Today on the podcast we’re excited to be joined again by Carla España and Luz Yadira Herrera, co-authors of En Comunidad: Lessons for Centering the Voices and Experiences of Bilingual Latinx Students. 

En Comunidad was published last spring during the first months of the pandemic. Today, Carla and Luz reflect on the past year since their book’s publication, and offer their current thinking on bilingual education and translanguaging, as well as some book recommendations and exciting news about the new En Comunidad Collective.

Below is a transcript of this episode.

Carla: I'm here with Luz, and really excited that we're taking the time to reflect on a lot of the conversations that we've had with teacher educators, teachers, friends and colleagues in the field. And it's been quite a journey the last year, right Luz? I mean, it's just been a lot to take in, teaching and learning during a pandemic, taking in the struggle for racial justice, the continuous, this just ongoing efforts and push for making sure that all learning spaces do right by children. And I'm just really thankful that we've had the opportunity to write together, and that we've had this book En Comunidad to anchor our conversations. So that's what we really want to share with you in this moment.

Luz: And the one year anniversary of the publication of our book, En Comunidad, is coming up at the time of this recording. And so it's, like Carla said, it's been just amazing to be able to connect with so many people in a time where we've also been the most isolated that we've ever been. But we're just so excited and have been so humbled by the support and the response. And so we would love to share, we want to share some takeaways from our conversations with teachers and educators across the country. And the ways that we've been able to support their work with the En Comunidad framework.

So I want to start with talking about some of the assignments or some of the... I want to start talking about some of the ways that we've been able to be in community with educators. And one of the things that we've done is we've been able to help them navigate how to use this book, right, in a way that is going to be meaningful for their teaching practice. And this is K-12 educators as well as teacher educators in teacher preparation programs. And so one of the things that we've been able to do is, the things that we talk about in chapters one and two, one of the things that we've been able to do is have a dialogue on what language ideologies are, what they look like, and the ways that we can examine those. We have been able to do this with, again, with teachers, teacher educators, and other educational leaders or educational leaders across various contexts.

And one of the other things that we've been able to do is provide this framework, right, for teaching bilingual Latinx students and provide a sample classroom sequence of lessons. We've been able to provide support as to how to use various children's literature and other multi-modal texts. And we have a sample sequence of lessons that comes to mind that we shared with some school leaders. And Carla, you're going to talk a little bit about what else we were able to share.

Carla: And for me what was really beautiful was that most of it was really organic. We had Dr. Cati V. de los Rios, who's at Berkeley, reach out to us because she was using the text as their class texts with educators in her teacher ed program. And it was just supposed to be this informal conversation where she was asking us, "Hey, recommendations of how can I use this book in my teacher ed program? How do I split up the chapters for different sessions? What do I focus on?" And we said, "We've gotten this question from other people. And we know the guide is helpful with... the reader's guide is super helpful that people have been downloading from the Heinemann website, but we'd love to be in conversation with everyone who's in your same situation." So we opened that up, and it was a beautiful session of just getting to know what people are planning, especially in these times of how to support educators.

And so we even gave examples in that really great conversation with teacher educators of thinking about how do you take expectations from a teacher education program, and consider the realities of classroom life? Because for the most part sometimes they just don't come together. It's like they're not having these conversations. And it was really beautiful to share some of those lessons from the different chapters, whether it was with reading and community and showing them the different mentor texts we used, or thinking about social justice and integrating poetry so we can process and heal and really get students' language practices out there on the page, in the learning space when they share, and they're validated.

So it was, for me, it was a really beautiful way to bring together these different voices, because we had teachers in that talk too that we talked to them, but we also had teacher educators. So that was fun to just plan and think that out loud with them.

