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Photo Credits: Jessica Goudeau
Jessica Goudeau Tells Stories that Matter
Jessica Goudeau Tells Stories that Matter
Aneesa Ravula
Aneesa Ravula
May 2, 2025
May 2, 2025
Jessica Goudeau writes like a novelist, listens like a journalist, and moves through the world like an advocate. The author of After the Last Border and We Were Illegal, Goudeau’s work sits at the intersection of storytelling and justice, shaped by her background in literature, a deep respect for lived experience, and a fierce commitment to representation. During her recent visit to St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, Goudeau spoke to all students and faculty about her journey as a writer and advocate. She shared how, as a child, a teacher introduced her to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, a book that cracked open her understanding of injustice and the power of personal stories. From that moment, she began to see storytelling not just as entertainment, but as a way to elevate unheard voices and begin change.
“I understand a lot about how to close read,” she explained when I asked how her literary background helped her advocate. “So when I first started writing, I looked at a lot of the books I loved and picked the language apart; how they built tension, what the structure looked like.” That foundation helped her craft nonfiction that reads with the rhythm and resonance of fiction, blending the hard truth with human connection. That connection is central to After the Last Border, which follows the lives of two refugee women, Mu Naw, from Myanmar, and Hasna, from Syria. Goudeau spent two years interviewing them every two weeks, developing trust and recording details with care. “I can still describe coffee cups in Hasna’s house,” she said. “I wanted to capture not just my sense of who they were, but their sense of who they were.” This kind of deep listening isn't just a method. It's a mission. Goudeau only tells the stories of people who cannot safely speak for themselves. “There are people who come to me and say ‘I want to tell my story,’” she says. “Some people can’t tell their own stories, because of language barriers or safety. That's when I step in.”
Her work is rooted in real relationships. Goudeau first became involved with refugee communities in 2007 after teaching a rhetoric class at UT about The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea and realizing how little she knew about refugees firsthand. She and her husband, both fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, began volunteering at the North Austin Christian Church, handing out healthcare pamphlets and working the food pantry. They were soon befriended by a group of refugee women from Myanmar. That friendship led to the creation of the Hill Tribers, a non-profit cooperative where refugee artisans sold their creations to get on their feet in America. “For seven years, we partnered with them,” Goudeau recalled. “We never made money, just enough to cover supplies. It eventually became a job training program. When most of them moved on to other jobs, we divided the remaining funds to help launch Etsy shops.” The stories Goudeau told in After the Last Border, stories of resilience, motherhood, and survival, aren't just “refugee stories.” “They’re every woman’s story,” she said. “Women who are learning that they are strong and can do anything. Who just want to help their families and find a place in the world.” That desire to illuminate truth also drives We Were Illegal, Goudeau’s latest book. This time, the story is personal. During the COVID-19 lockdown, with her previous book launch delayed, she began digging into her own family history, and what she found shocked her. “I literally Googled my great uncle and found, on the third link, that he had helped cover up a mass murder,” she said. “No one in my family had ever mentioned it. I realized how many white people like me have this vague sense that we ‘belong here’ without understanding how we got here.” Her research uncovered a legacy of violence, redlining, and genocide among her ancestors, including land grants from 1826 and ties to Stephen F. Austin. “I didn’t commit genocide, and I’m not going to,” she said when I asked her about her feelings when confronting this information, “But knowing what happened allows me to make better decisions as a person and pass more truthful stories to my kids.” This same commitment to truth supports her podcast, The Beautiful and the Banned, which examines the current surge in book banning across the U.S. “We’ve never faced book banning at the levels we’re seeing now,” she said. The podcast brings together authors, librarians, and educators to talk about the importance of diverse stories and the danger of erasing them.
Looking ahead, Goudeau’s work continues to evolve in surprising ways. Under the pseudonym Jess Cannon, she’s launching a cozy mystery series she wrote last summer that will be released next year. “I wanted to try different ways to write about Texas and my community,” she said. “And honestly, I'm tired of writing hard books. The research for the last couple of projects was really painful and personal. Writing something zany and fun has been such a joy.” At the same time, her more serious projects are always on her mind. “What I’m really thinking about right now,” she said,” is how we can change the way we tell the story of immigration. There are so many myths about what’s legal, how people came here, and what rights they have. We need to reshape those narratives.”
Whether she is unraveling the legacy of redlining or writing about fictional mysteries in Texas, Goudeau’s goal remains the same: to use stories, truthful and human, and sometimes even silly, to challenge assumptions, encourage empathy, and spark change.
“I understand a lot about how to close read,” she explained when I asked how her literary background helped her advocate. “So when I first started writing, I looked at a lot of the books I loved and picked the language apart; how they built tension, what the structure looked like.” That foundation helped her craft nonfiction that reads with the rhythm and resonance of fiction, blending the hard truth with human connection. That connection is central to After the Last Border, which follows the lives of two refugee women, Mu Naw, from Myanmar, and Hasna, from Syria. Goudeau spent two years interviewing them every two weeks, developing trust and recording details with care. “I can still describe coffee cups in Hasna’s house,” she said. “I wanted to capture not just my sense of who they were, but their sense of who they were.” This kind of deep listening isn't just a method. It's a mission. Goudeau only tells the stories of people who cannot safely speak for themselves. “There are people who come to me and say ‘I want to tell my story,’” she says. “Some people can’t tell their own stories, because of language barriers or safety. That's when I step in.”
