Inclusion/Exclusion

In this chapter I recount my personal journey from K–12 schooling to my present position as faculty teaching at a university, I detail an important principle instilled in me by my mother—to take the initiative. Growing up, my mother would inform my two siblings and me to speak up and inquire about opportunities. By taking the initiative, we would be carving out a path to do better in our studies, which would lead to our future careers. In this narrative, I provide some of the many instances where I recall “taking the initiative.” Currently, I still “take the initiative” in my own career, as I’ve learned that if I don’t ask or if I don’t try, then I end up doubting what possibilities could have occurred. “Taking the initiative” begins by having confidence in yourself and always inquiring about opportunities. And this is the principle that I now communicate to students and which centers my testimonio.

My Upbringing

As is common in Mexican culture, I was named after my mother, while my younger brother was named after my father. My sister, who is the middle sibling, took on the name Gabriela, as it was a favorite name of my mother’s. And thus my story begins. My parents, Jesús Villalobos Cuéllar and María Cristina Sánchez Treviño, were born and raised in Hualahuises, Nuevo León, a small town in northern Mexico, which is close to the larger town, Linares. My parents met at a dance hall in 1969 and married nine months later when my mother was 23 years old and my father was 44 years old.

My father was born in 1925 while my mother was born in 1946, and as you’ll note they had an age difference of 21 years. Both of my parents came from large families consisting of eight to nine children. Life was difficult in Mexico as my grandfathers worked whatever jobs were available. My grandmothers were homemakers, taking care of the family at home. Hence, my father only completed elementary education through the third grade so that he could work and assist his family financially. He read the newspaper daily and could engage in political conversations and debates with anyone. Now, imagine being nine years old and dropping out of school to take on an important matter that adults are tasked to take. Unfortunately, this still occurs in many parts of Latin America and around the world.

When he grew older, he crossed the Mexican-U.S. border in search of better jobs to support his family. I recall him telling me his adventures and the multiple times he was deported to Mexico. He remembered vividly the discrimination that he encountered in Victoria, Texas, at a barber shop where he could not get a haircut because he was Mexican. So he just walked away. Another incident occurred in McAllen. He was apprehended since he was without papeles. [1] He was put in the back of a police car and took the opportunity to flee when the two policemen decided to have lunch at a restaurant. Perhaps it was a hint for my father to leisurely walk away. Eventually, my father and his younger brother made their way to Chicago to work in a printing company and became U.S. residents. During this time, my parents stayed in contact by writing to each other. My uncle got married, had a family and settled in Chicago where he still lives. His children, my cousins, attended college, some completed graduate degrees, and all are successful in their careers.

My father returned to Hualahuises and married my mother in 1970. They immigrated to McAllen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, a location close enough to their homes but most importantly a location they thought would provide a “better life.” Soon after, my sister and I were born in McAllen and we all settled in Donna, a smaller town 12 miles from McAllen. It was in Donna where I did all of my K–12 education. At that time there was only one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school; now there are multiples of each. During my school-aged years, my father worked at a local cannery in Donna while my mother worked at a local cannery in San Carlos and then as a custodian at the local Headstart in Donna.

Early Schooling. I was raised in a Spanish-speaking environment as Spanish was my parents’ native language. My mother has always been a wise woman (as all Latina women are!) and a strong supporter of education. Thus, she took it upon herself to enroll me and my sister in the Donna Headstart preschool program. I spent one year in Headstart while my sister spent two given that she was a year younger than me. I only remember a few things about that year. I remember a field trip where I sprained my ankle, and singing while the teacher played the piano. I also remember watching a world slowly spin on the television screens, which years later I discovered was the intro to the soap opera As the World Turns that our teacher would watch while we were (supposed to be) napping.

From kindergarten through second grade, I was in bilingual education with bilingual teachers, perfecting Spanish and learning English. Developing into a dual-language speaker was helped by my immersion in Spanish at home and in English while in school. In third grade, I encountered my first full-blown English-speaking class—I say this since Ms. Turner only spoke English. I remember initially being frightened that Ms. Turner only spoke English, since I had felt comfortable with my bilingual teachers knowing that if needed to I could combine Spanish and English to communicate my thoughts. And thus I would frame English sentences with proper grammar in my mind before I approached Ms. Turner. Eventually this practice went away and the third grade was the best year of all my K–12 years. What made that year great was that we did so much “active learning,” to put it in today’s pedagogical use of words. In Ms. Turner’s class we sang and danced to songs by the Beatles; we built a western town out of construction paper and straws and I was designated “sheriff”; and we built a vegetable garden whose produce we ate at an end-of-school year Hawaiian celebration, which was where I discovered that I didn’t like radishes.

In terms of mathematics, this was the grade where we learned the multiplication tables. Ms. Turner would provide us with a new set of flashcards each time we mastered learning the multiples of a set of numbers. Most importantly, I learned that I was good at spelling. Ms. Turner would line up the class in the front of the classroom and provide each of us a word to spell orally. If we missed it once, we were out. I kept missing words and wanted to advance and also win first prize. One day I noticed Ms. Turner reading words from the back of our spelling book during our spelling orals. So I went home and studied the words and specifically remember being given the word “different” to spell to which I remembered not to forget the first “e.” After that I won every oral spelling competition and brought home many prizes, one of which was a spider plant!

I grew up in a low-income family and mom always made it a point to tell us that she could buy us any food (minus candy) we wanted or educational materials, but not toys as they were reserved for birthdays and Christmas. So as a child I would request mathematics workbooks from our local grocery store, which allowed me to practice and learn mathematics.

Middle school years. Middle School turned out to be a fun time. In eighth grade, I studied algebra for the first time, but I found it to be difficult as the teacher didn’t explain the concepts very well. During one weekend, I remember that my friends and I didn’t understand a concept associated with a word problem. Some of my friends asked their parents for help since they had taken algebra in college; mind you this was a small minority. When my mother saw me struggling she immediately called her friend in Hualahuises who was a mathematics teacher. Guess what? We hopped on a bus that Saturday morning and made the four-hour ride to Hualahuises where Maestra Armandina devoted her afternoon to helping me learn algebra. Wow! Every time that I look back at this instance, I am in awe at my mother’s courage and determination to help me succeed. Although she may not have taken algebra, she showed me that it is not impossible to learn and that there is always a way. The following day I explained the solution to my friends.

