Editor's Message: AATSP and MLA Take on Topics as Diverse as Graduate Studies and Spanglish

Like our alliance with the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, featured in my column for issue 94.4, the AATSP collaborates regularly with professional associations, such as the Modern Language Association (MLA). The AATSP Executive Council designates an individual to serve as our official liaison to the MLA. The main duty of the liaison is to promote common interests of the AATSP and the MLA by organizing at least one sponsored session at the annual MLA Convention. For MLA 2013, Hispania's Book/Media Review Editor, Dr. Domnita Dumitrescu, will serve as our official liaison. She has organized a session on the timely and often controversial topic of Spanglish. To kick off the discussion on Spanglish and so that the Hispania readership may get to know her better, I invited her to pen the guest editorial on Spanglish that appears after this note in this issue. Spanish, Portuguese, and English speakers alike will enjoy reading her editorial, as she points out clearly that language, after all, centers on complex issues of identity. Indeed, the mere use of the word Spanglish can be provocative. Beyond her passion for Spanglish, Dr. Dumitrescu's accomplishments are numerous (see her abbreviated biographical statement on the following page).

Following Dr. Dumitrescu's editorial, there is a special section from the AATSP-sponsored session at the 2012 MLA Convention in Seattle. Dr. Joan L. Brown (University of Delaware) graciously organized and hosted this year's session. The panel was her brainchild, wherein another well-timed topic was explored: "What Do Graduate Students in Spanish Need to Learn, and Why?" The session was received with enthusiasm, and Dr. Brown subsequently agreed to serve as Guest Editor to curate a written version of the special session for a broader audience. With fewer Spanish and Portuguese students deciding to forge ahead for graduate studies in languages and/or additional degrees in the humanities, the future of our graduate programs is of great relevance to our profession.

I encourage you to read the essays on Spanglish and graduate studies. As always, I also invite you to turn your attention to the scholarly articles and reviews that grace the pages of this issue of Hispania. Thanks to our authors, reviewers, and editors, Hispania remains the most widely circulated scholarly journal on topics devoted to the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese in the world.