Alice Miano

Bio

Dr. Alice (Ali) Miano teaches Spanish at all levels from an antiracist, social justice standpoint. She likewise incorporates and studies the effects of community-engaged language learning (CELL), both in her classes and in the Spanish-speaking communities in which she and her students interact. Dr. Miano's work examines reciprocal gains as well as challenges in CELL, and likewise interrogates traditional notions of "service" and “help” while underscoring the community cultural wealth, resistance, and resilience (Yosso, 2005) found in under-resourced communities and communities of color. Dr. Miano and her second-year students of Spanish have teamed up regularly on joint art projects with a local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula and currently collaborate with the Mountain View Dayworker Center. Many of her third-year students embark upon a digital storytelling project with Stanford workers. 
 
Additionally, Dr. Miano's ethnographic research has examined the literate practices and parental school efforts of Mexican immigrant mothers in the Silicon Valley, finding that regardless of the mothers' (in)access to formal education, they supported their children's schooling in a variety of ways, many of which go unrecognized by educators and the society at large.
 
Dr. Miano has also volunteered to assist asylum seekers through the CARA Probono Project at the South Texas Family Detention Center in Dilley, TX; Al Otro Lado in Tijuana, Mexico; the Services, Immigration Rights, and Education Network (SIREN) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Freedom for Immigrants.
 
In addition, as a workshop facilitator certified by ACTFL in the Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and Writing Proficiency Test (WPT), Dr. Miano has been privileged to engage with language instructors at various points around the globe--including Madagascar and Timor Leste, as well as a variety of Latin American countries from Paraguay to Mexico--on behalf of both ACTFL and the U.S. Peace Corps.

Academic Appointments

• Lecturer, Stanford Language Center

Administrative Appointments

• Coordinator, Spanlang Language Program (1996 - Present)

Honors & Awards

• Faculty Fellow, Stanford University Haas Center for Public Service (2018)
• Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford University (1997)
• Outstanding Dissertation, American Educational Research Association Family, School & Community Partnership SIG (2012)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations

• President Elect, California Language Teachers Association (CLTA) (2022 - Present)
• Secretary, ACTFL African American Students Special Interest Group (AAS SIG) (2023 - Present)
• Past Chair, ACTFL Critical & Social Justice Approaches Special Interest Group (CSJA SIG) (2022 - Present)
• Board Member, California World Language Project (2022 - Present)
• Board Member and CLTA Affiliate Representative, National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (2022 - Present)
• President, American Association of Teachers of Spanish & Portuguese (AATSP), Northern California Chapter (2020 - 2022)
• Board Member and Affiliate Representative to CLTA, Foreign Language Association of Northern California (FLANC) (2019 - 2022)

Additional Program Affiliations

• Center for Latin American Studies