Everything I know about being a teacher, mentor, and researcher stems from working closely with communities who centralize and highlight the power of cultural and linguistic diversity.
Multilingual Technology Design
As a community-engaged technology designer, I connect social-justice driven organizations with user-experience researchers to develop multilingual tools and technologies. Currently, I am collaborating with the Centro Profesional Indígena de Asesoría, Defensa, y Traducción (CEPIADET), an NGO in Oaxaca City, Mexico, to design and publish resources for supporting Indigenous language translation and interpretation in the US and Latin America. Through this collaboration, my team and I designed a physical book and webtext, titled, Intérpretes y Traductores de Lenguas Indígenas: Hacia un Ejercicio Pleno de los Derechos Lingüisticos (Indigenous Language Interpreters and Translators: Toward the Full Enactment of All Language Rights), which we launched at the Biblioteca de Investigación Juan de Córdova, a research Library in Oaxaca City in February, 2020. The peer-reviewed webtext version of this project is currently under review and it includes content in variants of Mixteco, Zapoteco, Mixe, Spanish, and English.
Six woman stand close together holding a book at a book launch in Oaxaca
Technology, Health, and Language Learning with Youth and Families
I've had the privilege of co-designing and co-leading programs that foster technology, health, and language literacy with youth and families in Orlando, FL, Lansing, MI, Grand Rapids, MI, and El Paso, TX. These programs range from a technology summer camp for Latinx and Indigenous girls facilitated in Lansing to an after-school program for Latinx youth in El Paso. Envisioning community engagement as both research and pedagogy, I also co-founded (with Dr. Tracey Flores) the Commission for Family and Community Literacies at the Conference on English Education (CEE).
A group of two adults and two youth make collages. Pictures hang on the wall.
The Escuelita is an after-school program that fosters health, technology, and language learning with local youth and mothers in El Paso, Texas. I co-directed (with Drs. Lucía Durá, William Medina-Jerez, and Victor Del Hierro) this program in collaboration with my colleagues at UTEP and at the El Paso Housing Authority from 2016-2019. You can find more information about our programs and events on our Facebook page.
Workshops on Language Access and Accessibility in Healthcare
In effort to both improve and extend my research on language access and accessibility in healthcare, I collaborate with organizations to co-facilitate workshops and community presentations about language diversity and rhetoric. Recent collaborations include co-facilitating workshops on science writing and medical interpretation at the Texas Tech Medical Health Center in El Paso and facilitating medical interpreter training workshops at the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan in Grand Rapids, MI. For example, I recently facilitated a workshop on Language Interpretation in the Clinical Setting, which can be accessed here.
Three medical doctors, two wearing lab coats, sit in a group discussing information during a workshop.