Past Events and Conferences
Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education
Voice Your Language (VYL) Forum
10th Annual VYL: “Early Childhood and Multilingual Education”
- Date: March 1, 2025
- Location: San Diego State University
- Keynote Speakers: Beatrice Zamora Aguilar — Author of "The Spirit of Chicano Park" & Dr. Iliana Alanis
- Sponsors: SDSU, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DEBER (Developing Effective Bilingual Educators with Resources) Project, LEAL (Leadership, Equity and Access for Languages) Project, FES (Future Educator Support) Program
9th Annual VYL: “Ethnic Studies and Bilingual Teacher Education”
- Date: February 10, 2024
- Location: Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center, San Diego State University
- Keynote Speakers: Dr. Cati de los Ríos — UC Berkeley & Dr. Guillermo Gómez — San Diego Unified School District
- Sponsors: SDSU, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DEBER (Developing Effective Bilingual Educators with Resources) Project
8th Annual VYL: “Reclaiming Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics”
- VYL 2023 Save the Date Video
- Date: January 21, 2023
- Location: Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center, San Diego State University
- Keynote Speakers:
- Dr. Ximena C. Cid — CSU Dominguez Hills
- Dr. Beto Vasquez — CREATE at UC San Diego
- Dr. Kari Kokka — University of Nevada, Las Vegas
- Dr. Luis G. Garcia — CSU Sacramento
- Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DEBER (Developing Effective Bilingual Educators with Resources) Project
7th Annual VYL: “Dr. Gholdly Muhammad y Un panel de Educadores Bilingües y Binacionales, y ¡Música en Vivo!”
- Date: March 12, 2022
- Location: San Diego State University
- Keynote Speaker: Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad — University of Illinois at Chicago
Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad is an Associate Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She studies Black historical excellence within educational communities with goals of reframing curriculum and instruction today. She has led a federal grant with the United States Department of Education to study culturally and historically responsive literacy in STEM classrooms. She brings expertise, having served as a middle school teacher, literacy specialist, school district administrator, and school board president.
Dr. Muhammad is the author of the best-selling book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Model for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. She also co-authored the book, Black Girls’ Literacies: An Edited Volume, published by Routledge. She works with teachers, leaders, parents, and youth across the United States and South Africa in best practices in culturally and historically responsive instruction. Her Historically Responsive Literacy/Culturally & Historically Responsive Education Model has been adopted across U.S. school districts. In 2022 she was named with the top 1% Edu-Scholar Public Influencers, recognizing the 200 university-based scholars who had the most significant influence on educational practice and policy.
- Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DEBER (Developing Effective Bilingual Educators with Resources) Project
6th Annual VYL February: Featuring award-winning author, Bejamin Alire Sáenz
Date: February 27, 2021
Keynote Speaker:
Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an American poet, creative writer, and young adult novelist. He speaks and writes in the innumerable languages of the border that are not limited to English and Spanish (European languages capable of transcending their own cruelty). Though the language he writes in may sound like English—if you listen, you will hear the multiple languages that live in him—the language of the poor, the language of the rain, the language of drought, the language of the desert and its sand—and the language of the people of the border whose hope is eternal.
Sáenz has won numerous awards. His collection of short stories, Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, centers the stories of people on the borderlands, and earned him the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. He was awarded the Stonewall Book Award and the Pura Belpré Award for Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.
6th Annual VYL March: Featuring award-winning author and illustrator, Yuyi Morales
Date: March 13, 2021
Keynote Speaker: Yuyi Morales is an author and illustrator whose books have won the Pura Belpré Award (Dreamers/Soñadores), the Christopher Award, and the Jane Addams Award (Harvesting Hope).
Acompáñanos en una plática con Yuyi Morales about art, writing, teaching and learning across languages, culturas and Las Californias.
6th Annual VYL April: Featuring keynote speaker, Dr. Claudia Cervantes-Soon
Acompáñanos in a conversation of critical consciousness to reimagine the vision and pursuits of dual language bilingual education in the borderlands. Spanish, English, and translanguaging will be used throughout the session. Vamos a utilizar nuestro bilingüismo.
Date: April 10, 2021
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. Claudia G. Cervantes-Soon is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University. Her research is situated at the intersection of anthropology of education, bilingual education, and Chicana feminisms and focuses on anticolonial perspectives in the analysis of educational contexts, practices, and policies affecting youth from historically marginalized and U.S.-Mexico borderlands communities.
