Growing up in Kansas and venturing out for vacations only as far as the family car would reach, Molly Hamm-Rodríguez never dreamed she would find her calling in international education and the Dominican Republic.
Now, she is graduating with her doctorate in equity, bilingualism and biliteracy from the CU Boulder School of Education, and her groundbreaking research in the Dominican Republic has led to her work being honored with the CU Boulder School of Education’s 2023 Outstanding Dissertation Award.
As a master’s student at Teachers College at Columbia University, Hamm-Rodríguez worked with a nonprofit organization in the Dominican Republic, where she was hired after graduation to support hundreds of young people through a youth workforce development program. There, she discovered the program’s international sponsors, including the U.S. government, imagined a linear path between education, employment, and economic mobility in the Caribbean nation, but that was not what she saw working alongside the youth. As someone tasked with grant writing and program assessment, Hamm-Rodríguez was positioned to replicate the existing narrative rather than question it.
“I saw clearly how the local tourism industry constrained the jobs made available to youth and that, contrary to its promises, it could not resolve social inequalities,” she said. “It was undeniable that my own employment in a community where youth and their families struggled to make ends meet was part of the larger problem that I needed to question.
“I completed my dissertation research with these tensions at the forefront, and my work continues to be fueled by a desire to contest and deconstruct these inequities through ongoing collaborations with institutions in the Dominican Republic as well as through teaching, research, and service in my future job at the University of South Florida.”
Hamm-Rodríguez’s dissertation, “Re-Storying Paradise: Language, Imperial Formations of Tourism, and Youth Futures in the Dominican Republic,” focuses on the struggles of Black Dominican and Haitian youth who seek education and employment opportunities amidst the social stratifications generated by tourism in the island nation. Her research, weaving ethnographic methods and youth participatory action research, reveals how youth build solidarity across social difference and find commonalities in their struggles against anti-Blackness.
Hamm-Rodríguez’s innovative scholarship was awarded support of many highly competitive national fellowships and grants, including the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant in Linguistics, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, the Philanthropic Educational Organization Scholar Award, and the Foreign Language Studies Fellowship for Haitian Creole.
Hamm-Rodríguez’s approach to multilingualism, with a focus on the Caribbean, is grounded in sociocultural and critical theories of language and literacy development, and her interdisciplinary scholarship will be influential in the field of educational inquiry and beyond.
One of Hamm-Rodríguez’s award nominators explained: “As an Afro-Dominican member of the academy, I have felt honored to have interacted with Molly, in whom I readily recognized an emerging scholar, and privileged to have been invited to participate on the dissertation committee,” said Almeida Jacqueline Toribio from the University of Texas Austin. “Her dissertation project is critical in situating the research squarely within Dominican institutions, instigating a thorough-going interrogation of the parallel prejudices of racial bias and standard language ideologies, which are perpetuated by the nation state and which prove particularly injurious to Dominican youth.
“I have been especially impressed by Molly’s abiding attentiveness to understanding and centering the lived experiences of minoritized youth and with her attendant dedication to supporting and uplifting these marginalized groups through proposals for programmatic interventions.”
Hamm-Rodríguez’s experience with youth in the Dominican Republic led her to seek a PhD in education to address her questions about education, society, and inequity. Now, she is leaving CU Boulder with a wealth of experiences, the ongoing support from her advisor, Mileidis Gort, and other faculty, and lifelong friendships from her doctoral cohort. However, Hamm-Rodríguez notes, she is graduating with even more questions than she started with—something she considers a good sign as a budding scholar.
“Graduating from CU Boulder does not represent an end but rather a beginning to me, as learning and unlearning is a lifelong journey,” she said. “Rather than leaving with a title, I know that I am leaving with new ways of thinking and being that I will continue to use for social change.”
In her own words:
Please tell us a bit about yourself
I was born and raised in Kansas and grew up taking road trips to Colorado in the summers, since my mom grew up here. We rarely took vacations and only to destinations where we could drive--I did not have the chance to fly on an airplane or see the ocean until I was 18. So I never imagined that my future education, work, and personal life would extend as geographically far as it has. I studied secondary education and English literature as an undergraduate at Kansas State University. After student teaching with 8th and 10th graders in Kansas City, I began a master’s program in international and comparative education at Teachers College, Columbia University. I was originally interested in studying bilingual education, but that program focus area was restructuring and I found more faculty support for research on education in Latin America. During the program, I worked with a nonprofit organization in the Dominican Republic and was hired for a full-time role upon graduation. After working there for five years, I became interested in doctoral programs and reached out to CU Boulder Ph.D. students a few times before finally deciding to apply. I was initially interested in CU because my parents and twin sister had moved to Colorado and I wanted to live near them, but after having a Zoom conversation with my future advisor, Dr. Mileidis Gort, and meeting my EBB cohort during finalist weekend (Becca Flores, Danny Garzon, and María Ruíz-Martínez) I was even more excited to bring my interest in studying bilingual education full circle."
What is one of the lessons from your time at CU Boulder that you’ll carry with you into the next chapter?
Meeting my best friend, Astrid Sambolín Morales. We were put in touch even before the program started, had a class together the first semester, and became fast friends. But our friendship deepened through our shared commitments to bring attention to the experiences of children and families displaced from Puerto Rico (Astrid’s home) after Hurricane María in 2017. We collaborated on a meaningful research project in Florida, traveling to both Orlando and Tampa together and creating many memories alongside having really difficult conversations. This experience led to collaborations with four high school teachers who joined us in Colorado for a conference on place and displacement sponsored by the URBAN Network. I have stayed in touch with one of the teachers, whose family is from the Dominican Republic, and met her extended family several times while in the country. Astrid and I talk almost everyday (despite her being in Ohio), sharing life’s ups and downs. There has been no greater gift from my time at CU! Staying connected to our support networks, no matter the distance, makes a world of difference..”
What does graduating from CU Boulder represent for you and/or your community?
I started the PhD program because I had a lot of questions about education, society, and inequity, and I wanted to become better about deeply understanding and answering those questions. Well, I’m leaving with even more questions, which I consider to be a good sign that I’m in a better place than when I began. Graduating from CU Boulder does not represent an end but rather a beginning to me, as learning and unlearning is a lifelong journey. Rather than leaving with a title, I know that I am leaving with new ways of thinking and being that I will continue to use for social change.”
What is your best piece of advice for incoming students?
Be open to surprises and follow your curiosity. Engage with the complexity of human experience. Seek feedback and be open to critique, give feedback generously. Read outside of your discipline. Do your best not to lose yourself on the journey, and don’t compare your journey to anyone else’s. Center what matters to you and you will find your way.”
What continues to drive your passion for your work after graduation?
My passion for the work that I do has many roots, but a significant turning point began more than a decade ago when I supported hundreds of young people in the Dominican Republic through a youth workforce development program. During this experience, I found that international donors, such as the U.S. government, imagined a linear path between education, employment, and economic mobility. Having been hired to write grants and measure program outcomes, I was often positioned to replicate these discourses rather than question them. But this became increasingly more difficult to do. I saw clearly how the local tourism industry constrained the jobs made available to youth and that, contrary to its promises, it could not resolve social inequalities. And it was undeniable that my own employment in a community where youth and their families struggled to make ends meet was part of the larger problem that I needed to question. I completed my dissertation research with these tensions at the forefront, and my work continues to be fueled by a desire to contest and deconstruct these inequities through ongoing collaborations with institutions in the Dominican Republic as well as through teaching, research, and service in my future job at the University of South Florida. In the current political context, it is more important than ever to emphasize how attacks on public education and on racialized communities is not new and to continue educating young people for social justice.”
