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I am Ruth Santos and I am interviewing Alyssa Perez for the Inclusive History and Images Project, a project which seeks to recover the histories of the diverse members of the Alamo family.

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We are on the campus and the Creative Spaces studios, and today is Thursday, November 17th, 2022. Do you give me permission to interview you for the Inclusive History and Images project?

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And do you allow the recording to be used in accordance with the stated goals of the project? Yes, I. Do.

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What is your name now and what was your name when you were at Alamo? Yeah, my name is Elizabeth and it's always been Alyssa Bennett's okay for now.

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I'm just. Kidding. When and where were you born? I was born in Fremont, California, up in the Bay

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Area. Okay. Where is your hometown or the area in which you grew up?

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I grew up in the Bay Area. Milpitas is the main hometown where I grew up and it borders San Jose. I went to school in San Jose.

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Where do you currently live? I currently live on campus here in Los Angeles. Okay. What is your current occupation?

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I am currently a civic engagement organizer with LA Voice. It's an interfaith network here in LA County. How do you identify yourself? I identify as Latina.

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Um, how did you learn about the inclusive History and Images project? Yeah, that's a great question. I first heard about the initiative.

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I was previously staff here on campus. I worked in the Center for Service in Action, and so as a staff member, I had started here in the fall of 2019, I believe, which is right before

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kind of the pandemic in 2020, our black students had organized on campus and had put out these black student demands of, you know, being more inclusive and integrative for black students, brown students.

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And so I think this initiative came out of 2020 and the student demands at that time. But it did it just kind of started as an idea.

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And I heard about it for a while in a while. So it's exciting to see we're finally at the stage of doing the interviews and yeah, I know it's been

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a lot of work and thoughtfulness has gone into it, so I've heard about it for a really long, almost too long. But it's cool to finally be sitting here and yeah,

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doing the work. And what made you want to take part in this project? Yeah.

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When I first heard the initiative, it was like, we want to be capturing the histories and the stories and the photos from like more inclusive stories of our students. If you look up on the walls, when I was

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a student, when I was a staff, we are a predominantly white institution and that felt very reflected in some of the photos institutionally. And I when I was a student, me and my

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counterpart were the first two Latina president and vice president of student government. And that wasn't hugely talked about. And I don't think anyone ever really named that but

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myself. If you go into Malone, there's a building, it's called the boardroom or something, and there's photos of all the student government presidents.

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And I remember just at one point being like, oh my gosh, they're all white men. Okay, there's a woman. Okay, we're the first brown women up there.

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And I think I had that discovery for myself and just really took pride in that and shared that with my family. And I knew that I had a story to tell.

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And me and Sophia, we were the first women to be elected, the first woman of color. And that felt really important and powerful to name, even if that wasn't being named or recognized anywhere else.

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That's amazing. Um, what year did you attend LSU? So I came in in 2011 and graduated in 2015. And what was your major and minor?

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So I came in a theology major originally and had an interest in maybe doing a minor in poli sci. And then my sophomore year I declared a double major in poli sci.

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So I graduated with my bachelor's in theological studies and political science. Political science is so interesting. Yeah.

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How do you decide on those majors and minors? Yeah, it's a good question. When people hear theology and poli sci, they're like, the two things don't go together.

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I do not understand. I'll be honest when I first I'm the first gen, right? First to go.

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I had no idea what I wanted to study. I didn't know what the different majors looked like. And I had a teacher in high school just basically say, What class?

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If you don't know what career you want, that's totally fine. If you're gonna be a doctor, go do bio. If you're going to be a lawyer, probably do poli

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sci. If you don't know what class do you like the best. And she just straight up said, you know, you're going

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to be in these classes. So if you don't know your major, that's fine. That's what college is for. But at least know that you're going to like your

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classes. And so I said, I really like my theology classes. I had gone to a Catholic high school on scholarship and I really loved my my religion classes.

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So I literally just picked theology that way, said I'll figure it out. And when I transitioned and I had considered political life, at one point, I was like, I'm really involved in

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politics. I had always been involved in student government. I think I want to carry this forward. So I had interest and started taking tons of classes

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in policy and I thought, well, what am I going to do with theology? But I didn't want to give it up because I loved my classes.

