebration, they now want to concentrate doing more of an effort in doing leadership conferences for our high schoolers and middle schoolers. So last year was the first one that we did. Hopefully this year will be our second and they will begin doing that next term. They'll begin with the planning. So some things have changed. And what I would like to see in the center is that the students do a lot more together. The student clubs, international students, and that it opens up a lot more.

I think we're a good resource for LCC. And it's not that we're just social. If we weren't here, a lot of our students wouldn't stay. Because they need a home base to feel comfortable. And I think that's what we are.

That's it.

[01:35:59] Elizabeth Uhlig:
OK. Well, Connie, thank you very much.

[01:36:01] Connie Mesquita:
You're welcome.