He had crawled on his hands and knees for a couple hundred feet through a pitch-dark tunnel in a cave in the jungles of Belize, with a headlamp illuminating his way. This was just the kind of exploration Spenard had signed up for when, as an archaeology major at a small private college in New Hampshire in 1998, he was invited to leave the Northeast for the first time in his life and join a field school in the Central American nation to research the ancient Maya.

And it was just the kind of adventure he had dreamed of since he was in sixth grade and was left awestruck by a documentary in social studies class about Maya civilization.

His dreams, however, didn’t include this inconvenient detail: At the end of the tunnel, the passage jutted upward, and Spenard had to contort his body around a couple of rocks as he tried to find space for his head to squeeze through. It marked something of a moment of truth, which meant that it was a really bad time for an aspiring cave archaeologist to discover that he was claustrophobic.

“I had an absolute panic attack,” Spenard said. “I remember saying for what felt like an eternity, ‘I can't do this, I can't do this.’ I had to make a decision. I've been waiting my entire life to be in a place like this. If I don't do it, I'm giving up on everything that I've ever known and wanted to be.”

Ultimately, desire triumphed over fear. Spenard wriggled his way through the small opening and was rewarded with the sight of Maya handprints a thousand years old on the cave wall above.

That foundational experience occurred 25 years ago, but in some respects, Spenard’s imagination never left that cave. Today, he’s an anthropology professor at Cal State San Marcos and one of the most accomplished cave archaeologists in the United States. His area of expertise remains Belize, which was populated by millions of Maya people during their heyday. He has conducted research in the country almost 20 times, several of them with CSUSM students and alumni in tow, and as recently as this summer.

In 2018, three years after he earned a Ph.D. from UC Riverside and two years after being hired by CSUSM, Spenard started the research program that still consumes his attention. Called the Rio Frio Regional Archaeological Project (or RiFRAP), it’s focused on investigating the pre-Colombian Maya of the Mountain Pine Ridge, a forest reserve in the Cayo District of central western Belize.

Spenard initially was drawn to the area by the Rio Frio caves, which are one of the top tourist attractions in the reserve but which hadn’t been properly surveyed by archaeologists since their discovery almost a century ago. There was a good reason for that, supposedly. The region is characterized by a series of upwellings of granite that produce poor soil, which would be unfavorable to the farming-rich culture of the Maya and would seem to indicate that they weren’t a major presence there, unlike in the rest of the nation.

By only the second year of RiFRAP, Spenard had proved that long-held theory to be incorrect and established the rocky nature reserve as a site of great archaeological significance. In June 2019, he was trying to relocate one of the more remote Rio Frio caves when he and his research team instead stumbled upon the remains of a pyramid and other vestiges of a lost Maya city deep in the jungle.

“I was speechless,” Spenard said. “Just completely overwhelmed with what I was seeing because there wasn’t supposed to be anything there, at least nothing as large. 

“The discovery doesn’t rewrite Maya history, but it has an impact on the way we understand archaeology, the big cities around Belize. Imagine we know about San Diego, we know about Escondido, we know about Oceanside. But everybody says, ‘Well, there’s nothing between Escondido and Oceanside.’ And then somebody discovers Vista, when for a hundred years the presence of Vista has been denied. That’s how I would describe it.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic that struck the following spring shut down Spenard’s field research for the next two years, but over a pair of trips since last summer, he and his team were able to do further examination of the site, which (as the first to report it to the Belize government) he was permitted to give a name: Nohoch Batsó. Now the original mission of RiFRAP – the Rio Frio caves and the rituals that were practiced within them – has expanded to a broader study of the many ways that Maya people interacted and lived in a landscape unique in the Maya lowlands.

In part because he works at a university where student success is primary and in part because he affirmed his own passion for archaeology during his college years, Spenard has long been dedicated to bringing students with him on his trips to Belize, hoping to light a spark in them. One of the students who went for the first time in January is Joe Gravino, an anthropology major who graduated this spring.

Gravino transferred to CSUSM in 2021 intending to study anthropology, but it wasn’t until last fall that he became interested in focusing specifically on archaeology, inspired by what he was learning in three classes taught by Spenard. It was through a course on Maya archaeology that he found out about the opportunity to accompany Spenard to Belize, which he jumped on with vigor.

“What intrigued me about it was getting to go with somebody who knows so much about the topic and who has spent so long making that his life’s work,” Gravino said. “It was super exciting for me to be part of something where he’s rewriting the textbooks on this region that he’s studying.

“I really didn’t see archaeology as a career that I wanted to pursue until I started taking Jon’s classes. And it’s gotten to where I could see myself in that field permanently.”

