Growing up as queer, undocumented, low-income girl of color shaped me in to the woman I am today. Dedicated to social justice and accessibility to academia, working with the Center for Experiential Learning really taught me about radical empathy, storytelling, and hope.
My work on Queer Migration with the Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship has helped me transform my approach to learning and synthesizing theory in an accessible way. I hope to take these lessons as I work to get my PhD. I'm excited to take what I learned throughout all my LUROP and CEL Fellowships as I start my two-year corps member position with TFA. There really is no better way to know if learning is accessible than teaching and serving a Pre-K classroom in Chicago! Taller de Jose is a community resource center offering services of accompaniment available to all people that are in need. Its mission is to connect people with the services needed and the services to the people in need. Based in Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, their clients are predominantly Latinx, and many are immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
Little Village is located in South Lawndale on the West Side of Chicago. Affectionately nicknamed "the Mexico of the Midwest," this neighborhood is home to both Taller de Jose and many of our interviewees. Two of my co-research fellows resided in or near Little Village, which only fueled our goal of collaboration and community engagement.
|