Diana Fuentes Michel oral history - March 27, 2023

I am Pablo Garcia and I'm interviewing Diana Michel for the Inclusive History and Images Project, a project that seeks to recover the histories of the diverse members of the family.

We are on the LMU campus in the Creative Spaces Studios, and today is Monday, March 27, 2023. Do you give permission to interview you for the Inclusive History and Images Project?

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

Perfect. Alright. We're going to be going through some quick biographical questions. Okay.

So, what is your name and what was your name when you were at LMU? I'm Diana Fuentes Michel, and my name was Diana Fuentes when I was

here as a student at Loyola Marymount. Uh, when and where were you born? I was born here in the city of Los Angeles uh, in 1957.

Uh, where is your home— where is your hometown, or the area in which you grew up? I grew up in uh, Boyle Heights and in El Sereno,

which is northeast of Los Angeles. And I went to school at Sacred Heart [High School], which is in Lincoln Heights. Uh, where do you currently live?

I live in Sacramento. I'm retired and uh, have lived in that area for about 43 years now. Uh, what is your current occupation?

Uh, I retired as director of the California Student Aid Commission in 2015, and prior to that I was undersecretary for Education for then Governor Gray Davis, and my primary uh, field as a career person was in access to higher education.

Um, how do you identify yourself with regarding like race, ethnicity, gender, religion? I'm a native-born Californian, who's a Chicana, who was born and raised on the Eastside of Los Angeles.

So I consider myself a native of California, but a homegirl here from Los Angeles. Perfect. All right, cool.

And then some questions about IHIP, which was how did you learn about IHIP, the Inclusive History and Images project? Uh, Loyola has an alumni magazine that presides uh, over the community, um, and I get it every month—or actually every quarter,

it seems now. It used to be every month before. So it's called LMU Magazine, and there was an article on the project and I was interested in.

So I emailed the contact person. And so here we are. Oh. And what made you want to take part in this

project? Um, as a history major and Chicano Studies, when I was here at Loyola and also through my career, I understand the importance of speaking truth to power and

telling the stories of all students, all participants in the educational process. And I was really glad to see that this particular project,

is being undertaken because it's important that not only the story of the general population back then be told, but also the population of students who were emerging during the 1970s.

Alright, cool. Here. [Shuffles papers.] Alright. So, what years did you attend LMU?

I was a freshman in 1975, and I graduated in May of 1979. So I did four years here on the campus. Okay.

Uh, and what was your major?— oh, wait— yeah. What was your major and

minor? I was a history major. Uh, took most of my coursework in Latin American studies, and then I double majored in Chicano Studies.

And how do you decide on those majors and minors? Well, I entered as a pre-law student and was in the political science department, and I found myself not happy with just dealing with the theoretical.

I was a very practical person. I had already interned for then city councilperson Richard Alatorre, who was an assembly member at the time in Highland Park, as a high school student.

And I was interested in politics, but from a perspective of governing and policy. And I shortly realized being in political science, that that wasn't what I wanted to do.

I wanted to be more action oriented. So I was taking history classes with Father Sweeney and Father Rolfs. Father Rolfs used to teach pretty much about demography, you know,

just like he was a really immersed in fascism and what dictators um, did in terms of their—not only rhetoric— but their politics. And I was just fascinated by his concern about the

rise of fascism. And Father Sweeney was taking his students um, through the history of Latin America, and he taught the history of Mexico and the history of Brazil.

And I was just fascinated with his teaching style and his passion for having us understand political trends and um, the history of underrepresented peoples, particularly people of color. And so I ended up changing majors and decided to

do history and Chicano Studies because I started taking Chicano studies courses and there was courses on the history of Nahuatl thought. And I began to understand that I was half native.

I'm 50 percent Native American in my family history, and I wanted to learn more. So I decided to do history and Chicano Studies. And at the time, people were dissuading folks to take

just a singular major in Chicano Studies because the legitimacy of Chicano Studies was being questioned. And so um, I was thinking about graduate school, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to have

a problem with um, not having legitimacy in terms of my degree. So I decided to do both, and I'm glad I did.

But I recognized during that time that folks were questioning the—the rigor of Chicano Studies. And my Chicano Studies courses were just as rigorous as my history courses.

But it was a prevailing feeling in the academic world that perhaps that would have been an issue. So, I double majored. Oh, okay.

Um, and why did you decide to come to LMU? Um, the Sisters that uh, were teaching at Sacred Heart High School were Dominicans of the Mission San Jose, and Sister Mary Mark in particular,

the principal there thought that coming here would be a good experience for me. She felt that I needed to live away from home but not be too far from home because my parents

were really against me moving out of the house before getting married and going to Loyola was a privilege from— in their perspective. They were—you know—traditional Roman Catholic, Mexican family.

