As an anthropologist of education, Sofia Villenas explores the intersections of culture, language, race, class and gender with family education and the schooling experiences of Latinos/as in the United States. Specifically, she studies how immigrant families in newly forming Latino communities describe the challenges of raising children in unfamiliar contexts and how they see themselves as teachers and learners within their families and larger community. Sofia asks how Latina mothers integrate themselves in their new surroundings and how they teach their children cultural identity in a local context that may be welcoming or isolating. These questions are important for considering adult and K-12 educational initiatives in rapidly changing communities and within the current national debates on immigration. Dr. Villenas` research also leads to theoretical and practical concerns about how members of non-dominant groups work to survive and construct fulfilling lives. She engages in the ongoing process of thinking from and with the knowledge and organic theories produced by U.S. Women of Color as a way to perceive Latinas` experiences and modes of resilience as pedagogy.