Rosalinda Godinez, PhD

Post-doctoral Fellow, Cleveland State University
Ph.D., Social and Cultural Studies, University of California, Berkeley 
B.A., Sociology and Spanish, Washington State University

Rosalinda Godinez is a WSU McNair Alumna. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Spanish. Her McNair project was titled “First-Generation Mexican-American College Students: Familial Educational Involvement and College-Going” and guided by Dr. Monica Johnson. She appreciates the support and guidance she received from the McNair program. She shares, “McNair not only helped prepare me for graduate school by providing me the resources I need to pursue a career as a researcher, but also guided my research in a way that honors my experiential knowledge as the daughter of farmworkers. I am beyond grateful to have had a team: Dr. Herrera, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Crowell, Dr. Cristobal, Dr. Becerra, and all my colleagues encouraging me, editing my writing, and teaching me the knowledge that I need to know about graduate school.”

After graduating from WSU in 2014, she pursued her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in May 2022. Rosalinda’s scholarship interweaves critical, interdisciplinary, and Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives to address the intersections of education, gendered labor, and immigration. As an education ethnographer, she is committed to establishing collaborative and action-based partnerships that document and honor people’s everyday life and education practices of community, movement, and imagination. Her research collaborations have focused on Latinx families’ education both in California and Washington, working with families in the research process to document their knowledge and create educational materials from their experiences.

She advises undergraduate students, “As you go through your journey to becoming a researcher, a scholar, and a writer, do not be so hard on yourself. Instead, enjoy the process of learning and becoming who you aspire to be. Know the journey will not always be easy, and you cannot control everything that comes your way or the pressures you will experience in graduate school, but you can trust yourself to be a strong, resilient, and powerful person. Know that you CAN finish the Ph.D., don’t give up!”