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Like there was like a Harry Potter class about the theology of Harry Potter, like feminist theology. So I loved it and I didn't want to give it up.

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So I just decided to double major at that point, which meant more classes and less electives. But yeah, best decision I made and I got I got to do a lot of crossovers for like Capstone.

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So I wasn't writing two different papers because I had two majors. And why do you decide to come to Alamo? Another great question.

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I so I had gone to a Catholic school, so I had my eye on on Jesuit schools. I applied to Santa Clara even though that was way too close to home and LMU and also Georgetown, right.

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I was open to to going across the country. It essentially came down. I thought it was going to come down to scholarship and I had received a full ride scholarship to Cornell

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University, which was in Ithaca. I don't know if you know where that is, but it's freezing cold. I thought I would be so dumb to give up

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a full ride at an Ivy League school. And so I went and visited and tried really hard to convince myself that's what I wanted. And then I came to and I did the visit

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I fully committed. I was like, okay, maybe. And I was like, Really? Something fell off.

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But I was like, Don't be dumb. Like you don't have money. And I came to LMU and everything felt so familiar and right and the faith based conversations and just people

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were nice. So my tour here felt so right. But I told my mom, I was like, Can I am I dumb to give up a full ride scholarship

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to do to be at like a mission based school? And she was like, no, like go where you want to go. These are going to be formative years in your life,

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like go where you are feeling called. And just like a huge weight was lifted off me because I always knew it was going to be LMU, but I was trying to like justify and just like

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do what was smart for my family and not what I wanted. And she gave me the permission to do it and it was easily the best choice I made for sure.

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So LMU mission is committed to the encouragement of learning the education of the whole person and to the service of faith and the promotion of justice. How important were these principles to you before coming to

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Alamo, and did you sense the importance of these principles during your time at Alamo? Yeah, just yeah. I feel like the service of faith and promotion of

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justice. Peace is always what what drew me to LMU. That's what drew me to a Jesuit school in general. My brother had gone to a Jesuit school.

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There were no coed schools at the time in the Bay Area where I was. So I was always jealous because he was doing all of these service immersions and he got to go to

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World Youth Day and he got to do all these amazing opportunities. He was on the Bishops Youth Council through the Jesuit, like through the Jesuit connection.

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So I had always known I was drawn to a Jesuit school, like, Oh, they do the justice thing. Like, that's really important to me. And so the service of faith and promotion of justice

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being in the mission was really important to me. I was like, Do I want a non not only a non Catholic school or a non religious school, but somewhere that cares about justice in a way of.

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Truly, truly valuing and integrating that, not forcing folks to do things or not just offering kind of. Like handouts to folks as a student. And so learning about the service orgs was a big

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reason that I wanted to come here. I was like, Oh my gosh, like a community of people dedicated to. Yeah, it just it felt so cool to me.

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Looking back on it. Those were really integrated in my experience. I feel like when you're in a leadership position on campus, you go through a lot of different trainings on

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how does this program, how does service orgs, how do alternative breaks? I was also involved in campus ministry. How do these feed into the mission of the university?

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And so we I mean those we learned I could back on my hand, right? Like I've learned those a lot as a leader on campus, which I'm grateful for, because you could see yourself

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as part of a bigger whole. I don't know that I was fully bought in. I definitely knew them and could recite them, but I don't know that I was fully, fully bought in until

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my senior year, probably as a Assalamu president, to really see and, and like see what that meant when push came to. Um.

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Okay. What was you like when you were here in terms of academic, social life, relationships to faculty, your sense of representation, racial diversity, gender diversity, things like that.

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So it's a lot of questions. LMU was when I first started, Alma was celebrating a centennial, so I came in 2011 and that was the year that I came in, in the fall, and that

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was the end of their centennial year. So I just remember tons of energy and pride around LMU. So I came in and my first semester was just

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like very saturated with like history, pride, right? Like this 100 year history. So I remember really buying into that my freshman year and then realizing like, Oh, maybe this.

