Discover Cuban-American author and anthropologist Ruth Behar’s new book Across So Many Seas about four girls from different generations of a Jewish family in Cuba, Turkey, Miami, and Spain. The author will be joined in conversation with Dr. Heather Woodley (NYU Steinhardt) and Kendra Tyson (NYU Steinhardt).

Following the discussion, copies of the book will be available for purchase. Music and food inspired by the book will accompany this special Fridays on the Patio program.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Teaching and Learning (NYU Steinhardt) and the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (NYU)

Bios

Ruth Behar, the Pura Belpré Award-winning author of Lucky Broken Girl and Letters from Cuba, was born in Havana, Cuba, grew up in New York, and has also lived in Spain and Mexico. Her work also includes poetry, memoir, and the acclaimed travel books An Island Called Home and Traveling Heavy. She was the first Latina to win a MacArthur Genius Grant, and other honors include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and being named a Great Immigrant by the Carnegie Corporation. Ruth is an anthropology professor at the University of Michigan, and she now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dr. Heather Homonoff Woodley PhD is a Clinical Associate Professor of TESOL, Bilingual Education and World Language Education and the Director of Childhood Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at New York University. Her research and courses on campus and in the NYU Teacher Residency focus on anti-racist, social justice-based, and multilingual education collaboratively with communities, families and youth. She has published articles, chapters and curriculum on multilingual classrooms, mother-scholars, and teaching for justice with comics and the arts. In collaboration with colleagues and students, Heather has created online spaces for critical teacher education, family empowerment in education, and community resources for remote learning.

Kendra Tyson, the Linda May Uris Library Media Specialist, manages the center’s collection and provides services to its patrons in addition to leading its public outreach efforts. Tyson, who has held the position since November 2013, was previously manager for exhibition programs, digital assets, and archive management in Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked for a decade.