Dr. Xigrid Soto-Boykin is a speech language pathologist and early childhood researcher who specializes in bilingualism. She also is the founder of Habla DLL, a writer for The Informed SLP, and one of the recipients of the 2020-2021 ASHA Multicultural Grant. Her work focuses on (1) providing SLPs and teachers with professional development to increase their confidence when working with bilingual children; (2) the development of early literacy and language interventions for young emergent bilinguals; (3) and the application of anti-racist, linguistically liberating frameworks to the research and education of children from diverse linguistic backgrounds.
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Xigrid Soto-Boykin, a speech language pathologist and early childhood researcher who specializes in bilingualism. She shares how she has embraced her identity as a Latina while establishing a meaningful research career. She discusses how her own experiences as a bilingual speaker have shaped the work she does today and shares advice for pursuing a career that aligns with your passions and interests. Dr. Soto-Boykin has a website called Habla DLL with free bilingual resources for parents, early childhood educators, SLPs, and other therapists. You can connect with her on Twitter or Instagram.
Episode Transcript
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by a free tool called Otter.ai. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Danika Pfeiffer
Welcome back to above from and with. Thanks for spending part of your day listening to this episode. If you’re not already, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Danika Pfeiffer dot SLP. To stay in the loop about the podcast. You can also follow the podcast to be notified when new episodes lunch. Today I’m excited to share another really inspiring SLP journey from Dr. Xigrid Soto Boykin, who is a speech language pathologist and early childhood researcher who specializes in bilingualism, she is also the founder of Habla dll, A writer for The informed SLP and one of the recipients of the 2020 to 2021 assha multicultural grant. Her work focuses on providing slps and teachers with professional development to increase their confidence when working with bilingual children, as well as the development of early literacy and language interventions for young emergent bilinguals. And the application of anti racist linguistically liberating frameworks to the research and education of children from diverse linguistic backgrounds. I’m really grateful that I had the opportunity to have this conversation was z grid, she has created such a meaningful career for herself really following her passions. And I know that she’s going to have such a great impact on so many children. Hi Xigrid, thank you so much for being here with me today and sharing your SLP journey.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
You are welcome. And thank you so much for having me talk about my husband feature and it’s one of my favorite things to talk about. Absolutely. Okay, let’s start off with you telling us a little bit about you growing up before you officially started your SLP journey. Sure, I feel like talking about where I started. It’s a very important part of my SLP journey. So I’m really glad we’re starting there. I moved from Puerto Rico to the United States when I was 11 years old. And at that time, I didn’t really speak much English. And so I came to the United States to Florida, specifically in sixth grade. And at that time, I didn’t have someone to teach me English. And so I was accidentally labeled as having a learning disability. And please, in this small portable classroom with about three students, and I didn’t really know what was going on. But I remember that the teacher held up a card that said family, and I could read it because it reminded me of the word familia, and everyone clapped when I read family. And I thought, Oh, I love America, America is so supportive. But then I realized I was accidentally placed in a special education class without an IEP. And I was then transition to an English immersion classroom where I felt completely lost. And it was a little traumatic. And so what I did is I went to I taught myself English by going to the library before and after school. And I just remember thinking at that time that if I could learn English, and I wanted to do something for kids, to help them learn English as well in the future. Now that didn’t tell me I wanted to be an SLP at that time, but it’s something that I continue to hold with me now in my career.
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow, what an experience, how do you feel like that experience? Now kind of looking back impacted your career, and what you decided you ultimately wanted to do?
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Completely. I feel like for me, the PhD is very personal. And so that experience really is what drove me to want a PhD like I wanted to do something to help children that were like me, you know, grow up first generation college student and low income community. And I was wondering, why is it that, you know, people from my community didn’t have access to college. And so specifically like dual language learners, and so that’s really what drives everything that I do. And my passion for the work is because I know what it’s like. And I feel like my personal experiences combined with what I know from research can help me make a meaningful impact. So to me, I always remind myself throughout the PC journey, you know, we all have our bad PhD days where we want to quit, or at least me, that’s just me. I think we all do. And I literally like I’m a journal like I love journaling, and I still have my 11 year old journal. And I looked at that 11 year old journal, me and I and I remind myself like that’s what you said you wanted to do. You wanted to teach kids who couldn’t communicate, I know what it’s like not to be able to communicate. And I do my best to make 11 year old secret proud and I’m still in that pursuit to really make sure that those personal experiences and those hardships aren’t continuously happening to others. Kid so that I would say like that experience really was like the, I guess the little pinballing of a fire and a passion for the work that I do around bilingualism, that at that time, I had no idea. But all the time now I look back at that story and that experience, and it keeps me going to move at work, even on the days that I’ll rather be doing anything but research.
