On Resilience—with Alejandra Vazquez-Baur

OFF-KILTER with Rebecca Vallas

For this week’s episode, Rebecca sat down with Alejandra Vazquez-Baur, an educator-turned-policy advocate whose work focuses on expanding supports for K–12 immigrant students—especially newcomers—and multilingual students. As Alejandra describes herself: “I am a product of resilient Mexican women. A sister. A dancer. An educator. A visionary.” They talk about the National Newcomer Network Alejandra co-founded as a policy entrepreneur at The Next 100; how she’s bringing her experience in the classroom as a high school math teacher onto the national policy scene; the role of dreaming in her work and her path to claiming her role as a visionary; resilience and how to stay rooted; how music, dance, and movement inform her advocacy work; and lots more.

Links from this episode:

• Follow Alejandra on Twitter @Ale_VazquezBaur and learn more about her work and her policy entrepreneurship at Next100

• Learn more about the National Newcomer Network and follow #NationalNewcomerNetwork to stay up to date

• Learn more about ImmSchools

• And here’s more about the Obama Foundation fellowship

• Nominate the changemakers you most want to hear from by emailing us at [email protected]