Education the Common Thread in Alumna’s Multifaceted Career

By Luciana Chavez Special to Merced College Education is home for Merced College alumna Marissa Luna Lopez. Through personal challenges and changes in her life, she has not strayed from the industry in 21 years as a professional. “Education was always a space I felt welcomed into and comfortable in,” said Luna Lopez, 42. “I wasn’t the greatest student, but I found grace and room to grow in education.” Her college choice was a no-brainer. Her parents Gilbert and Gloriana Luna are both Merced College alumni. Gloriana worked in various administrative support positions at the college for 35 years. Her sister Veronica, a teacher, and brother David, who works in outdoor education at Camp Green Meadows, are also alumni. Attending Merced College was Luna Lopez’s only choice. In high school, she did not complete the A-G requirements needed to attend university. The college has an open admissions policy—anyone can attend. She came in and was given a springboard of an ed plan that guaranteed she could finish her A.A. and B.A. in four years. After earning those degrees at Merced College and Stanislaus State, respectively, she went on to earn her Ed.D. at UC Davis. Luna Lopez’s first teaching assignment was working with Merced County Office of Education (MCOE) students with severe disabilities from 2003-2008. After a beloved aunt with special needs passed away, Luna Lopez wanted to leave special ed. She found work teaching English and English Language Development at Cesar E. Chavez Middle School in Planada from 2008-2014. Then, while pregnant with younger son Carlos Jr. and working on a master’s degree (2014-16), she worked as the school district librarian. Luna Lopez spent her last three years in Planada teaching second grade. In 2019, she was hired full-time with the UC Merced teacher preparation program. In June 2022, MCOE posted a coordinator position, guiding student teachers, that called Luna Lopez back to her roots. “In education, if you’re bored, there’s always a different position you can move into,” she said. Luna Lopez, married to Carlos Sr. with another son named Lucas, gathered the building blocks for her doctoral dissertation during her years at MCOE and working at two rural, Title I schools in the Planada Elementary School District. In Merced County, she experienced a microcosm of a California teacher population that lacked the diversity and representation to serve a student population that is now 56% Hispanic. “Some educators think farmworkers and Latinos are problems to be fixed,” she said. “But they actually come to the table with a significant amount of knowledge and information to share themselves. … These communities have a lot to offer, so I tell my student teachers now to support and build them up.” Her dissertation, completed at UC Davis in December, was titled, “Critical Race Counterstories: Testimonios and Pláticas With Latina Teachers in Rural Central California.” In her study, she asked six women to unpack their experiences going from students to teachers. All six had, like Luna Lopez, matriculated at Merced County schools and chose to return to teach K-12 in Merced County. All are Latinas like Luna Lopez, too. “I wanted the process to feel more culturally congruent with the research subjects and myself,” Luna Lopez said. “It’s important to value the people you’re researching. So, pláticas, those are conversations. You can get a lot of good information from that approach, but it also elevates the voices you choose. “The takeaway is that we can’t work with every student the same way. So we must do what we can to remove barriers, not just lift people over them.” Luna Lopez shares moments when she felt seen or heard, when she felt like an active participant in her schooling. She knows not every student feels that validation. Now the Coordinator of Intern Programs at MCOE, working with student teachers, Luna Lopez is eager to make her mark changing that dynamic for students just like her. Luna Lopez experienced a particularly profound moment while studying poetry with a favorite teacher in the sixth grade. Every week, she and her classmates memorized poems to recite. It lit a fire in Luna Lopez’s belly. Thirty years later, she easily recites this William Wadsworth poem from memory ... She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love … “I have always loved being in a room with other people learning things,” she said. “It always made me feel a part of that community of learners, like among the academic elite. And eventually I got there, too.”