ABSTRACT
In a recent assignment in Washington DC as a senior officer in the US Department of Education, I had the rare opportunity of assessing my professional experience and expertise as an educational researcher and my personal, cultural and linguistic experiences as they related to the tasks of addressing national educational policy. The researcher in me was and continues to be nurtured in some of the best educational institutions of this country. I am at a top-tier university, with excellent colleagues, students and research resources. The non-professional in me was and continues to be part of and nurtured in a large, rural, Mexican-American familyÐall 10 of us raised speaking Spanish as our native language, all born in the United States like our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, only four having graduated from high school, only one graduating from college. I found assessing these personas (the Spanish term for `persons') not as difficult as I might have expected and even came to conclude that this intersect was quite helpful to me, my colleagues and the wide variety of audiences that I interacted with in this national role. In fact, I found by bringing together these personas, I was able to more clearly articulate why I do the research I do, why I embrace particular theoretical conceptualizations regarding teaching and learning and why my own career has been quite diverse in its evolution. The present article is my attempt to put into writing these intersecting but distinct voices that help me in my pursuits of furthering our understanding of living in a diverse society but particularly as doing so relates to the role of educational institutions who under serve a linguistic and culturally diverse population today and will need to serve them better in the future.
