Chasing Encounters

Dr. Nancy Carvajal, a human being under construction, helps us to understand our purpose in life as academics and as people in the making. We discussed how social justice looks from Western USA house-less peoples to displaced youth and children in rural Colombia. Interconnectedness is paramount in responding to the needs of the community and as good listeners without judging others, our roles become center to education. Decolonization not only means as a rhetorical concept but resisting Western education in which human beings are not put into boxes. Latinx, Chicanx and Indigenous epistemologies have allowed Nancy to question what has been imposed by society in terms of relationships and knowledge production. We are very diverse and our stories are important as part of a decolonial project in which teacher education is coupled with social justice lens to design courses that address struggles from our communities and that ultimately transforms students’ perceptions of life. Bio: With a B.A. and M.A. in langua