We finalize this season exploring collective grief, hope, and joy with Dr. Bracho, an assistant professor at Cal State Long Beach and certified death doula. Dr. Bracho recounts a long history of intimate loss including the loss of his father and his mother and explains how writing, ritual, and formal training as a death doula helped him develop a practice of accompanying others through death and mourning. Drawing from his chapter “Grieving in Spanglish: A Glossary of Loss,” Dr. Bracho critiques the dominant “gringo” five‑stage model of grief as overly clinical and individual, and instead offers six Spanish terms as alternative ways to understand grief as ongoing, embodied, spiritual, communal, and self-defined. We apply this model to the current attacks on HSI funding, DEI programs, immigrants, and marginalized communities, naming the collective “dolor” of lost programs, jobs, safety, and belonging, and emphasizing the importance of grieving together rather than being forced to “move on” in silence. Dr. Bracho offers words of advice for moving through our grief in community and offers perspectives on the ways Cal State Long Beach is sustaining HSI efforts and servingness practices even as grants end. He urges HSIs to create intentional ritual spaces and institutional practices that openly name grief, honor loss, and treat emotions as assets in the ongoing struggle for liberation and thriving.

Guest:

Christian A. Bracho (he, him)

Assistant Professor/Program Coordinator, California State University Long Beach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-a-bracho/

Show Notes:

• https://www.csulb.edu/college-of-education/curriculum-and-instruction/page/christian-bracho
• https://ahsie.org/christian-a-bracho-bio
• https://inelda.org/about-doulas/what-is-a-doula/
• Sana, Sana: Latinx Pain and Radical Visions for Healing and Justice (Common Notions, 2023)
• https://perilresearch.com/resource/brick-for-hispanic-serving-institutions/

APA Citation:

Garcia, G.A. (Host). (2026, May 24). Grieving in Spanglish. (No.710) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?. www.ginaanngarcia.com/podcast

What do we do when the federal government attacks HSIs? Stand up, fight back!!!! Amanda Fuchs Miller, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs at the US Department of Education, who oversaw all Title III and V programs during the Biden-Harris administration, discusses the current political climate for HSIs and offers strategies for advocating for Title III and Title V funding. We talk about how the current administration has attacked enrollment-based MSIs in unprecedented ways despite these institutions having bipartisan support for over three decades. Amanda explains that while HSIs remain constitutional and statutorily defined, the administration has chosen not to defend the programs in court and has reprogrammed discretionary funding away from HSIs and other enrollment-based MSIs to HBCUs and TCUs. Amanda recommends that HSIs apply for SIP (Strengthening Institutions Program) grants as an alternative funding source, since these have similar eligibility requirements but without the racial/ethnic enrollment-based criteria. She emphasizes the need for aggressive advocacy, including meetings with Congress members and their staff, litigation on mandatory funding, and coalition building with other stakeholders. The episode concludes with Amanda encouraging the HSI community to tell their stories to members of Congress who are currently in their home districts.

Guest:

Amanda Fuchs Miller (she, her)

President, Seventh Street Strategies

Website: https://www.seventhstreetstrategies.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-fuchs-miller-b75bb23

Show Notes:

• https://www.seventhstreetstrategies.com/
• https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2026/03/06/dear-colleague-any-other-name-opinion
• https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2026/02/20/ed-department-weaponizes-ferpa-restrict-voting-opinion
• https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2026/03/26/ed-leaves-msi-programs-out-grant-eligibility

APA Citation:

Garcia, G.A. (Host). (2026, May 10). Stand Up, Fight Back: Strategies for HSI Advocacy (No.709) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

What is the role of HSIs in building a diverse nursing workforce? With intentionality and partnership, HSIs can and should train bilingual, bicultural nurses. In this episode Dr. Garcia welcomes Dr. Tina Loarte-Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce and founder/author of Latinas in Nursing. The conversation addresses critical gaps in nursing diversity, noting that only 7-8% of the nation's 5 million nurses identify as Latinx despite Latinxs representing 30% of the population. Dr. Loarte-Rodriguez shares her personal journey from often being the only Latina in nursing settings to creating resources for representation and belonging in healthcare, including her book Latinas in Nursing and the follow-up Latinos in Nursing. She offers strategies for HSIs to increase Latinx representation in nursing through partnerships with state nursing workforce centers and community organizations. We also discuss barriers facing Latinx nursing students, including financial constraints from recent federal loan restrictions that cap graduate borrowing. The episode emphasizes the need for culturally relevant nursing curricula, bilingual training for heritage Spanish speakers, and increased Latina faculty representation in nursing programs.