I had taken Spanish classes throughout middle school, learning the pronoun vosotros [2] and the verb tenses associated with it. I couldn’t understand why we needed to learn that pronoun as it was neither used in the Valley nor in Mexico. During this time, I had become more interested in learning about where to place the accent mark in a Spanish word. I had asked my mother about the accent in the words lápiz [3] and árbol [4] to which she replied solamente sabes, that is, “you know.” I didn’t take that at face value as I figured there must be a systematic way, otherwise people would be placing accent marks left and right. When I took (another) Spanish class in eighth grade, my eyes lit up when the topic of accent marks came up. There were rules! I memorized those rules, borrowed my dad’s newspaper El Porvenir and applied the rules. Yes, I had learned where accent marks belonged. In fact, I now knew why my first name “María” had an accent, but not “Cristina” nor “Villalobos,” but “Sánchez” did. Accent marks had now been added to my world, and I was elated!

High school years. Having thought that I was weak in algebra, I decided to first take Geometry in ninth grade. I enjoyed the class as Mr. Frazier taught us to prove properties about angles, parallel lines, congruency, and other topics by using a two-column table format. Then came tenth grade and I enrolled in Algebra 2, which I feared. However, Mr. Miller taught us very well and I attended morning tutoring sessions to make sure that I understood the material well. Later I took Precalculus in eleventh grade, and in twelfth grade I took Calculus with Ms. Mendiola who turned out to be an exemplary teacher and who prepared me so well that I earned an “A” in first-semester Calculus I at University of Texas at Austin. In fact, my strong high school preparation meant my first year in college was manageable and doable.

During high school, I learned to “Take the Initiative,” which is what I now tell my students. In order to graduate high school with honors, one needed to take five honors classes, but you needed to pass a standardized test in order to enroll; note that AP courses or dual-enrollment courses were not available then. I was not good at taking standardized tests. I spoke to my mom about this issue, and she advised me to talk with the counselor. So that summer before eleventh grade when registering for classes, I took it upon myself to talk with the counselor. I mentioned that I could do the work of an honors class and I could obtain As in the classes and hence do better than some of the students who had tested in, but had gotten Cs. The counselor looked at my past grades and was surprised as to why I had not been in the honors courses. All said, I had to take five honors classes in two years to graduate with honors. And I did. I enrolled in the honors courses English III, English IV, Spanish 3 (yes there was a lot of Spanish to learn!), Government, Marine Biology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Calculus, and thus I graduated with honors in the top 1% of the class, which had approximately 350 students.

During high school I decided to participate in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) Spelling competition since I was good at spelling. We were provided with a booklet of over 1000 words to memorize and we competed locally in preparation for the District meet. I did very well. When I had trouble remembering the spelling of words, I would pronounce the word as if it were in Spanish as Spanish has only five vowel sounds, whereas English has five vowels, but with multiple sounds making it tricky to distinguish, for example, between a long “a” and a short “a” and everything else in between. So Spanish was a tool that I used to memorize the spelling of some challenging English words. I did very well placing in the top three in District every year and making it to Regionals to compete in San Antonio, but I never placed in the top three as it was tough.

In tenth grade we travelled with the UIL Typing team to San Antonio and I learned that no one had ever placed in the top three in a UIL State meet and the UIL Typing sponsor was eager for someone to do it; overhearing their conversation, I learned that the students were typing 45–55 words/minute with 0–2 errors. Wow! I had taken a typing course in middle school and I was typing 60 words/minute with errors. That is when I learned that students who competed at the UIL State meet were eligible to apply for a UIL college scholarship. So you can imagine what I did! I enrolled in a typing course in eleventh grade to be eligible to compete in UIL. I was earning first prizes throughout the local competitions until we got to the last practice where I dropped to second place. All of this time I hadn’t quite paid attention to the advice from my UIL Typing sponsor, Ms. Medrano. She had advised me to seek a consistent typing pattern and hence I began to practice quickly. All told, I achieved second place at the UIL State meet at UT-Austin, becoming the first individual to place at the State level from Donna High School. Today these typing skills have certainly helped me greatly in writing grant proposals, research papers, letters of recommendations for students, and answering emails. These UIL trips to San Antonio and Austin were the first I had taken away from my family and away from the Valley. They opened my eyes to the rest of Central Texas.

During two high school summers, I enrolled in the Texas PreFreshmen Engineering Program (TexPREP) at our then regional university, Pan American University, which is now part of University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. I met many peers who became good friends and I took classes such as Logic, Computer Science, Engineering, and Physics, which helped me understand a bit more of what an engineering career entailed. In addition, one summer I decided to take on a part-time job where I worked as a shoe department clerk (for one month) and as a cashier in a grocery store. I took these jobs as I didn’t know what awaited me in college especially since I would be a first-generation college student. I didn’t actually know if I wanted to go to college. After these jobs and TexPREP, I figured I’d go to college to become a high school mathematics teacher.

College Years

Knowing that I would graduate in the top 10% of my high school class, I knew that I had automatic admission to UT-Austin. I had already visited the campus during the UIL State meet and hence I decided to go there for college. In 1989, my freshmen year I took Calculus 1 and I learned that some peers were part of the Emerging Scholars Program (ESP). I wanted to get the best preparation since I was planning to become a high school math teacher and hence I “took the initiative” and inquired about becoming a part of ESP. The following semester I was part of ESP while taking Calculus 2. And I am glad I was in ESP. I encountered new and challenging material in Calculus 2. ESP met three times a week for two hours each time, providing a total of six hours of weekly meeting time where we collaboratively worked on problems. Outside of class, I met very often with my Graduate Teaching Assistant Ms. Jackie Bacon. The following year ESP offered me the opportunity to be a Student Teaching Assistant and help the current Calculus 2 students with the material. I was assigned to work with Graduate Teaching Assistant James Mendoza Álvarez who became a mentor during college and who is now a friend and colleague teaching at The University of Texas at Arlington in the Department of Mathematics. [5]

