Santiago Andrés Garcia

ASA Gloria E. Anzaldúa Scholar and Professor of Anthropology

Hello everyone, and welcome! My name is Santiago Andrés Garcia (Ixtlahuacano Xicano). I was born in Monterey Park, California. I call both the San Gabriel Valley and Ixtlahuacán de Los Membrillos, Jalisco, my home. I am an ASA Gloria E. Anzaldúa scholar and Professor of Anthropology at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. At LA Trade-Tech, I oversee the newly formed Anthropology Laboratory. I have taught humanities and anthropology courses for fifteen years.

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My purpose in life is to teach, train, and help students achieve their personal and educational goals. As an Indigenous Chicano Anthropologist, I believe that the most important questions of our time concern how people and groups interact across distant regions, their relationships to the land, and their cosmologies. What role did the Earth’s natural resources, including plants and animals, play in our growth as complex human beings? How did humans learn, cope, and survive in times of stress, and how does the Indigenous human body heal, are topics that my work and pedagogy address.

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In 2015, I received the ASA Gloria E. Anzaldúa Award for my work with students in the classroom involving the making of Mesoamerican clay-figurines. In 2019, I received a major Mellon/ACLS Community College Award to support my work with college students and related research. In 2022, I was awarded a generous NEH/ACLS Public Engagement Award to continue my student engagement. As a result, I have developed a growing body of publications and intellectual projects at various stages in both the United States and Mexico.​

I am actively advising and mentoring students. If your interests align with my own and you would like to chat, we can schedule a Zoom.