Loyola had an excellent reputation, so they knew academically that this was the place to be. But they also were concerned about leaving the house and they had heard that Loyola had merged with Marymount University.

So, when I got my financial aid package, I was not only accepted, but I had a full award that covered all my expenses and I got a Chicano leadership grant.

And that intrigued me because all the other institutions that I had applied for hadn't really focused on leadership and Chicano leadership. And so, um, the first day I came to Loyola Marymount

was my first day on campus that I actually attended classes. I hadn't been here to see the actual campus. I really took it from what Sister Mary Mark was

telling me and the Sisters that this would be the place to be that would help me grow into the person they thought I could be. I had been senior class president, junior class president, sophomore

class president, was very involved in high school and Sister really encouraged my leadership abilities very early on. And so she thought that this would be the place to be.

And I stayed in contact with her all these years. I just saw her during the last uh, holiday boutique that the Sisters do at their Motherhouse in San Jose. And I thanked her many times now for that advice,

that encouragement. Um, she actually talked to Mitch LaRue, who was the Admissions Director here at Loyola, and I think facilitated my enrollment here.

And so I know I'm here because others took the opportunity to encourage my leadership. This is kind of a sad question, but do you think if it wasn't for that Chicano/Chicana grant or

do you think maybe you would have like—you even— without even with the like advice from your mentor? Like, would you still have like, would you still have thought about joining LMU?

I don't think it would have been possible because I think what I knew at the time, UCLA and Cal State LA, none of those institutions had programs at the time.

I think many of us think now that, oh, there were programs, special programs in the Affirmative Action era and there were very few programs. I had applied to Cal State Los Angeles.

There was no aid available, even though I had filled out the—the then it wasn't the FAFSA as it is now. It was a financial aid formed by the College Board.

It was the college scholarship form. And we had to pay to actually apply for financial aid and we had to pay by campus. And so you had to be really selective if you

didn't have money to apply how many colleges you applied to. And so that restricted choice in the sense that if you didn't have the money to apply to many schools,

you couldn't apply. And as Director of the Student Aid Commission, I learned really quickly that—you know—that was something that was really fought for in terms of a free form.

That didn't happen until, I believe, in the 1990s. And so, you know, it was important for me to recognize as a student that the difference between living at home and having family responsibilities and being able to study

full time and not have to worry about family. I worked in high school to go to Sacred Heart High School. I had to work two jobs to pay for tuition

because my father was unemployed in 1974 during the recession, and I started at Sacred Heart in 1971. And then there was little, little money for the other two sisters and I to go.

So, I worked at the Bank of America and I worked at San Antonio Winery, and I did whatever I could to stay in high school because I was a class leader.

And, I just felt that that's where I needed to be in terms of getting a quality education. And my parents had both went to public school in

the LAUSD [Los Angeles Unified School District]. My father graduated from Lincoln High School. My mother went to Roosevelt High School on the Eastside, and both of them felt that they were socially promoted.

I learned later in my adult life that they could hardly read the English language and they had comprehensive difficulties, particularly when they were in the hospital under medical care. And they needed help.

They needed assistance, and here they had high school diplomas that they were rendered, and their ability to speak and write the English language was poor. So I think what they learned from that experience—and

my father and my mother talked a lot about the discrimination that went on in high school, the choices that they had as high school students. And my father said they directed Mexican men into the

vocational programs, or into the Army, or the Navy. And my mother basically said—you know—we were expected to get married and be housewives. So there wasn't a lot of concern about getting a

quality education. So Sacred Heart provided an opportunity. And the Sisters there really focused on making sure that we understood that regardless of our marital status, that we

should get an education and we should be able to support ourselves and to have our own ideas and to grow into our own people. And that changed my life, because if I had gone

to a public institution on the Eastside during the 60s and the 70s, I think that would have not been the case. That would have been different.