I will change direction here for a moment. UT and the city of Austin opened up my eyes to a different culture. No longer was I, a Latina, in the majority as I was in the Valley. Now I knew what it meant to be in the “minority.” There were few Latinos in Austin, few Latino professors at UT, and few Latino students studying careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). This was a shock to me. In addition, I met new Latino friends who spoke little Spanish, but it shouldn’t have shocked me as they were multi-generational Latinos while I was first-generation Mexican-American. Moreover, I also learned that I had grown up in a low-income family as I compared myself to others. All of this time growing up in the Valley, I thought I was middle-class. Probably because my parents had bought a 25-year old home when I was in first grade and paid it off within four years (something my mother is extremely proud of!); because we had food on the table although we did ask our neighbor for a loan of $50 every now and then to make do with the week’s expenses; because on a few occasions we purchased new furniture and clothes using the store’s lay-away plan; and because compared with my cousins in Mexico we were doing financially better. There is no shame in being low-income, and I take great pride in the fact that my parents instilled in us the diligence of a strong work ethic and honesty along with “living within your means” to avoid debt, to pay back any loans in the event you needed to ask the same individual for a new loan, and to financially plan ahead. My siblings practice these ideals and are very successful in their own careers.

Now, in my second year at UT-Austin, I was advised to take a class with Dr. Efraim Armendáriz, who was chair of the mathematics department and a proponent of the ESP program. So I enrolled in his linear algebra class. I was so thrilled to see a Mexican-American mathematician and he was the only one in the department. In addition, he had spent some childhood years in Brownsville, Texas, a city in the Valley. Hence, we were connected! During my undergraduate years at UT-Austin, a school of over 50,000 college students, Dr. Armendáriz and Dr. Uri Treisman became my mentors. On the recommendation of Dr. Armendáriz, a cohort of Mexican-American and African-American students applied to a summer research program at University of California, Berkeley which was led by Dr. Treisman. After that summer, Dr. Treisman joined the faculty at UT-Austin and I took his class on modern algebra, where I learned how to write proofs, and a second course on Galois theory. Both mentors encouraged me to collaborate with two students on a math project and we presented our work at the 1992 Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) national conference held in Chicago. There I met Dr. Bill Velez, [6] a mathematician at the University of Arizona, who has been a mentor, colleague, and friend. He had started a conversation with me where I shared that I was planning to walk to The Art Institute of Chicago as I had taken an art history class in college and I was eager to view paintings and sculptures that I had studied and apply my knowledge of distinguishing Byzantine and Renaissance paintings and everything in between. He joined me and we spent an afternoon together at the museum.

While at UT-Austin, a friend had shared a newspaper clipping of another Mexican-American mathematician—Dr. Richard Tapia [7] from Rice University who had just been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. What an honor! My friend contacted Dr. Tapia who invited us to visit him. And thus another adventure began. We “took the initiative” and drove to Houston one Saturday morning in March/April 1993 to visit him. We had dinner at Picos Restaurant with Dr. Tapia and his family, Dr. Virginia Torczon who is now faculty at William and Mary, and Dr. Michael Trosset, who is now faculty at the Indiana University at Bloomington and with whom I have become good friends. During dinner we discussed mathematics and chatted about life. When I returned to Austin, I called Dr. Tapia and asked if I could apply to his Spend a Summer with a Scientist (SAS) research program although the application deadline had passed. He asked me to contact his assistant, Ms. Theresa Chatman, and submit an application. I was accepted and that summer I worked on a mathematics education project with Dr. Anne Papakonstantinou in the Rice University Summer Mathematics Program (RUSMP) alongside high school teachers. During SAS we had Friday meetings where participants presented their research work. I learned of optimization and differential equation applications through the work of doctoral graduate students, Tony Kearsley now at the National Institute of Science and Technology, Cassandra McZeal now at Exxon-Mobile, and Mónica Martínez now at Intel, and I found it amazing that I was learning of mathematics applications.

The following academic year, 1993–1994, was my senior year at UT-Austin and there was a lot I had to do. In fall 1993, I applied to applied mathematics graduate programs across the nation and I also applied for fellowships. It was a demanding semester, but I knew I needed to give my all. Since I had only one shot at the applications and fellowships, I did not seek part-time work that semester and instead took out a loan. In addition, I also attended the SACNAS conference where Mónica introduced me to Dr. Juan Meza from Sandia National Laboratory and by the end of the conference I had secured a summer internship at Sandia! My efforts that fall semester paid off, and I got accepted to the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAAM) department at Rice University and I received a three-year Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. I was elated! And thus I spent the next five years at Rice University and in 2000 I received my PhD in CAAM.

To summarize, I had met many Latino mathematicians during my college years who mentored me, who continue to assist me in my career and who have become friends and family. Much of these efforts were attributed to “taking the initiative” and meeting them and learning about opportunities.

Graduate School Years

My first year at Rice was smooth and I attribute it to the preparation that UT gave me. I was used to studying late into the night, working on proofs and perfecting them, and just plain working hard. I studied with friends and we quizzed ourselves on the material. I was doing well until I had a moment of truth. I was probably in my second year of graduate studies when I walked into Dr. Tapia’s office telling him that I wasn’t sure how I could be working behind a computer doing applied mathematics while people in other parts of the world were struggling to live day by day. So his advice was to integrate community service into one’s career to start making positive changes. And thus I have done exactly that in broadening STEM participation to women and underrepresented minorities. At Rice, I was a tutor at a local middle school and I served as a mentor to other students. I was nominated by Dr. Tapia for the Rice Volunteer award, which I received.

If you were a part of Dr. Tapia’s research group, you quickly learned about the “Torture Chamber,” the place where you presented your research work only to be critiqued and questioned by your peers regarding the material. It actually sounds worse than it really was. My peers and I presented our work many times, more than I remember. But think about it like this: questioning is good, as it helps you develop into a researcher and it provides you with opportunities to cement your work, understand it better, and develop new directions of research. In my third year of graduate studies, Dr. Yin Zhang became my PhD advisor (with Dr. Tapia as a coadvisor) for my research work in optimization. Throughout graduate school, Dr. Tapia became my mentor, and throughout my professional career, he has become a colleague, friend, and family.

