Hailing from the state of Mississippi, Sylver Garcia brings a flair of southern hospitality to campus and the American Studies department.
In fact, she is currently curating her senior thesis with Dr. Tamika Nunley — who teaches Garcia’s favorite class AMST 4157: Readings in Race and Nineteenth-Century American History — about redefining southern hospitality.
“People associate southern hospitality with being warm, welcoming, and openness but my entire goal is to redefine southern ‘hospitality’ to southern ‘hostility’ from the Black perspective and how Black individuals gave rise to culture in Mississippi,” she states. Garcia also hopes to touch upon cookbooks, recipes, music, and other defining elements of southern culture.
As an Afro-Latina, Garcia has also been able to embrace her Latina heritage through the Mexican Student Association, a club she co-founded her freshman year. “I helped co-found MexSA because I was looking for a sense of community that reflects my Mexican heritage and culture and I didn’t really find that at Cornell [at the time],” she said.
Unlike Movimiento Estudiantil Chican at de Aztlán, the goal of MexSA, according to Garica, was to foster more social, cultural bonds with Mexican students on campus who weren’t necessarily committed to advocacy efforts like at MEChA.
During her presidency, Garcia and the MexSA team inaugurally hosted a Quinceñera, a “coming of age” birthday party for a Hispanic girl turning 15 years old, which she hopes will continue after she graduates. “The food was amazing and the vibes are just beautiful,” she echoes.
She hopes to integrate more of her dual heritage into her AMST concentration, focusing on the nexus of Africana and Latino Studies, which she is also double minoring in. “I’ve taken a lot of courses that go in the African diaspora and also learning more about Latinx history that reflects who I am.”
Many of the courses Garcia has taken are cross listed with AMST, in addition to law related classes, which have supplemented Garcia’s goals as a prospective lawyer. “Since I am pre law, the American Studies department most definitely provided me with the sense of interdisciplinary studies and I was able to apply what I’ve learned in my classes in American Studies to my future legal career.”
To further prepare for law school, Garcia returned back to the South this past summer to participate as a summer scholar at the University of Alabama where she learned more about different branches of law, toured different courses around various cities, and more.
“Through AMST, I was able to take law courses with Professor Dawn Chutkow and I learned from her courses more about my legal career, which also prepared me for that summer program.” After undergrad, Garcia will take a gap year to prepare for the LSAT and also intern as a paralegal to gain more experience in the field.
Reflecting on her four years at Cornell, she says that sophomore year homecoming — her first homecoming due to the pandemic — was a core memory for her. In fact, Garcia is Co-Captain of Cornell’s Cheer Team and performed at this year's homecoming game. Her responsibilities included creating formations for chant lines, deciding on which stunts are going to be done for each game, reviewing dances, and liaising between fellow cheerleaders and coaches. “I get to see the inner workings, on a deeper level, of cheer. It’s really complex,” she says.
“I’m from the South so having homecoming is very important to the Southern tradition and culture. So no matter how we differ — in terms of majors, minors, and backgrounds — we all come together to support the Big Red, which I find very inspiring.”
