Getting It Right

Home Is Where the Heart Is

I grew up in a nontraditional way. I was raised by Cleopatra and DC White, who were born in 1919 and 1917 and encountered America when segregation was at its height. Neither were college educated, but they had a strong belief in education. When coming up on retirement, they trained as foster parents and opened their home to children like me. Living with them was an amazing experience — I had an opportunity to see what it looked like to advocate for academic justice.

The Road to Berkeley

In high school, I began to see the challenges and obstacles faced by students who come from nontraditional households. I had an advisor who told me that people like me didn’t go to college — and she didn’t support me in trying. I lived in South Central Los Angeles and had a friend at an all-girls Catholic high school in Inglewood who was trained as a peer counselor and helped me fill out college applications. I was accepted into a few UCs, including Berkeley. I took those letters of acceptance back to my high school counselor and I said, “I understand if you don’t want to help me, but can you tell me this? Which of these places is the farthest away from here?” She said Berkeley was the farthest.

The Heart Knows

I didn’t know anything about Berkeley, but I knew, in my heart, that’s where my parents saw me going. They passed away, but I kept them with me. My sister — Cleo and DC’s biological daughter — went with me. I packed a suitcase, got on a plane and we stayed in a dingy motel until we got the dorm situation sorted out. None of it was easy. That’s why it’s always inspiring to meet students who have diverse, nontraditional experiences as they come into higher education, because it says a lot about their journey, strength and what they overcame on their way to where they are today.

From Student to Teacher to Student

I had a tough time as an undergrad, but that’s when I learned the importance of finding mentors and finding curricula that sings to you. I was a psychology major and an African American Studies minor and had the opportunity to learn about our history and our contributions to the world. That’s when I began to understand the trajectory of my parents, what they went through and why they felt it was so important to give back to their community.

At Berkeley, I took a course taught by Dr. Bil Banks about the historical perspective of Black education in America. After grading one of our exams, Professor Banks passed them back to students, but I didn’t get mine. After class, I told him I didn’t get my exam. “That’s because I wanted to talk with you,” he said. “You got 100%. Have you ever thought about going into education?” He mentored me and encouraged me to apply to grad school. I got my master’s from Teachers College at Columbia University and went on to teach in elementary schools and continuation high schools. Then I decided to work for a nonprofit, recruiting people of color and training them to be exceptional teachers. That’s where I met Dr. Judy Johnson, who encouraged me to get my doctorate.

Inspired by Children

We already know the inequities that exist in the education system — I was tired of talking about the problems. So, I decided to research communities where schools were getting it right. I talked to teachers, families and principals. I realized the success of these schools was a function of good leaders. So, I studied leaders who produced high student achievement in schools that served minoritized communities. I was pregnant while collecting data. Once my daughter, Chloe, was born, she’d sit on my lap and I’d bounce her on my knee while typing my dissertation. Everything I was doing was about my family. They were my inspiration. It made sense to me to bring her along so she could see mommy working. It made sense to read aloud to her while I was writing and to model to her what it was like to work in these spaces. Chloe was salutatorian of her class. She identifies as someone who has dyslexia, but she’s paving a way for herself in the education space and thinking about what her next steps will be.

Leadership and Education

In the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES), we offer mental health and leadership programs. We have counseling and marriage and family therapy programs. We have a compendium of centers and institutes. We have a Catholic education program. We’re training people to work in student affairs, in nonprofit leadership and management and in pre-K to 12 schools. My vision is to develop an ecosystem where these programs, centers and institutes can work together to prepare SOLES graduates to better serve all students.

Looking Forward

I find hope in students who are earning their PhD in social justice, students who are in our leadership studies program or in our marriage and family therapy program, students who are earning their licenses and their credentials to become teachers in our schools. I find hope in people who are making affirmative choices to be part of what we’re doing in SOLES and trusting us to give them the tools they need to succeed in community environments that might present obstacles. I find hope in our students who are making midcareer changes to become education advocates. Cleo and DC taught me that education has the potential to build pathways. The work for us, within SOLES, is to reshape education to allow for honest conversation, to create concrete change for people who are oppressed, to provide tools for social mobility and to form a more humane society. — As told to Krystn Shrieve

Anita Duong grew up unaccompanied. She was unattended, unprotected. Abandoned. Alone. That was then. And this is now. Now, Duong ’23 (MA) is a scholarly success. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from San Diego State University and in 2021 graduated cum laude. Under her gown, she wore a black dress from Forever 21. Her commencement stole was purple and white, colors used to symbolize foster youth.

Living Life in Full Color

Celebrating the renaissance of some of USD’s most resilient students

Story by Krystn Shrieve

This month, she walked across the stage again, this time at the Jenny Craig Pavilion, with a Master of Arts in higher education from USD’s School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES).