Apart from studying, graduate school was a lot of fun. There were Thanksgiving dinners and cookouts at the Tapia’s home. And then there were the times when we made tamales at Dr. Tapia’s home. We purchased masa, corn, chicken and other ingredients. I’ll never forget when we made a phone call to Dr. Tapia’s mother in Los Angeles to find out how we’d know if the masa was ready; she told us to place a piece of it in a glass of water and if it floated it was ready. So we had two winters when we had a tamalada [8] and the entire CAAM department was invited to Dr. Tapia’s home to enjoy our tamales. Now the department had many Latino graduate students from Venezuela and Colombia and so it was critical that we learn how to dance salsa and merengue. Thus one summer about 15 students—all from diverse backgrounds—learned to dance salsa and merengue in Dr. Tapia’s garage from the daughter of one of the graduate students from Colombia. Since then I have applied these dancing skills and they’ve become useful at weddings, social gatherings, and even at conference events!

There were few Latino graduate students across Rice and as a result we got to know each other and became friends. The CAAM department was very diverse in terms of Latino, Black, and female representation. Friday afternoon meetings with Dr. Tapia’s group meant discussing not only research, but also social/educational justice issues, too. And it also meant having a better understanding of my friends who were Black, Brown, White, and all colors in between. During those meetings we shared our upbringing experiences and respected each others’ opinions. Sure, some discussions were tough and emotional, but we learned from each other.

In summer 1999, I defended my dissertation successfully. My CAAM peers and friends attended and provided much support. Actually, several of my friends and I defended our doctoral dissertation within days of each other. So what do you do when you accomplish something great? You go to Disney World!

Professional Career

As a tenured professor at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), I teach mathematics classes. I work with colleagues in electrical engineering, computer science, and applied mathematics to model application problems using optimization and optimal control. I also collaborate with colleagues on improving STEM education, and providing service to the department, university, local community, and to the mathematics profession. I am the founding director of the Center of Excellence in STEM Education, which focuses on broadening STEM participation of women and underrepresented minorities, especially that of Latinos, and preparing them for their careers or graduate studies. Our Center was one of three funded nationwide and I am extremely proud of that accomplishment. In addition, I collaborate with colleagues on grant proposals, research publications, teaching initiatives to improve student success, and service activities. I enjoy my job. And I am passionate about preparing the next generation of students to become leaders in academia, government, and industry.

In 2015, I was appointed Interim Director of the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences to transition two mathematics departments into one department consisting of 45 tenure-track/tenured faculty and 25 lecturers to The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. I was the first Latina and the first woman to serve as department chair in the history of both departments. During my two-year period as chair, I hired a total of nine tenure-track faculty, effectively increasing the number of Latino faculty by 66% and the number of women faculty by 40%. Given these large increases it is important to ask the base value; that is, the original numbers of Latinos and women on the faculty. I can tell you that it was merely a handful or less for each group.

Due to my leadership in STEM, I have received many national awards. The one that summarizes my accomplishments in mentoring students and faculty is the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) which is one of the top honors awarded by the White House. The virtual ceremony took place in August 2020. I shared the excitement and award with my family and mother who were present. Once the pandemic [9] subsides, a formal ceremony will take place at the White House.

Concluding Advice

As you’ve noticed I’ve had mentors during my school and college years, however these mentors have also extended to my professional career providing guidance and advise. And so I end by asking you to “Take the Initiative!” and knock on doors. Take things a step at a time, but look five steps ahead. Be proud of your heritage and hold your head high. And finally I couldn’t leave without stating: Do well in Mathematics!

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[1] The word papeles translates to “papers” and is used to refer to documentation establishing legal status in the U.S.
[2] The pronoun vosotros can be translated to “you all” in English.
[3] Pencil.
[4] Tree.
[5] Dr. James A. Mendoza Álvarez is featured in Chapter 1.
[6] Dr. William Yslas Velez is featured in Chapter 26.
[7] Dr. Richard Tapia is featured in Chapter 22.
[8] A party where the main meal is tamales.
[9] This was written during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Previous Testimonios:

• Dr. James A. M. Álvarez
• Dr. Federico Ardila Mantilla
• Dr. Selenne Bañuelos
• Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Dr. Anastasia Chavez
• Dr. Minerva Cordero
• Dr. Ricardo Cortez
• Dr. Jesús A. De Loera Herrera
• Dr. Jessica M. Deshler
• Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton
• Dr. Alexander Díaz-López
• Dr. Stephan Ramon Garcia
• Dr. Ralph R. Gomez
• Dr. Victor H. Moll
• Dr. Ryan R. Mouruzzi, Jr.
• Dr. Cynthia Oropesa Anhalt
• Dr. Omayra Ortega
• Dr. José A. Perea
• Dr. Angel Ramón Pineda Fortín
• Dr. Hortensia Soto
• Dr. Roberto Soto
• Dr. Richard A. Tapia
• Dr. Tatiana Toro
• Dr. Anthony Várilly-Alvarado
• Dr. Mariel Vásquez Melken
• Dr. William Yslas Vélez

Marriage and Partnership

Bernice and I met when we were 18 years old. We were children, naïve. Our backgrounds were surprisingly similar. We both had families in Magdelena de Kino, Sonora, Mexico, and as children, we both spent part of the summers in that town. On our first date, we went to a wedding shower at El Rio ballroom, where we danced boleros, corridos, and cumbias. [1]

We married when I came home from my first tour to Vietnam in the U.S. Navy. I was at sea for most of our first married year, and this made for an extended honeymoon. I could not write about my life as a mathematician without also describing the joy and support that I received from Bernice and the family. Entering the mathematical community could have been like entering a not-too-friendly country, whose language I could barely speak. Instead, I walked in with an arsenal of support.

Every married couple goes through hardships and ours was no different. With large extended families, there are many personalities and viewpoints. The children adopt behaviors of the dominant culture, which have to be begrudgingly accepted. However, we overcame problems and walked through life as lovers and partners. Bernice brought complementary skills to our marriage, which made my life more beautiful, more meaningful, and more delicious. We now spend our time together cooking, still listening to the Mexican music of our youth.

