Instructor Profile: Reedley College Instructor David Dominguez

David Dominguez, English instructor at Reedley College

At the age of 19, after reading “The Red Wheel Barrel” by William Carlos Williams for a class, David Dominguez knew he wanted to become a poet. “The work had amazing imagery,” said David. The Hoover High, UC Irvine, and University of Arizona graduate has reached his goal, with many publications to his credit. David’s book, Work Done Right is a collection of his poems. An earlier collection, Marcoli Sausage, appeared as part of Gary Soto’s Chicano Chapbook Series. A complete list of his publications can be found at www.daviddominguez.net.

Currently, only 11 percent of Latino students graduate with a BA, four percent with an MA, and one percent with a PhD—statistics David Dominguez would like to see improved.

David says that the Reedley College Creative Writing Department is one of the best kept secrets of the school. In addition to David, the other full-time faculty include: Ryan LaSalle, an award winning screen writer; Aileen Apperson, a published non-fiction writer; and David Borofka, an award winning novelist and short story writer. “It’s neat to have instructors who practice what they teach,” added David.

His goal is to get as many students as possible into English 1A. He stresses the importance of earning a four-year degree to all of his students. Currently, only 11 percent of Latino students graduate with a BA, four percent with an MA, and one percent with a PhD—statistics he’d like to see improved. David is currently working on his second full-length book of poems.

David teaches English 125, English 1A, and Chicano Latino Literature. In the fall, his Creative Writing & Poetry class will be offered online.

Student success

David’s student, Ricardo Zamorano, won first place in the California International Young Artist competition and received the Ann Gregor Young Poets Award. Ricardo was born in Mexico and didn’t speak English when he arrived in 2004.

An Excerpt from David Dominguez’s “A Letter to Andrés Montoya”

40.1% = Percentage of Hispanics, 18 years and over, who do not graduate from high school.
10.8% = Percentage of Hispanics, 18 years and over, with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

From the U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2006
Annual Social and Economic Supplement.

Because I want my people to live like people with honor, I write this letter, my friend. Where I teach, the kids come from packing houses and fields. They sit in the classroom with peach fuzz caught in their eyelashes and with grape knives stuffed in their back pockets. Why more mothers don’t say, “Practice your English, Mijo,” until it flows from their mouths like ribbons, I’ll never know. Why more mothers don’t say, “You’re going to go to college and be somebody, mijo,” I’ll never know. But I know too many of my people fail high school and that girls have babies with boys who don’t want to be fathers or husbands. Poverty. I see it scribbled up and down the country roads. I see it spray painted on irrigation pipes, stop signs, lamp posts, curbs, and even on the walls of Colony Covenant Church. Some of my people let the peach fuzz boil in their eyes until they redden and ooze like rotten fruit, and they yell, “I’ve had it with the packing houses”; others let the grape-knife blades dig into their spines until they feel like crushed spiders, and they, too, yell, “I’ve had it with the fields.” Gather them, my friend, the way a spirit gathers the scent of orange blossoms. Cook them a pot of beans and dice the tomatoes, jalapeños, and cilantro growing in my backyard and spread pico de gallo across the tops of their bowls. Give them queso ranchero, and then, tell them to share their words. Tell them to carry a pencil, a notepad, and a book under their arms, to tuck the books carefully as if they were photographs of their only loved ones, and to let the loved ones be themselves so that they might live with honor, not lost behind spray paint merciless as barbed wire rusting in the rain.

“A Letter to Andrés Montoya” first appeared in the locally published journal, In the Grove: an Homage to Andrés Montoya, spring 2008.

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