By Charlize Althea Garcia, May 13, 2025
Though this should be an exciting time because of her upcoming graduation, Annie Song, who will be graduating this week with her doctorate’s degree in educational leadership has been confronted with the state of events under the current administration, one of them being Executive Order 14224, declaring English as the official language of the U.S. Her concerns and fears lie within the ideological backlash that this could have on society, that the many strides already made in shifting the narrative to valuing multilingualism, especially in a diverse state like California, will disappear.
“Change in education is like trying to redirect a cruise ship with one oar,” Song said. “You just have to keep paddling, even if it feels like you’re paddling yourself. Because if we look at how much schooling has changed in 40 years, that’s our reminder that change happens.”
Song realized her passion was to be a teacher at a young age. As a child of Korean immigrants, her house was poised to be the first stop when her extended family immigrated to the U.S. She spent her formative years teaching her cousins, younger cousins and family friends’ children.
Before embarking on her doctoral path, Song tutored and taught at preschools, but with no teaching jobs in California at the time, she moved to New York, teaching at the Coney Island projects. She then moved back to California to teach at a charter school in Skid Row. Her time there was filled with her fight to get resources for her students to better their reading and composition skills; the majority of her students were bilingual and could not read or write in English.
After four years in a Mandarin dual language program, she realized educational institutions were moving farther away from real, systemic foundational transformation. And so, at that moment, she decided to take on the field of research, with the passion and initiative to find out how to teach multilingual learners in a state like California.
More specifically, Song wanted to look into the lived experiences of teachers who grew up in California during English-only mandates. Proposition 227, aka “English for the Children,” passed in 1997. The initiative states teachers can only teach in English and children can only respond in English, dismantling all bilingual programs. Prop 58 in 2016 reversed these mandates, but a great deal of teachers didn’t notice, according to Song.
“And so, a lot of us, including myself, carry a lot of linguistically oppressive ideologies around how we teach children literacy that no one ever reversed for us,” Song said. “And so … there other people in California that are like me, that are perpetuating these language ideologies without knowing it, under the guise of good literacy instruction.”
The beginning of Song’s doctoral program was filled with a lot of “I don’t knows” because of her limited knowledge in research. But with the support of the faculty and her cohort, she was able to persevere. Her focus came from a noticeable gap in research of teachers who were multilingual (presumably affected by Prop 227) and now teaching multilingual students.
During her time in the doctoral program, Song became an adjunct lecturer in the Early Childhood Studies Department at CPP, teaching a course called Multilingual Families and Communities. She took her own feelings of both grief and gratification from her experience learning about her research and implemented it into her own practice.
“I really wanted to create that same experience for my students in ACS 3400, allowing them space to reflect, just like I got to reflect on their experience,” Song said. “Naming some of the things that they felt were their fault but wasn’t and then giving them the tools to consider how we can change things in our own practice. It’s been wonderful to receive, and then to give.”
Sisi Navarro is currently a program specialist in the San Bernardino City Unified School District. They graduated in 2023 and completed the educational leadership doctoral program at CPP. The decision to attend the university was a familiar one for Navarro having grown up in Pomona.
“There’s a lot of diversity, if you will, when it comes to representation, which was a big deal for me,” Navarro said. “I wanted to be in spaces where there were people who looked like me and I’d be welcome.”
With an interest in helping young people learn how to love learning, Navarro took this issue as the focus of research. They noted the downfall of interest in learning as youth begin to attend school. Their dissertation titled, “Exploring the lived or the lived experience of secondary, minoritized, marginalized scholars,” explores the radical connections, a term Navarro coined, or the connection between mentor and mentee and how these connections can lead to pivotal change in a young person’s perspective.
“That was my finding, that students need more of the transformational and radical connection, especially when we’re talking about minoritized, marginalized secondary youth,” Navarro said. “LGBTQ students of color, students who are foster, homeless and so forth. Those students, especially, need time to figure out who they are, so that they can then, hopefully, turn around and give back to society.”
After being a classroom teacher for 10 years, Navarro made the shift to work with teachers in their own professional development. They put together training sessions and attended conferences presenting their research. With the initiative to spread the importance of students in need of transformative connections, Navarro took on the duty to spread the word, especially amid the political climate.
A U.S. veteran, a stand-up comedian, an automotive technician and now soon-to-be master’s graduate in rehabilitation counseling from Cal State San Bernardino, Ralph Figueroa had worn many hats before and after his time at CPP. He graduated with honors from CPP in 2022 with a bachelor’s in liberal studies, although initially admitted for the fall of 1997.
“The reason why I joined the military was because I wanted to get an education, and so I always felt like I left that on the table,” Figueroa said. “I didn’t feel accomplished in that route. I’ve been successful in so many different things in life, and when I start a project, I like to finish it. And that was one of those projects that forever would be like a thorn in my side. I always wanted to go back.
However, his beginnings were not met with outstanding confidence as he experienced imposter syndrome as an older student.
“Once I reapplied, I was thinking in my head, ‘I’m too old. Am I smart enough? Do I have the capability of writing at that level?’” Figueroa said.
But after jumping those hurdles of self-consciousness, Figueroa began to take control of his mindset, graduating on the dean’s and president’s list as well as straight A’s every semester. He attributed his drive to asking himself a different question: “How bad do you really want it?”
During his break from 2010 to 2020, alongside his career in the automotive industry, Figueroa found himself starting a journey into stand-up comedy. As a military veteran, he performed at different bases all around the world, like Korea, Japan, Kuwait, Poland, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan. His name is even on the Wall of Fame at The Ice House in Pasadena. 
Currently, Figureoa is a master’s level paraprofessional. He works as a benefit specialist and resource specialist for veterans and their families, specifically veterans who are service-connected and have a disability. His passion lies in providing the knowledge of the benefits and resources to the people he meets as he shares the same experiences and frustrations.
“It mirrors the characteristics of any other minority group,” Figueroa said. “They’re disenfranchised. They’re a lot of times where they’re not heard, especially more recently, with what’s going on with this administration. As a veteran, I’m on both sides of the same coin.”
Figueroa noted his success is built on the accomplishments of the veterans he speaks with. Both encompassing honesty and compassion, Figueroa takes on the personal duty of ensuring they have a chance to be successful.
“I tell this to every veteran: ‘If it’s meant for you, and you really want it, you’re going to go and get it,” Figueroa said. “It’s not for everybody going into higher education, and I’m talking to a college student, it’s not that it’s not easy, but if you want it bad enough, you’re going to figure out a way to get around all these obstacles.”
Feature image courtesy of Annie Song, Ralph Figueroa and Sisi Navarro
