Francisco D. Delgado
Assistant Professor
English
EMAIL: fdelgado@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: N-772
Office Hours:
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8346
Francisco Delgado is a writer and teacher based out of Queens, NY. His research focuses on Native American/Indigenous literatures and can be found in Memory Studies, Studies in the Novel, Transmotion, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College (TETYC). He is a proud CHamoru and, through his maternal grandmother, Tonawanda Band of Seneca. His chapbook of flash fiction / prose poems, Adolescence, Secondhand was published by Honeysuckle Press in 2018.
He currently serves on the board of the MLA forum on Indigenous Literatures of the US and Canada, as well as on the board of CUNY’s Asian American and Asian Research Institute.
(Photo by Riordan Delgado)
Expertise
Native American and Indigenous Literatures, Asian American Literatures, Literatures of the Pacific
Degrees
- Ph.D. Stony Brook University, English, 2017
- M.A. CUNY Brooklyn College, English, 2009
- B.A. SUNY New Paltz, English/Creative Writing, 2005
Courses Taught
- Students placed in ENG 100.5 are offered extra support, afforded through additional instructional time. Students completing ENG 100.5 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word thesis-driven essay in conversation with two texts. Successful completion of this course is equivalent to passing ENG 101.
Prerequisite: English Proficiency Index of 64 and lower or a score of 43-55 on the CAT-W and exemption from ACR 95 or successful completion of ACR 95. This course is not open to ESL students.
Please note: Tuition for this corequisite course is charged by the equated credit (hours) not per credit.
Course Syllabus - English Composition is the standard freshman writing course. The course introduces students to academic writing. By its conclusion, students will be ready for English 201 and for the writing they will be asked to do in advanced courses across the curriculum. Students completing ENG 101 will have mastered the fundamentals of college-level reading and writing, including developing a thesis-driven response to the writing of others and following the basic conventions of citation and documentation. They will have practiced what Mike Rose calls the "habits of mind" necessary for success in college and in the larger world: summarizing, classifying, comparing, contrasting, and analyzing. Students will be introduced to basic research methods and MLA documentation and complete a research project. Students are required to take a departmental final exam that requires the composition of a 500 word, thesis-driven essay in conversation with two designated texts.
Prerequisite: Pass the CAT-R and CAT-W or Accuplacer tests
Course Syllabus - This is a course that builds upon skills introduced in English 101. In this course, literature is the field for the development of critical reading, critical thinking, independent research, and writing skills. Students are introduced to literary criticisms and acquire basic knowledge necessary for the analysis of texts (including literary terms and some literary theory); they gain proficiency in library and internet research; and they hone their skills as readers and writers. Assignments move from close readings of literary texts in a variety of genres to analyses that introduce literary terms and broader contexts, culminating in an independent, documented, thesis-driven research paper. By the conclusion of English 201, students will be prepared for the analytical and research-based writing required in upper-level courses across the curriculum; they will also be prepared for advanced courses in literature.
Prerequisite: ENG 101
Course Syllabus - Representative works reflective of the collective experiences of Asian American writers are analyzed. American writers are analyzed. Fiction, poetry, drama and non-fiction written from Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Japanese, Korean and South-East Asian cultural perspectives are discussed
Course Syllabus - This course will focus on a specific theme, concept, cultural milieu, or major author to be announced in advance. Topics for the following semester will be made available by the English Department during registration. Each section of the course will cover in-depth a single special topic, such as one of the following: the Harlem Renaissance, Literature and the Environment, Utopian and Dystopian Literature, Literature and Medicine, The Beat Generation, Literature of the Working Class, Satire in the 18th Century, Censorship and Literature, Literature of Immigration, War in Literature, Madness and Inspiration in Literature, Gay and Lesbian Literature, and Women in Shakespeare. Prerequisites: ENG 101 and 201, or ENG 121
Course Syllabus - 3 CRS.3 HRS.NULL LAB HRS.ENG 382 (American Literature from the Reconstruction Era to the Present)
- Though English 381 is not a prerequisite, this course begins where 381 leaves off and covers select fiction and poetry from the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century to the present. Students study major writers and literary movements; and an effort is made to place literature in its cultural context. Works by such writers as Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Richard Wright, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Toni Morrison may be included.
Course Syllabus - This course examines the wide range of published works by Native/Indigenous peoples from the mainland United States and the Pacific. Course topics may include decolonization, environmental rights, language revitalization efforts, the experiences of urban Natives, and more. Students will examine the United States’ history of settler colonialism while engaging each writer and work in their geographical, cultural, and historical context. Authors may include Red Jacket, E. Pauline Johnson, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, and Craig Santos Perez.
