Warriors Prove their Strength

Stan State Community Demonstrates Resiliency During COVID-19

By Lori Gilbert

#WARRIORSTRONG IS MORE THAN A HASHTAG.

It’s an ideal, a valued principle that members of the Stanislaus State community have demonstrated in what may have been the most challenging time of our lives.

Happy college days were disrupted by an unprecedented pandemic, with the majority of the University population sent home and forced to work remotely for more than a year.

Stories of pain and death — more than 750,000 in this country and 3,700 in the Stanislaus-San Joaquin-Merced County region — abound. But there also are stories of courage and strength, stories of inspiration and resilience, of people who persevered and demonstrated what it really means to be #WarriorStrong.

Michael Bonilla

Computer Science Major

Michael Bonilla’s hopes for a true college experience were delayed until October.

He enrolled at Stan State in January 2021 as a community college transfer student to pursue a degree in computer science. Classes were being offered remotely then, but he excitedly enrolled for all in-person classes for fall 2021.

Bonilla last experienced the joy of sitting in a classroom with other students as a high school student in Whittier.

The 33-year-old earned his associate degree while a prisoner at Deuel Vocational Institute (DVI), where classes consisted of independently reading material and taking exams with a proctor.

It was while incarcerated — for 9 ½ years on drug charges beginning when he was 23 — that Bonilla discovered his ability to learn. The attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity that made school challenging when he was young, despite medications, were no longer barriers.

His cellmate suggested he was smart enough to get a college education and Bonilla connected with Danica Bravo, coordinator of Stan State’s Project Rebound, which helps formerly incarcerated individuals enroll in college.

By the time he was released on Sept. 19, 2020, and took up residence in Modesto, Bravo had helped enroll him in two virtual classes through City College of Los Angeles that he needed to complete his transfer requirements to Stan State. He learned to take courses through Zoom and navigate Canvas. Seeing a professor and students was a thrill for him, he said.

He passed the classes, and a month later, Bravo called to tell him he’d been accepted to Stan State.

“I cried,” Bonilla said. “It was very emotional for me, because throughout my life, I never thought college was possible.”

He began taking a variety of courses, including computer programming.

“Coding is very difficult,” Bonilla said. “You have to constantly practice. I was happy I was able to figure out the assignments, complete them and get good grades. It took a good amount of time. I still feel I have so much to learn.”

Bonilla landed on the Dean’s List and took another programming course during the summer.

As Oct. 1 approached, he dreamed of the social aspect of college, meeting fellow students and spending time on a campus he’d only visited a couple times.

He’s already a Warrior.

“You have to have a Warrior spirit to endure certain things,” he said. “I think what I learned I have, or maybe had all along, is a refusal to lie down, even when things are extremely dismal and grim.

“Having hope for the future motivates me to reach higher. I became more confident in my abilities. I didn’t fancy myself as an intelligent person when I was younger. I started to see what other people were seeing in me, and eventually, I started to see and embrace that in myself.”

Getting an education, though, takes work.

“It takes a Warrior mentality to really have the tenacity to not give up and really work and strive to accomplish what you set out to do,” Bonilla said. “I’m humbled by the fact I know how hard I’m going to have to work to earn a degree. Whatever you major in, it’s definitely a feat.”

He’s prepared for that challenge and finds support working for Project Rebound and meeting fellow members of the program.

It takes a Warrior mentality to really have the tenacity to not give up and really work and strive to accomplish what you set out to do.

— Michael Bonilla

“People in my situation are obviously stigmatized,” Bonilla said. “However, there is a point when society has to ask itself, ‘when does one mistake define someone’s future?’”

Bonilla is taking control of his own future, one of a Warrior.

Jennifer Campos Lopez

Ethnic Studies Major

If the pandemic shut down active lives, it couldn’t contain Jennifer Campos Lopez, now a junior ethnic studies major.

