Kayla Monte of Tohono O’odham Community College

Kayla Monte, a Tohono O’odham Nation member whose family is from rural Pisinemo district, grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, as a city kid. She didn’t take school seriously until her father passed away when she was in middle school. Then she “did a 180,” as she says, and dedicated herself to her studies. Kayla attended Chemawa Indian School in Oregon for high school and excelled at academics and extracurriculars such as student government and managing softball, track, and basketball teams.

Before he passed, Kayla’s father gave her a wonderful gift—the gift of time and conversation. He, along with Kayla’s mother, took her on many vacation trips across the United States. By automobile and airplane, they traveled to New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, and many other places. Due to a tendency to feel carsick, Kayla spent the traveling time looking out of the window at the scenery and the different types of buildings and how they changed according to the topography and climate. She loved drawing landscapes with buildings and little figures, and she would talk about the things she noticed with her parents. Her father often said that she should go into architecture.

After high school, Kayla entered TOCC in the fall of 2023 and graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in 2025. While TOCC does not have an architecture major, Kayla nevertheless found a way to prepare for her next step towards her dream. She enrolled in a University of Arizona (UA)/TOCC program called A Student’s Journey (ASJ) that prepares students for transfer to university. Through ASJ, she lived on the UA campus, took a course on environmental justice, and was matched for an internship with a faculty member in the UA College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture.

For the internship, Kayla worked with Kenny Wong, a lecturer in sustainable built environments, on a project with a community center in Tucson. She observed and assisted as Mr. Wong met with the Sunnyside Foundation and community members who were expressing their vision for the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center, which until recently housed the field office of late Congressman Raúl Grijalva. She was grateful for the chance to do hands-on work by digitizing and archiving materials from the office and creating a mock-up for her personal portfolio of design work.

Another highlight of the experience for Kayla was engaging with an exhibit featuring stories of the people who have contributed to and used El Pueblo Neighborhood Center over the years. Called El Pueblo 50: Celebrating the Living Heart of the Southside, the exhibit moved from the resilience of the community through its past on to a vision for a sustainable future for this historic district of Tucson. sustainable built environments concepts and inspiration projects give depth to the exhibit.

Kayla’s experiences with TOCC confirmed her dream, and through the internship she gained skills that will help her pursue her studies of architecture. She plans to enroll at the University of Arizona in 2026.