Luz: And one of the other things that I wanted to point out and just sort of just acknowledge, because it's been such a powerful aspect of this experience for us, is the way that people have reached out to us across, maybe they're participating in sessions or maybe through social media, like on Instagram or Twitter. They've been able to share with us some of the ways that our stories resonated with them, the ways that they identified with some of our experiences. And to realize that these also have a space in the classroom. And to realize that we can also share some of ourselves as teachers. Right? We're often asking our students to share their stories, but how are we sharing our own stories? And that was one of the most amazing things for us, and for me as well, to really be able to have had that kind of impact on some of the people or some of the educators that have read En Comunidad. And it's just so humbling to know that people are making these connections and are able to identify with our experiences.

Carla: Yeah. And it reminded me a lot of those comments about, especially from teachers who grew up speaking Spanish, speaking different regional varieties of Spanish from different countries that they're from, and then getting into their teacher preparation journey, whether it was a grad program or certification exams. What else? Portfolios. Like everything that comes under that you prepare to teach, and feeling like they're not good enough. Right? And feeling like their identities, their journeys, their language practices aren't good enough for the classroom, or aren't good enough for their peers, who might be in similar roles as them, but because they are white, they started out as white monolingual teachers who then did like a study abroad in Spain, learned Spanish, and then they come and they get these similar teaching positions as other folks who actually grew up in a community where Spanish was the language that they were developing. It was healing. It was a necessary reminder for everyone involved in these conversations, I think, to think about, "Why is it that I was made to feel ashamed of my language practices?" and really thinking through that.

And then hearing those comments, Luz, that I know for us it's just been so affirming of our work, where they've said, "Yes, I opened the teacher PD book, and it's like in my head it sounded like how I speak with my family. Yes. This is exactly how my students communicate, and this is how they learn." And I think that that for me was not only affirming, but also, "Yes, we got to keep working on project number two. We need more of this."

Luz: Right. It just really revealed the importance, right, the need, the great need there is to support bilingual teachers, or teachers who are teaching emergent bilingual children, right, to have that sort of home language support. And so we hope that the next project that we work on really considers this great need. And so we are working on, or starting to work on a curriculum that is written mostly in Spanish from a bilingual perspective, that really considers our dynamic use of language. And seeing ways that we can support teachers in being able to create their own, right, using texts that they choose. But considering the approach that we are building on from En Comunidad.

Carla: We had conversations with a lot of teachers who are Spanish as a heritage language teacher...

Luz: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carla: That's like official title, like high school, middle grade, where they teach in Spanish. And there are different philosophies of how they teach that. But what was really surprising for us, because this is not something that we had planned for, we hadn't had this discussion with anyone at Heinemann or even with each other, was that this was a whole other group of teachers that were connecting with the book. Because of the framework that we started the book with, with anchoring in, "Let's come to terms with what do we believe about language, and what do we believe about bilingual children? Let's name it. What are our assumptions? What's our bias on this? Why?" And because we start that way, that's the conversation that's needed in those Spanish as a heritage language spaces.

And so having those conversations in book talks and on social media and people reaching out to us about how they've been using the lessons from this book with their high school Spanish as a heritage language classes, I'm like, "Yes. Thank you so much." Like, "Yes." I'm like, "The next project we're going to have more work in Spanish for you. We are so excited!"

But that also was just a great reminder, and it was one of our big takeaways from the conversations with teachers, is that there's so much of the curriculum, and so much of the PD out there is so very monolingual English. Teachers are expected to go translate this for your multi-lingual settings, or go translate this for your Spanish-English dual language settings. I'm just thankful that we had this opportunity in En Comunidad to bring in text that would show more of a dynamic use of language, that's more authentic, it's dynamic. And we have these examples with books. We have examples with the lessons. That was a nice surprise for me in working with that group of teachers this year too.