She is the author of the award-winning book, Juárez Girls Rising: Transformative Education in Times of Dystopia. Her most recent work explores critical consciousness as the essential foundation of dual language bilingual education and the potential of building a vision of solidarity.
6th Annual VYL May: Featuring keynote speaker Dr. Nelson Flores
Date: May 1, 2021
Keynote Speaker:
Nelson Flores is an associate professor in educational linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. His research examines the intersection of language, race, and the political economy in shaping U.S. educational policies and practices.
He has been the recipient of many academic awards including:
- the 2017 AERA Bilingual Education SIG Early Career Award
- a 2017 Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship
- the 2019 James Alatis Prize for Research on Language Planning and Policy in Educational Contexts
2021 Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DEBER (Developing Effective Bilingual Educators with Resources) Project
5th Annual VYL Featuring keynote speakers, Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid and Antonio Sacre
Date: February 18, 2019
Location: Alumni Center, San Diego State University
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid — University of San Francisco
Dr. Farima Pour-Khorshid is a Bay Area educator-organizer-scholar committed to education for liberation. She is an assistant professor and teacher supervisor at the University of San Francisco. - Antonio Sacre — Bilingual storyteller
Antonio Sacre tells stories. His tales of growing up bilingually in a Cuban and Irish-American household have inspired children worldwide to gather their own family stories and become storytellers themselves.
Sponsors: SDSU, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, Butte County Office of Education
4th Annual VYL Featuring keynote speaker, Dr. Antonia Darder, in partnership with the Praxis in Education: Student Conference
Date: April 28, 2018
Location: San Diego State University
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Antonia Darder
Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, CEBER (Center for Equity and Biliteracy Education Research), DLP
3rd Annual VYL Featuring award-winning authors, Reyna Grande and Amada Irma Pérez, as well as Grammy-winning musician, 123 Andrés
Date: February 20, 2017
Location: Montezuma Hall, San Diego State University
Keynote Speakers:
- Reyna Grande: Award-winning author of The Distance Between Us, Across a Hundred Mountains, and Dancing with Butterflies
- Amanda Irma Pérez: Award-winning author of Nana, Qué Sorpresa/Nana’s Big Surprise, Mi Diario De Aquí Hasta Allá/My Diary from Here to There!, and Mi Propio Cuartito/My Very Own Room
- 123Andrés: Bilingual musician and 2016 Latin Grammy Winner – Best Children's Album
Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education
2nd Annual VYL Featuring keynote speaker Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Mexican-American U.S. poet laureate
Date: February 12, 2016
Location: Montezuma Hall, San Diego State University
Keynote Speaker: Juan Felipe Herrera — U.S. Poet Laureate (2015–2016), Mexican American Performer & Activist, National Book Critic Circle Award Winner
Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015–2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Notes on the Assemblage, Senegal Taxi, and Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, Upside Down Boy, and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box.
Sponsors: SDSU Student Success Fee-Academically Related Programs, Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education
1st Annual VYL Featuring keynote speakers, Dr. Antonia Darder and Dr. Donaldo Macedo,
Date: May 1, 2015
Location: Aztec Student Union, San Diego State University
Keynote Speakers and Internationally Renown Scholars:
- Dr. Donaldo Macedo — Professor at University of Massachusetts, Boston
Dr. Donaldo Macedo is professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published extensively in the areas of critical literacy, bilingual and multicultural education and the politics of language. His publications include: Pedagogy of Solidarity (with Paulo Freire, Ana Maria Araujo Freire, and Walter F. de Oliveira, 2014), Literacies of Power: What Americans are not Allowed to Know (2006), The Hegemony of English (with Bessie Dendrinos, Panayota Gounari, 2003), Ideology Matters (with Paulo Freire, 2002), Dancing with Bigotry (with Lilia Bartolome, 1999), and Literacy: Reading the Word and the World (with Paulo Freire, 1987). - Dr. Antonia Darder — Professor at Loyola Marymount University
Dr. Antonia Darder is professor and Leavey Presidential Chair at Loyola Marymount University. She has published extensively in the areas of critical pedagogy and democratic education. Her publications include: Freire and Education (2014), Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader (with Rodolfo D. Torres, 2013), Culture and Power in the Classroom: Educational Foundations for the Schooling of Bicultural Students (2012), A Dissident Voice: Essays on Culture, Pedagogy, and Power (2011), The Critical Pedagogy Reader: Second Edition (2008), and Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love (2002).
Sponsors: Department of Dual Language and English Learner Education, SDSU