Spenard is one of only about 30 people in the world who have been granted an archaeological permit by the Belize government to work in the country, and he aspires one day to open a field school for students there. But the Rio Frio caves and Nohoch Batsó are in a remote location with little infrastructure, which makes Spenard’s work there especially challenging in terms of logistics.

Last year, the Office of Alumni Engagement organized a Cougar Crowdfunding campaign on Spenard’s behalf to raise money toward the renovation of a forest reserve cabin from the 1950s that would cut his Belize commute down from two hours to about 10 minutes. The campaign reached its $8,000 goal, but that amount is unlikely to cover the cost of the construction.

“I’d love to get a field school up and running, but that would require getting a lab built first so we can have a place to stay,” Spenard said. “My goal is to provide students with background knowledge of what goes into archaeology. Not just excavations and surveys, but what it takes to run a project – thinking about logistics and budgeting and these tangential skills that are vital to being a successful field researcher.”

Spenard grew up in New Jersey. His mother was a nurse, and his father was an athletic trainer for the local high school. As a kid, he remembers digging for dinosaur bones in a backyard garden. One day he found a bone that had been buried by the family dog, and his mom wasn’t about to spoil the joy that washed over her son’s face. 

“I ran inside and said, ‘Mom, I found one, I found one!’ ” he recounted. “I was like, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to dig in the ground and find stuff.’ ” 

The school documentary in sixth grade shifted his curiosity from paleontology to Maya archaeology. Not understanding that most colleges house archaeology under the umbrella of anthropology, Spenard combed the Eastern seaboard in search of schools that offered archaeology and found one in Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire.  

Through the lone archaeology professor at Franklin Pierce, Spenard connected with an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Hampshire who happened to be the interim director of the archaeological institute in Belize and operate a field school in the country.

“Two days after getting off the plane, I was in a tent in the jungle and spent the next couple of weeks there,” he said. “It turned out we were doing a cave archaeology project. And I’ve been doing it ever since.” 

Spenard returned to his home away from home in June. Besides doing further excavation of the city he discovered and named, he of course went back to the place where it all started – the primary Rio Frio cave, which is so vast that, as Spenard says, you could fit CSUSM’s Social and Behavioral Sciences building inside the main chamber and still have plenty of room left over.

With his team of students and alumni, Spenard will continue to explore every nook and cranny of the cave to unearth Maya artifacts (like ancient pots and jars) and try to advance his understanding of what the Maya people used the cave for and why. On a recent trip, for example, he reached the conclusion that the Maya made architectural modifications to the cave to heighten the dramatic effect of their theatrical rituals.

“Most archaeologists don’t want to work in caves,” Spenard said. “They’re really difficult environments. They're dark, they're humid, they require a lot of specialized training, people are claustrophobic. And working in caves isn’t something I ever set out to do, but they’re fascinating to me. I love exploring them and learning about them and learning how Maya used them.”

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The course ANTH 460: Questioning Cultural Competency, taught by lecturer Isabelle Placentia, partnered with Streets of Hope San Diego, whose mission is to “build a community where those who have much can serve and give to those who have little because real transformation happens through relationship in community.”

The research interests of the class members focused on the basic needs of homeless individuals, with a goal of understanding what such necessities mean to people who don’t have the same access to them. Students were trained by Streets of Hope on the protocols of volunteering and on sensitive ethical considerations when interacting with the community.

Besides learning more about the firsthand experience of homeless people, students made sandwiches with supplies donated by the anthropology department – they were part of a meal package that’s delivered to community members in downtown San Diego every Monday.

They also organized a drive to collect socks for direct distribution to homeless individuals and their families. Aiming for 400 pairs, the class – with the generosity of the campus community – collected almost 800. Laurette McGuire (chair of the anthropology department) and Leo Melena (director of student success in the College of Humanities, Arts, Behavioral and Social Sciences) were integral to spreading the word about the drive.  

Placentia and the students chose Streets of Hope as a partner because it’s run completely by volunteers and all the donations go directly to the homeless community that it serves.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist
bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Spenard invited Nick Hearth, senior archaeologist for Michael Baker International, to campus Oct. 12 to demonstrate flintknapping, a method of stone tool making that dates back 2.6 million years. These tools were used for hunting and making spears, knives and blades. Spenard also is planning a spear-throwing experiment to show the evolution of Paleolithic technology.  

“These tools would be used for processing carcasses or used as digging tools,” Spenard said. “Some of them were used for cutting and processing plants and foods. They were used for a variety of purposes. It is basically the first tool technology we ever had.” 

Each student had the opportunity to shape a tool using obsidian, a rock sharper than surgical steel. In crafting their tools, the students utilized the hard hammer technique, which focuses on striking a rounded rock against its core and removing flakes with each strike.  