Guest:

Tina Loarte-Rodriguez (she, her, ella)

Executive Director, Connecticut Center for Nursing Workforce

Author, Founder, & CEO, Latinas in Nursing

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tina-loarte-rodríguez

Website: https://latinasinnursing.org/

APA Citation

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, April 26). Building a Diverse Nursing Workforce: The Role of HSIs (No.708) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?. https://www.ginaanngarcia.com/podcast/

Show Notes:

• https://www.ctcenterfornursingworkforce.com
• https://latinasinnursing.org/

In this episode we talk about policies of possibility and the ways HSIs along the Mexico-U.S. border support transborder students. We feature Dr. Mark Sanchez, CEO/President of Southwestern College in California, who advocated for California's Assembly Bill 91, a five-year pilot program starting in 2024 that provides low-income Mexicans living within 45 miles of the Mexico-California border with non-resident fee exemptions to attend college while paying in-state tuition. Dr. Sanchez shares his personal journey as a first-generation college student who attended Southwestern College and returned 35 years later as its president. Moreover, he emphasizes the college's location just 7 miles from the Mexico-U.S. border and highlights the binational economy between Tijuana and San Diego County, which generates about $250 billion annually. We discuss several key aspects for serving transborder students, including the creation of basic support facilities like lounges, microwaves, refrigerators, and shower access for students who may arrive hours early due to unpredictable border crossing times. The episode addresses the current political climate, with Dr. Sanchez explaining how the college supports immigrant, undocumented, and transborder students throughout these challenging times.

Mark Sanchez (he, him, el)

Ceo/President, Southwestern College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mark-sanchez-57820232a

Instagram: @swc_president25

Website: https://www.swccd.edu/about-swc/leadership/office-of-the-superintendent-president/index.aspx

APA Citation:

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, April 12). Beyond Fronteras: How HSIs Support Transborder Students. (No.707) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

Emerging into HSI-ness is a powerful construct that we continue to explore in this episode. Irvine Valley College (IVC) is an emerging HSI community college that has been intentionally transforming its campus to better serve Latine/x students without waiting for federal HSI eligibility or Title V funding. The college is already an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI), having reached 41% API enrollment and receiving federal funding. In this episode our guests describe their commitment to servingness, equity, and attaining dual-eligibility regardless of the federal government’s attacks on funding. The college developed a comprehensive year-long training series based on the Transforming HSIs for Equity and Justice book and workbook that brought together faculty, classified staff, and administrators to examine institutional policies, practices, and power structures through an equity lens. This work emerged from their Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) Council, which operates under an innovative tri-chair model ensuring shared leadership across all campus constituencies. Through this episode we learn how the college has built and maintained its commitment to equity and servingness, demonstrating that transformational change can occur through internal resources, strong leadership, and a campus-wide culture of caring for students.

Guests:

Martha McDonald (she, her, ella)

Vice President for Student Services, Irvine Valley College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldmartha

Julie Fagundes Scholl (she, her)

Program Coordinator- Adult English as a Second Language (AESL), Irvine Valley College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/julie-f-scholl

Rebecca Beck (she, her, ella)

ESL Faculty/Academic Senate President, Irvine Valley College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rebecca-beck-6882232b5

APA Citation:

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, March 29). Building HSI Mindsets: Irvine Valley College’s Training Approach. (No. 706) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

We continue down the path of healing while weathering the storm of Title V defunding with colegas from Cal State LA. Our guests include Dra. Jessica Morales-Chicas, Co-PI of DHSI Grant, Reclaiming Pedagogy, Community and Student Success, and Wendy Vaughn, Project Director of the grant. They explain how their five-year grant, focused on faculty professional development to better serve the campus's predominantly Latine/x student population, was defunded and the ways they are sustaining the work. Our guests describe the impact of federal funding cuts to HSI grants, including the fear of job loss, significant stress on staff, and difficult conversations with the campus community. They also outline the ways they are actively working to institutionalize and sustain the program's initiatives beyond the grant period, including positioning some efforts within the provost's office. However, they face challenges in securing ongoing funding for all the program components. Despite the challenges, the team is finding hope and optimism in the transformative impacts they have seen so far and their determination to find ways to sustain the program's initiatives. They emphasize that HSIs will not die, but will rise to meet the challenge.

