Teaching

My teaching practice is rooted in principles of community praxis, relationships, trust, and popular education. I am a first-generation graduate student, formerly undocumented, and I identify as a GuateMaya woman in the diaspora. I consider myself a community scholar and educator, centering students’ lived experiences and core values rooted in social justice. Over the past nine years I have taught as an adjunct lecturer at East Los Angeles Community College in the Social Science Department. Teaching a range of classes from Introduction to Sociology, American Social Problems, Race and Ethnic Relations, and Human Sexuality. My students come from different walks of life, multi-generational, working-class, undocumented, and first-generation college students, and this diversity pushed me to put into practice an intersectional lens inside and outside of the classroom to respect one another’s overlapping identities. I am committed to creating and fostering educational initiatives based on social justice for first-generation students and students of color.

In my teaching practice, I bridge educational opportunities with every-day lived experiences. For example, I have been teaching introduction to sociology for the past six years, and my students learn vocabulary like settler colonialism, patriarchy, intersectionality, and white supremacy as we unfold and unearth these terms, I also invite community guest speakers who are living and organizing against structural violence. Students enjoy listening to the lived experiences of community organizers and artists as they reflect on themselves and listen to practical ways of enacting social change and justice in their community.

I ground my teaching in a philosophy and ethos based on a liberatory praxis from a place of breaking down punitive walls to accommodating and celebrating every student’s potential to achieve transformative learning and education in and outside the classroom. As a first-generation graduate student, I have crossed many barriers, and I am inspired when I can write a letter of recommendation to first-generation students of color or sit during office hours with a woman of color who wants to start a social justice organization on her campus. My commitment to students and mentorship stems from a place of communion, justice, and liberation.

In 2022, I had the opportunity to teach at Pitzer College in the Chicana/o Department. I taught Gender, Race, and Class: Women of Color in the United States. I was also a Visiting professor at Pomona College in 2023-2024 in the Gender and Women Studies Department teaching Introduction to Gender Studies, Theories of the Body, and I created a course, Transformative Justice and Care Praxis.

In 2025, I will begin a tenure-track position at Occidental College in the Critical Theory and Social Justice Department teaching decolonizing education and Indigenous Feminism.