Dr. Norma A. Mrak, Assistant Professor of Spanish, received her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Houston (2000). Her areas of concentration are Heritage Language Education and Sociolinguistics. She specializes in the Spanish of the U.S and is the author of ¡Conozcámonos!, a textbook designed for intermediate college-level heritage speakers of Spanish. She has had articles on theoretical and pedagogical issues related to Spanish heritage speakers published in A Romance Perspective on Language Knowledge and Use (2003), Plurilingüisme I educació: els reptes del segle XXI (2003), Mi Lengua: Spanish as a Heritage Language in the United States (2003), and Southwest Journal of Linguistics (1998).