Kimberly White-Smith, EdD, dean of SOLES, is well aware of the obstacles students like Duong face, especially having been raised in the foster care system herself. [See her story on page 25.]

“When I meet students who’ve made it through the gauntlet, I’m excited and proud because I know what they’ve been through to get here,” she says. “I’m also aware it doesn’t have to be that hard. A program like Torero Renaissance Scholars (TRS) is one pillar that fills in the gaps and help us navigate educational systems.”

Another pillar is SOLES, which prepares teachers to address the needs of students who come from nontraditional households, learn differently or are neurocomplex.

“That’s why Anita’s presence is essential, why it’s vital that she’s represented in the higher education space and why it’s important that she’s earning a master’s degree from SOLES, which will help her better serve this community,” WhiteSmith says. “Just as I may be an inspiration to her, she too is serving as an inspiration to those who come behind her.”

After turning her tassel, Duong plans to earn her doctorate in higher education.

“My goal is not just to become an educator and a scholar but an advocate for foster youth,” says Duong, who is among the less than 1% of the nation’s foster youth who’ve earned a master’s degree and now hopes to join White-Smith as one of the even fewer in the ranks to complete her doctorate. “I’ll champion other students, like me, who work so hard to overcome the disadvantages they face. I’ll represent those who are underrepresented. I want to give these students their chance, their opportunity to have their voices heard, to have their dreams fulfilled. I want them to have their own renaissance.”

During her time at USD, Duong was involved in Torero Renaissance Scholars, a program that provides support and resources to USD students from across the United States who identify as former foster youth, who are emancipated or unaccompanied minors, who were in legal guardianships, or who are homeless or are at risk for becoming homeless. [See the sidebar on page 31.]

The program was established at USD in 2010 by former Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Cynthia Avery, EdD. Avery spent time as a courtappointed special advocate and understood the struggles foster students often face in school.

“After arriving at USD, I asked what support systems were in place for former foster students and students who were homeless or on the verge of becoming homeless,” she recalls. “I was told USD didn’t have students in those circumstances.”

But Avery knew of students on campus who were homeless, hungry and struggling to meet basic needs — all while attending classes and juggling life as a student.

Within a year or so, the FAFSA form — officially known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — added questions that allowed students to note whether they were foster students, unaccompanied minors, emancipated minors or homeless.

“That changed everything,” Avery says. “Now, the Office of Financial Aid can identify students whom we could invite to join the TRS program.”

Another major turning point was when TRS gained the attention of two anonymous donors, who generously gave a significant contribution to support the work of the program. They said their goal was to serve as catalysts for others and to provide students with opportunities they might not have otherwise had.

The TRS program started with three students and, this year, serves 15.

Duong is proud to be one of those scholars. Her own story was part of a generational trauma that began years prior.

Her grandmother grew up in Cambodia and survived genocide at the hands of the Communist regime known as the Khmer Rouge, which came to power in the spring of 1975 after overthrowing the president of Cambodia. Over the next four years, the Khmer Rouge systematically killed more than 2 million people, including anyone thought to be an intellectual — doctors, lawyers, professors, teachers, those who spoke a foreign language, those who were leaders in the community and even those who looked scholarly simply because they wore glasses.

After living through that, Duong’s grandmother came to the United States when Duong’s mother was 5 years old. Life here had its own difficulties and her grandmother suffered abuse at the hands of her husband. Eventually, her grandmother found the courage to leave her husband, but subsequently struggled with depression and alcoholism.

Duong’s mother had no choice but to step up to care for her younger brother. That meant years later, having done her duty, the last thing she wanted to do when Duong was born was to be a mother.

She wanted to dress in fancy clothes. She wanted to drink. She wanted to party. She wanted to enjoy the freedoms she didn't have while growing up.

The last thing she wanted was to take care of a baby or to be tied down.

Duong has hazy memories of her mother and grandmother drinking together, with music blaring in the background. The more they drank, the louder they'd crank the music. Before long, the women would yell at each other until Duong’s mother would inevitably storm out of the house, vowing never to return.

“Chaos would ensue,” Duong says. “They’d yell, argue and throw things. I’d hide in my grandma’s room and cry until it was over.”

Eventually, Duong’s mother fled to New York for a decade with her new husband. After that, Duong’s mother existed primarily in photographs.

Duong grew up with a fantasy she played over and over in her mind, of her mother picking her up from school the way other moms picked up friends and classmates.

In Duong’s mind, her mother drove a red Lexus. She wore a beautiful skirt and blouse with blue flowers and long, flared sleeves that billowed as she walked. Her hair was curled and her makeup was simple — light mascara and blush in a soft shade of pink.

