Amelia Teresa Correa
The City College of New York
160 Convent Avenue
New York, NY 10031
March 21, 2015
Deborah D’Amico
Anthropologist, PhD
Worker Education Research
153 Stuyvesant Road
Teaneck, NJ 07666
Dear Dr. D’Amico:
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for visiting our class and sharing both your writings and your professional experiences with our Teaching Adult Writers in Different Contexts class.
Dr. D’Amico, I was so thrilled to learn not only that there is indeed an institution that advocates for worker’s rights, but that you are a Senior Program Developer of the same. Seldom do we students have the opportunity to meet the authors whose papers we read. And what a pleasure it is, not only meeting a pioneer in worker education, but knowing that you are directly involved in developing programs which more than 15 years ago I did not have access to due to a lack of advocacy. However, I have to admit it was through reading your paper on the Joseph Murphy Institute that I learned the tremendous work being done to prepare workers both to become students and to advance in their line of work to higher positions and many a times to earn degrees that otherwise they would not be able to attain; such was my case more than 15 years ago.
After completing my Associate’s degree at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in 1995, I acquired a job as a school aid for the New York City Department of Education, former New York City Board of Education. And I remember, after trying several times to become a paraprofessional to no avail, dropping the idea altogether. I just could not find an office that would explain to me the process to becoming a permanent paraprofessional. As a relatively new immigrant, the system was just cumbersome to me. Not to mention the fact that I did not even fathom in my mind that CUNY had an institution that advocates for the rights of worker students. Had I known about the Center for Worker Education program at Queens College, perhaps I would have become a New York teacher which was my ultimate goal until I became dismayed due to the many obstacles I encountered.
So your work as a Program Developer is not only noble but it has a tremendous positive impact on the lives of many New Yorkers trying to achieve their American dream. In fact, from time to time newcomers approach me to ask for guidance on how to access different educational programs. And as though it is very helpful to have meaningful information to give to those who reach out to me, including some of my family members who are new immigrants. No doubt your work speaks volumes about your expertise.
Unfortunately, as you mentioned during your visit, nowadays many worker students in the New York area are unable to access some programs partly because funds have been reduced or taken away altogether by the State or the federal government. It struck me when you mentioned that one of the programs that made it possible for me to complete my Bachelor’s degree at John Jay College, the Children’s Center, disappeared.
Nonetheless, while programs like the Children’s Center at John Jay are no longer in place, I strongly believe that the work that you do as a researcher can alleviate many of the gaps that exist between education and the acquisition of higher paying jobs in New York. It is thanks to the work that you and other researches like you do, such as the one you present on your “It Changed Something inside of Me” that politicians, employers and other groups involved can actually shift policies to make them meet the needs of the community at large. Thanks to your working hand in hand with those labor unions that are members of the Consortium for Worker Education, New York labor workers can acquire better skills to advance personally, professionally and consequently financially.
Thank you so much Dr. D’Amico, not only for visiting and letting us know that although the struggle is not easy, not everything is lost; that those looking to attain better paying jobs by acquiring English skills, or simply by learning a trade or other skills through their unions, can still do so. And that our goals of becoming ESL, Language and Literacy, or English teachers for those same worker students to name a few, will be arduous but rewarding if we are really committed to it. Once again, thanks for sharing your professional experiences with us and for talking to us from a place of honesty.
Respectfully,
Amelia T.
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