“A big part of this experience is trying to get the students to understand what our early ancestors were capable of and what kinds of knowledge about the world they needed to have to be able to do this,” Spenard said. “The activity allows us to answer questions about the origins of language because we have somebody (Hearth) who knows what they're doing to communicate what flintknapping is. We're learning the origins of language and we're studying the origins of human culture.” 

For communication student Kara Quitugua, the flintknapping experience showed her what it would be like to survive millions of years ago.  

“I had a lot of fun trying,” Quitugua said. “It was really eye-opening how challenging it actually is because you think it's really simple to bash some rocks together, but it’s much more than that. This is the first tool technology that our ancestors started with.” 

Media Contact

Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist

ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

As faculty director, Martinez will oversee new projects analyzing data from the 2020 U.S. Census and the border region, as well as projects on pesticide awareness and education for farmworkers throughout the state.

The mission of the NLRC is to promote scientific and applied research, training and the exchange of information that contribute to the knowledge and understanding of rapidly growing U.S. Latina and Latino populations. 

Martinez is an applied medical anthropologist with more than 20 years of experience working with Latino immigrant communities in the U.S.-Mexico border region.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist
bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The COVID-19 Farmworker Study (COFS) team released its first report last February, and now it’s back with another one. Bade, a professor of medical anthropology, participated in a press conference on Oct. 18 to discuss the new report highlighting extensive interviews with Indigenous agricultural workers and the dire conditions they are facing during the pandemic. 

Titled “Experts in Their Fields: The Lived Experiences of California Indigenous Agricultural Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” the report shares stories of Indigenous farmworkers about COVID impacts and the support that these communities will need to recover from the pandemic. 

COFS is a research project facilitated by the California Institute for Rural Studies, a Davis-based organization for which Bade serves as a senior research associate. The institute collaborated with a team of social science researchers and six farmworker-serving, community-based organizations, including the FarmWorker CARE Coalition and Vista Community Clinic, which both are in North County.  

"During the pandemic, all farmworkers, classified as essential workers, have been living in stress and fear due to the lack of protection offered to them as essential workers who play a crucial role in global food supply chains," Bade said. "Indigenous farmworkers, who prefer the term 'campesinos' to recognize their ancient agricultural knowledge and crop specializations, experienced further marginalization that manifested largely as language justice issues. Campesinos speak pre-colonial languages like Mixtec, Zapotec and Triqui that have no relation to Spanish. Campesinos make up about one-quarter of the 800,000-plus farmworkers in California’s $50 billion per year agricultural industry.

"In addition to being excluded from economic and housing relief programs, the coronavirus educational materials, testing and vaccination efforts, online learning challenges for families and relief program paperwork have not recognized the language needs of the campesino communities and have further excluded them from appropriate COVID-19 protection protocols and relief programs. Because of the communal approach to society inherent in campesino communities, regional indigenous-language-speaking, community-based organizations have filled that gap by assisting campesinos with interpretation, financial, food and logistical support in the absence of culturally and linguistically appropriate federal, state and county assistance programs."

Psychology professor leads study on tobacco reporting tool 

CSUSM psychology professor Kimberley Pulvers is the lead author of a study that examines the impact of a new online reporting tool in shaping college campus attitudes and behaviors about smoke and tobacco-free (STF) policies. 

The study was published Oct. 21 in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research by Oxford University Press. It’s a joint venture between CSUSM and UC Davis.  

The study explores whether an online tool for crowdsourced reporting of tobacco use and related litter called Tobacco Tracker is effective in supporting STF policies on college campuses. Surveys were administered to students, faculty and staff at CSUSM and Davis, which both have 100% smoke- and tobacco-free policies in place. 

Results showed that awareness of Tobacco Tracker to report tobacco use or related litter on campus doubled, and use of the online tobacco reporting tool tripled, from pre- to post-assessment. 

“Campus community members are critical to the success of their smoke- and tobacco-free policies,” Pulvers said. “Almost all adult daily smokers started smoking before the age of 26, making college and university campuses a high priority for these policies.” 

Tobacco Tracker was developed based on student and staff input, as described in a related study published by the same team in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. In a user survey, the top motivations for using the tool were a cleaner environment (79%) followed by health concerns (69%).

Myra Rice, a 2020 graduate of CSUSM, contributed to the study.  

Alumnus receives administrator of year honor 

Carlsbad High School principal Bryan Brockett, an educational leadership graduate of the joint CSUSM-UC San Diego doctoral program, was recognized by the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce as a School Administrator of the Year on Oct. 14. 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

But Peery White, sitting in one of her first classes as an older student at Cal State San Marcos, nearly keeled over out of shock.  

