Meet the Faculty

Frederick Gaines

Title: Professor/Chair of Ethnic Studies
Degrees: B.A. Psychology, M.A. Ethnic Studies, Ed.D. Educational Leadership
Teaching Experience: I was a principal for five years at Walden Academy and Education, Educational Coordinator at Samaritan House, Coordinator of the Urban Institutes' Stay In School Family Resource Center and Executive Director for Aspire, a college prep after school program in North Central San Mateo. While working in Leadership in the non-profit sector, I accumulated 10 years of adjunct teaching experience at various community colleges like Contra Costa, Solano, City College of San Francisco, College of San Mateo and Alameda, before becoming full-time at CSM.
Career Highlights: have been watching students cross the stage and move on to the University or career empowered, confident and prepared to pursue their passions and dreams.
Hobbies: I enjoy acting, directing, conducting research on African American Male students and student-athletes in community colleges and community college student athletes in general.
Quote: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malathi Iyengar

Title: Associate Professor
Degrees: Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, UC San Diego; M.A., Education, Cal State LA; M.F.A., Music, California Institute of the Arts; B.A. Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  
Teaching Experience: Prior to becoming an Ethnic Studies instructor, I was a credentialed dual-language immersion (Spanish-English) elementary school teacher and wrote fiction and poetry for young children. I have also taught music to students of all ages. My approach to teaching and learning echoes the great postcolonial theorist Edward Said: "I like disobedience and transdisciplinarity."
Career Highlights: As a scholar of Ethnic Studies, I have published work related to anti-racist and anticolonial social movements, theories of non/citizenship, and histories of education. 
Hobbies: All kinds of writing! I also love music and the sounds of spoken language. And I like to relax by doing nothing.
Quote: "[L]earning is a place where paradise can be created. … This is education as the practice of freedom." – bell hooks

Edgar Mojica Villegas

Title: Associate Professor
Degrees: M.A., Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley; B.A., Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley; B.A., Chicana/o Studies -Latina/o Studies, UC Berkeley.
Teaching Experience: Since 2012
Career Highlights: As an educator, I'm doing what I love and love what I do; that is the greatest accomplishment.
Hobbies: In addition to my love for teaching and scholarship, I am also deeply passionate about traditional Chinese medicine. I hold a masters in acupuncture and Chinese medicine from the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine college at Berkeley.
Quote: "We each are our sisters' and brother's keepers; no one is an island or has ever been. Every person, animal, plant, stone is interconnected in a life-and-death symbiosis. We are each responsible for what is happening down the street, south of the border or across the sea." – Gloria Anzaldua in This Bridge Called My Back

Seon-Hye Moon

Title: Adjunct Professor
Degrees: PhD (in progress), Cultural Studies, UC Davis; M.A., Ethnic Studies, SFSU; B.A., English Literature, Columbia University
Teaching Experience: Prior to CSM, I worked in corporate industry for a decade and have leveraged that experience to inform my feminist and justice-oriented methodologies. I have served on preschool boards, mentored high school students, taught students at several Bay Area universities, and after having lived in New York for many years, I’m thrilled to be back in the Bay Area.
Career Highlights: Ongoing opportunity to work alongside students to form and re-from research questions and studies
Hobbies: Learning dance moves from my kids (currently flossing), trying any concoction with whiskey

Rudy Ramirez

Title: Adjunct Professor
Degrees: B.A., Ethnic Studies; M.A., Ethnic Studies; Teaching Certificate in ESL
Teaching Experience: Since 1998
Career Highlights: Taught for the Teaching Abroad Program in Spain, Fall 2008. Put on "edu-tainment" presentations in the CSM theater every semester since 2006. Have been taking On Course workshops since 2010. On the Scholarship Committee. Faculty advisor to the Latinos Unidos Club as well as the Toastmaster's International Club. Took part in weekend workshop at the Museum of Tolerance in Beverly Hills in 2007.
Hobbies: Play guitar (acoustic/electric) and conga drums professionally. Love to walk in nature. Working out is a joy. Always learning and finding new teaching techniques. Big boxing fan.
Quote: "If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."

Jackie Santizo

Title: Adjunct Faculty
Degrees: M.A., Ethnic Studies, SFSU; B.A., Sociology & Chicana/o Studies, UC Davis
Teaching Experience: Since 2018
Career Highlights: My thesis was on quinceañeras in the margins, in which I explored the cultural phenomenon of “quinceañeras” to queer and disabled Latinas and their families. I have taught courses in Latina/o Studies, Native American Studies, and College 1. I also have a background in higher education administration, as the previous director and founder of a social justice and undocumented student center.
Hobbies: I adapt my teaching to style to my interests, which often include using social media, comedy, and pop culture as an outlet to exist in what feels like a crumbling world. I am also an actor, performer, plus size fashion icon, a traveler when I’m not broke and an active reality to junkie who is currently indulging in this season of “The Real Housewives of Miami”.
Quote: "The world needs more courage, not less. It needs people who choose justice over convenience." – Mahmoud Khalil