“I imagined her walking to my lunch table and surprising me,” Duong recalls, with the trace of a smile on her lips. “She’d hold my left hand and I’d wave goodbye to my friends as we drove off.”

Duong’s father, originally from Vietnam, was in prison for shooting a man and was still serving his sentence when Duong was born. She was 8 years old when he was released. Duong resented him for leaving her alone with her mother, who abused her. But he was abusive too — slapping her across the face, slamming her head into a window, pushing her down and kicking her in the stomach.

He constantly shut her out of his room, where she couldn’t help but notice white powder on his desk. He even took her along on drug runs, leaving her in the car while he was buying or selling. One day — in a state of paranoia fueled by cocaine — he nearly killed an elderly man in nearby Linda Vista, whom he was convinced was following him.

Soon, he was back in prison.

Duong spent her childhood bouncing around from one relative to another, until her welcome expired. Some were abusive. Some were merely inattentive. She carried her belongings in a blue, plastic laundry basket and had only one item she truly treasured — a toddler-sized yellow blanket with a brown bear holding three balloons — one red, one green and one blue. Bought at a flea market, she carried it everywhere she went.

Eventually, Duong moved in full time with her grandmother.

“I call her mommy,” Duong says lovingly, of her grandmother. “She’s the true definition of resiliency. She survived the genocide. She came to a foreign place where she didn’t know the language. Her husband abused her and cheated on her and, eventually, she decided she was better off navigating alone.”

Grandmother and granddaughter lived together in a humble, two-bedroom home in City Heights. One room belonged to Duong’s uncle. She and her grandmother shared the other room.

“My grandmother had a lot of regret with her own kids,” Duong says. “Now, she’s working hard to be a proper mother, through me, but I feel bad that she had the responsibility of raising me.”

Watching television shows and movies, Duong knew other families were different, but it wasn’t until she was filling out paperwork with a financial aid counselor during her senior year in high school — and the counselor checked the box indicating Duong was an unaccompanied minor — that she truly understood just how different her life was.

Duong says, as a young girl, her uncle bought her a pink-and-purple Huffy bicycle, complete with decals of her favorite Disney princesses and colorful metallic tassels that would flutter from the handlebars as she rode against the wind. Her uncle took her and her cousin camping and to the roller rink.

“I’m so grateful to my uncle for helping to normalize my life and for giving me great memories,” Duong says, while gliding on her purple roller blades. “To this day, I still love roller skating. I feel so safe, so relaxed, so free.”

At first, Duong was reluctant, scared even, to go to college, to move away from her grandmother. But an AP teacher convinced her that it’s an important four years and encouraged her to live life for herself. So she applied to nearby SDSU. It wasn’t until she was an undergraduate student there that, for the first time in her life, Duong had her own bed, her own closet, her own desk, her own dresser drawers. Her side of the wall was covered with photos she printed at Walmart or took with a Polaroid camera. Her bed linens were coral pink with small, white flowers — which she bought herself using money from her financial aid disbursement. A teddy bear sat at the head of her bed.

“I had the choice to decorate everything myself. I could get creative,” Duong recalls. “I felt as though, for the first time, I was in control of my own life.”

It was as if her life was transformed from black-andwhite to full color. Duong was grateful to take control and has made the most of her life ever since.

As a graduate student at USD, Duong has spent two summers serving as a college seminar instructor for the USD TRiO Upward Bound program, which is geared toward promoting academic achievement among high school students, establishing not only a path toward college, but also representing low-income and first-generation students who are succeeding in higher education.

In her role, Duong has taught 50 high school students who identify as low-income or first-generation students. She facilitated workshops and cultural events to build community among the students and developed her lesson plans and materials to review everything from college admissions, financial aid and scholarships to college culture and even imposter syndrome, common among students who feel as though they don’t belong or deserve to be in college.

In the spring, she taught an undergraduate emerging leaders course through SOLES — touching on topics such as values, identities, social justice, privilege and how to look at life as a Changemaker and find ways, big and small, to help humanity.

This summer, Duong plans to study abroad — in Spain and in London — learning about their K–12 educational systems.

As a child, Duong spent a long time feeling helpless, feeling like she had no one looking after her.

She was unattended, unprotected. Abandoned. Alone. That was then. And this is now.

“No child, no young person, should have to worry about whether their mom will come home at the end of the day or when they’ll eat next, or whether their mom or their grandma will be blasting music in a drunken rage,” Duong says. “They should be worried about playtime and whether they can occasionally get away with eating candy before dinner.”

Sometimes Duong still can’t believe how far she’s come.

“For so long I was so busy surviving — being anxious, being angry — that I forgot to set goals for my future,” Duong says. “But now, I am excited to look back and to know that I did it. Someday, I look forward to earning my PhD, being Dr. Duong, and making a difference to other students like me.”