Naomi Fertman and Sarah De Los Santos Upton

[00:01] NAOMI FERTMAN: My name is Naomi Fertman I'm 40 years old. Today is February 1, 2023, and we are in El Paso, Texas. My interview partner is Sarah de los Santos Upton, and she is a dear friend and a colleague.

[00:18] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: My name is Sarah de los Santos Upton. I am 36 years old. Today is February 1, 2023, and we are in El Paso, Texas. The name of my interview partner is Naomi Fertman and she is a very dear friend, an important part of my support system, and a colleague.

[00:41] NAOMI FERTMAN: Sarah, can you tell me why it is that you started working at the University of Texas at El Paso?

[00:49] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Yes. So I actually come from a line of UTEP minors. I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, and my theos and my mom all attended UTEP. And my mom was especially significant because she got married when she was 20 years old. And I, her and my father split up when. Well, so she had me when she was 23. They split up three years later, and she didn't have a college degree. It had kind of been, you know, expected that, like, the daughters in the family were going to get married, the sons were going to get a college degree. And so we. We came back to El Paso. We had lived elsewhere because my dad is retired military, and my grandparents said, you know, you can live in the house with us. We'll help take care of Sarah, and you can go back and get your degree. And so I watched her, as a single mom who was working full time, really struggle to get her degree. And when I say struggle, I mean, she was doing it. She was fine. I. But it wasn't easy. And it really instilled in me that I needed to get my degree and take care of myself before entering into any other kind of like a marriage or some commitment like that. And so I. Growing up here, there is a stigma about staying and coming to utepath, and I was a victim of that. I felt like it meant that I had failed in some way. But my mom was very clear, if you want help with your tuition, you're going to stay here and go to UTEP, and you're going to live at home with us. And I was kind of resentful of that. But I came, and I had the most beautiful experience, and my professors actually cared about me. They went to the same high schools. The high school that I went to. They grew up in the same communities. They had similar experiences. And I knew that that meant something at the time. But it wasn't until I left to go to grad school elsewhere that I realized, oh, that is unique. That doesn't happen everywhere. And with the inspiration of the professors that I had here, it made me really want. Want to come home and do the same thing for someone else. So that is a really long answer to a very simple question. But it, like being here, was a conscious, intentional choice. And it's why I went to grad school, and it's why I worked so hard to try to be able to come home and get tenure so that I knew I could stay here forever. Can you talk a little bit about what brought you to both El Paso and to Utah?

[04:09] NAOMI FERTMAN: Yeah. So I moved down to the border in 2007. I was working for a study away program, the Border Studies program. And we were working with students who were living in Juarez and learning about the US Mexico border. And the program moved to the southern Arizona borderlands. And myself and my partner, Jesse, had really, in the year that we had been here, working for the program had really started to love El Paso. It was complex, and we were outsiders, but I think when the program moved, we decided that we wanted to stay and to try to figure out if we could kind of make it work here. So I went through and he went through a whole series of different jobs in the community, and at some point, decided to go to grad school here within the borderlands region at New Mexico State, just because I think the more time we spent here, the more I felt committed to wanting to be here, to wanting to learn here, and to wanting to kind of understand this place. I knew I was an outsider, and I think that's always shaped how I've understood and taken up space here. But I also saw that there were a lot of ways that I could still work and exist here and build community here. So I got pregnant during grad school right at the end, and had my daughter Amaya, and was randomly offered this position in the women and gender studies department right as I was graduating, which was so lucky and so wonderful. And so I was able to start at UTEP pretty quickly afterwards, just as a. In a lecturer position, teaching here, and having kind of this flexibility of teaching and teaching subjects that meant a lot to me, even though I probably was way over my head at the beginning of my work here and also kind of balancing what it meant to be a new parent and also teach, you know, and be in this process of teaching and learning myself with parenting, as I'm also in this process of learning about teaching with my UTEP students. Can you tell me about becoming a mom as you went through the tenure process and has you kind of started in your position here at UTEP.

