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College of Social Sciences
Jose Angel Santiesteban always knew he wanted to be a professor one day, but he had no idea how to achieve his goal. Santiesteban is a first generation Political Science major and this year’s undergraduate College of Social Sciences Dean’s Medalist. He will also be graduating this spring.
Santiesteban himself is surprised by his accomplishments at Fresno State.
“I never knew what questions to ask. I never knew where to start. I just knew I had the goal to be a professor, but I didn’t know what that looked like,” Santiesteban said.
When Santiestaban started talking to professors about how to carve out a path for himself, and how they became professors, he found that most of them came from families that worked in academia, or white collar jobs.
“I come from working in the field, from trucking, deliveries,” Santiesteban said. “I come from a very labor intensive environment.”
Santiestban said because of the environment he came from it was difficult for him to ask for help. He said he didn’t want to feel like “someone’s burden.”
Santiesteban overcame his fear of asking for help thanks to the support he found in the Department of Political Science and in the College of Social Sciences.
“My professors really fostered an environment where I could go and talk to and seek them. Whether it was a silly question, or whatever it was,” Santiesteban said.
Santiesteban said the environment professors fostered in the classroom gave him the confidence to continue to pursue his academic interests, and a space to have “uncomfortable conversations.”
“I had the opportunity to meet people with different perspectives that I didn’t agree with,” Santiesteban said.
Through mentorship, and his lived experiences, Santesteban figured out the topics he wanted to research as he continued his academic career: how politics affect gender, and in particular gender violence in Latin America.
Santiesteban’s background and his family's experience immigrating to the United States are what inspired his research topics.
Santiesteban’s parents immigrated to the United State during the Regan administration from Culiacan Chihuahua, Mexico.
Santiesteban said the political climate in Mexico, and “listening to the lived experiences” of trauma and violence his mother, tias, and uncles had, gave him a deeper understanding of political science and politics in Latin America.
“The research I'm looking into is how militaries, organized crime, and governments work together to create these systems of oppression against gender identities and racial identities, whether it's indigenous or different racial categories,” Santiesteban said.
During his tenure at Fresno State Santiesteban found the opportunities he needed to create a pathway towards his dream of becoming a professor.
Those opportunities included building a research project as a COSS honors student, presenting his research at the University of Michigan’s Emerging Scholars Conference, and participating in the University of Southern California Pre-Doctoral Institute among other achievements.
Now that he is graduating from Fresno State, as his next step, Santiesteban will be joining the Political Science PhD program at the Washington University in St. Louis
“I want to be able to cultivate an environment for people just like me and not just like me, but a lot of all walks of life. I want to foster that environment for the next generation,” Santiesteban said.