Victoria Elizondo Receives Prestigious Boren Award

Victoria Elizondo has been awarded a Boren Fellowship to study in Brazil during the 2021-2022 academic year.  Victoria is currently a master’s student in international studies.  Her Boren Fellowship will provide support to study Portuguese at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Florianópolis. Victoria is the fourth graduate student from Texas State University to receive a Boren Fellowship, the third from international studies, and the second to study Portuguese in Brazil.  

The David L. Boren Awards are sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP), a federal initiative designed to build a broader and more qualified pool of U.S. citizens with foreign language and international skills. Boren Scholarships and Fellowships provide U.S. undergraduate and graduate students, respectively, with resources and encouragement to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to the future security and stability of the United States. In exchange for funding, Boren recipients agree to work in the federal government for at least one year. 
 
This year the Boren Awards program received 334 applications from graduate students for Boren Fellowships — and only 124 were awarded. Selected Boren Scholars and Fellows intend to study 33 different languages in 37 countries throughout Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.  Given the unprecedented global COVID-19 pandemic, Boren will work flexibly with 2021 awardees to ensure that as many as possible are able to proceed with their overseas language study when it is safe and feasible to do so. 

Victoria earned a Bachelor of Arts in international studies from Texas State in 2018. Her interest in international studies began in high school by participating in Model United Nations simulations, where she was introduced to the fields of diplomacy and international relations. Model UN combined her interests in history and political science and led her to the international studies degree program at Texas State. In addition to being a graduate student, Victoria is also the Program Coordinator for the Center for International Studies on campus, where she assists the director, Dr. Paul Hart, with providing student career and internship opportunities, supporting graduate students, mentoring student organizations, and coordinating multicultural programming through guest lectures, faculty/student panels, and informational sessions.

Victoria’s thesis research, supervised by Dr. Anadelia Romo, focuses on understanding the political and cultural factors driving migration and immigration in the context of migrant “securitization” — a phenomenon that emerged during the Trump administration, according to her research, and has continued to be a cause of polarization domestically. She hopes to explore the disconnect between political and cultural realities faced by migrants/immigrants in central and south America and the discourses employed by the United States, and other nations, that have created environments of radicalized xenophobia. This research is important to Victoria because international immigration – both legal and illegal – continues to be a pressing global issue as countries debate comprehensive immigration reform and the role national rhetoric plays in immigration policies. 

With a longstanding interest in federal service, Victoria’s career goals include working for the Department of State, gaining advanced regional expertise in Latin America, and ultimately moving to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a political or targeting analyst with language expertise in Portuguese and Spanish. As a Hispanic woman, Victoria hopes to increase the diversity of the federal service workforce in which most workers identify as male and only 8% of employees identify as Hispanic. A life in federal service will afford Victoria the opportunity to serve and represent Hispanic women in the U.S. government, who often find themselves the subject of diversity discourse but are not always active participants in the conversation.

“The Boren application process was far more work than I initially thought – which in hindsight has made selection so much more rewarding,” Victoria says about the process of applying for the Boren Fellowship. “I share this award with The Graduate College’s external funding coordinators and, more importantly, Dr. Brian Smith, who was extremely helpful in pushing me towards not only strengthening my writing but also advocating for myself and portraying my goals and aspirations on paper.” Victoria’s advice to future applicants is “to utilize campus resources! You are your biggest advocate. By that I mean – you know yourself better than anyone else and are the best equipped for answering those crucial essay questions in the Boren application.” 

Since 1994, over 7,000 students have received Boren Awards and contributed their vital skills to careers in support of the critical agency missions throughout the federal government. “To continue to play a leadership role in the world, it is vital that America's future leaders have a deep understanding of the rest of the world,” says former U.S. Senator David Boren, the principal author of the legislation that created NSEP. “As we seek to lead through partnerships, understanding of other cultures and languages is absolutely essential.”