Luz: Yes. I think one of the major draws, and I think what we get the most requests for, is to really help teachers and educators, all kinds of educators, to understand the 3Ts approach that we introduce in En Comunidad as part of developing your critical bilingual literacies. We call this the 3Ts: Texts, Topics, and Translanguaging in our book. Topics are those culturally and linguistically sustaining topics that are important and relevant to the community in which you teach to the children in your classrooms. Texts, what are the texts that are affirming of those identities, the children that you teach, that affirm their linguistic practices and their cultural ways of being. And finally translanguaging, how do we sustain those dynamic language practices of our children and youth? And so we've been able to create a variety of sample topics, and text sets, as well as very specific ways that we can support translanguaging in the classroom across different grade spans, so that educators can really see what this looks like. And maybe create their own to start this way of approaching their teaching and learning.

Carla: For me Luz, I don't know about for you, cause I keep thinking what was my favorite part, and I can't pick. It's just been such a lovely way of collaborating together and also of being in conversation with these different educators from all over. But for me, one highlight of this specific planning and sharing this process with them with the 3Ts has been amplifying authors that people might not know about, platforms that people might not know about. I remember one, we were talking about planning across the topic of language and identity. It was one of them that we did, and we did that across middle grade novels.

I remember talking through Land of the Cranes as a text, that's a novel in verse. And going through examples of how Aida Salazar uses language, and how language shows a connection to family and place. And that's really important in that novel. Then we talked about Efrén Divided, and that beautiful way that Ernesto Cisneros crafts the dialogue of this family that's experiencing family separation because of immigration injustice. So for me, it's just been on multiple levels that we are able to talk about a framework for planning. We are intentional about centering bilingual, multilingual Latinx children's experiences. We are intentional about our text selection, and we also want to make sure that these authors and these books get into the hands of teachers and school libraries and librarians.

So, it's been for me fun to go back to those texts and reread them multiple times for the different audiences that we engage with. We've been doing this through poetry. Luz has also had a great experience of like, you know what we're going to try some different kinds of poetry out with this Topic, Text, Translanguaging approach because the way that we were taught poetry maybe wasn't the most healing and liberating way. So, I was just thinking about our initial approach to poetry compared to how we've grown in our approach to using poems in our curriculum and in our planning.

Luz: Yeah. I think poetry is one of those areas of study and teaching that is a bit daunting to a lot of educators. I don't know. It's just a complex art form really, but it's also very free. I mean, there's not really a formula for poetry, and I think that's one of the things that I really love about it. And again, in our conversation with teachers, we've been able to share some of the novels and verse, and show how we can use these as mentor texts for children to start their own identity poems, or ex poems, or any kind of poetry that they've wished to create based of these mentor texts. And we've been learning so much along the way. And I think we, of course, as Carla mentioned, we've been growing so much as educators ourselves, when we've been in community with other educators. As they teach us as well, and as we are just continuing to learn.

And I think during this pandemic, we've been having this question about, how do we get access to these texts? And it's been incredible to see the ways that different publishers and authors have come together, and so generously have shared their work in many different ways. Some of the authors have done read alouds, and posted these on YouTube for instance, the same with publishing houses. And there's been so many platforms that have also been able to support these authors, and making these available for educators and for children. But it's something that we are constantly thinking about. How do we make sure that teachers and children have access to these rich texts, that they can then use for teaching and learning.

Carla: And with that, another practice that I think the virtual format was helpful for us because we were able to connect with teachers in different places at this time. For me, Luz it's been really thinking of, I don't know if for you Luz, but for me it's been the opportunity that we get to practice the narrative around purposeful text selection, and how we use it. For example, some teachers will say, "Hey, I'll get an email from my principal. Give me a book list. I got to order these books by tomorrow. Or I have room in my budget and I got to get this out by next week, so give me a book list." Or a colleague will say, "Oh, I don't really agree with changing our texts for this unit. Why do you want to change it?" So, it's been very helpful in our sessions with teachers and teacher educators to practice that we kind of do this role-play of like. What might it sound like?

And it's not just about, let me carry the list. It's about the framework around it, the intention. What is my reason? What is my rationale behind my inclusion of texts that show dynamic language practices. Whether it is, I want us to bring We Are Grateful, Traci Sorell's book, that's Cherokee and English. I want us to bring examples of dynamic language practices to show Arabic and English, and also Spanish and English. So what does that sound like when I'm talking to an administrator about my rationale? What does it sound like when I'm talking to a colleague who might be in a monolingual setting teaching? I'm teaching in a bilingual setting, and they say, "Well, that's just for your kids."

