Cristina Estrada-Underwood

Cristina Estrada-Underwood is originally from Mexico where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from the Universidad Lasalle, in Gomez Palacio, Durango, and worked in radio as a hostess/DJ. After moving to the United States, she taught Early Childhood Education and ESL, before pursuing a Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language (MATESL) from Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington. Upon graduation, she was hired to teach composition, speech, children’s and Native American Literature at Aaniiih Nakoda College on the Fort Belknap Reservation in North Central Montana. During her eight years there she became the Coordinator for the college’s Liberal Arts programs. Her next stop took her out of the classroom and into student services and administration for five years as Director of Diversity Awareness and Multicultural Programs at Montana State University-Northern (MSU-N) in Havre, Montana, a small agricultural town in the heart of Indian country on the Canadian border at the Rocky Mountain front. Throughout these 13 years, Cristina also taught lower-division Spanish part-time at MSU-N. When she moved to North Carolina, multiple opportunities arose to teach Spanish full-time prompting her decision to return to graduate school for a second master’s degree, this time in Hispanic Studies at East Carolina University, so she could formally return, this time full time, to her first passion: undergraduate classroom teaching and mentoring.

Since 2020, Ms. Estrada-Underwood has taught Spanish in the ECU Foreign Languages and Literatures Department. Her teaching interests revolve around helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds succeed in their first two college years as well as incorporating interculturality and social justice into her curriculum. She is the author of the book Aaniiih Nakoda Speeches for Different Occasions and Purposes, which is used as a textbook in the speech class at Aaniiih Nakoda College. With proceeds from sales of her book, she established a scholarship to support students in the Liberal Arts program at that college. Ms. Estrada Underwood also has interests in studying Spanish music production/evolution from a sociological perspective. In her spare time, she likes to pay it forward by volunteering with Hispanic community-service groups, learn French, read, and take walks. She enjoys living the peaceful southern country life (a few miles from Greenville) with her family and cat.