Melissa Venegas
She/her/ella
meliv (at) unc (dot) edu
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Welcome! ¡Bienvenidxs!
I am currently a Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My research focuses on raciolinguistic ideologies of U.S. Spanish and critical approaches to Spanish language pedagogy. I am interested in locally based approaches to language teaching that promote community engagement and sociolinguistic justice for U.S. multilingual communities.
I earned my B.A. in Spanish and Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I then attained my post-baccalaureate teaching certificate for Spanish K-12 and my M.Ed in Elementary Education from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. I completed my M.A. and PhD in Hispanic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.
*UNC Land Acknowledgement from the department of English and Comparative Literature. Language adapted from the UNC Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Asian American Center, in consultation with the DEI:
The Department of English and Comparative Literature recognizes the land and sovereignty of Native and Indigenous nations in Chapel Hill, in North Carolina, in North America, and across the world. We acknowledge that UNC’s land history includes a dispossession of people who first lived here, a dispossession that profited the University at the expense of sovereign indigenous nations.
The University of North Carolina sits on the land of the Occaneechi, Shakori, Eno, and Sissipahaw peoples. Additionally, NC has been home to many Indigenous peoples at various points in time, including the tribes/nations of: Bear River/Bay River, Cape Fear, Catawba, Chowanoke, Coree/Coranine, Creek, Croatan, Eno, Hatteras, Keyauwee, Machapunga, Moratoc, Natchez, Neusiok, Pamlico, Shakori, Sara/Cheraw, Sissipahaw, Sugeree, Wateree, Weapemeoc, Woccon, Yadkin, and Yeopim. Today, NC recognizes 8 tribes: Coharie, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Saponi, Haliwa Saponi, Waccamaw Siouan, Sappony, and the Eastern Band Cherokee. The state is also home to Indigenous nations from Abiayala that among others include: Maya Q’anjob’al, K’iche’, Awakateco, and Mam, Zapotec and Otomi. UNC Chapel Hill is an institution built by enslaved Africans and their enslaved descendants, and our institution did not admit Black students until 1955. Today, Black individuals and People of Color disproportionately work as service staff on our campus and in our wider society. This community is largely responsible for the maintenance on our campus, the food and food service available to us at Chapel Hill, and many other basic necessities that make our gatherings possible.
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