123: Managing Relationships with Advisors with Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Welcome back everyone to the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is Doctora Yvette and today I have another wonderful guest with us who's going to be talking to us all about managing or navigating relationships with advisors and committee members. It's a really important topic. Our guest today is Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo who uses pronouns she they and graduated from a PhD in Psychology from the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon in 2014 but couldn't find an any open doors in academia afterwards. And so that has led to her now holding many titles. She is a professor of education at an online university and antiracist educator and activist or women's rights, a certified sex counselor, and organic percussionist, and a flamenco dancer. I love it. Oh my gosh. They also host a punk feminist podcast and discuss the latest findings and papers on gender, and sexuality. Yes, welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Thank you for having me here. Yeah, that's my story. I'm like, when you when you tell it instead of I like me to saying everything about myself, if it sounds more real.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Por que si, I love your bio.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Like, oh, my God, I really did all that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Si, so tell us a little bit more about about you doing that I would love for you to tell our listeners who maybe don't know who you are, or are trying to get to know you more, can you tell us about your background, your backstory and kind of what led you to becoming who you are today.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I think I have a story of like switching my field of interest every certain time because I started. First of all, when I started my undergraduate studies, I wanted to go into physics, oh, industrial physics and engineering. But, but something happened. Like in my very first semester of physics, there was this big event with researchers in the physics field. And I got in there, and the people were so boring, and so sad. So it was mainly men and white, or white and men. And they were talking about the research and but they didn't sound like passionate about it. So I'm like, maybe this is not for me. So in that, like in that same semester, I went to another event with people in the humanities area. And it was a linguistics event. And they were mostly moms, mostly Latina moms talking about their babies, their babies language.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

And I'm like, this is fascinating. Do you know what's your mom's talking about how their babies acquired their second language. And it was like and and there were many are like many very interesting research subject, but all of them were about language and learning. And, and the people like most of the researchers were women who were paying attention to the detail. I'm like, okay, maybe I need to change my major. So I took two, linguistics and language. The program is called licenciatura en letras espanolas, it's all about literature and language and I wanted to go into linguistics originally. So I graduated from my BA in well in 2004. And then I wanted to do, I wanted to do the same thing as don't women that I had seen, I wanted to go into linguistics, and I wanted to also study about, you know, bilingual people and culture and code switching. And all that was very interesting to me. But I couldn't afford a rhetoric program in linguistics because the only one I knew was one in Puebla and it was a private university, La Universidad de Los Angeles Puebla.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I was this for a doctoral program as it for a PhD, a master's degree program, oh a master's degree.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

A private university, and I could not afford it. And I was telling my family like that I wanted to keep studying, but we couldn't afford a private university. Like, well, I had gone to a private university for my BA, but that because I had a scholarship, right? Because my dad was a professor of mathematics, which brought me why I wanted to get into physics.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

They're, they're interrelated.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah. But then the story goes full circle. Let me explain how it goes. So um, well, we couldn't afford a I couldn't afford to move to Puebla. So my mom would like go look for a scholarship find, find a program that you are into and find something closer to home. And so I was looking for something similar to what I wanted. And that didn't want and that was funded by the conahcyt. Conahcyt is the institution that well, is the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. So they are the one find us the scholarships and graduate programs and researchers. And and so, in that process, I found this research paper on emotional argumentation. And this was by two researchers in the faculty of psychology in Nuevo Leon in my same state. So if I wanted to study with them, I we didn't have to move. So it was a very interesting work about how well they studied discussion forums, in online classes and the emotional content in it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

They studied online classes. Now it's like the norm but this was like pre.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Back in 2003. And they were like, how do people discuss and include emotion in their discussion? So it was very interesting. And they were like, I want to meet these people. And I'm want to study with them. So like, my love story with my committee was like, from the moment I read their papers, so I applied. And when I applied that was not the problem was not funded by the conahcyt. So I, my first term, I didn't have a scholarship, but they were in the process of getting it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

