Nancy García-Vázquez Wins 2025 Davee Scholarship
Introduction
"Wait, this is a scam, right?"
So thought Nancy García-Vázquez (History, '29) when, on the day of her high school graduation, she received an email from LAS Dean Lisa Freeman and Department of History chair Kevin M. Schultz, telling her the good news.
García-Vázquez, a first-year History major at UIC, is the latest winner of the Davee Foundation Scholarship for high-achieving History and English undergraduates. The award, established in 2019 and named after Adeline Barry Davee and Ruth Dunbar Davee, reflects the benefactors’ generosity and love for the disciplines of History and English. Each of those Departments awards one Davee scholarship a year. Winners receive the full cost of attendance at UIC until graduation for up to five years and must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA.
García-Vázquez is the 2025 winner from the Department of History.
A recent graduate of John Hancock High School, García-Vázquez was born in Mercy Hospital, Chicago's oldest hospital, which opened in 1852 before closing in 2021. She then bounced back and forth between Chicago and Mexico before her family permanently moved to the West Lawn neighborhood of Chicago while she was in second or third grade.
The time as a child in Mexico proved valuable in developing her love of history. In the town of Tototlán, in Jalisco, where she lived as a small child, she said there were remnants of older civilizations all over the place, easy to see on any stroll through town. A lot of that history isn't well documented, but she remembers it being incredibly exciting to walk around and see what might have been an ancient pyramid.
For García-Vázquez, history is what she calls "a family passion." Her father wanted to be an historian but never had the chance. To this day they still sit around the kitchen table and tell stories from the historical past or do geography quizzes. Sometimes her dad, who also bounced between Chicago and Mexico as a child, would "lore drop" about his past in Chicago, revealing kernels of Chicago's history. "I feel like I'm carrying on a legacy," she said about being a UIC history major.
In the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, García-Vázquez said she and her family were sustained by historical YouTube video essays. Everyone in the family would watch a video about a topic that interested them, then share what they had learned with the family.
She has brought this love of conversation to the classroom. She is currently in her first semester at UIC and is taking two history classes, one with Prof. Jon Connolly, another with Prof. Michael Jin. "They are so passionate about it," she said. "I love it! It is infectious."
She spent the summer tutoring children in West Garfield Park and wants to become a teacher one day. But she isn't yet certain that will be the path she takes.
After she realized the award notification was authentic, she immediately called her mom, and they both burst into tears. "I was crying that day so much," she said.
Her dad works construction, and none of her three older sisters had the opportunity to go to college. As a first-generation student, she's just "really glad I have so many doors that will open to me. I'm really glad I now have the opportunity to do so many amazing things."
She also sees herself playing a larger role in history. "I get the opportunity to do this not just for my family, but for Latinos across the United States. I feel like the whole world is trying to put me and my culture down right now, and I want to show them what we are capable of."
García-Vázquez immediately rattled off the fact that something close to 18% of Latino women earn a Bachelor's degree, 8% earn a Master's degree, and 1% earn a PhD. Although she's not sure where her educational journey will end, she said, "that's the kind of statistic I want to be a part of."
"I'm really glad I get to be here," she said.