Alison Field 

History

I never imagined that I would be a historian! Now I can’t imagine anything better. Nor can I imagine a better group of people to do history with than the students at Cañada College.

When I first graduated from high school and attended community college, I had a very hard time and ended up failing many of my classes. Thankfully, after an internship that turned into a fifteen-year-long career working for international human rights organizations, I went back to school and tried again.

When I returned to school, I saw clearly how valuable history is. It explains who we are. Our knowledge about the past gives us the tools we need to understand the human condition today. It is only when we have this knowledge base that we can forge ahead to create the future that we desire. History, then, is about empowerment and positive social change. With this in mind as I studied, I developed strong interests in gender and women’s history, as well as the shared history of Las Americas. (As a Canadian citizen, who grew-up on the U.S.-Mexico border and later worked in Latin America, I have always thought of America in a larger sense.)

Upon completion of my Masters Degree in 2001, I was proud to graduate at the top of my class, and very honored to receive the Distinguished Graduate Student Award. Since graduating, I have written for the California Historical Society, co-founded the Making History project, guest lectured on the global economy, researched colonial-era gender relations and started a study abroad program for U.S. university students at the University of Havana, Cuba.

At Cañada, I teach classes in United States, Latino, Latin American and Women’s History.