LINGUISTIC MINORITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

From early on in her academic and professional career, Anastasia Aimee Amabisca's interests and work have focused primarily around issues of the education of ethnic, language minority, and immigrant populations. She received a Bachelor or Arts in Education from Arizona State University, specializing in secondary education/English with an emphasis on linguistics and ESL methodology.  In 1994, she earned a Masters of Arts in Education from Stanford University, focusing on issues of Latino immigrant experiences and language policy.  Currently, she is a research associate at the Center for Language Minority Education and Research (CLMER) at CSU Long Beach working on a national research project investigating the education of middle and high school immigrant youth.  She has presented at various national and state conferences, including American Educational Research Association, California Association for Bilingual Education, and Arizona Association for Bilingual Education.  She is an active member of the Hispanic Women's Corporation and has served as chair of the conference evaluation committee for the past four years.

I have a special affinity for second language learners because I was one myself. My family immigrated from Mexico to the United States when I was a child.  Until I attended high school my family was classified as "migrant workers," a label that at times preordained academic remediation rather than academic acceleration.  More than any other experience, becoming a teacher helped me understand my lived experience and that of other minorities.  I saw how the educational institution, and the players within the system, have reproduced a socioeconomic system that advantages one group at the expense of others.  My work as a researcher and educator is to counter the negative elements of socioeconomic reproduction. My work is towards one purpose -- to help students acquire the intellectual and personal skills necessary to make their dreams a reality.

As a member of the first generation of Korean-American community, Cheong Rhie Huh's interests have focused on primary language loss among minority children.  She has already examined this issue in her masters thesis titled "Socio-cultural factors in primary language loss:  The case of Korean-American children" at California State University at San Bernardino. During her doctoral program, she is furthering this investigation in depth.  Before she came to the Ph.D. program, she taught Korean language at University of California, Riverside for four years while serving as a bilingual tutor/as sessor of Korean Amreican students for the Riverside city school district. Last year she was involved in the Korean bilingual teacher training program at University of California, Los Angeles.

As an education researcher form the minority community, she hopes her research contributes to maintenance of minority children's primary langauges and to greater positive self-esteem and a clearer self-identity. Furthermore, she hopes her research can bring greater awareness that langauges of the minority children are important assests for their own benefits as well as fo the society as a whole.

I am Carl A. Lager, a second-year Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Graduate School of Education, specializing in Educational Policy within the cohort of Urban Schooling.  After earning my B.S. in Applied Mathematics here in 1992, I began teaching mathematics in the Los Angeles Unified School District while completing my M.Ed., also at UCLA, and my Bilingual Cross Cultural Language Acquisition and Development credential (BCLAD).  Teaching recent immigrant limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in both Spanish and English, I have served on the Bilingual Advisory Council and studied Spanish language and Mexican culture at the Cemanahuac Educational Community School in México.  Now a University Fellow and Title VII Fellow, and team leader at UCLA's Center X-Teacher Education Program, I mentor first-year secondary mathematics teachers pursuing their BCLADs.  My current research interests include identifying key linguistic factors that hinder/forward cognitive learning processes for at-risk, secondary Latino LEP students who are not achieving their mathematics potential.

Moguel is currently a third year doctoral student in the Urban Schooling Division of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Science. His research interests lie in the improvement of teachers' skills as leaders and facilitators of classroom discussions. He currently serves as a Team Leader in UCLA's Teacher Education Program (TEP).  Moguel works with a group of 15 student teachers by co-teaching a course in which issues related to LEP students are part of the agenda, including bilingual education and sheltered English strategies.  He is also responsible for regularly observing the teachers in actual classrooms and providing necessary out-of-classroom support as needed. He works with several teachers as they struggle to learn how to teach various populations of students, including LEP students, in various subject matters, and using both English and students' native languages.  Moguel was born in South Central Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents and grew up in East Los Angeles.

Anita Tijerina Revilla, M.A., is a first year doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is studying in the department of Social Sciences and Comparative Education with a specialization in race and ethnic studies.  Her educational interests include race, class, gender, and language. She is currently involved in a research project which is studying the effects of Proposition 227 on students, parents, and teachers in Los Angeles schools.  Previously she worked as an education assistant at the Intercultural Development Research Association in San Antonio, Texas.  She worked with collaborative teams of educators and social scientists to develop and provide educational programs which ensure quality education for all students.  Her work was specifically geared toward improving the educational opportunites of poor and minority children.  Revilla did both qualitative and quantitative educational research and was a sexual harassment trainer for the Desegregation Assistance Center - South Central Collaborative for Equity.  Revilla holds a bachelor of arts degree in religion, Latin American studies, African American studies, and American studies from Princeton University, and a master of arts degree in anthropology and education from Columbia University, Teacher's College.