Prerequisites: [ENG 101 and ENG 201] or ENG 121 - Through a combination of reading and writing, this course exposes students to the basics of fiction, poetry, and playwriting from the perspective of the practitioner, rather than the perspective of the critic. The class will read literature in three genres, focusing on the craft of how the pieces are structured, and how they achieve their impact on the reader. No prior knowledge of these genres is required. Through a combination of reflection, imitation, writing exercises, and writing assignments, students will produce craft analyses, their own creative works, and reflections on their own creative process.
Course Syllabus
Research and Projects
My most recent scholarship examines how Indigenous persons and communities grapple with the ongoing influence of the U.S. military: what factors explain the high rate of enlistment within Native communities? How does enlistment impact relationships with those back home? And, relatedly, what alternative forms of community does military enlistment make possible?
I’m most interested works of art that express of Native/Indigenous hope. And show what Native/Indigenous joy looks like.
I’m also learning the Onöndowa’ga:’ Gawë:no׳, the traditional language of the Seneca of upstate New York. This is my Indigenous language through my maternal grandmother who was adopted out of her community as a young child. I chronicle my language learning at LearningSeneca.
Chances are, whenever you’re reading this, I’m working on an article about teaching, or a short story, or a poem, and endlessly on a novel.
Publications
Creative Work:
- “Futures Worth Hanging Onto” in Mānoa, vol. 35, no. 1, Nov. 2023.
- “I Love You, Man” in MoonPark Review, Summer 2022 issue.
- “Sky Full of Stars” in JMWW, 4 Mar. 2022.
- “When The World Was Somewhere Else” in Newtown Literary, Issue 18, 2021.
- “Stopping by a store on a summer evening” in Lost Balloon, 2020.
- “Trains are more than metaphors” in Queensbound, 2020.
- “Animals” in Lammergeier, 2020.
- Adolescence, Secondhand (chapbook), Honeysuckle Press, 2018. (also available on archive.org)
Literary Scholarship (Peer-Reviewed Journals):
- “Living in Good Relations: On Campus and Off.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 50. no. 3, March 2023, pp. 303-311.
- ““If I ever get out of here (if we ever get out of here):” Modeling “the Good Mind” in Eric Gansworth’s If I Ever Get Out of Here. In a Special Issue of Studies In the Novel on YA Indigenous Literature (Fall 2022).
- “Sordid Pasts, Indigenous Futures: Necropolitics and Survivance in Louis Owens‘ Bone Game.” Transmotion, vol. 6, no. 2, 14 Dec. 2020. https://journals.kent.ac.uk/index.php/transmotion/article/view/817/1877, pp. 43 – 64.
- “Remade: Sovereign: Decolonizing Guam in an Age of Environmental Anxiety.” Memory Studies, 16 Dec. 2019, https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698019894690.
- “Trespassing the U.S.-Mexico Border in Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange“, The CEA Critic, vol. 79, no. 2, , 2017, pp. 149-166.
- “The Dystopian/Utopian Aspects of Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange“,Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice, vol. 8, no. 2, 2016, pp. 30-39.
- “Neither Japanese Nor American: Identity and Citizenship in John Okada’s No-No Boy“, Trespassing Journal, vol. 1, 2012, http://trespassingjournal.org/?page_id=149.
Literary Scholarship (Edited Collections):
- “A Model of Relational Learning and Knowledge Production: Using Podcasts in a Writing Intensive Native American/Indigenous Literatures Course.” Beyond the Traditional Essay: Increasing Student Agency in a Diverse Classroom with Nondisposable Assignments, edited by Melissa Ryan and Kerry Kautzmann, Vernon Press, 2022, pp. 1 – 16.
- “Learning Seneca: A Case Study on Digital Presentations of North American Indigenous Languages.” The Palgrave Handbook of Digital and Public Humanties, edited by Anne Schwan and Tara Thomson, Palgrave MacMillan, 2022, pp. 297-313.
Book Reviews:
- Book Review of Otherwise, Revolution!: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead by Rebecca Tillett. Transmotion, vol. 4, no. 2, 2018, pp. 185-86.
- Book Review of Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants: Race, Gender, And Immigration Politics in The Age of Security by Anna Sampaio, American Studies, vol. 56, no. A?, 2018, pp. 123-124.
- Book Review of Full Metal Indigiqueer by Joshua Whitehead, Transmotion, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, pp. 192-193.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Winner of the 2024 Clay Reynold’s Novella Prize (Texas Review Press)
- PSC-CUNY Travel Grant: 2022, 2023
- Nominated for the BMCC Distinguished Teaching Award, 2021
- Humanities New York Public Humanities Fellowship
- MLA Connected Academics Proseminar Fellowship
- President’s Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students (Stony Brook University)
Additional Information
In Spring 2021, I created ENG 329: Native American/Indigenous Literatures, the only course in the BMCC Course Catalog that focuses primarily on the Literatures of Native North America and the Pacific.
Since Summer 2022, I have been collaborating with colleagues across CUNY, as well as members of the American Indian Community House, working towards creating more Native Studies courses in CUNY curricula.
