Please, whether you’re my current student or otherwise, feel free to reach out to me on email or LinkedIn to connect. Happy to support and help current/future students, colleagues, everyone in our kindred community!

About Me, Reality:

Bio:

Nery Chapetón-Lamas is a Chicano, first-generation college student, son of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants, and tenured instructional faculty member in CS at MiraCosta Community College in Oceanside, CA. He is committed to exploring and implementing culturally sustaining pedagogy in his CS classroom and fostering a more equitable department culture to address the inequities he experienced in STEM. Nery earned his B.S in Computer Science & Engineering from UC Irvine and Master’s degree in CS from the University of Iowa. He is drawn to community, the core of what helped him survive multiple predominantly white spaces, and seeks it for support and mentorship in both directions.

Identity:

“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” —Desmond Tutu

Here are a series of labels to describe myself as succinctly as possible in this format. Although they may be used to oppress us, let me offer these as a way to build connection and develop cultural humility with each other.

• I am the son of immigrant parents. Martha Lamas and Nery Chapetón immigrated from their respective home countries of Mexico and Guatemala and stayed to provide my sister and me with better opportunities. I constantly feel the weight of responsibility to live up to their sacrifice and love.
• I am Mexican AND Guatemalan. 100% of each, I come from my parents and their motherlands. I grew up learning from both, and although I feel closer to my Mexican side, I hope to cultivate the Guatemalan side as I teach my daughter about our ancestral home and people.
• I am from LA. I was born in Los Angeles, a love-hate relationship with a city that raised me to appreciate so many cultures around me and despise its constant traffic.
• I am American (Estadunidense). I have the privilege of being born with a number on a piece of paper that opens so many doors that many living here do not, including my parents at one point.
• I am Chicano. This is my chosen ethnic identity that recognizes all ancestral lineages in me, my political identity, and cultural identities. I used to go by Latino since it felt like it summarized my Mexican- and Guatemalan-American identity better, but unlearing these colonial constructs has helped me embrace myself more fully.
• I am a parent. To a brilliant, strong-minded, brave, beautiful, hillarious, curious, and adventure-loving daughter. She’s the fuckin best.
• I am a partner. To an equally brilliant, etc. wife who has had a huge hand in shaping me into a much better person than I was. I devote my life to reaching those heights and making her laugh as much as possible.
• I am a cishetero man. I do not experience dissonance between my body and my gender. My sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity fit the false gender binaries popular in dominant culture. The unjust treatment of queer, transpeople, and women is something I will never experience and fully understand. I do my best to unlearn and dismantle these sexist, transphobic, and homophobic cultures and traditions.
• I am a (critical) Catholic. By birth and culturally, I was raised and find my spirituality within these values. But I critically recognize that a man-made institution is susceptible to all the oppressive ideologies within our society. I use the more universal teaching and values shared by most spiritual beliefs to guide me while finding community here.
• I am a teaching faculty. Meaning I don’t conduct research like most university faculty do; my sole job, responsibility, purpose, and passion is teaching and learning. I still look at research and work on grant projects, but my career is focused on being in the classroom with students where I feel I belong.
• I am a first generation everything. I am a proud first-gen college graduate, first-gen professional, etc. This means I relied on many to climb to these heights and stand on the shoulders of so many giants. I still seek and provide mentorship; I imagine I will my whole life.
• I am an institutional activist. Angela Davis said, “Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.” I’m happy I’ve found a community of colleagues here that keep me hopeful in the collective work we do to hold our institution/department accountable, working towards freedom and liberation for all.
• I am (now) middle-class. I grew up low-income and was able to afford college because of federal scholarships, grants, and loans. This is one of the few identities that can/has changed with time. It was not only a result of my work ethic, but the work ethic of so many people and organizations behind me pushing me every step of the way.
• I am a biophile. I love nature, especially forests, but I definitely need a toilet nearby for camping.
• I am an epistemophile. I love learning, always have. I do not love institutions of learning, most of which are antithetical to their mission. I spend a good amount of time on YouTube and reading random things that peak my interest.
• I am a bibliophile. I love reading, digital or hardcopy. When I was little, to encourage me to read, my parents said they would buy me a book only if I finished the current one (we couldn’t afford so many). After a few books, my mom joked that she would give me YellowPages or dictionaries to read. I grew up going to the library a lot.
• I am a foodophile. I love eating and everything with food. I travel to eat basically. When I finish a meal, I’m already thinking of the next one. Growing up Mexican+Guatemalan in LA, I tasted and learned about so many cultures through food. So I love learning about food anthropology too.
• I am a culinary hobbyist. My love of food goes into cooking and baking as well. I have more confidence, intensity, and self-criticism with it than programming! Like learning CS, I tend to want to do things from scratch and in the hardest way possible. But at least I get something (usually) edible out of it.
• I am an nerd. In all senses of the word. I used to be bullied and picked on a lot (earliest memories from 1st grade and well through high school). I’m glad and empowered to see it’s not such a negative term now.
• I am an otaku. I love anime, manga, comic books, video games, etc. On top of cooking/baking and CS, I can talk about many factions of nerdom for daaaayyys.
• I am a technophile. I love shiny things, especially understanding how tech works through playing/messing with it. I’m way more critical and conscious than when I was younger, but I still love learning about it and especially critiquing how it can further oppression or liberation.

Format borrowed from and inspired by the amazingly brilliant Amy J. Ko (Ph.D., UW Professor).