They were in the process of getting conahcyt?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, they were. There's something called a padron or the programs are registered. And if they, if they have certain requirements, they can get fund, that school gets funding from from the conahcyt so that you can be also.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So they there doing that process. Yeah.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah. So they were in that process when I first joined. And as I said, I came from my language and literature background. And it was psychology, I was not a psychologist. I knew nothing. I mean, I knew very little about psychology, I knew a lot about language. Because they were doing this discourse analysis for their, for their research and emotional argumentation. They were basically studying language. It's like I fit right in into there. So, um, they interviewed me, they saw like, that I was that I had the interest and the curiosity and that I already had, like, a research idea. It wasn't even like a, like a research project. I didn't know that that a lot of programs require you to have a a a project first and like already have a research objective before you go but I'll have also an idea now and and an interest.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

So they welcomed me in and with time we got the funding from conahcyt and here's where it gets interesting. Like one of the requirement for them to get funding was that the student that they accepted into the program had to graduate so there's like a percentage of people that need to graduate from the program if they want to keep funding and and we would like just only four or five students at a time. So they were really careful about who they accepted they needed to complete the program so that we're the relationship gets interesting because they have a commitment to making you graduate. Wow. But you all, but they also have to see that you that you want to do it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I love how, did you describe it as your love story with your committee members? I've never heard someone say it like that?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Oh, but also because my, my master's advisor was like, these two people were married. So Concepcion Rodriguez was my advisor for my master's degree. And then for one parent, Dr. Victor Padilla. Um, oh my god, I guess called Coni, Coni, instead of Dr. Concepcion. When I talk about her when I call her I call him a doctor.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But you know what you caught yourself yeah, that is so important.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I caught myself, ya know. So, Doctora Concepcion Rodriguez Nieto was my advisor, for my master's degree. And then for my doctorate, her husband, Dr. Victor Padilla was also my advisor, so they had a love story.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Oh, wow. Okay, so, um, I mean, I also want to hear and like other parts of, of your story, and of, of all the other things that you do, but I also think this is a good transition to talking about advisors and committee members. And maybe if you're okay, with that, we can get back to talking about kind of what you do now, after we talk about committee members and advisors, because it's, it's tricky, it's complicated to develop and maintain these relationships.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I've heard a lot of horror stories, just to be honest with you, of people who end up working with folks who on paper seem really great, but then when you meet them, maybe are not very supportive, or they're cold, or they're unavailable, or just something happens. And so I'm curious, from your perspective, since you have a background in psychology, since it sounds like you had a good working relationship with your advisors. And you yourself are, you know, a profesora and an educator, like, from your perspective, I would love to hear kind of your thoughts on navigating these relationships?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, I think, um, well, when there are problems, because there was like an advisor assigned to you, instead of you choosing your advisor. You can start the program, if people start the program without knowing whose research they are following.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Right. Or sometimes like people will apply to grad school and they'll list three people say, I want to work with this person, or this person, this person, and then they get in and they don't know who they're going to work with. And like you said, either someone gets assigned to them, or they decide but then they don't know that person very well. So I'm sorry, I'll let you keep going.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Also, another thing that happened, and it happened to me is that you inherit problems that are not yours. If your advisor has a problem, or like a conflict with another researcher, or in your committee, that problem is not yours, but you have it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah, if your advisor doesn't get along with one of your committee members that happens too. Yeah, yeah. So what what do you do to to manage that?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Well, you need to know like, and I wrote this question for, like, what we need to think about in this, in that case of conflict like, is the conflict because of what their work is about, or because of something personal or emotional. So we need to know like, who does the committee like, do they cite each other? Who do they cite? Who responds to their work? How do they respond? Because those are also true to how we're going to be questioned on our own work. Like the way our advisors are questioned is the way our advisors will questions us, right. So we need to know, like, what are the main disagreement, like, when it comes to their work? You know, and also, we need to remember that scientists, even though we claim to do science, we're human. And a lot of the responses are emotional.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, a lot of people forget that.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah. And so like, these agreements are part of the process in science. Like it, like it's very normal to disagree. You have to disagree to advance in the field. But the way some disagreements happen, they may be emotionally taxing. Especially if we're not used to, like, in our culture in Latino culture, it is very difficult to disagree with people. Yeah, we are like, even in my own research, what I found out is that critical discourse is very difficult for us, because we are very polite. And so this politeness is like a barrier to, to create a criticism and to like curiously point at something and say, hey, I have these questions about your work. Or I don't think what you're doing is right, or this part of your work is problematic because of these reasons. So we don't have like the training, the linguistic training to talk about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I mean, it would you say, for some of us, we come from that culture of like you said, politeness, some would even say, like, people pleasing that fear of like, el que diran, like, what are people going to think about me, if I, if I provide this criticism? What can we do to kind of counter that and still kind of, in some cases, advocate for ourselves, for our work without, without negatively impacting the relationship, that's, that's the hard part.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

