Shining the Light on Academia Cuauhtli: Where Community, Culture, and Young Voices Thrive in Austin, Texas🌟🌟🌟

Shining the Light on Academia Cuauhtli: Where Community, Culture, and Young Voices Thrive in Austin, Texas🌟🌟🌟

A huge gracias to Becky Morales for sharing this super-cool 9-minute video posted below about my career journey, my passions, and—most importantly—the community-rooted work we’ve built together through Academia Cuauhtli. It’s always humbling (and a little surreal!) to see your story told back to you, but what matters most here is the spotlight on our collective vision for the program and the young people it serves.

I appreciate Morales’ focus on Academia Cuauhtli because the work of nurturing young minds, sustaining cultural heritage, and building just communities is, at its core, collective work. It draws on the wisdom of our elders, the creativity of our youth, and the steadfast commitment of friends, colleagues, and partners who share the same vision. To act alone would not only diminish the richness of what we create together, it would also erode the very values—community, reciprocity, and shared purpose—that give this work its soul. 🧘‍♀️✨🕊️

I must interject quickly here, as well, that Academia Cuauhtli is an important site for research and here is a link to our publications.

But here’s the really exciting news: The City of Austin has officially approved funding for Academia Cuauhtli! 🎉 This support comes at a perfect moment, as we prepare to settle back into our home at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC) once our brand new classroom section is completed with our official move-in date happening in early January.

Entering our 12th year of existence, this space will be more than a location—it’s a cultural anchor where our children can learn, create, and connect with their heritage in deeply affirming ways. It's also a culture and language revitalization professional space for bilingual/dual language Central Texas educators, the majority of whom are certified teachers in the Austin Independent school district with whom we are also partnered. We have big dreams and plan to share them at the ESB-MACC's Día de los Muertos opening on Nov. 1, 2025 so stay tuned. 

Special thanks to our other partner, the City of Austin and all our city champions at City Hall, especially Council Member and Mayor ProTem Vanessa Fuentes and council members Chito Vela, José Velásquez, Marc Duchen, and Zo Qadri who represents the ESB-MACC.

While this journey has truly taken a village, I joyfully honor all who have recently poured their energy and heart into our program development and fundraising, including Martha Cotera, Dr. Emilio Zamora, Dr. Christopher Milk, Rosa Tupina Yaotonalcuauhtli, Patricia Nuñez, Ana Carrasco, Aldo Frausto, and Dr. Maria Unda, whose brilliant legwork kept our vision moving forward while many of us were out of pocket this summer.

Special thanks, as well, to Michelle Rojas, Katya Guzman, and Marie Ortiz at the ESB-MACC for their awesome support, creativity, and hospitality as we prepare to make our brand new space a vibrant home. Their dedication ensures that our cultural and educational mission will flourish within the walls of the ESB-MACC, enriching the lives of our students, families, and the broader Austin community.

So here’s to the next chapter: more storytelling, more community, and more young voices discovering the power of their own stories and histories. And here’s to the people—like Becky—who help share our story far and wide. 💛

-Angela Valenzuela

Angela Valenzuela is a professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy. She is a researcher and prolific published scholar, focusing on subtractive schooling and authentic caring. Valenzuela is a community advocate and policy activist, fighting against the misuse of standardized tests and their effects on students of color. She also is the founder of the Academic Cuauhtli, a school that celebrates the linguistic and cultural capital of the Latino students it serves. and curriculum expert.

Fund the Future: Support Academia Cuauhtli’s Growth at the ESB-MACC

Friends,

We are gathering signatures to show broad community support for continued funding—and future expansion—of Academia Cuauhtli, our beloved Saturday school in Austin, Texas. The signed letter will go to Mayor Kirk Watson.

With Phase B of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (our physical home) scheduled for completion this November, we’re thrilled to return—and to grow. 

Thanks to our successful advocacy several years ago, we secured four classrooms with the intention of expanding our program to serve even more students as we enter our 12th year as a community-based initiative. However, in order for us to realize that vision, we need your support.

Please add your name to this community letter affirming your support: https://forms.gle/zBNACL1TJw5sahHN9

Your voice helps uplift our students, families, and educators. The letter with signatures will go to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson.

Thanks to Dr. Maria del Carmen Unda for taking the lead on this support letter.

Mil gracias for standing with us.