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow, that’s amazing. And you just bring such amazing perspective, having lived these experiences, and being able to now give back and help other dual language learners as they’re either coming into the country or just, you know, here trying to learn two different languages. And I feel like the understanding that you have and Kim share with others is gonna really help a lot of children. Thank you. I’m curious, then what initially attracted you to becoming an SLP. So
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
that actually was by mistake, a happy little accident. So I wanted to be a physical therapist for a long time, because my brother has cerebral palsy have always had a big heart for special needs, and also for social justice. And I had no idea how those two things would play out together. And so I went to high school that was a medical magnet. And at that time, I thought I wanted to do physical therapy. But I know my voice sounds thunderous, like, I’m tall, but I’m only 411. And I really couldn’t do the physical part of physical therapy. So I put that idea. And then I thought, Okay, I’m going to be a civil rights lawyer, because at that time, and I’m dating myself, Legally Blonde came on the scene. And I became upset, like, I started wearing heels. Now I was going to do it. And then I thought, you don’t like conflict. So maybe lawyer is not for you. And then I thought, fine, I’ll do journalism, because I love language. I was special needs. And I loved this idea of justice, right? whatever that might be at that time. And so when I went to college, I was going to be a journalist, like Lisa lane and change the world. That was the goal. But unfortunately, there was a spare for majors and instead of going to the line for mass communications, I went I ended up in a line for communication sciences and disorder. And then people were talking about single policy which is my what my brother had an in high school, I had learned ASL American Sign Language as a very fluent at that, at that time, and somebody started signing to me and I thought, Oh, I’m gonna hang out with these people are super cool. And then I just learned about what our field was SLP and I loved it. And I’m a crier, so I cried. I call my mom crying. And I said, I found what I need to do with my life in Mary’s language in very special needs. And you can do advocacy work, and to me that was like, perfect. I didn’t know that existed. But I feel like the film especially with all you found me, and I honestly can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Oh, my goodness, wow, what a serendipitous moment for you. Everything just came together. It sounds like so perfectly. Wow. Okay, so you finally you found the field, which sounds like it was a perfect fit. Then you got started with your undergrad at the University of South Florida. Were there any experiences or any stories that you can remember, that happened during your undergrad or during grad school that motivated you to want to continue on to get your PhD?
Absolutely. So I was, I believe the one of the few Latinas in my program, I think I might have been the only one. And I remember the first day of our undergraduate speech pathology program that one of our professors asked, why is it a good idea to be an SLP in Florida, and some students said that it was because of all the Spanish people that didn’t know how to speak, and they need our help. And I thought, huh, doesn’t feel so good for me, like I’m pretty sure that you don’t need speech pathology if you speak Spanish. So that was one thing that happened. And I guess overall, I really enjoyed my undergraduate and my graduate program for speech pathology, but I’m not gonna lie, I felt very much like an outsider because I didn’t look like the rest of the students. I had an accent and I remember thinking like, I am not going to be a good speech pathologist because of an accent like who’s gonna want therapy for me, you know? And then I realized that that was actually like a strength that I brought to the program, again, a different perspective to the classes and I had good grades so there was no reason looking back why I should have doubted myself so much in the program. Like I couldn’t do it. But I did feel that until I had a professor Her name is Dr. Maria response, and I have to give her her kudos because she has she really changed my life like she was the first and only professor that looked like me she had an accent, she’s Dominican, or what we would perceive as an an accent. Not that I know, we all have accents. But at that time, she looked like me. And I thought, okay, if she can do it, I can do it. And so that made me think about representation. And the fact that I could be a professor, and what could that mean for other minority students in our field that may not see themselves represented in our classes. So that was like one thing, that kind of identity piece of it. And then the second thing is that I got into research without really knowing what research was at all as an undergrad. And I was really shy and quiet. But then when you put me in front of a PowerPoint, I became a very different person that startled myself and the other in the professor’s, they’re like, Who are you, you can talk. And I loved it, I felt like I can talk about a topic. And it was always about bilingualism, which is my passion. And that kind of led me to the goal. So I did an undergrad thesis. And I did a graduate thesis. And I actually waited between my Masters and PhD. But those experiences both of what it felt like to be, you know, the only knee in a program, combined with a research experience really started to make me feel like hey, I can actually do a PhD. didn’t really know what it was at that time. But the idea of it sounded interesting. Oh,
Danika Pfeiffer
perfect. Wow, that’s, that’s awesome that you were able to find such a great mentor. Can you talk a little bit about what that mentorship experience look like? And how she was able to provide the support for you to gain confidence in yourself and pursuing a PhD? Yeah,
