David G. García

Associate Professor

David G. García is an associate professor in the School of Education and Information Studies. He is one of only a handful of historians across the country documenting Chicana/o community histories of education. He earned a Ph.D. in U.S. history and his interdisciplinary research trajectory follows three main lines of inquiry: (1) Chicana/o teatro (theater) as public revisionist history, (2) the pedagogy of Hollywood’s urban school genre, and (3) Chicana/o educational histories. Each of these areas addresses the interconnectivity of history and education in relation to Chicana/o, Latina/o communities in the United States and examines how the constructs of race, culture, and class shape educational experiences for Communities of Color across time and place. His award winning book, “Strategies of Segregation: Race, Residence, and the Struggle for Educational Equality” (University of California Press, 2018) exposes a separate and unequal school system and its purposeful links with racially restrictive housing covenants in Oxnard, California. García excavated multiple archives, and conducted and analyzed over 60 oral history interviews with Mexican Americans and African Americans who endured disparate treatment and protested discrimination. He also examined “Soria v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees,” one of the nation’s first desegregation cases filed jointly by Mexican American and Black plaintiffs. His research about some of the White supremacist ideologies of past education officials led sixth-grade students in Oxnard to organize and successfully change the name of their middle school, and also led to the successful name change of an elementary school in Ventura ( https://oxnardsd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=74&meta_id=49643 ). Dr. Garcia’s research and commentary has been featured in news outlets including The Los Angeles Times, KPCC Public Radio, Latino USA National Public Radio, Aquí y Ahora Univision, Ventura County Star, and New Books in Latino Studies on Apple Podcasts.

Departments

Department of Education

Programs

Interests

Expertise

Awards, Honors Fellowships

Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Achieving Excellence in College and University Teaching
UCLA Hellman Fellowship
University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Sociology at UC-Santa Barbara

Education

Ph.D., U.S. History, UCLA, 2006
M.A., Latin American Studies, UCLA, 2000
B.A., Sociology, Chicana/o Studies Specialization, UCLA, 1996

Select Publications

Strategies of Segregation: Race, Residence, and the Struggle for Educational Equality. Oakland: University of California Press (2018). https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520296879
García, D.G., & T.J. Yosso. “Recovering Our Past: A Methodological Reflection.” History of Education Quarterly, 60.1 (2020): 59-72.
García, D.G., & T.J. Yosso. “‘Strictly in the Capacity of Servant’: The Interconnection Between Residential and School Segregation in Oxnard, California, 1934-1954.” History of Education Quarterly, 53.1 (2013): 64-89. 2014 History of Education Society Prize Committee Honorable Mention.
García, D.G., T.J. Yosso, & F.P. Barajas. “’A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children’: School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900-1940.” Harvard Educational Review 82.1 (2012): 1-25.

Yosso, T.J. & D.G. García. “From Ms. J. to Ms. G.: Analyzing Racial Microaggressions in Hollywood’s Urban School Genre.” In, eds. B. Frymer, T. Kashani, A.J. Nocella II, & R. Van Heertum, Hollywood’s Exploited: Public Pedagogy, Corporate Movies, and Cultural Crisis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 85-103.
García, D.G. “Transformations through Teatro: Culture Clash in a Chicana/o History Classroom.” Radical History Review 102 (2008): 111-130.
Yosso, T.J. & D.G. García. “‘Cause it’s not just me’: Walkout’s History Lessons Challenge Hollywood’s Urban School Formula.” Radical History Review 102 (2008): 171-184.
García, D.G. “Culture Clash Invades Miami: Oral Histories & Ethnography Center Stage.” Qualitative Inquiry 14.6 (2008): 865-895.