[06:38] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Well, one quick thing that I wanted to say is that, like, coming from here, it's always so meaningful when people move here and they like, I know you use the word I outsider a couple of times, but I've witnessed the people that come here and view it as a stepping stone to something better and greater. And then I've witnessed the people who, like, come and see how special it is and treasure it. And that is like, as someone who grew up here, it means so much to me and I know to the students that you teach. So I just wanted to thank you for that, because you know how I feel about El Paso. Well, becoming a mother in the tenure track, I mean, so something about academia, about being a professor, is, it is really amazing and a privilege to have the amount of flexibility that I have. But at the same time, I feel like the position comes with this. Jason and I have talked about how there's always this guilt that if I'm not, I could. We're never done. We don't go to work at nine and come home at five and we're done. It's always like, well, I could be working on that paper that I should be writing and I'm not. And so I feel like that is something that I've had to really carve out a space. And I am still learning every day, what do I want my family life and my work life to look like? And I'm trying to figure out ways to blend the two. Like, for example, I was teaching yesterday and Jason arrived with Diego and Isabel, and I'm teaching and I can hear them. We were outside in the chihuahuan desert garden and I could hear them running around and yelling. And I told my students, I hear my kids yelling and they're like, what are you talking about? And I was like, no, they're actually here on campus yelling and it's distracting me. But I'm gonna try to keep going the best that I can. But I do feel like there's power in those moments. And I try to do it as much as possible to say, like, my kids are here, I'm a mother. In addition to this professional role that I'm filling. Or when people ask me to do stuff on the weekends, well, I don't have childcare, so that's not going to work for me. And it's a small statement, but I try really often to say, like, you're asking me to do something in after school hours or on weekends, and I don't have childcare. That needs to. It's invisible, but I need to make it visible for you. So I feel like having children on the tenure track. I mean, when I was pregnant with both of my children, I felt this intense pressure to publish as much as I could during the pregnancy. I got two books done that way. So it was positive in many ways. It was stressful in others. I had to program plan for a national conference when I was two weeks postpartum with my daughter, and that was traumatic. I need to start using the correct labels. And then I had my work questioned publicly in national spaces, even at this last conference, and she's three years old now. And I had to say out loud, you know, I was two weeks postpartum. People applauded it, but they probably shouldn't have. They should have instead said, you should not be in this position. What can we do to help you? But that. This is a long winded answer. But it's inspired me to. At conferences, we don't have childcare. There's no. Well, not at my conference. At other conferences there are, but it's made me think about, we need to work together to figure out, like, what our reproductive justice needs are in these academic spaces and how do we work together to meet them, and not just for ourselves, but for everyone. And so I do think that the struggles of having two children on the tenure track taught me a lot of lessons that I needed, and it's influenced the way I teach, the way I do research, the way I present research, and I'm grateful for those lessons.

[11:39] NAOMI FERTMAN: And it's interesting, because I think you've been. You've centered that, and I think about conversations we've had with community partners together and the ways that you have kind of given voice and elevated that. I think a lot of people in academia are scared. Right? They're scared to talk about that duality of their roles. You know, we're so encouraged just to be producers all the time, and that's what's valued. Instead of being able to say, great, we're going to produce, and we're going to be really good because you're really fucking good at your job. But also, I'm a parent, and I'm really fucking good at being a parent, too, you know? But to do both, there needs to be time and space, and that the invisible work of parenting, it can be really heavy. I know we've both kind of gone through that and talked about it and cried a lot about it. So, balancing it, I think you've done a really, really good job, and I know that there's been pushback, and you've had to struggle with some of the pushback of what it means. Of what it means to ask for more time or to have it acknowledged that you took maternity leave. These things which we should be a part of our postpartum response in this country, or. And it's been so. I know it's. I know it hasn't been easy, and you've. It's been. I admire the work that you've done to kind of bring light to it. So thanks for that.

