Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Jolivette.
Hi Andrew, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
When I was six years old, I flunked the first grade. It was a devastating and ultimately life-changing experience. When I got home my mother had me stand on the side of our bathroom tub so that I could see my own face in the mirror. She then said repeat after me, “I am somebody, I am somebody, I AM SOMEBODY!” It was a powerful early lesson in what I now describe as radical love and thrivance trough kinship practice. When I was 13 I participated in the Aim High Program which provided social and cultural enrichment programs to inspire and prepare middle school and elementary students for success in high school. I had so many mentors along the way who helped to shape the way I see the world and interact with others. At 18 I went to Tijuana, Mexico on the Ven a Ver mission where I began to understand the importance of service, compassion, as well as diversity. When I was an undergraduate student at Lincoln University (an HBCU) I discovered the importance of the African diaspora as a way of understanding community connections across time, space, place, and identity. After leaving Lincoln University to return to San Francisco (Yelamu, Ramaytush Ohlone traditional territory) first to the City College of San Francisco and eventually to the University of San Francisco in the mid-1990s I had a transformative moment. Since I was 10 years old if not earlier, my father would also say to me in French Creole, “Faire quois ti va Faire ti bouge “[Do what you have to do young man.”] which I took to mean, do what you have to do, so that you can do what you must. At USF, I was fortunate to be hired at SF Day School Summerbridge when I was 21 where I got to teach 5th and 6th graders Native American Studies, Women’s Studies, and Ethnic Studies. It was truly life-changing. It shifted my focus for a life of service as a lawyer to one of teaching. Like Aim High, Summerbridge inspired me to be the change I hoped to see in the world. At 22 I want on to study for a Master’s Degree in Ethnic Studies with a concentration in American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University before beginning my journey into academia as a college professor. At 24 I began doctoral studies in the Department of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz where I studied Black Indian and Afro-Indigenous cultural formation and revitalization. When I was 25, I taught my first course People of Mixed descent at the University of San Francisco. And at 27, when I was nearing the end of my dissertation studies and simultaneously working as a Dean of Middle School Students and Multicultural Programs at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco and as an adjunct professor in sociology and American Indian Studies at San Francisco State, I was diagnosed with AIDS. I had 35 t-cells and my viral load was over 500,000. The close the T-Cell count is to zero and the closer the viral load is to a million the closer you are to death. I survived through the active kinship wellness practices of my family and community. Over the past 23 years since that diagnosis I have dedicated my life to service in the field of education. From 2003-2019 I was Professor and Department Chair of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State. From 2019-2024 I was Professor and Department Chair of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego and as of 2024 I have been working as Professor of Sociology and Afro-Indigenous Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Since moving to San Diego from the Bay Area I have been so fortunate to work with local organizations and associations such as the San Diego LGBTQ Center, as an advisory board member Advisory Board Member for the Yankelovich Center for Social Science Research at UC San Diego Spring, as an Advisory Council Member for “Re-Development of Race: Are We So Different?” at the Museum of US, as a co-Principal investigator of the UC San Diego Labor Center, as a member and presenter with the San Diego Center for AIDS Research, SD-CFAR, as an Advisory Board Member of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, for the exhibit, Medical Condition: Art, Illness and the Body, Pacific Standard Time Exhibition, An Initiative of the Getty Foundation, and as an Advisory Board Member, Center for Empathy and Technology at the University California, San Diego. At UC San Diego I also worked with other faculty, students, and staff to create the first ever program in Native American and Indigenous Studies. As founding Director of NAIS at UCSD from 2020-2024 I oversaw the creation of a minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies and a Ph.D. Graduate Certificate in NAIS and am a co-founder of the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council. In the past 20 years I have written nine books with the tenth book being completed this summer. My first love and passion is teaching and mentoring students who are changing our world for the better.