I was raised bilingual in a Mexican home in New Jersey in a
town that was predominantly Puerto Rican. I’ve lived in the East Coast, Texas, the Midwest, and now California, in rural and urban settings (from Hiram, Ohio population 1400 to Houston, Texas population 2+ million), from predominantly Latinx, to white, to highly diverse spaces. I benefited from federal programs, such as Head Start and Upward Bound, which I credit to positioning on a path in higher education. I received a bachelor’s degree from an urban, Hispanic Serving Institution with a diverse and nontraditional student body. I have eight years of teaching
experience in a large university with a traditional, predominantly white student population and I have taught at a small liberal arts college in Upstate New York. more recently, I taught adult learners ESL and computer applications. For the first time I will be teaching Spanish courses for Heritage Speakers of Spanish.