[13:01] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Thank you. One thing that I want to add is that, you know, I just went up for tenure, and I just got tenure. And definitely a big part of that was, like, support from my dear friends and colleagues like you. And I just, you know, this, but I should say it out loud for preservation purposes, that, you know, we were granted, I could have taken an extra year for having children during the tenure clock, and I could have taken an extra Covid year, and I didn't do either of those, because I have seen and heard far too often that, I mean, we know during the pandemic that many male colleagues who have children had partners who were doing a majority of the childcare. And so they use that time, it was like a sabbatical of just sitting down and writing. And they published so much. And we know that we were trying to work and teach and write and do all the things we were supposed to do with young children who needed a. Our care and attention. And so I didn't want to be held up next to those male colleagues. Like, look at all the things he published with that extra time. Why didn't you do the same? And I know that that canon will be held against primarily female parents. And so, you know, that's also something that I try to say out loud as much as possible. Like, it's great that I, you know, people applaud me. I get a pat on the back for not taking the extra time, which I am proud of myself, that I accomplished it with, you know, but I didn't take the extra time for a reason. But I would love to hear more about. I know that becoming a parent really coincided also with. Just like it did for me, for you, it coincided with beginning your work here at the university. And I'd love to hear more about that or more about just the process of becoming a parent and the feelings that came up for you around that. Whichever you'd like to talk about.

[15:28] NAOMI FERTMAN: Well, my daughter Amaya was probably five months or. No, she was a bit older because she was born while I still had a couple months left of graduate school. And the funny thing was, because I was finishing up a master's in public health and master's in social work, many awesome. I just had really awesome faculty who got it. And I, you know, Amaya was a traumatic birth. She was a c section. She was inner uterine growth restricted, and I had a blood clotting disorder. There was a lot of things that made the whole process of birth for her so challenging. And I was held up by faculty who knew that I wanted to finish, and I was there, and with their support, that I could. And she was born with a c section. And five days later, I was back in class with her, you know, with this tiny baby, and she came to class with me. Those, like, last, I think, couple months that I had, every class that I went to, she came. And some of the things I think about, like, hearing you say, like, I was applauded, you know, you were applauded for continuing, and I was applauded for, like, continuing, too. But I think about this five day old baby cradled in my arms, sitting in these classes, and what a huge. What a huge weight that was also like that. I just felt, yeah, so much stress about continuing and finishing because I was worried about that lag. But in some ways, I think I also felt somewhat lucky that I could have her. She could be with me, and I've carried that with me into, I think, teaching consistently. And my partner is also a faculty here. And so I think being. We were in some ways, really lucky and probably in some ways really challenged in the first two years of her life, being able to just trade off. We just made our schedules work, right? And we had the support of my in laws. And I just have all these memories of, like, early parenting and being on campus and sitting outside of the liberal arts building, like, breastfeeding under a tree, you know, and having her with me in my office and having the students with her. And again, like, that humanizing idea of, like, this is what it means to be a parent, to be a mama, you know, to be a teacher. And I think that was really important in my. And with Amaya, I think I felt really, really empowered in it. Sammy, my second, he was born when she was about two and a half. And I remember going back and teaching again because of the way things work with my position. I didn't really have any leave. I'd had six. It was summer when he was born, and so I was teaching online, and I remember being in the hospital and responding to emails from students, things like that. Right after he was born and I went back, I started back in school. You know, he was born mid July. I started end of August teaching again. And I have this distinct memory of myself sometime, like, probably six weeks or eight weeks into the semester, like, looking up in my classroom and being like, oh, my gosh, I am teaching. Like, I had just been in such a fog for such, this long period of time and just looking around like, am I naked? Like, what's happening? Because of just the exhaustion of second kid, you know, I struggled with postpartum depression, with Sammy. And so I really, and I was just, like, fighting. I think there was this part of me in my brain that felt like I had to be able to do it right, this drive that I think a lot of women feel like that I couldn't, that I would be failing if I took time off of work or, like, because there wasn't an option for me, that, again, I was so lucky with my flexibility and my schedule. And I say that, and then I also realize, like, that is an excuse for a postpartum system that does not work for parents, right? We deserve a year off and time instead of, you know, what I was luck. What? I feel super lucky again of being able to have my son as an infant in my office hours and my in laws who are so supportive, who would sit outside the classroom with him, but at the same, I remember hearing him cry teaching and, like, thinking about that while I was teaching in those early, kind of those early days of his birth. So I think that that role of being a parent influenced so much of my early kind of parts of my teaching career. And it weighed it both, I think, was really motivational because I wanted and have always wanted to be an I, an inclusive educator. You know, I've always wanted to think about, you know, who. Who are the students who are in front of me, right. And what do they bring to the table? And I think a lot of that, you know, I went to a small liberal arts college, a predominantly white institution with students who came from an upper middle class kind of background. And UTAP is a, you know, hispanic serving institution. It's a lot more first generation students, a lot more diverse, you know, socioeconomic statuses. And so I think the assumptions that I had had about what a college education was coming into UTEP and what it could mean totally got thrown on its head. And it has made me, I think, value so much more the role of teaching here and the role of considering who my students are, you know, and always trying to think about, who are they? Who are they when they're not in front of me. Right. What are all of the hats they wear a. That they feel like maybe they have to take off when they walk into the classroom. And what are the hats they can't take off. Right. Because we can never let go of those pieces. So that was a really long winded way of answering that. Maybe parenting and teaching and are just, like, rolled up into one. It's influenced who I think I want to be as a teacher. And probably some of my frustration, too, when I get frustrated with my students, maybe some of it is the parenting role that I sometimes put myself into with them as well. I want them to do better. I expect them to do better. I want to give them a hard time, scold them like they're six, but they're not. What are you most proud of as an educator and as a parent? They can be separate or they can be together.

