I’m Associate Director of the Spanish Language Program, and a proud member of the Whitman community since 2015. I study language acquisition, multilingualism, and the politics of language in institutional settings. My research draws on multilingual studies, linguistic anthropology, poststructural and postcolonial theory to answer questions such as “How does language affect our self-representation and social domains of interaction?” and “What cultural and historical conceptions of language are operational in our everyday language practices?” My work and lived experiences have taught me that languages can open up new pathways for emotional and intellectual growth. A new language is an opportunity for radical reinvention, to imagine new versions of ourselves. At the same time, “foreign” languages are often weaponized as an othering device, devalued and pushed to the margins, and I am committed to work towards linguistic equity and language inclusion through my teaching and scholarship.