Meet Dr. Iliana Villanueva
When assistant professor of Spanish Iliana Villanueva was 17 years old, she left the mountains of Chihuahua to study English in the United States for a year. She planned to return to Mexico City to start college, but that year abroad turned into a B.A. in philosophy in Texas and then a Ph.D. in Spanish at the University of California at Irvine. She then sought the right teaching job where she could have what she didn’t have necessarily at UCI, a bond between professor and student that usually only comes in a small college setting.
Dr. Villanueva drove across country to get here.
“It’s been a real adventure,” she says, smiling. “For one, it was amazing to see how big the country is, and for another, how different each state is along the way. It was almost like being in a new foreign country at each stop. I did some sightseeing on my way here, stopping for instance in Vicksburg, Miss, where I got a chance to see the Mississippi River. It was amazing.”
But she’s here now, acclimating herself to South Carolina when she’s not throwing herself into her work. Having left the beach behind in California, has there been any culture shock?
“Not really,” she says. “Culture shock was when I first came to the U.S. to study English as a second language. I was surprised at how wealthy this country is compared to Mexico. I was also able to meet a lot of people from other cultures in my English classes. Because of that experience, I decided I wanted to learn about many different cultures and that’s still very important to me. So instead of a culture shock, coming here has been more of a discovery. I’m discovering new things in South Carolina.”
Some of the old things, namely mountains, have been reassuring to her. She is, after all, on her own here, with two-thirds of her family still in Mexico and the other third in California, including her boyfriend. Her father will visit her in November, a visit she understandably looks forward to very much.
Something else that is comforting to her is her passion for poetry and literature.
“I love reading and writing poetry,” says Villanueva. “I also love to read fiction, both in English and Spanish. Some of my poetry has been published in Spanish, and translations have been published in English. Right now, though, I’m working on a project of children’s poetry. I remember reading poetry as a child that was not necessarily intended for children. But because I still enjoyed it a lot, I think that children have the capacity to imagine and be open to interpreting texts, moreso than adults, even.”
She says she has been working so much with poetry (it was the subject of her dissertation recently) that fiction has been her companion lately.
“I need that escape,” she laughs. “Right now I’m reading William Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying.’ I really like him. My boyfriend gave me the book and said I should read it since Faulkner is from the South.”
She hasn’t acquired a love of sweet tea yet. Just coffee.
“I must have coffee every day,” she says. “I’m just a better person if I drink coffee.”
She’s such a fan of coffee that she has a cat named Java, though she says she already had that name when she got her from the Spartanburg Humane Society.
She and Java often watch the Spanish soap opera “Rubi” together. Villanueva calls “Rubi” one of her guilty pleasures. The other is the TV show “The Big Bang Theory.”
“It reminds me of my years as an undergraduate student in El Paso, Texas,” she laughs. “I had a lot of friends in the engineering department and they were all very nerdy.”
When she’s not watching those TV shows, she’s probably listening to the Beatles or Brazilian music, preferably the samba or forro.
So has she found that job she was hoping to find? It’s looking good so far.
“I really like the environment here because you can work closely with the students,” she says. “In Irvine I got to know a few of them, but just the ones that stayed after class. Here, I’m getting to know all my students, as well as my colleagues, and I really like that.”