Bill’s Early Life

I was born in 1947 in Tucson, Arizona, and I grew up in the loving embrace of the Mexican-American community. I found out much later that we were poor, just like the rest of the community that surrounded us. I did not internalize this poverty, surrounded as I was by the richness of Mexican culture. I was well cared for and loved. More than anything else, I was well educated. In my home, a song of education played constantly. We were the only family in the neighborhood that valued books. We had a set of encyclopedias and another set of books on nature.

My mother, who was very proud of the fact that she graduated from Tucson High School despite the then-current attitude that women did not need such an education, would often say to us, “Lo único que les puedo dejar es una buena educación.” [2] My two brothers, Manuel and Gilberto, and I internalized this inheritance and we all graduated from the University of Arizona (UA). Though we led very different lives, we all passed on this song of education to others as teachers of English, music, and mathematics.

My parents were both born in Sonora, Mexico. My father, Emilio, was born in 1908 in Magdalena de Kino, and my mother, Julia Yslas, was born in 1910 in San Miguel de Horcasitas. At that time, the border between the U.S. and Mexico was fluid and people moved back and forth between Sonora and Arizona. There were families on both sides of the border and children would be sent to live with relatives on the other side of the border for extended periods. As a child, I would spend a good part of the summers living in Magdalena de Kino, and I had the great pleasure of mingling with cousins from both sides of the family. Before my father died, we would travel to Magdalena de Kino about twice per month. The ritual was always the same. We would first arrive at my paternal grandparents’ home where we were received with love and affection, always arriving with gifts of food and other goods. My father would stay with his family and my mother and the children would then drive on about five blocks to stay at my maternal aunt’s home, which was part of their hotel, El Cuervo. As children, we would roam the small town of Magdalena de Kino freely, visiting with many different family members. It was an idyllic life.

We were wild children. Life was safe and we could roam freely. Living in the Arizona-Sonora desert gave us a world to explore on our bicycles. An empty lot in front of our house was the gathering place for the kids. We would have neighborhood water fights with an arsenal of weapons. We played kick-the-can and hide-and-seek. In the evenings, adults would sit on their porches to try to catch some breeze. Food was enticing. Is there anything better than a fresh homemade tortilla with butter? My mother had a hard time keeping up with us as we passed by the kitchen to pick off a freshly made tortilla.

On our trips to Magdalena de Kino, we would bring back a variety of firecrackers. A palomita, a triangular-shaped firecracker, four inches on each side, placed inside a mailbox would rip out the rivets and open it up for airmail. We found Josefina’s (my sister) baby buggy in the open lot (or maybe one of us placed it there).This reminded us of covered wagons going across the prairie.We attacked the covered wagon with flaming arrows. Several explosions were heard when the stagecoach caught on fire.This confirmed our suspicions that the wagon train was part of a cavalry resupply unit. No dolls were harmed in this egregious incursion into our sacred empty lot.

Growing up in Poverty

Growing up, we lived in a house that my father had built. My father, a mechanic, also had a garage built adjacent to our home. When I was about seven, our family went through financial hardships. My father’s garage was sold to a good friend, Cristóbal Redondo. In order to save our home, most of our home was rented out to a family. We kept two rooms of the house, plus a small trailer that had one bed, where my father had always slept. We had no running water in the two rooms, no heating, and no cooling. We used the bathroom and shower in the garage next door. One room served as a bedroom and the other room as the kitchen and dining room. There were six of us, my parents, my three siblings, and myself. Next to our two rooms was a concrete floor, perhaps 10 feet by 12 feet and over it were grape vines. This concrete floor was separated from the adjacent street by a three-foot-tall wire fence. When the weather permitted, we slept on cots under the grape vines. The sun was our alarm clock. Despite this poverty, my siblings Josefina and Manuel were sent to piano lessons every week. I never learned to play a musical instrument and Gilberto was fortunate that a children’s mariachi group was started in his school and he learned to play the string instruments of a mariachi group.

When I was in seventh and eighth grades, home dance parties were very popular. For me, at that age, there was nothing more wonderful than holding a girl in my arms and swaying to the music. At home parties, there were no teachers around to monitor the rule of maintaining a distance between dancing partners. Since kindergarten, there was always a girl I was attracted to and these parties gave me an opportunity to dance with that girl.

I mention these dance parties as an indication of my ignorance about our poverty. How could I have asked my friends to come to our home? I couldn’t invite them in. There was no room. My guests had to sit in this small outdoor floor, which also acted as our bedroom in summer. Worse, what if someone had to go to the bathroom? They would have to go to the garage next door. Apparently, I was blind to the poverty that I lived in. My life was so rich with music, with freedom and wonderful Mexican food.

After selling the garage, my father rented a gasoline station from my maternal uncle, Augustín Islas. I started to work there when I was eight, pumping gas and fixing flat tires. My father died when I was nine. My brother Manuel, who was thirteen, took over the management of the gasoline station and was responsible for its day-to-day management. He hired one of our maternal uncles, Francisco Islas, to work at the station during the day, and after school, Manuel would take over and close the station at 9 pm. Manuel would buy old cars, hire a mechanic to fix them and then sell them. He was always looking into how to bring in a bit more money.

When I was a bit older, I began taking over the late afternoon shift and would work until 9 pm. During the summers, I would walk the half mile to the gasoline station to open it at 7 am and I would work until 9 pm. My pockets served as the cash register, right-hand pocket for coins, left-hand pocket for bills to make change. There were no credit cards then. Gasoline sold for 17 cents per gallon. Teenagers would show up with their 22 cents to buy gas for the evening. The business was slow. Fortunately for me, I was a voracious reader and passed the time reading books. In the seventh or eighth grade, I submitted over 120 book reports.

My mother was serious about education. I have no idea how she managed it financially. All of my brothers and I attended Catholic schools, first All Saints Catholic School until eighth grade, then Salpointe Catholic High School. She worked three jobs. One of those was selling Stanley Home Products. She would arrange a demonstration party at someone’s home, display goods, and take orders. Stanley Home Products would send my mother large quantities of three-cigarette packages to hand out at these demonstrations. Cavalier cigarettes were the brand. All of the neighborhood kids smoked Cavalier cigarettes.

