Whitney Mowll

Personal Educational Autobiography

Family Images and Lessons
I come from an upper middle-class town in Orange County, California called Huntington Beach.
The classes in Orange County are geographically separated. The wealthy, republican surfers lived in
Huntington Beach. The newly rich lived in New Port Beach. Old money lived in Laguna Beach. And most
of our house cleaners, nannies, teacher, and gardeners lived in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a little inland.
We had a black mailman, a Guatemalan housecleaner, Elida, and Mexican gardeners. I remember
getting a puppy and my mother making sure he was introduced to Jeff, the mailman, because my
mother had heard that dogs could become racist if they were not exposed to other ethnicities and Jeff
was the only black person we knew.
Race, Culture, and Ethnicity
Orange County is mostly comprised of Whites and Latinos. I had little direct interaction with
many Latinos growing up. My primary experience with them was having cat calls yelled out at me by the
Latino men as they drove by in their trucks, overflowing with gardening tools. Had it not been for my
parents, I believe there is a good chance that I may have assumed all Latino men were pigs. My family
become friends with our house cleaner, Elida, from Guatemala. She had four children, all but one, Kevin,
were born in the United States. My family got legal help for Kevin so he could become a citizen. I just
remember wondering why a country wouldnt want someone who had a degree in engineering like
Kevin did. It did not make sense. Was he somehow inferior? My family did not treat them that way,
which I will always be proud of.

Experiencing other cultures intimately helps highlight the idea that there is more than one way
to interpret and experience the world around us. Throughout my childhood education, my parents
provided us children with supplemental educational experiences. Sophomore year in high school, my
father and I went on a road trip across Arizona and New Mexico. Our primary stops were at the different
pueblos. Upon entering tribal grounds, we had left the United States and stepped into a cluster of thirdworld nations. Packs of mangy dogs ran wild. They were dirty, emaciated, and often missing vital body
parts, like eyes. I fed them all we had until my father yelled at me and told me it would do no good.
Something about these dogs reflected a much larger problem that I saw in these towns. Something had
been broken and no one was fixing it. Seeing the extreme poverty, I began to realize that no one was in
the position to fix it. I remember feeling helpless. I did not recognize these people from the history
books in school. This was the impression at the larger scale and it was not until speaking with these
people that I learned that there was a hidden beauty in these communities. Gatherings appeared to be a
part of daily life. Everyone knew each other. Grandmothers held neighbors babies on their laps, children
ran wild while adults watched laughing. These people had been so misrepresented and misunderstood
by White culture, that people from all ages welcomed us into their homes, hoping to show us a bit more
about their life and their culture they were so proud of. I heard a quote from NPR today that resonated
with me, you do not know what lost, until you truly understand what there once was. Knowing these
people more, made me realize, just how much had been lost.
Economics
Growing up, I thought my family was poor. My best friends family were millionaires and I did
not understand why my family did not go on fancy trips, buy new cars, and eat out. My thoughts of what
was financially normal were vastly different than reality. I remember my mother suggesting that we go
to the thrift store for clothes. I believe I cried. To me, it meant my family could not cloth me properly. It

was not until I was much older that I realized my family was not poor, but rather wealthy. My parents
put me and my two other siblings through college, bought us all cars when we turned fifteen and took
us all on family trips around the country every summer- each of us kids got to bring a friend. We could
even afford to have my mother stay at home with us kids. Money was never a topic discussed in school
growing up. It would be shameful to admit you could not afford something. I remember this always
feeling like a tremendous burden.
Abilism
I have an anxiety disorder and severe ADHD. However, as the youngest of three children, I am
the healthiest child. My brother, two years older than me, is on the autism spectrum. He was not
diagnosed until he was twenty-three. Till then, he was simply a difficult child and later an awkward,
anti-social nerdy young man. It was not until he failed out of undergraduate school, become an
alcoholic and tried to kill himself, that doctors finally acknowledged that he was dealing with much
larger issues than simply being awkward. My sister, four years older than me, developed severe
rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia at the age of twelve. Doctors assumed she wanted more attention
from my mother. It was not till she was in her early twenties that doctors began taking her serious
enough to give her any pain medications. The pain and drugs often contorted her ability to rationally
think and feel. In comparison, my anxiety disorder and ADHD were nothing. (It should be noted that my
sister went to college, got married, is developing a photographer career and is doing much better now
that they have drugs for her conditions. My brother is married, has not drunk alcohol in years, and is
getting his PhD in nanophysics).
Sexual-Orientation
There are a couple stories that I reflect upon when I think of the development of my attitudes
and beliefs regarding sexuality. I am fortunate to come from an open-minded home, in which

