Humanizing Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth

Nadia Elbgal is a 2022 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Elbgal is a Yemeni-American Muslim woman who advocates for and raises awareness on topics relating to the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. As an artist-activist, Nadia writes about both the Middle East and America: the perspectives, experiences, politics, and effects on people from both sides. Nadia identifies as an actor, playwright, lyricist, and poet. She plans to get a degree in social work and pursue a career working with youth.

Dan Kigeya can illuminate the immigrant and refugee experience from the perspectives of both students and educators. Mr. Kigeya’s parents immigrated to the US from Uganda, after they fled Idi Amin’s regime in 1971. They moved to Madison when Dan was 10; he later graduated from West High School in 1997. Mr. Kigeya attended UW–Madison. He has worked as a teen volunteer with immigrant families in Eagle Heights, with UW’s PEOPLE program at West High School, with Oregon Middle School as the School of Hope Coordinator, as a social worker with Sun Prairie schools, as associate principal at Verona High School, and then for five years as principal of Sennett Middle School on the east side. This year, Mr. Kigeya assumed the position of principal at West High School.

Dr. Colleen Larsen is the Education Director for Student Success, at Wisconsin Technical College System. She completed her doctorate in 2022 at UW-Madison. Her dissertation explored the experiences of refugee students in two-year public colleges in Wisconsin.

Dr. Monisha Bajaj is a Professor of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. She is the editor and author of eight books and numerous articles on issues of peace, human rights, migration, racial justice, and education. Dr. Bajaj is also a guest contributor to Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance), Edutopia, and The Conversation. In 2015, she received the Ella Baker/Septima Clark Human Rights Award (2015) from Division B of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Lesley Bartlett is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. An anthropologist by training who works in the field of International and Comparative Education, Professor Bartlett researches literacy studies (including multilingual literacies) and migration. She is the author of more than 9 books, including Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach.

Gabriela Martínez arrived in the US at age 16 from El Salvador, speaking little English. She went on to graduate from Oakland International High School, received her BA from San Francisco State University in 2016, and graduated from the Masters in Migration Studies program at the University of San Francisco in 2022. Gaby is the co-author of the recent book, Humanizing Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth: 20 Strategies for the Classroom and Beyond (with Monisha Bajaj, Lesley Bartlett and Daniel Walsh).

Daniel R. Walsh, Ph.D. has worked at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education for over 30 years. He is currently an English Language Fellow with the U.S. State Department in Cusco, Perú. Before this role, he was Teaching Faculty in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and previously held various leadership roles in the New York City Department of Education including Director of Multilingual Learners, Director of Teaching & Learning, Principal, and Senior Director of Professional Learning. He has over 10 years of classroom ESL teaching experience in K-5, high school, and community college settings in both the U.S. and abroad. Additionally, he served as an adjunct in the City University of New York's master's program in Bilingual and TESOL Education.