Brooklyn Dreams

Dr. Sonia Nieto has devoted her professional life to questions of diversity, equity, and social justice in education. A native of Brooklyn, New York, she began her teaching career in 1966 in an intermediate school in Brooklyn, moving two years later to P.S. 25 in the Bronx, the first fully bilingual school in the Northeast. She later taught in the Puerto Rican Studies Department at Brooklyn College before moving on to the University of Massachusetts, where she taught preservice and practice teachers for twenty-five years before retiring in 2006. Her research focuses on multicultural education, teacher education, and the education of students of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. She has written or edited eleven books as well as dozens of journal articles and book chapters on these topics. She has received numerous awards for her scholarly work, teaching, activism, and advocacy, including six honorary doctorates. She has been a visiting scholar at various universities in the United States, as well as in Puerto Rico and Spain, and in 2012 she served as the Wits-Claude Distinguished Scholar at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. In addition, she was elected as a Laureate of Kappa Delta Pi (2011) and a member of the National Academy of Education (2015). She is married to Angel Nieto, a poet, children’s book author, and former middle and high school teacher. Together, they have raised two daughters, Alicia and Marisa, and their granddaughter, Jazmyne. They are the proud grandparents of twelve grandchildren.

"Brooklyn Dreams: My Life in Public Education, by Sonia Nieto, makes a major contribution on issues of economic inequality in education as well as the strengths and necessity of bilingual and multicultural education.—Jacqueline J. Saindon, EdD, Journal of Language Literacy Education"Nieto’s autobiography encourages the reader to reflect on the forces that shape one’s own life as an educator and education activist."—Deborah Menkart, Allyson Criner Brown, Zanso Dalili, Bill Bigelow, and Jody Sokolower, Rethinking Schools"Nieto's memoir is more than a record of her experiences; it is a powerful book raising questions of social justice and equality. For anyone with a vested interest in public education, Nieto offers a message of hope and optimism for the future in the face of inequalities and discrimination." —Amy Kelly, Multicultural Perspectives