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
so Dr. Bria continues to be my mentor. And she tells me that I’m her colleague, now I respect her very much. So I am learning to call her colleague but I just had my her deeply. I think, for her, for me, it was just like, seeing her in these spaces that I hadn’t seen someone like me before, at the beginning is what that mentorship was more like I understand the path that you’re going. So not so much the research, mentorship, but the actual, like, what a professional as a whole would look like kind of mentorship. And so she wasn’t my only mentor at that at that time. But she was really important for me just for that representation piece at the beginning. And then over the years, we’ve actually, you know, I took a class from her. And then now she’s like, the person that I call whenever I’m having like a crisis and identity crisis I What do I do with my life, or this upsets me, you know, she’s the person I always call and rely on, which I really appreciate, and other mentors to sell mentors for research. I had Dr. Ruth bar, for example, was a first direct person that allowed me to, like mess with data and learn about that. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that, in this journey, I have had different kinds of mentors, like different kinds of, so I have sometimes like a research mentor, but then a person that really is like my rock, right? A person that relates to me in a very specific way that I can rely on. So both the academic skills and the personal slash professional skills being fulfilled by different people, which I think it’s okay. And I think it’s something that people don’t always know, like, you can look up mentors outside of your direct mentor to fulfill different areas that you might be interested in. Absolutely. And I think you should do that, I think that’s a really smart thing to do. Because in the reality of things, people are really busy. And it’s nice when you have multiple people that are in your corner, and you can call on different ones at different times, depending on what you need at that moment. And like you said, I think it is really important, too, that you have some people that maybe they’re not in your exact research interest area, but you just know that they want you to succeed, and they’re behind you. And that can be so helpful when you’re navigating the ups and downs of academia. Okay, so then moving from there, you mentioned that you have a little bit of a break between your Master’s and PhD so what did you do during that time? So I worked as a specialist pathologist for a private practice that for the first I did it for like three years and a half. So the first two years I was in public schools, specifically in elementary schools, and doing a little bit of home health. And then on my last year before my PhD, I did work in a lot of home health in early intervention, working with kids from zero to 21 years old, really across all areas of communication with a heavy focus on autism. And also bilingualism since I believe I was one of two slps in a company of 170 something so I was able to get that hands on experience and I absolutely loved an SLP there’s people that pursue a PhD And they’re like, I don’t really like to clinical work. But for me, it was so important to do clinical work because I really believe in doing work that can be applicable in clinical settings. So, to me, it was all about like, does it work in clinical settings? And I absolutely loved that experience. I know that taking a break from your masters to PhD is a personal decisions, I think it has to be based on your like what you feel is most important to you. And for me, having the hands on clinical experience was vital. And it’s something that I do not regret at all. Like, I’m really happy with that. Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. It just depends on your own circumstances. And I think it makes so much sense because your work is so clinically focused that you had that time to really dive in. How did you get back to school for your PhD from there?
Well, I was in grade To be honest, and I know that sounds bad. But it’s sometimes there’s good anger. So I allude to a lot of my work out of good anger. And so I remember my last year as an SLP, I was like I said, Before working in home health, and I was driving to different neighborhoods in the Tampa Bay area within one day, specifically, please. And I remember in the morning, driving to this really beautiful preschool, the kids were learning three languages. I mean, it looked like a little baby harbored. And then I drove about claim in it to the neighborhood that I grew up in. And the circumstances were so different. And so dire, you know, the kids that access to the high quality early childhood, were just non existent for those kids. And I remember just getting in my car and crying because I thought, you know, early childhood should be like the quote, unquote, great equalizer, right? Like, again, kind of bringing myself to this story. Realizing that for me, my education really set me on a different path than a lot of the people in my neighborhood, not because I’m smarter or anything, it’s just because I had the opportunity. And I thought, we can prevent kick because I working in schools, I was thinking, like, man, there’s so many kids that are struggling, specifically kids of color, that have so many things going against them. And I wanted to do more as an SLP. And I feel like I didn’t know how to do more. And so kind of like seeing those disparities in the preschools, sent me off. And I had made the decision, I email my mentor for my masters, and I’m like, I’m going to I’m going back to school. And so I applied, and that was it. Like, it was one of those moments where I felt like it’s now or never like this, this whole idea of equity has been bothering forever. What are you gonna do about it? And so, so I can start as a PhD to help me fight with the good fight to help kids that are marginalized have better access to early childhood education?