homosexuality is not looked down upon. First, when I was young, I remember watching my mother tend
to her best friend, David, as he was dying of AIDS. I was too young to understand that he was dying or
what dying even meant. We simply stopped going to see him. But later, while reflected upon by my
mother and it became clear that he was gay. It was implied that this was okay and that she and my
father had loved him, because he was kind and all kind people should be loved.
Second, it was in the summer after third grade and I was in summer school with my friends. We
were in an acting class and I remember my girl friend and I were cuddling and hugging each other when
a male student I did not know, called us lesbians. I recall walking home with my brother from school
later that day, asking him was a lesbian was. He told me its definition without saying whether it was a
good or bad thing but the boys tone had made it clear that I had not been called something very nice.
Afterwards, watching TV, I realized that I thought women were more beautiful than men. I was terrified.
What if I was a lesbian? I eventually told my mother. She had been a social worker and always explained
things in very rational ways. She told me sexuality was a spectrum and that people are rarely on one
extreme or the other. Something about this made me drop my fears. I was not a lesbian just because I
cuddled with my girlfriends and thought women on TV were beautiful. And if I was a lesbian, it would be
fine.
School Images and Lessons: Kindergarten through present
Race/Culture/Ethnicity
The students I went to school with K-12, mostly mirrored the general population of Huntington
Beach: white and upper-middle class. Throughout, we were taught that the color of our skin did not
matter, we should all be treated equally. So why discuss each others ethnicities? We did not.
In third grade and fourth grade, we began learning about Orange Countys history. We learned
about the local Chumash Indians and their way of life. However, I do not recall being told why they were

all but gone. Instead we went to the Sunkist citrus groves to learn about the orange industry and were
given extra credit to visit the local missions. A handful of classmates and I visited the missions. They
were beautiful, rugged and sad. Images of Spanish missionaries enslaving Native Americans were
splashed around the visitor centers, depicting a very different history than the one taught in the
classroom. I no longer needed to ask where they all went. I remember reading a book call The Island of
the Blue Dolphin. It was about a Native American girl, who a little older than I was at the time. She was
stranded on an island and left to grow up alone. I was fascinated by her culture, her wildness and her
ability to survive. It felt like I had become friends with her, making it all the more tragic to learn what
had become of her people.
Racism was a popular topic in my white dominated schools. Every year there seemed to be a
segment on how white people had enslaved humans from Africa and treated them with brutality. Once
they were freed, racist white people did not give them equal rights and lynched them when blacks
fought back. Whites are racist. I was racist. I just did not know it, or so I was taught. It was not until
college that I realized that there is a large difference between being racist and prejudice, and that
everyone has prejudices, not just white people. There was so much focus on our racism, that there was
little time to discuss the beauty of other cultures. Again, peoples ethnicities were not discussed and
therefore not celebrated. Maybe because it was easier to simply say white people were racist than be
inclusive of other cultures or include the history of non-white nations in the curriculum. I cannot tell you
one famous scientific discovery from South America. That is embarrassing. I took a history class in
college on the Middle East because I realize I knew next to nothing about it. I loved it. The amount of
knowledge generated from people of non-European descent is tremendous, but it is not valued enough
to teach. Why? I have since realized that I unintentionally filled in the gaps and assumed it was because
Europeans were always world leaders and so much more advanced, that other cultures were not worth

