Adult education came to me in 1980 while I was working as a cashier at Store 24 in Providence. Bill Shuey, director of Project Persona, a program that taught ESOL and cultural orientation to new arrivals to the U.S., bought his newspaper there every morning during my shift. Aside from my aspirations as a cashier, I was also pursuing a degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, thinking about teaching art and theatre. One thing led to another; within three weeks of graduation I began work as a volunteer at Persona. By fall, I was at Persona as a part-time employee. Between 1980 and 1992 I held a variety of jobs there-teacher, coordinator, curriculum developer, researcher. I finally left in 1992 to go work in Vancouver, British Columbia.

I was blessed at the time I began by colleagues who were dedicated to the work and by funding that enabled the project to run five days a week, from morning to afternoon. (Part of the funding stream was enacted by the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980).

The first class I taught was on reproductive health. I drew a huge outline of a woman's body, covering the reproductive organs with a paper that dropped away to reveal the reproductive organs underneath. Who could decode a graphic like that? No one, but they let me stay on anyway, and aside from periodic returns to the food service industry, (as a caterers' drone) I've been working in adult education ever since.