In community,

Angela Valenzuela

A Community Letter of Support for Academia Cuauhtli
Link to view signatures on this public better: https://tinyurl.com/SupportAcademiaCuauhtli


webpage: https://academiacuauhtli.com/
research: https://academiacuauhtli.com/publications/


For reference: EMMA S. BARRIENTOS MEXICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER ADVISORY BOARD RECOMMENDATION 20250305-6 https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=447154


Dear Mayor Kirk Watson and Austin City Council Members:

We write to you as parents, teachers, alumni, and community members who have directly and indirectly benefited from and deeply believe in the mission of Academia Cuauhtli (pronounced KWOWT-lee, meaning Eagle Academy). For more than a decade, this community-rooted program has transformed the educational experiences of hundreds of emergent bilingual students across Austin. We thank you for your past support and endorsement of our work. Today, we respectfully urge you to fully fund Academia Cuauhtli’s FY 2025–2026 $106,000 request put forward by the ESB-MACC for operations, alongside additional funding support for the establishment of a full-time Culture and Arts Education Supervisor position.

Located at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC), Academia Cuauhtli is more than a Saturday school—it is a lifeline. It provides free, high-quality, culturally sustaining education to our children in Spanish, English, and Nahuatl. It connects us as families, uplifts our heritage, and helps our children develop pride in who they are. The program has shown us that culturally relevant teaching is not only possible but powerful. Our children come home speaking about Tejano history, environmental justice, and ancestral knowledge—and they are excited to learn.

The program has supported over 800 AISD students, trained over 250 teachers, and generated more than 18 original curricular units. It has also helped parents access resources during the pandemic and created leadership opportunities for our youth. It has also become a pathway to master’s and doctoral degrees in educational careers at the University of Texas at Austin with whom we also partnered. Though we are also partnered with the Austin Independent School District, we lament that not a single dollar will go toward Academia Cuauhtli this coming school year.

Our community-driven, volunteer-based model ensures that every dollar goes directly into instruction, mentorship, and support for our families. However, we cannot sustain neither this impact nor our anticipated growth as we move back into our home at the ESB-MACC this November without your support. A full-time coordinator is urgently needed to manage and grow the program. For years, this work has been carried on the shoulders of volunteers and part-time staff. As the needs of our community grow, so must our ability to meet them. The funding request—part of the overall ESB-MACC budget—is modest compared to the transformational impact that Academia Cuauhtli has in our lives.

We ask you to stand with our teachers, children, families, and our community per the undersigned individuals and organizations. Please vote to approve both the ESB-MACC operations request as part of their budget request to the City of Austin for the $106,000 alongside additional funding support for the establishment of a full-time supervisor position. Investing in Academia Cuauhtli is an investment in equity, education, and community thriving which is so needed in these difficult times.

Sincerely,

Dr. Maria del Carmen Unda


Please Share widely !
View signatures on public letter: https://tinyurl.com/SupportAcademiaCuauhtli
Link to sign: https://forms.gle/zBNACL1TJw5sahHN9

Today is my birthday and I am raising money for Academia Cuauhtli (Eagle Academy)

Friends:

Today is my birthday and I am doing something special to celebrate it. I am raising money for Academia Cuauhtli ("Cuauhtli" means "eagle" in Nahuatl). 

Located in Austin, Texas, we are a partnership-based school serving mostly elementary school children attending 6 schools in the Austin Independent School District (AISD). We are partnered with AISD and the City of Austin's Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC).

Our school is located in the heart of downtown Austin off of Town Lake at the ESB-MACC. One of the unique features of this school is danza Mexica, or traditional Aztec dance that is incorporated in both regular and summer programming. Danza invokes the ancestral and sacred spirit that guides all of our work.

Academia Cuauhtli Summer Camp students on their graduation day. Summer, 2023.

Now in our 10th year, we seek your support for our growing organization which consists of several components including a Summer school coding camp (Aztech Kidz Code), a learning collaborative (La Colaborativa Cuauhtli), and our community-based organization, Nuestro Grupo that meets regularly to plan the activities of our growing organization that gives us the honor and privilege of touching so many students' and families' lives in Austin, Texas.

We're planning a major anniversary celebration in March, 2024, and your contribution will help us to make it a success. 

No amount is too small.

Thanks to Dr. María Del Carmen Unda for organizing this! A special thanks, as well, to Texas State University Professor Dr. Chris Milk who oversees the writing of the fall curriculum and who is a regular presence on Saturdays. Abundant thanks, to our director, Katya Guzman, our maestras and maestros, and to our many volunteers without which this work would be impossible. 

This is a labor of love. 💗



During the fall, we made crafts together. It always so much fun for me to learn with them!

MEDIA ADVISORY: Aztech Kidz Code 3rd Annual Summer Camp—an Initiative of Academia Cuauhtli—Begins Soon!

Students, Friends & Colleagues:

Yes, the legislative session was devastating in so many ways and on so many levels. Hopefully, most of us still have an awesome life outside of the legislature where God's work is still getting done.

Accordingly, a number of you have followed our local community work at Academia Cuauhtli in Austin, Texas. Academia For the last couple of Summers, we have held our marvelous Aztech Kidz Code Summer Camp (see Press Advisory below).