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It was really school spirit, honestly. And being a freshman, I was like, Oh, this is dope. And then just super dwindled and I was like trying

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to like, find these places of like, Where does this live? Like it has to live somewhere. And I'd go to a basketball game and be like,

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okay, I don't know. It's not happening here. When I was a student, there was some energy around going to games and things, but I was like, Where's

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the community? Like, where are people In 2011? All the way up until my senior year, we had a thing called Convo Hour.

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I don't know if you've ever heard of convo. I will harp on this till the day I die. Combo was the single best thing and I didn't come to you for it, but looking back was the single

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best formative time for me. So it was essentially, I think Tuesdays and Thursdays it was called Convo Hour. So it was classes were blocked.

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There were no classes from like 12 to 115 or something across the campus. And that was when we do programing. So your student government would go out there and do

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some tabling. There'd be music, there be food. There was organizations coming out and doing fundraisers or activities or talking to students.

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So it was called Convo Hour, and that was where I got involved in all of the things that I got involved in. That was where you could learn about events that were

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happening that week. It was just community and having had so much of that, my my first semester with the Centennial hype, they were giving out shirts and food and events and bringing

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alums like it was really, really alive. And then immediately after the centennial, it was like back to normal. I was like, Wait, where's everyone?

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So convo was really special. We had dunk tanks. Our president would come out. Sometimes it's just a really important space of community that

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you can know. You go get lunch with your friends and people, try to have meetings during that and ruined everything, but the community piece was huge.

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So LME is really alive and communal in my experience, which is then I mean, what led me to become so involved, right? I was in service orgs.

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I also had work study jobs, so it was, I don't know how I had all these different involvements and still worked and still had really good grades, right? I was always an amazing student.

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I loved the classes here. The professors never had a bad experience except for econ. Apologies to the professor. I don't even remember who it was, but I was

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so bad in my class. So academically, I loved my classes, right? I studied what I loved and I like school. So that part was was good and was everything I

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needed socially. Like I said, we had convo hour, I was involved in service orgs, I was doing a special, so I was doing service.

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I was also working in campus ministry, so I had my spiritual life. I was practicing and going to mass here. I was the only person from my dorm at the

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time other than my now best friend, and we ended up meeting and we weren't roommates, but we ended up meeting and becoming best friends because we were the only people from Sullivan at the time, an all girls dorm

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who would walk over to mass and being like, This is a Catholic school, like where are all the Catholics? Like it was almost like we were the like, weird ones for being so Catholic in a in college.

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And I'm like, I remember feeling really weird about that. And that was even the reason that I met my best friend of like, Oh, this is a Jesuit school. And I came in with this perception that everyone was

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Catholic, which was so dumb and naive. And then when I got here, when I saw how not I mean, and this is my own experience and at that time how not Catholic everybody was or not

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even religious, like I feel like 2011, 12, 13, my whole years of college was really the time when when people my age were moving away from the church, right? Like starting to or starting to move from organized religion.

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So it was really weird for me to still be so grounded in that. So I felt really lost. I felt like maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

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I don't know if I can because. I'm so sorry. I don't know if I should be doing this. So spiritually I was confused because nobody else.

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You could go to Sacred Heart Chapel and it would be decently filled, right? But in the scope of the 6500 undergrads we had, that was not a lot of people.

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And so I remember thinking like, maybe I have it wrong. Like what? What am I doing?

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And it was really the first time I had to challenge my own belief because my family just went to church, right? And that was just what we did.

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So it was college and having to take my. Self to mass alone at first was a really big step for me. Like it would have been easier just to not go

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and just to like, hang out with my friends on Sunday night. But I did. I committed and I went and I would say spiritually

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to answer the question is like culturally it felt or yeah, spiritually and culturally. Being in a religious institution was not a thing either. And I do think that that's a big part of

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my identity because I still choose to this day to be a practicing Catholic. And I doesn't mean I agree with every single thing or that I, you know, I just that doesn't people

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assume what that means. I know what it means to me. And I've had to work through my own way back to the church and healing with the church.

