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DEI Statement
I am Puerto Rican. My roots are grounded on the Taino bravio heritage that resisted colonization after offering the best they had to European settlers. I am the daughter of a race that emerged from the violent happenings in the Caribbean. My home is the same archipelago the middle passage routes forcibly created a new home for my ancestors a hundred years before the White Lion arrived in the appropriated lands and waters renamed Jamestown. I struggle to acknowledge and accept the part of my DNA connecting me to the Iberic Peninsula. I am still grappling with things and trying to understand myself. I feel like the more I understand other human experiences, the more I progress in understanding how to process myself.
When I was a child, I witnessed what I now know as racial microaggressions against Chinese Puerto Ricans and Haitians. I always thought Haitians could not be bad people if my grandmother bought their artifacts to decorate her home and use in her spiritual rituals. I loved my Chinese Puerto Rican neighbors. I was curious about people who did not look like me. Once my parents moved our family to New York City, I had the city's urban jungle to deliver the different people I found fascinating. Along with the culture shock and intense diversity came opportunities to experience rejection and being otherized. Those are the origins of the person I have become. These experiences inform my work and the foundation of my commitment to further the cause of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging wherever I go.
Because of my racioethnic identity, I am determined and irrevocably committed to creating environments for belongingness. I do not often feel like I belong; therefore, I insist on helping others feel like no matter how different we may be, they can find an element of "home" in our interactions. As an educator, I protect my students' ideas as they develop their capstone research. During instruction, I create spaces for reflection and encourage students to share their authentic selves. I center discussions based on the students' lived experiences. Since all my students are teachers, instructional coaches, interventionists, or in diverse positions within school communities, I support critical thinking to foster perspective-taking as they work with their students. I model culturally responsive teaching in instruction, curriculum, and learning environments. I seek feedback from my students.
As a researcher, I use methodologies and strategies to elevate participants' voices, decentralizing dominant narratives. I strive to promote diverse researchers' work and continuously invest learning time to discover more scholars of color to diversify perspectives in my research. I question my understanding and findings to minimize my biases' impact on the work. I ask questions to consider what missing elements may render an incomplete story in my research. I employ inclusive data analysis techniques to prevent silencing perspectives.
DEI work is intense and emotionally taxing. In the process of raising awareness, challenging biases, and inviting others to draft personal calls to action, I remember how normalized devaluing and dishonoring humans can become when we stop seeing each other’s shared humanity. It makes me relive my own experiences with racialization, otherization, and marginalization. It is painful at times. Yet, I would not have it any other way as I endeavor to live a life agarrada a la compasión, clinging to compassion for all. I am prepared to continue this work and further an agenda of equitable dignity and compassion in all spaces where I am welcomed.