Spanish 101 student reading a story she wrote in Spanish to student at a local elementary school.

I have taught Spanish language and literatures since 2004 in many different kinds of institutions from public high school in California, to University of California Quarter Abroad in Madrid, Spain, to Lafayette College. As a professor of Spanish language and literatures I ultimately seek to better equip my students to communicate in, understand, and navigate cross-cultural experiences. Whether this means knowing how to compose a formal business letter in Spanish, or understanding the way Spain’s recent Civil War affects the current political culture and belief system, or empathizing with a recently arrived undocumented immigrant, I hope my students leave my classroom with a stronger capacity for working and flourishing in cross-cultural and intercultural environments and relationships. In our globalized, technological, violent, multi-cultural, hyper-modern world there is a great need for people who can communicate with, work with, and listen to others who think, communicate, speak and see the world very differently. I believe that the modern language and literatures classroom can be an excellent space for the cultivation of intercultural fluency and literacy, essential skills for the world we live in.