“Where I come from, you don’t talk about that,” White said. “You don’t say that you’re Native, you’re not proud of it. It’s something that’s disgraceful.” 

White grew up in Oklahoma as a member of the Peoria Tribe of Indians. Her father, she says, was 65 years old before she ever heard him acknowledge that he was Native. When White was born, her grandmother cried because she had the brown eyes and brown hair of the Native side of the family. 

“The implication was that it was shameful,” White said. “In Oklahoma, there’s a lot of historical trauma, passed down from generation to generation.” 

White is determined to break the cycle – to be proud of the person she is and the people she comes from. During her time at CSUSM, where she studied medical anthropology, she worked as an undergraduate researcher for Indian Health Council, a consortium of nine North County tribes dedicated to the betterment of Indian health.  

After graduating in 2017, she proceeded to a Master of Public Health program at UC San Diego, and since last summer she has served as a contract epidemiologist for San Diego County, one of hundreds of temporary employees hired to help deal with the COVID-19 surge. At her request, one of her primary duties is to be the county liaison to the local tribes.  

As an outbreak lead investigator, White initially was charged with monitoring for potential COVID-19 outbreaks on tribal lands. But partly because of her performance and partly because of her personal interest, the job description quickly expanded to where she now acts as an intermediary between the county and tribes on a whole host of issues.   

Since there are 18 federally recognized tribes in the county alone, accounting for the largest concentration of tribal nations in the lower United States, that is no small task. 

“It’s about teaching people to respect tribal sovereignty so that the tribes have streamlined access to COVID data and are empowered to make decisions the way they see fit,” White said. “More than that, it’s about teaching county officials how to talk to the tribes. We did a tribal nations telebriefing recently, and it was the first time that a blessing by a local tribal elder has ever been given. I was like, ‘How is that possible?’ 

“I understand what the county wants, and they have great intentions. I’m just trying to get them to shift their view and, in a respectful, culturally appropriate way, be able to meet what they want and what the tribes want.” 

White has been told by colleagues that she’s occupying a tribal liaison role that hasn’t been filled in decades – a reality that’s unacceptable to many in the Native community.  

“The tribal liaison position must be a permanent one, especially given the large population of tribal nations that exists in the county,” said Proudfit, director of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at CSUSM and chair of the university’s American Indian studies department.  

“This position can mean the difference between life and death, so let us always be prepared to serve all populations, especially some of the most vulnerable. Peery has the personal drive and professional and cultural expertise to serve as an effective tribal liaison. I couldn’t be prouder of her.” 

The road that White, 46, took to her present station was the farthest thing from smooth and traditional. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she spent much of her childhood shuttling back and forth between her native Oklahoma and Southern California, where her dad moved. She was a good student but a rebellious teenager, and feeling that she didn’t fit in at Carlsbad High School, she eventually dropped out. 

That decision could have led to a very different life outcome, but White never lost her personal drive to improve and educate herself. When her now ex-husband, a military man, was stationed in Virginia, she enrolled at a nearby community college. Everywhere the family went, even as she raised two boys, White found a way to take classes on the side. She did this for two decades.  

“I’ve always tried to do something to better myself, and I love going to school,” she said. “I wish I wouldn’t have dragged it out for 20 years, but hey, we each have our own path.” 

In 2013, divorced, back living in North County and her sons grown, White finally had the opportunity to pursue her education single-mindedly. She intended to study biology at CSUSM and pursue medical school, but around the same time she started taking American Indian studies courses, she also discovered (through her older sister, Burgundy, a student at UC San Diego) the California Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH), a partnership between local tribal organizations and academic institutions to increase the number of American Indian scientists and reduce health disparities in Native populations.  

White almost immediately began conducting research through NARCH and decided that her career path would be not medicine but public health – specifically focusing on indigenous peoples. 

“Peery came to our program with a ton of life and academic experience, and with a goal to work with American Indian communities to address health disparities and improve health equity,” said Richard Armenta, a CSUSM kinesiology professor who’s also the co-principal investigator and student research director for NARCH. “I was impressed by her dedication and her strong commitment to make an impact for American Indian communities.” 

Through NARCH, White not only gained crucial skills in community-based participatory research that supplemented her classroom learning, but she also built relationships with tribal leaders and community members that are proving invaluable in her current work with the county.  

Even as her professional outlook improved, though, White still had to overcome significant adversity in her personal life. When her marriage ended, she had no job, no place to live and about $1,000 in savings. When she wasn’t staying in a hotel, she was crashing in the house of an old high school friend. Her first connection through NARCH was the program coordinator, Geneva Lofton-Fitzsimmons, a member of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, who helped White find a job in the program when she was a homeless CSUSM student. 

