Community Work

Sioux City Public Museum

Since 2023, I have served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Sioux City Public Museum. I now serve as Vice-Chair and have collaborated with museum staff on future directions for the museum. Since 2019, I have enjoyed meeting with the director of education at the Sioux City Public Museum, teachers from Irving Elementary, and other community members to plan Day of the Dead events at the museum. I organize Spanish student volunteers to lead craft activities, provide face-painting, and serve food and drinks. I also work with students to translate documents such as press releases and posters to promote the various events. This is an excellent exercise for students to explore linguistic and cultural diversity, language access, and representation. Students often share their appreciation for this opportunity as it allows them to learn more about the Siouxland community and reflect on loss and cultural traditions in their own families. During the last two years, I organized readers theater performances with Spanish students. This was a collaborative effort with research and internship students who studied the indigenous aspects of the celebration and student volunteers who helped develop an introduction for children to understand the context as well as movement and sound to help interpret the story. Spanish Club students won the Omicron Delta Kappa Tommeraasen Award in part for this work. They also received Morningside's John Reynders Community Engagement award to purchase copies of a book about Day of the Dead for all our local public schools.

Presentations on Local Latina/o/x History

Because of a story by Iowa Public Radio about my local Latina/o/x oral history collection, I was invited by CF industries to give a presentation to their workers for Hispanic Heritage Month. I collaborated with professor Wilfrido Suárez to conduct research at the Sioux City Public Museum archives and the South Sioux Public Library. We decided to share this presentation again for the wider public and worked with the Sioux City Public Library downtown to promote the event on the library’s podcast. We plan to give the presentation again during the Celebrando Siouxland festival in South Sioux City as well as at the Sioux City Public Museum.

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, Center for Siouxland

I volunteered about 80 hours total between the spring of 2023 and the spring of 2024 by scheduling appointments for free tax return preparation services through the IRS VITA program. I talked with many Spanish speakers both over the phone and in person while scheduling and provided interpretation with tax return preparers. This experience allows me to continue learning about our Latina/o population and demonstrate to my students the importance of using their bilingual skills to give back to our community. Although none of my students have yet volunteered through the VITA program, I will continue to encourage them to volunteer in a variety of ways including a free dental clinic coming up this year.