It is going to impact your relationships anyway. Because, um, but we need to start building spaces that are open to discussion, we need to be comfortable with people disagreeing with our story. And also we need to learn how to give feedback in a way that are respectful of the person, but still critical of their work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I was gonna say, learning how to give feedback is actually a skill that not a lot of us actually learn. Like, we see how other people give us feedback. And sometimes feedback is just all negative. It's not always positive. And yeah, you learn from what you receive. And I feel like there needs to be a professional development part of graduate school where we kind of talk about these things about relationships, about feedback about criticism.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing that I know comes up a lot when it comes to relationships with advisors is sometimes people are assigned an advisor. And then they realize, oh, no, they no longer want to work with this person, maybe it's personal, like they just they don't get along, or sometimes it's not personal. Sometimes it's about the research and the they realize that they want to take their work in another direction and work with someone else, or maybe even change departments completely. So what kind of input would you give to someone who is in the position of realizing I think I want to switch advisors and I don't want to burn bridges, ruin any relationships, I still want to, you know, be in good standing with this person.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Well, I did see people change department or change advisors. And it is normal. That's like a very valid process to change your advisor because your work is changing. You're, you're learning about, you're in a learning process. And the more you learn about something, you may find out that the person that is advising you is no longer qualified on that specific subject. And it's very normal and very valid to like to change your mind.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm really glad that you mentioned that because sometimes people wait a while before they even have that conversation with their advisor because they're afraid because they don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation. And I just, I'm glad that you are reminding the listeners that it is normal. That is part of the process sometimes for some folks. And you know, I switched advisors when I was getting my PhD. It was not a comfortable process, but it happened and I was better off for it. So I think it's just reminding people, it might not be the most comfortable thing to do. But if it's in your best interest, then you should definitely pursue it.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, I think also in the process, what may happen is that your subject just got more difficult. And you need help from people besides your advisor. So maybe changing your advisor is one way to do it. But getting an external adviser is also another way. Like, in my case, well, I got into metaphors and metaphor processing. And my advisor was an expert in semantic networks, but he wasn't quite an expert in like linguistical. You know, in the very linguistic field, more, he was more in psychology and discourse analysis was just something he learned to do his research, but he wasn't an expert in you know, in language and, and linguistics, but he did have a relationship with another researcher in Buenos Aires, Julio de la Plata in Argentina, and and he became my internal advisor, this other advisor.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

When you say external, I'm so sorry. I just want to clarify, when you say external advisor, do you mean, this person was like a coadvisor, as in both of them were your advisors for your dissertation.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

He was invited into my committee, I talked to my advisor, and they invited him into my committee. And, he was not exactly a co advisor, but there was some someone we could we could bounce ideas from

