Professor Oliva-Alvarado is incredibly talented as a scholar and professor.
She nurtures student learning and works hard to meet the needs of her students.
She is really kind and understanding, and easy to reach if any problems or questions arise and you need help immediately, so don't be afraid to email or text her!
Her lectures are clear and precise, and she always references readings in her slides. Her exams are easy in the sense she gives you all the information you need, the midterm is take home with multiple choice and an essay section, but she requires you to be critically engaged. The final is either a research paper or a creative final, both of which she gives you over a month to prepare and work on before the due date.

She is not a tough grader, however does provide room for you to grow with her comments or suggestions for future assignments.

Overall, this course taught by Oliva-Alvarado has been incredibly enlightening and empowering to my development and understanding of the diversity among people and their descendants who inhabit the region, but also illuminated the problematics they face due to power systems which have worked to subordinate and normalize there position. I highly recommend it for those who are looking for courses that offer a global, yet intimate understanding of people and their experiences.

Personally, this course has been very influential and I hope more courses like this are constructed and expanded to become tools of understanding for more students. I believe these lessons to be essential to not only ones understanding of self, but ones understanding of the world, and hence critical for learning.

Highly recommend!!!!

Professor Olivia-Alvarado has been one of my favorite professors at UCLA. This was my first Chicano/a class I took and I’m glad it was with her. She’s a very friendly professor who is really passionate about what she’s lecturing about.
The class itself consisted of a take home midterm paper where you choose 2 questions and write a short essay on them, a final paper and a group project. None of it is very difficult, as long as you put in effort. I personally didn’t buy the books and just used the slides when needed.