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But I think. That was a big part of, Oh, I have to like stand up and be on my own in this. Ended up meeting my best friend, thankfully.

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So then I had a partner in crime who we unapologetically could then be women of faith. But being public about that was really hard for me, I think.

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Um, what was it like being a Latina and a Catholic in the 2000 tens at Alamo? Yeah. 2000.

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I think my I can I can again speak from my experience of I was the scholarship kid, right? Like I had a single mom father passed away when I was really young, was on scholarship in middle school,

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high school and then into college. Essentially it's work study, right? So all of my I went to these really great private schools, got a lot of shit from my cousins

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because I was the only one, me and my brother, who were able to do that. So I came from this experience of having gone to a PWI basically like a predominantly white high school, also

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on scholarship. So I feel like be learning how to be me and adjust to what it's like being around a lot of white people.

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I got to do that in high school, so I brought that experience. I knew how to code switch, I knew how to do.

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I knew how to be me and also be friends and like fit in and do what I needed to do. And I was happy.

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I don't I don't think looking back on that, I think I was unhappy in that. But I recognized like I had my my brown friends and I had my white friends coming to LMU.

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That adjustment wasn't that hard for me, but I saw it be really hard for everyone else where I'm in LA now, that was new for me. There's obviously a lot of Latinos here in LA, and

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I think especially my experience in direct contradiction and in accompaniment with my best friend who had a very different local Angelino. You know, she was undocumented.

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She had never gone to a white school at all. So she was adjusting in a way that I had already done. So I don't think my experience I wouldn't label it

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as hard. I would label it as like a relearning and a re integration of myself and like a reclaiming of like, okay, who do you want to be here?

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I didn't need to just be like the brown girl. I was truly one of three Latinas in my graduating class when I had my quinceanera. Like, people were like, lost their freaking minds.

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Like, they just like it was so fetishized. And I remember thinking I was so gross. Like, this is me and my family special event. And they were like, legitimately, people tried to crash it

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because they had never been to a yet. And I remember that being the first time, like, Oh wow, like I am that I am the, the only one doing this or the only one around me like

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that. So coming to LSU, I felt like I had dealt with a lot of that. What was it like being a Latina?

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I think it was for me, navigating the not Not Now, And I never had this problem in high school because there was no like Latina, like Latina dad to like, assimilate to.

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Now I'm like, well, now I'm not brown enough for the Latinos and now I'm not white enough for. For the white people, essentially. And so I felt super lost and I felt like

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all of my Latino friends were in our and LSU were like doing all this really great stuff. And I also had this other circle, which was at the time, our service work is really not.

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Diverse like so we had this other friend group and the Belles who were was pretty white. I'm not saying it was all white, but it was pretty white.

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So I'm like, Do I want to split my time here with service orgs or do I want to be really in it with these cultural sororities and fraternities? And like, it felt like two different paths.

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And most people either did this path or did the service or came thing, and here I am in both. So again, I'm like, like what? Who do I want and what do I want?

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It didn't feel authentic for me to fully just be in some circles and not in others. And it didn't feel authentic for me to be in these circles and not at all in these.

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So I split a lot of my time, a lot of my identity, trying really hard to. I wasn't from Los Angeles. My Spanish was not great.

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I was still taking Spanish classes. I still am. So, yeah, I think navigating that didn't come from even like white friends or white students at all.

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Came a lot from my Latino friends being like, Why are you why aren't you in all of these things with this? Why aren't you pledging?

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Why aren't you? In da da da da da. And I remember just feeling really guilty like, okay, but I really like my service org and like, I really

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like the things that I'm doing. Like I want to do both. So all four years I floated that line of being a little bit involved in LSU and supporting Mitchjones, supporting

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resilience and all of the the Latino student organizations never really being in leadership other than Ali's, which was through service. So yeah, I feel like that was a lot of

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my experience. I leaned into that fully and just had to accept like I can only be authentic to me. And I knew I wouldn't have been happy if I

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continued to try and please everyone, which is something that I feel like I was doing a lot of in college. Like, okay, like y'all need me over here.

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I'll come over here. Oh, you got like, so I felt like I was a huge people pleaser in college. And that had.

