about soo la

I am the product of strong public schools and I believe in their potential to transform lives. But only if we fight for them and advocate for the right of every child to have access to high quality public education. I arrived in the U.S. with my family when I was six years old, not speaking or reading any English. I remember my kind kindergarten teacher working with me one-on-one while my classmates played, trying to teach me the words for colors. As an emergent bilingual student, I was embraced and nurtured and integrated into the life of the school that offered choir, school plays, dance festivals, and other enrichment. Serving a diverse, largely working class and immigrant community in Queens, NY, P.S. 120 wasn’t a wealthy school; it was simply an adequately funded one. After 6th grade, we moved to the suburbs and my brother and I attended an even better funded public school that prepared us well for college.  

I attended Williams College, a small liberal arts school in Massachusetts. After graduation, I headed west without much of a plan, and then enrolled in graduate school, earning a doctorate in English from the University of California, Irvine. I have been working in higher education ever since, first as a teacher and then as an administrator. It was as a beginning instructor teaching freshman composition at UC Irvine to a largely Asian American student population that I first understood the impact of representation, that my background and the experiences I brought into the classroom were as important to my students’ learning as what and how I taught.