“She is basically my adopted grandma here,” said White, who affectionately calls Lofton “Ms. Geneva.” “I’m not sure what I would have done without her.” 

White received assistance at CSUSM through the Lee Dixon scholarship for American Indian students, but she still dealt with housing and food insecurity throughout her undergraduate years. She chose UCSD for her master’s program in large part because the university offered her a tribal scholarship. 

Her job with the county has finally brought White a degree of financial independence, though her contract is due to expire this summer. She’s hoping that county leaders will appreciate the value of her tribal liaison duties and make the position permanent, or perhaps she’ll move back to Oklahoma, where her sons (now 26 and 24) work with their father in a family-owned plumbing company.  

Years after Proudfit taught her that there’s no reason to be ashamed of her identity, however, White knows that she’ll spend the rest of her life serving Native communities with pride. When she was invited last fall to be the guest speaker at a COVID-19 meeting for all county staff members, she introduced herself in her Native language. 

“I couldn’t believe it myself,” she admitted. “It was like I was doing something taboo against my family. But now I’m willing to shout it from the rooftop: We’re here. I’m here.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

So when the coronavirus pandemic struck with a vengeance last March, the thoughts of Bade and her colleagues across the state almost immediately turned to the many ways that the burgeoning crisis would affect migrant farmworkers, that ever-vulnerable population within the labor force. They decided to convene a Zoom conference call, during which two primary themes quickly emerged. 

This is really going to hit the farmworkers hard. 

What are we going to do about it? 

That meeting kicked off a journey that has filled much of the past year for Bade, a longtime professor of medical anthropology at Cal State San Marcos. Early this month, she participated in a virtual press conference at which she and her research associates shared the results of a study titled “Always Essential, Perpetually Disposable: California Farmworkers and the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The study shares harrowing stories of COVID-19’s impact on migrant workers and outlines concrete steps that state lawmakers can take to help protect the people who power California’s $50 billion per year agriculture industry.  

“This is really wonderful for me because, even though I am one of the co-principal investigators on the study, it’s a huge collaboration that involves academic researchers, independent researchers and community-based organizations from all over California,” Bade said.  

The farmworker study was facilitated by the California Institute for Rural Studies, a Davis-based organization that Bade said funded her dissertation research back in the late 1980s and for which she has served on the advisory board for the last 10 years. Bade designed the study together with Dvera Saxton, an anthropology professor at Fresno State. Among the many contributors, Bade was especially proud of research associates Paola Illescas and Deysi Merino-Gonzalez, both CSUSM alumna who now work for local nonprofits Vista Community Clinic and the FarmWorker CARE Coalition. 

The COVID-19 Farmworker Study (COFS) can be broken down into two distinct components. During the first phase, last May and June, organizers conducted a statewide survey of 915 farmworkers, collecting a trove of valuable data about the loss of jobs and wages and other harmful effects. The second phase, led by Bade and Saxton from August to October, involved 63 in-depth phone interviews with migrant workers who had been part of the original survey.  

The interviews added human voices to the data gleaned from the first phase and drove home the devastating toll of the pandemic. When she dove into their stories, Bade began to identify several common threads: 

• Internet access in rural areas tends to be spotty, which increased the already daunting challenge of remote learning. 

• The closing of restaurants and other food-related industries had a cascading effect on California agriculture, resulting in job and wage losses in farmworker communities.  

• Farmworkers experienced uneven COVID-19 protections and little enforcement of protocols.  

• Food insecurity was an issue, from not only wage loss but also increased costs because of school closures and stay-at-home orders.  

Bade discovered that most of the concerns of the interview subjects fell under the general category of mental health.  

“It all comes back to that,” she said. “These are paycheck-to-paycheck individuals, and they’re really stressed about losing their jobs. They’re stressed about not having enough food to put on the table, talking about adding more rice and beans to the diet and taking away other proteins to make the food last longer. They’re really worried about the mental health of their kids. 

“We even had a case where a woman was talking about her daughter, and she said the girl got a little sniffle, started coughing, and then she lost it and began crying hysterically: ‘Mommy, I have COVID, I’m gonna die, we’re all gonna die!’ And the mother just couldn’t stop her.” 

Such pandemic-specific worries have been compounded by persistent ones rooted in history.  

“It’s the same situation that farmworkers have been in since ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and before, where there are substandard, undignified living conditions, and then labor conditions – although California has a lot of laws on the books, we don’t have a lot of enforcement,” Bade said. “We came across workers with no sick leave of any kind. They were afraid to say they didn’t feel good or they might have COVID because they knew that they would be dismissed along with their whole crew. So there were a lot of pressures not to report. Also, farmworkers tend not to have health insurance. 