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There's a lot to unpack on that, but I feel like that led a lot of what I did in college until my senior year, freshman, sophomore and junior year, just figuring it out.

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And then senior year, I finally knew who I was and what you needed, which is why we even ran for president. And I don't know if we'll talk about that later,

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but we can get into that. Um, what classes or educational program inspired you at? Um. My theology classes.

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Like truly I took I think my liberation theology and my feminist theology classes really were the most inspirational in terms of classes, in terms of program. I don't know if you've heard of Casa de la

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Vida, but it's a service study abroad program. So Elam, you had launched that in 2013. Santa Clara had a similar program in El Salvador. And so I was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to

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do Casa Salvador. And then LMU decided to pilot their own program in Argentina. So I knew that my it was tricky to try

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and get your classes and your financial aid to transfer if you did the Santa Clara program. So for that reason I applied to do the LMU one, even though I was like, I don't want to

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go to Argentina. At first I was like, I want to go to El Salvador, but for logistically, really just my financial aid wouldn't have transferred in.

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All my credits wouldn't have at the time. I think they've worked through some of those kinks, but at that time they were like, Just go with the LMU program.

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Like it's just like you're taking classes here, all your scholarships and everything will be the same. I was like, okay, dope. So I knew I wanted to study abroad.

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I knew I couldn't afford to do that on my own. So this program offered scholarships to the we were like the inaugural class to do this program.

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So we had classes three days a week, and then we were in practice two days a week. So we were in a community like we had a placement throughout these the semester.

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Yeah, that program. I'm not going to get emotional because we spent a lot. We spend a lot.

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I spent a lot of time with some of my community this week. There's like weddings that have happened since then and we're also really close.

00:22:55.460 - 00:23:06.140

But that program was the embodiment of the mission, right? So back to what I said of I've heard those things on paper and I could recite them. I didn't buy in until this program.

00:23:06.140 - 00:23:19.790

I was like, Elam is so dope for committing to this program, paying these professors to come out here, supporting us financially, to be having this experience of studying and not getting lost on our on our track to graduate

00:23:19.790 - 00:23:27.410

and also spend real time in community with folks that we would have never met otherwise. And I was so grateful I didn't pay for that program.

00:23:27.410 - 00:23:33.350

I had scholarship, right. And that was the first time I was like like, Elam, you really is committed to this. And that's so beautiful.

00:23:35.320 - 00:23:47.050

Got to fully, fully buy into all of that most impactful program. Since then, the program has has been canceled. From my perspective, it was because it became too expensive.

00:23:47.050 - 00:23:52.340

So all the things I thought of like, wow, like look at you. Like y'all are doing it. Y'all are putting where your mouth is.

00:23:52.390 - 00:23:59.980

Put your money where your mouth is. And then since then, the program closed like 2 or 3 years ago, which it felt like. That was intentional.

00:23:59.980 - 00:24:07.000

And that's, again, my own personal opinion. That was the best program that this university offered hands down. And I am a testament to that.

00:24:07.000 - 00:24:16.450

There was three, I think 3 or 4 of their classes after that who got to do it. And not having it anymore feels like, okay, then show me where, show me where this is happening.

00:24:16.450 - 00:24:27.580

Then in practice, like that was not just me. Go to bed one Friday a week. This was like a full semester of immersion, committing ourselves to being away from home to being away from our

00:24:27.580 - 00:24:34.390

friends to being in community and just accompanying people. We weren't there to help or to save or to fix. We were just there to be.

00:24:34.390 - 00:24:39.760

And that was so radical to me. I was like, Wait, we don't have to help. We don't have to build, we don't have to teach. And they were like, No, you're just there to be

00:24:39.760 - 00:24:48.550

with people. I was like, That's what it means to be with and for others, not just for others. So that program was the best thing in my experience

00:24:48.550 - 00:24:55.660

that this university had, and it no longer exists. But I feel that's why I think I get emotional is like I feel really grateful to have had that experience.

00:24:56.470 - 00:25:05.470

And that led to a lot of the things that have happened after that. What organizations were you a part of during your time at LMU?

