Cati V. de los Ríos is an Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture at UC Berkeley’s School of Education. She applies critical, sociocultural, and translingual theories to examine the literacy and language practices of immigrant, transnational, and racialized bi/multilingual youth populations. Her ethnographic, community-based, and participatory research is situated at the axes of literacy studies, educational anthropology, civic and political learning, and ethnic studies, with an emphasis on studying the linguistic-semiotic repertoires that Latina/o/x youth and families deploy and develop across educational settings. de los Ríos's empirical work examines 1) secondary teachers' critical and translingual pedagogies in Ethnic Studies classrooms; 2) bi/multilingual youths’ creative expressivity and critical translingual literacies; and 3) Latinx family and youth community engagement and civic participation. Her scholarship highlights the diversity of resources (e.g. cultural, musical, and civic) that racialized bi/multilingual youth engage to participate intellectually and socially across educational contexts.
de los Ríos is a former Spanish, ELD, and Ethnic Studies high school teacher. Her research has been recognized by The National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation (Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships); National Academies of Sciences/Ford Foundation (Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships); and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Cultivating New Voices Fellowship. de los Ríos is the recipient of several national awards including Early Career Award from American Educational Research Association (AERA)'s Grassroots Community and Youth Organizing Special Interest Group; Early Career Award from AERA's Language and Social Processes Special Interest Group; Early Career Achievement Award from Literacy Research Association (LRA); Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy from LRA; Promising Researcher Award from National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE); Alan C. Purves Award from NCTE; and Janet Emig Award from NCTE. Her scholarship has been published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Applied Linguistics, Harvard Educational Review; Reading Research Quarterly; Journal of Literacy Research; Research in the Teaching of English; Anthropology & Education Quarterly; Written Communication; and Learning, Media and Technology.
Publications
Seltzer, K., & de los Ríos, C. V. (2024). Glimpses of possibility: Decentering the E in English Language Arts juntos. English Journal, 114(1), 20-26.
de los Ríos, C. V. (2024). "Al sonido del huehuetl": Situating danza azteca as family translingual prayer and civic engagement. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education 23(3), 355-367. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2024.2324281
de los Ríos, C. V. (2024). Forward. In M.P. Ghiso and G. Campano's Methods for community-based research: Advancing educational justice and epistemic rights, (p. viii-x). Routledge.
Seltzer, K., & de los Ríos, C. V. (2024). Creating your classroom from the students up: Tapping into students’ translanguaging and raciolinguistic literacies for deep reading. In. P. Sullivan, H. Tinburg, S. Blau (eds.) Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom (2nd edition). National Council of Teachers of English.
de los Ríos, C.V., & Patel, L. (2023). Positions, positionality, and relationality in educational research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2268036
Lyiscott, J., de los Ríos, C.V., & Clark, C. (2023). Effective learning climates for civic reasoning and discussion. AAPSS ANNALS, 705(1), 138-155. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231178627
de los Ríos, C. V. (2023). Delinking to learn from youth expressive practitioners of the everyday: A commentary on “Undoing competence: Coloniality, Homogeneity, and the Overrepresentation of Whiteness in Applied Linguistics.” Language Learning 73(2), 308-311.https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12539
de los Ríos, C. V., **Portillo, Y., & **Cantero, B. (2022). Critical worldmaking through balladry: Youth corrido literacies as a lived civic poetic. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 66(2), 55-59. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.1251
de los Ríos, C.V., Ochoa, G., *Molina, A., ***Gómez, B. (2022). Fostering and sustaining relationality in Chicanx and Latinx Studies: Reflections on transgenerational learning. Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, 27(2), 143-156.