[22:06] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Well, I remember you just gave me a memory of, they used to call Diego my ta because I would bring him to, like, we would do the trade off. You're just bringing up so many vivid memories of, like, the little trade off when Jason was done teaching and he would take Diego, but he had been in my office and really sweet times. But what am I most proud of? Oof. I had this student recently. She had done a really incredible internship at the Smithsonian over the summer, and she brought me back a gift from the women's history museum that they're working on. And it's a canvas bag that says, because of her, I. And she told me that she gave it to me because she felt like she's able to do things in the classroom as a student, as a woman, because women like me carved a path for her. And when she told me that, it reminded me of when I was an undergrad. And I had this incredible mentor who's still a dear friend and mentor, and she's the reason why I wanted to go to grad school and why I even knew what grad school was. And she's the reason why I'm here. And it was just such a full circle moment, and I cried so much, and I sent her a message right away and told her this thing just happened, and it was incredible. So it was probably my proudest moment as a parenthood. I feel. I think what I'm proudest of is that I, like, I love learning and researching and teaching, and I feel like that's come into my parenting in ways that I didn't expect. Like, I've taken a lot of classes with Latinx parenting, which is an organization that's committed to decolonize nonviolent parenting and so really doing the work of the classes and then trying to put it into practice in the home. And I don't always succeed, but when I do, that's my biggest victory. And I feel like I'm healing and I'm breaking cycles, which is probably what I'm proudest of in my parenting. And what about your teaching and your parenting?