00:25:05.500 - 00:25:14.830

How did these organizations help to shape your experience at Elmina? Yeah, I think I've named a few of them, but the main organizations that I would say I was a

00:25:14.830 - 00:25:24.640

part of was Alice Bell again. So my the best friend I keep talking about, she had actually been a student at Alice. I don't know if you know what it is, but

00:25:24.640 - 00:25:32.590

it's a mentoring program at a middle school. She had actually been a student, met me students and then ended up being a student. And it was it's the best.

00:25:32.590 - 00:25:40.240

It's the best of what again, Alemu could be doing, right? Like being in the community and actually creating pipelines and resources for that.

00:25:40.690 - 00:25:48.730

These one off cases, albeit, but I got to experience a lot of them, which was exciting. So really involved in Alice. Obviously for her, she was like, You're doing this.

00:25:48.730 - 00:25:57.880

I was like, okay, on top of what we were doing for Bell. So I was in Bell Service organization. I was, I was I wasn't in like a campus

00:25:57.880 - 00:26:05.740

ministry program other than I did Ignacio companion trip to Chile. And I was pretty involved. Like I worked there, I had a work study job

00:26:06.100 - 00:26:17.710

and I did all of the retreats essentially. So I led Kairos and for sure she was really involved in their retreat ministry. I had a job, I was in RSL MU and.

00:26:18.630 - 00:26:25.310

I think that's. It. Um, and how how would you say that these organizations help to shape your experience at LSU?

00:26:25.340 - 00:26:34.520

Yeah. The buckets that I see those in were like government, which I in my head saw as like service to the community.

00:26:34.520 - 00:26:41.500

Right? No one. It's not fun to be the face of anything. Sometimes it's fun when you're the face of the concerts

00:26:41.500 - 00:26:49.300

and the DJ sets. Like it's fun when you're that, but it's not fun to be the person to have to go tell people like, Hey, y'all, we can't do that or we got

00:26:49.300 - 00:26:56.740

to no on this or, you know, So it's not it's not necessarily fun to be in a leadership position, but I always saw that as part of my service to the community.

00:26:56.740 - 00:27:05.080

I was always on scholarship. I was like, how am I giving back? And for me it was being in a leadership position. So like my buckets were like being in government, which

00:27:05.080 - 00:27:15.910

again I saw as service service and then like my spirituality, like spiritual groups, I think they affected me because they fed me, they fed those important parts of me that fed my spirituality.

00:27:16.090 - 00:27:28.270

It fed like I only saw me being religious in the way of my faith doing justice. So then there was the justice component of my life, and I felt like these two sides of me were

00:27:28.270 - 00:27:37.600

really fueling me to keep me going and to get me through academically and just everything that was happening, right? Like when you're on scholarship, you have to be a student first.

00:27:37.600 - 00:27:48.670

Like you don't get to just be like, Oh, I didn't go to class. Like, absolutely not. So my academic courses were getting intense, more intense and

00:27:48.670 - 00:27:56.710

intense as as I got older and the classes got harder. But I think I could have dropped a lot of my commitments.

00:27:56.710 - 00:28:03.550

And looking back, we definitely had LMU had a culture back then and I think we still do have like, Well, what are you involved in? Show me your list.

00:28:03.550 - 00:28:12.730

Like because then we give awards to the people who are like most involved. And I was way too involved and I wish at some point I had I was committed, I was overcommitted

00:28:12.730 - 00:28:21.040

to too many things and under committed to too many things. So, yeah, I mean, looking back, I don't think it was sustainable to be involved in all of those things

00:28:21.040 - 00:28:29.260

because then my physical health was not great at that point. You have the layer of food like I was not taking care of my body at all at that point,

00:28:29.260 - 00:28:39.970

so something had to give, right? So all of those fed me spiritually and fed like the the, the the justice side of me and like the service side and the student government.

00:28:39.970 - 00:28:47.410

But at the end of the day, like I was way too involved and looking back is something had to give. And what gave was probably like me taking time for

00:28:47.410 - 00:28:48.190

myself.