About

After creating a blog for my library and reading Michael Stephens‘ library reports, I felt I needed to start participating with a professional blog. This is my professional blog with some personal blurbs and flair. For this reason the reader will need to forgive my Spanglish.

About the name
The name “El Intervencionista” comes from the name I called the Spanish newsletter I started writing to my family in Chile in 1995. I coined the name during my gramma’s 90th birthday celebration that same year (yes, she is turning 103 on February 21st, 2008). Part of her 90th birthday celebration was a mass. During the homily, my uncle, Joaquin Alliende Luco said that my grampa Alliende used to say that we, all Alliendes were interventionists. I fell in love with the word and the concept. It applies so well to my family.

One month later, my husband and I moved to a little tiny town south of Santiago. We were fairly recently married, and I didn’t have a job. I think I was bored to death. I decided to start the family newspaper “El Intervencionista del Dañicalqui.” Dañicalqui was the name of the river that we lived by.

After Dañicalqui we have moved three times (only counting the places that we have stayed longer than a year). In all of those places we lived next to a river. So after El Intervencionista del Dañicalqui was the Intervencionista del Calle-Calle, then El Intervencionista del Potomac, and now El Intervencionista del Crooked River. 1st issue of the original El Intervencionista (in Spanish)

About me
My full Chilean name is Maria Piedad Alliende Edwards but for the benefit of brevity and less confusion to the American public I go by Pia Alliende. I am the teacher-librarian at Redmond High School-Hartman Campus and International School of the Cascades in Central Oregon. I am originally from Chile and recently discovered librarianship and the need of becoming US citizen. In 2006, I got both my MLS from the SLIS program at Catholic University of America (Washington D.C.) and my US citizenship.

Education:
1985 – Catholic University of Chile in Santiago – Teacher of History, Geography and Civic Education
1991 – Catholic University of Chile – “Licenciatura” in History
1992 – SUNY at Stony Brook – M.A. in History with a Fulbright Scholarship
2006 – Catholic University of America (District of Columbia) Master in Library Science

Teaching
* Adjunct professor at Austral University of Chile in Valdivia, Chile
* Curriculum Coordinator of the K-7 San Luis de Alba school in Valdivia, Chile
* Education Coordinator of the Hispanic Committee of Virginia
* Parent Liaison and Interpreter at Barrett Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia
* I have been at the Hugh Hartman building in Redmond, OR since 2006

Other stuff:
I was born and raised in Chile. I have backpacked extensively through my native country and parts of Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Colombia. As a teenager I went to Germany as an exchange student and was able to travel through Western Europe. In college, I climbed several mountains of the Andes, including Mount Aconcagua in 1984, the highest peak of the Western hemisphere (6,962 m/22,830 ft). I am still proud of that accomplishment :-)
As an adult I have traveled to Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Honduras, Canada as well as 20 U.S. States. I married an American (genuinely from Montana) and have two tween children.