Her work is rooted in real relationships. Goudeau first became involved with refugee communities in 2007 after teaching a rhetoric class at UT about The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea and realizing how little she knew about refugees firsthand. She and her husband, both fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, began volunteering at the North Austin Christian Church, handing out healthcare pamphlets and working the food pantry. They were soon befriended by a group of refugee women from Myanmar. That friendship led to the creation of the Hill Tribers, a non-profit cooperative where refugee artisans sold their creations to get on their feet in America. “For seven years, we partnered with them,” Goudeau recalled. “We never made money, just enough to cover supplies. It eventually became a job training program. When most of them moved on to other jobs, we divided the remaining funds to help launch Etsy shops.” The stories Goudeau told in After the Last Border, stories of resilience, motherhood, and survival, aren't just “refugee stories.” “They’re every woman’s story,” she said. “Women who are learning that they are strong and can do anything. Who just want to help their families and find a place in the world.” That desire to illuminate truth also drives We Were Illegal, Goudeau’s latest book. This time, the story is personal. During the COVID-19 lockdown, with her previous book launch delayed, she began digging into her own family history, and what she found shocked her. “I literally Googled my great uncle and found, on the third link, that he had helped cover up a mass murder,” she said. “No one in my family had ever mentioned it. I realized how many white people like me have this vague sense that we ‘belong here’ without understanding how we got here.” Her research uncovered a legacy of violence, redlining, and genocide among her ancestors, including land grants from 1826 and ties to Stephen F. Austin. “I didn’t commit genocide, and I’m not going to,” she said when I asked her about her feelings when confronting this information, “But knowing what happened allows me to make better decisions as a person and pass more truthful stories to my kids.” This same commitment to truth supports her podcast, The Beautiful and the Banned, which examines the current surge in book banning across the U.S. “We’ve never faced book banning at the levels we’re seeing now,” she said. The podcast brings together authors, librarians, and educators to talk about the importance of diverse stories and the danger of erasing them.
Looking ahead, Goudeau’s work continues to evolve in surprising ways. Under the pseudonym Jess Cannon, she’s launching a cozy mystery series she wrote last summer that will be released next year. “I wanted to try different ways to write about Texas and my community,” she said. “And honestly, I'm tired of writing hard books. The research for the last couple of projects was really painful and personal. Writing something zany and fun has been such a joy.” At the same time, her more serious projects are always on her mind. “What I’m really thinking about right now,” she said,” is how we can change the way we tell the story of immigration. There are so many myths about what’s legal, how people came here, and what rights they have. We need to reshape those narratives.”
Whether she is unraveling the legacy of redlining or writing about fictional mysteries in Texas, Goudeau’s goal remains the same: to use stories, truthful and human, and sometimes even silly, to challenge assumptions, encourage empathy, and spark change.
How Chaplaincy and Classroom Teaching Connect
Aiden Tynberg
May 2, 2025
St Andrew’s beloved Biology teacher, Andy Gerhart, is not just a phenomenal educator who specialises in all natural sciences. In a recent interview, Dr. Gerhart shared insights from his years as a hospital chaplain prior to teaching at St Andrew’s, revealing a deeply compassionate and spiritually rich background. Dr. Gerhart worked, and completed his residency, at the Seton Hospital in Austin, Texas, working as a Chaplain. He was able to share his wisdom and grow his listening abilities, while spending time in the maternity ward, cancer unit, and psych hospital.
From an outside perspective, it is a big jump to go from practicing chaplaincy to teaching; however, Dr. Gerhart says “it doesn't feel like a shift to me” because he believes they share a common goal. As a teacher at St Andrew’s, Dr. Gerhart hopes to “Inspire young kids to do good work in stewarding the earth.” Similarly, chaplaincy is healing the earth and people, guiding others, and inspiring them to do the same. In the hospital, Dr. Gerhart’s chaplaincy typically looked like tending to someone in suffering, as he is “someone who is trained to see someone after trauma has occurred,” he said. Truly helping someone begins with listening, not speaking, because the patient is the number one priority, and their fears, feelings, and pain should not go unnoticed.
Every day working as a chaplain is different, but there are common factors that stay consistent. A chaplain has to stay in their units during the day. Dr. Gerhart would go into the hospital and “tend to a series of chaplain requests people had made,” however, when on call during the night time, Dr. Gerhart would cover every Austin Seton Hospital. On weekends, the on call schedule would be even more demanding, as he would work for a full 24 hours.
Dr. Gerhart had many eventful on-call nights, but one stuck out to him most. At the start of this evening, he tended to the parents who moments before lost a child, guiding them through their grief and mourning. Not long after, Dr. Gerhart was requested by a 30 year old patient, who had been struggling with his heart condition since he was eight. This man was just told that he had a few days to live, but he wanted to be there for his brother's wedding and be the best man. Dr. Gerhart immediately conducted this wedding for his family. He later had to come back to this man, when the realization of death hit him, and Dr. Gerhart helped him through what he described as, “extreme psychological anguish.” Between the wedding and the tending to care for the man’s emotional needs, the oldest nurse at another one of Seton Hospitals died, adding to Dr. Gerhart’s busy schedule. This significant night, filled with tragic events, is one example of the grief chaplains manage.
Dr. Gerhart is an extraordinary person and working as a chaplain has allowed him to “develop spirituality much more deeply.” His students love and appreciate him, as senior Lucy Bowles remarks, “You can tell he is a very intellectual person…he’s very passionate about everything he teaches and it really keeps class interesting.”
Photo Credit: Ms. Westerlund
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