5 Questions with Norma Garcia White ’25

Norma Garcia White grew up in East Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She’s lived in Quantico, Virginia; Oceanside, California; and San Diego as a United States Marine. She now lives in Sugarcreek Township, Ohio, commuting as a student — majoring in sociology, minoring in psychology — to the University of Dayton. Her goals include becoming a clinical psychologist.

1 – You will be engaged in hands-on learning next term. Doing what?
At the Bombeck Family Learning Center, I’ll be looking at how children learn when given books with STEM subjects; I’ll be working with professor Mary Wagner as part of a project supported by the National Science Foundation. I didn’t go to preschool. We didn’t have books at home. My parents didn’t speak English. A teacher told me I was reading behind my grade level and I should read more. So, at breakfast, I read cereal boxes over and over.

2 – How’d school go after that?
By middle school, I was doing better. I had a creative writing teacher who told me I had a writer in me. Professor Steve Wilhoit at UD told me the same thing. He also knew the vet who wrote about his Vietnam experiences in The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien, 2012 winner of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award given by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation). I thought of Wilhoit, “I don’t know you personally, but you understand.”

3 – You were deeply affected by your time in the Marines?
Several friends died by suicide. I asked myself why they didn’t ask for help. I’ve learned that is hard to do, particularly in the military where it is seen as weak. I’ve developed an interest in mental health.

4 – Are you pursuing that?
I’m working with associate professor Anya Galli Robertson on how first-generation students of color access mental health services on campus, looking at a recent campus climate survey on the sense of belonging that UD faculty, staff and students have on campus. Next semester I’ll be interviewing students, asking whether they’ve gone to the counseling center or if they even know we have one. First-generation students often have a sense of family guilt coming from a realization of “I’m fine; they’re not.”

5 – And how’s your family?
As a child, I felt stress fearing my parents would be deported. As an adult, I learned of legal services I could get as a vet and realized I could help them. I traveled with them to Mexico, their first visit to their homeland in 28 years. That was on the final steps in their becoming citizens of the United States of America. 

A version of this article appears in print in the Winter 2024-45 University of Dayton Magazine, Page 13. EXPLORE THE ISSUE — MORE ONLINE