Dr. Steven Alvarez will deliver the keynote lecture for Hispanic Heritage Month at Thursdays Chautauqua Lecture series. The lecture is called “Taco Literacies in Mexington, Kentucky and Puebla York.” The lecture takes place viturally on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m. YouTube streaming link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1j3INBFz_8
Steven Alvarez is a professor of English and coordinator of the First-Year Writing Program at St. John’s University in New York City, where he has taught since 2017. Alvarez earned his Ph.D. at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Prior to arriving at St. John’s, he was Assistant Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky. He specializes in literacy studies and bilingual education with a focus on Mexican immigrant communities. Dr. Alvarez teaches courses ranging from autobiographical writing, ethnographic methods, visual rhetoric, and “taco literacy,” a course exploring the foodways of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Dr. Alvarez is the author of Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies (State University of New York Press, 2017) and Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs (National Council of Teachers of English, 2017). Brokering Tareas is an ethnographic study about how learning English transformed family relations and structured educational ambitions within a specific Spanish-dominant urban immigrant mentoring program in New York City. The program cultivated a sense of community and academic participation closely allied to ethnic identity, encouraging a sense of value for bilingualism as a political tool for—and the everyday reality of—immigrant families. Alvarez’ second book, Community Literacies en Confianza, explores two bilingual K-12 after-school programs and how to connect educators with communities in meaningful and reciprocal ways. This community literacy research builds on his research in New York City with research in Kentucky and explores the ways teachers can build relationships with emergent bilingual communities outside of school settings.
Steven Alvarez is also the author of three books of poetry, one of which, The Codex Mojaodicus, was the winner of the 2016 Fence Modern Poets Prize.
This lecture is sponsored by the Department of Languages, Cultures and Humanities, the Offices of Multicultural Student Affairs, the Latino Students Association, the Department of English, the Office of Diversity and the Honors Program.