de los Ríos, C.V. (2022). Guitarras on the rise: Framing youth sierreño bands as translingual ingenuity. Reading Research Quarterly, 57(2) 691-706. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.433
de los Ríos, C. V. (2022). Translingual youth podcasts as acoustic allies: Writing and negotiating identities at the intersection of literacies, language, and racialization. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 21(6), 378-392https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2020.1795865
de los Ríos, C. V., & Seltzer, K. (2021). Collaborative corridos: Ballads of unity and justice. In M. Sánchez and O. García's (eds.) Transformative translanguaging espacios: Latinx bilingual children rompiendo fronteras. Multilingual Matters Publisher.
de los Ríos, C.V., & **Portillo, Y. (2021). “Hay que cantar con ternura”: Baladas románticas as a site for translingual youth convivencia. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 70(1), 213-230https://doi.org/10.1177/23813377211024623
de los Ríos, C. V., Seltzer, K., & *Molina, A. (2021). “Juntos somos fuertes”: Writing participatory corridos of solidarity through a critical translingual approach. Applied Linguistics, 42(6), 1070-1082. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab026 Special Issue: "Applied Linguists Cultivating Relationships for Justice”(Awarded 2020 Best Paper Award from Literacy Research Association Conference's Area Chair 8 on Literacy Learning and Practice in Multicultural and Multilingual Settings)
Rodríguez, N. N., & de los Ríos, C. (2021). Uplifting multiracial and translingual childhoods in the envisioning of anti-racist schooling: Reflections from two MamiProfas. Multicultural Perspectives, 23(3), 143-148.
Anderson, J., Bang, M., McKinley, B. J., de los Ríos, C. V., & Gutiérrez, K., Hicks, D. et al. (2021). Historicizing Latinx civic agency and contemporary lived civics. In C. D. Lee, G. White, & D. Dong (Eds.). Civic discourses and reasoning. Washington, DC: National Academy of Education.
Seltzer, K., & de los Ríos, C. V. (2021). Understanding translanguaging in U.S. literacy classrooms: Reframing bi/multilingualism as the norm. (Policy Brief) James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
de los Ríos, C. V. (2020). “Got libros?”: Exploring patrons’ experiences with Latinx history and literature at La Casa Azul Bookstore. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 51(4), 422-439. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12351
de los Ríos, C. V. (2020). Writing oneself into the curriculum: Reflections on photovoice journaling in an ethnic studies course. Written Communication 37(4), 487-511. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088320938794
de los Ríos, C. V., & *Molina, A. (2020). Literacies of refuge: “Pidiendo posada” as ritual of justice. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(1), 32-54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X19897840
de los Ríos, C. V. (2019). ”Los músicos”: Mexican corridos, the aural border, and the evocative musical renderings of transnational youth. Harvard Educational Review, 89(2), 177-200. https://doi.org/10.17763/1943-5045-89.2.177 (Awarded the 2020 Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy from the Literacy Research Association)
*Kwon, L., & de los Ríos, C. V. (2019). “See, Click, Fix”: Civic interrogation and digital tools in a ninth-grade ethnic studies course. Equity & Excellence in Education, 52(2-3), 154-166. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2019.1647809
de los Ríos, C. V., Martinez, D. C., **Musser, A., *Canady, A., Camangian, P. R., Quijada, P. D. (2019). Upending colonial practices: Toward repairing harm in English education. Theory into Practice, 58(4), 359-367. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1626615
de los Ríos, C. V. (2019). Revisiting notions of social action in K-12 ethnic studies pedagogy: One teacher’s critical lessons from the classroom. In C. Sleeter, W. Au’s (eds.) Rethinking Ethnic Studies. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools.