Kathryn Perry Olson grew up in Los Angeles, California.  She graduated with a BA in Spanish literature from The College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1992.  While an undergraduate, Kathryn lived and studied in Guadalajara, Mexico and Madrid, Spain.  In 1993, Kathryn attended the TEP program at UCLA and earned her BCLAD multiple subject credential as well as her M.Ed.  After graduating, Kathryn worked in the Lennox School District where she taught first through third grades.  In the district, she was a language arts mentor teacher, was a member of the curriculum committee, helped to create the district's language arts standards and assessments, and facilitated the Hughes/UCLA/Lennox science dialogues.  In addition, Kathryn presented at the South Bay Reading Conference (SBARC), was a UCLA mentor teacher for TEP, and a "teacher representative" on the gender equity committee at UCLA.  Currently, Kathryn has returned to UCLA to begin her doctoral studies in Urban Schooling.

Born in S. Korea, Mira Pak came to the United States when she was a year old.  Having been raised in Santa Monica, CA, Mira feels like a native Californian.  While she is fluent in Korean (albeit with an American accent), Mira feels her stronger language is English.  She attended the Santa Monica-Malibu school system, graduated from Santa Monica High School (Samohi) in 1988, attended UCLA and graduated in 1993 with a B.A. in English and in history.  Mira then went on to a masters and credentialing program at Harvard University.  Of course, that was the year Boston, MA had about a hundred inches of snow.  After graduation, Mira returned to teach at her alma mater, Samohi.  After four years of ignoring her former teachers' pleas to address them by their first names, Mira reluctantly requested a leave of absence from her teaching duties to attend the UCLA Graduate School of Education's Urban Schooling Ph.D. program.  Currently in her first year, even though she is stressed beyond endurance, Mira is glad her interests in teacher education issues brought her to UCLA.

Hector H. Alvarez is lead research assistant and UC Links/Las Redes project coordinator at UCLA and a doctoral student and teaching assistant in the Division of Urban Schooling at UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.  Born of Mejicano parents who instilled in him the notion that an education, informal or formal, means a responsibility to give back and work with communities, Alvarez has been involved with educational outreach/mentor programs, and community activist groups since an undergraduate.  For the last twelve years he has been extensively involved in these areas.  In addition, Hector has taught course in Chicana/o and Ethnic Studies, Math, and Science at the high school and college level. Hector's ethnographic research examines the relationship between language, culture, and literacy learning.  In particular, Alvarez focuses on the representation of difference and the relationship between ethnic/racialized identity(ies) and academic engagement, examining the role that schools and after school programs play in shaping that relationship.

My research and career aspirations have their roots in my personal background and experiences.  I was born in Yucatan, Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles.  My formal schooling before college took place in Los Angeles public schools.  After graduating from Stanford, I returned to my old elementary school where I taught for five years.  My experiences there motivated me to pursue a graduate degree and to become a part of the research community.  Currently, I am a second year doctoral student at UCLA in the division of Urban Schooling.  I am interested in issues of language and literacy, especially as they apply to Latino students.  After receiving my degree, I hope to teach and continue doing research at a research university.

I am a doctorate student in the Socio-Cultural Studies program.  Before coming to UC Davis, I was a bilingual teacher in Phoenix, Arizona.  Currently I am a member of a Harvard University research team conducting a longitudinal adaptation study of Mexican and Central American immigrant students.  I received a Research Mentorship Fellowship with UC Davis to conduct a curriculum intervention in an ESL classroom aimed to help language minority students in accomplishing their academic goals.  I graduated from Arizona State University in 1989 with two degrees, Economics and Marketing.  I received a Master of Education from Arizona State University in 1996.  I would like to become a university professor in the area of sociocultural issues in education and school reform.

Hi!  I'm Dianna Gutierrez.  I was born and raised in the small community of Hollister, CA.  Hollister is located about 40 miles south of San Jose and is primarily a working-class community.  I am part of a working class immigrant family where both English and Spanish are spoken.  I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of California, Davis in Psychology and Spanish.  As an undergraduate, I was fortunate to participate in several research projects.  I soon became interested in the peer influence of peers on academic aspirations.  I then conducted my own personal field research as a foreign exchange student in Mexico where I decided to observe the peer influences of adolescents in a public federal rural junior high school.  Upon returning from Mexico, I continued to work with the Puente evaluation project.  During this time, I also tutored migrant students (grades K-6) in Santa Clara County.  During my last year as an undergraduate I became involved in a study conducted by UC Berkeley, PACE, and West Ed.  The study evaluated the initial effects of the class size reduction initiative on the Limited English Proficiency students in California.  As an M.A. student, my work revolved around a CREDE peer influence project I was involved in at two local high schools (one rural and the other urban).  Currently, as a doctoral student, I am coordinating the CREDE project.  My primary focus is the dynamics of peer influences on academic aspirations in the Chicano/Latino adolescent.