Luz: Mm-hmm.

Carla: What do I need to say? I think those of us who are in Higher Ed or Teacher Education Programs, we have this immense privilege and opportunity that we get to practice this for across the semester with the students in a class. And with the book, it's like we're taking teachers with En Comunidad through chapters one through seven on how do you take a stance as an advocate for bilingual students? And I'm just thankful that in the past year, we've had that opportunity in different formats virtually to engage with educators to really problem solve together cause that's what it's about.

Luz: Absolutely. In addition to us living through a pandemic for the last year, we've also dealt with a different kind of pandemic of racial injustice. And I think that has brought to light. I think many of us have been aware for a long time, but I feel like more broadly how necessary it is to have these very intentional conversations about race, racism, justice, what does it look like? Things as seemingly simple perhaps, as text selection can tell you a lot about a person's positionality at lens what they bring with them.

Going back to what we said earlier, these teaching or language ideologies, these are all expressed through the texts that we select, but also the texts that we don't select, or avoid, or whatever reasons. I know that I've had some educators say, "Well, I'm not really comfortable with that. Or I think my kids are too... or my students are too young." And so we've had to have those conversations like what does it mean? At what point are we okay with being uncomfortable or what will it take? What do we do about that? And we've been able to have this discussion, and think about why not be uncomfortable? It's okay to have discomfort, and perhaps this is one way that we can grow, and let's try it out. I think children are just so... I am constantly amazed at the ways that children make sense of things, and the ways that they notice things, and they are noticing things and they are very much aware.

And so I think in the classroom, we do have that responsibility to create those connections, right, and consider how outside forces are impacting the children that we teach, and not necessarily, and we can't ignore that. Right? We have to be able to acknowledge that, and adjust that in our teaching.

Carla: And I think the virtual format, so I am a Field Work Advisor. That's part of my Instructor Fieldwork Advisor title, but I advise, and I visit my teacher and education grad students at their sites. And they've been virtual, right, for the past many semesters. It feels like forever. And something that came up as my students were planning read-alouds, was that they were saying, "I have family members that'll sit around my student, and I see them. And they're listening in. And it's brought in this level of even more intention, being more intentional about the word choice." And this came up with a read-aloud on a Maya Angelou board book that one of my students selected. And she was like, "I was worried because we're doing Black History Month." And I was like, "Well, tell me about your concern. Where's your concern coming from?"

And it was really interesting to hear about what has been centered in the school curriculum prior to that. And why would it be concerning and not celebratory that you have these images Maya Angelou, and then you're connecting past and present struggles with Black Lives Matter, and children learning about movements and people using poetry to talk about injustice and processing and healing. So that for me has been a different kind of conversation with teachers that I hadn't had before because of the virtual teaching. But it's like, what are the words that we're using to make sure that when we do meet with families and we have these conversations, whether you're in a predominantly white space or you're in a predominantly space with Black and brown children and families, in this case, it's a New York City setting. Why would you feel this sense of tension or concern?

What is the narrative that the school, up to this point, has had? Because then that has a lot to say about what's the purpose for school to have these monthly holiday celebrations, if it's not something that's woven through the entire curriculum across the year? Right? Because that's really different, because then you're like, "Yeah, we highlight Black authors and Black history throughout." So that's a little different; and those conversations we need to have them. We need to talk about what's the school's stance on their teaching of history, their teaching of marginalized voices, and is it relegated to a month for different groups, or is it something that's throughout, and why or why not?