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So an external committee member, maybe, because my my, for my dissertation, and I know for a lot of people, they have like an external person, someone outside of the department or outside of the university from another university, who comes in like you said, to provide their expertise, but they're not the adviser, the main adviser is the person in your department. Was that the case? In your, for you?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yes, that was it. But also, like, some type of structure seemed very rigid. And people forget that you can, you can break the structure that if you find someone that is doing your subject, but is in another university in another field, you can still contact them and ask them for advice. And and even if you're worried about how to pay someone signing someone is already like an exchange. You promise to cite someone in your work. Yeah. Yeah. Like you can negotiate how someone can help, you know, like, or like, just asking questions about this, about the subject. So you may have like an official advisor, but a lot of researchers are very willing to help about their own subject, you know, like, if you're reading my work and you need help understanding my work. I'm going to offer myself for free you know, that's part of my impact.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'm curious as I know you have a lot to say about this topic, what you know, what prompted you to want to come and talk about this subject in particular because I feel like you could cover a lot of different topics just based on your background, your experience, what you do now. So what what made you think, oh, I want to talk about about advisors, about relationships?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I think part of it is that I had a very positive experience and a very clear relationship with my advisers, but also, like I can, I can see people struggling with this conflict thing. Also, because of our like, I did this in our own Mexican culture, you know, like I did my work in Mexico, and people in the US are people, like in more Anglo dominated spaces, may not have this kind of relationship.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

What do you mean by that? They may not have these kinds of relationships, like positive relationships, or what kind of relationships?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Positive and culturally informed relationships?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of cultural what's the word? Choque? Like?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, especially when your advisor is in a position of authority. And as they maybe they are also Latinx advisors, but they are assimilated in American white academia.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Oh, my goodness, that could be another episode.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, that'd be another subject in your.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Well, so I'm glad to hear this side of the story of like, you can have positive productive relationships with advisors and committee members. Is there anything that if you could go back and do it again, when you were getting your masters or your your doctoral degree? Is there anything you would do differently?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I would choose a different subject. Yes.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Oh but not your, you wouldn't change anything when it comes to your relationships with advisors.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

No, like, but I would try to find a subject that is more closely related to their research, because that would have got me published easier, easily. Or, you know.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

that, in fact, the strategy side of things that we don't know.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Because my subject was difficult for my advisor, because it was new to them. Yeah. So maybe it was challenging, it was exciting, it was a learning process for all of us. But maybe if I had chosen a subject that was more related to there, we would have collaborated more, and I would have more publications with them. Even what I have published, I published by myself without my advisor, as a co-author, I would have changed.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Okay. Um,

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

And that also an advice for people that who are just starting find something that you're passionate about, but that someone else is doing so that you can collaborate then publish together.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree. And I think that in STEM fields, one thing that I appreciate about folks that are in STEM. I myself, I'm not, but I've worked with a lot of students who have pursued research in STEM fields, is just how highly collaborative it is, and how it's part of the process for you to be an apprentice and work in a lab and work with other people, and then be a co author. And so that's part of the process that helps to to train professionalize you to get you published.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Whereas in the humanities, in some social sciences, it's less common for you to co author something, it's not a requirement for you to co author with your advisor. And I think that's it's a great learning process to do it with someone who's already done it and to help to help you to help you get more publications to help you get more get your name out in the field. So yeah, I mean, if we can encourage that if in any way possible, especially outside of STEM fields where that is already the norm.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of the work that I did in my lab was privileged to work for my advisors, so that my advisor could connect with more researcher so I helped my advisor publish in English. But I didn't get any publications of my own out there.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Well, I was okay because you can still publish now. So I want to, I want to hear more about about you just because I am still thinking about this how, how interesting your bio is and everything that you do and it I just would love to hear more about what you do now and yeah, how you went from getting your PhD in psychology to now you're in education, and you've got your podcast and you've got your your activist work and your anti racist work. So that's all great. And you're a certified sex counselor, like, come on now, those are all, and you dance.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, I think I branched out of education, because I was starting into, like, social learning and collaborative learning. And as I was doing that, I got into education for liberation and social justice and ethnic studies. And those interest were not like, my, my field, my academic field, officially, but they were related. So I was moving like step by step outside of my work into this social justice work.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And if I asked you about this, people would be frustrated, because I think a lot of my listeners are interested precisely in that in the social justice aspect of what you do. Yeah.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yes. So, um, yes, I had, like, I when I spoke to my advisor about my interest in social justice work, they were like and they were like, focus on something you have too many interests. And, and it's like, they didn't believe that social justice work have like a, like, a deep enough background to be a field of study in itself.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yeah. Its legitimacy is often questioned. Right? Yeah.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yes. So. And also, I think that my advisors as Mexican researchers they were more interested in publications. Yeah, no. They were. They wanted validation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Prestige. Yeah.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

