LeighAnna Hidalgo Featured on UCLA Newsroom

Recent UCLA graduate student, LeighAnna Hidalgo, was featured on UCLA Newsroom.

Despite childcare challenges imposed by the pandemic, LeighAnna Hidalgo completed her dissertation on April 13 while staying safer at home in her apartment in Los Feliz. At home, Hildago’s office became a small bistro table for a desk and her children’s bed as her chair. It was painful for her being there at home with her family, but also absent from them at the same time. “That was the hardest part. They miss me. And I feel bad about stopping them, since they want to play with me or have a tickle session. They’re not used to my husband and I being home. They’re used to being at day care or kindergarten, so they want our attention.”

But the experience has not been without its ironic family moments. “I had to finish my dissertation on time, so I started a countdown: ‘OK guys just four more days, and then I am all yours.’ My daughter would say, ‘Mommy, I can’t wait. When this is over we’re just going to snuggle all day.’ Of course, when it finally happened, she snuggled me for two minutes and then she was over it, and went off to do something else.”

To read the full article, please visit UCLA Newsroom.

Photo from Jeff Newton/UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center.