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow, that’s great motivation, because you saw exactly what it was like in your community. Is that why you ultimately chose to go back to the University of South Florida because you wanted to stay in that area?
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
So yes, and no, to be honest, it was because I got a really good scholarship to go to USF. And that’s important. That’s very important. I didn’t want to go to USF to be quite frank with you. I’m not going to lie. Nothing wrong with USF. Clearly, I’m a big fan. But I just wanted to do something different. But I guess it wasn’t meant to be for me. So I applied kind of like, Hey, I don’t want to go here. But I remember doing a little prayer and like if I get this amazing scholarship that paid for all five years of school, lots of stipend I’m going in. That’s amazing. God. Funny enough, I met my husband through that scholarship. So I really made the right decision. Oh my goodness. You did Wow. It’s great when personal and professional come together. Oh, that’s amazing. Wow. So as you got started with your PhD, it sounds like you kind of already had an idea of the topic because you’re very passionate about bilingualism for you going into the program thinking that would be what you were going to study. Yes, generally, my passion was like bilingualism, and I would say literacy and in that case, early childhood, and honestly, I didn’t really know exactly how we get to that. But thankfully, when I reapplied to accept for my PhD, there was a new professor there, his name is Howard Goldstein. And he did all this work in the community. Around early childhood, he’s not a bilingual expert, like he’s like not a language, early language learners experts. And I remember hearing this research assistant talk about the work and I thought, Oh, this is awesome because prior to the PhD or prior for me, applying to the PhD, all the work that had done before bilingualism is theoretical, and I didn’t really know the differences. And you can see a radical versus applied research, I thought it was the same thing like I didn’t know,
Danika Pfeiffer
can you kind of talk about that a little bit, because our listeners might not really have an
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
idea? Well, I’m glad to give you a little bit of wisdom based on what I’ve learned, I think both types of research are important and valid like just to give you an idea, theoretical research to me is research that really is trying to understand processes and phenomena. So to give you an example, when I was an undergraduate student, I analyzed spelling errors of bilingual children to see how one language influenced the other language when it comes to spelling errors. So that doesn’t quite have like gives you information about something. But it doesn’t really tell you like this is an intervention. And this is how it’s going to work in a real world setting. Then for my master’s thesis, I did research about how to bilingual children, process sentences that have relative clauses. Looking back, I mean, I think that’s interesting research, but it doesn’t quite have the applied work. When I say applied research. It’s more about, you know, typically creating some type of program or intervention that practitioners in this case, either educators or slps, can be used practically, to help improve a skill area. And so to me, I kind of like, I like the messiness of everything. And so I love doing research in a school setting or a clinical setting where it’s loud where things don’t go as planned, because in my mind, that’s how you really know if it’s gonna work or not. I think both types of research are very important and valuable. But for me, and I think I’m going to keep saying that it’s so important to do research that’s meaningful to you have, to me that was the most meaningful that helped me like get up in the morning and want to do it, even in those days that I really didn’t want.
Yeah, absolutely. I think we both share that passion and we like to be hands on in the school. We want to see it for ourselves, see how it would work? What’s working? Well, what’s not working. So I think we both share that. But I agree with you. And I think, since we both are so tied to thinking clinically, we want to make sure that it’s going to work in the real world and not just in a research lab. Can you speak a little bit about the research that you did during your PhD and what you see as kind of the next steps for your work? Sure, so for my PhD, I did a couple of things, all revolving around early childhood literacy and language. So for the first couple years when I was when I was like primarily a student and not yet done my proposal, I did a study focusing on how to help parents review advanced vocabulary that was taught in the classroom, in home settings. So I did a lot of that work. I also did a project about how to teach children who are struggling phonological awareness skills in early childhood settings. And then I did another project. This was not only by the way, I don’t want to impress anyone, I was like I was a research assistant in these projects. I did another project, looking at how we can train teachers to teach children phonological awareness, and then how to use data to inform their instruction to individualize the types of instructions are going to provide children based on their use. So that’s kind of like the background search that I did. We’ve we’re adapting some of that work. into my own dissertation, which was an adaptation of a phonological awareness intervention that I took from English and I adapted it to Spanish but in a way that was really linguistically relevant and linguistically and culturally appropriate as well. So, I was I believe preferred studying the United Believe that Wasn’t this a conflation from English to Spanish are really doing it It’s my understanding In Spanish, as a cornerstone of that,
We’re proud Awesome, that sounds like it’s an area that’s really needed. If that was the very first one. Wow. And then as you’re wrapping up your PhD, how did you start to think about your next steps?
