David G. Garcia
David G. García is an associate professor in School of Education and Information Studies. He is one of only a handful of historians across the country documenting Chicana/o community histories of education. He earned my Ph.D. in U.S. history and his interdisciplinary research trajectory follows three main lines of inquiry: (1) Chicana/o teatro (theater) as public revisionist history, (2) the pedagogy of Hollywood’s urban school genre, and (3) Chicana/o educational histories. Each of these areas addresses the interconnectivity of history and education in relation to Chicana/o, Latina/o communities in the United States and examines how the constructs of race, culture, and class shape educational experiences for Communities of Color across time and place. His award winning book, "Strategies of Segregation: Race, Residence, and the Struggle for Educational Equality" (University of California Press, 2018) exposes a separate and unequal school system and its purposeful links with racially restrictive housing covenants in Oxnard, California. García excavated multiple archives, and conducted and analyzed over sixty oral history interviews with Mexican Americans and African Americans who endured disparate treatment and protested discrimination. He also examined "Soria v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees," one of the nation’s first desegregation cases filed jointly by Mexican American and Black plaintiffs. His research about some of the White supremacist ideologies of past education officials led sixth grade students in Oxnard to organize and successfully change the name of their middle school, and also led to the successful name change of an elementary school in Ventura ( https://oxnardsd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=74&meta_id=49643 ). Dr. Garcia's research and commentary has been featured in news outlets including The Los Angeles Times, KPCC Public Radio, Latino USA National Public Radio, Aquí y Ahora Univision, Ventura County Star, and New Books in Latino Studies on Apple Podcasts.
Education
- Ph.D., U.S. History, UCLA, 2006
- M.A., Latin American Studies, UCLA, 2000
- B.A., Sociology, Chicana/o Studies Specialization, UCLA, 1996
Awards, Honors, Fellowships
- Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Achieving Excellence in College and University Teaching
- UCLA Hellman Fellowship
- University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Sociology at UC-Santa Barbara
Select Publications
- Strategies of Segregation: Race, Residence, and the Struggle for Educational Equality. Oakland: University of California Press (2018). https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520296879
- García, D.G., & T.J. Yosso. “Recovering Our Past: A Methodological Reflection.” History of Education Quarterly, 60.1 (2020): 59-72.
- García, D.G., & T.J. Yosso. “‘Strictly in the Capacity of Servant’: The Interconnection Between Residential and School Segregation in Oxnard, California, 1934-1954.” History of Education Quarterly, 53.1 (2013): 64-89. 2014 History of Education Society Prize Committee Honorable Mention.
- García, D.G., T.J. Yosso, & F.P. Barajas. “’A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children’: School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940.” Harvard Educational Review 82.1 (2012): 1-25.