I am a graduate student at UC Davis in the Division of Education.  My focus of study is in Language and Literacy.  I am interested in the learning and teaching of reading, writing, and art, individually and in combination.  I also have a BCLAD teaching credential.

UC Santa Barbara

Grace Ellen Santarelli (Special Education, UCSB) is a third year doctoral student.  She received her Master's Degree in Educational Psychology and her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from UCSB.  She is currently taking courses towards her Severely Handicapped Teaching and School Psychology Credentials.

Grace's Master's Thesis examined cultural sensitivity issues in a neo-natal intensive care unit, where she has co-facilitated a bilingual parent education group for 2 years.  Her dissertation research examines bilingual special education in full inclusion settings.  Grace is a clinician in the UCSB Autism Research and Training Center and a researcher with the Gevirtz Research Center at UCSB.  Prior to entering graduate school, Grace worked as a Counselor with Tri-Counties Regional Center for the Developmentally Disabled, where she also coordinated the Latino Services Program.  She was involved with the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center for many years, working as a Bilingual Crisis Intervention Training Coordinator and Counselor.

Grace is an Officer on the Board of Directors of the Tri-Counties Association for the Developmentally Disabled and was a founding Board member of De Mano a Mano, a Spanish hotline. She has trained with the Santa Barbara Mediation Center, volunteered for the AIDS Project Central Coast and the Fund for Santa Barbara, a progressive social change foundation.

Jill received her BA and teaching credentials from UCSB.  Presently, she is pursuing a masters and doctorate in Special Education, Disabilities and Risk.  She is interested in issues that overlap between SpecialEducation and Bilingual Education. Jill worked for 3 years as a Special Education teacher in Southern CA. teaching students from diverse backgrounds. After this she spent a year teaching first grade in Guatemala, Central America where her interests in bilingual education increasede greatly. She also developed a curiosity for international issues in education. Jill is presently working at a Santa Barbara School as a reading intervention consultant for first grade.

During the next few years Jill will be studying the effects of proposition 227 on schools in California and learning more about cultural perspectives in Special Education, specifically looking at teacher's perceptions of abilities.

As a young bilingual Latino raised in East Los Angeles, I have first hand experience with those things (e.g., home, peers, the classreoom, schools, authoritive figures) that affect individual and group development and, more importantly, the learning experience.  Today, as a first year doctoral student in the Graduate School of Education, with emphasis in Developmental Studies, and a Bilingual fellow, I find myself in an academic environment that is at the forefront of research in educational psychology.  My interest is in human development across the life-span, in particular language acquisition (first and second language), cognitive development, and achievement motivation. And all the while understanding the importance of being sensitive to the context in which development occurs and, more specifically, how development in context effects the learning experience.

I was born to Mexican Spanish-speaking parents and raised in Glendale, California for the first seven years of my life, and then for the rest of my years in Central California--the San Joaquin Valley, in a small farm labor town, where I entered school for the first time as a second grader.  Spanish is my first language, and English has become my second language.  I was inspired by the harsh work-loves of my campesino parents to attend the University of California in Santa Barbara.  I am currently a graduate student at UCSB where I pursue an M.A./Ph.D. in Education, Educational Psychology:  Language, Culture, and Literacy.  My husband Juan S. Venegas and I recently celebrated a fifth year wedding anniversary.

I am a first generation college student and the oldest daughter of Mexican immigrants.  I was born in Los Angeles California, but raised in Zacatecas, Mexico until the age of fourteen.  In 1996, I received a B.A. from UCSB in Psychology and Cultural Anthropology.  As an undergraduate, I conducted ethnographic research in an indigenous community in Quertaro, Mxico and, together with a research team who worked under the guidance of Prof. Manuel L. Carlos, assisted in the design and creation of three simulated ethnographic field work teaching modules.  This is my third year in the M.A.-Ph.D. program in Educational Psychology at UCSB. During my second year, I worked as the Graduate Student Coordinator for the Latino Parents Night project, a UCSB funded parent education and empowerment project.  As part of this project, I worked closely with the UCSB Community Services Liaison and two Bilingual Teachers from Isla Vista School to develop and implement an agenda for monthly meetings to provide Spanish speaking parents with school news, community information, and literacy activities. I am currently working to collect ethnographic data in the form of field notes and videotapes of peer interactions in math and science activities in Bilingual and non-bilingual classrooms.  As a bilingual person and a product of bilingual education myself, I am concerned with identifying the factors responsible for the success and failure of bilingual students.