A segment of the Blues Corner Cafe Mural painted by the civil rights activist and folk artist, Bobby Whalen. Indianola, Mississippi. Photo by Lisa Buendia.
Greetings my name is Lisa Buendia, and I am a Masters candidate within the department of History at the University of Missouri — St. Louis. My childhood took place in the Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains, where my family had successfully established a polygamist commune in 1847 called Deseret. It was admittedly interesting growing up in an experimental utopian religious society. The finer details of which were recently published in a 2022 book, Unmask Alice, where investigative journalist Rick Emerson describes how some of these events that occurred in my home and family sparked Satanic Panic throughout the United States.
This interest in gaining a deeper understanding of moral panic led me to seek my B.A in Psychology and History. During my senior year, I also wanted to help people struggling with depression which I did as a Spanish speaking clinical research assistant in The Health and Aging Lab in St. Louis. Here I had the opportunity to translate depression treatments and research materials between Spanish and English. I also conducted cultural and identity psychological research within the most widely ethnically diverse areas of the United States located in California and Texas.
Since 2021 I have lived in Europe and throughout Latin America. Currently I am also a graduate teaching instructor, where I am excited to help other students become passionate about history. The most interesting aspect of my path through academia is that I was never supposed to receive an education. The practice of child marriage is still common in my culture, and this was fate that I narrowly avoided. In 2015 I gained access to a smartphone where I finally had access to information that I could read in private. Shortly after that, I was able to escape. While joining the real world had been a bumpy ride, I credit education with providing an illuminated path for me to follow. Thank you for reading my academic introduction and I look forward to more sharing and writing in the future about my journey.
First Posted on MEDIUM
https://medium.com/@laahbx/my-right-to-education-an-academic-introduction-8aaaa2b30274
