Biography
Dr. Tamayo is, assistant professor, in The Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge—Writing Program. In this capacity, he teaches undergraduate writing courses with a Chicana/o Studies and Ethnic Studies epistemology. He received his doctorate from Washington State University (WSU) in English Studies, with an emphasis in Rhetoric and Composition. He is the former Chicana/o Latina/o Student Center Director at WSU and had an academic appointment with Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, WA. Professor Tamayo research focus is on the connections between language and unequal relations of power, such as racism and issues of linguistic discrimination. In this context, he has been trying to understand his complex trajectory growing up as a transfronterizo and now as a writing instructor—where he continues—to live a transnational life “in transit” socially, culturally, racially, and economically. As a writing instructor, he argues that teachers of rhetoric and writing should not racialized students’ agency by only focusing on the linguistic challenges that writers in training bring to the writing classroom. He urges writing instructors to help students make connections among reading and writing and in living in the world within the broader context of a Chicana/o transnationalism.