Putting Doubts Aside: Essy Barroso-Ramirez Combats the Impostor Phenomenon for First-Generation Scientists

When Essy Barroso-Ramirez published her latest article “Impostor phenomenon as a first-generation scholar” In a magazine and digital platform for women of color in librarianship, Eva Acosta, her retired academic advisor at Cabrillo College, was one of the first people she texted. Although it had been years since Barroso-Ramirez earned five associate degrees from Cabrillo, she had never forgotten how her advisor made her feel.

“I will always give her credit because she really played a key role in my life,” says Barroso-Ramirez, Public Health ’18, MLIS ’21, EdD ’27, who serves as a research services and social sciences librarian at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library since 2022. As a first-generation community college student, Barroso-Ramirez had feared that “no one” was interested in earning an associate’s degree. “Eva taught me that education matters, no matter what degree you pursue.”

Acosta’s powerful message struck a chord with Barroso-Ramirez, whose interests ranged from nursing and public health to bilingual and bicultural education. While attending college, she worked in the Santa Cruz Public Library System and the Cabrillo College Library. Libraries had always offered her a safe haven; As an elementary school student, she often spent her breaks reading aloud under the friendly eyes of the school librarians.

Libraries also provided important access to information in multiple languages. During her time at Santa Cruz Public Libraries, she dedicated herself to serving Latino, Spanish-speaking families and patrons. Barroso-Ramirez, along with SCPL colleague Lorena López Rivera, worked with Santa Cruz County nonprofit Community Bridges to service two of their preschool sites. Together they created a new bilingual story program in Santa Cruz called Cuentitos.

Although she originally envisioned serving communities through public health, after completing her bachelor’s degree at San Jose State University, she realized how a career as a librarian could combine her passion for supporting first-generation scholars in all disciplines. She enrolled in the master’s program in information and library science at SJSU.

Rewriting the first generation narrative

Barroso-Ramirez sees unique opportunities in spaces like King Library for students, staff and faculty alike. She hopes her research and service will help change the narrative about first-generation students and faculty in higher education and beyond.

“First-generation students can be successful,” she says. “For some of us it is a long and hard road, for others perhaps not. I think one of the most important things for students who could relate to me is to find mentors, because if I hadn’t had the mentors that I had, I don’t know if I would be here. I know I have the skills, but I don’t think I would have believed in my own abilities as much if I hadn’t seen my potential reflected in someone who had already “made it.” At least for me, hearing the message “You can do it” from someone who looks like me or might be similar to me was more powerful than hearing it from someone who can’t commit to it.”

Barroso-Ramirez found many mentors at SJSU who shared positive and encouraging messages, including Associate Professor of Humanities Cynthia Rostankowski; former Adelante and Underrepresented Minorities Student Success Coordinator Itza Sanchez, Anthropology ’04, Cultural Leadership ’17; Frank Torres, lecturer in information and library science; and Assistant Professor of Information and Library Science Michele AL Villagran. Since a big hurdle in combating the scammer phenomenon is knowing who and when to ask for help, she says it helps to know she has mentors like these in her corner.

Broaden horizons

Fortunately, a library has many “corners”. As an academic librarian, Barroso-Ramirez fulfills multiple roles at once. Primarily, it is a resource for anyone visiting the King Library, while also providing specialized research support for SJSU faculty, students, and staff in the Communication Studies and Political Science departments. As a tenure-track faculty member, she also focuses on conducting and publishing research, and as a doctoral candidate in the educational leadership program at the Connie L. Lurie College of Education, Barroso-Ramirez is formulating a practice dissertation or research project on real-world problems.

While her doctoral research is still in its early stages, Barroso-Ramirez wants to explore the experiences of first-generation academic librarians the color. Once a first-generation student graduates, they face a number of new changes in the workplace that can be difficult to navigate.

“Although my personal life experience is by no means monolithic, I feel like I have seen first-generation students treated in a certain way,” she says. “There are programs specifically designed to help first-generation students, but when you get into academia, we are still members of the first generation; Like my advisor Dr. Maria Ledesma says being part of the “first generation” is a continuum. For me personally, there is a lot of support and guidance, but it would be nice if there were more programs aimed at young researchers and tenure-track teachers.

“I want to examine how the imposter phenomenon impacts Latino or BIPOC academic librarians specifically,” she continues. “As an already underrepresented, marginalized group of people entering the ivory tower [of higher education institutions] can feel really exclusionary and elitist. Who determines what information is accessible and who is allowed to disseminate this information? In which languages?”

One way to answer these big questions is to make the library a more inclusive and diverse space.

She curated in fall 2023 Bailando Con Orgullo, an exhibition at King Library’s Africana, Asian American, Chicano, and Native American Studies Center (AAACNA) that celebrated San José’s first LGBTQ+ folclórico group, Ensamble Folclórico Colibrí. A dancer herself, Barroso-Ramirez is proud to share Colibrí’s inclusive message.

“Art in the form of dance is also a cultural strengthening,” she says. “Colibrí doesn’t conform to traditional gender norms, which is truly groundbreaking. Traditionally in Mexico, a woman wears a skirt and a male person wears boots. There is no right or wrong way to perform art.”

And perhaps, as her community college career counselor suggested, there is no right or wrong way to pursue an education.