Growing up in the Bronx, New York as the eldest of seven children, Omaha educator Evangelina "Gigi" Brignoni wanted "to speak the secret code" of her Puerto Rican parents' native tongue. Only her folks decided they would only converse in English at home to give Gigi and her siblings "all the advantages in the United States." Being denied this expressive part of her familia made her “a wannabe Spanish speaker.” When the school she attended offered Latin, not Spanish, she was frustrated. It was only after moving with her family to Calif. she formally studied Spanish. "It was something I felt in my inner being that was right, and now here was something my dad could help me with. I showed him some of my work and he helped me, so it was a connection back with family, the way it's supposed to be," she says. "It was a very powerful experience." So powerful that she became a bilingual teacher in the Los Angeles United School District. She says “bilingual education really works.” She became an advocate of Hispanic families keeping Spanish alive at home. "I told parents they need to maintain their home language, plus learn English, because it just helps so much. And then you're bicultural, you're bilingual, and you can step out of two worlds and go back into that world. It's OK to co-switch." She taught multicultural education, English as Second Language methodology and Spanish language courses in the California State University system. In 2006 she joined the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Teacher Education Department, where she teaches methodology courses for the new Bilingual Education Supplemental Endorsement. She’s active in the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS), whose 2010 Cumbre conference she helped organize. She facilitated a CUMBRE education workshop. She works with OLLAS on Project Improve, which provides Spanish-speaking Latino detainees creative avenues for self-expression. Her active community engagement led the Barrientos Scholarship Foundation to name her 2010 Latina of the Year. Among other things: she collaborates with Paco Fuentes on youth empowerment programs at the South Omaha Boys and Girls Club of the Midlands; she's a mentor at the College’s Saint Mary’s annual Latina Summer Academy; she serves on the Latino Achievement Council (Omaha Public Schools); she leads South Omaha Culture Walks; she's a Nebraska Humanities Council Prime Team reading program bilingual scholar. “I enjoy working with the Latino community," she says, "because I am working with ‘mi gente’ (my people) and sometimes we converse using my parents’ secret code of Spanish.” She also co-heads the Oxbow Writing Project, a National Writing Project for teachers who teach writing.

read more: Evangelina “Gigi” Brignoni Immerses Herself in Community Affairs