Damaris Juarez | ’21 B.A. History
By Marya BarlowAs a commuter student from Oxnard at CSUCI, Damaris Juarez always had a favorite campus spot to study — the John Spoor Broome Library.
“With two sisters and two brothers, my home could get noisy, so I needed a good place to do my homework,” she said. “I would always go to the reference desk to ask questions, and over time, I developed a great relationship with the librarians.”
Juarez graduated from Pacifica High School and became a History major and first-generation student, who entered CSUCI with plans to become a teacher. However, her long days at the library and the relationship she built with former librarian Elizabeth Blackwood set her on a new path.
“I was able to serve in a year-long internship with the John Spoor Broome Library,”
she said. “Through that internship, I was able to find my passion for the field of
library information sciences. That’s where I discovered I wanted to be a librarian.”
Today, Juarez is the library media technician for the elementary school she attended as a child – Ramona Elementary, a dual-language immersion school in Oxnard. She holds story times with all of the school’s 580 children in kindergarten to fifth grade, tracks students’ reading goals and comprehension, leads the accelerated reader program, teaches students how to research and use the library’s resources, and manages the library’s inventory.
“For me, the best part is forming a welcoming library environment for the students and letting them know that I believe in them,” she said. “Like many of them, when I came to Ramona as a student, my first language was Spanish. I learned English there. I love connecting with them, telling them about my experience, and spreading encouragement.”
Juarez is also working toward a master’s degree in Library Science at San Jose State University — a challenge for which, thanks to CSUCI, she is well-prepared.
During her internship at the Broome Library, she developed a guide for first-generation students on how to conduct academic research, use the library’s academic database, and understand primary and secondary sources. She also co-authored and published “Virtual Undergraduate Internships: One COVID-19 Side Effect that Academic Libraries Should Keep” — an academic journal article on virtual undergraduate internships with academic libraries.
Juarez remains in close contact with CSUCI. She recently invited Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies, Jennie Luna, to speak to her Ramona students for Read Across America. Two of her sisters, Merari and Eunice Juarez, also hold degrees from CSUCI. Juarez dreams of one day returning to work as an academic librarian on the campus where her career journey began.
“I will be forever grateful to CSUCI for supporting me and providing a culturally welcoming and responsive community,” she said. “CSUCI helped me to believe in myself and keep going to achieve things I never would have imagined.”