noting. They must have been making the same discoveries as Europeans, but just hundreds of years
later. I was extremely wrong.
I went to two universities for my undergraduate education, UC Riverside and SUNY Binghamton.
At the age of eighteen, I moved from Huntington Beach to Riverside, CA. With Whites representing only
seventeen percent of the student body, I quickly experienced what it meant to live amongst a
population where few people actually looked, acted, or talked like me. My best friends went from being
Natalie, Megan, Kelly, Kim, and Joe to my best friends being Lakia, Priti, Yoftiel, and Abdullah. Multiple
times a week, I would have strangers come up and talk to me about my boyfriend Charles or about
people I did not know. I did not have a boyfriend named Charles. I quickly realized that they thought I
was Sam, another white girl who just happened to live in the same dorm. I would politely tell them that I
was not Sam, but the other tall, skinny, white girl on campus, Whitney, and yes, we do all look alike.
I dated a black man, Roderick, in my sophomore year He was very witty and I always loved his
social commentary on race and culture- Camping is the whitest past time. You wont find black people
camp out in the woods- we finally the right to live inside! (Somehow much more appropriate and funny
coming from him). He was exciting and extremely different than anyone I had known in Huntington
Beach. But not everyone fully supported us being together. My mother repeatedly reminded me that life
would be harder with him- the world was not ready for a white woman to be with a black man and no
one would recognize your children as yours. She was not wrong. Life would have been harder. I see
that better now. His mother loved me, but openly told me she rather see him with another black girl.
She wanted him to love his own people more. I knew many of the black girls at school did not like me, I
often received some harsh stares when we were seen together. There are not many black males in
college and I had one of them. We dated for a little over a year and broke-up over non-race related

issues. I learned a great deal from him ie. never give a black family watermelons (I had no idea there was
a stereotype now I do) and many other, more serious, lessons.
Gender
Race is an important topic to discuss, but there are many other valuable characteristics that
define people that are often less Kosher to talk about and therefore discussed less often. For instance,
gender, abilism, and sexual orientation were hardly ever discussed in the classroom. It is well known
that Blacks have been suppressed since the beginning of our country, but women gained the right to
vote after black males. Besides the one unit in which we discussed Susan B. Anthony, I do not recall any
teacher stressing the severity of discrimination against women. I feel that any woman discussing gender
equality runs the risk of being labeled an angry feminist. It is not a safe subject to discuss.
When I first decided to go to graduate school, I contacted a professor, David Cooper, at CSU. I
met with him and he suggested that I have some more field experience and that I join one of his PhD
students, Jeremy in the desert conducting research. So I lived in a trailer, in the middle of the Sonoran
desert, with two men, for three months helping them with their research. Jeremy told the professor,
David, that he should take me on as a student, as I had proven to be a good scientist and I could help
take part of his research project. David reluctantly agreed. He did not feel I had enough experience and
continually ensured that I knew that he felt that way. Jeremy had told me, prior to moving to CSU, that
David was known to have his favorites and that he was particularly harsh on the women in the lab. As
the youngest child, I have handled a great deal of abuse and I felt I could handle an older, sexist, white
man. However, three months into working for him, I realized no work could be done if your boss does
not believe in you. Everything I did, he questioned. I recall him asking a female college what her height
was and when she told him she was 52, he told her she was wrong- she was 51. It was a power issue.
One day he pulled me into his office and he sat me down. He told me I was too cute to be an ecologist

and no one would take me seriously. He said I needed to follow another path. The next day, he sent me
an email requesting I tell the school to stop paying me. He failed to mention that I legally did not have to
sign it. But I did not. Instead, I got some advice.
I met with Jodie Hanzlik, the Dean of the Graduate School. After hearing my story, she decided
to pay my tuition and give me a job working in the Graduate School. Diversity is tremendously important
to her. Therefore, my sole job was to work with graduate diversity programs, arrange new cultural
events and help the graduate school attract students of color. She saved me.
I had rarely experienced such blatant discrimination, but I truly appreciate and value the
experience. It made me examine how fortunate I am to live during this time and in this country, where
such treatment is not considered acceptable. It also provides me with deep sympathy for those who are
discriminated against and who do not have anyone who can help through such difficult times. I was
blessed to have wonderfully supportive people surround me.
Abilism
Abilism is a topic you rarely hear discussed. Disabled people are rarely celebrated for their
tremendous efforts they make to simply fit it with a primarily able society. I have always loved
American Sign Language, so I studied it for three years in high school. The first day of class, I was
shocked to find that our teacher was deaf. We had no interpreter, making the learning curve rather
steep. She was kind, always smiling and practiced extreme patience. The students generally respected
her, but would often mumble answers during quizzes because they knew she could not hear them. She
integrated teaching deaf culture along with ASL and I came to feel that deaf people were not nearly as
disabled as I would have thought. In fact, I found it fascinating to learn that deaf people find hearing
peoples languages to be extremely boring. Instead of audible fluctuations in words to indicate a
meaning, deaf people use large gestures and facial expressions that could appear to be overly