Lopez kept her job at Wetzel’s Pretzels in Modesto’s Vintage Faire Mall to help support her family, and she also helped with the Crows Landing flower shop her mom had just opened.

She helped two younger sisters, now 18 and 11, with their schoolwork, tutored fellow Stan State students on the musical instruments of son jarocho, folk music of Mexico carried to this region, worked on a proposed book on that music by Ethnic Studies Professor Cueponcaxochitl Moreno Sandoval and maintained her own studies.

She and her parents also contracted COVID-19. Fortunately, they all recovered.

Lopez nonetheless calls the past 18 months “a time of healing.”

“It’s because you’re taking a pause away from the crazy and hectic life before the pandemic,” she said. “I was always moving. I don’t remember ever taking a break or really focusing on myself or on my mental health or physical health. The pandemic helped me slow down and taught me so much.”

She focused on her priorities.

“I think about the future I want and about my family,” she said. “My family is a very big part of the person I am and the person I want to become. I want a better future for them, to provide that for them, but also, I want a career that makes me happy. I’m looking forward to having a job I really love and giving back to my parents because they made such a big sacrifice coming here and helping me with school and sacrificing for all of us.”

Her dad, who installs marble countertops, and her mom, left family and the life they knew in Nogales, in the state of Sonora, Mexico, with dreams of providing opportunities they never had for their then 2-year-old daughter.

Lopez only spoke Spanish until she began kindergarten. By the time her family moved from the Bay Area to Modesto, when she was a high school sophomore, she was able to help new students from Mexico who didn’t speak English.

She ran cross county and played soccer while attending Grace Davis High School, but it was her Spanish speaking that connected her to friends, all of them feeling like outsiders who bonded over their shared heritage.

When she arrived at Stanislaus State, she realized her parents’ dream for her to obtain a college education but had no idea what she wanted to study. Then, she took an ethnic studies course from Xamuel Bañales.

“In high school I was scared to tell anyone, even my friends, I was undocumented,” Lopez said. “That was something I always kept to myself, because I never had a community. It wasn’t until I got into the ethnic studies program and found my community that I felt connected. That helped to open the gate I blocked to everyone else, to show myself and be proud of being undocumented.”

It was a time of healing, because you’re taking a pause away from the crazy and hectic life before the pandemic. The pandemic helped me slow down and taught me so much.

— Jennifer Campos Lopez

Now an ethnic studies major, Lopez has taken additional courses with Bañales and Sandoval, and was so excited by learning son jarocho. She tutors other students on the instruments, and is contributing to Sandoval’s book, “Planting Son Jarocho in the Central Valley: The Power of Expression, Healing and Transgressions for the Co-Liberation of All,” by sharing her personal account.

The dream of working in ethnic studies, as an educator or in some way to change the world, drives Lopez.

Lopez said. “If I keep pushing forward, I’ll get where I want to be, get the career I want. I also think about my family.

“When I think about #WarriorStrong, I think about my family teaching me to be resilient, to stay dedicated and motivated. Those traits in me come from them. We keep that mindset in every aspect of our lives, whether that’s work or education or our personal lives. My parents have passed that on to me and I’m continuing that chain, the generation to come, pushing for what we believe and what we envision for this world.”

Jen Sturtevant

Basic Needs Care Manager

As much as anyone at Stan State, Jen Sturtevant has seen the impacts of COVID-19.

It’s not just that her own family members lost jobs or contracted COVID-19, thankfully surviving the virus. As the Basic Needs program care manager, Sturtevant witnessed its impact on Stan State students.

She listened to their stories. She saw the increased demand for help with housing and food insecurity. And, while most on campus pivoted to remote learning and working, Sturtevant and her team — Joann Curtiss, Warrior Food Pantry coordinator, Zachary Gurr, Basic Needs coordinator and now care coordinator, five student workers and five unpaid Master of Social Work interns — stayed on campus to provide life-saving help.