Luz: You know, I wanted to share, it's so interesting that you talk about the ways that families have been increasingly engaging, right, in the learning with their children through this virtual remote learning. And actually, it's so interesting, because I've been noticing that in my own teacher education courses. So I'm teaching future bilingual teachers. I run a bilingual teacher residency program, and I'm currently, I have a class with 25 future bilingual teachers, and we start out every session with a read-aloud. And so I noticed that my students, many of them are parents. They have some of their kids come join during the story time. And I was like, "Whoa, I didn't expect that. That's really cool." You know? And now yesterday, I had a class again, and I saw more kids on my students' laps, like, "Oh wow."

You know, I love this. I think we're definitely going to stick to story time to begin our sessions.

Carla: I love that, Luz.

Luz: It's been so good. But it's also a really nice way to model for them, right, how they can also do this, whether it's remote learning or in-person instruction, hopefully when we're able to be safely back together, to be able to model these kinds of conversations that will obviously emerge from this reading En Comunidad. And it's just been so nice to see their children, and how they've been able to also be a part of their own learning, right, as grownups. It's really, really fun.

Carla: I also think that's beautiful. I had that last fall. I taught course at Brooklyn College, that's a city university of New York, institution. Virtually of course, but it was a class for children's literature in Spanish. And I did all my, so everything, like read-alouds, everything was Spanish, and it was beautiful to see the children part of it with my undergrad, that was an undergrad class.

But also for the undergraduates, it was like, besides there are those who are Spanish majors that had had Spanish language courses, and some weren't. It was one of their first times where the use of the Spanish language was in a setting of place of learning and authority, where it was being like it's on the tasks or assignments. My Flipgrid videos were in Spanish. My online platform was in Spanish. And so, it threw a lot of people off, because they weren't used to that? And it was practice, right. It was a great way to prep, and I think it was beautiful for them to try it, but also for the children and the families to do that together. So yeah to more of those experiences, Luz. I'm all for that.

Luz: So we want to share a few of the books, right, that we've been loving. We want to highlight some from 2020. 2020 was a really, really rough year for all of us, and for some more than others, of course. So one of the books I'm reading right now, actually with my seven-year old son is a new book. It's The Black Panther Party, a graphic novel history, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson. I'm reading it with my seven-year old. I've actually already, we've already started to integrate it in some workshops. It just came out in late January, and definitely have been spending a lot of time kind of explaining each part of it because, it's definitely a lot; a lot of history, a lot of contextualizing things for him in a way that he can understand.

But it's been really fun that he's actually really into it, because it's a comic book format, a graphic novel format. And so it's kind of really engaging and interesting to him. So I'm excited to see teachers use this in their classroom across the different grade levels. And I think this can be used, honestly, from K to 12. My son is in first grade.

Carla: Just before I forget, I don't want to forget this, but you also added that when you were discussing in our book talks and webinars we've had in the last few months. We were talking about the work of chapters four and five in the book on creating counter narratives, and help students learn history, learn about social movements and activists, and then also get their voice out on the page, or the multi-modal page, whatever that might look like. But I know that we had some readings on the Young Lords, some reading on the Black Panther Party, and then you added that one, because I remember we were really excited about that one too. It was soon to be released, and then it was. So I think for those of you listening who have joined us, and you've seen those graphics, and we've shared some of that planning from chapter four and five specifically about social movements, this is your must-get text to add to that text then.

Luz: Definitely again, the graphic novel format is beautiful, and it just really helps us understand the rise of the Black Panther Party. It really contextualizes historical perspectives, right? And the need for the rise for this kind of movement centered on liberation and self determination. And I think it would be a great pairing with a new film that came out, and it's available on HBO, Judas and the Black Messiah, which is an excellent film. And so that would be a really great way to pair it as well.

Another books that I'm really excited about is an anthology by Saraciea Fennell, and it is called Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed: 15 voices from the Latinx Diaspora. And Fennell is a founder of the Bronx Book Festival, and it's going to include essays and poems by some of our favorite authors that we've been highlighting all year. And we highlight in our book, of course, Elisa Vedestavalo, Meg Medina, E.B. Soboin, and others. Liam Crevedia right? And of course, one of our favorite classic pieces of literature is How to Tame a Wild Tongue, which is a chapter in Gloria Anzaldua's memoir, Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza. And I'm just so excited to see how this anthology is going to pay tribute to Anzaldua, and how these authors are going to be in conversation together. So I'm really excited to integrate that into our workshops.

