She was born to a mother who left school after the third grade to work. Her late father attended school in a one-room adobe house in the mountains of Mexico but never finished.
But Dr. Glenda M. Flores is their dream realized. She’s not only a first-generation college graduate but a tenured associate professor at her alma mater — the University of California-Irvine — where several students are like her in so many ways.
As a first-generation college graduate, Flores has been both a model at an institution that boasts many first-generation and Latino college students.
“Honestly, I feel very blessed and grateful to have this group of students who are not just Latinos, but there are others who are first-generation college students,” she says. “I see in a lot of them this deep-seated desire to finish … you’re not doing it for yourself, but for a whole group of people who sacrificed for you.”
Flores earned two undergraduate degrees from UC Irvine: one in Spanish language and culture with an education emphasis and a second in Chicano and Latino studies. She later earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Southern California and returned to UC Irvine in 2012 as an assistant professor.
Many Latino students struggle with a sense of belonging in the university setting, says Flores, who is also the director of undergraduate studies.
“A lot of it has to do with the current political climate,” she says, adding that the immigration issue has become racialized.