On Mexican American Culture

I grew up in a very diverse environment. We lived at the corner of 34th Street and 7th Avenue. On 34th Street, between 6th Avenue and 8th Avenue, there were at least three Anglo [3] families, one Yaqui family and another Tohono O’Odham, [4] but the majority were Mexican American. At All Saints School, at least a third of the students in my class were Mexican American and there was one African American student. In grade school, all of my teachers, except for one, were nuns. Perhaps it was this Catholic environment that made overt racism a rarity. However, high school was different. There were still many Mexican Americans there, but I felt that the school was trying to make me into a “white boy.” I reacted against this by more fiercely embracing Mexican culture and adding my mother’s maiden name, Yslas, to my name.

Growing up we understood that we were second-class citizens. The movies portrayed Mexicans as bandits. The movie about the Alamo had a profound impact on me. The white North Americans were the heroes, and the Mexicans were the bad guys. However, all of my family were Mexicans, and I could not internalize that message. I rebelled against this view of ourselves, and I reacted with a racist attitude towards white dominant North American culture and people. They didn’t want me and I didn’t want them. I was an angry young man, and my mother worried about the crowd that I was hanging around with. “Dime con quien andas y te digo quien eres.” [5]

Not only were Mexican Americans looked down upon, but even within our culture, there was discrimination. We were darker and more Indian-looking than many of our cousins. [6] My paternal grandmother was fair-skinned and had blue eyes as do several of my cousins. Women at that time were told to wear sun hats so that they would not become darker. Added to this, we were poor and had no father. My mother worked three jobs to maintain a home while all of my aunts were stay-at-home moms, as was the norm then. She was often criticized for not being home.

Many minority youth experience alienation from the dominant culture and, like me, react by not wanting to participate in a culture that demeans them and does not value their background. I never had a Mexican American teacher through high school. In my undergraduate and graduate studies, I remember only one Mexican American teacher, and that in a humanities class. What did that say about the relevance of education for my community? Over the decades, we have lost so many talented minority students because they could not see themselves on a path leading to college. These students saw too many exit signs along that path, and for many, their high school experience simply obliterated the roads that led to further education.

How did my mother do it? She provided my brothers and me with the best possible education available in Tucson. The financial hardships were significant in sending us to Catholic schools, but what is even more challenging was that somehow she guided us into this educational pathway. We all knew that she worked hard outside the house, but we also knew that she would stay up late into the night washing our clothes and ironing our Levi’s jeans. As I grew up and began to loosen the anger that I felt towards Anglo society, I also gained respect for my mother, my family, and for our culture. This respect began to impact my actions. What would my mother say if she saw me doing this? That thought guided me. I was proud of our family and the respect that they had for education. This pride was an important tool for me that provided the extra impetus to forge ahead in times of difficulties. As I wrote in the dedication to my PhD thesis, “… si me he avanzado, es porque soy Yslas-Vélez. Arriba la familia.” [7]

Higher Education

I did not display any particular talents in high school. I was never the best student in a class. I thought I was very well prepared for college though I had not the slightest idea what career to follow. I have written about my four-year career in college and I only want to mention how our wedding occurred.

We planned to marry in May 1968, just after graduation. By February 1968 plans were well on the way for this wonderful event, but then the U.S. Navy intervened. I was ordered to report to Long Beach, CA on March 27, 1968 to be processed for sea duty. By April, I was on board the USS Yorktown in the Tonkin Gulf. Fortunately, I had enough units to graduate, but all wedding plans were cancelled, invitations thrown away. In June 1968, President Nixon had a troop withdrawal of 5,000 troops and the Yorktown was ordered back to homeport. I called Bernice by short-wave radio as we sailed back to Long Beach. She had three weeks to plan a wedding. Family and friends jumped in to prepare the traditional wedding food: birria (a prepared beef), beans, rice and tortillas, enough to feed over 400 guests. I arrived in Tucson the night before the wedding, we were married and that night we began our return to Long Beach, but I was soon out to sea again.

In mentioning the following set of events to a mathematician, he remarked that I should have been the poster child for failure. I started graduate school in 1970, having just returned from Vietnam serving on aircraft carriers. It had been two years since I had completed my undergraduate degree. I earned many Cs in advanced math courses, I was married and our first child, Ana Cristina, was born in the third week of that first semester. I was a teaching assistant, teaching two courses per semester. The salary of $3250 per year was not enough to live on, but I also had the GI bill, which provided educational assistance for veterans and service members. I was fortunate that my brother-in-law, Francisco Redondo, would have side jobs on some weekends, and I would work as a laborer for his masonry crew.

Not only did I not fail, I thrived. The five years in graduate school were among the happiest in my life. I was learning a great deal of mathematics, I was married, I had two children to come home to, (Andrés Antonio was born on March 25, 1974), and I owned a house. When I returned from Vietnam, I returned with a little bit of money (you don’t spend much out at sea). Bernice, who had taken over our finances, suggested that instead of paying $75 per month in rent, we should look for a house to buy, which we did, and the payments were $135 per month. It was a fix-up special. The week after we bought it, my two brothers and I put up a new roof. I also used my masonry skills and built brick walls to line our flower gardens and I also learned how to do basic carpentry.

In March 1975, I had completed my thesis and as a gift to myself I bought a skillsaw and a sander. I built a living room set out of pine lumber: sofa, love seat, and end tables. This set was indestructible, and I called it my first approximation to a couch. Later I found springs from an old couch and created the second approximation. After 15 years or so, Bernice got tired of it and I came home one afternoon to find out that she had sold the set for $200.

Overcoming Naysayers

I have often heard that being married in graduate school and having children makes graduate school much harder. I found it to be the opposite. On the day that our daughter was born, I did not turn in a good homework set for my algebra class. The next class day the instructor walked into the classroom and handed back the homework. When he came to mine, he wadded it up in a ball, threw it at me across the room and yelled, “You will never be a mathematician.” Such an incident can be devastating to a person, but I went home that night and held a baby in my arms. I felt that my family was a place of refuge. Later, that same professor looked at one of my solutions and asked me to take his course in algebraic number theory the following semester and to think of working with him. He became my thesis advisor.

