Statement of Purpose: a prologue
To be frank, my journey to this goal has been quite untraditional and unexpected, but if anything, it is one of the main reasons why I hold such a deep love and passion for Anthropology and the social sciences. I began my journey at Rollins College with much uncertainty. Denise has always been the person that will chase something until she gets it, no matter what it takes.
And well, getting accepted and attending the “Harvard of the South” became the prey that I chased, like a starving cheetah that had finally found sustenance.
From this, you may or may not be able to tell that I have always gravitated towards prestige. But prestige has not always done the same for me.
To me, academic prestige doesn’t just mean ubiquitous bragging rights, but the key into ascending socially, financially, and academically.
This is because I am a first generation American and college student. I have no choice but to shoot for the very best.
Because even though this cycle of entrapment can be painful, monotonous and fruitless, to me, it is my Beautiful Entrapment.
My parent’s are independent tradespeople, they never had the means to create and fund a college or retirement fund.
And for the longest time I dreaded that feeling. Of knowing that at any given time they only had enough money in the bank to last for the month, and if anything out of the ordinary demanded more money than usual, that meant trouble.
It meant that one month we could have an nice dinner at Olive garden or Cheesecake factory, and the other month we would have to eat boiled plantains and fried pork.
And the damage would double once I moved out, because that meant that there were times where they could not give me money, and my entire paycheck would go towards rent, and I would have to rely on the school’s food pantry, eating awkward tasting canned soup that almost felt blasphemous towards my parent’s Dominican cooking as I ate it.
But regardless of all of this financial hardship, I still found the beauty, or silver lining, as one might say, within this entrapment.
And to me, that meant spending hours in my beloved campus library, Olin.
However, my consistent usage and deep passion for libraries has set the stage for my high performance in academia, long before Rollins.
I vividly remember getting my first own library card, when I lived in the small town of Valdez, Alaska, in 2019
At the time, I had developed my niche obsession on herbalism and natural healing practices, as this was during a time where I was hurting the most, possibly in my entire life. I thought that by creating my own herbal alchemy, I could heal myself in a world of hurt. That day, I checked out 30 books on the topic. Unapologetically.
I was even accused of lying about my whereabouts by my step dad because of how often I visited, only to have such allegation be immediately shut down by the 3 tall stacks of books that I slammed on the kitchen counter. I biked nearly 10 blocks for these books. And I would do it every day if I had to.
Between the depression, anxiety, emotional abuse, all tied up with the pretty (shit) bow that was living in one of the most remote coastal Alaskan towns, which only had around two thousand people when I lived there.
I like to use this metaphor a lot, but I felt like a cheetah that was caged up and shipped to Alaska, of all places.
Deep inside, I was always a social person, but that didn’t always translate seamlessly into the spoken world. In fact, for most of my childhood, I had selective mutism. I would avoid talking to the people that had hurt me and my family. And when you live within the often dysfunctional life that is being a child of immigrants, that list quickly became long. It got to the point where I would only talk at school and to my parents.
And that essentially speaks volumes to the fact that for me Academia has never been about the end goal. It is my refuge. A bank with endless currency that I would maximize my daily withdrawal limit. Because to me, Academia isn’t just about getting a pretty piece of paper at the end, but a beautiful, calculated, and orchestrated dance that aims to harness intellectual dignity, survival, and generational wealth for not just me, but those before and after me.
In fact, like most high achieving scholars, I find it quite frustrating when I have to limit myself on how often I raise my hand for the sake of my professors, as not to overshadow the rest of the students that often avoid engaging at any cost. This is one of the consequences when you attend a liberal arts college with people that are not always of liberal arts caliber. Attending Rollins or any private institution is always more expensive, and I infer that this is the reason why we have privileged business majors that think they are too good speak on topics of racism or cultural relativism, and instead choose to disrespect my professors in my anthropology and sociology classes. But I digress.