as I always do struggling, I have an interest decision making a pattern, but I kind of go with my gut. And usually that is the best thing for me. So after my PhD, I wasn’t quite sure exactly what I wanted to do. I remember I applied the job market was a lot better. I applied for seven positions. Some of them were assistant professor positions at like arwen institutions. And some of them were postdocs, and I decided for myself to get a postdoc instead of a tenure track position at that time, because I felt like I wanted a little bit more training and a little bit more like useful time to do writing and to really kind of catapult me to the next step. And so that’s why I did a postdoctoral fellowship at a place called Juniper gardens children’s Park. At the University of Kansas, and there, it’s an interdisciplinary institution. So you have teachers, you have behavior therapists, you have psychologists, all kind of working together. And I’m like, maybe at that time when we started, I was the second Helping in the group. Well we all try to address like It’s just around early childhood. And so I was happy to learn from an interdisciplinary team to help me think through things a little bit deeper. So I can see where I am today. We’re have I think it works. hold an understanding of where I want my
Danika Pfeiffer
Free Can you explain a little bit for those that are not familiar what a postdoc is and why that was really attractive to you at the time.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Good question. I’m glad that there’s podcasts like this explaining these things because I just kind of like jump into things because other people, I heard the word post that right. So a postdoc is essentially, additional training after your doctor, it’s a nurse, you know, what we call doctor which is calling to nice. So you’re kind of like in as this protected space where you’re just given time to work on that someone else and still develop your own line of research. To learn more, for example, you can learn a new content area, you can learn new methods, you can have time for publications in print writing in a protected way. versus if you were to do like a traditional Professor job, you would have like the tenure track ticking, which means that within the first five years, they would expect you to like have classes that you teach research set up Archer lab and get grants and that sort of thing. This could be a lot of stress, and I just wanted a little bit more of protected time to learn more skills. So that kind of helped me To be a little bit more successful in the future.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yeah, I think that’s similar reasons that I just do a postdoc to just to have that extra time and I know I really wanted more time to write and have that mentorship as I was learning how to develop my writings. gills and be able to dive into different research projects and keep developing mind skills, learn about more methodologies and Before I had to be independent, which I think it’s a great opportunity for that. Do you have any advice for people that are thinking about doing a postdoc and weighing if they should go right into starting a faculty position. Is there someone that you think opposed Stock would be a really great fit for or others that Maybe it wouldn’t be as great of a fit
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
for Sure so I’ve actually Now that you know When you can look back at something right hindsight is 2020. Yes, one thing that I would recommend for people to do throughout their PhD training is to write down the things that make them really like just happy in the research slash academic world, like, think about the things that really sparked a lot of joy for you, and hold on to those things. Because if you know that, then it’s going to be easier for you to make decisions. I already mentioned that decisions are tough for me. So, for example, like I really love community based work. I love teaching and I love mentorship. And sometimes I could I think in my PhD Pro, I get lost in all the weeds and it was hard for me to know exactly what I wanted to do that so I think a postdoc is really good for different reasons. I think one of those reasons is for people that are unsure if they want to pursue an academic career or not, because it is okay not to get an academic career after your no one tells you that from your advice, it’s like it’s totally okay. So if you’re not sure, it’s kind of a good process here to kind of try it out and make sure that you’re not just tired or Again, if you’re possibly like, out with academia like I did, this is not. I think it’s also good for people who just need more publications in order to be a stronger candidate for a position. So if you came out of your PhD program, and you don’t have any first author publications, I think a postdoc is a really good place to get those skills for if you’re just interested in trying different content area within your field. You know a lot of people say that you never look back at your dissertation and to be honest That’s true. Like I don’t I’m not even the person I was two years All right and so I Like if you just want to learn more and have that experience I think it’s on the flip side of that I think that you might be ready for to be a professor. Hey, that’s what you really want to do. And we if you feel like you have the products that are going to help me be successful like If you really feel confident that you have a strong line of work research that you know you want to pursue You can be if you have enough publications and also To be honest, like stability like for some people where they are in their lives, it’s really hard to uproot your life and move to a different state every two years. And I think some of those things aren’t talked about enough that are important considerations. Everything we choose to do in our lives I’m learning personal and it doesn’t. You know, everyone around you, your advisors and your colleagues are going to give you advice based on what their expenses are, but ultimately you have to do what’s best for you and not worry so much about other people’s perceptions are you have you are there And because this is your train me and we haven’t worked so hard Ready to be missed. Right. So it’s important that whatever you choose, it’s something that really aligns well with your values and what you want out of life. Absolutely. I love your suggestion of writing down what makes you happy and coming back to that, because I think that is really important. And I remember a mentor saying to me, during my PhD, people are gonna start coming to you and giving you opportunities presenting you with things. And she said, You have to learn when to say no. And I think that having that list of these are the things that make me happy and fulfilled, that can really help you know when to say no, and make those decisions which can feel really tough at the time. Absolutely saying no, it’s honestly the continued practice for me. And I think as a PhD student, if you can start learning to say no, and not knowing that, no, it’s a complete sentence. that’s crucial. That is so important. So the more that you’re like in tune with yourself, I think that we’re well adjusted with the transition out of your PhD to whatever is next for you.
