Nancy, Mateo & Otto continue working and partying hard, as usual!
- Nancy, right after getting tenured and promoted to Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature in Drew University, and after having her second authored book published -- Traslaciones, a book of short stories launched in Venezuela by Monte Ávila Editores, took a good sabbatical semester (December 2005-August 2006) doing research on women & government in contemporary Venezuela. She is now back to teaching full-time while chairing the Department of Spanish in the college.
- Mateo is now 12 years of age and in 7th grade -- becoming a more conscientious student than last year (it seems), making friends, singing in a chorus, getting quite decent grades (as usual), developing (sometimes) good relations with (some of) his teachers ... and playing computer games & watching TV as often as his parents allow him to! Here is a not-so-recent photo of both Mateo and Nancy!
- After a good academic year closed with a long visit to Venezuela, Otto embarked on a couple of new adventures for 2006-2007, his second sabbatical in a lifetime! On the one hand, with a grant of the Henry Luce III Fellows in Theology Program he did research on the role of Pentecostal congregations in the lives of Latina/o immigrants in Newark (New Jersey), with a team including two graduate students sharing in the work for the whole year. Simultaneously, he accepted the position of director of the Hispanic Summer Program in religion & theology -- an independent, ecumenical, itinerant program for the higher education of U.S. Latina/o seminarians of all the Christian churches. So, no teaching for a year, but a whole lot of interviewing, observing, reading, writing ... and traveling, too! He's now back at Drew while continuing some of his research and directing the Hispanic Summer Program.
- Otto joined again this year an organization committed to the defense of Latina/o immigrants in the New Jersey town he lives in with his family, Morristown. Its name is Wind of the Spirit, and it is an active part of the national struggle to defend the human rights of immigrants as well as to contribute to enhance the quality of their lives in the U.S.A.