Images: Vassar College
A Publication of the ALANA Center
Spotlight with Light Carruyo, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Latin American and Latino/a Studies
By Isella Ramirez ‘07
Light Carruyo received her B.A. from Oberlin College in Women’s Studies and Sociology and her Ph.D. in Sociology from University of California, Santa Barbara. Her primary areas of research are the gendered and racial dimensions of nation building and economic development. Her teaching interests center on social justice and include race and racism in global context, Latina/os in the Americas, gender and development, globalization, and critical qualitative methods.
Light Carruyo was born in Venezuela, where she lived until she was ten years old. At age eleven, Carruyo and her family moved to the United States. While in the United States, Carruyo has moved several times to several different places, including: Buffalo, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Santa Barbara and most recently Poughkeepsie. Her most recent move involved leaving Santa Barbara for Poughkeepsie, which took time for her to adjust. Now she says she is "learning to love Poughkeepsie more and more."
This past summer, she participated in the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, a non-profit organization that both helps the community learn about cultivation and enjoy the produce available in the Hudson Valley. Carruyo, who purchased a summer CSA share (Community Supported Agriculture) worked about twelve hours in the fields over the course of the summer, and received fresh produce every week. Remembering back to the days of the summer harvests, she speaks about how fresh and different they were from vegetables in the market. Aside from her time farming and picking up produce, Carruyo visits the farm very frequently because it is Luna’s (her dog) favorite place to take walks.
Always a woman on the go, Carruyo spends what little free time she has visiting family and friends. When asked what she does when there isn’t a class to teach, a book to write, or some research to do, she shares, "I visit people a lot. I feel like I have all these close friends that I’ve made because I’ve moved around so much, done research abroad, and my family’s in Venezuela."
While speaking about her first impressions of Vassar, Carruyo shares, "People were willing to learn new things and open themselves to new things, and I think that’s generally remained true for the most part in my classes." However, she also states that it is a bit more conservative than she originally thought, while not forgetting that "there are a lot of people pushing it in sort of interesting ways." In terms of diversity, she thinks "its less diverse than I expected it to be, but I think that there is a handful of committed people who are really trying to push at the boundaries and really hold the institution accountable, and that’s good."
In her own experience as a Latina professor, she states, "It is a little a jarring to be only one of two or three. Some people may not be expecting to see a Latina in this role and I think that can be a challenge, but it also makes you think about how important it is that you are here—I imagine it is similar for students of color." However, Carruyo shares that having several colleagues who have gone out of their way to be supportive has made a big difference.
To the readers of IMAGES and more specifically, to the prospective and current students of Vassar, she advises they visit the farm, and to find out about the ALANA Center. “From my experience and from what I’ve seen and from what people talk about, the ALANA Center is a great place to get plugged in. It gets some bad publicity from people who see it as self-segregation, but I don’t think about it like that at all. I think it’s an incredibly valuable space to meet people, network, and create an environment that works for you at Vassar.