I took his course in number theory and I did agree to work with him. I became a number theorist, yet I only took a one-semester course in number theory; I did take supporting courses in group theory and function fields though. Henry Mann, my thesis advisor, took a real interest in me. I would talk to him regularly and in the course of our conversations, I would discuss my family situation. I was born in Tucson, half of Tucson was related to me. Every weekend there was a baptism, birthday party, a quinceañera, [8] or a wedding; and every other Thursday a funeral. I was also the family plumber. Besides my family commitments, I taught two classes per semester for the five years that I was a teaching assistant. I was pressed for time.

Henry Mann had us over for dinner one evening in my second year. As we drove home that night, Bernice mentioned that Mrs. Mann had taken her aside for a talk. She told Bernice that if she wanted me to be good, she had to learn to leave me alone. Bernice was quiet for a bit and then her quiet, confident voice came out of the darkness, “You will never be good.” Mathematical research is important and it is fun. But so is having a family that loves you. I recall that I read a biography of a mathematician, perhaps it was Hilbert. The biography mentioned that when Hilbert heard that a graduate student had married, he would have nothing more to do with him. I think that was a common attitude back then that mathematics should take over your mind and your body. I bought into it and worked so hard.

Graduate Research

Looking back at my research career I made a mistake. I never had a research program. I just loved working on problems. One of my best research tools was the question, “What are you working on?” I wrote several papers based on that question. Of course, I failed more often than I succeeded. I found out that I was not clever enough for this research style. That does not mean I was a failure. I earned a PhD in number theory and in the process participated in the mathematical adventures of a community, sometimes forging a trail myself, but mostly enjoying the scenic views provided by the rest of the community.

My advisor suggested that I work in the additive theory of groups and number theory. I studied his book on addition theorems and concluded that you had to work a great deal to make little advances. It did not appeal to me. Don Lawver, one of our faculty members, came to Mann and asked him if he knew the answer to a very simple question. Here is the set up. Let F be a field of finite dimension over the field of rationals, f(x) an irreducible polynomial over F, and K = F(θ), where θ is a root of f(x). Let O_F and O_K be the rings of integers in the two fields and P a prime ideal in O_F. A classical result in algebraic number theory shows that the prime ideal factorization P in O_K is obtained from factoring f(x) modulo P, except for those P that divide the discriminant of f(x). Lawver’s question was how does P factor when f(x) = x^p – a, where p is an odd prime and P is a divisor of p in OF. In this case, P divides the discriminant of f(x) so the classical theorem does not apply. The case for p = 2 was well-known. Mann suggested that I investigate the question of how prime ideals factor in extensions of F when a root of the irreducible polynomial xⁿ – a is adjoined to F. This turned into my thesis problem.

While working on my thesis, I bumped into the irreducible binomial, x⁶ + 3. When a root of this binomial is adjoined to Q, the field of rationals, it yields a normal extension with Galois group S3, the symmetric group. I mentioned this to Mann and this gave rise to a joint paper where we characterized all such normal binomials and their Galois groups. It turns out that Olga Taussky-Todd, a classmate of Mann in Vienna, had obtained this result many years before.

Mann said that I had to learn p-adic methods. Modern mathematics is written in this language. He did not use this language because his thesis advisor, Furtwangler, had a fight with Hensel, who developed p-adic methods. Mann, being Furtwangler’s student, would not use p-adic methods. Later on Mann suggested that I look at his own doctoral thesis. In order to solve my thesis problem, I had to completely understand the results of his thesis. With a German dictionary at my side, I plowed through his thesis. He had left one case unsolved, and this case was critical for my work. Using p-adic completions, I resolved this last case, thus completing his thesis, and was able to move forward with my problem. I still remember the conversation that we had on this. I mentioned how I solved the problem by showing that a particular root of unity existed in the p-adic completion. He completely understood. The year after that, he included p-adic methods in his algebra course.

Professional Career

In the summer of 1974, I was offered internships at Jet Propulsion Labs, Sandia Labs and Bell Labs. I selected Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ because Bernice and I had never been east of Tucson. Family and friends were concerned about this decision. If the children got sick, “were there doctors in New Jersey?” Others thought that Bernice should stay in Tucson with the children. “Was there food we could eat there?” “Where would we buy tortillas?” The question of our separation was never considered between us. It was an adventure. We bought an old tent-trailer and set off for a 3000-mile camping trip from Tucson to New Jersey with our three-year old, Ana, and six-week-old baby, Andrés. Storms caught us in Kansas. Having to get up in the middle of the night, turn on the camp stove to heat up Andrés’s bottle was a nightly chore. When we returned home, we mentioned these incidents of hardship at a family gathering. One of the nanas of the family recounted her trip from Arizona to Sonora, Mexico when she was a 17-year old, traveling in a horse-drawn wagon with her sick child. That stopped our complaining. We had a wonderful time that summer as a family. Bell Labs was an amazing experience and I wrote a paper on a number-theoretic conjecture of Ron Graham.

When I completed my PhD, I did not want to be a professor. In fact, I did not apply for any jobs. Sandia Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called me and asked if I would be interested in a position there. I visited and they hired me. I worked on the Command and Control of Atomic Weapons for two years. It was very interesting. In Albuquerque, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) was just getting off the ground, and I joined many Chicano and Native American scientists in helping to form this organization. I later served as its president.

