Andrea Gaspar is a political activist on our own UCI campus, and also works on other student movements across different campuses. She was the campus-organizing director for ASUCI (Associate Students of University of California Irvine). Currently, she is the head of the Executive Vice Presidents Office (EVP) for ASUCI. She is earning a degree in Chicano Studies, minoring in African American Studies and Spanish, with a focus on Latin American Literature.
Being a political activist is tough at UCI because the school is designed to be anti-riot, which means there is no central place for people to gather. Having no central place for students to voice their opinions makes it difficult for political movements to happen on campus. However, Andrea Gaspar rises to the challenge. In her own words, “I have this overall vision for something greater, and that helps out,” in terms of preserving in the difficult political climate on campus.
Her two main goals in her organizing career are to make sure education is easy to access, affordable, and reasonable for all students of different backgrounds, and to also to give students who want to organize political movements the tools to do so. ASUCI paved that route for her when she became the head of the EVP Office.
Andrea explained, “It’s really hard to get people to care,” so it is important to get involved in working with other organizations like the TA organization, and the laborer organizations as well. She does admit that there needs to be a culture change so that more people in UCI engage in political activism. However, she feels like her office is working on creating a foundation for thatchange. This year in the EVP office, Andrea is working with the Cross-Cultural Center to create a separate space for organizers on campus to continue to learn and make the campus politically engaged.
Being the head of EVP office is a time consuming and difficult job, but Andrea feels like she is motivated to continue her position because of her amazing support system. She has an excellent chief of staff who helps her answer all of her emails. She also makes sure to delegate her job to others when necessary. Her community back in San Diego also motivates her because they are a big reason why she actively engages in the political process.
Andrea Gaspar has a vision to help her community. She lived in Mexico most of her life, but moved to San Diego in 2006 due to the War on Drugs in Mexico. Although she moved from Tijuana to San Diego, the change of setting was not too different.
The struggles of belonging to a community with a US/Mexico boarder identity did not change despite her moving to America. She explained that people who come across the border go through immense stress, as well as physical and emotional violence. Andrea wants to voice of their struggles and improve her community.
Andrea aspires to go graduate school, and is currently working on her research. She explains it is neccesary, “Because sometimes when you want to prove a point or a policy change you need to have the research done…you need to prove that it will work.”
Andrea works with the Department of Education researching how critical studies, such as Ethnic studies, Women studies, and Chicano Latino studies, help the youth improve their grades and graduate on time, pursuing higher education. The issue is a lot of high schools do not have critical studies classes. During her fifth year Andrea is going to continue political activism on campus, but she is going to focus more on research. She hopes to earn a PhD and return to her community to help improve the education system there. Andrea powers on!