In Their Words: John Kenney

Name: John Kenney

College: Merrill

Department: Sociology and Community Studies

What Award/Scholarship did you receive? Sociology of Race, Class, and Gender Senior Thesis Award

What year do you expect to graduate? Spring 2019

Where do you call home? San Diego, CA

With all of the choices for college, what made UC Santa Cruz stand out? At the time, the trees and the opportunity to do research, study sociology. My relationship to the university and the city have changed as I’ve learned more about their histories and how they operate but in the beginning I was just excited to be here.

What is your field of focus? It’s still taking shape as it grows, but my thesis focuses on the ideological work that monuments and historic sites in California do to produce settler and citizen identities. I want to know what kind of subjectivities these sites produce and what possibilities they foreclose on. This has important, dire consequences, I think, for how we relate to one another and to the land.

What do you hope to do once you graduate from UC Santa Cruz? I’m going to continue my current research, start thinking seriously about applying to graduate school, and learn to play the banjo.

What is one memorable moment that stands out for you as a student here? I’ve sometimes fallen into the trap of thinking that my work here isn’t useful, or that it doesn’t have bearing on the “real” world. Two moments stand out which reminded me that aporia and complacency are not positions that we can afford to take. The first was the resolution put forward by the Amah Mutsun, asking that the El Camino Real bell on campus be removed. The second was George Blumenthal's comments to City on a Hill Press expressing his support of the Thirty Meter Telescope, proposed to be built on   Mauna Kea, a mountain sacred to indigenous people in Hawaii. We cannot afford to feel removed or separate from colonial violence when we see and feel it happening all around us. 

What is your one piece of advice for incoming students about life at UC Santa Cruz? Become involved with and aware of what is going on in Santa Cruz. This isn’t just a place to stay for four years while getting your degree. In the words of Bertolt Brecht:

Please, we say to you now, do not accept,
Events that happen every day as natural!
For in these times of bloody confusion,
Ordered disorder, deliberate violence,
Inhuman humanity,
Nothing must be called natural, so that nothing
May be thought to be unchallenged.

How will this scholarship/award impact your academic life/research? I feel honored to have my thesis recognized with this award. I’m planning on continuing with this research and this will help me to do that.