“And probably more than 75% of farmworkers are undocumented, so there’s the fear of deportation. ‘If I’m infected, are they going to deport me? I’m going to die alone in a hospital bed.’ That was a huge fear that came across loud and clear.” 

Bade and her colleagues are now working on a third phase of the project in which they create communication tools that pick up some of the slack from county health departments in terms of educating farmworker communities about vaccinations, testing and other ways they can protect themselves against the virus. The researchers also have met with the California Latino Legislative Caucus as a first step toward influencing policy change by state lawmakers.  

In the short term, Bade hopes the government will increase funding for the community-based organizations that are on the ground, building relationships and doing the heavy lifting in support of farmworkers. But as a seasoned expert in the field, she’s even more invested in lasting, structural change.  

Estimating that farmworkers try to live off less than $20,000 a year, Bade said she would like to see agricultural labor be treated as a true occupation, enjoying not only a standard living wage but benefits, retirement accounts, sick leave and vacation days. She’s also advocating for more movement across the border so that farmworkers can travel back and forth from Mexico without their entire way of life being disrupted.  

“There are families who’ve been here for 20 years or more, who’ve been paying taxes and contributing economically to the state for a very long time, yet they can’t go home to take care of their parents as their parents die, because they can’t cross or they can’t get back,” Bade said. “We need to recognize the contribution that migrant and transnational farmworkers make to this gigantic industry.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Konane Martinez, the chair of the anthropology department, anthropology professor Laurette McGuire and kinesiology professor Richard Armenta are all invited members of San Diego County’s Regional COVID-19 Taskforce for Equitable Recovery. The group was formed over the summer and is being led by Nathan Fletcher, a county supervisor.  

The three faculty members are lending their expertise in health disparities and inequities to a data subcommittee, which advises the larger task force and county supervisors on the importance of COVID-related data transparency as well as messaging related to the pronounced COVID health disparities impacting local underserved, migrant, tribal, racial and ethnic communities.  

The subcommittee is also developing a plan to work collaboratively with community organizations and members to ensure equitable access to information, data, testing and future vaccines.  

Martinez, McGuire and Armenta all joined the task force in July, and since then they have participated in bimonthly meetings. Martinez said she was invited after expressing concerns to colleagues at the county’s Health and Human Services Agency about how data on the growing and disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases among Latino communities was being presented to the public.  

Latinos comprise 62.8% of COVID-19 cases and 47.7% of COVID-19 deaths in the county, even though they represent only 32.6% of the population, according to Martinez. She is an applied medical anthropologist with more than 20 years of experience working with Latino immigrant communities in the U.S.-Mexico border region. 

“My lifelong work has been to understand complex social, economic and structural conditions that lead to these disproportionate outcomes,’ Martinez said. “I hope that my perspective can help the county understand that this is a social justice issue that can aid in seeking solutions to increase access to information, testing and treatment for all communities.

“I am also very concerned by the lack of testing happening in the North County region. We believe that data may be lacking in terms of the prevalence of COVID-19 in the tribal regions as well as among Latino communities.”  

McGuire specializes in medical and indigenous anthropology. Her research lies at the intersection of biomedicine, genetics and race, exploring how race, class and knowledge are co-produced through medical discourse.  

“Many of us have been working on the impact of structural racism on health outcomes in communities of color for years,” McGuire said. “COVID-19 and the historical moment in which we live has brought the impact of structural racism on the health of Black and brown people to national attention.” 

Armenta conducts research on health disparities among Hispanic and American Indian communities, with a primary focus on substance abuse and infectious disease transmission prevention. He said he was invited to serve on the committee because of his expertise in tribal epidemiology and from working with the local tribal community to improve health equity. 

“The task force is crucial to ensure the equitable allocation of resources and collection of data to understand the impact of COVID-19 in minoritized and underserved communities,” Armenta said. “Our work is helping inform how data is used to address gaps in testing, treatment and care for the disease.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Know someone who deserves special recognition for their efforts? Email details to publicity@csusm.edu and we’ll include them in an upcoming edition of this ongoing series.

Heidi Breuer, associate professor, literature and writing studies

Breuer was nominated for her compassion for students, especially those working essential jobs during this challenging time, while providing continued support and flexibility.

“People like Dr. Breuer clearly care about their students as humans,” the nominator wrote. “This genuine care and appreciation for her students is undeniable during this difficult time. I do not think words can express my appreciation for Dr. Breuer.”

Dr. James Chun, interim medical director, Student Health and Counseling Services

Chun stepped into his role leading Student Health and Counseling Services in January, and it wasn’t long before he was guiding efforts to ensure the health and safety of the campus community during this unprecedented pandemic.

“Since the COVID-19 threat began, he has kept all of our staff informed and prepared,” the nominator wrote. “He is here every day with a smile on his face and a positive attitude. I am thankful to work with him.”