Jessica Morales-Chicas (she, her)

Professor and Co-PI of DHSI Grant, Reclaiming Pedagogy, Community and Student Success, CSULA

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-morales-chicas/

Instagram: dr.morales_chicas

Wendi Vaughn (she, her)

Assistant Director, Pathway Programs and Project Director of the DHSI Reclaiming Grant, CSULA

LinkedIn: WendiLVaughn

Instagram: @iamwendiwithani | @wendilvaughn

APA Citation:

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, March 15). Weathering the Storm to Sustain & Institutionalize HSI Work (No.705) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

Show Notes:

• Dhillon Brar, M. Morales-Chicas, J., Morris, S., Rivera, I.*, Cannara, R. (2025). Intergroup dialogue empowering action for transforming equity in higher education. Education Sciences, 15(1), 1-38. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15010038
• Morales-Chicas, J., Ortiz, J., Tanimura, D. M., & Kouyoumdjian, C. (2023). Understanding Latino boys’motivation to pursue STEM while navigating school inequalities. Journal of Latinos and Education, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2021.1944864
• Graham, S., Kogachi, K., & Morales-Chicas, J. (2022). Do I fit in: Race/ethnicity and feelings of belonging in school. Educational Psychology Review, 1-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09709-x
• Morales-Chicas, J., Gomez, M., Gussman, M., & Kouyoumdjian, C. (2022). A cultural wealth approach to understanding Latin@ s’ STEM mentee and mentor experiences. Equity & Excellence in Education, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.204741

In her book All About Love: New Visions bell hooks reminds us that “the search for love continues even in the face of great odds.” As the HSI community faces great odds amidst defunding and confusion, we must also create joy, love, and hope. Dra. Marla Lopez, inaugural director of the HSI Research Center at the University of Arizona, joins us for a vulnerable conversation about navigating loss and creating hope after federal funding cuts. We delve into the profound impact of HSI funding reprogramming, with Lopez sharing her personal experience of losing grants and highlighting how the loss extends beyond money—it affects lives, futures, and intellectual aspirations. Lopez describes how she's working through grief by naming it explicitly and resisting the urge to immediately fix everything, instead allowing time to sit with disappointment. We also highlight the importance of grieving in community and connecting with colleagues who share similar experiences. Despite the challenges, HSI work continues beyond federal funding, rooted in a critical understanding of what serving students means across different institutional contexts.

Guest:

Mara Nohemi Lopez (she, her, ella)

Director, HSI Research Center, University of Arizona

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmaralopez/

Instagram: @doctora.lopez

APA Citation:

Garcia, G.A. (Host). (2026, March 1). Creating Joy, Love, and Hope After HSI Defunding (No.704) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.

Show Notes:

• https://hsi.arizona.edu/person/mara-lopez-edd-ma
• https://ahsie.org/dr-mara-lopez
• The Power of Movement es Medicina: Defining Resilience with Dra. Mara Nohemi Lopez

In this episode we talk about all things Black Serving Institution (BSI), a new designation in California that creates a pathway for public and private colleges and universities to commit resources to advance the success of Black students. The designation requires campuses to demonstrate programs dedicated to Black student success, such as African-American studies and affinity spaces, as well as a track record of strong Black retention, transfer, and graduation rates. Dr. Keith Curry, president of Compton College, joins the conversation and tells us about how his freedom dream to create a BSI designation became reality. We discuss the ways BSIs can embrace servingness, the importance of upfront accountability and strategic planning compared to federal enrollment-based designations, and strategies for truly serving Black students rather than just enrolling them. We also highlight Compton College’s comprehensive approach to supporting all students' basic needs, including a housing project underway, another freedom dream becoming a reality for Dr. Curry. In this “riff” (as Dr. Curry uses) we talk about cross-racial collaboration and solidarity, as well as building relationships with external partners like donors, legislators, and the community to advance Black student success. This episode is for all our HSI, BSI, AANAPISI, and multi-designated listeners.

Guest:

Keith Curry (he, him)

President, Compton College

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keith-curry-7285b46

Website: https://iamkeithcurry.org/

Show notes:

• New California bill seeks crucial funding for Black students
• California community college leader urges funding for Black-Serving Institutions grant program after bill stalls
• California bill would create ‘Black-Serving Institution’ designation
• Black California students want more support. A new law names colleges that serve them best
• SB 1348: Postsecondary education: Designation of California Black-Serving Institutions
• https://www.theeduledger.com/from-the-magazine/article/15747360/defining-servingness-at-blackserving-institutions

APA Citation:

Garcia, G. A. (Host). (2026, February 15). Dr. Keith Curry’s Freedom Dream: Becoming Black Serving Institutions (No.703) [Audio podcast episode]. In ¿Qué pasa, HSIs?.