BIO
Oneyda Maestas was raised in the small town of Kim, Colorado, where she was taught to have a strong work ethic and family values, and a strong sense of language and culture. Although her father was punished as a child in school for speaking Spanish, she grew up in a bilingual home where language was encouraged and supported. Ironically, she attended a school where only English was allowed. At age five, she experienced her first language and identity crisis. This is why her educational background includes a Master’s Degree in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations. As an English-language learning specialist, she taught on a Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and served as an international exchange teacher in Monterrey, Mexico; Badajoz, Spain; and Solola, Guatemala. She has traveled to nineteen countries in North America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean Islands.
In 2013 she became the director of CASA (Cultural Awareness and Student Achievement) House at Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. CASA is a resource center that fosters an environment that promotes learning, celebrates cultures, and develops leadership and student success, with a global perspective. She is deeply passionate about ethnographic studies; student assimilation, acculturation, and language preservation; identity frameworks; and global cuisine.