I'm very involved in my high school alumni group, and we are a group of strong women who are in our own careers, have our own families, and really understand that we were given an opportunity that many weren't given

during the 60s and the 70s. Mm hmm. Okay, cool. Um, and—you know—what was like—what was LMU

like when you were here in terms of academics? social life? relationship to faculty? your sense of risk presentation? racial diversity? gender diversity? So— Well, Father Merrifield and Father Casassas— Father Merrifield, was

the first President of the merged Loyola Marymount. Father Casassas was the Chancellor. Very early on, I began to know that the Chicano Leadership Grant—and then there was a Black Leadership Grant—

were given primarily to students who had attended the parochial high schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. So they had an initiative to go into the high schools and to work with the religious principals and administrators

in identifying students with high potential. So once I began to understand that, and understand that the Chicano and Black African American study programs were developed around a commitment to integrate Loyola Marymount, that became kind

of my center of focus, it's like, wow—you know— we have support programs here. We have an academic program here. And when you went to the classes that were not

Chicano Studies, you recognized very early that for a female, males outnumbered females because this was Loyola University in terms of the campus. The women came from Marymount—uh,

transferred into the school who were upper division, but we were the first couple of freshman classes that were the first classes here. My class was the second class, 1975.

The merger happened in 73, so you immediately knew that it was a majority white, largely Republican in terms of the politics here. And some of the students—not all—were very like—

this is their first interaction with a Chicano or Black kid. And they knew that most of us were on financial aid.

So some of the time you get the sense that, hey—you know—you're not paying your way, you don't belong here. And that experience—you know—I usually used to speak

out in class because I felt like we belonged here because we academically competed equally. And yeah, we were poor, working class kids, but we had just as much right to be here and get

an education than anyone else. And I had a lot of folks in the RA [Resident Advisors] program or when I was on campus as a student, I lived in Loyola apartments and I lived in McKay before

I became an RA, and there were people who had significant amounts of monies, in terms of their resources. They had their own cars.

I mean, they had their own checking accounts. It was just a different experience that you could see that money wasn't an issue for them. And I was counting pennies and waiting for my financial

aid check. And I had to work after my first year. And it was more difficult because you had to be concerned about not only succeeding to maintain your financial aid

award, but also to worry about like, where's that money going to come for sundries? Where is that money going to come for clothes? Because those things weren't included in the financial aid package.

So I think the experience is different—was different—for Chicano Latino students because money was a factor, even though the university had made a commitment to do tuition, and fees, and housing, and food, and books, which was a

big deal back then. So think that those are the things that were different. The environment, largely the Jesuits and the Marymount Sisters and the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange were always very

supportive. I always felt supported in the classroom. I always felt that they wanted me to succeed. I told the story where I was having difficulty in

my history class that Father Buckley was teaching. He recently passed away and we were at alumni function and I had expressed to Father at that time, thank you for helping me.

I had always done very well in high school. I'd always gotten A's and B's. And the first assignment that he made in his history class, I got a D in the class.

He handed out the papers, and I was just, like, stunned—you know—crying almost, because it's like, what do you mean I didn't get an A or B, right?

And he said, "Young lady, you come and see me after class." And I went to see him in his office hours and he said, "Diana, you don't really know how to

write—you know punctuation, capitalization, how to put paragraphs together— but we're talking now about analysis. And so during that year that I took two courses with him, um, he taught me analysis which is different than

summarization. And he really helped me in terms of my overall program because he spent that quality time with me telling me I could do it, but I needed extra help.

And so that was before a learning resource center or all these other support services. And so I always felt grateful to him and I thanked him as an adult when I was older for, you know,

taking the time. And I actually shared that story at an alumni event to tell the students that Loyola Marymount is a place where you get that individualized attention.

The professors do care. They know your name. You're not a number. Oh.

Perfect. Um, LMU is a private Jesuit university. In the 1970s, tuition was approximately $3,000 per year. How were you able to attend LMU with that cost?

Well, as I said before. I got a Chicano Leadership Grant, which was only a thousand, but I also qualified— I was a Cal Grant B recipient, which is for the

lowest income students—as you know. And the first year you only got $900 if you chose to go to a four-year university. But there and after your sophomore, junior, and senior years,

you got full tuition. So I was able to receive a Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, known as the Pell Grant now. And I was low income enough to get the Supplemental

Education[al] Opportunity Grant. And then I qualified for college work study, and I worked in Chicano Studies um, during that time. And then later I was able to pick up a

little bit more work outside, as I mentioned, at San Antonio Winery here in the Marina and down in Olvera Street, I worked, and then I ended up just being a student assistant in Chicano Studies my last year.

So those things helped package together. So if I didn't have that support and that Chicano Leadership Grant really closed the gap.

$1,000 was a lot of money then, it was a third of the tuition. And I believe the resident amount of money you needed to be on campus to live was like somewhere in

the neighborhood of $1500 without the food. I think the food was like another $900. But when I was a resident advisor, they gave you free room and board.