Nubia Junco-Williams, senior academic adviser, Office of Academic Advising

The student nominator noted that Junco-Williams has provided invaluable assistance, from changing a major to mapping out a detailed path to graduation to ensuring students get the necessary classes. The student said Junco-Williams even stepped in to help with technical issues related to registering for a class.

“She is the absolute sweetest and one of the most caring, helpful people I've met at CSUSM,” the student wrote.

Rachel Macasadia, commencement coordinator, Commencement Office

Macasadia coordinated the university’s first virtual Discover CSUSM Day – and did it all within a two-week timeframe.

“Rachel truly is a CSUSM hero during COVID-19,” the nominator wrote. “She designed, planned, coordinated and implemented a great Discover CSUSM open house with the help of our campus partners, including media production, communications, web services, faculty, staff, Disability Support Services, and many others.”

Maria Rasimas, resource and operations analyst, Planning and Academic Resources

Described as always providing a steady hand, Rasimas (pictured with other budget analysts) has outdone herself while juggling the added pressures of budget constraints while working remotely.

“She has been able to educate people from staff level to VP level in the construction of the budget process, which is critical at this moment in time,” the nominator wrote. “Maria works behind the scenes, but plays a vitally important and pivotal role at the university. There are so many of us who couldn’t do what we do without her.”

Lauren Schwartz, lecturer, anthropology

Schwartz has gone to great lengths to ensure her students’ well-being during this crisis, including constant email communications and ensuring that they have the resources they need to thrive.

“She is an excellent role model for how teachers should be,” the nominator wrote. “She is kind and cares about us, not only as students at a university but as individuals who are fighting each day to survive this world.”

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“Being named to a group like this is an honor, and being able to possibly impact its work is a great opportunity,” Martinez said.

The Office of Binational Border Health is tasked with protecting and improving healthcare in California communities by facilitating communication, coordination and collaboration among California and Mexican health officials and health professionals. The Advisory Group develops and monitors a strategic plan for the office and advises the California Department of Public Health Services and the California members of the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission on critical issues facing the region.

It is a position for which she is well suited.

“My interest lies in my passion for health equity and in closing the gaps in access to health for border residents,” Martinez said. “I strongly feel that a binational and collaborative approach is essential for addressing the complex health issues impacting our region.”

Born and raised in San Diego, Martinez had long aspired to become an anthropologist, and she attended Humboldt State University to earn a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Spanish after graduating from University City High School. As an undergraduate student, Martinez spent a semester in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she found an interest in farmworker health and began carving a niche in medical anthropology.

With a master’s degree and Ph.D. in anthropology from UC Riverside, Martinez’s work includes an assessment of farmworker health needs in California, a study she conducted with the California Institute for Rural Studies; a report on border health in both San Diego and Imperial counties that was funded by The California Endowment for the National Latino Research Center at CSUSM and which played a critical role in the continued funding for the California Office of Binational Border Health; and an effort she led with the Farmworker CARE coalition to mitigate the effects of the 2007 wildfires that devastated the region. Martinez also authored the first disaster preparedness plan for farmworkers in the United States.

“Given your health expertise and interests, we know that you will be a valuable asset to the Advisory Group,” wrote Karen L. Smith, director and state public health officer for the California Department of Public Health, in a letter to Martinez affirming her appointment. “We look forward to your participation as well as your guidance in addressing the various, often complex, border and binational health issues that we are facing in California.”

Addressing those issues are paramount.

“Regardless of a person’s political position on the border or immigration policy, there is no denying that people are moving back and forth across the border, and that makes collaboration among health care providers critical,” Martinez said. “Being able to cooperate on a binational level is key.”

“It was a great experience,” said Cynthia Ortega, who graduates May 19 and is planning to attend graduate school after spending a year engaging in volunteer work overseas. “It offered a good opportunity to see how focus groups, the interviewing process and research can mesh to lead to an action plan. It was a good example of real-world applications for anthropology.”

The research has its roots in CSUSM President Karen Haynes signing the Campus Compact 30th Anniversary Action Statement of Presidents and Chancellors in March 2016. The Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,000 colleges and universities committed to building democracy through civic education and community development. Signing the statement signified CSUSM’s recommitment to the values of civic engagement and to activities in service of the public good, said Dr. Laurette McGuire, Faculty Director for CSUSM’s Civic Learning, Division of Community Engagement, who also serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology.

Signing the statement also obligated CSUSM to write and publish a Campus Civic Action Plan to outline how the university will achieve its civic engagement goals.

