Demystifying Research: Bringing Lived Experiences to the Forefront

January 6, 2025

by Kiana Pinkard

UC Berkeley is a powerhouse for generating innovative ideas and solving global issues. This past summer, four fellows in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) L&S program pushed forward this initiative of pioneering visionary change by bringing research back to their communities and addressing questions that spark social change. From working with incarcerated people to immigrant families to Indigenous students, these students have dedicated their summers to bridging the gap between academia and lived experience, giving unheard and resilient voices a platform.

The best thing about having underrepresented communities at your school is the new and fresh ideas we bring. These schools have been bombarded with the same played-out stuff for years, decades. And here we are, an untapped node.

Charles Long

Scholarship from the Community, for the Community

The SURF L&S fellowship provides undergraduates in the College of Letters & Science with a stipend of $5,000 to conduct research in preparation for a major capstone project. In small cohorts led by graduate mentors from their academic division, students participate in an orientation, workshops, and four group meetings where they receive feedback on a mid-progress report. The program ends with a formal presentation and a final report on their research findings.

Adrian Caceres is a fourth-year transfer student majoring in sociology. His SURF project explored the impact of societal and academic stigmas faced by system-impacted students — those who have been involved in the legal systems of incarceration or foster care — who have participated in the Berkeley Underground Scholars program, in contrast to system-impacted students who made it to Berkeley on their own. Stemming from his own experience as a formerly incarcerated student, Caceres aimed to understand how students identify with their backgrounds, given potential concerns about limited access to resources and the negative stereotypes they face.

While the number of formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students at Berkeley continues to grow, Caceres asserts that they still lack adequate representation and a dedicated space on campus to build community and study together.

The support group he’s involved in, the Berkeley Underground Scholars program, has crafted a prison-to-school pipeline by providing personal, academic, and career support while simultaneously fighting for systemic change through legislative efforts, policy fellowships, and consulting to establish similar programs at other institutions. Yet, system-impacted students continue to face barriers due to stigma, systemic inequities, and insufficient institutional infrastructure. Caceres’s mission to understand his fellow formerly incarcerated students’ struggles and feelings of exclusion inspired him to pursue his SURF project.

Sociology and social welfare double-major Charles Long, took a different approach to studying incarceration. As a facilitator for the Teach in Prison program, a DeCal class where UC Berkeley students assist San Quentin State Prison occupants in obtaining their GED degrees, Long wanted to shine a spotlight on the inspiring and altruistic undergraduates who dedicate their time to volunteer tutoring.

“These students are quietly fulfilling a purpose that drives them,” he said. “But they are the types of people that do not do things for notoriety but to feed their souls.”

Long’s project looks at how this volunteer work impacts empathy levels among participating Berkeley students, aspiring to provide insights into how we can cultivate social awareness and empathy toward marginalized groups.

A man wears a black Homeboy Industries sweatshirt

Adrian Caceres

A black-and-white photo of a man wearing a mask and sweatshirt with an afro pick in his hair

Charles Long

Navigating Migrant Experiences

Mario Varo, a community college transfer and first-generation student whose family hails from the Oaxaca region of southern Mexico, chose to research how pro bono legal services ensure fair legal outcomes for low-income migrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. His research is informed by his own family’s precarious legal status in the U.S. during a period of mass deportations, an all-time high immigration court backlog, and unjust levels of immigration enforcement and punitive laws — as well as uninformed and hateful rhetoric that damages the migrant community.

“Because of this, I am committed not only to exploring the experiences of immigrant families but ways that I can make my research more practical,” Varo declared. “I see my role as a public scholar. Somebody who not only makes academic research more accessible but uses it to drive community-centered policy change to serve the communities I research with.”

In his project, Varo highlighted legal representation, which many detained migrants lack. Previous studies have linked representation to lower removal rates, prompting Varo to advocate for establishing publicly funded, free, or reduced-cost legal assistance programs.

First-generation and fourth-year student Jacqueline Chavez was also inspired by her Oaxacan identity and cultural background. Her SURF L&S project explored identity formation and heritage among Oaxacan students, highlighting how they navigate their identity in the face of Indigenous erasure. Significantly influenced by her involvement in OaxaCal, a grassroots organization focused on Oaxacan socio-cultural preservation, she was motivated to investigate how Oaxacan traditions, language, and cultural narratives evolve in diaspora communities.