exaggerated by most hearing people. She was very creative and believed in an integrative approach to
learning: she discussed famous deaf people in history: Beethoven, Helen Keller, and Thomas Edison; she
had us put in ear plugs, order food at a fast-food restaurant without talking and only sign to each other.;
and she required us to go to deaf events in which we had to write about specific conversations we had
with deaf community members. This class made me realize that some disabilities are not necessarily
disabilities in the sense that there is something wrong with the people with these conditions. They
simply are different from the general population and their conditions require them to make large
modifications in their daily lives to try to fit-in in a mostly able society.
I, too, am considered disabled because I have severe ADHD. I have struggled in my life to meet
the requirements expected of me, but I have found many strategies that have helped me adapt. First, it
was important for me to understand my limitations. I can then identify how to either avoid certain tasks,
or create new strategies. For instance, it is often too difficult for me to focus long enough to read a long
paragraph of instructions. Therefore, I reread instructions multiple times, highlighting key words and I
will write down the requirements in a bullet point format. I have rarely experienced anything but
support from those I tell about my condition, but I tell very few people. When I tell someone that I have
ADHD, I fear three main things: one- that they do not believe ADHD is an actual condition, that people
diagnosed with ADHD are simply too careless to focus, two- that they will think I am not capable of
completing tasks, three- that I will use my condition as an excuse to be lazy. Why? Because these have
been a small handful of peoples responses, including from a boss and a high school math teacher. I
distinctly recall my math teacher (in an honors course) reluctantly handing me the test and saying I do
not understand why you need extended time. Either you get it or you dont. It made me so mad that I
did everything to get an A to prove I was smart. In the end, I just felt like I had cheated getting that A
because I was given extra time- maybe she was right? I have since come to realize that my brain simply
works differently than others. I am just as capable, I just need to do certain tasks in an unusual way. Yes,

I may doodle and chew gum which makes me feel rude, but it helps me listen. And yes, it made be odd,
but I grade papers while riding the recumbent bicycle at the gym. As my boyfriend perfectly states, it
keeps your ADHD distracted.
Who inspired me most
I greatly disliked biology and chemistry. I did not see how they applied to my everyday life, until
I had Mr. Garland senior year in high school. He taught AP Environmental Science and helped me
discover my love for science. There, science became relevant to my everyday life. He took us on field
trips to the sewage treatment plant and the coal power plant. He had us read an environmental book
that sounded interesting to us. I read one that I changed my way of thinking about the world, called
The Shamans Apprentice. It is a story about a botanist who goes to the Amazon to learn everything he
can about the local medicinal plants from the shamans in the Amazon before they all die out. The youth
there are turning to embrace western cultures and religions and no few seek to become apprentices to
the shamans. Mr. Garland also had the class travel to Yosemite where we worked with the forest
services to learn about the area and participate in aquatic insect surveys to monitor stream health. As a
teacher, Mr. Garland was kind, goofy, trustworthy, and approachable. He treated everyone equally and
it was clear that he loved us all. I want to be another Mr. Garland. He inspired me and made me feel
capable of tackling science.
Conclusion:
My life experiences have helped shape my attitudes towards culture, race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, gender and abilism. I believe that we are all unique and that our differences should not only
be acknowledged and respected, but they should be cherished, shared and embraced. I hope my
teaching will fully reflect these beliefs and through dialogue and exploring new experiences together,
my students can learn compassion, understanding, and respect for one another. We are one collective
community. It is our responsibility to take care one another and the Earth we belong to.