de los Ríos, C.V. (2018). Toward a corridista consciousness: Learning from one transnational youth’s critical reading, writing, and performance of Mexican corridos. Reading Research Quarterly, 53(4), 455-471. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.210 (Awarded the 2018 National Council of Teachers of English Promising Researcher Award)
Seltzer, K., & de los Ríos, C.V. (2018). Translating theory to practice: Exploring teachers’ raciolinguistic literacies in secondary English classrooms. English Education, 51(1), 49-79. (Awarded the 2019 National Council of Teachers of English Janet Emig Award)
de los Ríos, C.V. (2018). Bilingual Vine making: Problematizing oppressive discourses in a secondary Chicanx/Latinx studies course. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(4), 359-373. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1498350
de los Ríos, C.V., & Seltzer, K. (2017). Translanguaging, coloniality, and English classrooms: An exploration of two bicoastal urban classrooms. Research in the Teaching of English, 52(1), 55-76. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44821287 (Awarded the 2018 National Council of Teachers of English Alan C. Purves Award)
de los Ríos, C.V. (2017). Picturing ethnic studies: Photovoice and youth literacies of social action. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(1), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.631
de los Ríos, C. V., & Souto-Manning, M., (2017). Freirean culture circles as a racial justice strategy in teacher education. In B. Picower, R. Kohli’s (eds.) Confronting Racism: Counternarratives of critical teacher educators. New York: Routledge.
de los Ríos, C.V. (2016).Writing from La Panza!: Exploring monologue literacies with emergent bilinguals. English Journal, 105(5), 75-80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26606376
de los Ríos, C.V., *López, J., & Morrell, E. (2016). Critical ethnic studies in high school classrooms: Academic achievement via social action. In P. Noguera, J. Pierce, R. Ahram’s (eds.) Race, Equity and Education: Sixty Years from Brown. New York: Springer.
de los Ríos, C.V., *López, J., & Morrell, E. (2015). Toward a critical pedagogy of race: Ethnic studies and literacies of power in high school classrooms. Race and Social Problems, 7(1), 84-96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-014-9142-1
de los Ríos, C.V. (2013). A curriculum of the borderlands: High school Chicana/o-Latina/o studies as sitios y lenguas. The Urban Review, 45(1), 58-73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-012-0224-3
de los Ríos, C.V., & Ochoa, G.L. (2012). The people united, shall never be divided: Reflections on collaboration, community, and change. Journal of Latinos and Education, 11(4), 271-279. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2012.715507
* indicates that the co-author is a K-12 classroom teacher.
** indicates that the co-author is a graduate student.
*** indicates that the co-author is a community member.
Editorial Boards
Reading Research Quarterly
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Written Communication
Equity & Excellence in Education
English Journal
Awards, Honors, Fellowships
Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research, 2025
Early Career Award, Grassroots Community and Youth Organizing Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association, 2022
Early Career Award, Language and Social Processes Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association, 2022
Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of Graduate Student Instructors, University of California, Berkeley, 2021
Early Career Achievement Award, Literacy Research Association, 2020
Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy, Literacy Research Association, 2020
National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020-2021
National Academies of Sciences/Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020-2021 (declined)
National Council of Teachers of English/English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE) Janet Emig Award, 2019
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Alan C. Purves Award, 2018
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Promising Researcher Award, 2018
Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group: Critical Educators for Social Justice, 2018
Outstanding Dissertation Award, American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group: Latinx Research Issues, 2018
American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education/Ford Foundation Faculty Fellow, 2018
NCTE Conference of English Education (CEE) Research Initiative Grant, 2017
AERA Jean Anyon Award, American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group: Grassroots Community & Youth Organizing for Education Reform, 2017
National Academies of Sciences, Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, 2016
National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, 2016 (declined)
Cultivating New Voices (CNV) Among Scholars of Color Fellowship, Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 2014-2016
Teachers College, Columbia University Office of the Provost Doctoral Dissertation Grant, 2016-2017
Teachers College, Columbia University Office of the Provost Grant for Professional Development, 2016
Teachers College, Columbia University Office of the Provost Dissertation Fellowship, 2015-2016
Teachers College, Columbia University Dean’s Grant for Student Research, 2014-2015
American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE)/Ford Foundation Multidisciplinary Graduate Fellowship, 2014
Teachers College, Columbia University Inaugural Televisa Fellowship for Latina/o Research, 2014
