TODOS Podcast · TODOS Mathematics for ALL

S4E8: Solidarity with L.A. Teachers Eugene Hung and Janet Lee Ortiz

·1 hr 1 min·4 clips

Janet says she fought off charter schools, removed a principal, and finally found room to teach at UCLA Community School.

The episode opens with a warm introduction to Eugene Hung, an upper division math teacher at Mater Dei with a long path through different schools and a background that includes feminist advocacy, sexual violence prevention work, and pastoring. His personal life is part of that picture too, including being a husband and father to two daughters, and the conversation treats that family role as part of the vocational path he has taken. It then turns to the wildfire emergency in Southern California and the strain of living inside it. One speaker describes the strange reality of hearing about fires by square footage while the real harm is measured in homes lost, casualties, injuries, and a community left shattered. The discussion makes room for the longer history behind Altadena and for the loss of a Black community shaped by redlining, segregation, and generational wealth. That history sits beside the present disaster rather than being pushed aside by it. From there the episode returns to teaching, and to the idea that math and science are often treated as if they do not belong to the social and emotional life of students. Sherry is brought into the center of the conversation as an Asian American educator with her own story to tell. She begins with a childhood memory of a kindergarten conference where her teachers suggested special education because she was not following directions the way they expected, and her parents had to explain in broken English what was really happening. The episode does not flatten that memory into a neat anecdote. It uses it as a starting point for understanding. It keeps coming back to what families carry into classrooms and what teachers have to learn to notice. The conversation leaves space for the story to breathe, and that gives the episode its shape. It is less interested in quick conclusions than in the slow build of meaning. The episode asks how identity, race, language, and lived experience show up in math education. It also asks how teachers make room for students whose histories do not fit the default script. Eugene's background and Sherry's experience both feed into that larger question. By the end, the episode feels less like a segment and more like a shared reckoning with teaching, belonging, and community under strain.

As heard by us

Teaching, wildfire grief, and identity meet in a conversation that stays human.

This Southern California teaching conversation begins in wildfire week and opens into identity, memory, and the limits of what math class can hold.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want teaching, identity, and wildfire context in one conversation.

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