If they would have gone into that field, that would have been a social cost for them that they weren't willing to pay. But I paid it, you know, like I did. I'm this debt from academia now. Officially, you know, I'm not, I'm not in a postdoc. I'm not publishing anymore. But, um, but I, well, I got into this activism for women, right. I'm a woman in Mexico. They kill 10 of us daily. So not doing it was not like, I couldn't not be in this.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I mean, that's very real, femicidio, and like you're constantly like having to worry about your safety. Right?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Right. And also, what happened was that during my graduate studies, we're, we're in the middle of it, of the guerra contra las drogas. And I had a lot of survival skills, even graduating, because I'm, like, a student were killed, were murdered in the crossfire. And yeah, I'm sorry. I have to talk about this.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

No, yeah, you should.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah. And so I think part of my disinterest in academia also come from graduating in the middle of a war. That wasn't even acknowledged as a war. You know? Because what do you call this, whatever that Calderon was doing? No, and it's not getting, it's not getting better, you know, not just but it's not as violent as it was back then. But, um.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I mean, I think you're speaking to the the humanity and sometimes the lack of it that can be seen in academic spaces. And you're talking about like, Mexico, Mexico, in particular, but like, it can be seen in academic institutions all over the world, just that that lack of humanity, the lack of like, acknowledging what's going on in people's lives, like I've seen that with just my own students having relatives pass away from COVID and professors just being completely unwilling to give them an extension or to acknowledge their humanity when it's like a life or death situation for them, or a tragic situation for them. So I can I feel like I can empathize with some of what you're saying with like the reasons why you left academia, I guess I would say, and now you're pursuing this, this different, but still, I would still consider it a scholarly route of like social justice and activism and putting your work out there in what seems like a more accessible way too.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, so one thing led to the next, you know, like being involved in social justice and womens rights. And then I got this opportunity to get into sex counseling because I was already, you know, getting informed about abortion rights about, you know, and also the difficulties of relating to men in the middle of like, what's happening with femicide and gender violence. So I got into this program to certify myself as a counselor.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

And I have this podcast when I talk about, you know, this very long attitude, because I got this attitude from being like, in the industry, marching and protesting, and with other people organized, like, it doesn't need to be perfect, but it's urgent, that we get this out there. You know, and part of what amazed me, when I was preparing my podcast episodes, was that a lot of what I did, like when when I was a teenager, as an activist, as a teenager was already being considered, like, in academia, in public papers, and I would like okay, so something that I did then what part of, you know, that would be considered some day is now being like, what I'm doing on the street is being cited, right, more than what I'm doing in academia.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I mean, that's the difference between theory and practice.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

You know, like you're getting papers where your Twitter is cited.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And I think a lot of us are drawn to that work the practice the applied work that actually being able to go out and and do work that has a direct application helps people here and now and not having to wait a year two years peer reviewers and and then you have what is it like paywalls and your work does doesn't get out there? It you hope that it makes a difference? But it's like to whom? Who actually reads your work? Who actually gets your message?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

