Sanctuary Book Review: Composition Studies Journal

 

So Grateful for the Intellectual Work of Colleagues

Katie Silvester wrote a wonderful review of my book "Sanctuary" in this recent issue of Composition Studies🙏🙏 

Silvester is a super legit scholar in ethnographic work with folks learning English while resettling, as is evident in her book "Living English, Moving Literacies" (NCTE 2023) based on research spanning ten years in Nepal.  I am grateful for her attention and insights for this review: https://compstudiesjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/silvester-review.pdf 

Current issue:

https://compstudiesjournal.com/current-issue-spring-2025-53-1/ 

Bay Area Book Festival

 My New Favorite Book Festival 

Sanctuary Book Talk: Oakland Public Library

Book talk in Oakland this Weekend

 https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/67a6726af1f57661560640ce 

Bread Loaf Teacher Network Book Launch

 Virtual Book Launch 

Book Talk at SCU

 Brown Bag Series for the Humanities

Super behind in posting the flyer for the book talk I did here on campus with the supportive folks at SCU.

Center for Arts and Humanities Blog post

 Reflecting on the Personal in Academic Writing

Wrote a blog for the Center on Arts and Humanities here at SCU discussing the choice to include some personal writing in my book Sanctuary and how this choice came later in the writing process. 

Here is the link to the blog post: https://www.scu.edu/cas/initiatives/center-for-the-arts-and-humanities/cah-blog/cruz-medina/blog-posts/writing-without-regret-for-the-road-not-taken.html 

Revision as Protecting What is Important

 My chapter in 2024 Utah State University Press Collection

Several years ago I wrote a manuscript based on student writing📝

✍🏽 Students expressed the feeling of having to accommodate linguistically in spite of their multilingual abilities. 

⏳When I tried to get this article published, I experienced similar feelings of accommodating to the methodologies privileged by “top-tier” journals📖

📚My chapter in this new collection describes the painful process of revision, during which I doubted my writing and the whole manuscript, for what became an article that was included in the 2020 Best of Rhetoric and Composition journals🏅📓

🙏🏽👏🏽🙌🏽 To the editors Laura Micciche Christina M. LaVecchia, PhD Hannah J. Rule, Allison D. Carr, and Jayne EO Stone

https://amzn.to/4ctARqZ 

Link to article:

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1266&context=engl 

Refreshing Multimodal Literacies

 Recent Learning Glass Video

It's been a minute since I made a Learning Glass video (ahem, a few years actually), so I was glad to get a new video recorded on the topic of Scholarly vs. Popular sources. I'm teaching research at the moment to my first year students in the first-generation college student program here, and this topic seems like a perennial concern that I'm always explaining, which is always a good reason to make a video on the topic.

What I of course found was how rusty I was at not just keeping my mini-lecture concise, but also how much more editing I found necessary because of some changes to the recording equipment since the last time I made some of these. 

For more, visit my YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/Cruz858/featured 

Or my Learning Glass site:  https://sites.google.com/view/cruzphd/learning-glass-videos?authuser=1 

2024 Shakespeare in San Quentin Workshop

 SCU First Gen and English Majors Have "Transformative" Experience

Grateful teaching moment: this past Sunday, I had the amazing experience of attending a Shakespeare workshop at San Quentin with SCU LEAD Scholars students, faculty, and staff. 

LEAD Scholars is a program for first-generation students and this workshop has been described by students as transformational because of how it helps to make the issue of mass incarceration personal and the social justice of the university meaningful.

The Shakespeare in prison program is organized by the San Marin Shakespeare company 🎭 and puts on a production of a play each year. The men we spent time with were dedicated and committed to overcoming the obstacles they’ve faced and wrong turns they’ve made. Thanks to Maura Tarnoff for organizing and my students who attended.

SCU First-Gen Discussion of "Solito" Memoir

 LEAD First Gen Scholars Discuss Immigration and Reasons for Leaving Home

(LEAD staff Jessica, faculty Prof. Tarnoff, students Natalia and Michelle and myself)

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet with SCU LEAD Scholars, staff and faculty to discuss this year’s SCU Reads selection “Solito” by Javier Zamora. 

“Solito” is a memoir about Zamora’s journey to the US from El Salvador as a nine year old traveling without his family (or “solito”) to the US as an unaccompanied, undocumented minor.

 The historical context of the book resonates with my forthcoming book’s research in that “civil wars” in Central America were the reason that many like Zamora have migrated. 

We discussed issues like the American Dream and the desire of migrants for “a better life” and how these definitions can vary depending on the situations and circumstances facing each person in their home countries.

CCCC 2023

 Community Literacy Counterstory and Expectations of White Supremacy

Got to speak at a roundtable, serve as a respondent to a packed room, and present with other folks from the Latinx Caucus. Made a reel that I'm embedding below. 

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Talking with Great Folks at SJSU

 Really enjoyed having the opportunity to speak with the great folks at San José State University, where I talked about the use of story in my scholarship, as well as my teaching practices. Prof. Ryan Skinnel has some great colleagues and students who asked really thoughtful questions and came up with really insightful stories about their own experiences negotiating identity.