I am a white, able-bodied, cishetero woman. I have always spoken a dialect of English that most listeners would identify as close to "General American," although heavily influenced by the extremely rural area where I grew up.  Although many members of my family have had the experience of being identified as "conditionally white" in the recent past, I have not had the lived experience of systemic discrimination that some of my students and colleagues have.

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Much of my work has been built on the labor of scholars and educators from historically marginalized communities: Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Queer, immigrant, disabled. I am grateful for their work and their legacies. I want to especially cite the women of color whose work has been impactful on me, among them Anne H. Charity Hudley, April Baker-Bell, Jessi Grieser, Geneva Smitherman, bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldua, and Gholdy Muhammad.

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I teach in a small, blue-collar town with a significant (but not majority) population of heritage speakers of Portuguese. We are adjacent to some of the most prestigious universities in the world, which affords us opportunities that other educators may not have (certainly more opportunities than I could have dreamed of had I stayed in my very rural community).

I work for a district that has historically been intentional and committed to academic freedom, anti-bias / antiracist teaching, and social justice. This affords me a freedom that a growing number of teachers are losing due to the increased constraints on curriculum by right-wing school boards and state governments. My commitment to this work is how I actively push back against those forces.