A CSUN Professor’s Journey from Student to Educator
by Brandon Sarmiento
Margeaux Gamboa-Wong is an adjunct professor in the Asian American Studies and English department, as well as in the Educational Opportunities Program at CSUN. Gamboa-Wong also serves as the faculty coordinator for the Asian American Studies Pathways Project—a student retention organization for CSUN’s Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Before becoming a passionate educator at CSUN, Gamboa-Wong had to persevere through a journey that entailed a different career path—had she followed her family’s dreams and not her own.
If there’s one lesson a student can take away from Gamboa-Wong’s journey, it is that college is not a race to an imaginary finish line. The once CSUN student turned CSUN professor didn’t always have everything figured out from the start.
Gamboa-Wong grew up in the Philippines, both in the cities of Manila and Bacolod, up until her teenage years. She migrated to the U.S. at the age of 16, where she first lived in Los Angeles and then later in the San Fernando Valley.
Like most teens during their years in high school, Gamboa-Wong wasn’t sure what she wanted to pursue in college. Although she had taken extracurriculars, such as a law internship and her high school's speech and debate team, Gamboa-Wong didn’t know what she wanted to major in.
To her aid, those close to Gamboa-Wong encouraged the soon-to-be college student to pursue a career in nursing.
“Being Filipino and surrounded by the stereotype—the nurses and stuff—I didn't really know what I wanted to do because everyone was telling me to be a nurse,” said Gamboa-Wong. In the year 2000, Gamboa-Wong settled on joining the nursing program at Pierce College as a part-time student.
While going to school part-time, Gamboa-Wong also worked full-time as a manager at Designer Shoe Warehouse. Balancing the workload of a full-time job and studying in a field that she didn’t feel passionate about helped Gamboa-Wong realize that nursing wasn’t what she wanted to dedicate her life to. Instead, she decided in 2005 that it was time to focus on her childhood interests of reading and writing by switching her major to English.
One of the common pressures of being a college student is having to major in a field that fits a family member’s vision of success. For Gamboa-Wong, she was met with nothing but support in her decision to drop nursing; despite the encouragement she initially got to pursue it.
“My mom is a registered nurse, she works for Cedars Sinai, and so when I decided to drop nursing and transferred to English, she was supportive for two very good reasons,” Gamboa-Wong said.
“As a working nurse, she kind of was happy that I wasn't going to expose myself to the illnesses that she gets exposed to. As you know, when you work as a nurse, it's part of the job. And then two is, she knew that this [English] was something that I was passionate about…she knew that this was going to be the space where I would be able to flourish.”
In 2006, the newfound English major left Pierce College without an associate's degree but completed the required credits to transfer to CSUN—a university which several of her family members had graduated from. CSUN was also where Gamboa-Wong’s then-boyfriend and now-husband, Christopher Wong, attended.
In addition to having family who went to CSUN, hearing about the sense of community and friendship that Gamboa-Wong’s then-boyfriend experienced at the university helped her decide on where to transfer.
“I think what really inspired me too was my then-boyfriend, now husband. He went to CSUN, he's friends with one of my cousins …they would always talk about CSUN, that's where they all met, and that's how the friend group kind of came together,” Gamboa-Wong described.
“For me, I wanted to find a campus that was going to be like that, right? That was going to enable me to connect with folks.”
From 2006 to 2009, Gamboa-Wong studied English with a focus on literature at CSUN. After earning her bachelor’s degree in 2009, Gamboa-Wong entered CSUN’s English master’s program and then the school’s teaching associates program a year later. During this period of working towards a bachelor's and master's degree, Gamboa-Wong also worked at her husband’s newly opened Asian-fusion restaurant, Curry Up Cafe.
Leading up to her final semester as an English grad student, Gamboa-Wong was preparing to pursue a Ph. D after graduation. As a lover of American horror and gothic stories, she knew that her dissertation was going to take an American gothic lens on Asian American literature. However, during her last semester as an English grad student, Gamboa-Wong had a miscarriage, and the grad student’s intention to pursue a Ph. D was put on hold
Gamboa-Wong and her husband realized that her ability to conceive was going to get more difficult as she grew older. If they weren’t focused on having kids now, then the likelihood of raising children would be less likely as Gamboa-Wong aged..
Her decision to not pursue a Ph. D helped lead Gamboa-Wong to joining CSUN’s Asian American Studies department, on top of receiving encouragement from one of her favorite professors. Dr. Sandra Silver, former AAS interim chair and English professor, hyped up Gamboa-Wong to apply to the AAS department after graduating with her masters.
“Dr. Stanley knew that I was sending out my applications, and she's like ‘Oh, you got to apply to Asian American Studies,’ and I was afraid. I told her I didn't take any Asian American Studies classes, like I'm an English major,” said Gamboa-Wong.
“Except for the fact that I'm Asian and I've written some papers on using the Asian American lens, I was definitely afraid. I did not know anything in Asian American studies. But she said ‘No, you got it, you’re gonna be able to write. You have the lens, you have the capability,’” Gamboa-Wong described.
After earning her master’s in 2012, Gamboa-Wong has since taught in the English and Asian American Studies departments and never looked back. For Gamboa-Wong, teaching and working with a community of students at CSUN is something that she has loved ever since. Her love of being an educator has gone to the extent where she doesn’t feel the need to go back to earn the Ph. D she once desired.
When asked to give one piece of wisdom to students who may be lost in their college journey, Gamboa-Wong emphasized the importance of following what makes you happy.
“I think one piece of wisdom that I can share is to listen to yourself. Really evaluate what is it that you like to do, what is it that's gonna make you happy,” she mentioned.
“It might sound cliche, but you will find so much happiness if you listen, if you do something that you truly love doing. Not for money, but for your own sense of fulfillment.”