“As the co-director of OaxaCal, I feel a deep sense of responsibility to elevate the stories of our community,” she explained. “This is why most of my research included interviews with Oaxacan-identifying students discussing their experiences.”

Unfolding a Plan of Action

The students’ research spanned months, involving various challenges such as conducting lengthy literature reviews, performing qualitative analyses, and getting approval from the Institutional Review Board for research on human subjects.

“The component of SURF that stood out to me was the flexibility to make it into the program that you wanted,” Varo said. “The various types of workshops and access to mentors made it clear that much thought went into the creation of this program.”

He began his project interviewing Bay Area immigration attorneys and transcribing these interviews while simultaneously engaging in literature reviews on pro bono legal aid, immigration courts, and immigration enforcement. The diversity of the SURF workshops, ranging from guidance on writing abstracts to coding data to public speaking, allowed him to tailor his participation in the program to his unique research enterprise.

Chavez similarly focused on interviews as the foundation of her research, noting that these firsthand accounts allowed participants to share their experiences and demonstrate the impact of migration, family dynamics, and anti-Indigenous sentiments on their identity formation. Alongside helping her to recognize common themes among their narratives, the experience brought her closer to her Oaxacan student community at Berkeley.

“One of the most memorable moments was discovering the pivotal role OaxaCal plays in connecting and preserving the Oaxacan identity for students,” she reflected.

Comparatively, Long’s research timeline was not quite as straightforward.

“Originally I had no intention of applying for SURF,” he admitted. He ultimately decided to utilize the fellowship as a springboard into a larger study for his honors thesis, focusing his SURF L&S project on finding the best survey tools to research empathy.

“It was extremely helpful,” Long said. “I started this year with a much more focused honors thesis because of all the foundational work I did over the summer.”

A man in a red shirt crosses his arms in front of a UC Berkeley building

Mario Varo

A woman wears a pink shirt, black suit jacket, and necklace on the UC Berkeley campus

Jacqueline Chavez

The OaxaCal logo

I see my role as a public scholar. Somebody who not only makes academic research more accessible but uses it to drive community-centered policy change to serve the communities I research with.

Mario Varo

Connecting Theory and Practice

By asking and investigating the questions that few others are asking, these students are laying the groundwork for future research and elevating voices rarely heard in academia.

“It is of utmost importance for students from underrepresented backgrounds to conduct academic research,” Varo said, “because, oftentimes, they are informed by their lived experiences. This personal connection to their research is important for telling stories that genuinely reflect the realities of marginalized communities, and not what the academic in the ivory tower deems them to be.”

Caceres agreed that having researchers from underrepresented backgrounds expands, corrects, and enhances academic theories, recalling when students from system-impacted backgrounds provided valuable corrections and insights to a discussion with a professor studying the prison system.

“Researchers from marginalized backgrounds offer unique perspectives that can bridge gaps in understanding and make academia more inclusive and comprehensive,” he stated. His SURF project exemplified this, with his findings transforming identity as a formerly incarcerated student from a hidden stigma into a badge of honor.

“As someone tall, heavily tattooed, and unable to hide my background, I embrace it. It’s part of my identity, representing the communities I come from and, most importantly, my perseverance.” The key takeaway from his project showed this to be true for other formerly incarcerated students at Berkeley as well.

Student researchers — especially those coming from and conducting research on underrepresented populations — need opportunities like SURF.

“A lot of us come from a life of struggle,” Long said. “Programs like SURF give us the monetary freedom to worry less about survival and more about pursuing our academic goals.”

Having a community of professors, faculty, donors, and alums to support these students and pay it forward through funded research opportunities enables academia to progress and bridge the gap between inquiry and practice.

An investment in the young scholars at Berkeley is an investment in our society. To bring life-changing research fellowships to more undergraduate students, please consider a gift to the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarships.

Topics

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging topic page, Research & Innovation topic page, Social Sciences topic page, Students topic page, Undergraduate Studies topic page