An unconventional Path to UHD

I did not come to work at UHD by any sort of clear or predictable path. It was really more of a Goldilocks story, trying one thing after another to find the one that fit just right. I have picked cotton, okra, and acorns.

I have taught sex ed and counseled teenagers about their reproductive and romantic health. I have been a vet assistant. I have written and filmed public service announcements. I have waitressed in seedy diners, ice cream parlors, and cozy restaurants. I have been an artist’s liaison at a gallery. I have been a nanny. I have been a biology lab assistant. I have dealt in books, swords, and art. I have made jewelry. I have painted henna tattoos and taught classes about that. I have tutored English, writing, biology, physics, literature, algebra, geometry, and every kind of history.

I have been a painter’s model, a belly dancer, a competitive martial artist, a costume shop manager for a theater, and a fruit basket delivery driver. I have been the Games Manager for a comics and games store. I have been a blind man’s chauffeur and legal research assistant. I have been an Academic Manager and curriculum designer for a tutoring company. I have been a musician and composer. I have edited books and ghostwritten public policy for hospitals. I have written poetry, prose, and articles.

After, and sometimes during, all of that, I started working as an English professor at Houston City College, then San Jacinto College, and finally here at UHD. I knew I wanted to stay here from the beginning. I love the campus and my department, but most of all, I love how the students are cared for and supported more than anywhere else I’ve been. And we’re a majority minority campus where the average student is a 26-year-old Latina working full time and providing care for at least one family member.

I was that student. I feel so at home here, and I cannot imagine anywhere I’d rather teach. I’m not at all sorry I took the long road here; experience has made me rich. I’m just very glad I got here eventually.

Next fall, I will be teaching some sections of co-requisite 1301, an intensive writing course that meets four days a week, and 2301, which is early world literature. The 1301 course will be themed around the book American Like Me, so we can delve into questions about how we define what American means, how that definition changes, and who counts as American. As for the literature course, I will be spending a good chunk of my summer looking for high-quality, free translations and cutting down centuries of literature to create an open-source syllabus that covers literature from the very earliest known writing to 1600 across at least five continents.

I do love getting the chance to dig into these early works. Stories are the medium by which we reveal ourselves, connect with each other, and leave something of ourselves behind for posterity; it is the very lens through which we experience the world. We are still crazy and dangerous and beautiful and noble and terrible in all the same ways humans have always been, and that is why literature does not have an expiration date.

Stories, no matter when they were written, are mirrors we can look into and see just how often we have repeated the same mistakes, fought the same battles, and asked the same questions. I especially love tracing the very earliest roots of narrative to see both connections that have been maintained across eras and cultures and also how perspectives have shifted in surprising ways.

As for my current projects and research beyond teaching, my main academic focus is the rhetoric of conspiracy theories, disinformation, pseudoscience, cults, and scams. I have several projects I’m working on in that vein, including how AI-generated slop and disinformation have changed public discourse and our ability to evaluate truth, and also how pseudo-documentaries, which are tagged and presented as real documentaries, have eroded public understanding of what science and critical thinking should look like.

The last few years have not been great for my creative work, so I am planning to get back to it and spend some of my summer looking for homes for three short stories. I have already finished and begun work on a horror audio drama I’ve been planning. I got deep into horror and sci-fi podcasts during COVID, and I have been mulling over the idea of creating one myself ever since.