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As I mentioned in my story, I was diagnosed with AIDS (advanced HIV disease) in 2002 and it changed my life in important ways. It taught me to care more, to work harder to appreciate all aspects of life and to center the needs of others. In 2014 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer a year after my mother had passed away from breast cancer and this had a profound impact on my commitment to understanding health disparities and how I might use my voice to inspire and encourage others to live their best lives even through difficult and life-threatening moments. For the past twenty years I have worked closely with Speak Out Speakers and Artists Agency also known as the Institute for Democratic Education and Culture as Board President and as I speaker. My talks have brought me to places like Sydney and Brisbane Australia, Cuba, Toronto Canada, and most of the United States to share my story with thousands of people from all walks of life and primarily with community based organizations and college and university students seeks to change the world through civic engagement. I have also experienced a lot of anti-Black racism in and outside of academia. As a Louisiana Creole of mixed French, American Indian (Atakapa-Ishak, Kaskaskia, and Algonquin descent), Spanish, African (Nigerian, Senegalese, Ghanian), Irish, Spanish, Mexican, Haitian, and Italian descent my life as centered complexity, honesty, and an all-in-all mindset where I try to center a whole self approach as opposed to just an intersectional perspective. How do we accept all aspects of ourselves all the time and at the same time is a fundamental question in this journey.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My specialization is in critical mixed race studies and one area of this work I would like to highlight is my creative writing and poetry. In 2024, my debut poetry cookbook, Gumbo Circuitry: Poetic Routes, Gastronomic Legacies was published by That Painted Horse Press. I have also been a creative consultant and adviser on several documentary and film projects address coastal erosion, Native American identity, and Louisiana Creole identity. My other books include the Lammy Award nominated book, Indian Blood: HIV and Colonial Trauma in San Francisco’s Two-Spirit Community (2016), Cultural Representation in Native American (2006), Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-Race Native American Identity (2007), Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority (2013), Research Justice: Methodologies for Social Change (2015), American Indian and Indigenous Education for the 21st Century (2019), a co-edited book, Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community (2022) and the 10th anniversary edition of Research Justice: Methodologies for Social Change with a new Preface/Introduction was released in April 2025. My passion for service has also led me to serve on many community and non profits board such as the GLBT Historical Society and Museum on San Francisco as Co-Chair, the African American Art and Culture Complex of San Francisco as a board member, iPride for Multiracial Children and Families as Board President, as current Board President of the American Indian Cultural Center of San Francisco, as an Advisory Board Member to the Native American Health Center in Oakland, CA. and most recently as an Advisory Board Member of UCLA’s American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and as an Editorial Board Member for Adam Matthew Digital Publishing. I think my focus on radical love the understanding of how past traumas and vulnerabilities impact us and that when we collectively heal and center our joyful experiences as well it allows us to thrive. Several years back I have a talk at Oregon State University and the organizers later made a t-shirt with a quote from my talk which really embodies this idea of radical love and thrivance. “To Turn our traumas and vulnerabilities into moments to change our lives is Radical Love” Survive + Resist + Thrive = Thrivance
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love how beautiful and green it is here. I love how welcoming and peaceful people here are…there is a level of care for animals in the city which I greatly admire. The food and cultural events are also absolutely fantastic. traffic is something I like least. Bigotry in any form I cannot stand and while bigotry is everywhere I believe our city can do better. We can stand up even in the toughest times and be counted. When I was in my final year at UC San Diego I had worked to initiate an Palestinian Leader in residence program but soon learned that after I left the Dean where my department was housed instructed the department to change this because they could not use the “in-residence” title because it implied they would be employees of the university this despite the fact that I had already worked to create the first ever Native American Culture Bearer in residence program which was well received on campus, so it seems discussing Palestine or highlighting community based work among Palestinian Americans was not a topic the campus wanted to highlight. I still se persistence in the people of this area. I see kindness among my neighbors in La Mesa and Hillcrest who have been to our home for dinner and who look out for us as we look out for them. To me this is the heart of any community—a desire to see everyone doing well.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.speakoutnow.org/speakers/andrew-jolivette
- Instagram: @creoleandres
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.jolivette.5/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-jolivette-24973822
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C9NIJomqg8
- Other: https://ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/people/jolivette.html and https://www.soc.ucsb.edu/people/andrew-jolivétte
Image Credits
Photo seated with blanket and Strong Resilient Indigenous T-shirt, Photo Credit: Jean Melesaine https://www.jeanmelesaine.com/about
Photo at Mic in bright orange shirt (short hair) Photo Credit, Linda Jones, thefirstsixweeksphotography.zenfolio.com
Black and White Photo with blanket Photo Credit: Britt Fajardo
T-Shirt Design with Quote, https://www.peopleofcolourclothing.com
Atakapa Ishak Flag design by Dr. Rain Prud’Homme Cranford, https://poets.org/poet/rain-prudhomme-cranford
