Lucilla Ek, Ph.D.

Dr. Bertha Perez Endowed Distinguished Professorship in Biliteracy Research

Professor, Bicultural-Bilingual Studies

Lucila del Carmen Ek was born in Yucatan, Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of four. She received her Ph.D. in Urban Schooling from the University of California–Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the intersections of language, literacy, and identity in Chicano/Latino immigrant communities. 

Language and literacy are productive lenses and important sites of inquiry because they tap into essential processes not only of growth, learning, and development but also of becoming, of constructing identities. Ek examines these processes within and across educational settings, both formal and informal, including schools, homes, and churches with the intent of bridging these spaces. Her research also explores the heterogeneity of the Latino/a community using a linguistic lens that examines the varieties of Spanish and English spoken by Chicano/Latino communities which differ by nationality, generation, and geographical location. 

Dr. Ek's concern for issues of equity and access in education has its roots in her own formal schooling experiences. She attended public schools from k-12th grades in Los Angeles and quickly realized that many of her fellow working-class immigrant Latino/a peers were left behind. Thus, when she began her teaching career eighteen years ago, she chose to teach in a bicultural-bilingual program at the very same elementary school she had attended as a child.  

 Ek was a 2011 recipient of UTSA’s Richard S. Howe Outstanding Service to Undergraduates Teaching Award, which recognizes faculty for developing signature learning experiences for undergraduates outside the traditional classroom environment. Ek was selected for her critical leadership role in La Clase Magica, which supports bilingual Latina/o elementary school students from low-income families by pairing each student with a UTSA undergraduate bilingual teacher candidate who serves as the child’s mentor. Using technology such as notebook computers and iPhones, La Clase Magica creatively supports cultural awareness, and heritage language and literacy while deepening and extending students’ mathematics and scientific knowledge.