And I'm going to finish off by sharing a book. I see that Carla has it right behind her, right, Milo Imagines the World, by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson, their newest picture book, and it was just a beautiful story about a boy who was just kind of seeing the world and noticing his surroundings, but also just makes us realize how much more there is to us, to everybody around us than we could ever know. Right? And how much each of us can be dealing with that we would never be able to see from the surface. And so it's a just really beautiful story. And so I'm so excited to integrate all of these into our future planning and future projects as well. What about you, Carla?

Carla: You know me and text sets. I'm all about picking a topic and seeing what I can find under that topic so I can just learn more. So one of the topics I was thinking a lot about was, because of the terrible injustice around support for refugees, asylum seekers, our immigration system is just terrible in this country. It's so anti-Black. It's so anti-refugee support. Sometimes I'm like, "Ooh." There's a brief moment where I'm like, "Oh, there's a little bit of hope," and then you're just let down. And so a lot of my conversations with teachers have been around, how do you navigate this topic?

So we go over chapter five, which in the book we talk about this lesson sequence on kind of immersing students indifferent immigration narratives and giving them the option. Like if you don't want to share your own immigration or migration narrative, or you want to research others, like here's some options, and then really helping them through that process of developing their voice and getting their voice out there on ways to inform people about what's going on. I took that and thought, how can I develop what we have in chapter five with texts that are just recently released in the last few months, last year? So for middle grade, I decided to focus my work on Land of the Cranes by Aida Salazar, which I mentioned earlier, because it takes place at a deportation center with a mother and their child. And the child uses poetry, picture poems, specifically, that their teacher had taught them as a way to help the children get their stories out, and for them also to process what's happening.

And I had the privilege of working on the teacher's guide for Land of the Cranes. And so I really am taking a lot of time with that book and having conversations with ed educators on how novels and verse can be a way for children to feel more of that freedom as they read, but also as a mentor text for their own writing. And Efrén Divided, which I mentioned earlier as well. I kind of have it color-coded and stickies everywhere in that book, as I consider the ways that the author, Ernesto Cisneros, uses language, but also their use of how they show the impact of family separation on children. And so the main character, Efrén, is the oldest with two younger siblings, and when they're separated from their mom, their dad's working, trying to just provide for the family and how it impacts Efrén at school. And then also to look at it through a perspective as an educator.

Ernesto Cisneros has developed a really strong character that's super developed with the teacher to think of a teacher who's like... might not notice what's happening with the child. And then throughout the story, you kind of see that character be more complex and get to know the teacher a little bit better. Ernesto Cisneros is a middle grade teacher, and you hear that expertise when you read this book. You get that. And I'm a middle grade teacher at heart. That was my beginning of my teacher journey in a middle grade. So I'm thankful for those two books in 2020, that really helped me get more of an understanding of how I can talk about this topic with students.

And then for young adult literature, definitely We Are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez, which was a different kind of book because it shows the journey of three teens from Guatemala and their journey on La Bestia, the train that's really super dangerous, and their whole migration journey to get to the US. And The Grief Keeper, which was thanks to you, Luz, because I'm all for contemporary realistic fiction, memoir poetry, and then Luz is like, "You've got to check out The Grief Keeper." So that takes these siblings who are seeking the support and try to be here, documented, but it's really difficult with the immigration system. And so one of them gets this opportunity. They're like, "You can stay in this country if you take in everyone's grief and trauma. So there are these experimental trials and we want to try this on you, and you're going to take that in. And if that works, we can figure out your paperwork and you can stay in this country."

