Erika Garcia

Dr. Garcia was born and raised in Long Beach.  As a product of dual immersion programs in the Long Beach Unified School District, Dr. Garcia is an advocate and proponent of bilingual education programs that sustain not only the languages but also the cultures, histories and ways of being of bilinguals/multilingual children. As a former bilingual education teacher, her research examines how teachers can leverage the cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge of emergent bilinguals in the classroom curriculum.