Todos mis respetos, much respect, to founder Azteca Sirias, as well as to project manager, Maria Unda, who is a doctoral student in our Education Policy and Planning program in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy in the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Same for all our outstanding teachers shown in the photo below.

Seated left to right: Dr. Chris Milk, Santiago Sirias Angel, Azteca Sirias, Drs. Angela Valenzuela and Emilio Zamora, Maria Unda, Jenna Jacob. Katya Guzman, Irving Maldonado Salinas, and Mario Ramirez.

In its third year of existence—and with significant help from the City of Austin—AKC will serve over 180 students in three, 3-week summer programs throughout the summer, serving mostly immigrant, working class children in the district’s bilingual/dual language program. 

A few extra shout outs to Katya Guzmán, our newly-hired, full-time Academia Cuauhtli Coordinator, ESB-MACC Culture and Arts Manager Michelle Rojas, Division Manager of the Museums and Cultural Programs Division for the Austin Parks and Recreation Department Laura Esparza, and AISD Superintendent Matías Segura and his many amazing staff, together with Yvette Cardenas and Cody Fernandez in the AISD Multilingual Department.

At the city level, special thanks to City Council Members Vanessa Fuentes and Chito Vela for their incredible support for everything Cuauhtli.

Abundant thanks, as well, to Gerardo Gandy and our many friends at Gensler Architects for your books donation and our budding partnership. Last, but not least, abundant thanks to both Dr. Victor Saenz and UT College of Education Dean Charles Martinez for supporting our efforts over the years. It definitely takes a village.

Like us on Facebook and treat yourselves to this explanation of "Non-Fungible Tokens," or NFT’s, by Azteca Sirias here. 

Geez, I need to take this class! Just listening to this makes me feel both excited and lost. This, despite our young people being more than ready for this AP preparatory, Computer Science curriculum. 

Academia Cuauhtli and AKC come out of the Ethnic Studies Movement, the latter of which tends to focus on secondary and college level teaching, instruction, and curriculum development. Given this lack of focus on children and adolescents, both our regular and Summer programming helps fill this yawning gap. 

My heart is full.                                                                                                                                                                

-Angela Valenzuela

P.S. Emilio and I will be with another Academia Cuauhtli initiative, namely, La Colaborativa Cuauhtli—this June in Guanajuato, GTO, Mexico. Thanks to funding support from LILLAS at UT, we are bridging our work involving Central Texas bilingual/dual language education teachers with an initiative of the University of Arizona Tucson. Specifically, Emilio and I are this years' Richard Ruiz Scholars in Residence at Resplandor International, a special needs rural school for the rural children of  Guanajuato, GTO. Thanks to University of Arizona Professor Emeritus, Dr. Todd Fletcher, for honoring us with this invitation. More to come soon on La Colaborativa Cuauhtli.

*************

*MEDIA ADVISORY*

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

May 31, 2023 

       

CONTACT: María Del Carmen Unda

512-364-0700; academiacuauhtli@austin.utexas.edu

Austin, Texas - On June 5th, 2023, Academia Cuauhtli, the Austin Independent School District, and the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center are hosting its third Aztech Kidz Code Summer Camp. As an initiative of Academia Cuauhtli, the camp consists of three, three-week camps serving 180 Black, Indigenous, and Latina/o low-income youth in the district’s bilingual/dual language education program. Youth of all ages will learn about coding, blockchain, gaming, and Artificial Intelligence, much of this from an Indigenous perspective that additionally involves Aztec ceremony and ancestral funds of knowledge. 

Azteca Sirias, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and founder of Aztech Kidz Code, expresses the following, “Indigenous pedagogies are a vital component of computer science education for our communities. By teaching about the rich algorithmic history and culture of our ancestors, we can help them to see themselves in the field and to develop a sense of belonging. It is also important for kids at 1-8th grades to be exposed to current technology trends because it helps them develop critical thinking skills, engage in the expanding tech landscape of Austin, and integrate positive forms of transformation in their everyday lives.”

Managed by Dr. María Del Carmen Unda, the camp takes place at Sanchez Elementary School and is offered bilingually in English and Spanish. With funding support from the City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department, Academia Cuauhtli co-founder Dr. Angela Valenzuela expresses, “There is tremendous demand in our city for exactly this kind of free, Summer programming for low-income, mostly immigrant youth who otherwise would not have access to opportunities like this. We are so grateful to our partners, and most especially to our staff and teachers, for carrying out this beautiful vision that merges the modern and postmodern with the ancient ancestral knowledge.”

We invite the press and public to any of the three following graduation ceremonies we are holding this Summer where we will engage in both ceremony and a sharing of the students’ creations as follows: Saturday, June 24; Saturday, July 15, and Saturday, August 5, 2023.

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