Armando Guerrero Jr., PhD is sociolinguist and certified yoga instructor; he is passionate about serving his community and creating safe spaces for others to succeed in their academic, personal and profesional pursuits.
As a Lecturer at UCLA he empowers students with awareness of their linguistic experience through empirical observation. He started teaching in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese in 2012, developing content classes on Spanish as a heritage language in the United States as well as the heritage language program. He has also taught part-time at California State University San Marcos, Chapman University, Santa Ana Community College, and Long Beach City College. He has served as expert witness and consultant to the Federal Public Defender and the Los Angeles County Public Defender on cases concerning Spanish language variation and Latinx cultural practices.
In his research he is interested in Spanish language variation in the United States, investigating how social identities and cultural practices are constructed and negotiated through linguistic interaction in Spanish-speaking communities in the Mexican diaspora, with a primary interest in the ethnolinguistic repertoire of heritage speakers in the Southwest of the United States. His methodological approach is interdisciplinary, encompassing research tools in sociolinguistics, anthropology, and sociology.
As a yoga instructor he is thoughtful and intentional. He started his personal practice in 2017 while completing his PhD in Spanish Linguistics at UCLA. He was feeling mentally overwhelmed and exhausted; in need of a tool to slow down the flood of thoughts that was fueling his anxiety at the time, he began yoga. In his yoga classes he allows his students to observe their mind/body connection with a focus on the breath and the body’s intentional movement through space.
Yoga has supported his path to self healing, and he is elated to share his practice with the community. Armando is certified through YogaWorks®, he completed his 200-hr yoga teacher training in 2017 on the island of Ko-Samui, Thailand with senior yoga teachers Ana Zorzou and David Kim.
He also volunteers as a founding member and Secretary to the board of directors at Soleil Academy Charter School in Lynwood, CA.