In the process of creating the Campus Civic Action Plan, six focus group sessions – involving deans, administrators, faculty, staff, students, community partners and alumni – were conducted in January and February. Note takers were needed, and McGuire turned to Ortega and Jacob Bowen, another graduating Anthropology student.

“Cynthia and Jacob are great students, which is why I asked if they would be willing to help,” McGuire said.

But Bowen and Ortega did more than just take notes. They analyzed what they found regarding discussion dynamics and wrote an eight-page study covering topics that included how seating arrangements impacted participants in the room.

“We also found a lot of disconnects between student groups in different colleges and dean groups in different colleges,” Bowen said. “Disconnects matter because you end up having students competing against each other and deans competing against each other, rather than competing for each other. In other words, you’re basically creating silos.”

States the paper, titled Understanding What Shapes the Civic Citizen: Campus Compact Data Analysis at CSUSM: “Findings indicate that something as simple as changing our conversations to be more inclusive and sympathetic towards one another can create stronger bonds within the campus and with the local community,”

When Bowen and Ortega learned about the Southern CSU Wide Association for Student Anthropologists Conference at Cal State Los Angeles, they submitted an abstract of their work and were invited to take part in the gathering. The conference was organized by the California State University, Los Angeles, Association for Student Anthropologists and invited undergraduate and graduate students to submit abstracts for presentations concerning the theme of Local Engagement. The conference included research concerning all types of local engagement, such as community-based learning, social activism and political engagement.

And what about the Campus Civic Action Plan? A draft is being reviewed by the Academic Senate and other groups. A final action plan on civic engagement at CSUSM will be submitted by June 30.

“Community engagement is one of the great things about Cal State San Marcos, but there is always room for improvement,” McGuire said.

But it’s not.

Since its inception in 2007, CSUSM’s Community Ethnobotany Garden has been providing students and the local community an outdoor educational laboratory to study coastal chaparral and woodland ecological systems, medical plant properties, landscape management, traditional food production and sustainability practices. It is a window into how the indigenous people of the region who have called this area home for thousands of years have used everything from deer grass and juncus to epazote and black sage for making everything from baskets to medicine.

“It’s important for people to know the traditions of this area and how these plants were used and are still being used,” said Diania Caudell, a North County resident active with the California Indian Basketweavers Association who belongs to the San Luis Rey band of Luiseño Indians.

Even the signs identifying the vegetation growing below the University Student Union have an educational component. All were crafted by students tasked with researching a plant for pharmacological uses and interviewing local knowledge bearers, such as indigenous Mexican migrants or local tribal members, for an understanding of its ethnobotany component.

The marker situated before a patch of agave, for example, notes that the succulents have provided myriad uses in Mexico and the southwestern United States for more than 9,000 years, including as a sweetener, a binding agent, or other food additives, not to mention as a tea or distilled spirit. Former anthropology student Maxx Hermann wrote on his marker that agave has long been used by indigenous populations to treat everything from infections, toothaches and scorpion bites to easing the menstrual cycle of women.

Students say the garden has been vital to their understanding of the role of the environment in both contemporary and past indigenous communities.

“The garden gave me a place to connect to the healing power of plants and the role they played, and continue to play, in indigenous cultures,” said Sam Grasso, who graduated from CSUSM last spring with a degree in medical anthropology.

The Community Ethnobotany Garden also provides the university with a professionally landscaped area maintained by students and the community, a landscaped area that recently captured an Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Best Practices Award for Sustainability in Academics from the California State University’s Chancellor’s Office. Winners in various categories were selected by committees comprising impartial judges with expertise in the relevant fields.

“Students work with community partners each semester to develop sections of the garden dedicated to sustainable food production, medicinal plant cultivation, plant community habitats and traditional cultivars from distinct ecological zones,” wrote Dr. Bonnie Bade, a professor of Medical Anthropology and Ethnobotany and chair of CSUSM’s Anthropology Department, in a successful application for the Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Best Practices Award for Sustainability in Academics.

“The plants in the garden are available to anyone, as long as they are harvested in a sustainable manner,” Bade said, “This is a community garden,” she added, noting that native weavers are free to harvest the deer grass and juncus and use them in basket weaving.

“The efforts of the community in the forms of plants and sharing of plant and cultural knowledge with students constitutes the foundation of the garden,” Bade said.

How vital is the site? After all, Dr. Michael Wilken, a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, often takes his students on field trips to a variety of habitats in the region stretching from the San Elijo Lagoon at the southern edge of Encinitas to Palomar Mountain at the northern reaches of San Diego County. Students also trek to local reservations to learn about how such vegetation is used and managed today.

“The garden, though, brings some of the surrounding environment to us, enabling not only students, but the community, the ability to understand the rich habitats that we have here and how these habitats have sustained the indigenous population for thousands of years,” Wilken said.