Danika Pfeiffer
Definitely, and like you said, it’s not talked about a lot, but these decisions do have a personal component to them to what Whether that’s family decisions or just personally what will make you happy, and I think that is something that should be talked about more and you shouldn’t be afraid to bring up those things with your mentors, you know, as you’re trying to make decisions or think through things and you shouldn’t feel guilty that you’re not choosing an option because it’s not going to work for your family. Or for your your personal life. Agreed. I know something that’s really important to you and has really come out of your journey here is bridging your identity And who you are With the work that you Do Can you speak a little bit to that
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Absolutely Like I you know, you can already hear it. I’m very passionate about what I do, can be the research that I do around bilingual children. It’s super Personal and I guess that’s my strength and my weakness like I just care about it so much that I don’t One two, I can’t even tear it apart. I can’t fully intellectualize bilingualism, because of my personal experiences, but honestly I that’s it. I’m proudest of so for me, one thing that I You know, this might be relevant more so I think for everyone, but really for individuals that aren’t as represented in academia, only 1% of Latinas in the United States. Which you can only imagine how it might feel to be the only person that reads like you and me I’m currently at my postdoc. I was the second Once you know in 30 Two years and why am I saying that I’m saying that if we go Sometimes Just so easy For that ugly life A narrative in your head to pop in and tell you like you’re not smart enough. There’s no one here like you because you can’t do it that only stuff that you know is not trope, but it feels really valid and it’s super loud in our heads. One thing I’m realizing though From my experiences and who I am are over Which asset to the research study Do and you can do research on a community for many, many years and be an expert and be respected because you get all the grants because your tenure because you’re about to retire, but no one can take away the value of personal experience so I have what I consider like multiple Vantage points in which I can see different issues in our In early childhood Specifically as any Example. And not everything that I read in the research articles is giving me that information. A lot of it is a combination of my personal experiences. With my research and I always like I just keep in mind mind at all times. Why am I doing doing all this work and it’s not Because I want to be Doctor whoever It’s not the Because I have something to prove went to the University Because I really myself as someone who Because of the opportunity And the privileges that have been given, I can give that to other people to their research that I do to the mentorship to what I say to what I say yes to and to what I say no to. And so my identity for example, for me is someone that I can Ridge my personal experiences of selecting enough first generation low income students. with academia, I consider myself a bridge, and I can I can do both. So for me, for example, like I launched a website, and I have an Instagram account called outlet DLL shameless plug, please look it up, it’s free. And I talk directly to parents that are Latino, and I tell them about their research in a way that’s very accessible. And I do it because to me, like all the work that I do at the end of the day comes down to I’m here to support bilingual children. I’m here to support Latino children and families. And I’m not here for anything else. And I just keep that really close. Because to me, doing work that has no impact, it’s not even worth it. For me at least, I can’t so for me, my identity like I’m learning to show up the spaces as myself are not afraid of trying to It in unafraid of trying to, you know fit into this box that was never that box was not made for me. So I spent so many years trying to fit into this with this an academic look like what does an academic sound like? I don’t want to be that though that’s not me. And so the more that I give myself permission to be myself in research in my my professional life and everything. I think the more effective that I am like when you can show up to a place as your authentic selves and really stand true To your voice. I think you can have Away great impacts than you can imagine if you’re spending so much time trying to with something that you’re not
Danika Pfeiffer
absolutely yes, I couldn’t agree more. How have you been able to get to this point because I’m And this didn’t happen overnight where you realize there aren’t others here that look like me and that’s okay and I’m going to be myself and do the work that makes me feel fulfilled. How did you get there?
