Jenica Rose Garcia ’21 was eager to find community when she moved from her hometown in the Bay Area to Los Angeles to attend Loyola Marymount University. For Garcia, LMU’s location in a diverse city offered an important sense of home.
As the hustle and bustle of college life began to set in, she felt the pull to be a part of something larger than herself. After exploring many of the campus’ different resources during her freshman year, she found herself standing in the office of LGBT Student Services. It was there that she knew: she had found the community she’d been looking for.
“Through LGBT Student Services, so many doors opened for me,” says Garcia. “Now, I feel like the person I am is so extremely different from entering as a freshman.
“I’m vocal with my opinions, and I’m more passionate about pursuing different social justice goals.”
She promptly began working for the office which sits in Ethnic and Intercultural Suite (Malone 201), where she still works to this day. She has become an advocate for the LGBT community on campus in many ways, such as leading an on-campus demonstration for trans rights in response to the move from the current presidential administration to narrow the definition of gender.
“The demonstration was one of the best moments for me, simply because I was really nervous about doing it. I’ve always been the person in the crowd cheering, not at the mic,” says Garcia. She notes how the support she got from the LGBT Student Services team helped her make her vision of the day possible, and she is proud to have set the stage for many students and groups voice their support of the LMU’s LGBT population.
Garcia warmly recalls the many mentors and friends whom she has met since joining the team, like LGBT Student Services director Lauren Moreno, all who shared her passion for creating a more inclusive community for all and challenged her to take part in dialogues surrounding equality, both on and off campus.
“Our office shares space with a lot of other campus resources, like Office of Black Student Services, Muslim Student Life, and Chicano Latino Student Services,” notes Garcia. “Because we’re so close, you meet so many people in so many different circles that have the same goal and are striving for equality.”
As a self-proclaimed film buff, she hopes to enter the entertainment industry as an animation artist someday. With a major in animation major and minors in film and Asian Pacific American studies, she says that her experience as a part of the community has also helped framed her vision for her professional life outside of college.
“I want to be able to bring representation for people into the work I do. I want to bring the voices of people who aren’t often heard or seen in media to the forefront,” she says. “Being a part of such a like-minded group has given me a clear goal for the content I create in the world.”
Now, Garcia has become a leader in a number of other like-minded communities on campus as president of Queer Film Club, and president of Transcendence, LMU’s group for trans and gender non-conforming students. She also held an event her freshman year focused on sharing Queer Art History and is an active member of other groups such as Delta Kappa Alpha fraternity, Issa Bansa and Asia Media International.
“I’ve come to appreciate this community so much, whether it be professionally, socially, or community wise,” says Garcia. “It gave me a lot more opportunities that I didn’t even know were there.”