Rollins has fallen short on me many times. Every semester of mine has been tainted by a parliamentary process on addressing misconduct on various fronts on campus.
Rollins is my beautiful entrapment. Better yet, so is academia.
Academia has historically rejected people like me. And we are entering a time where significant historical and political regression is rapidly occurring, and I cannot lie and say that I am not in fear.
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Fearing that I did everything right, just at the wrong time, and rejection will soon meet me at the door that I worked so hard over my 15 years of schooling to build.
Door frame. Hinge. Door handle. Key. Pins.
I built it with my bare hands. Without the multi-generational tools and funds.
I have defied all odds in my academic career. And I am reaching another pinnacle of this beautiful entrapment.
From fighting for a spot in my under-filled AP and dual enrollment courses, and constantly being doubted about my efficacy in my challenging course load by my own high school principal. Who, in her role, directly benefited from having more students enrolled in these college level tracks, fearing that I would fail miserably. Yet I defied her disrespect — her insult to my wits when I had never given her an academic reason to doubt my performance.
I passed all 6 of my AP Exams with flying colors and earned the coveted and incredibly difficult AP Capstone Diploma, among a plethora of other AP and district awards.
There has been constant irony, hypocrisy, and unfounded doubts that have plagued my path.
You can be eloquent, but not too much, you might offend the very same stakeholders that fund your education.
Even here.
Welcome to college. Where you are sold the illusion that as a gifted black woman you can be plastered all over campus media, front and center, but cannot articulate yourself into woke oblivion.
But, I am a Black, Feminist Anthropologist. I am Denise Santiago Sanchez.
I don’t sulk, I act.
Because women like me don’t have the luxury to thread water, we swim against the tide when we are constantly told to flow with it.
This is why I am restructuring my degree path for my final year. Over the course of my 2 years at Rollins, I have declared my Anthropology Major, along side three (3) minors. My beloved Latin American and Caribbean Studies, African & African American Studies, and Sociology. This year, however, I will be dropping most if not all of them, at least on paper.
As a 3 year graduate due to my college credits earned in high school, I’ve had to live my already fast life at an even faster pace. And this has reminded me that meritocracy is not always the answer for people like me.
But like I said, I don’t sulk, I act.
After nearly meeting all of my minor requirements, I have reached a point in my academic career where I am allowing myself to be selfish for my own good. Dropping my minors would allow me to take a lighter course load for my last two semesters, and to conduct my own independent research.
The tentative topic for my senior thesis is: Beautiful Resistance: Analyzing Central Florida BIPOC & LGBT+ Online Grassroots Organization, Mutual Aid, Zine Production, and Other Resistance rituals in the Wake of Trump’s New Era
Through this project, I aim to challenge myself to conduct my own independent research on a topic that is incredibly pertinent and affecting nearly everyone in my life. I am a child of immigrants. My dad was pulled over by ICE. This is the reality if not worse for way too many people in my community. In Orlando, the city with one of the highest population of Latino and other POC, LGBT, and immigrant folk in the state.
Instead of focusing solely on procuring scarcely available grants and scholarships for this type of research, I aim to conduct it on my own terms as a low-income college student. Because as we know, as Anthropological scholars, ethnography is evolving. Anthropology is evolving.
And I want to play an integral part in this cutting-edge evolution of the subject, by meeting grassroots organizers where they are at, wether that be online or through grassroots involvement, because we are not so far from each other after all.
Had I not had the privilege of being documented, on scholarship, and a college student, I would probably be not just an observer, but a client, a recipient of their beautifully orchestrated aid.
And I want to understand deeply how that feels like. What it feels to be both the hurt and healer. To put together an entire web of mutual aid together in what seems like overnight, to immediately help those who do not have the luxury to wait. To wait for food stamps, child support, unemployment, disability, Section 8.
Because we have a deeply flawed welfare system — In the world’s so-called richest country.
I am Denise Santiago Sanchez. A Black Feminist Anthropologist.
I hope to work with you all soon.
