ABSTRACT
At the urban public university where I have taught for 27 years, I’m fortunate regularly to encounter in my classes large numbers of students who are gifted learners in the subject that I teach-cultural anthropology. I have always taught at all levels of the university’s curriculum-lower-division general education courses, upper-division courses oriented to undergraduate majors, and master’s-level courses-and consistently find that, whatever the level, this same group stands out in their advanced understanding of the subject matter. Who are these students? They are the growing numbers of mostly multicultural-multilingual people-immigrants, refugees, and international exchange students-that we often refer to as “ESL students,” entering our university today.1