So yeah, that looks like it was complicated to like, to learn exactly who does academia favor, and could should be represented in academia. And then it has been a process of like, going back into, oh, maybe I belong here. Like, I didn't know. I like I left for a while because I was unsatisfied with this attitude of being super objective and disconnected from what's going around you until you see that there's people studying what you're doing outside of like, officially, what's considered academia.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So what do you now I'm curious having said that, what do you anticipate will be like the the future what direction are you headed towards with your own? I don't want to say career but your own life. Because you say well, you were not sure about academia but now you're seeing that your work your like actual work out on the streets is being cited like what do you anticipate for for you, you know, what's going to come next?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Well, I did. My work is helping the people that are like, done in academia are all and also the people who are on the street of being a threat. Because we are the same people. And and maybe building more collaborations on like teaching people who are working on social justice, how to document what you're doing. Nice. Yeah, and also like, I'm raising awareness inside academia about, like, you know, the issue that people are going through, and there's emotional issues and mental health issues. And what you're doing in this podcast is like, amazing work that is needed and that nobody had, nobody had pointed to it before, you know, like, there's an academia culture that may cause culture shock to the people who are not.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I hopefully that with these steps, like the conversation that we're having, the other episodes that we've had, we help to minimize that culture shock, we help to demystify the process, and then in turn, empower more people so that they can decide if they want to go to grad school if they don't. And they make informed decisions that empower them to pursue whatever they want to do with their life with an outside academia or a little bit of both.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, yeah. Because I think that like the white sectoring in academia is not only an American phenomena, it also happens. In Mexico, it happens in Argentina.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

White supremacy esta en todo or almost all over the world.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

So even though like even though I had access to Mexican advisors, very brown Mexican, they're still whitened in their thinking because of this relationship to academia.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Trying to follow the Western model.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, even though they represent themselves. Like, proudly, you know, even though even though they go internationally to represent themselves, and even if they have, like, they have contact with other people from other nations, like indigenous people from other nations, even even though that is happening, the mindset is still westernized, the model that we are following is still westernized and they're still white centering. So even when that is happening, like, there's hope, in the people that are, like in the younger generations, the younger generation come with deeper questions that we need to be prepared to do advise.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Speaking of the younger generation, you know, as I get ready to like, wrap up the episode, I usually always ask this of any guest is what advice would you have for the coming generations, the younger generations, you know, whoever's is interested in that if they're interested in applying to grad school, or they've just started grad school, or they're just getting started with getting setting up their committee or, like you, they have this deep desire to merge social justice with kind of academic work, like, what kind of advice would you give to them to help them navigate this process, and hopefully have, you know, develop some good relationships, not all relationships will be great, but you know, hopefully, develop some good relationships out of it.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

First of all, you need to find what inspires you, and what interests you. And then find the people in working related to what you find inspiring. And the people are out there, you know, there are people doing the work that you want to do connect with them, you're not competing against them.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It's so funny, sometimes I forget that. There are so many good people out there because I've had my own fair share of toxicity in academia. But then then I myself run into folks, you know, whether it's through the podcast or through meeting like a friend of a friend who are doing really good work, who are doing work that kind of inspires and motivates others. And so I appreciate you for that reminder. Now, if folks listen to this podcast and connected with what you said, and would like to stay in touch or connect with you in some way, shape, or form, how can they reach you?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I'm on Instagram and Twitter @aragloriasantos and my podcast, you can listen to it on, I record it on Anchor and I think it spread to Google podcast and Apple podcast and all the all of the platforms and it's called sentir rico.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Sentir Rico and like I love that it's because it's like putting joy at the forefront and we don't do that enough, pleasure and joy.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

I think I troll people with that with that title because first of all I didn't want it to talk about like our rights to pleasure and to sentir rico but then it's like make them some of my subjects started feeling like uncomfortable.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But you know what, sentir rico can be like the pleasure side of it but it can also mean feeling wealthy, living a rich life, so for all you know, you might be like.

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, like if you listen to me, you may find pleasure but also you will. You will be made uncomfortable.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

You will have a wealth of knowledge. You may feel uncomfortable. You may feel pleasure. l love it. I will make sure that I'm add them to my show notes. So your your link to your podcast and then your you said Instagram and Twitter, right?

Dr. Gloria J. Santos Acevedo

Yeah, you can also find me on Facebook with my name Gloria J. Santos.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Great!