Hey All! I’m Dr. Sara. Thanks for taking the time to check out the Bellevue College Sociology Department webpage! Let me take some time to tell you a little about myself. I was born in Berkeley, California to hippy artist/musician parents who spent much of their time exposing me to social activism. In the early 1970s my parents divorced and my dad moved back to Queens, New York (he’s originally from Flatbush, Brooklyn) after living in Berkeley for a number of years as the keyboardist for the popular anti-war rock group, Country Joe & The Fish. So, I spent several years going back and forth between Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco, California and New York City, New York.
Much of my youth was spent on the streets of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. I survived a tumultuous childhood by creating lasting friendships at a very young age with friends in the punk rock and heavy metal scenes in the SF/East Bay. School was very difficult for me growing up, and by the time I was fifteen I had already gone to sixteen different public schools in Mill Valley, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and NYC. I also spent some time as a Ward in the San Francisco juvenile court system, and so also spent some time in foster care, group homes, drug rehabilitation centers for youth, and juvenile hall. By fifteen, I was so lost in the system, I gave it up and walked away from high school. Strangely enough, I also always had dreams of being an educator. In fact (true story!!) I wanted to get a Ph.D. before I ever knew what a Ph.D. was. I didn’t know until I was in graduate school, working on my Master’s Degree that it stood for “Doctor of Philosophy.” That’s how ungroomed I was for higher education!
At any rate – after dropping out of high school and spending several years trying to stay out of trouble (I was free from the arms of the system and well on my way to some semblance of independence and healthy balance by the time I was around nineteen), I decided to tackle college as best I could. I enrolled at Laney Junior College in Oakland, but didn’t have a very good experience there. I believe I just wasn’t ready – I had some great teachers, but my head was still in the clouds.
In 1991 I moved back to New York to be closer to my dad and lived there for a year. When I came back to Berkeley, I started thinking seriously about my future. In 1993 I became pregnant with my son Devin and that was my wake-up call. I started back to school immediately and intensely at Vista Community College where after my first year back my son was born in the summer of 1994. I immediately went back the following Fall and completed my Associates Degree in English/Language/Writing. I was then accepted to Mills College in Oakland, a private, all-women’s college and plowed on through. I was accepted as an English major and decided, in line for registration, to change my major to Sociology. Despite a horrible Introductory class I had taken at Vista, I became enamored of all the offerings in Sociology that Mills College had: Criminology, Sociology of Death and Dying, Sociology of Religion…I had the “Sociology Bug”! I changed my major and reenrolled as an official Sociology Major. In 1997 I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Sociology, with a minor in Communications (focusing on Journalism). My Bachelor’s Thesis was on Breastfeeding Public Policy and the Formula Industry. At one point, I had aspirations of becoming a midwife, and even went through the training to be a labor coach, or “doula”.
After college, I took a year off to wait tables (I was broke!) and work as Managing Editor for a now-defunct magazine called Fabula (I’ve got copies in my office if you want to check them out!). After my year off, I entered graduate school at Humboldt State University in the Sociology Program. It was the best education I had – I loved the learning environment there. I got heavily into applied research, working with the juvenile justice system, and also began teaching in the Native American Studies program. I wrote my Master’s thesis on the impact of the Red Power Movement on Indigenous Peoples in Higher Education. After two years, I received my Masters with Distinction and entered the Ph.D. program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where I began work on my doctorate in Sociology. My dissertation focused on New Age Shamanism in the United States. I graduated in 2005 with a parenthetical notation (that’s fancy for a minor) in American Studies.
I have lived all up and down the West Coast from Los Angeles, CA to up here in Seattle and I have absolutely fallen in love with the Pacific Northwest. Like my Sociology compatriot, Denise Johnson, the weather has grown on me! I have been at Bellevue since 2006 and adore teaching. I love the ‘a-ha’ moments students get, and even more sometimes, I love the ‘a-ha’ moments I get from students.
I am now working on several projects. I write poetry, short stories, and am working on a memoir. I recently published an article on zombie films and am working on a research project that looks at heavy metal and working class culture. I live in Seattle with my teenage son and play roller derby for Tilted Thunder Rail Birds! Thanks for reading and I hope you swing by my office soon!