[25:00] NAOMI FERTMAN: It's a hard question. You answered it so quickly and so well and like, I'm just listening to you and don't have an answer. I think that in my teaching, I'm probably most proud of being able to let go as a teacher. I don't know if that makes sense, but as I've become more confident in a classroom, I feel like I've been able to allow more space for real conversation. I teach women in gender studies. I spend a lot of time teaching about gender, sexuality and identity and reproductive justice. And I think when I started to teach those topics, I wanted to control the narrative because I didn't want there to be. I didn't want things to get risky. I didn't want people to get hurt. I wanted people to feel safe. And all of those things are really, really important. But I oftentimes, like, over planned and over lectured because I was scared of the quiet spaces where people would come out and somebody might disagree with somebody coming out or would say something that was inappropriate or I was, you know, I was scared of the stories that people would tell and the kind of, again, that outside hat that they wear when they come into their classroom. And I didn't want them to bring those things into the classroom. I wanted to control it because I wanted to control this idea that education in these topics should be like, what I'm telling you. And I think that as an educator, I have thankfully grown out of that stage in education and have probably been able to embrace, like, all that my students bring into the classroom and had this really amazing opportunity this last semester to teach a gender, sexuality and identity class that was worked with a community project on how it is that we teach teachers and pre service teachers to be better allies to their queer students, called queer in our classrooms. And in that class, we kind of threw out the handbook for what teaching and learning looks like and just sat down and learned together, were together. And the students worked harder than I've probably. It was like, ever seen a group of students work. We were in my office hours constantly, and the students were so dedicated to their learning and to their presentation that they would then do publicly in front of so many teachers and community members. But they were also open to, like, sharing who they were and being open about it. And you got to see the finished project of them presenting this. So I think I'm proudest of that transition and then getting to see what happens when I really let the students bring themselves into the classroom. I let it be risky in the classroom, and sometimes things are said that are really offensive, and you got to really bring it back and figure it out. And sometimes feelings get hurt, and sometimes they cry, and sometimes I cry, and it's okay. I'm learning that humanness. It's okay. Like, it makes. It makes for a good teaching, and I think it makes for really excellent learning in the classroom. So I'm proud of that. I'm proud of that process, I think. And, you know, maybe it's the same with. With parenting. Like, the same role, right, of, like, this, you know, figuring. Figuring out how to be human with my kids as they've grown. You know, I think we carved out a lot. We've carved out a lot of space to be outside with them, to take them on these, like, really big adventures and go camping and spend tons of time climbing and just be outside. And sometimes I think I've questioned, like, whether that's the right thing or not and whether, like, not doing such traditional kid stuff, you know, does that mess them up that they don't get to, you know, go to the trampoline park, you know, instead we're doing other things and. But I think I'm hopeful that maybe demonstrating, like, we're gonna prioritize your needs, but we're also gonna prioritize our needs and, like, our human. Like, that I'm a parent, but I'm also a person and that we can take care of each other in the ways that. In our activities. So I think. And I think that it's. I'm hopeful again, that maybe it's made them stronger little booze out in the world and with the love of, like, a big. A big world out there, so. Yeah, but it's a process, as we both know. So, thinking about this place, right. And your role of, what does it mean to you to be. To be teaching and to be raising kids here on the US Mexico border and to be building communities here, like, physically in this place that we live in?

[29:57] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Well, I think building community has been. I'm learning constantly the importance and how to do it well. And because, you know, I grew up here, as I mentioned in the beginning, lived at my grandparents house, and there was this expectation that, like, they were going to care for me when my mom was working and when she was at school. And I think growing up here, I had hoped that that's what it would look like for me, too, when I had children of my own. But things are different now. My mom can't retire yet, and so she's not able to play the role in my children's life that my grandparents played in my life. And that's okay. I've had to come to terms with that. But it means that I have to be really intentional about creating a community of support that can. So that we're not parenting in isolation, because we know how hard that has always been, but especially during the pandemic. And so I feel like this is such a beautiful place to raise my children, even small things like, my partner is from San Diego, and we'll go visit. And I've noticed that when we show up places with our kids, it's like, people don't want them there. This isn't a place for kids. This is a place for grownups, and the kids are in the way, and they're an inconvenience. And I feel like El Paso is so family oriented, and there have been very few places where I've been with my kids and felt like they weren't welcome and accepted. And I also think that we've, in our friendship with you and your partner and other families who are similar. I feel like, you know, I've met some. I've experienced some families where there's this idea that, like, we're just getting through this kid phase so that we can all move to a more adult phase together and do the things we want to do. And I don't feel like that. With our group of friends that we've cultivated, I feel like we're so. It's child centered, but in a way, like you mentioned, that still meeting our needs as, like, adults and full humans. So, like, we're gonna prioritize what our children need. We're not gonna put them in situations that they don't need to be in, but we're gonna, like, have fun together and hang out together and be a community. And that's been really meaningful. And I feel like growing up here, being in this in between space between two countries, two languages, multiple cultures, it really influenced the way that I see the world. And I have that.

[33:32] NAOMI FERTMAN: That.

[33:36] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: Mestiza consciousness that Gloria Anseldua talks about. And I notice how it's coming up in my kids, and they're so young, but it's already there. They're already just open to the world and open to possibility and thinking about things beyond these strict categories, which is everything that I wanted for them. And then in terms of teaching, it's the same. My students come into the class and they are just open to any possibility. I remember a long time ago when I started talking about gender as a spectrum, and I was teaching at University of New Mexico, which is similar, a similar community, but different. I had so much pushback. Students were very upset that I would talk about gender as anything other than these two distinct categories. But then I so I came to UTEP, and I'm bracing myself on that day to talk about gender, and I'm bracing myself for the pushback. And I had so many students say, oh, I've never heard of this before, but, okay, I'm on board. It makes sense to me. And it was instant. And, I mean, now we're more than a decade past that. So we're talking about gender in new ways. But it any topic that I bring to them that they're always so open and ready to consider something that they've never heard of before. And I believe so strongly that it's tied to this place and this way of being in the world. And it is. I treasure it so much. And I mean, what does it mean for you to be, like, raising your family here and teaching in this specific place?

