Vicki L. Ruiz

"We learn from each other’s stories"

"When I was a child, I learned two types of history-the one at home and the one at school."

"Situating one's politics, indeed one's very life, toward community empowerment was a given among Chicano student activists."

"Successful union organization depends, in large measure, on a sense of solidarity and community among workers."

"Building community is both a legacy and a responsibility. As a storyteller, listener, recorder, and amateur theorist, I am reminded of a passage in Eudora Welty's Becoming a Writer: "Each of us is moving, changing, and with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge.""

"To my knowledge, there are only seventeen Chicanas with PhDs in history. I am number four. Often we labor alone, subject to "proving" our research and our very presence in the academy. I would like to acknowledge the labors of Louise Kerr, Raquel Casas, Antonia Castañeda, Miroslava Chávez, Deena González, Camille Guerin Gonzáles, Lara Medina, Gloria Miranda, María Montoya, Lorena Oropeza, Cynthia Orozco, Emma Pérez, Naomi Quiñonez, Yolanda Romero, Elizabeth Salas, and Shirlene Soto and to honor the legacies of the late Irene Ledesma and Magdalena Mora."

"Growing up in northwest Florida during the 1960s and 1970s brought lessons about the complications of being a mixed-heritage person, neither black nor white, in the Deep South. In the newly integrated junior high school, African American students sat on one side, white students on the other, and Vicki in the middle. Her position in the social hierarchy was conveyed by anonymous notes slipped into her handbag bearing racial epithets or saying she would be better liked if she claimed to be Italian."

"Dr. Ruiz has taught me the first rule of service: It is not enough to achieve on one’s own. We must always reach out and help those around us and especially those that come after us."