Many of us learn to deal with racism that occurs in our lives. We just push on. Institutionalized racism is much more difficult to deal with and academia is replete with it. It can be difficult to uncover this kind of racism, but it is there. In the late 1980s, I applied to work at the National Security Agency (NSA). In an exit interview, I was told that if I worked at NSA I could not have contact with foreign nationals. I replied that I worked at a university and this was impossible to comply with. The interviewer asked, “besides the university?” I am a Chicano, living 60 miles from the Mexican border, with relatives still living there. How could I avoid such contact? In the end, I said that I could not comply with this rule and I was turned down. I was a Vietnam veteran, had held a security clearance while I worked at Sandia Laboratories, yet this was not enough. It is perfectly fine for Chicanos to give their lives for this country, but it is not fine to devote our lives to work for this country. [9,10]

After two years at Sandia, I found that I missed the teaching. I called Larry Grove, one of my professors at the University of Arizona (UA) to ask if there was a position available there. The department head called and asked me to give a lecture. I was hired and began as an assistant professor there in 1977. For the next ten years, I was lost in thought. There was a strong group in algebra and number theory. Dan Madden, who had been hired the year before me, had common mathematical interests and we investigated number-theoretic questions together. I worked so hard, though work is not a good description. It is not work when you love what you are doing. I didn’t worry about tenure because I knew I would get it. However, like so many minority scientists, I felt out of place in the department, especially in the beginning.

Mathematically, I could not have asked for a better environment. But I found the social interactions with faculty draining. I have often said that just because we are serious it does not mean we should be somber. Where was the joy that we should feel in having the opportunity of being mathematicians and professors? People were very brusque with each other, and the etiquette of polite Mexican society was totally absent. At the beginning, Bernice and I hosted lots of social gatherings at our home. On one evening we had three mathematicians at dinner. Bernice would ask a question and they would answer me. They couldn’t talk to women. Such socializations were too much for both of us and we withdrew. Having one mathematician in the house was enough for Bernice.

The lack of socialization skills of mathematicians is legendary. If the mathematician looks at his own shoes when talking, he is in an introvert. When he looks at your shoes he is an extrovert. Is it their vision of how mathematicians should behave? Is this behavior genetic or learned? Do mathematicians feign such behavior to impress upon their students how deep in thought they are and how brilliant they are? I personally think this is a charade for most. Why can’t our model for a brilliant mathematician be someone like Irving Kaplansky? [11] When I spoke with him he would bubble over with enthusiasm.

On Being the First and Supporting Students

I was the first Chicano hired in a tenure-track position in the mathematics department at the University of Arizona (UA). Somehow this made me an expert on minority issues. I was trained to be a mathematical researcher yet expected to function as a sociologist. This is the common plight of minorities in our profession. When you are the only minority, the community views you differently. Perhaps you are viewed as being representative of your culture, like a zoo exhibit, or you are viewed as an expert witness for your culture and asked a puzzling number of questions. How do minorities prepare themselves for these encounters? This places an extra burden on us that the majority population does not have. It took me years to find my minority voice, and in this, SACNAS was a tremendous asset. It is a sign of the times that minority scientists have to come together to support each other. That is why organizations like SACNAS, National Association of Mathematicians, Association for Women in Mathematics came into existence. Shouldn’t the mathematical community ask itself why women and minorities have to expend so much energy in creating these organizations to protect themselves from the majority?

In the 1980s, I became faculty advisor to the student chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. I attended most of their weekly meetings and their annual conferences. I began to learn how to advise students. This was the beginning of the end of my research career. I began more serious efforts at increasing minority participation in mathematics and after a few years it consumed me. I was not happy giving up my research career, but I was not bright enough to carry out this work with students and work on research.

I was very fortunate to come into contact with Phil Kutzko and the Math Alliance. I served on the board of the Math Alliance for many years. When I was president of SACNAS, I tried to institute a program in SACNAS to help minority students apply to graduate school. We tried it for a few years, but SACNAS was too big. The Math Alliance allowed me to propose this program again and the Facilitated Graduate Application Process program is now an important component of the Math Alliance.

Passion for life has always been part of my being. I passionately studied mathematics in college and taught with passion when I became a faculty member. When I decided that the mathematics major was the best major for students I passionately promoted the mathematics major, first among minority students. Then when given the opportunity to direct the Math Center in the mathematics department, I directed this energy towards all students.

I am truly fortunate to have had a career in mathematics. I enjoyed all of it. I loved the research, the joy of teaching, and the challenges to convince students to take more mathematics. I lived an idyllic life, one that I shared with a beautiful person, Bernice.

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[1] Boleros are a genre of slow-tempo Latin music. Corridos are narrative songs and poetry that form ballads. Cumbia is a musical genre that originated among Afro-Colombian populations and later was popularized throughout Latin America and the U.S.
[2] My inheritance to you will be a good education
[3] One of the ways Mexican Americans referred to white Americans at the time.
[4] Both Yaqui and Tohono O’Odham are Native American people of the Sonoran Desert, residing primarily in the U.S. state of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora.
[5] Show me who you are with and I will tell you who you are.
[6] My recent Ancestry results indicate that I am 25% Native American.
[7] “If I have succeeded, it is because I am Yslas-Vélez. Long live family.”
[8] a fifteenth birthday coming-out-into-society party
[9] NSA Policy on Contact with Foreign Nationals, Letters to the Editor, Notices of the American Math. Soc., Vol. 42 (2), February 1995, pg. 219.
[10] Names on a Wall—A Perspective on Why Diversity Matters, American Scientist, Vol. 85(2), March-April 1997, p. 200. 13.
[11] Irving Kaplansky (1917–2006) was a Canadian American mathematician, college professor, author, and musician.

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Previous Testimonios:

• Dr. James A. M. Álvarez
• Dr. Federico Ardila Mantilla
• Dr. Selenne Bañuelos
• Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Dr. Anastasia Chavez
• Dr. Minerva Cordero
• Dr. Ricardo Cortez
• Dr. Jesús A. De Loera Herrera
• Dr. Jessica M. Deshler
• Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton
• Dr. Alexander Díaz-López
• Dr. Stephan Ramon Garcia
• Dr. Ralph R. Gomez
• Dr. Victor H. Moll
• Dr. Ryan R. Mouruzzi, Jr.
• Dr. Cynthia Oropesa Anhalt
• Dr. Omayra Ortega
• Dr. José A. Perea
• Dr. Angel Ramón Pineda Fortín
• Dr. Hortensia Soto
• Dr. Roberto Soto
• Dr. Richard A. Tapia
• Dr. Tatiana Toro
• Dr. Anthony Várilly-Alvarado
• Dr. Mariel Vásquez Melken