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
It hasn’t been an easy. The journey I’m not going to lie and it’s like you said It hasn’t been overnight. I think for me, at the beginning of my PhD I remember reading articles specifically I’ll tell you a very specific example when it came to like dual language learners. Every article that I would read had a very negative perception It started off by saying you know dual language learners are at risk. And you know they’re more likely to drop out of high school I would read all these things and I understood And that those things might be true to an extent. But that wasn’t the full story. I remember earlier on going to my mentor Send me like this. You don’t need a store. Like I know because I live in this neighborhoods this map Simple and my mind For a tour, rarely Well meaning adds a time. We don’t have that experience. They would just kind of shut me down and say no, no, that’s what their research sets. So I never questioned it until last year, when George Floyd’s death was kind of sending off all interracial reckoning. And I started thinking like, why, you know, we keep doing this interventions that are kind of putting a bandaid on a problem. We are talking about the things that matter. And I remember being so upset because I felt powerless at that time, as maybe many of us felt. And I remember talking to my husband, and he said, you know, what, have you used your research as a way for you to fight SLE for you to say the things that matter? And why don’t you do a research study that will tap into some of the discrimination that certain individuals face in the United States? And so I did, I did a systematic review with my colleagues. And I was really nervous because our goal was to look through the work in early childhood research to determine whether researchers were using acid based perspective of bilingualism or deficit based use of bilingualism and we found that out of the three studies that we reviewed, only two of them said anything positive about being bilingual. Wow. And then I started reading the things that my original mentor advised me that he said like don’t wait sociology. Don’t read anthropology because that’s just like that’s just nonsense. Essentially. I started reading it and I still reading work by researchers and scholars of color that understood the experiences and The way that I also did and It was just completely transformative right?
I kind of was able to bring my voice into the room. Search and despite the fear that is natural to feed like to feel whenever you’re doing Something that you’re like oh people are going to be able to say When I write a paper, you know Mmm that’s what it got published in a special issue of against bias and towards social justice and it’s given me so many opportunities that I am no longer going to shy away from the truth. Because it needs to be spoken right and yeah better than me, not because I’m all that good because I know and I feel it and so for me, just my mentors have given me so much and I’m so grateful. But I needed to trust myself to know, I needed to trust my knowings, and I needed to be brave enough to read outside of Speech Pathology, to really understand the complexities of the issues that I’ve been trying to tackle. Ever since I was that 11 year old girl, you know, so, yes, I feel like being grateful like always being grateful for everything you’re given all the mentorship, but being brave enough to step outside of that and ask more, you know, and kind of tap into that knowledge, completely transformative so instead of me just saying, Yes, ma’am. No ma’am, which is very much a Latino thing and it may be a southern thing. I said, Let’s be critical. So, once I realized that I can critical things and ask questions. I think it’s made me way more grounded and I finally feel like I’m doing work that is going hopefully to make a real impact because I’m looking at things with a complex lens right that’s not just trying to say oh kids just need to expose me to more, so they don’t fail at school like parents can speak to kids and they still fail at school, because there’s a lot of systemic barriers against succeeding in school right, and so I’m just proud of myself for the deconstruction of the grid for a better Xigrid that I’m more proud of and I’m still working on that secret but I’m, I feel like every day. I’m becoming more performant to be
Danika Pfeiffer
so inspiring. I’m just so excited for you and it sounds like the PhD kind of pushed you to develop those critical thinking skills and you have that great mentorship, but then I feel like that’s almost the product of when you know you’ve made it and when you know that you’ve did it because now you can you can challenge those ideas that have stood for so long, and you can push the field in a new way to reframe how we’re thinking about things I feel like that’s when you know like you’ve, you’ve learned the skills you’re applying those skills, and just the impact I feel like that you’re going to be able to have because you’re doing that I think is really incredible.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Thank you.