I'm telling you, that author, Alexandra Villasante, that... So for me, I've been thinking a lot about how do I navigate conversations on immigration justice and what are the texts that I can use with different grade levels. And then one of my favorite books last year, and I I've been talking to everybody about this book is a memoir called Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo. And I just found out he, he shared this at a webinar like two weeks ago, I don't know, a week or two weeks, a month, who knows what time it is. But at some point in my life recently, I watched him at a webinar, a talk. His mother is translating the book.

Luz: Yes. That's such a beautiful...

Carla: I'm telling you, the day that book is released in Spanish, because his mom translated it, I need to just read it that day. I'm not putting anything on my calendar for a few hours. But in Children of the Land, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is a poet, everything is very poetic. And he talks about his family's relationship with immigration justice and what it takes to get your papers in this country, and what happens when you get to travel back, and what happens to your relationship with your family members when you're in this kind of mixed status family. And there's a lot there about language. There's a lot there about identity. And it is for adults. I'm using it as my mentor text for my own writing. So that for me has been a text that has been carrying me a lot.

And the one that I'm in right now, since Luz, you shared what you're reading right now, I assigned some books with my students, so I'm rereading with them, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, it's adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza. And the other book that we're reading in book clubs with my teacher at program is An African American and Latinx History of the United States. So you see the theme here, right? That's by Paul Ortiz. And so we really are taking in histories that we were not taught in our schools and using what we're learning to create our lessons for our students and using what we're learning to notice what kind of readers we are so that we can practice this informational reading and notice what do we take notes on? What are our questions? What's confusing? What are we holding on to? So that we can better prepare students for when they have to read articles and learn about U.S. history and get this new information right.

Luz: Thanks so much, Carla. Well, let's talk about what's next. So we're really excited that the En Comunidad audio book version is going to be released soon. And we're just really... I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to hear it. So hopefully by the time that this episode airs, we might have it, but we will see. And also we have a couple of things coming up as well. And

Carla, do you want to tell us about it?

Carla: So we have our Heinemann webinar series, so some of you might be joining us. Thanks to all of those who joined for our first series in 2020. We loved engaging with you. We saw you in the chat. We saw you, we saw you. And those of you who emailed us afterwards, I've been keeping in touch with some of you after the webinar series. So it's always nice to make those connections. So we have our webinar series and that starts in April. So some of you might be there in the spring if you're listening to this during that time. But also, because you heard, we love planning. We love teachers. We love centering our bilingual, multilingual Latinx students. And we love books.

We are launching an En Comunidad book club. You can go to encomunidadcollective.com so you can register. And that's En Comunidad, just like the title of the book, with one M because it's in Spanish, encomunidadcollective.com. And we're excited for those of you who are able to join us. We'll just talk books and teaching.

Luz: Yay! Thank you. And thanks so much to Heinemann for having us here today and creating the space for us to have this conversation. We look forward to hearing from you all soon. Connect with us on Twitter @Dra_LuzYadira. And Carla?

Carla: On Twitter. I'm at profesora, that's P-R-O-F-E-S-O-R-A, Espana, E-S-P-A-N-A. So no Ñ, just the Espana. @ProfesoraEspana on Twitter and on Instagram. We know teachers. You teachers love Instagram too. So Luz, tell them because you're my Instagram person. You love Instagram.

Luz: So yes, We all also have an IG account, of course. And it is encomunidadcollective.

Carla España is an instructor at the Bank Street College Graduate School of Education. Carla’s teaching journey began in a bilingual classroom in Harlem, New York, continued at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project partner schools, and at the bilingual teacher preparation program at Hunter College, City University of New York. Finder Carla on Twitter: @ProfesoraEspana

Luz Yadira Herrera is an Assistant Professor at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno. As a former teacher in NYC public schools and researcher at CUNY-NYSIEB, her teaching and research centers culturally and linguistically sustaining approaches to teaching emergent bilinguals, translanguaging pedagogy, and bilingual education policy. Find Luz on Twitter: @Dra_LuzYadira