Today is the start of the 2018-19 academic year at Pomona College!
This year is the start of my 17th year as a full-time professor. It’s the start of my 23rd year in the world of college teaching (I started teaching at the college level as a TA at UC Berkeley). Overall, this is my 29th year in higher education.
The kid that began his undergraduate career back in 1990 would have been pretty pleased to know that someday he’d be writing the above paragraph. Not many days go by that I don’t think and feel how lucky I am to be in my line of work. I get to learn new things on a daily basis. I get to write and read. And I get to spend time connecting young people to their own journeys of discovery.
I’m a lucky guy.
I’m looking forward to this semester. I’ll teach my “Intro to Chicanx/Latinx Studies” class, my greatest pleasure and the reason I do what I do. I’ll also teach my “Latinx in the 20th Century” seminar, where we get to go more into depth. As if that wasn’t enough, in a little more than two weeks, the play I wrote based on my oral histories with Chicano Vietnam vets will hit the stage. It’ll be a busy start but I got nothing to complain about.
So happy new academic year from me to you!
LATINO LIKE ME 
And to you, Profe!
I too started teaching 23 years ago. Doesn’t feel like it though — even if two of my former students are now chairs of their own university departments.