Lillian Cui Garcia

A Teacher Between Worlds Lillian Cui Garcia

This is a collection of essays I've written through the years reflecting on my teaching journey in a northern Canadian community college. They are interwoven with memories about my earlier Alberta government researcher's job and my first teaching experience in Cebu, Philippines. Also intertwined with them are remembrances of my family, friends, colleagues and benefactors. It is a social history memoir that touches on a number of contemporary Canadian, Native Peoples and Philippine history. It's an invitation for teachers and newcomers in a place to reflect on their own comparable journeys while walking with me through my experiences integrating my minority status as a woman of colour in the academic world and the Canadian cultural mosaic where I sought and found acceptance, respect and even affection. My observations about teaching, family, friendship, the arts, health concerns, majority and minority relations and transformation resonate with the abiding belief of social scientists in humankind's oneness in mind and spirit. They are timely reminders that, in an increasingly fractious world, we are better off engaging with each other grounding ourselves in honesty, civility and compassion as we share space and help navigate this magnificent boat called Earth.