“It’s a unique opportunity to hear student stories day in and day out,” said Sturtevant, who was named the care manager when Vice President for Student Affairs Christine Erickson created the position in 2019 to coordinate the different outreach programs on campus.

“It fuels my advocacy and support for students’ basic needs. What are we doing now? What can we do tomorrow? What can we do in the future to change, to be innovative, creative, and how can we promote access to food and housing resources, mental health resources and all those pieces that come together to not only support and promote academic success, but also promote and support the entire life journey?”

While the challenge seemed daunting, Sturtevant was born and groomed to take the lead in helping students through the crisis.

When she was 8, her parents, who had her late in life, started a program to feed the needy in their church cafeteria. That program, begun some 25 years ago, became Turlock’s United Samaritans Foundation, and Sturtevant grew up seeing the joy of meeting the needs of others. She graduated with a B.A. in Liberal Studies from Stan State and considered a career as an elementary school teacher, then earned a master’s degree in child development, thinking she may try to become a faculty member.

Instead, she worked in Stan State’s Office of Student Learning — another student service program — before becoming the care manager.

She was six months into the job, familiarizing herself with the help being offered from every corner of campus — the California Faculty Association, Staff Council, administration and students — when the unprecedented pandemic changed the world.

“We had to pivot to find out how to meet students where they are when they’re not coming to campus,” Sturtevant said.

Some still did. Curtiss and her team kept the Warrior Food Pantry open and served 60 to 100 students a week. The first week of the fall 2021 semester saw 175 students visit the pantry.

Other innovations borne of the pandemic were launching the twice-monthly food box distribution curbside pickup and creating reciprocity with other CSU campuses, so Stan State students learning remotely could access pantries closer to their homes.

Emergency meal e-gift cards were sent to students who couldn’t reach campus to pick up food.

Some of the changes will remain in place, Sturtevant said, so long as they effectively help students.

What won’t change is her willingness to listen to student stories, see their pain and worry, and try to find solutions for them.

It’s a heavy burden that others close to students — faculty and staff alike — have no doubt taken on during the pandemic. Sturtevant is the primary contact, though, for students most compromised. It’s a position she relishes, and she doesn’t let the sadness weigh her down.

“With my upbringing, it’s always there with me, but I can enjoy being in the moment, too,” she said. “I can enjoy my family in the moment. I rely on morning gratitude meditations, to remember what I’m grateful for in my life. I enjoy playing with my 3-year-old daughter and being with family, enjoying those moments we have together. I enjoy connecting with nature, taking a minute to look around, watch the wind blow through the trees and reflect on those moments of gratitude.”

But make no mistake, the job never stops at her front door.

“I’m always thinking,” Sturtevant said.

Grace Miller

Master of Social Work Student

The pandemic took a toll on almost everyone, whether financially or by causing some disruption or loss in their lives.

For Stockton Campus student Grace Miller, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in May 2021 and began working toward a master’s in social work in August, it exacted an emotional toll.

“What was difficult for me during the lockdown was that on campus I had made friends,” she said. “I used to socialize. When this happened, I didn’t have anyone around me. That’s when I encountered the reality of life, being by myself. My childhood made me want to have somebody beside me. This was a lesson it taught me, to be by myself and not worry about being with others.”

Her marriage of nearly seven years broke up as the pandemic began, although she’s still on friendly terms with her husband.

But if being alone was a new and slightly scary experience, Miller had overcome much greater challenges.

Her father whisked her away from her native Panama when she was a child, separating her from her mother, and she was deposited with an aunt in Stockton, not knowing the language or anything else about her surroundings. She later returned to Panama when her parents reunited, and was headed toward a career in law, but she had a falling out with her immediate family. That prompted her to return to Stockton. Her college credits from law school didn’t transfer, she said, and she wasn’t sure what she would do.

That was 16 years ago, and in that time, she settled in, lived what she called the life of an immigrant, and got married.