So I was able, by doing those combination of things, working, being a RA, getting sufficient financial aid, and doing well, to come out of the university with only a $400 NDSL [National Direct Student Loan] loan, which I paid off like in a year,

and I came out pretty much debt free out of that outside of that. Oh. Sounds like it was a lot of juggling between like—just like work and then RA and then like

school and stuff on top of that. It was a lot. It was a lot.

It was, um, I think, back on it and I think I was just so afraid of failing. I just worked all the time. And and if it wasn't for the involvement of faculty,

not only in Chicano studies, but the Jesuits and the Sisters, I don't know how I would have made it. I had I always had someone to talk to somewhere to get that support.

And then the students that were here, because we all kind of knew each other in a way. Some of us went to Cathedral, the Boys and [inaudible], and there was a few girls here from Sacred Heart,

and then from Ramona Convent and other places, um. Most of the women, though, were in the education area, and I was one of the few that was pre- law and then changed to history and Chicano Studies.

So I didn't have a lot of women that I knew in my classes, and that that made it a little harder, um, because I didn't have that collegiality. If I had stayed in Spanish or in education, I

probably would have had more. So I leaned heavily in getting involved and knowing other cultures in order to survive. Hmmm, I see.

And this is just like a small question, but you know, as a—as a Chicana—especially as a woman too, as well— you know—like you were doing all these things

and—when it was back then in a predominantly white institution, how—what was the pressure like? Because it was all these like balancing and it was the failure of—it was the fear of failure that

was also inspiring you as well to keep going. So I'm just imagining like, how much was that pressure? Like, how much would you say it has impacted you during that time?

Well, I think that what it's led me to do is take advantage of every opportunity and then also to work extremely hard. Um, I think the pressure in terms of my um, colleagues in

the classroom is like the men weren't angry or upset that we were there, but they just didn't help. They didn't encourage like—like you have student groups that

work together. What do they call them? It's like cohorts or just study groups and I never participated in study groups until I was in my senior seminar.

Um, and there was just a sense that you had to do it on your own. There's just little help um, from fellow students. It was just—that was the environment.

And then when I was an RA I had that experience where when I was appointed a Resident Advisor, somebody called my room, because we had telephones in the room, and basically tried to harass me by telling me I

didn't belong on the campus. They actually say, "Oh, you Tio Taco." And I was like, "Who is this?" You know?

And it was a very—looking back on it—it was like an intimidation call. You know, some racist person was calling to say, I didn't belong here on the campus.

But generally, um, I just took the attitude that that was not the majority. It was a minority. And I made friends across cultures.

There was a group on campus called the Modern Culture Society and I was a MEChista but I was also a member of that group. And the Modern Culture Society was representative of various groups

Blacks, Whites, Asians, um, Chicanos. And I think it was just kind of moderating— we were trying to like work across cultures. Uh, the MEChistas was it was a much more activist group

trying to call for change. You have to remember that— what my experience was during that time is that I grew up in the Eastside and the Moratoriums had

happened. I grew up during a period where in the 60s we had the the riots in Watts. We had the deaths and the killing here in town

of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And so you had that activist environment. And then where I grew up and I was talking to my tío and my tía this weekend—you know—

I told them I remember being at their house when Ruben Salazar was killed and the protests were going on in the—in the Eastside. They lived on Kern [Avenue] behind JonSons market.

And I remember the fear that we had to get out of our community because the sheriffs were taking Chicanos out of cars and beating them and then killing them in some cases.

And my aunt and my uncle looked at me and they said, "You remember that?" Because back then I was, you know, still in high school, early in high school.

And I said, Oh my God, that was just such a terrifying thing to know that they were hurting people who—for protesting, for expressing their outrage over the discrimination that was going on in our community.

And so I remember that. So when I came here to Loyola, I knew that the activism of others had led to the changes that we were now experiencing, that we were welcomed.

And I give a lot of credit to Father Merrifield and Father Casassas—who I later served on a social justice committee with—that they were trying to integrate the campus. Not only merged gender—women—into a predominantly men

only institution, Loyola University, but also bring people of color to this campus. And so I distinctly remember being here during those times and understanding that we were among the first, that we

were changing the course of the institution and that it was going to be important that we stepped up and led. And so I give Father Merrifield a lot of credit

for the fact that he encouraged me a lot whenever he'd see me and told me, "How are you doing?" —you know—"How's it going?" And really meant it.

And Father Casassas, who served on the social justice committee, he—he helped me a lot to understand that I could be a leader, that I was a leader, and that the whole world was ahead of me, and I

needed to be prepared for it, and I needed to go to graduate school. And he started talking very early in my junior year about doing that.