Danika Pfeiffer
Welcome. You mentioned this briefly, but I want to go here a little bit more you mentioned your website that you recently started and I know you have resources on your website for parents and educators and even some prospective SLPs, can you talk a little bit about what’s on your website,
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
sure, again I already mentioned before that I do a lot of things of righteous anger, so my website with a product of my anger. I had a mentor that when I told them about how children are discriminated against because they’re bilingual, she was like, Are you sure that’s true, even though I was reading research and saying, it’s true. So anyways, the website came out of that just a way to provide free resources for parents specifically right now Spanish speaking parents, early childhood educators and speech language pathologists, and what I’m trying to create here is a variety of resources that tackle some of the biggest myths around bilingualism and also that really help educators and SLPs monolingual in bilingual SLPs feel more confident about providing services to bilingual children because one thing I’ve found is that it’s can be very intimidating, as someone who may not be bilingual, to work with a bilingual client not because you don’t want to work with them but because our field we still catch up to the work right and so we’re still learning a lot about what are best practices for bilingual assessment, treatment, and interventions and my goal again because I really care about bilingualism is to provide some information about how to do an assessment, if you’re not a bilingual SLP, or how do you do interventions with a group of children that might speak different languages or dialects, all that sort of information it’s there and also kind of touching a little bit on that idea of how language and culture are intertwined, and how can we break down some sort of deficit based views that individuals have about bilingualism I do my best to update the website and to continue to reimagine it so it’s current i Do you know I do a lot of reading so I feel like the more I read, the more I want to adapt things and make them better, but to me, I hope that’s something that can be useful for whoever wants to use it, but it whether it be like sharing some information with parents or teachers or even as a personal SLP like just getting material out there because a lot of the issues around bilingualism is that there’s a lack of knowledge and so my goal is to provide that free knowledge. So then we have no excuses for doing the very best work with bilingual children.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, and I have been on the website and it’s amazing. When I worked in the schools, and as a monolingual English speaker, I had several questions all the time about how do I do this right, and so this is definitely a great resource for SLPs parents, educators, so I hope our listeners will go on and take a look. Before we get to my final questions, what have you taken away from all of these experiences along your journey that you hope to carry with you into your next career stage.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Oh, that’s a great question. I’m actually in a transition phase right now so I’m doing all that self reflection that we do in such moments. I think the biggest thing that I’ve taken with me is that it’s okay to say no to things that don’t serve you. And it’s okay to change and evolve over time. It’s okay to change your mind. And it’s okay for things not to be perfect. I am a total like type A, plus plus plus. And to be honest with the thing that scares me the most is like not having an end goal or not having. However, I think I’m learning that it’s okay for you to not have the perfect plan of fullness you’re honoring your wishes and your desires for yourself. And I think like that’s just really the biggest, I think I used to look at the world more in a black and white fashion, and now I’m seeing it a little bit more gray and gray cuz I’m comfortable but I’m learning to lean into that discomfort, whether it be like let me learn new frameworks that are going to answer the research questions in a more accurate way, or let me not say no to what seems like the right stuff like because everybody else does it let me do something else, because right now at this point in my life I think it’s what’s gonna be best for me.
Danika Pfeiffer
Wow. Well, best of luck to you and navigating that I know it can be uncomfortable and I also think I’m very type A and that like to have a plan, and I know it can be really hard when things are not clear but I do think you’re right and I think those are just great moments to grow, you know, grow as much as you can say yes to growing and learning, and the other things will come together when they’re ready. Alright, I have a few rapid fire questions for you as we finish out here. The first one is what is one resource, you couldn’t live without.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Oh, man, grab it, hold on, Let me think about that. Think coffee but that’s not a retort. You know what, here’s my good answer Twitter. That’s the weirdest answer but I love Twitter I follow all their researchers, and I learned so much, I call it Twitter University, that’s my favorite resource that I highly recommend for any PhD student or postdoc or wherever you are in your career.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, I agree I didn’t make one until I was a postdoc but I just love connecting with other researchers and people in academia and it’s so great to hear all their different perspectives and resources that they share. I agree, what has been a defining moment in your SLP journey,
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
a defining moment for me has been the moment that I realized that there was nothing wrong with me having an accent, and that we all have accents that was really transformative.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, absolutely. What is one thing on your professional bucket list.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
To give a TED Talk someday.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, we share that one that is on mine as well. What has been your favorite part of your job as a postdoc,
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
my favorite part, absolutely hands down is the relationships with community partners, that’s what gives me life.
Danika Pfeiffer
Yes, that really does just make it all worth it. And where can people connect with you, or learn more about you.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Definitely Twitter, like I said, my favorite Twitter at secret Soto, you can also find me at on Instagram @halbladll, and then on my website so habladll.org.
Danika Pfeiffer
Perfect. I’ll put all of those in the show notes so people can find them really easily.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Thank you.
Danika Pfeiffer
Thank you so much for being here with me today and I’m leaving here so inspired by you and I wish you the best of luck in your journey.
Xigrid Soto-Boykin
Thank you so much. You’re too kind, and best of luck to you for doing a podcast I think that’s super cool and super brave so kudos to you and much success as well.
Danika Pfeiffer
Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this episode I really hope you enjoyed it. I encourage you to follow the podcast so you’ll be notified of new episodes as they come out, and please consider leaving a review as well. You can find the show notes and transcripts, at about from and with.com, and you can connect with me on Instagram @danikapfeiffer.slp. Until next time stay humble and kind.
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