Dr. Sylvia Garcia-Navarrete overcame demeaning youth to become national force.
Dr. Sylvia Garcia-Navarrete woke up on February 19 feeling special.
It was her 55th birthday—a milestone that made her reflect on her life. Once labeled in elementary school as “mentally retarded,” she fought for her own sense of worth and intelligence in a world that was expecting her to fail. Now she is a rare Latina with a doctorate and an English professor at SC.
Her birthday became more special when her dean, Dr. Joel Levine, asked her to stop by his office. At precisely 1:30 p.m. Levine’s phone rang. California Senator Ben Hueso was on the line. He praised Garcia-Navarrete’s enormous contributions to the community and announced that she is the 40th Senate District Woman of the Year.
“We were just floored, impressed with everything that you’ve done and where you come from,” Hueso said. “You are really a part of what’s making California a better place every single day.”
Her title comes with a paid trip to Sacramento where she will meet the Women of the Year from other California Senate districts, all of whom will be honored on the floor of the Senate.
“It’s an honor to have been nominated first of all,” she said. “I’m humbled to be able to represent our college and our community.”
Growing up in Encanto, Garcia-Navarrete faced titanic challenges. She was deemed mentally disabled in kindergarten because she spoke only street Spanish. She was placed in Special Education classes and belittled all the way in to high school.
In the 7th grade the children of color faced a lot of discrimination, she said. K-12 counselors too frequently warehoused Latino students in Special Ed classes, deeming them “mentally incapable,” she said. It was a traumatic experience, she said, but it changed her outlook as an educator.
“You look back,” she said. “You connect the dots to where you are today and that’s a reminder of ‘If I can do it, anyone else can do it.’”
Fortunately, at a critical moment in her life, a trusted adult told her she was not stupid and should try college.
Garcia-Navarrete enrolled at SC and got a job in the cafeteria.
A job in the school cafeteria felt about right, she said. She told herself at the time that was all she knew how to do. Her upbringing had even groomed her for it—learning how to sew and cook in Home Economics classes instead of courses that would prepare her for college.
The expected path was set in front of her, but her schedule did not align with the job. She was connected to the Reading Center instead.
“It was life changing for me,” she said.
Reading Center staff told Garcia-Navarrete that she was much brighter than she gave herself credit for. She slowly started to believe them.
It took her six years to finish her BA, but she launched straight into a Master’s at SDSU. She had to drop to raise her daughter alone, but never let go of her dream of an advanced degree.
“I was a single mother and I was homeless for about a month,” she said. “Life happens.”
She returned to SC as a teaching assistant and found more support she needed to believe in herself. She said it was inspirational for her to have those “cheerleaders” in her life who would say “You’ve got this!”
A full decade after dropping out of her Master’s program she returned to SDSU. This time there was no stopping her. She whipped through her Master’s and was accepted into the extremely competitive SDSU Doctorate in Education Program.
Garcia-Navarrete earned a doctorate in educational leadership with an emphasis on community colleges and became a full-time professor at SC in 2012. The girl who was told she would not amount to anything in life is now teaching doctoral level students at SDSU.
Journalism Professor Dr. Max Branscomb was her classmate in the doctorate program. He said Garcia-Navarrete is a friend and a hero.
“There are people that teach and mentor and inspire people, but she does it just by existing,” he said, “by what she has achieved.”
During SC breaks, Garcia-Navarrete teaches in the South Pacific at Palau Community College and other disadvantaged islands in Micronesia, inspiring a new generation of teachers to be educational leaders. She teaches critical thinking and leadership skills to indigenous teachers at the vanguard of an educational Renaissance south of the equator. Garcia-Navarrete said she particularly enjoys encouraging women to enroll in doctorate programs.
Back home, she is an SC Advancing Equity mentor, reconsidering the way SC professors approach diversity and socio-economic impacts on education.
Levine recommends students take Garcia-Navarrete’s classes. Her classroom is another world, he said, because it is an environment that makes students feel respected, confident and inspired. Students who enter her English class become artists of the written word.
Opening the door to learning is the easy part, Garcia-Navarrete said. Opening your heart is harder and requires trust.
“Opening my heart to do what I do and loving what I do moves me forward and moves other people forward.”
