Veteran student finds a home and purpose at CSUMB

By Mark Muckenfuss

Cal State Monterey Bay senior Monica Andrade is being named Veteran of the Year for Monterey County’s 3rd Supervisorial District this year. Having served seven years in the Army – including a yearlong tour in Iraq – Andrade will be honored in a ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9, at the Elk’s Lodge in Salinas. 

The award, Andrade said, “symbolizes the enduring commitment to lead, serve, and uplift others long after we doff our uniforms. It means joining the ranks of a group of people who continue to serve and actively work to make positive change wherever they go.”

Andrade has worked to make a difference in her local community for the past decade and wants to do more once she graduates in December.

“I believe I’m going to be working in a non-profit, either creating or managing programs that will impact families in meaningful ways and building safer communities,” she said.

A Salinas native, Andrade is majoring in human development and family science. During her Army career, from 2000 to 2007, she was a supply specialist working in logistics. She dealt with vehicle parts, helping to keep things running, literally, on foreign bases. In addition to her stint in Iraq, she was stationed in Darmstadt, Germany, for two years. Veterans Day, she said, is a time to reflect on her service to the country. 

“I often think, ‘If I could do that, I could do so much more,’” she said, reflecting on the challenges she faced as a soldier. “I know it's not Memorial Day, but I also think about those who are no longer with us. I prefer to spend the day at home with my loved ones.”

In recent years, her family has begun a tradition. 

“We identify one or two military families, and we send them a care package,” she said. “When I was stationed in what was then Fort Hood, we used to get care packages. It made a difference knowing people were out there thinking of you.” 

This is not the first time Andrade has received this type of honor. Last year, she was named  California Senate District 14 Woman of the Year for successfully leading the campaign for Soledad Measure P, a referendum to establish voting districts in that city. 

Andrade had two children while she was on active duty. Like many who serve, she paid a price, spending many months away from them. 

“I had been away in the military so long, I didn’t know my children,” she said. “I needed to be more involved with them.”

She also needed to find a job, she said. She enrolled at Hartnell College and earned an associate degree in early childhood education, and almost immediately got a full-time job in the field. For the past 10 years, Andrade has worked for the nonprofit Door to Hope as a parent educator and family play facilitator. 

Being a student has led to an additional aspect in that role. Where she once focused on helping to protect the country, she recently began working on protecting an endangered indigenous language among residents of Greenfield. Andrade’s senior capstone project is looking at ways in which Triqui – a pre-Columbian language spoken in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico – can be sustained among the immigrant population. In her work as a play facilitator, she noticed that while the language was being used by adults who came from that part of Mexico, Triqui was not being passed down to their children.

“Among themselves, they have so much fun expressing themselves,” Andrade said of the adults she works with. “But the children do not like being spoken to in Triqui. I’m trying to help the parents connect with their children in Triqui.”

Through simple songs and nursery rhymes, she is encouraging parents to interact with their children and lay down the foundations of the language. Although her own Mexican roots lie elsewhere and her ancestors did not speak Triqui, sustaining the language is still important to her, she said. Out of the 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, about 4,000 are considered to be indigenous and many of them are in danger of disappearing. 

“That’s a last lifeline to a time when we were our original selves,” she said.

When she is not in the field, working with families, Andrade spends much of her time in the Veterans Resource Center. At 44, she – like many of CSUMB’s veteran students – is older than most traditional students. And, even though her oldest daughter is also an Otter, she doesn’t feel she always relates with the younger set. The center helps with that, she said.

“Other veterans drop by and we get to mingle and talk,” she said. “It’s easier with other veterans to say, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ We say, ’What branch did you serve in? Where were you stationed and what was your job?’”

As Veterans Day approaches, the conversations may turn to acknowledging the holiday, but the center is an important resource all year long, Andrade said.

“I’d be more isolated without the veterans center,” she said. “I like it there. It feels kind of like home.”