While staying at home, she saw counselors featured on television.

“I wanted to help people. I wanted to change the world,” Miller said.

What was difficult for me during the lockdown was that on campus I had made friends. I used to socialize. When this happened I didn’t have anyone around me.

— Grace Miller

She enrolled at San Joaquin Delta College, graduated in 2015 and while taking a break before enrolling at Stan State’s Stockton Campus to study psychology, Miller was diagnosed with brain cancer.

She underwent surgery and had chemotherapy treatments in San Francisco. Her husband stood by her as she overcame temporary paralysis on the right side of her body and a temporary inability to speak English.

Her unstable gait as she walked damaged her hip, and she underwent hip replacement.

Recovered, and now deemed cancer free, she still sometimes will pause to think of the right word. She walks with a cane and is undergoing physical therapy to regain full use of her right arm.

That medical crisis might seem greater than anything one could face, but the pandemic was hard on Miller.

“I was all alone during the pandemic,” Miller said. “I haven’t ever been alone. I always had somebody nearby, family or somebody.”

She found a strength she didn’t know she had.

“I do depend on others, but I’m learning to be by myself,” Miller said. “I keep telling myself I can do it by myself. The biggest thing I’ve learned is life can be taken away at any time. You have to live it.”

Miller is excited to return to inperson classes and to reconnecting with students and staff on campus as she pursues her master’s degree.

She’s anxious to complete her degree, because if she can’t save the world, she realizes, “I can change one person’s life.”

Leticia Arroyo

Business Administration Major

There was no way Stan State student Leticia Arroyo was going to be deterred by COVID-19.

If she had to pivot to online courses or carry a note with her to be driving at night past curfew hours to get home from essential work in a meat-packing plant in the pandemic’s early days, so be it.

She already was #WarriorStrong. The worst of Arroyo’s life was behind her. The business major spent nearly 18 years in prison, beginning as a 15-year-old gang member who followed an older sister and brother into that life after her parents separated.

“Growing up inside prison, I learned what my values are and discovered new ones,” Arroyo said. “I was either going to stay in prison or die from the lifestyle.”

She chose a different path, remembering loving parents who raised her and five siblings in a strict, religious household. Those ideals fell apart when her parents separated, and she chose to live with her father. While he worked, she found herself alone and following the wrong crowd.

Once she determined to change her future, Arroyo completed her GED and took community college classes while in prison, and when she was paroled to a halfway house in San Diego with an ankle monitor, she worked and attended Mesa College. She earned an associate degree in sociology.

After she’d satisfied the conditions of parole, she ended a nearly twodecade separation and returned to the Modesto area to reunite with family.

Gang life had killed her brother, but her sister had become a successful businesswoman.

Arroyo wanted that for herself. With the help of Stan State’s Project Rebound Coordinator Danica Bravo, she enrolled as a business major, beginning in spring 2020.

Her life was good. She met her fiancée and they learned they were to become parents. (Her son, Damian, born premature, turned 1 in November). She was starting to know the Stan State campus and fellow “It was very short-lived,” she said. “I only had a few classes, but everyone was nice, helpful.”

She refused to be beaten by COVID-19.

“I’ve worked throughout the pandemic,” Arroyo said. “It didn’t affect me. I did feel we were limited when we had to carry a note around at night to be out after curfew. I was working all the time and then I’d go home and do homework on a computer.”

Being able to do that was a sign of freedom. While on parole, she could not have a cellphone or computer, except one monitored for her to complete class assignments.

She soldiered through the pandemic without much disruption. Her mom was sick with COVID-19 but recovered. Arroyo had a medical scare during her pregnancy, but her baby, though early, is healthy.

“Of course, if I lost someone it would hurt me, but otherwise COVID-19 didn’t hurt me,” Arroyo said. “I’ve had every possible privilege and right taken away. I got stripped-down naked, had everything stripped away. It’s hard to imagine I couldn’t make it through this.”