[35:37] NAOMI FERTMAN: So, like I think I said at the beginning, I think we were outsiders here. And I'm always really conscious of what it means to not grow up here. But I also think about, like, what it means to have children who were born here and children who identify as being from here. And we talk about it at home a lot, and we talk about being white in a city where most people are brown and what that means, because my kids go to a school where they are one of two families that are at the school who are white, families who are not from the neighborhood, and kind of what it means for them to be a part of a community where they may not fit in, but they do fit in. And I feel like we have been so lucky right when I say that we don't fit in, I think a lot of that is surface. And because I think this is family and home now, and I feel so lucky to be here and to have the relationships that we've built in this place, I don't actually think that we would have these kinds of relationships in another city or that people have. I think about, like, what it's meant to raise kids here and how much people really care about each other's families and, like, the number of the ways that people care for each other, that is beyond, like, this. This idea that I think and I imagine or I talk to friends who live in other places, and they can feel so alone in their raising of children. And I think I never feel alone here. Like, I feel like I have this amazing community of friends. But then what's so funny is I have their parents. Like, I have your mom. You know, I have, like, this whole other generation who aren't my. They're not my family. But because we've been so, I feel like our roots are deep now here. And so this multi generational experience that. That maybe we would have otherwise felt isolated from, we don't. And we have it. And it's like a part of, they experienced, like, oh, you know, I know that if we needed it, we could call on these people and that they would be there like they were their own grandchildren, you know, in a heartbeat. So. But I also think that raising kids here, like, my kids, we've talked about it, and I know we've talked about it. Like, you know, a lot of the kids who go to their school would cross from Juarez every morning to come to school, or they, their school is the feeder school for the migrant shelter that is close by. And so for them, they have had an opportunity to have, to have that as a normal part of their everyday. They think that we cross borders for education, to see family, to get our favorite snacks, you know, that this is something that we do, that our best friends do. Right. Sometimes my teacher is late because the line is long, you know, because her, my daughter's teacher last year was crossring from Juarez at morning. And, you know, and so she would, this is just like a part of their daily life. And so I think it's instilled flexibility in them. But also this understanding that this idea of, like, what a border should be, they understand intrinsically the ways that borders really should work, you know, that we have to have movement across them to allow for all of these things, you know? And so when people talk to them about this idea that people aren't welcome or that migrants are waiting to seek asylum, they're like, why? Why would that happen? And they're asking it because for them, they see the ways that these cities are connected and the ways that people move back and forth, and they feel like that's how it should be. And I feel really lucky that they will inherently grow up just with that. That's their understanding and their framework for the world. So I think that that's, you know, as much as. And because El Paso is such a, like, a child friendly community and a child centered community, I think that having kids here has, like, really helped us, you know, have our. Our roots feel, like, just feel tied down now and in the best way. Not tied down, but kind of connected to this place. So, yeah, that's. I think that's it. That's my thought about it.

[40:08] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: I'm so glad you're here.

[40:10] NAOMI FERTMAN: Oh, I'm so glad you're here, too. Well, and thank you for all the projects we're doing together. I'm really excited about these next couple years and, like, tying our, my flag to your flag and just going for it. It feels really exciting. It does.

[40:29] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: And it feels really grounded in all these other things that we're talking about, the way that we're able to think about, like, how does reproductive justice operate in the classroom? How do we carve more space for our students? And I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to talk to you about all of these topics that are, like, probably the most meaningful to me in my whole life. So thank you.

[40:55] NAOMI FERTMAN: Oh, thank you. This has been the best.

[40:57] SARAH DE LOS SANTOS UPTON: I love you.

[40:58] NAOMI FERTMAN: I love you, too, friend.